A/N: Hey, guys. I know, I know. It's been awhile. With both some personal issues and a novel I recently made completed, I haven't come around to writing this in quite awhile.
And to make things worse, I'm not going to be submitting a chapter tomorrow. Today, I was feeling a little off. Crummy, in fact. I had a sore throat that made it hurt to swallow, some nausea, a headache, tender lymph nodes, yada yada yada. Welp, I went to the doctor, and turns out, I have strep throat. We caught it early, though, so I should be back in two days.
This might also be why the writing quality isn't quite up to par as before. Also, I have a little bit of trouble showing vs. telling (as in I show too much instead of too little), and I'm trying to work on that.
Oh, well. See you all in two days!

...

A smile, with mischief- not quite evil- on the fringes, hinged on Lancer's face. Steed puttered, puttered with an impatient horses' hoofbeat, on the ground. Ralsei hooded himself, the outfit ink-black, darker than the sky, even. Ready to recite one of his poems in order to welcome whoever was coming in. Who in the world was going to come in? Would it be someone like Sans, who would bring some sort of grand mix of messianic blathering and genuine magnanimity? Would it be an envoy from the Surface, hoping to make peace and relations and whatnot? Or would it be someone… someone strange. Someone pernicious. Someone loving.
Someone who never moved their hands to their belt. Someone who wouldn't curse him out whenever he cried. Someone…
Ah, forget about it. He didn't deserve any of that. He behaved too badly. He ate too much food, was too much of a mischief- maker. He didn't deserve that.
Two figures, one smaller, one taller and looming, but still undeservedly the same size, leaked their inky shadows in the distance, the plants and other background noise seeming to wilt away. For a moment, Lancer thought it was just a mirror. That no one had come down, not really, and it was a tilted, twisted reflection of the two princes. Just to test, he stretched out his arm. It dangled, stretched back and forth in the tangled webs of light and shadow, but what sent a chill of excitement down Lancer's soul was that none of the two figures moved their arms when he did.
In a burst of reason, which came few and far between, Lancer choked the engine off. His shoulder blades shuddered as he moved back, shoved back Steed, darted back into the pole in one jump, almost screaming in childish glee. The reason had died, its last command for Lancer to stretch out his head and see the newcomers.
They weren't adults, as far as he could tell. The way they stood, their height, the way that they wrapped themselves in Ralsei's tale, an angel in delight, told him this. They weren't children, either. The one to the left stood motionless, silent, the way his father would in a thrashed heartbeat of stillness once Lancer came home. The one to the right held...an axe. An axe? Jeez! Some of the soldiers were scared to get ahold of one of those!
"I am a prince, Lighteners, the dark prince foretold in the prophecy, but… I am afraid I don't have any subjects."
Lancer took this blow full in the chin, almost wincing. But no matter how obstinate Ralsei could or wanted or hoped to be, the two couldn't see him like this. Then, they'd just walk away, leaving the belt hanging over him, ready, watching, steady…
Lighteners? So that's who they were! Another secret, kept right next to Sans in the filing cabinets of Lancer's secrets, bare and locked, bare yet locked. Another group to hide, another group to keep safe. He had to keep him safe, keep them happy. But the hotel could only hold them so long. So they had to be held at the castle if they wanted to be safe. Where would his father never find them, never so much as peek at their faces…
The answer chained Lancer in the stomach. Digging in every time he thought of it.
The sound of Steed's engine, growling to life, drowned this answer out.
Time for the show, the grand illusion to begin.

Hours passed, and the script that Ralsei and Lancer had practiced finished, the improvisation ended. The two had introduced themselves. Lancer had shown then a few of his puzzles, fought them for sport. Try as he might to hide it, one of the attacks still smarted in his arm. They then moved to small talk, the greyed jump that friendships must hurl themselves over at some point, that every conceivable relationship had to.
Well, one of them did any sort of talking. The other remained silent, and whether it was blissful or just a little annoying, or whether it was threatening, Lancer couldn't quite tell. The one who couldn't speak was Kris, who seemed to pull himself back and forth with an automaton's motivation. The one who could was named Suzie.
"You're a LADY?!"
"Yep. I'm a lady. F'you're not happy with it, then you can kiss my ass, bud." She picked her teeth with her axeblade, but Lancer didn't know for sure whether it was for show or if she was fluctuating some show of honesty.
Try as she might, Lancer still noticed the slip of blood coming out of her lip. It was what Lancer noticed most about her, at least in the hour they had been together. She could be doing the civilest things, the most trivial. Stroking a puppy, helping out the homeless, buying a new dress. Whatever they were doing, there was always a certain spoke to her voice, the way she snapped when she moved, a trap poised to shut.
Lancer smiled, if smiling any more was possible. "Or 'kiss my axe.'"
Susie gave Lancer a playful punch in the arm, laughed a hearty, gruff laugh from the inside of her chest, wiped the dribble from her face. Ralsei chuckled, but not loud enough for anyone to hear besides the few fireflies flitting about right beside. him. Kris said nothing, but then again, he never said anything.
"Suzie?"
"Yeah?"
"S'okay if I call you Suze?"
"If I can call you Lance and drop the Your Highness and Your Majesty and all that bullcrap."
"Sure, by all means! I hate people calling me that anyway.
So…"
Lancer rummaged towards Susie. She backed away at first, but after a few moments, they diffused, water over a sheet of paper, and they were just close enough to be heard, just far enough to avoid panic.
A whisper this time. "What's up with Kris? He's awfully quiet. Should I try using sign language or…"
Susie laughed a little too heartily for the others, and Ralsei asked what was the matter. Susie had to shoo him away for a little while.
"Nah, Lance. Kris is just...like that. He can talk. He answers questions in school and crap like that. He's just… I dunno. Reticent."
"Say what?"
"Just a big fancy word meaning he doesn't want to talk a lot. Or… I dunno… like someone's forcing him not to?"
"Who knows?"
Sans might. Oh, gosh, Sans might. Sans… what if he's… I've gotta get to him after this!... not now not now not now… not now...
A few seconds of silence, needed silence, augmented by Kris' autonomous need to keep his mouth shut.
"Agh!"
Susie's outfit had lost a sequin, Lancer catching it just before it hit the ground, scraping his arm where scabs were just forming over the… he gulped before he let himself think of it… belt whips.
"My dad's gonna kill me for this! God, I should've gotten another…"
"Oh, jeez, oh, jeez… man, if that were me, I'd get thrashed for that!"
The others looked at him, eyes forming into pools, and then beads, staring, staring. The silence grew, grew into an idle monster in that dark world, grew into a fog that froze everything inside of Lancer's thoughts. But then humor came. Humor, with its fire, melting it with a hot plate. Then a blowtorch. The fog itself became reticent, that big word, that too- grand word, retreating, retreating, retreating...
"I, uh, I mean… hohoho! I'm gonna thrash you guys with this next one!"
He showed Suzie to his puzzles, a little bit more spring to his step, a little bit more sprightliness to his smile.