Chapter 19 The Princess? at Last and More Ruckus
The tower was in view. And hanging from the window to about halfway down the wall was length of rope. Actually, on closer inspection, it was a braid of reddish brown hair.
"Oh, oh, I know what to do!" Axel raced over to the hair and looked up. "Uh, Tranquility! Send down your hair!"
Everyone watched the braid of hair, but it stayed where it was—halfway down.
"I can't reach it! I've failed in my quest! I'm terrible, unforgivable! My knighthood is forever lost to my straining grasp! I don't even deserve to be a comely prince! The king and queen will never forgive me for failing to rescue their daughter from the marauder's grasp! What will I do with my life? I'll become an outcast, unloved, unappreciated, forgotten, no one to sign ballads of to write verse about. My dreams forever unfulfilled!" Fortunately running out of air, the self-pitying man flung himself to the ground and sobbed into the dirt.
Sir Blaydelot looked down his nose at the ex-knight for approximately twenty seconds. Then he walked over to the blatantly-obvious door in the tower and opened it.
"Unlocked?" Put'oh crossed his arms but had to quickly uncross them to grasp futilely at his brother. "You're not going in there! It must be a trap."
"A trap?" Kiaba did not look at his twin as he spoke, but rather faced the tower where Blaydelot was poised to enter. He had just taken a swig of something blackish and rather viscous. The consistency was a lot like oil, but oil was for machines…no, I am not going there.
"Dear brother, I doubt anyone would set a trap to keep the princess within. More likely, she would find it undeniably fun to disarm on her own. The only way to keep her within is to make escape utterly boring. I thought someone like you would be aware of that."
Flushing, Put'oh muttered, "I was."
Kun was the only one hurrying after Blaydelot, and he seemed unaware that no one else was interested in following. Axel was still blubbering about failure and Tanner and de Vlin were just watching and waiting for Blaydelot to be struck dead. They were certain traps were waiting to be sprung upon them.
"Trust me, there's no traps and no one left around. They wouldn't let the princess just dangle her hair out the window if they were." Wishing everyone would just trust him, Blaydelot whirled around once more, his own hair almost whipping Kun except that the young man was too short. Suddenly, Muggy was followed behind the knight, moving aside Kun.
Grumbling and muttering things his twin no doubt didn't want to hear, Put'oh set off after the youngest Gruff.
"After you," Tanner said with a bow to Earl.
"No, you, shoo."
The minstrel suddenly gained a great idea. "I know exactly who we'll follow." He kicked Axel, saying, "Get up and rescue the princess! She's just inside the tower there."
"Eh? She is?" Looking up, Axel finally spotted the door and jumped back to his feet. "I am coming, Princess Tranquility! Fear no longer; the kidnappers will face justice by my noble hand, even if it no longer has the abilities of a knight! The one worthy of saving your pure skin from being trampled and abused is coming along to soon be your chivalric rescuer!" And, his voice continued to float back as he raced into the tower, but the other two gratefully could no longer discern his words.
Making certain they followed right after the young man, Earl and Clothier vanished within. Now, only Sama-san-dono, Kiaba, and the forgotten Barleyo/Egomaniac remained outside.
Knowing he was being watched by the djinni, Kiaba never faltered, heading up the tower with easy strides. "Hmph"-ing to himself, Sama-san-dono followed after, not to be outdone.
Then, left alone, Egomaniac grinned and grabbed his chains, ready to throttle the first person who came out of the tower again and grab the princess for himself. She had to be rich, and no doubt, because she ruled some land (or would eventually), his goal of taking over the world would be closer too.
Standing there in all her beauty (she couldn't resist flirting with the passing young men), Yor Love debated who she should speak with first. There were plenty of willing young men who would have spoken with her, but she didn't trust any of them. Instead, she turned to the little girl who had skipped over to her.
Well, skipped was definitely not the right word. She had been sprinting and nearly collapsed in front of Yor, panting.
Disregarding the girl nearly dying in front of her, Yor asked, "Can you help me? I'm looking for a blonde-headed knucklehead who is traveling with a group of others for a missing princess."
The blonde girl held up one finger to indicate the witch to wait. Then, she removed her glasses, wiped her face, and regained her breath.
"I wish the call for my character wasn't so soon after the other role was! Is it my fault Takahashi has a lack of female characters! And I am multi-talented, aren't I, Teddy, so I ought to play more than one role…"
Yor did not understand at all, but if the other members of the group had been there, they would have been eerily thinking of clones and just what Kiaba was doing in his laboratory. Now is it a good time to explain about those clone-like sailors?
No, you want to stay with this odd young girl and the witch. Fine.
So, the understudy for all minor female roles, aka Fabecca Falconins, (1)told Yor Love exactly where her knucklehead was located and dashed off to do the rest of her understudy roles and continue her conversation with Teddy.
Climbing back into her tub, Yor set off, determined to get to Axel before he fell in love with the princess.
The bushes trembled a little to the left of the tower, but Egomaniac did not notice it, of course. He was too involved in plotting his take over of the world and what he would do with his riches.
Stepping free of the bushes, Iheezu stabled her bag on her shoulder and looked at Egomaniac. From some feeling deep within her, she knew this was not the same person whose appearance he wore. Very intrigued, not the least by the fact that he had not even noticed her, she stayed still to wait on what would happen.
And finally, we'll go inside the tower to the Princess Tranquility and all her rescuers.
Sir Blaydelot, followed closely by Muggy, Kun, and Put'oh, was racing up the stairs. His cloak fanned out slightly behind him, but it was nothing compared to Kiaba's natural levitating cloak.
Thus far, the stairs had only been going in circles up and up some more. The enthusiastic trotting of everyone started lagging, and Blaydelot stopped to catch his breath.
Put'oh managed to cast a glare at the weary knight before he bent over to catch his own breath. Only once his own head was down did the knight remove his helmet and let some air reach his face. Quickly, helm under arm, the knight turned around and continued up the stairs at a much more sedate pace.
By the time the door at the top had finally come, Axel, in some mad dash of his own, had caught up to them by nearly killing himself. The ex-knight was reaching for the doorknob, but from a certain look Blaydelot sent him from under the helm (yup, back on), he cringed backward, nearly toppling off the side.
"I'm going in first. And you can just wait until I've secured the area."
"But it's my prize and my quest!"
"But I'm your squire!"
Unrelenting, Blaydelot stared them all down until he had some more room at the top to slip through the door on his own.
Then again, everyone took a couple steps back, but not a single one was giving up on getting into that room as soon as the door opened. Simultaneously, each person's muscles tensed in order to do a large dash up the few remaining stairs and get inside the room before Blaydelot could slam it on them.
From farther below, there was an argument.
"I told you to hurry up! We've lost them!"
"Lost them, how could that be? No doors or turns other than these have I seen!"
"I don't care if we're on a circular stair with only one direction, we've lost them, I tell you! And it is all your fault for trying to come up with that poem 'Ode to Fair Serenity!'"
"My poems are better than yours I say, and I walked up as I spoke the entire way!"
"Oh, really? Then what about that time you stopped to come up with the best word for the mahogany wood that 'echoed Serenity's lustrous hair?' And what about—"
"Enough, no more, your voice is a bore!"
Sounds of a struggle strained over to their ears, and as Axel glanced over the center of the stairs to see the two arguing, Blaydelot rushed through the door.
Put'oh, who had just been waiting for the move, raced upward, not caring, unless it was Muggy, who he scattered in his wake.
Now, this was quite a problem, considering the stairs had no railing, as de Vlin and Tanner had already discovered. Axel, leaning over the side, gave a strangled yell as he toppled from the side, arms flailing.
Farther down the stairs, de Vlin and Tanner stopped their wrestling to make the other fall into the pit and gawked as Axel plummeted by them.
A little farther on, the prince fell by Sama-san-dono and Kiaba, continuing to yell and flail as the ground raced ever closer.
"Oh, NO!" Sama-san-dono cried, about to move closer to the edge to better see his new friend splatter on the ground, but because he noticed no railing, he merely gaped from a distance.
"Save him, Kiaba, or else!"
A slow smile went over the sorcerer's face as he lazily leaned back. "Or else what?"
"Grrr. Don't meddle with his life, Kiaba!"
Still smirking, Kiaba waited even longer, looking at Sama-san-dono's growing-infuriated face the entire time. Axel's scream went up one pitch because the ground was so close, and immediately before the impact, hands already having smacked into the ground in a futile attempt to soften the blow, he stopped, frozen in midair.
Sama-san-dono was looking over the edge, eyes frantic. He relaxed when he saw Axel's floating, trembling body blubbering in thankfulness. Then, turning back around where Kiaba had continued going up, he glared at the sorcerer moving on. It was so infuriating that Axel had lived because now there was no reason to personally throttle Kiaba.
(1) You ought to know it's Rebecca. The name I got from "Fa" replacing the other singing word, "Re." Then, obviously "Falcon" from "Hawk."
