This one seams pretty good from the reviews. I'll try to keep it going, but it's getting awful hard to work with sometimes…
Disclaimer: Does anyone on this site own Digimon? Uh-huh. I didn't think so.
Chapter 2
"So, T.K., where did you say you came from?"
Kari was carefully cleaning the broken windows, while T.K. swept up the dirty rushes from the floor and pushed them out the door. "Around." T.K. lied. "I've never stayed in one place more than a few years."
Kari twisted a piece of hair around her finger. Even though she was trying hard not too, she had to admit it to herself: She was falling for this boy. She couldn't help it. It was if the mischievous Cupid had snuck apon her and struck her with his poison arrows square it the heart, sending her humors swooning out of balance.
She quickly turned back to her work, turning a soft shade of red. She wiped the same spot on the window a few times, then stood to move to the next one.
T.K. smiled as he swept the rushes out the door. "Beautiful." he whispered, then blushed as well and hurried to get more rushes for the floor.
Now he couldn't help it. The way she moved, the way she spoke, the way she looked, it all captivated him more than any, any of the princesses he'd ever seen.
T.K. dragged the bushel of rushes into the rooms. He unwrapped them and began to spread them across the floor with his broom.
As he was almost finished, Kari looked up the stairs. "Tai!" she called. "Supper time!" she looked at T.K. and smiled. "It's time for dinner. No more work today."
"Um…Okay." T.K. sat at the table.
Tai came in, setting down his calendar and pulling the scratchy blanket around his shoulders with a sigh. "If we don't get another guest soon, we could be in trouble." he sighed.
Kari brought out the loaf of bread. It was down to three pieces now. T.K. grimaced. He'd been working here a week, and meal time was the worse. He always felt so guilty, taking precious bread away from these poor folks.
Kari held a slice out to him. He waved it away. "No thanks. You eat it."
The girl looked surprised. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah." T.K. stood. "I'm really…tired. I think I'll just head to bed now." He began upstairs. "Good night."
Kari looked down at the piece in her hand, then back at T.K. "You're sure?" she asked.
"Yes." T.K. was about to disappear upstairs. "Goodnight!"
He vanished. Kari sighed, broke the bread, and gave half to her brother. "He certainly is a strange one." Tai murmured. "Doesn't he know this may be the last dinner this inn serves for a good while?"
Kari shook her head, and slowly, very slowly, the began to eat.
~ * ~ * ~
T.K. pulled the only thing he had taken with him, a fine, red leather-bound book of the stories of the saints, out of his brown bag and began to read his favorite, the story of Saint George and the Dragon.
He was always captivated by the story, and by the beautiful pictures. But now, he wanted to look at just one, single picture.
He gazed down at the book as the daring Sr. George brandished his sword at the evil dragon. The dragon's scales were shiny and green, with vicious, glowing, yellow eyes. Behind him, the beautiful princess of the near by town stood captive, in ready to be slaughtered if George did not succeed in killing the beast.
But T.K. knew how the story went. George would kill the dragon with one swipe of his mighty lance, and then convert the whole village to Christianity. But he was focused on the two figures. The girl's hair was auburn brown, and the saint's was blonde. His imagination soared, and he could almost see himself as the gallant Saint George, and the girl, Kari, as a princess even more beautiful than the one in the book.
His thoughts were interrupted by a huge, powerful knock on the front door of the inn, followed by it crashing open with a deafening BOOM! T.K. leapt out of bed and ran to the top of the stairs.
"Oh, Tai!" Kari cried.
Her brother had been thrown to the ground by the leader of the royal guards, as he was defined by his red silk clothes and yellow cape. Three members of the guard stood behind him in the door.
"We're here to collect your taxes, wretch." the captain barked. "Now had over your pay."
Tai stood shakily. "Please. You've taken everything we have. There is nothing left to pay with." he said with a slight wheeze.
The guard knocked him to the ground again. "Pay up, you miserable heap of bones!" he snapped. "Or you'll be thrown into the dungeons until you can!"
Kari grabbed his arm. "Please. He speaks the truth." she begged. "We have nothing left."
"Oh really?" the guard hissed. He grabbed Kari's wrist and held her hand up. A single, golden ring, very plain with nothing on it, shone on her ring finger. "Then what would this be, little girl?"
"That's the ring my mother gave me…" Kari whimpered. The guard was forcing her arm in a direction it really wasn't supposed to go in. "Before she died…"
"Well, isn't that a sweet story." the guard sniffed. "I think I might cry…Listen, little girl, give us the ring or your brother goes to jail!"
"Leave her be."
They looked up. A young man with golden blonde hair, hiding under a brown hood, stood just down the stairs. "I said, leave her be." he said, approaching the guard.
"You think I should leave this little retch alone?" the guard said, then burst out laughing. He dropped Kari next to her brother and grabbed T.K. by his collar. "Listen, stranger, you obviously don't know who you're talking too. I am the captain of the royal guard."
T.K. pushed away. He reached his hands up and took the edges of his dusty brown hood. "Then I believe you should show just a little more respect."
He pulled down his hood to show his full face and head. The guards stared for a moment, then every last one of them dropped to one knee. "Prince…Prince Takaru!" the captain gasped. "We've been looking all over the city for you!"
"T-T.K.?" Kari gasped.
"You're the prince?" Tai cried.
T.K. looked away from them. "I was gonna lie low here for while, until I got enough money to get out of town." he glanced sideways at Kari guiltily. "I'm sorry that I lied to you."
The guard stood. "Come, my Prince, we must get you back to the castle." he told the boy, taking him by the arm.
"First, show me what you have collected from the people today." Takaru demanded.
"Of course." the guard opened his satchel to reveal a pile of gold.
The boy looked at it for a moment, picked up a handful, put it in a small brown bag, then turned to the guard. "Give it all back." he said. "Give it back to the people, and don't collect taxes from people who have none without orders again."
"Yes sir!" the guard tossed the bag to another one, standing near-by. "You heard the prince. Return it!"
The guard vanished out the door. Takaru helped Kari and Tai up himself. He took the small satchel of gold he had taken and put it in Kari's hand. "It's not a lot." he said. "But it does mean you won't go hungry for a while."
Kari took it and looked up at him "Are you really…"
"The prince? Yes." he said, turning to leave with the guards. "Unfortunately."
Kari and Tai stood at the door as T.K. climbed onto the free horse from the guard who had left to re-deliver the taxes. As they rode off, into night, Kari looked up at Tai. "Do you think we'll ever see him again?" she asked.
Tai put his arm around her. "I don't know, Kari. I just don't know."
~ * ~ * ~
Daricon growled when he saw the boy returned to the castle. I thought I was rid of him for good. he thought. How did he return?
Cody forced the Prince into a bath. "Being among those peasants for so long, I wouldn't be surprised if you were absolutely riddled with those horrid fleas. Not good at all."
"Aw, Cody." Takaru groaned, going up to his neck in the water. "They're not horrid at all. Tai and Kari were very nice, and very clean…"
"And who would those two be?" Cody demanded.
"The innkeeper and his sister." Takaru said, staring out past him through the window. "They were the ones who took care of me, and they were just so very kind…"
~ * ~ * ~
"Tell us another story, Kari! Tell us another, please?"
Kari smiled. It was two weeks later, and she was playing with the local children as she always did. They loved her re-tellings of epic stories, and sometimes they even acted it out.
"Okay then…" she thought for a moment. "What about Sr. George and the Dragon?"
"Naw, we've heard that one before." Thomas shook his head.
"Okay…what about the story of the Unicorn?"
"No, we've heard that one before too." Annie said, making a face.
"We wanna new story, Kari!" Richard cried, and the others joined in.
"New story! New story!"
"Okay okay." Kari said, waving her hands. "Gimme a minute to think."
She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Then she looked at the castle, high on the hill, over looking them and the whole town. She got a sudden idea. "Okay then." she said, turning to the kids again with a knowledgeable look on her face.. "I've got one that no one, absolutely no one, has ever heard of before."
"What is it, Kari?" Thomas asked, bouncing up and down. "I can't wait!"
Kari closed her eyes. "Once there was a girl…"
"Was she a princess?" Annie asked.
"No." Kari said, smiling as she looked at the sky. "She wasn't a princess. She was a normal girl, just like us. She and her father owned a small inn, just at the edge of town. They were very poor, barely able to afford the bread that they needed to survive every day, and her father was sick."
A small gaggle of things like: "I know how that feels." "Who isn't hungry anymore?" and "Just like us." came from the kids.
Kari continued her story. "Now one day, a strange boy about the girl's age, wearing a dark hood that hid his face, appeared at their inn, looking for a job. At first the girl's father said they couldn't afford any extra help, but he accepted when the boy offered to work only for a room in the inn. So the boy worked at the inn for a week, and during that time the girl could feel her heart thump with the beats of gentle love for him. Then one night, the tax collectors came to get the small family's taxes. But the girl and her father had nothing to pay with, so the guards threatened to arrest the girl's father."
The kids on the ground breathed out in suspense. Kari leaned forward as she came to the climax. "But just before the father was led away, a voice suddenly came from the stairs and shouted 'Stop!'" she took a blanket from one of the captivated kids and pulled it over her head like a hood. "There at the foot of the stairs, like the mighty Saint George about to slay the dragon, stood the mysterious stranger. 'Leave them be!' he cried, marching to the captain of the guard.
"The captain laughed and took the boy by his collar. 'Who do you think you are talking too?' he hissed like the villain snake 'I am the Captain of the Royal Guard'. The boy pushed gallantly away, took the edge of his hood like so," she gripped the edges of the rag, "and said, 'Then I think you should pay just a bit more respect.' With that, he pulled down his dark hood," she pulled the cloth away and dropped it back to the boy below. "and everyone recognized him as the crown prince of the land."
The kids ohed and ahed. "What happened then, Kari?" Thomas cried, bouncing up and down. "What happened then?"
Kari grinned. "The prince looked at the captain, took his sack of stolen gold, gave some to the girl and her father, and then sent another guard off to give the rest back to the people in the village."
Someone whispered, "That's what happened a couple of weeks ago." but Kari ignored them and continued.
"And so, the prince turned to the girl and her father and said, 'I'm sorry to have lied to you.' and then he and the guards traveled back to the castle. As they rode off into the darkness, the girl wondered if she'd ever see the prince again."
She fell silent as the church bells rang six times. "So what happened, Kari?" Richard asked.
"Did the girl ever see the prince again?" Annie asked.
"Did they fall in love?" Catherine asked.
"Did a dragon come?" Michael asked.
"Or an evil wizard?" Thomas asked.
Kari looked at the sky. "I'm afraid we'll have to save that for another day." she said. The kids groaned. "Now now, your parents will be worried about you." Kari shooed them down the hill. "Go on. We'll finish this later."
"Okay." the kids began to head down the hill. "See you tomorrow, Kari!"
She could hear them as they ran home. Hear them talking: "I can't wait to see what happens." "Bet they fall in love!" "Maybe a dragon will capture the girl, and the prince will have to save her!" "Yeah, or even better…"
Kari smiled. She was glad the gang had gotten such and enchanted fascination with what had really happened. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and looked up at the castle. "I wonder how it'll really end…" she muttered.
~ * ~ * ~
"Tai! I'm home!" Kari called, coming into the inn. "Tai?" she looked around the edge of the door and gasped. "Tai!"
Her brother's hands were tied behind his back with thick rope and he was surrounded by a gaggle of royal guards. Tai looked as though he'd been in a really bad fight. There was a cut bleeding above his right eye. "Tai! What are you doing to him?! Leave him alone!" Kari tried to run to her brother, but the guards grabbed her by her arms and threw her across the room.
"Your brother here is under arrest." the leader said. "He is to be locked in the dungeons to await his execution."
"What?!" Kari cried, struggling to her feet. She grabbed the leader's arm. "Please sir, he's very sick. He's not supposed to leave the inn."
"I'm sorry miss, but orders are orders." The guards began to drag Tai out the door.
"But he's done nothing wrong!" Kari cried. "He hasn't left the inn for months!"
"That's not what this says." the leader said, thrusting an arrest warrant into Kari's hands as they disappeared.
Kari pulled it up to see it better and read the warrant. "…It is now decreed that Tai Kamiya, the innkeeper of the village Westwood, is under arrest for high treason to the crown… death at the gallows…by order of…… His Majesty, the Crown Prince, Lord Takaru of Ishida!?"
Kari looked up in panic, out the window, at the castle where her brother was being taken. In a rush of frightened instinct, she knew exactly what she had to do.
~ * ~ * ~
"Prince Takaru, are you feeling alright?"
The Chief Advisor felt the boy's head. "Yes yes, Cody, I'm fine." T.K. muttered, pushing his hand away. "I'm just thinking. Go away."
The Advisor vanished out the door to attend to other manners. T.K. set his head on the windowsill and looked out at to country side. He sighed. He glanced down at the garden and saw the last thing he ever expected. "Kari!"
Kari ran up the hill and to the huge, iron gates on the castle wall. She banged on them angrily. "Let me in! Let me in!" she shouted. "Tai! Tai!"
"Kari!"
The Prince himself ran to the gates and threw them open. The angry girl burst in. "What's wrong?" he asked. "What's the matter?"
"The matter!" Kari shouted. "This is the matter!"
She thrust the warrant into the boy's face. T.K. took it and scanned his eyes over the page, and she could hear him muttering: "Tai Kamiya…Under arrest…Treason…Gallows…By order of…Takaru of Ishida?!" he looked up in confusion. "I gave no such order!"
He took her wrist, a look of fury burning in his eyes. "Come on Kari, we'll get to the bottom of this!"
~ * ~ * ~
"Guard! Guard!"
The sleepy guard looked up, then stood at rigid attention. "Your Majesty!" he gasped. "What can I do for you, sire?"
Takaru thrust the paper at him. "Tell me who issued this order." he demanded.
The guard scanned his eyes over the page. "Why you, Milord."
Takaru took a step back. Kari glared at him accusingly. "I did no such thing!" he snapped. "Now tell me who issued this!"
The guard shook his head. "No sire. The Lord Daricon has made your orders clear."
Takaru stepped back. He composed himself, and thought for a moment. "Daricon made my orders clear, huh?" he muttered. He looked at the guard. "Here's an order. Release him."
The guard stepped back this time. "What?"
"You heard me." the prince snapped. "Release him and everyone else down there. All prisoners have been pardoned. Understand?" the guard stood at attention and nodded. "Good. Now wait a moment."
Takaru turned to the girl. "Kari, I apologize greatly for this." he said sincerely. "I had no idea."
Kari knew she couldn't be mad at him, no matter how she'd acted. "I knew it couldn't be right." she sighed, smiling as she reached slowly out and touched his arm.
Takaru's face reddened and his hands slipped behind his back. He turned to the guard. He cleared his throat. "T-Take her down to release her brother." he said. "I-I need to meet with Lord Daricon."
He moved his collar around nervously and left.
The guard pushed his hat up. "Yes sire" he said. "Come with me, miss."
He opened a heavy, wooden door. Lifting a torch into the air, he shone it down a set of dark stairs. He turned and motioned for Kari to follow, which she did.
They walked through a dark corridor, lined with heavy, wooden doors with bars on them. Every now and then they'd stop, the guard would open the door, grumble to whoever inside, "The Prince has pardoned all prisoners." and whoever was inside would race out, praising God, Jesus, Heaven, Hosanna, the Prince, and everything else they could think of.
The final door had was giant and wooden, at the very end of the hall. There was a large notice on it that read Death at Dawn, and underneath was a skull and crossbones. The guard opened the door and Kari let out a sigh. "Oh, Tai!"
Her brother's arms were chained to the wall, and a huge shackle around his neck, also attached to the wall. He looked up. "K-Kari?" he gasped, wheezing and coughing slightly against the dust. "What…cough cough…What are you doing here?"
Kari knelt by her brother as the guard undid the chains. "Prince Takaru has pardoned all the prisoners." The guard huffed down to the now-freed innkeeper.
"It wasn't him, Tai!" Kari smiled through happy tears. "T.K. didn't get you arrested!"
Tai rubbed his wrists, then his neck. "Well, praise the Lord." he whispered. "I knew that boy wouldn't do something like this."
~ * ~ * ~
"Daricon!"
The Lord Regent turned. "Why Prince Takaru." he said calmly. "What can I do for you?"
Takaru stormed to him and snatched up the man's collar. Though Daricon was much older, Takaru was about the same size as him. "Don't 'what can I do for you' me." he growled. "I've found out about you little order to arrest the town innkeeper."
"Yes? And?" Daricon hissed.
"And you are never, ever, ever to fill out anything in my name again." the boy was shaking with rage. "Got it?"
Takaru released his collar and stormed out of the room. "Of course…My Lord…" Daricon hissed viciously. "Of course…"
Why can't I ever think of something catchy to put down here, huh?