Hello again. I'm back, and not after a huge gap of epic proportions. Dreams do come true! Any-who, I am once again engrossed in this story, which is good for all of you, because that only means I'll work extra hard to get to the good part. At least, I hope it'll be good. I'm excited…. Although it won't be happening for a bit longer. Well, next chapter now please.

Chapter 3 - Of Riots and Speculations

It wasn't long before Keane was out of the tree and immersed in the ever exciting world of economics, and then public speaking followed up by archery and then writing. He hated having writing after archery, his hands were already in enough pain. The teacher would always yell at him for his bad handwriting on these days too, but it wasn't his fault! You try writing in perfect cursive after plucking a string for over an hour.

There were still forty minutes left before the red head thought he could leave when one of the guards came bursting into the room, effectively scaring Keane enough to cause him to snap his pen clean in half and annoying the life out of his teacher.

"What in the world do you think you're doing?" the peeved man barked at the frantic looking guard. Keane couldn't help but notice that most of his teachers were in a bad mood most of the time as he hastily tried to wipe the spilled ink off his hand, not even bothering with his ruined paper. The guard managed to straighten herself up before starting. Whatever it was must have been pretty important to make her run so fast.

"My deepest apologizes sir, but all princes are to report to their rooms for protection until further notice," she said in a professional tone, drawling the red head away from his now black streaked hand.

"Protection?" he asked, confusion emanate in his voice. Before the guard could elaborate further, his teacher decided to ask about the same thing as Keane, but in greater detail.

"Yes, what in heaven's name do you mean by protection? What's going on here?" by now Keane was already standing, prepared to head to his room as soon as whatever was happening was explained. Things like this didn't happen often.

"There's been a disturbance outside of the castle. For your own protection and further information you should head to the fifth floor of the sun tower, while Prince Keane shall come with me," the woman explained, although it didn't help Keane much. What kind of disturbance? Did she mean another riot? There'd never been one this close to the palace before, no wonder she was freaking out. His teacher simply nodded and left the room without a word to his student. It would of bothered the red head if he was paying any attention, but instead he just let himself he led by the guard.

When they reached his room he went inside only to have the door be shut and locked behind him. He guessed this was safe, if not annoying in that he still had no clear clue as to what was going on, the guard had been silent the entire way over.

Two hours in his room. It didn't take long for the entire thing to go from frightening to boring. Maybe if he knew what was going on. A disturbance? That didn't say much. It didn't have to be a riot after all. Maybe someone had tried to sneak in? Or someone had threatened to kill the king? A wondering maniac with explosives? Aliens? The list was endless by the time he was allowed out.

After they were released from their rooms there was an announcement. A small riot had broken out in front of the palace. Everything was now taken care of with minimal casualties. So his first guess was right, it was a riot. Though they didn't say what the cause of it was, or how many casualties were 'minimal.' It bothered the prince. Sure, the reason could be narrowed down to the three most likely things that had been bothering the people for some time now, but there was no way to know how many or who had died. Was is civilians, or guards? Both? Or maybe it was some anima? He didn't know or have any way of finding out right now. Maybe he would tomorrow in his political science class.

He wasn't sure where he was going, just glad to be out of his room for now. Classes were closed for the rest of the day, not that he had anything after his interrupted writing class, but it was kind of nice to have gotten out early.

Down the hallway he spotted Straton coming out of one of the many rooms that lined the hall. That must be his room, the red head thought idly, but didn't bother on trying to remember which one it actually was. He'd just end up getting confused if he tried to get back later on.

"Um, hey, Straton?" Keane said as he walked up to the odd blonde. When he stopped and turned at him, Keane wasn't sure what he wanted to say now that he'd finally gotten the other's time. "So, that was pretty crazy huh? Being locked in our rooms and everything," he decided the stay on the current topic of much of the palace. Everybody who walked past him was putting their own twist to the tale, people claiming to of seen things, what they'd been doing when they found out, those kinds of stories that were almost always exaggerated.

"It's a shame," the quiet boy said nodding as Keane fell into step beside him. The older boy had to agree. It was kind of nice seeing someone who wasn't hyped up about it and actually thinking about what just happened. The sad thing was, Keane knew the only reason he was acting that way was because it was going to come back to affect him. Every riot and problem that occurred would be put on him when he became king, but if Myrrah was still here, and the duty wasn't his to bare, he'd probably be acting just as excited as the rest of his 'brothers.' There was no way for Straton to ever become king though, but he was still thinking.

"Yeah, it's sad that people had to die. I'm sure it will all get under control soon though," the red head said, and he meant it too. Either the people would get tired of being beaten or his father would realize that there needed to be a change and would make it. It would end soon. Probably in the next year, and definitely before he would ever come to the throne. At least, that's what all his teachers told him anyway.

Because of all this, he was genuinely surprised when Straton simply shook his head in response. "No? What do you mean? You don't think it'll end soon?" the ginger asked, causing the other boy to shrug.

"It's not really my place to say," Straton started, and Keane really hoped that wasn't all he said. He got that response too much and it really got annoying after a while. Thankfully, he did go on, "but from what I've heard, the people wont stop until they completely demolish the monarchy. Either setting up a new family to lead, or a republic of some sorts," he finished.

"I never heard anything like that," Keane responded with a frown. Well, he actually had heard whispers of conversations along those lines from some of his teachers, but they said themselves it was just ridicules speculations. "It's probably something one of the other princes made up to be dramatic. You shouldn't believe everything you hear," That's what the teachers said to him when he'd asked, and there were some princes that really loved to tell tall tales, but Keane didn't think Straton was one of those. He probably heard it from one and really believed it, but that was impossible. They've ruled for years. There wasn't any reason why the people would be that upset. Things just didn't seem that bad. Straton's only response was another indifferent shrug.

"Probably, but I still wouldn't count anything out," the blonde said casually, and Keane decided to just agree with him. After all, he was kind of right, you really couldn't count anything out, no matter how unlikely.

"Hey, why do you think all these riots are happening anyway?" The older boy asked. Sure, there were the three main reasons most of them heard about, taxes, freedom and food, but it was still interesting to hear what others thought.

"Because people are unhappy," Straton answered simply, not taking much time to think at all. Keane had to admit, that was one way to put it, but…

"But everything seems fine," the red head said, and this time it was Straton's turn to frown.

"We're princes Keane, and you're going to be king. Of course everything seems fine, we get the best they have," the blonde said as he came to a stop outside of the courtyard. He had a point, but there was no way that there would be that huge of a gap between what they had and what the people had. Looking past the other boy out to the courtyard, Keane noticed how dark it was getting. He had a full schedule tomorrow and should probably get some sleep before it got too late.

"Yeah… well, it's getting pretty late. I should probably get to bed. See you around?" Keane hoped he would see him around, not used to having someone speak to him without some sort of spite or jealousy in their voice. Even when he mentioned Keane being king, it wasn't said as anything more then a simple fact.

"See you," Straton said before disappearing into the quickly darkening courtyard, leaving the red head alone to walk back to his room. Once in his room, changed into his pajamas and sat on his bed, knowing he should sleep, but mind working to much to do so.

Straton was nice, but he was exaggerating. There was no way his father would let the people suffer while they continued to live perfectly fine. It was just like the food shortage, people kept talking about it, but they ate fine everyday, with plenty leftover. If it was as bad as they said, then it would of affected them as well. Even if they were royalty, they weren't selfish.

Lying down, Keane sighed. No use getting worked up over it, he just had to keep to his belief that the riots would die down soon, before anything got too out of hand. His father wasn't cruel, and would work it all out as fast as he could.

If he didn't keep to that belief, he wasn't sure how long he would last before Myrrah's way out stopped looking so horrible.

Hurray, chapter 4, over and out. I hope you all like it. We're starting to see an inkling of the stress of the country and Keane's thoughts on the whole thing, and a possible friendship for the red head.

Well please review. As pointed out, I definitely read them, I can't think of a single reason why someone wouldn't. I live off that stuff man. And to Cocytus, Je suis heureux que vous ayez aimé ce dernier chapitre. Je suis parle francais un petite per, je ne bien pas, mais j'essaie