1–

A meeting of royalty

"Kirvi, you get away from that door this instant."

The girl pulled back from the heavy door and glanced back at her mother, glowering at her from her safe place behind a stone partition. "But, Mama, I want to see the stranger," she replied quietly, and looked back out the door. The streets were dark, as Kalin ordered her people to keep all fires to a minimum and streetlights were banned, but in the sparkle of the clear night stars, she could see the three shadows moving down the stairs from the temple.

"What stranger, Kirvi?" her little brother asked. He padded up behind her and grabbed her pant leg, staring past her.

"No. Get away from that door, both of you." Their mother pulled back her son and hushed silent the three other children. "Kirvi, listen to me. Respect me. I am your mother. Do not make me—"

"Hush." Kirvi waved a hand to silence her mother, and received a shock of indignation in return. "Mama, please. They're coming closer." She cracked the door open a little further, just enough to poke her head out. One of the babies began to whimper behind her; he was old enough to simply understand why they had to remain indoors, especially during the night. So many had already been lost to the Darkness.

The three figures, shadowed and dark in the night, stopped at the foot of the stairs, just near their hut. One she recognized immediately—it was their leader, Kalin. That was obvious by the sleek bald head and thick white stripe down the front of her face. But with her were two men Kirvi had never seen before.

"Mama, their skin is white like Kalin's," Kirvi whispered, awed. Even then, they were paler than Kalin, one with a hair colour she had never seen. It was golden like the sand, scruffy and wavy about his head. That man wore a dark red vest with long, billowy white sleeves; totally unfitting the desert. She had caught a glimpse of him earlier, when he first arrived, soaked and exhausted, at their harbour. He was beautiful, unlike any of the men she was accustomed to seeing, with a rough, scruffy look about him.

The other man must have only just arrived at the city. He looked much younger than the man with sand for hair, though certainly older than Kirvi herself. Short, messy brown hair looked as though it had dried while being slept on; it was so messy, and as he spoke with the other man and Kalin, he kept pushing the loose locks away from his forehead. He was coated in sand and dirt, but behind it all, it was clear he was a man of wealth; his shirt and trousers, while filthy, looked to be of extremely good quality.

And trailing along at his booted heels was a beautiful black and white animal.

"Mama, is that a goat?" Kirvi asked, bewildered. It didn't look like any goat she had ever seen. It was much too hairy, and much too… ungoatlike.

"Kirvi, come back here!"

Ignoring her mother's plea, Kirvi slunk past the door and, for the first time in days, left the hut she called home. A shiver passed over her; not only was the night cold, but the city was void of any and all life, save for the three people and the goat. Several years prior, the streets would be filled with men and women and children doing their last minute shopping, or avoiding bedtime as long as they could. But now everyone was urged to remain inside.

Corpses were piled at the centre of the town, prepared for a burial once it was safe to congregate together, even for a short time.

Holding back her nausea, Kirvi walked away from her hut, toward Kalin and the men. As she approached, the sand squelching between her bare toes, the yellow haired man was the first to notice her.

"Oh," he said, smiling cheerfully as he spotted her. Kirvi slowed upon hearing his voice. He had the most bizarre accent she had ever heard. "The first brave young lady I've seen in all Aurora."

"Kirvi," Kalin said warningly as Kirvi stopped beside her, "you should return home. Your mother will be worried about you."

"She can see me." Her eyes lingered for a moment on the sandy haired man, then to the brunette beside him. With only a faint amount of dark stubble on his cheeks, he looked barely a few years older than her, less than she anticipated. He was watching her with a faint smirk on his chapped lips. "What is going on, Kalin?"

"These two men are from Albion, child." Kalin lightly touched Kirvi's back, and she obligingly bowed. "The land across the sea. This is a soldier from their army. Ben Finn."

The man in red grinned and gave a little bow before taking Kirvi's hand, to her surprise, and placing his lips on the back of it. "A pleasure, m'lady. Kirvi, she said your name was? Beautiful, truly."

Kirvi gawked and let her hand fall limply to her side. He had absolutely butchered her name. 'Curvy' was not the proper name for any sane being.

"Thank you."

Ben Finn nudged his younger companion. "And this, m'lady, is His Royal Highness, the Prince of Albion."

Redness flushed the boy's prickly cheeks, and he gave a shy smile as he held out his hand. "Just Christopher will do, thanks," he said softly, and gave her hand a simple, warm shake.

As soon as her hand left his, she looked at the black and white thing seated prettily beside him. "Is that a goat?"

Ben snorted and chuckled, and the boy—the Prince of Albion?—grinned down at the shaggy thing at his feet. "I'm afraid not," he said, rubbing his fingers together. The thing yelped and jumped to its feet, its tail waggling joyfully. "It's my dog. His name is, uh, Logie." He gave an embarrassed shrug as he crouched beside it and began scratching its head. "I named him when I was little."

"Back before Logan became a tyrant, apparently," Ben remarked dryly.

Christopher glanced up at his companion with a tweak in his eyebrow. "Back before Logan became king at all," he corrected. Dusting off the knees of his already filthy trousers, he stood and the dog curled up at his feet once more. "Back when my parents were still alive, and Logan was a good brother."

Kirvi eyed the thing warily. "It looks like a goat," she decided, and it cocked its head at her.

"I suppose it does." Ben turned back to Kalin. "So, Kalin, maybe since it's the middle of the night, we'll let our little prince do his investigating or whatever it is he needs to do in the morning?" His keen eyes moved to his friend. "He's been through a lot, going through that cave."

The boy grunted and shook his head. "A lot is the least of it," he mumbled, holding his head.

"Certainly. While the man is being tended to by our healers, you may remain in the city for as long as you require, though I ask you do not wander away while you are here," Kalin said, looking between the two. "Captain, you wished to return to Sir Walter. You may do so now. Prince, what would you like to do?"

"Sleep would be nice." The boy rubbed his face, suddenly looking years older. Kirvi squinted and gave him a long stare. Ben Finn had said he had gone through a cave. One of their friends was being tended to by a healer. There was only one cave nearby that Kirvi thought would require the assistance of the temple healers.

"You may stay with us," she offered quite suddenly.

The prince blinked, surprised, and Kalin's jaw dropped, but Ben grinned and slapped Christopher's back hard enough to make the smaller man nearly crumple. "Perfect! You've got a housemate. Come back up to the temple when you're ready in the morning, all right? We can check up on Walter together."

A cloud passed over the tired face of the young man. "Yeah. Thanks, Ben. It really…" He trailed off, his gaze dropping helplessly to the sand.

Ben clapped Christopher's shoulder once more and gave it a tight squeeze. "I know. Goodnight, Chris. And to you as well, m'lady," he added, with a polite bow to Kirvi. "Kalin, shall we?" With that, he and the Auroran leader began the hike back up the steps to the temple at the head of the city.

Kirvi waited patiently, twisting her fingers together in front of her, until Kalin and Ben Finn vanished out of sight and earshot. As soon as they were gone, she looked back at the exhausted royalty before her and asked quietly, "Did you enter the cave of the Darkness?"

Christopher's dark and weary eyes turned on her. "Yes. Kalin said that is what has made your city so…" He grimaced and his words broke off. Kirvi blinked emotionlessly. There was no reason for him to finish his sentence. The evidence was all around them.

Kirvi shifted her toes in the sand and gestured to the hut behind them. "We should not stay out longer. The Darkness may return." She smiled slightly. "Bring your goat." Turning on her heel, she led the way back to her house, listening to his clumsy footsteps on the sand. The dog trotted up in front of her and stopped, sitting expectantly in front of the door.

"Wait here." Kirvi walked up to the door and knocked gently. "Mama, it's Kirvi. Open the door, please."

A long moment passed. Finally, the greenish door creaked open, and the dog slunk through in an instant.

"Ah! Demons!"

"No! Mama!" Kirvi rushed inside with Christopher right on her heels. She stopped abruptly when she heard a click behind her, and the entire one-room house fell into a thick silence.

The dog whimpered and backed away from her cowering and trembling mother. Behind Kirvi, Christopher murmured, "That's a good boy. Don't do that again." She turned and watched, wide-eyed, as he calmly stuffed a shiny, ornate pistol in a leather holster on his hip. An uncomfortable smile forced its way onto his mouth, and he gave a short bow. "Good evening. I'm Christopher."

Kirvi licked her lips and cleared her throat. "He is the Prince of Albion, Mama," she added quickly. "He has come with the strange man who came this morning."

Her mother's brown eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she nodded curtly and stood, her two sons' hands clenched in her own. She gave a simple bow and greeted tersely, "A pleasure to have you in our home and our city, Your Highness."

Kirvi gestured for him to sit, and kneeled beside him as he sat on a stool next to his dog. Once her mother and siblings were settled against the stone partition, Kirvi cleared her throat again and explained, "He and his friend are waiting for their companion to heal in the temple."

"Sir Walter Back, Captain Ben Finn, and I were attacked and shipwrecked on our way to Aurora," Christopher spoke up, scratching his dog behind the ears. "An ally of ours, Major Swift, proposed we might find help here in Aurora."

"Help for what?" Kirvi's young brother Sussen blurted. He was leaning forward on his knees, tiny mouth hanging open and big brown eyes wide in interest.

"Have you heard of King Logan?"

The three young children shook their heads, but Kirvi nodded and her mother murmured a positive. She had only been twelve at the time, but she could still strongly remember the days in which a man named Logan had arrived in Aurora, hallucinating and on the verge of death's embrace. He hailed from the land of Albion, and he had promised the Aurorans peace.

"He's my brother," Christopher said, with a tinge of reluctance in his voice. "He has been ruling Albion with an iron fist ever since he became king. Sir Walter and I are collecting allies for, well, something of a revolution. That's why we're here."

Kirvi's mother stood and snorted. Padding across the hut to the tiny stone hearth, she scoffed, "You will certainly find support in Aurora. Apart from Albion as we are, we still bear no love for your king; not after the promises he made and ignored since he came to our city." Orange light flared briefly as the small fire was viciously stoked. "Sussen, Naja, Tiem, go to bed."

The three little bodies scurried past Kirvi and Christopher, back to the bed mats near the hearth. Kirvi and the prince waited in silence as her mother put down the children for the night. The shaggy dog whined quietly and rested his chin on his master's lap, closing his eyes in ecstasy as Christopher rubbed his snout.

When Kirvi's mother returned, she asked, "What is your companion ailing from? You mentioned he was being cared for by the healers."

"Sir Walter and I came to the desert through a cave several hours away. He was weakened and blinded by—"

The older woman uttered a choked noise of horror at his interrupted words. Holding a shaky hand to her terror-stricken face, she stammered, "Th-The Darkness! You have been touched by the Darkness! You cannot—"

"Mama!" Kirvi jumped to her feet and stood protectively before her guest. "Please, Mama. He needs a place to stay until his companion is well again. Have mercy, please. Let him stay in the loft."

The look she was given was sharper than her papa's dagger. "Very well. But you, Kirvi, are responsible for him. I will not have anything to do with someone who has been tainted by the Crawler. And if he brings the Darkness back to our city, you shall be the sacrifice made, and you may deal with the fury of your father when your light as finally been stolen."

Kirvi glowered at her mother, rage fuelling her body. "That is a small price to pay for the security of a stranger in need." Turning back to the bewildered prince, she bowed lightly. "Your Highness, it is not much, but we have room you may use in the loft outside. You will be sharing your space with chickens, but…"

Christopher hopped nimbly to his feet. "Oh! No, no, that is perfect, definitely. I like chickens. Can you…?"

Kirvi nodded, tucking back her long black waves before crouching to open a chest shoved against the stone partition. With an armload of blankets and rolled pillows, she led the way to the small, discreet back door of the hut. She murmured a quiet warning before ducking beneath the archway and emerging in the fenced chicken coop behind the house. A cool night breeze ruffled the multicolour feathers of the birds as they cackled and strutted around their sandy pen. Several white creatures squawked and tumbled out of the way from the ramp leading to the raised room above the coop as Kirvi neared. The storehouse was a simple structure with one door and no windows, intended for the storage of dry goods and feed for the chickens. Kirvi smiled to herself as she slipped through the narrow doorway; this simple building had been a fortress for her and her friends when they were children, in the happier years before the Darkness ate Aurora.

Crates and small bales of hay lined the crude stone walls of the storehouse; straw and dirt littered the simple floor. Kirvi handed Christopher the bundle of sleeping equipment before climbing up the ladder to the pitiful "second storey" of the building; it was the loft her papa had built for her and Opal when they were little girls, so they could camp outside. There was room enough for two full grown people to sit comfortably, but standing was not an option.

The ladder creaked as Christopher awkwardly climbed up the first several rungs, and Kirvi snapped out of her reverie long enough to take the thickest blanket from his arms. Laying it out as a makeshift mattress on the wooden floor of the loft, she wiped cobwebs from the corners and made a simple bed out of the blankets and pillows she had brought.

When she was finished, she scooted back on her knees and held out her hands. "It is nothing fit for a prince, but—"

"It's perfect," he assured her in a soft voice. A small, shy smile crossed his face, and Kirvi returned it. She had a sense that despite his cool exterior toward her mother, and calmness in explaining his story, he was really a quiet and timid lad. "Really, it is. Kirvi—" At that, her smile widened a little; unlike his captain friend, he said her name appropriately: Keer-vee. "—I really must thank you for your hospitality. It bewildered me that you simply offered your house to a stranger, but…" One broad shoulder lifted, and the corner of his mouth turned up. "It's much appreciated."

Her reasons for offering were her own. She smiled warmly and gave a slight nod, silently cursing that one cowlick in her hair that always made it fall from its bun. Eyes on the black and white animal trying to paw its way up the ladder, she said, "You are welcome, Your Highness. I admit I was curious about your goat, though. It is one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you."

Christopher chuckled and shook his head, smiling as he helped his dog up the ladder and onto the loft. The dog instantly curled up on his lap, crushing him with a happy sigh. He laughed and ran his hand down the dog's hairy back. "He's very good at getting me noticed, that's for sure. Aren't you, Logie?"

The dog gave a happy bark, wagged its tail, and settled more comfortably on Christopher's legs.

The prince smiled and padded his pet's ribs. "Good boy, Logie. You know," he said softly, as though lost in memory, "my brother had a cat once; got it around the time I got Logie here. He named it Chris, for me." His big brown eyes turned up to her face, and she felt her cheeks warm with his simple delight in his dog and his brother's cat. "Until it turned out the cat was pregnant; that's when we found out it was a girl, and he renamed it Chrissie. It kind of… detracted from the brotherly sentiment a bit."

Kirvi giggled, covering her mouth. Christopher gave her a lopsided smile before adjusting the pillows against the wall and settling back with a sigh.

"He wasn't always corrupt. Being king made him… different. Power does that, I guess. Ah, well. That's of little importance." He crossed his hands on his abdomen and eyed her over the back of his snoring dog. "Does it get as cold in the night here as I've read in books?"

Kirvi shook her head and tucked her hair back. Long, down to her elbows in large, loose waves, it constantly fell from its simple bun at the base of her skull. "Oh, no. Not during the summers. You will not need a fire; the blankets will be enough." Another cool wind whistled through the stones of the storehouse, and Kirvi glanced back at the door to the storehouse; the night was deepening quickly.

"If you require anything else, do not hesitate to come inside and wake me up," she urged him as she shuffled backward to the ladder. Her bare toes found the worn wooden rungs with memorized ease, and she slipped down until only her shoulders and above poked into the loft.

Christopher nodded while simultaneously kicking off his boots and unbuckling his holster and scabbard. "Thank you again, Kirvi. This beats sleeping outside or on the stone beds in the temple."

She felt her face beam in a smile. "It is my pleasure, Your Highness."

"Please." He paused, halfway beneath the covers with Logie deposited beside him. "Call me Christopher."

Kirvi made a soft noise before bowing as well as someone can while clinging to a ladder. "Goodnight, Christopher," she murmured, and landed silently on the rough storehouse floor. She turned, dusting off the soft cotton knees of her baggy trousers, and just before she slipped beneath the low door to the coop outside, she heard a gentle, "Goodnight, Kirvi," before the only sounds in the tiny room were the grunting, heavy snores of Logie the goatdog.