AN: If you're going to bitch in the review about me writing a chapter for a side story…don't. Unless you're willing to pay for me to focus on a specific story, you'll have to wait on my schedule and my inspiration. And of course…discord members get early access.

Just remember:

Tom goes to a bar that is serving free beer and appreciates it.

Philip is a choosing beggar. He goes to a bar that is serving free beer and complains that it isn't the beer he wanted, and he isn't willing to pay for what he wants.

Be like Tom, everybody likes Tom because he appreciates what is freely given to him. Philip is an entitled choosing beggar. Everybody hates Philip. Don't be like Philip.

…Kami Miyako…Climb's 'Quarters'…

Zesshi sat there, staring at Climb while not really seeing him. Climb didn't move. He was actually afraid of what would happen if he did. He hadn't known her long, but this didn't seem like her.

Finally, she stood and walked purposefully to his bathroom where the chamber pot sat, he could hear her picking it up from the ground, and then the sound of vomiting reached his ears. It was quite a while, then he heard it being set back down on the floor and she returned with even steps to where she had been seated and sat back down again.

He looked at her face, and the blank expression that had become horrified, now became a mask of rage. Her fists clenched so tightly that her entire body was shaking.

Finally, after several minutes, she seemed to get hold of herself.

The mask of indifference and boredom returned, and Zesshi looked at Climb and smiled very sweetly, it was completely out of place on her face. "Thank you Climb, for bringing this terrible oversight to my attention…" she inclined her head to him, reached out and took her teacup, and drank the entire cup in one swift motion before replacing it on its little plate, "I just realized I have somewhere I have to be…right this second…and it is going to take me all day and probably all night, but I will come see you again tomorrow. You have my…gratitude." She said, and then stood and quietly walked out, leaving him alone.

It was perhaps the single strangest interaction he'd ever had in his entire life…and given that he was friends with a giant hammer wielding woman who was always trying to drag him off to bed, well that was saying something.

He spent the rest of the day more or less alone in practice, doing his futile best to smash down the barrier between himself and progress towards his goal.

Of course the day wasn't left totally without human interaction, eventually someone knocked at the door, "I'm here." Climb said from the bathroom and jokingly added, "As if I could be anywhere else?"

The door opened and a young elf girl entered holding a tray. She was wearing what amounted to a long potato sack with holes for head and arms, and no shoes.

"Your meal, prisoner 24601." She said softly as she entered, turned, closed and locked the door behind her…and then as he came around the corner, she saw that he was fully armored and holding a sword. She dropped the tray in shock and tried to turn and go for the door, she started to let out a scream as she fumbled for the key.

Climb's eyes widened in surprise at her reaction, and he dropped his weapon and rushed over and put his hand on the door. "It's OK!" He said, "I'm not trying to escape! I'm not going to hurt you! Please calm down!" His voice was alarmed, if someone heard her, if someone thought he was trying to escape with Zesshi Zetsumi gone…it could go very badly not only for him, but for Princess Renner as well, and he couldn't let that happen.

She tried tugging against the door, but it stood firm as the stone wall it was attached to. Finally, she regained her senses as he did not move to escape or to attack, and she stepped away, keeping a few comfortable feet of distance between herself and this…unusual prisoner.

"I'm sorry." She said softly with her head lowered, and then she realized what she'd done with the tray and began cursing as she scurried to clean it up.

She knelt on the floor and began by turning the tray upright and then putting the bowl and other dishes on it. Climb knelt next to her and began to assist in the effort. As he did so, she jerked back involuntarily.

"It's OK." Climb said, looking over at her as he picked up one of a number of biscuits. "I'm just helping you out."

She looked at him suspiciously but remained silent as they cleaned up the mess, and then set the tray on the table.

"Well I suppose some stayed in the bowl." Climb said with a shrug.

The girl went red faced, and Climb got a better look at her, the potato sack that passed for clothing…had probably been a cheaper sack to begin with. Her eyes were green and narrow, her ears had been…cut, so that their elven length had been denied her, as if to cut away her heritage. Her body was waifish and small. To say she was being well fed would have been a bald-faced lie.

He got up and sat at the table. "Thank you for the food." He said politely and she looked at him like his head was on backwards.

"Ahhh…would you like some of it?" He asked.

A brief flash of hate passed over her face before her neutral expression returned. "Oh, that is what you want sir." She said, and she lowered herself to her hands and knees.

He was mystified by what she was doing, too much so for a moment to even question it, and then he saw her start to lick the spilled porridge from the stone floor.

Climb was equal parts embarrassed and alarmed, "No!" He said suddenly, "Please, get up, that isn't what I meant!" She looked up at him in surprise.

She stopped licking up the spilled food but looked up at him uncertainly, not shifting from her posture. Climb got up, she flinched again as he came near, but he slowed his motions to make her more at ease, touched her shoulders, and gently drew her up to her feet.

"I meant, sit at the table with me, and perhaps have a biscuit or two. You haven't been eating well, that is obvious." He said kindly.

She didn't speak as she looked at him, she did, however, finally meet his eyes, and held them as if she was searching for some sign of cruelty or mockery. To show that he wasn't, he gently guided her with one hand over to a chair opposite his own, and slowly with the most gentle press of his fingers on her bare shoulder, guided her to be seated.

When she sat, he reclaimed his own seat, and he handed her one of the biscuits. She held it uncertainly, like she wasn't sure what to do with it, but her eyes stared at it with ravenous hunger.

Climb took a bite out of his own and gestured with his free hand for her to proceed. She looked hesitant for a moment more and then shoved the entire biscuit into her mouth and began chewing it as fast as she could, as if she feared it would be taken from her.

He looked across the table at her and, afraid she might choke on it, he poured a cup of water from a pitcher and slid the cup across the table to her. "Don't choke." Climb said with some concern in his voice.

She managed something like a smile through her stuffed out chipmunk cheeks and gradually began to swallow, darting her hands out to grab the cup and seizing it in a dual handed grip before she drank it down as well, ensuring that she heeded his advice and did not choke to death at the table.

She still didn't speak, she just eyed another biscuit hungrily and sat with her hands in her lap. Climb looked at her cockeyed and gestured to the plate. "Take another. Just…chew slower this time OK?" He suggested.

She snatched another, but this time she only bit off half of it and chewed in silence. When she was finished she took up the cup in one hand and drank the remainder of the cup with a satisfied sigh.

She looked at another biscuit, the plate had held five of them, Climb had finished one and was on his second, while she had wolfed down two. She obviously badly wanted the third, and so Climb just slid the plate over to her.

She took it slowly and ate with smaller bites, and when she was done, he sat with his hands intertwined on the table across from her, he finally spoke. "What is your name?" He asked.

"Meat." She said.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any meat up here, they gave me no way to store food…"

She sighed. "No, my name, what they call me, is 'Meat'."

"Oh." He said and thought for a moment. "So…what 'was' your name?" He asked. "I'm guessing it wasn't 'meat' before you ended up here." He said softly.

"I 'was' Aorli." She said softly.

Climb was about to ask how she'd come to be here, but he blushed and looked away as he remembered Zesshi's reaction, it couldn't be a good story.

"You want to know how I got here." She said, her voice was neither cruel nor kind, simply bare of emotion beyond a hint of sadness.

"I won't ask it." He said. "Forgive my shallow curiosity, I know it can't be easy to say." He added.

"You're a nice one." She said with a smile that, when she was free, must have been truly radiant.

"I wasn't much different than you once. I haven't forgotten what it meant to feel like nothing." He said.

She met his eyes at the sadness in his voice and said, "I'll tell you what, you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine." She said.

"Fine. Fair enough." He said.

"I don't know who my parents are." Climb began, "I never knew their names and I don't remember their faces, I vaguely remember wandering the streets of the kingdom when I was very small, and eating garbage to stay alive. I remember the dogs I used to sleep within the alleys, they took care of me, people didn't. I guess I would say everything was just…very unfortunate. I barely felt sadness, it's just that things 'were' and it was unfortunate that it was so. Of course a child can't go on like that forever, and a particularly cold rain seemed like it was finally going to end my unfortunate life, so I laid myself down in an alley…I think I was five or six at the time, and just waited for the unfortunate end."

Climb poured himself another cup of water and drank half of it, "Then a carriage was riding past me and stopped, and an angel of gold stepped out from it, she had me brought inside, and took me to her home, and she personally nursed me back to health. I became her companion first, and then her bodyguard in the palace. I had been saved that day by the princess. She had me cared for, taught, trained, and I have dedicated myself to her ever since. She is why I'm here now." He said quietly. "As long as I am a good hostage, she will be safe."

Aorli sat for a moment as she took all that in, then she said with a shake of her head, "No she won't."

Before he could ask her what she meant, she began to tell her story. "I was born in the capitol, but my mother had to leave it shortly after I came along. I don't know who my father is exactly, she has always refused to say, she only took me as far away from the capitol as we could go. That always made me think my father was the king himself, but I have no way to know. She moved us to a town not too far from the Theocracy border, and things were fine there, I grew up for many years in relative contentment. But when war broke out with the Theocracy, all that changed, they besieged our town for two weeks before offering terms of peace."

Her face turned stark and bitter, "They did not keep those terms, we were supposed to be safe from harm, they promised to spare us...they spared us from death, but not from worse than death. A man named Justicar got his way, he cut off part of my ears and had all of the females put to use while our men could only weep and cry and rage in their chains. He had us sold all over the Theocracy. I never did see my mother again, I don't know if she's alive or dead, I hope she's dead, she'd be better off. I ended up getting sold a few times until I found myself working the prisons. I slop food to the inmates, my master says it does the prisoners good to know that they're better than someone, that it keeps the tensions down…but I think he just likes the company at night." Her voice was equal parts bitter and matter of fact as she finished her story.

After a brief pause she said, "That is why I say 'no she's not'", her head shook grimly, "Their promises are only as good as what is profitable or what is convenient, if they think the one you're here for is a liability, they'll have her killed, and you too most likely."

Climb felt himself shaking at the notion. Princess Renner had told him on one of her secret visits not to worry, that both she and he were perfectly safe.

He calmed himself down. "That may be true, but I have absolute confidence in her safety nonetheless." He said cryptically. "But…why are you here? The one who usually comes to me is Zesshi?" He asked.

"I don't know, I was only told to come deliver some food to a special prisoner kept in isolation." She said with a casual shrug.

"I see, Zesshi would permit me to leave to run the grounds and get some exercise, I don't suppose you've received any word on that, did you?" He asked.

"None." She said, "I only brought what I was told. You're much…nicer than I expected, you haven't even hit me yet…or anything else, you even let me have some of your food after I stupidly dropped most of it. Why are you being so nice? I'm not going to help you escape, if that's what you're hoping for." Aorli said to him with uncertainty in her voice.

"I'm not looking to escape." He replied, "And it is how my princess would want me to behave, she's the Golden Princess, the shining jewel of the kingdom, she is the kindest of souls, and I would sully her name if I behaved badly towards anyone." He said firmly. "I want to be an agent of justice, her justice, so I can't be anything less than virtuous."

"You're the first nice human I've ever met." She said in a disbelieving voice.

"It's who I want to be." Climb said in response, "Everyone can be who they want to be, if they're willing to act the way such a person would act, I want to be good, so I behave as someone good. I want to be responsible, so I act responsibly. I am the sum of my actions and my choices, and so is everyone else, some are…complicated, but I'm not. I guess that makes me a little predictable, but I can live with that." Climb replied.

"Could I ask you a favor?" Climb asked.

"What would you like?" She asked curiously.

"Could you ask permission for me to be escorted on to the grounds, I would like to go for a run today." He said.

"The jailor would never…" She began, and he raised a finger to stop her.

"Seek permission from Cardinal Raymond." He said. "He knows about what I'm permitted to do, and though he probably won't allow me to be alone, I think he will provide an escort at least. Tell him…" Climb paused and thought for a moment, "…Tell him that dogs need their exercise." He chuckled a little bit, and Aorli stood up.

"I'll do it." She said a little bit fearfully. "I've never so much as seen a cardinal…but…"

"Don't worry, I spoke with Cardinal Raymond, he is…strange, but he does not seem to me to be a bad man, at least as people here go." Climb said.

She left and locked the door behind her, leaving him alone, he had plenty of time then to bathe himself, and sit down and read for quite some time. Several hours later, there was a knock at the door and a very large guard appeared. Behind him, Climb could see the waifish form of the underfed Aorli.

"I've been instructed to see you to the grounds below to run laps until you collapse." The barrel-chested monster looking fellow in front of him said.

"Thank you." Climb replied, and he snatched up his water skin and followed them both down the stairs, the fellow didn't say anything else, everything about him said that he had very little to say to anyone.

Moments later Climb was running the courtyard as he had before, while his temporary guard and the slave Aorli stood by waiting for him to finish, he'd run a dozen or so laps and he'd finally tired himself out to the point of collapse, and proved it by falling down on the grass. He rolled onto his back and reached for his waterskin, only to find it beyond where his hand could grasp.

Aorli, whether by training as a slave or kind impulse in gratitude for the decency he had earlier shown to her, grabbed it for him and crouched over where he lay and helped his head up with one hand while tilting the water vessel towards his lips so he could drink. It was only then that he noticed that her face was badly bruised, her right eye was almost completely shut from the swelling and there was a large dark mark where something, presumably a fist, had struck her.

He had the sense to finish drinking the water she'd offered before he got up, but when he did he looked at the guard that had been set to monitor him. "Thank you for your patience," he said, "But there is one problem."

The guard looked at him like he'd shat on his boots and then rolled his eyes. "What? I have better things to do."

"Did you do that to her?" Climb asked and pointed to Aorli's eye.

"What if I did?" The guard asked smugly. "She deserved it."

"You shouldn't hit her like that, she wasn't trying to make your life hard, she just did something I asked her to do, she didn't hurt you, or steal from you, or attack you, so what'd you hit her for?" Climb asked as his anger built.

"Does anyone need a reason to hit an elf bitch?" He snorted, "She's just Meat, what do you care?" He asked and spat on her face just for emphasis.

Aorli didn't even move to wipe it off.

And that was when Climb punched the guard full in the face, his helmet was an open-faced design with a simple nose guard, which meant a punch to the cheek or the jaw would still hurt like hell.

When the guard fell, he started kicking. Climb might have been 'capped at gold' as the adventurer's said, but he would have been counted as being among the strongest of the gold ranked adventurers, and he kicked like it. The guard he'd hit might have been large, but he was taken off guard and did not have the experience or training Climb did.

Climb kicked him in the face till he stopped moving, and then he turned to a stunned Aorli, and he wiped the spit from her cheek with one finger. What he did not notice was that this action drew the attention of several guards who had been coming around a nearby corner and up the street into the courtyard, and they responded to an attack on one of their own.

The brawl was short and brutal, Climb was no match for a half a dozen such men, and before he knew what had hit him, he lay coughing on the ground as he was kicked and stomped. They might have killed him, had Aorli not shouted…he didn't quite hear what, something about the Cardinal, and then the butt of a spear connected to his forehead again and he was unconscious.

He woke up much later in his bed, stripped of basically everything, with a towel over his forehead and Aorli wiping some blood away from his face and rinsing the cloth off in a bowl.

When he looked at her, he saw she was sporting a second black eye and that the first one had been 'punched shut' completely.

AN: Well I hope you like this chapter. Assuming you do, of course reviews are welcome, as are charitable donations to bdgiving dot org.