Lord de Tourney cursed, but this time in not so magical a way. Through simple pleasure at his son's idea, he had forgotten that crowd control was what the Royal family did best, even politics was a sort of crowd control, and they excelled.
How to incite panic enough that the princess finding the, he chuckled as he recalled, diminutive Humbert would be appropriately difficult? Or rather, and more to the point, much closer to impossible?
An evil smirk slid greasily onto his face.
Every cat-like face in the hall attained identical expressions of shock and then horror as a loud barking filled the ballroom and three of the largest mastiffs bred in the royal kennels ran into the hall. Almost every noble fled screaming, which did not at all help anything. Running simply incited the dogs to chase, and screaming… the screaming was giving Haru a headache.
Turning to her family, Haru was shocked by what she saw. Her mother and sister-in-law were both quaking in terror, and her brother was only just a bit better, attempting to keep at least them calm.
"Machida, will you stay here? I'm going to try and do something about those dogs," Haru said, not even giving her brother time to reply as she swept into the melee of terrified courtiers.
It was hard going, moving against the masses, but finally she reached one of the large dogs and was able to grab hold of its collar. It turned to snap at her.
"No!" she said firmly, shaking the collar and striking it gently on the nose. "Bad, you do not bite me, now behave!"
It recognised the voice at least and perhaps the smell of her underneath the catty smell, and sat back, suitably miserable at having made its mistress unhappy with it.
"Go! Back to your kennel, at once!" she ordered, pointing to the ballroom door.
Tail between its legs, the dog followed the finger towards nervous attendants who were hovering, wondering what they were supposed to do. One grabbed the dog's collar and led it back to the kennels, the rest remaining, hovering still as they watched the princess reach the second and then third dogs, and do the same with each of them.
With just one hour until dawn, the dogs were finally out and the court almost calm again, though every one of them twitched now and then, jumpy for fear of anything else happening that night.
I still have to find the Baron, Haru thought to herself, only now truly beginning to worry. For herself, she wouldn't have minded, but her family, the whole court, and even … she could return everybody's humanity at dawn, if only she could find Baron.
