"Precursor to War"

Despite my efforts Knight-Captain Sun remained unconvinced of an imminent threat to the nation. That or he didn't particularly care unless it directly affected the church. Strictly speaking religion didn't recognize boarders. The only reason the main temple was located in the capital city was because it would be extremely inconvenient and tragically expensive to move it. Either way I was not going to give anyone the chance to create havoc in my home country, but my influence was sadly limited. I didn't have an award winning smile or a long standing history of benevolence to assist me. Any accurate information I was able to gather was worth a child's weight in gold.

I had enough dirt on every loan shark in town so I could afford to pursue my own investigations without drawing suspicion from the church. The down side of that was the number of debt related murders shot up whenever I needed extra funding. I would have felt some guilt if it didn't conveniently keep Knight-Captain Judgment busy and out of my hair as well. Although Judgment was a fantastic cook the last thing I needed was another interrogation.

But despite all my stealth, both natural and trained, there was still one person who always knew in an instant when I was up to something not good.

"Where's Chad?" I asked without looking up.

I made a mental note to give my vice-captain a good tongue lashing for letting anyone disturb my research. I had been drooling over a stack of reports that should have been framed as a work of art before a particularly rude person decided to open my office door without knocking. If there was one thing my platoon knew how to do, that one thing was write up official documents and leave me the hell alone.

If the work load didn't kill them several of my men could look forward to spending their golden years working cushy administrative jobs. I foresaw many of them enjoying a future with moderate stress probably working less than ten hours as day with the occasional fishing trips on holidays. Very cushy indeed, but personally such thoughts made me cringe. It had gotten to the point that I couldn't even function without a hefty workload and me busy. My most recent "time off" proved that much. I just couldn't deal with the profound sense of loss that I felt once a project was completed. Once all the appropriate forms were stamped and the files placed neatly in the archives like a burial tomb I almost felt like weeping if another project wasn't there to steal my attention.

The papers occupying my desk weren't mere accounting reports or drudgery paper work. These were intelligence reports. Nations rose and fell depending on how accurate their intelligence agents were. Even the tiniest piece of seemingly insignificant information was part of a greater scheme composed entirely of human nature. Evil men didn't sit in large easy chairs stroking their beards. Wicked deeds were primarily caused by lazy people who wanted to make a quick piece of gold and their rose trimming neighbors be damned. A harmless bribe here to speed up production, skimp on safety procedures, a cover up or grammatical error, these were things I had trained my senses to pick up. I had taught my people that intelligence reports needed to be loved and cherished and given its due respect.

Speaking of respect, my "guest" reminded me in a very pleasant voice, "At the very least you could stand up and salute."

Well, actually, what he had really said was something very long winded that to outsiders sounded like a dedication to the "God of Light". My brain merely translated the message as such. Out of courtesy I really could have at least stood up and acknowledged the great effort that went into the speech, but I didn't. I raised a hand to my eyebrow quickly and then returned to making notations. As soon as I had finished squeezing any useful information out of the documents and committed them to memory the forms were tossed into the fireplace and burned.

"And just what are you up to now?" Knight-Captain Sun asked disapprovingly.

I wanted to continue to ignore him, but there was something deadly in his "heavenly" tone. I carefully put down my pen and stacked my notes in an orderly fashion. Only when it was safe for me to look my captain in the eye without the threat of papers going flying did I do so.

"I'm working, sir." I replied innocently. "Do you find that to be strange sir? To find the Temple's spymaster reading over reports?"

Sun gave me an odd look.

"What?" I was beginning to feel confused now. "Did you need something? or is it another ten month mission?"

I really hoped it wasn't the latter, but Sun didn't answer right away. Instead he continued to glare at me like I just said something very, very stupid. It made me angry that such a beautiful face could be soured with such a look. He never glared at any of the other knights like that. Such contempt was reserved for me, the girl. Not just any girl. I was not the rich, flirty, dainty things he liked to chase. I was his subordinate, Knight-captain Hell, his ace, his shadow, his dog, and his "loyal" follower from the cold-hearted-fraction.

I was about to "politely" ask him to leave when he finally said very calmly, "Take ten seconds to look around your desk."

"What?"

"Just do it."

"They're stacks of intelligence forms." I growled. "I told you I was working-"

I paused the moment when I realized what he meant. Along with the documents there were five empty bottles of water on my desk despite the fact that I didn't remember ever taking a single break to visit the latrine while working. My hands were almost completely black up to the wrist with ink stains, but the clearest sign of all that something wasn't right was an empty box of sweets and most importantly not a tea cup to be found.

Damn.

I tried to stand up and nearly fell. With my concentration broken I could clearly feel the dizziness and weakness in my limbs from fatigue. My stomach growled furiously from lack of nutrition. It felt like I hadn't eaten in days. Sun roughly hauled me to my feet and my reports, of course, scattered because of the effort. He draped one arm around my waist and began supporting me with his shoulder. Some of the ink on my hands smeared his pure white shirt.

"I hate you," I growled.

"I know." Knight-Captain Sun replied casually.

Sun wouldn't let me say a single word until my butt was resting in my bed and I had drained the hot bowl of soup he had given me. The last of my tea stash had been confiscated leaving me feeling very drowsy and very annoyed.

"What rule did we agree on?"Sun asked once I had met all the requirements he had imposed on me thus allowing me to speak.

"Which rule is that, sir?" I asked with a drawl. "The quarter-to-three rule? The nine-and-four-fifths rule. Or do you mean the 'no black socks on Wednesday' rule?"

"The five-two-one rule." Sun replied blandly in response to my snide attitude.

Ah, that rule. That rule meant that I was to get least five hours of sleep, two meals, and one bath per day as per Sun's order. Since I didn't remember my last meal or bath for that matter he probably was right to call me out on it. My sense of smell was questionable at best due to a long history of sneaking out of distant lands using absurdly spacious sewers.

"Not every knight had the luxury of smelling like roses, Knight-Captain Sun." I said defensively.

We bantered back and forth for another minute due to our mutual stubbornness until I was forced to surrender because, after all was said and done, he was still my superior and the number one spokesperson for my deity of choice. Once I had been successfully subdued Sun began his interrogation with regards to my current project and why it was consuming my heart and soul. He threw in some flowery language that to an outsider sounded like I was straying from the holy path and indulging in the sin called obsession. To my ears I was just getting chewed out because I was letting my health go for a side project again and if I didn't shape up he'd have to discipline me. Again.

I sighed, At least Judgment had served better food…

Sun continued to glare at me- well, sort of glare. Strictly speaking he was beaming at me with a smile that could win women's hearts and earn many worshiping stares from the masses. But as somebody who had known Theo Sun for several years now, I could safely say if looks could kill I'd be dead meat. So Knight-Captain Sun continued to glare at me and I glared back behind my cloth mask. Finally the stalemate was broken by Sun fishing a document out of his pocket. I recognized my vice-captain's neat and precise handwriting.

"We do not deal in worldly affairs," Sun reminded me and held the piece of paper just out of my reach. "We, the Holy Knights, serve the God of Light."

He let that reminder sink in for a moment and said more quietly. "Live to serve, not save the world."

"...I-I've… overstepped my bounds," I bowed my head modestly. "Please forgive your humble servant and shadow."

"I'm sorry," Knight-Captain Sun obnoxiously held a white-gloved hand to his ear. "I didn't quite catch that."

Shooting my captain a quick death-glare of my own I slid out of bed and knelt before the commander of the Twelve Holy Knights respectively. I calmly repeated my apology. It was inexcusable for me to continue worrying my superior like that. Returning from my mission wounded was bad enough, but I had kept insisting on delaying my recovery by overworking myself. We didn't want a repeat of that incident, after all.

Sun put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly. Naturally I would be forgiven by the number one spokesperson of the God of Light AFTER I gave up the information on the hidden location of his missing barrels of wine, of course.

"Apology accepted," Sun said after I finished putting back the last barrel in its proper place. He had already helped himself to a glass so it was up to me to close up the wine cellar.

I replied without feeling, "Just give me Chad's report already and stop stealing reports off my subordinates."

"Well you were on mandatory leave until your shoulder healed," Sun pointed out as he handed over the paper. "But I think this will keep you busy."

I nodded without really listening. Since our rocky relationship had been somewhat mended by the exchange of goods, my brain was already processing the tiny bit of information in my hand. I was thinking hard and trying to fit it into the larger picture. Chad reported that four smuggling caravans had been broken up near the border and each one had been carrying the same unknown cargo. My information network would forward me some samples to see if I could identify it. The fact that they needed my area of expertise to identify it worried me.

"I've red flagged all imports from our new 'friends'." I explained. "I have trust issues when it comes to greedy bastards."

"Fine, just don't lose any sleep over it." Sun ordered. "And stop spying on my lady friends."

"Not a chance…" I replied absently still studying the report. "Threats to the church come before threats to society."

And then there were places where the two overlapped.