Author's Notes: I got reviews! Oh, my gosh, I got reviews! And nice ones at that. I'd like to thank the first ten reviewers, you people made my day! I'd also like to say that I know I forgot the disclaimer on the last one so this one counts for the last part too. *Ahem* Digimon, its characters, its story plots and its concept do not belong to me. They were created by Akiyoshi Hongo and all the companies that I'm too lazy to name, like Toei and them. Anyways, they're not mine and I have admitted it so you're not allowed to sue me. Ha!
The ARROW, the STAFF &the SHIELD
Part 3
By Android Eleven
Jyuu couldn't speak. Had he tried he was pretty sure he would have only made a bunch of stuttering, vowel noises. The King of the land of Tachikawa had pretty much just asked him to marry his daughter. What could a man say to that? Jyuu, smart as he was, didn't know the answer and so he kept safely silent. But his mind was churning; Does Mimi know about this? Why did the King pick me? Did Mimi do something to make her parents angry with her and now they're trying to punish her by making her marry me? I mean, sure, I'm kind of... infatuated with her, but marriage? How did I get mixed up in this?
The King was unsure how to interpret Jyuu's silence. He had hoped that Jyuu would say yes, but now that he thought about it he realized it might have been a bit much for the young noble to take in all at once. "You realize, Jyuu, that I will not push you into anything. It is your own choice to make. If you do not wish to marry Mimi then-"
"N-n-NO, sire! I-it's not that!" Jyuu interrupted. "Princess Mimi is a really wonderful person and I'd be really, really honored to do this. It's just that, you know-wow- I'm just kind of surprised is all." He gave a weak smile, trying to show the sincerity of his words. The King saw this and grinned. He'd forgotten how shy the boy was.
"I completely understand Jyuu. This sort of thing isn't something that happens to a person everyday. Don't worry," the King said, smiling at him. Jyuu tried to ease the tense feeling in his stomach.
"So, um, does the Princess know about any of this?" he questioned, feeling the need to know.
"Actually, no. I thought that it would be safer to discuss it with you first." Jyuu suppressed a chuckle. Mimi did have quite the temper when people told her what to do. "So, would you agree to a marriage between yourself and Princess Mimi?" the King asked, trying to get to the point of the whole thing.
Jyuu swallowed. He had never told anyone about his feelings for the Princess, for he had always thought that she would end up married to a foreign prince of some sort and travel to his kingdom to be his Queen and forget all about her dear friend Jyuu. But now he had the chance to show her how much he cared about her, to keep her there, with him, forever and he didn't know what to do. And Mimi wasn't a puppet either, who went along with everything she was told to go along with, and he admired and respected her for it. Besides, what if she didn't want to marry him?
The King sat, waiting anxiously for an answer. He had suspected that Jyuu had feelings for Mimi, but had never been sure. That small uncertainty suddenly seemed quite important. What if Jyuu had no desire to marry Mimi? Or he did and then Mimi flat out refused him? That could crush Jyuu, who'd already had more than his fair share of hardships in his young life. And it would be he, the King's, fault. Immersed in these deep-seated worries, he missed Jyuu's response.
"Sire? Sire!" He jerked to attention, accidentally banging his knee under the table.
"I'm sorry Jyuu, I wasn't listening. Could you repeat yourself?" the King replied, mentally cursing himself for his rudeness in front of his, hopefully, future son-in-law.
"I said, that I will agree to marry Princess Mimi only if she agrees to marry me." Jyuu figured that the safest response to all this was to let Mimi decide for both of them. That way, if she said no he wouldn't be too embarrassed, and if she said yes he was still allowed to jump up and down, cheering, because she had agreed willingly.
'Yes,' he told himself doubtfully. 'That's the safest way.'
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Lady Sora was in a foul mood. She and Princess Hikari were supposed to go out to the capital village today. But when she had emerged from her chambers, having just found her brown cloak for the Princess, she had been stopped by Grand Duke Koushiro and one of Taichi's many guards. Koushiro had told her that the Crown Prince had requested her presence in the throne room immediately. Lady Sora had explained that she and Princess Hikari had made plans for the day that she did not wish to cancel. Grand Duke Koushiro told her to tell the Princess she couldn't go. Lady Sora had become angered by this.
"Princess Hikari is my friend and we made plans for today weeks ago. I refuse to cancel them and leave the Princess to sit in her room all day and feel depressed. The girl is lonely and the actions of you... noblemen," Sora said this word as one would say an insult, "are not helping. She's your cousin, Grand Duke. You should talk to her occasionally so as to find these things out!"
"Lady Sora," the guard spoke up, "the Prince requested that-"
But Koushiro held up his hand to stop the guard from saying any more and perhaps angering Lady Sora further. "Okay, milady, would it make you feel better if I went on this outing with the Princess in your place? Then she could still go out to the village and I will have a chance to talk to her."
Sora frowned, but nodded. "But I'm giving her this first," she said, holding up the folded cloak. "And you are to wear plain clothes when you go out, nothing with the royal crest on it. Agreed?"
Koushiro agreed and headed to his room to get ready. Sora continued to the Princess's room, gave her the cloak and explained that Koushiro would be going in her place. She then continued down the corridor towards the throne room. The guard walking alongside her complained that she could have given the cloak to the Grand Duke and saved them the two extra minutes of walking. Lady Sora called him a crybaby and he said he'd like to see her do all the work he did in a day. Sora did not comment on the fact that it was rude for a gentleman to act in such a manner towards a lady of the court. She only commented that eating and breathing were not things that she would describe as work.
Though angered by this remark, the guard said no more because they were approaching the throne room and, as Lady Sora was a close friend of Crown Prince Taichi's, he would be punished most severely if he were to say anything rude to her in Prince Taichi's presence. Sora was glad that the whining guard had stopped talking. He had been giving her a headache.
As she entered the throne room, Sora was surprised that the Prince was not sitting on the throne in the middle of the platform, where he usually sat nowadays during meetings. There had been four chairs on the platform once, two large ones for the King and Queen and two smaller ones for Taichi and Hikari. The King's had been the largest, naturally, and Taichi's had been slightly taller than his sister's, but now only Prince Taichi's and Princess Hikari's were there. Once he was crowned as King, Taichi's chair would be removed and his father's throne would be put back up.
Anyhow, the Prince was not sitting on his throne. Nor was he sitting in a chair at any of the numerous tables in the room. He was sitting on the steps up to the throne platform looking depressed. When he saw that they were there he tried to summon a smile, rather unsuccessfully, for Lady Sora. She came to sit next to him on the steps and he waved his hand, dismissing the insolent guard from the room. Once the guard had closed the door, Sora put her arm around Taichi's shoulders.
"What's wrong?" She questioned in a soothing voice.
Taichi looked up, examining her face for a moment before looking down at his feet. "What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Why do you always answer a question with a question?" Taichi looked at Sora's smiling face and smiled himself, keeping their little word game going.
"Why do you think?"
"I think you do it to avoid confrontation, don't you agree?"
"Well, how should I know?"
Lady Sora giggled at him and poked him in the stomach. "I suppose it's easy to miss when you haven't got a brain, isn't it?"
Taichi sent her a playful glare. "If I'm the one who hasn't got a brain then why is it you were the one dumb enough to tease the person who knows all of your ticklish spots, hmm?"
Lady Sora backed away as Prince Taichi moved closer to her with an evil gleam in his eyes. "You wouldn't!" she exclaimed, though she knew quite well from the look on his face that he would. She was still trying to back away from him when she fell off the platform step, landing on her bottom. "Ow!"
Taichi, trying to be a gentleman, went to help her up, but his laughter erased all politeness from the gesture. Sora glared daggers at him, while at the same time brushing dirt off herself. "If you're trying to be nice don't bother. You don't know the first thing about manners. You should take lessons from the pigs in the sties down in the village."
Taichi continued to laugh at her. "You couldn't be more right, milady."
Lady Sora hmmphed at him once more before becoming serious. "But seriously, Prince Taichi. Why did you send for me?"
Taichi sighed. "Really Sora. Please stop calling me 'Prince' when there is no one else here. You are as bad as Koushiro,"
Sora put her hands on her hips. "Don't change the subject. What is so important that you couldn't wait until I got back from the village with Princess Hikari?"
"You and Hikari were going to the village? Wha-" Lady Sora gave him a look. "Okay, okay. I want you to help me make a decision..."
Sora was intrigued. "Continue."
"I... I don't know whether or not to... for my coronation, I... Should I invite the royals from Ishida and Tachikawa?"
Sora blinked. "You're serious, right?" Taichi nodded. "Then I say invite them."
He gaped at her. "Wha-?"
"You could tell them to bring as many guards and noblemen from their countries as they want, so they won't think you're plotting to kill them. And if you start making plans now, maybe you can have a peace treaty signed shortly afterwards. You can tell the citizens that is the reason you're hosting them here. Wouldn't it be fantastic to finally have a treaty signed?!?" she exclaimed.
Prince Taichi gazed at her in astonishment. She had decided, in mere seconds, a decision he'd been unable to make in days. "How can you stand it?" he asked. Lady Sora looked at him questioningly. "How can you stand being so completely, utterly, totally FANTASTIC!" he yelled, lifting the girl into the air and spinning her around. "You are amazing!" he continued. "If I wasn't a gentleman, I'd kiss you!"
Taichi put her back on her feet. She laughed at him. "You are hardly a gentleman, Taichi."
********************
Prince Takeru walked into his brother, King Yamato's, study. Apparently he had just adjourned a meeting because most of the men in the room were filing out the door. One other was still standing next to the table where the King was standing over a map with a scowl on his face. Yamato seemed exasperated.
"No, damn it, how many times have I got to tell you? We don't have enough troops to attack there. When people fight in wars they usually try to win. And we can't win with so few troops!" King Yamato was using his authoritative voice. If Takeru had been that man he would have quit about now. But the nobleman didn't seem to be as smart as Takeru.
"But your majesty, we could move the-"
"No! I have made my decision! Those troops will stay where they are until I say otherwise! Now, I believe you've been dismissed General." The General left, muttering under his breath and Yamato slumped into a chair and sighed. "I really hate that man. Hello Takeru. Come to bring me news from outside in the real world?"
Takeru smiled at him. "Sorry brother. Nothing today, it's stormy so I couldn't go out either."
"It's raining? Too bad, I may have finally had the time to go out for a short horseback ride." Yamato sighed again. "Oh well, I guess I'll live," He looked so sad right then, Takeru felt his heart go out to him. Yamato probably hadn't slept in days, for the Kamiya troops had greatly lessened in number over the past few days and no one could seem to figure out why. It seemed that they were trying to remove all of their offensive troops, leaving only their defensive men around to protect the assorted villages. It was very puzzling, because even Takeru realized that there was nothing to gain in doing this.
'Except, perhaps, human lives,' he thought to himself. But Kamiya hadn't really seemed to care much about that before, though there had been times when Takeru had had doubts. If only the other kingdoms had stopped attacking, then Ishida probably would have offered out a peace treaty long ago. But they had never seemed to want to stop the fighting and so Ishida had not relented either. They refused to be trampled out of existence by Kamiya and Tachikawa.
"You still haven't figured out why Kamiya has stopped their assault on the eastern front?" Yamato shook his head. "It's bothering you, isn't it?"
The young King gave his brother a tired smile. "You know me too well Takeru. Yes, it is bothering me a great deal. It makes me wonder what they think they have to gain by withdrawing their forces." He shook his head, wiped the worried look off his face and turned to Takeru. "But enough talk of war. How have you been these past few days? I hardly ever see you anymore, so it's hard to tell for myself. Have you found 'a purpose' yet?"
Takeru shook his head, but was pleased that Yamato had remembered the talk they'd had about Takeru feeling bored with his life. As Yamato was King, Takeru figured he was going to be nothing more than a meaningless prince for the rest of his life and it was a thought that deeply depressed him. He had no parents to live for, no close friends, and he hardly ever saw Yamato anymore. Yamato had told Takeru that he was actually very important to the Kingdom, that he would be needed if anything were to happen to himself. Takeru had looked at him critically for a moment before saying that Yamato hardly looked like a dying man to him. Yamato had then suggested that perhaps Takeru could seek out a lady friend, but Takeru had responded by laughing in his face.
"Well," said Yamato encouragingly, reached over to put a hand on his shoulder, "Keep looking and I'm sure you'll find something eventually. Hey, what's that?" He had just noticed the golden staff resting against the side of Takeru's chair.
"Hmm? Oh, that. Well, Yamato," Takeru replied, teasingly, "Believe it or not, it's a staff."
"Yes, I can see that," Yamato answered snappishly. "What I meant was where did you get it? I've never seen you with it before."
Takeru was about to explain about the opening wall panel in the Corridor of Memories when a page suddenly entered the room, looking extremely nervous. "Sire, I hate to bother you, but there is matter of great importance that needs your immediate attention in the Entrance Hall."
Yamato did not appreciate the interruption. "Can't you see that I'm busy at the moment? I am sure whatever it is can wait for a little while."
The page fidgeted under the King's glare. "Actually, sire, I'm not sure it can..." The page paused here, trying not to show his discomfort. "A messenger from the kingdom of Kamiya has just arrived."
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Author's notes: Umm... CLIFFHANGER! You know, I've already written Part IV (like, weeks ago), but I think I'm gonna wait a while before I post it. You know, to draw out the suspense. HA! Is if I could ever keep anyone in suspense! By the way, this isn't just a Jyuu/Mimi story, though there is some in there as you can probably tell. I am a HUGE fan of Takari stories, so I'll have to put in something like that. But anyways, I'll say no more, lest I spoil the entire story. ^_^ Toodles!
