Complete summary: Princess Naoko knows her father is a horrible ruler, but no one suspected his selfish ways would end in her being kidnapped. Now traveling through her Kingdom Aralon, across wilderness into the enemy country Honrako, Naoko and her servant friend Suki soon learn that their kidnappers, the four bandits of Quentia, might not be so bad after all.
A/N: I think if I was a fairytale princess I'd be Belle, simply because I love to read, guys I fall for tend to be beastly-looking, I came from Europe, and if a prince offered me a library I'd fall in love with him too. Oh, and the only guys who seem to like me are the jerky Gastons as well. So…who would you be?
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Arigatou
Chapter six
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As smartly planned, they only stopped for lunch, which wasn't that much time in the first place.
"Do we get seconds?" Mikitao asked, putting down his empty bowl, which had been full of rice only seconds before.
"We don't have time to be eating seconds." Ryo barked before Yukio could take more out of his sack.
"That's not true. Maybe you don't have the time, but I could eat four more helpings in the next minute." He whined.
"We are only resting here for ten more minutes, and in that time I don't wish for you to eat our entire supplies."
"Fine." Mikitao grumbled.
"Mkitao, come here." Naoko called from the tree she and Suki was sitting by.
Mikitao left Ryo, Yukio and Shinji, who were all eating closer to the horses, and joined Suki and Naoko.
"Yes Naoko?"
"I'm not hungry. You can have my rice if you would like."
"Really? Oh, a thousand words of gratitude, my lady." Mikitao sat down at ripped the bowl out of the Princess' hands, but not on purpose. He began eating at racer speed once again.
"Are you sure you're not hungry?" Suki looked anxiously to her friend.
"I'm fine. Besides, Mikitao's happy." Naoko assured.
"You did that on purpose." Ryo grunted loudly.
"Sorry? Are you talking to me, or him?" Princess Naoko responded when she heard him.
"I'm looking at you, aren't I?" He answered.
"Okay, so you're talking to me. And why's that again? What did I do on purpose?"
"Offering your food to Mikitao. It was all to spite me, wasn't it?"
"To spite you? As much as I would love to do as such, I'm afraid you mistake me for someone who would bother thinking of you, when offering someone else food."
"You offered it to him after I specifically said he needed to stop eating so we could get a move on."
"No, you only perceive it to be so because you have the notion in your head that the worlds revolves around you." Naoko shot back.
Ryo walked over to where she, Suki and Mikitao were sitting. Mikitao got up at once and said, "Come on Suki, we have to go put our bowls away in Yukio's bag now."
Suki, who was too scared of the wrath of Ryo, got up and followed Mikitao. She knew her mistress could defend herself again against his words and cold temper. As they left, Naoko, whose eyes were looking hard into his, narrowed. She got up to meet him in height, and though she was not a great deal shorter, she still couldn't come close to the tall persona he carried.
"I believe you are mistaken," Ryo sneered after a moment's pause. "If anything, it is you who has the presumption that the world is yours. Is that not why you expect everyone you are fond of to adore you back, and even when you are kidnapped, you expect your kidnappers to do whatever you want, or you will dislike them."
"The only one I detest here is you!" She replied haughtily.
"And that is because I won't do as you wish. Proving my point that you are conceited and a spoiled child that is not used to dealing with not getting want you want."
"Why must everything I do have to be about making you mad? Mikitao was hungry, and I was not, so I offered him my food. You were not going to allow him to have any so-"
"Yes, I wasn't going to, which is just why you offered it to him. Admit it, it was malevolent of you to do so. You are a spiteful Princess and are determined to be the most insufferable person on until we deliver you to Honrako."
"Oh, well sorry for being a complaining prisoner, I'm sure you're used to much more obliging victims. I think you're the one who's spiteful, always making up these stupid excuses to yell at me. Admit it, you get a rise in arguing with me, hoping maybe one day you can possibly win the argument. But I wont let that happen!"
"You, my lady, are as they say, full of-"
"Ryo!" Shinji shouted.
Both Ryo and Naoko shot him a dirty look.
"Listen, it's been over ten minutes. Everyone is packed and ready to go, don't you think we should-"
"Right." Ryo looked back at Naoko. Neither of them had realized everyone was there listening to them. Even worse, neither of them had realized their faces were inches apart as they were screaming at each other.
Naoko backed away and walked over to Shinji's horse, which she soon mounted.
"Insupportable bandit!" She muttered under her breath to herself, as everyone else mounted.
"Intolerable wench." Ryo muttered under his breath as he passed her, and soon mounted his own horse.
"Okay, let's all set off then." Mikitao said, tugging his reigns, and kicking his horse's side so it would get started.
The rest of them went on, all knowing they wouldn't stop till nighttime. Two of them were in snappy and rough moods, the other four, having a hard time trying not to laugh as they thought about it.
- - -
"How exactly did you become bandits?" Naoko asked politely with an underlying interest.
It was evening and they had all stopped for the night. Yukio has conjured up another fire, and he was sitting around it with Naoko, Suki and Mikitao. Shinji had gone off, past many trees to where a lake was. He was playing his flute, but they could barely hear it. Ryo had claimed he wanted early sleep and left to find a tree far away to get some peace and quiet.
"I've only been a bandit for two years myself." Yukio stated. "I lived with my grandmother in Quentia, we were a very poor family, like most there. She died when I was eighteen, her magic no longer able to keep her breathing. So I went looking for a job, because I knew I couldn't keep using my magic to solve everything. It's okay to use one's magic for certain things, but when someone uses their magic to do everything, it can be overwhelming; it slowly kills you."
Naoko and Suki nodded, beckoningly him to continue. "Well, that's when I got a job at a tavern, but it wasn't pleasant. I worked there for about a year, and then the warrior, commander and musician all walked into my tavern. As I served them, I overheard them all discussing plans to find a new bandit to join, so I told them I had heard their conversation and I'd like to be the man to join them."
"Ye, but we took one look at Yukio and thought otherwise." Mikitao laughed. "He was a skinny, short little nineteen year old boy. But as soon as he showed us his magical abilities, we let him join."
"Yep, and two years later, I'm still the smallest of them all, but I'm more experienced now." Yukio said proudly.
"Now, I'm the most experienced of the lot. Been doing this bandit thing for seven years now. Back when I first joined, I was nineteen too." Mikitao said proudly. "That's the best age to start a career like this I suppose. Back then, there were five other bandits and they all welcomed me into the group because of my size. That, and because my older brother was already a bandit, so it was a family tradition."
"Wow, so where is your brother now?" Naoko enquired.
"All in good time Princess. Now, where was I? Oh yes, well, for some years later everything went good too, more people joined, and we grew to about a dozen or more men. The famous Bandits of Quentia, they called us. But the law enforcers had it out for us. Managed to capture all of us in one night when we were all stinking drunk and sleeping. They put us all in jail, but that couldn't stop some of us. Five bandits escaped. That was me, Ryo, and Shinji, who had just become a bandit a fortnight before we got captured. The other two other men who escaped decided to give up the job after breaking free and moved somewhere. They didn't want to be captured again. I'm afraid my brother never got out, he rotted away in that jail." Miktaio sighed, "But strangely I think he would have preferred that then dying in a more peaceful way. Anyway, two years after the break out, us three bandits were still doing our job and then we met Yukio."
"So that's how you guys got into this? It sounds exciting and adventurous." Suki's eyes glittered.
"Oh, it is. It's all been one big adventure after another." Mikitao nodded.
"What about the other two? How'd they get to be here?" Naoko asked.
"Well, Ryo's been a bandit, for…" Mikitao did slow calculations in his head "oh, I'd say five years. He ran away from home, if I can remember correctly. His father wasn't what you'd call good people. Ryo's mother was always in depression; her husband made life a living hell. Ryo got beat up a lot as a kid whenever his dad was in a bad mood. His mother tried to take Ryo and runaway, but her husband found out about the plan, and by the time he was done with his wife, she was barely living."
"Oh no!" Naoko cried softly.
Nodding solemnly, Mikitao continued, "she ended up dying of incurable injuries on Ryo's eighteenth birthday or something. So Ryo didn't think twice about ran away a few days later as his father slept. I think it was like a week or two later that he met us in the woods, having one of our drunken parties. We welcomed him in, and he's been part of the group ever since. Proved to be a real smart guy, and worked his way up to the top pretty soon. People with horrible past experiences usually prove to be very strong folks."
"Oh my lord." Suki gasped at the end of it all.
"But he never shows signs of it. He seems to be a happy person, well, maybe not happy but, you know, not depressive." Naoko noted.
"Oh, he wasn't happy when he first joined us, but it's been five years since he ran away, and he's learned to get past it, to be a better person. Of course he's not going to stay depressed over it, he's stronger then that."
"What about Shinji?" Naoko asked, though she was a little out of spirits for it now.
"Shinji came a year after Ryo. It was just before we all got sent to jail. Shinji came from this long line of musicians in the family. It was what they did, pleased crowds and played for the Kings of the world. Shinji's father, sister, and grandfather, were all musicians. They all played flutes too, that was the family tradition. But Shinji didn't want to play for any king. He believed music was for everyone, and not just for royalty. So he set off on a quest to play to the people of Quentia, and though everyone knew he had talent, no one had money to spare and pay him. He came across us bandits walking through one of the villages one day, and offered to play for us. After he did, we asked if he wanted to accompany us since he was poor and didn't earn enough money to live on. So he joined us, and slowly went from just a flute player, to being an actual bandit. That was only after we escaped from jail though."
"You all have such interesting history. It amazes me how plain and boring my life is, compared to you all. I hate to admit this, but as a princess of a royal family, we all always taught to believe that we have the best lives, and all commoners have boring non-important lives. We are taught to think they all wish they were us. But the life of a royal is boring." The Princess glared at the fire, feeling resentment build up.
"You do what you're told," She sulked, "are waited on, and have very few friends. Then you must be brought into society and are expected to marry and continue the family line. That is my life, up until being kidnapped. It's funny, but I have a feeling the next eight days will be more thrilling then the rest of my life back home."
"But Naoko, imagine my life." Suki mumbled, "Since I was a very little girl, I was given lessons and instructed on how to wait hand on foot on a princess."
"I mean," she added a second later, "I do love being your friend and being able to serve you, but to the rest of the world, I am a servant, and once you move on and marry, I will be sent to serve some other princess, somewhere else. Who knows if they'll be as pleasant as you are? Kana had served two other princesses before you, and she told Akiko and me that you have been the only friendly one, and the others were cruel. That is what I have to look forward to in life. You are seventeen, and it's only a matter of time before you are married and I'm given to another princess to serve."
"Suki, you don't think you will lead that sort of life, do you? Once I marry whatever noble gentlemen my father picks for me, I had no intension of letting you go. Yes I know, I will not be in need of ladies-in-waiting because my husband will provide new servants, but I was thinking of convincing me father of just letting you go."
Suki, Mikitao and Yukio all gave her doubtful looks.
"Naoko, I know you will plead my case but, you know you won't be able to win." Suki sighed.
"I must agree with her Princess, as noble as your intensions are, your father does not sound like someone to take the advice of his children. I even would go as far to say that when you two go back, Suki might be in trouble." Mikitao said.
"In trouble?" Naoko echoed.
"Yes, the warrior is right. It is likely the King will blame her, as well as your other two maids for not protecting you. The other two will be in trouble for leaving off, and she will get blamed for allowing them to bring you to the hands of the enemy without putting up a fight." Yukio pointed out.
"No, he couldn't! How could Suki put up a fight against the three of you!" Naoko shook her head in protest.
"I'm sorry Naoko, but they are right. Servants at the palace get blamed for everything. Your father will be agree."
"But what will happen to you?" The Princess' eyes grew big with fear.
"I may be whipped, as a servant's punishment usually goes. It would be the first time for me." Suki sniffed.
"Oh no, they couldn't. I'll protest."
"It'll be of no use."
"There is a alternative, you know." Yukio began.
"Like what?" Naoko, Suki and Mikitao all asked at once.
"Well, the Honrakonese Prince only asked for the Princess. You could always just stay with us…"
"Ryo would never allow it." Mikitao said on his instinct.
"I don't see why. The Princess is the one the Prince wants. Suki can always stay with us, and then she can go and visit Naoko anytime she wants without having to be her servant. Besides, we are four bandits, not one. If Ryo doesn't like it, it doesn't matter if you, Shinji and I decide for it. He'll lose the vote."
"Stay with you four?" Suki asked, clearly bemused by the thought.
"Yes, I know you have not known us long, but I do not think it would be fair for you to punished. Nor do I think it would be fair for you to have to live on knowing you'll be traded among princess for the rest of your life."
"Yukio, you forget, we've never taken a women with us." Mikitao went on.
"You have eight days to decide." Yukio ignored Mikitao and smiled all the same. "If by then you wish to stay with us, I'll be the first to welcome you. Things are always more beautiful, with every extra sunray that shines through the branches of life."
- - -
End of ch.o6
A/N: Special thanks to Necia and like I'd tell you, you two are officially my favourite reviewers for this story. :)
I've worked it out, and found that this story is going to be eighteen chapters. (It's over 50,000 words long) …anyway, we're only on chapter 6, so forget about that for now.
Gah! I was looking into Japanese names yesterday and I found that "Rei", which was the original name for "Ryo" can indeed be a male as well as a female name. It means "rule/order/law" for a male, so now I'm stuck wondering if I should change his name back to Rei, or leave it as Ryo.
As to the princess question at the beginning, really, I think every girl can sort of relate to one, don't you think? At one point I really thought I was like Mulan, but now I think Belle is me for sure.
-rayko.