Yo, I'm back. Sorry for the wait, my beta was procrastinating for a while, so after about a week I've just decided to post this without beta-ing. This chapter is probably riddled with small errors because of that, but what can ya do?

I would like to thank the guest for the review, it really means a lot to me and it gave me the motivation to finish this chapter.


Kurth was not having a very good day.

First of all, the weather in Daein was absolutely horrible; cold, icy winds constantly whipped around him, chilling him to the bone even when wrapped completely in his cloak. Many of the tales Ena had told him of her time in Daein had mentioned the climate, and he had foolishly believed he was prepared for it.

The first mistake he had made was assuming that it was not actually very cold, and that many of her complaints were because Ena was rather thin, so he had only a small amount of thick clothing. Due to its admittedly desert-like climate, and that it was one of the closest countries to the equator, the people of Goldoa were extremely unprepared for any weather that was not hot and humid; Kurth included.

His second mistake was not attempting to speak to any travelers during his time in both Gallia and Crimea. A great many people on Tellius tended to spend much of their lives traveling between countries, as opposed to settling down in one place, so it was logical that there would be someone somewhat knowledgeable on Daein that could properly inform him of how ill prepared he was. But the Goldoan prince's shyness had won out yet again, and he had not spoken to many people before his arrival in Daein.

After arriving in the aforementioned land he had quickly purchased a Crimean made wool sweater to wear in a feeble attempt to block out the cold. It was marginally successful. Two days into his march through Daein he had deduced that the best way for him to stay warm was to keep moving, which suited him just fine. He still needed to single out his sister from the population of an entire country, which was a tall order.

He had asked around to see if anyone had seen a person with the general appearance of his sister, and had been told that the person he was looking for was the late King Ashnard's wife—he had heard rumors that Almedha had married the king for some unknown reason, so that narrowed his search down a small portion, but not much.

And then the second part of his bad day had happened. A small unit of Bengion soldiers patrolling near a small town had arrested and jailed him for no reason! All he had wanted was to enter the inn and ask for information on his sister's whereabouts, but they had snatched him off the street on account that he was 'suspicious'. The gall that those men had was astounding.

To make things worse they had thrown him in a tiny cell with two merchants that he recognized from Ike's ship that had beached itself on the coast of Goldoa during the Mad King's War. The older, brown haired one did not speak to him during their confinement, and Kurth was fine with that. She creeped him out for some reason, and he was not about to talk to her in an attempt to cure himself of it.

The smaller, lavender-haired girl on the other hand had only waited a few minutes to approach him, slowly walking across the cell and taking a seat on the stone floor next to him.

"Do you have any food?" she asked quietly, looking down at the floor. "They haven't fed us for a while and I'm starving."

Kurth smiled. He remembered Ena saying something about a young Beorc girl in Ike's army that was obsessed with food; it seemed like he had found her.

"I might." He quickly rummaged through his bag; if he remembered correctly he had some bread from his previous meal somewhere near the bottom, as well as some cheese and meat. After a short few seconds of searching he discovered the food and handed it to the girl. "Here you go."

"Thanks!" She smiled hugely, practically radiating happiness at receiving food from a stranger. "I'm Ilyana," she said in between bites of bread, "What's your name?"

"I am Kurth," he said, reaching idly into his cloak and playing with the hilt of his dagger. During his travels through Gallia and Crimea, Kurth had decided that he would be safe using his real name, rather than an alias. It wasn't as if anyone that he was likely to meet outside of Goldoa knew it anyway.

Ilyana continued to stuff food into her mouth as quickly as she could, only stopping to sandwich the meat and cheese in between some bread. Kurth could have sworn that the lavender-haired mage was somehow duplicating her food as she ate it, because there was no way he'd had that much in his bag before.

Some minutes of eating later, Ilyana had finished whatever arbitrary amount of food she had allotted herself, wrapping the food up in a small cloth and passing it back to Kurth. "What did you get put in here for?" she asked.

"Asking questions." he rolled his eyes; not that she could see it of course, his cloak was still on in an attempt to hide the Laguz birthmark on his forehead. "They thought I was suspicious. How about you?"

"Aimee and I," Ilyana nodded her head at the older female in the room, who still had yet to speak, "Were part of a caravan of merchants traveling through the countryside; business was booming after the Mad King's War, you could put anything up for sale in Daein and somebody would buy it! Anyway, the stupid guards accosted us as we were selling some fabric to a nice farmer, apparently we were 'breaking the fragile economy of Daein as they do their best to recover from the unfortunate side effects of the war.'" She sighed and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

Kurth nodded in commiseration of her plight before craning his neck to take a look outside the bars of their cell. There was only one man walking the halls, a seemingly bored red-clad Bengion soldier, which was very advantageous for the prisoners. Even growing up as the prince of a not very military oriented country Kurth knew some things about general military operations, much of it being learned from books, so the lack of guards was quite telling for him.

Bengion's high ranking military commanders were clearly not a part of this occupation, no self respecting general would ever allow his men to be that sloppy. Kurth had not seen many guards in the Daein countryside, only large groups at important towns.

But it was too early to attempt an escape, utilizing the excellent opening, Kurth decided. Only a fool would do so mere hours after getting thrown in prison. The lack of guards could very well be a trick to get the prisoners to try to escape, giving them a very good reason to execute said prisoners.

There was only one thing to do in Kurth's mind, bide his time and plan. He bade a quick goodnight—or whatever time it was, he really had no idea—to Ilyana and, rolling the edge of his cloak into a pillow, drifted off to sleep.


Perhaps Kurth had given the Bengion guards too much credit. He had given them the benefit of the doubt regarding their military decisions, after all, he was only somewhat knowledgeable on the subject. But, after two days in prison, where he'd spent much of his time observing his jailers, he'd come to the conclusion that they were simply imcompitent.

They only ever stationed one man, sometimes none, in the cells, guarding the prisoners. They'd not even searched him for weapons when they had thrown him in; he still had his dagger, and, after asking Ilyana, had learned that the mage also had her thunder tome. Even worse Kurth had learned that they did not try to prevent the prisoners from hearing anything; as evidenced by the, admittedly very loud, conversation that he'd overheard one night.

It had something to do with a group known as 'The Dawn Brigade' that, according to the commander of the prison, were causing trouble in the capital, Nevassa. They were supposedly harassing the Bengion army, and were also impossible to catch. The second part was largely due to the support they had gained from the Daein people seeing them as liberators fighting off their oppressors.

The Bengion army had, the day after Kurth had joined Ilyana in prison, started ramping up their numbers and patrols in an attempt to catch the elusive Dawn Brigade. While that should have been a bad thing for Kurth in his cell, it also meant that more and more guards were being relegated to duties outside the prison itself, making for more chances of escape.

For the last two days Kurth had been making plans for his eventual escape—he had been through at least twenty rough drafts of plans before finally deciding on one—and he had to say that his plan was simple. Simple plans were always the best, more complicated ones with many layers in place might seem like a good idea, but they usually only added difficulty for minimal gain.

First; either convince Ilyana to blast the door open with her thunder tome—not very optimal due to the loud noise that it would produce—or break the lock with his dagger, it was a very old and fragile lock. From there he would need to take down only one guard to exit the dungeon itself; while Kurth did not particularly appreciate violence, it would be necessary.

Second; follow the same route that he had been led through to enter the dungeon, but backwards, and make it to the front entrance, removing any and all guards that got in his way.

The plan was not perfect, but Kurth wasn't a professional soldier or tactician, so it was as good as he was going to get. As cliche as it was, his plan was to execute his strategy at midnight, aiming to use the darkness to his advantage. Unfortunately, he did not have any knowledge of the guards' watch shifts, so he would be going in mostly blind from that angle.

Just as he was finalizing his plan there was a large amount of movement outside the cell, the door getting shoved harshly open and two girls being thrown in. They both stood up rather slowly, rubbing various parts of their bodies that were undoubtedly in pain from the rough landing.

The first one had long silver hair—something Kurth had never seen before, he'd lived quite a long time compared to Beorc—and was clad in an off-red tunic. Strangely enough, she had a bootlace tied around her wrist, who did that? Something also felt subtly off about her to Kurth, nothing he could identify, but still there.

The other had black hair, much shorter than her companion's, that barely reached down to the tops of her shoulders. She was also a devotee of Ashera if her robes were anything to go by.

"I hope the others escaped," the silver-haired one said to her companion, a worried look clear across her features.

"I am sure they are fine, I have faith in them," the priestess replied calmly.

"Pardon me," Ilyana's merchant friend, Aimee, if Kurth remembered correctly, spoke up from the corner of the cell, "But do you know your arm is bleeding?"

"Hm?" The girl looked down at her arm. "Oh, I didn't even notice. I've just been so distracted."

"Unfortunately you won't find any vulneraries to heal you in this rat hole… here try wrapping your arm in this cloth."

"Thank you very much. I don't believe we've met. I'm Micaiah," the newly named Micaiah said as she wound the cloth around her arm.

"I'm Aimee," the older woman replied, "And I've been a lucky guest in this dungeon for quite some time."

Kurth held back a snort. 'Quite some time' was an understatement, according to Ilyana's tale the two merchants had been locked in the tiny cell for at least a month, maybe more.

"On behalf of myself and my snoozing friend over there, Ilyana, and her likewise snoozing friend, it's very nice to meet you, Micaiah." Aimee finished.

Ilyana shifted in her sleep, emitting a small noise from her mouth that sounded suspiciously like the word 'food.' Kurth didn't move, retaining the illusion that he was also sleeping.

"Why are you two in here?" Micaiah asked, taking a seat on the cold stone floor.

"I wish I knew!" The merchant exclaimed. "I was part of a merchant caravan with Ilyana here, en route to the next market day. When we arrived here, we were brought to this charming prison against our will. Now, we await "the general's pleasure."

"That isn't good. How unfortunate," the still unnamed priestess said, folding her hands together.

It was at that moment Kurth decided that he should probably speak up, alerting the others to his presence. He had some Olivi grass in his bag for emergencies, and some could probably be used to help heal the silver-haired girl. "Um."

"So you are awake," Aimee said, swiveling her head in his direction. "If you weren't so friendly with Ilyana earlier I'd be wondering if you even spoke our language."

"If you wish, you may use this salve on your wound. It's an infusion made of Olivi grass," he told Micaiah, completely ignoring Aimee's gaze.

"Olivi grass? Hm, I've never heard of it. Are you sure it's safe?" The merchant questioned.

"It's unquestionably safe," Kurth confirmed, "And effective."

"Thank you most kindly," Micaiah interrupted their little argument, "I'll try it."

After walking quickly across the short distance in between him and Micaiah, Kurth handed her the medicine and moved back to his seat.

"Well aren't you the trusting one," Aimee said snidely. "Are you honestly comfortable applying strange medicine to your wounds?"

Kurth rolled his eyes. Olivi grass had been used by the Laguz since before his birth, and was one of the most valuable things a Laguz could have. It had many uses; from simple medicine, as it was being used here; to food, including one of Kurth's favorite meals.

One of the many reasons why the Laguz valued it so highly was due to the great number of essential nutrients that consuming it gave; it even helped Laguz transform faster because of a mineral that it contained. It was the only known instance of said mineral that was edible.

"I am. I know it will work. Thank you for sharing your medicine," Micaiah thanked him.

A simple nod was Kurth's only response. He did not do well with praise.

The five of them sat in silence for some minutes before Micaiah perked up and looked at the cell door. "I heard something!"

All of them followed Micaiah's gaze to see a green haired young man drop from the ceiling directly outside the barred door, landing lightly in a way that suggested that was not his first time doing so.

Micaiah leapt to her feet and ran to the door, grabbing the bars tightly. "Sothe!"

"Are you all right, Micaiah?"

She brushed off his question. "I'm fine. How did you get in here? I hope it wasn't too dangerous."

"It was easy. I walked past the guards, they were useless." Sothe smirked. "Now, let's get you out of there."

He drew a set of lockpicks out of his pocket and inserted them into the lock, jiggling them in the way that only those with the ability understand. It took him a few seconds to pick the lock, reinforcing Kurth's idea that it was old and ineffective. A loud scrape was audible to all those in the vicinity when Sothe pulled the door open, garnering a worried look from Micaiah.

"It's fine," Sothe reassured her. "The rest of the group took care of all the guards before I entered the dungeon."

All of the prisoners minus Kurth and Micaiah filed one-by-one out the door, following Sothe's directions to the exit.

"If it wouldn't be much of a bother," Kurth spoke up hesitantly, "I was hoping I could come with you, if you'll have me."

Micaiah smiled radiantly. "Of course! The more the merrier!"

He nodded in return and left the cell with Micaiah in his heels. The bright glare of the sun forced him to hide behind his hand when he exited the prison and entered the courtyard, but it was worth it; he was finally free.


I am sorry to announce that I will not be finishing this story; I no longer have it in me to finish (most likely because I came up with another story idea that I like a lot, but can't write yet). I will be finishing up the outline of the other idea that I have and then will be hopefully writing a couple of chapters before I upload it here. That being said, while I am finishing the outline I have a few oneshot ideas that I will probably be writing; and one will hopefully be up soon™.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who read this story, I will be back.

- Darth_Darthius