-2-
It was windy afternoon at Dragon Valley.
A little hound girl, at the very young age of four years old, wearing only a striped leotard with asymmetrically colored bracelets and anklets was playing in the forest. Still learning how to control her senses, the combined sounds and scents of the wildlife and weather pestered the young girl. Despite her young age, the hound seemed self aware and knowledgeable of her surroundings.
As the hound ran across the lonesome forest chasing a couple of birds, she noticed an unconscious panda girl. The panda girl seemed slightly older wearing a dark pink T-shirt and black shorts with pink outlines. The hound didn't know how to act, she never seen another girl before, in fact she never seen another person before other than the faint memories of her parents. She taps the panda to see if it was alive but to no avail, she finally tries to muster up what she assumes is words, "Hello?"
The panda girl begins to move, catching the hound by surprise but she remains at the panda's side. The panda regains consciousness and looks around "Where… where am I?"
The panda girl notices the semi-frightened hound girl, "huh, who are you?" she demanded.
The hound remains silent.
"I'm sorry for being mean, are you okay?." she said.
The hound stood silent.
"Can you talk, at least a little?"
The hound gestures with a short nod.
"Um OK, let's start over, alright?"
The hound tilts her head in confusion.
"My name is Norah, what's yours?" the panda girl said with a smile on her face.
The hound smiles back and tried to muster up words again, Norah noticed the hound's struggle, the hound tries to speak "Mill-"
"Mill?" the panda asked, the hound shook her head in frustration.
"Mill-ah.", the hound struggles to say her name, even though she seems to know it.
"Milla?"
The hound furiously nods her head in glee, "My… name… is Milla."
"Nice to meet you Milla, so what are you doing here?"
"I don't… know."
"Where's your parents?"
"I don't know."
Thunder began to rumble catching both Milla and Norah off guard.
The spooked hound ran away, however the panda followed right behind her, "It's okay! It's just some thunder, it won't hurt you!" Norah called.
The two little girls found a fell log large enough to fit them both, they hide inside the log from the pouring rain.
Milla starts to fall asleep to the soothing sounds of the rain colliding against the ground.
The second day of the Annual Qin Establishment Festival have began. Milla starts to wake up and takes a brief look at the clock in her room, which reads half past seven in the morning, Is it really that early?
Norah, I really hope you won't do anything dumb…
Milla puts on her crop top, gloves and beige cloak with her katana sheathed underneath the cloak. She walks out of the inn noticing a dead silence throughout the entire outer layer of the capital, this pleases her as she takes advantage of the peace and quiet.
The hound finds a lone bench and takes time to relax, she makes a deep breath and starts to eat an apple she saved in her backpack. The chilly morning winds and nutrition of her apple keeps her calm and collected.
"I see you're alright now."
The hound hears a familiar monotonous voice, which for the first time made her happy.
Kai, surprised to see the smile on Milla's face, responds to the expression "Are you actually happy to see me?"
"Yeah, but is one time a big deal?" Milla retorts
"Hm, not really."
"It's a nice morning isn't it?"
"I guess…"
"What's wrong?" Milla says noticing the husky's blank expression.
"Nothing", Kai says with monotonous voice trying to prevent Milla from sensing his suspicions, That Vix character, something about him is off…
"You're alright?" Milla tries to snap Kai off of his thoughts.
"I told you it was nothing, anyways today is likely going to have the most guests, mainly because today is when everyone head over to the royal palace, pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity."
"Well I guess we should go." Milla considers
Kai shrugs his shoulders, "I guess we should, but let's not draw any attention to ourselves."
Milla makes a faint nod in response.
"Let's get back to the Inn, we'll start heading out when there's slightly more people. You think you'll be able to handle the crowds this time?"
"Sure, I'm kind'a hungry anyways."
As morning passes a magnitude of people begins to accumulate the crowded streets as commoners and aristocrats alike begin to make their way to the royal palace. It was about noon when Milla and Kai finally enters the residential and educational districts, which as they expected consists of several villas, mansions, large houses, schools and universities.
Similar to the outer layer, decorations, banners and lanterns dressed the buildings with several warm colors. Several mobile shop carts and food tenders was among the crowd, both canines decides to purchase something to eat.
Both dogs eat their respective snacks as they notice a slightly larger amount of soldiers and even some royal guards. The royal guards was more strict and hostile than the ordinary soldiers who lacked any jurisdiction in the area, Milla and Kai witnesses in mild disgust the cruel attitude the royal guards had over the commoners and occasionally some middle classed citizens; as much as they wanted to help, both canines knew they couldn't interfere.
Milla stomach turns, as she watches the mistreatment of commoners, "It's not fair, what did they do?"
"Don't look so surprised, this isn't the first time peasants was treated like dirt." Kai explains.
Milla remains silent with a disappointed expression on her face.
At around a quarter before one, a royal guard was arguing with someone, both dogs tries to get a better look and to their surprise it was Jing!
"This produce is unacceptable!" The guard says as he spits the food out.
"Even though you are not pleased with my harvest, doesn't mean others won't like it." Jing retorts
"Shut up! Don't talk back you insolent little worm, this is a rip off! Nothing you say can change that!"
"You have no right or reason to treat me this way."
Out of spite the royal guard tips down Jing's food cart, stomping on whatever article of food rolls down in front of him.
The following events makes Milla's blood boil to the highest degree, she clenches her fist with her teeth showing in an aggressive manner, Kai notices the hounds outraged behavior.
"Milla, relax!" Kai warns Milla.
Milla ignores the husky's warning, purely out of instinct Milla dashes towards the scene.
"MILLA STOP!" Kai yells in vain quickly running after the awol hound, Crap, what is she thinking?! This is NOT going to end well at all.
As the guard begins to strike the middle aged hare, out of nowhere a hound with a katana drawn points her palm at the guard, assaulting him with a psychic blast.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Milla demands.
Jing remains utterly surprised by Milla's actions, a large amount of soldiers and royal guards begins to surround the hound and hare, but not before Kai reaches the hound first with his dual pistols drawn, I can't believe we're in this mess.
The guests and employees watches in horror as they see several soldiers surrounding the two children.
"Surrender! You're surrounded!" A soldier demands.
Kai ponders a moment, as he see's the frightened hare behind him with Milla standing her ground waiting for him to take action, he makes a faint sigh, "If you let this man free… we'll surrender."
Milla is caught by surprise with Kai's bargaining, just as she was about to protest the husky gestures with a nod, with that she submits.
The guards think for a moment, "We accept your terms"
Both canines drops their weapons as two soldiers collects them.
Jing makes a worried expression "Thank you, I wish you luck, you'll need it. I'll try to see if Wei can do anything."
The soldier continues "You'll have to answer to the empress, since you assaulted a royal guard and during our establishment festival of all times!"