It took all castes to make a castle function properly.

From the servants on up to the king, everybody was important. Some were just significantly more important than others.

Thus, today, the Knight King's daily royal task was less glamorous than it could have been. Imperative, so that the castle itself did not descend straight into barbarism, but bland. At least he had not been saddled with more menial, debasing assignments. They had lesser creatures handling those today, as was proper.

Normally, nobody commanded a king. A knight, however, followed commands from his lord, and thus the Knight King Arthur Boyle found himself in an odd position. He was a king, as decreed when his lord father and lady mother had appointed him as the one true heir of their castle. A king by the infallible right of succession. Knights, however, frequently ranged far afield, as the forces of injustice seldom nested in a single place for long. Hence the Knight King found himself a great distance from his own castle, and under the immediate stewardship of another lord.

This turn of events was… eventually much more boon than bust. While the Knight King was initially somewhat disappointed in lodging, the Eighth King was honest, fair, and good spirited. He had a true crusader's heart, which the Knight King was always able to appreciate. After having contact with the neighboring monarchs, he was sure he had chosen the correct lord to swear his fealty. Sure, they weren't at war with either the First King or the Fifth Princess anymore, and the Seventh Emperor was truly mighty. He had served his time under the Forth King as a squire, and they owed the Sixth Queen for saving… well, never mind that. All that to say that while the Eighth Kingdom was smaller than the rest, he liked to think they were the fiercest. Almost more a guild than a whole kingdom, but he had already been dragged through enough to have some bragging rights among his peers. The Temple had even allowed them sanctioned access to crusade within the hellish Nether. Twice. He would rather be nowhere else, and would swear fealty to no other king.

Himself and his lord and lady parents duly excluded.

Which is why he did his assigned tasks with dignity and valor, even if they were slightly beneath him. Because the castle amassed a large amount of old scrolls, missives, and other articles of communication that had to occasionally be disposed of, lest they accumulate (unsightly and unsanitary) or become lost (and open for their enemies to make use of any sensitive state secrets on those missives). His task today was to ensure that such scrolls and other articles were promptly and properly removed from service.

Also, it would be… unwise to refuse, and certainly bad for his state of good health. Tasks like this rarely came from the Eighth King himself; as was proper, he had better things to attend to, and as such he typically entrusted dolling out quests to a trusted subordinate. The subordinate who tended the quest board, in this case, just so happened to be the King's High Advisor. Who also held the titles of Prime Hunter, Grand Judge, and Executioner. Who was also an esteemed warmage. Who also had the sense of humor of a very angry bear.

Needless to say, the High Advisor was not someone who got crossed by anybody who wished to keep their dignity—or skin—intact.

The glasses and calm voice were a ruse; the man could look across the court and see weaknesses of the soul as if they were written upon someone's face, and typically reacted accordingly. Namely, picking those same weaknesses apart directly. The Knight King would have thought it was sorcery, but the High Advisor's specific arcane gifts tended to be much less subtle and much more loud and painful. Or lethal. The Knight King was not at all pleased to even privately acknowledge the bruises he nursed from the man's corporal variety of discipline. Even knowing that the High Advisor was unlikely to kill him without express permission from the Eighth King (who, in turn, was thankfully merciful and even more unlikely to order such an execution), looking down the barrel of any one of the warmage's firearms still made his gut clench.

It was fortunate, then, given the High Advisor's incredible tendency towards perfect order, that swooping in and collecting disposable papers from near his desk was a quick, easy job, even with him sitting right there in his chair. The Knight King still did not hesitate to leave the vicinity post haste.

Few others elicited that same sort of response. Not even the Eighth King, and while they were blessedly brief, he had his moments of… loud ill-temper. Luckily, they rarely lasted longer than it took to resolve the issue before his inborn good disposition again took hold of his senses. This was how he found him in his office, listening to the raucous music he was partial to, casually lifting what must have been a good fifteen stone of weight with each arm while balancing one or another pot of his beloved herbs on his head. Odd as it was, the Knight King could not dispute the results. The Eighth King flashed him a toothy grin as he entered, and otherwise paid him little mind as he collected the scrolls into his burlap sack and made on his way.

From the highest reaches of the court on down, this task now got… interesting.

Given the hierarchy enforced by the Eighth King—and ducking that in any really meaningful way was one of the few quick methods to agitate his temper, even if just a little—the next person in order of importance sat just underneath the High Advisor, both in appreciable rank and in length of tenure at the castle. If the Eighth King could reliably reach to his right and expect to find the High Advisor, then the High Advisor could reach to his right and find the castle's Witch.

As far as the Knight King was concerned, "Witch" was her secondary nature.

Because only the High Advisor was fearsome enough to command the utter loyalty of an ogress.

The castle's Witch was a proper ogre mage, of such skill that not only was her disguise as a beautiful princess absolutely infallible (until one was unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of a fist, and quickly realize that those were not the delicate, unworked hands of a princess), but her magic had not wavered even once in the Knight King's time here, although her fearsome temper did occasionally betray the illusion. Even the High Advisor was fooled, or else just distinctly chose not to care enough to address it.

He supposed that worked just fine in the man's favor, as any personal slight the warmage chose to ignore could be reliably avenged by the ogress some short period of time beyond that, as his introduction to the castle's inner workings had swiftly—and painfully—taught him (that should have been his first warning as well; if an ogre mage of her ferocity jumped when the High Advisor said "jump," he should have known the man would be no less brutal with him). She was equally as ferocious in her defense of the dignity of the Eighth King, which did, begrudgingly, raise her status, as far as the Knight King was concerned.

While she had little ability as an evoker, she had taught him the power behind those who could ensorcel the abilities of others, having watched her turn the flames of others' spells into her own weapons, when she didn't simply summon elemental spirits right out of the raw energy.

The mixture of honed skill, inhuman strength, and sorcery was a formidable combination, indeed.

Fortunately, she didn't tend to accumulate much in the name of scrolls to be discarded, and happen to do a lot of her work within arm's reach of the High Advisor; the Knight King did not have to collect anything from her separately.

He made his way down the hall, with all dignity expected from one in his position. He was not quite halfway through this task, but it was going well. Assuming the other denizens of the castle did not impede him, this would be done long before the afternoon.

Which, of course, meant that the next person to cross his path was indeed an impediment.

Quite literally. Right in the middle of the hallway.

The only creature that the Knight King ever objected to having a station in a lofty place like a castle was surely this Devil. There were many devils, most easily fell under a knight's blade, but this one was powerful enough to have Devil as a title (which both the Eighth King and the High Advisor had been known to use, much to the fiend's own consternation), and was stubborn enough to not die even when an entire sword was stabbed through his chest. A notably lesser blade than the Knight King's holy Excalibur, but still.

And the Knight King refused to acknowledge the discomfort felt that someone else stabbed the Devil. He was their Devil; if anyone had the right to purge him, it was the purview of those from the Eighth Kingdom, and no other.

All other devil slayers could politely keep their swords to themselves, please, thank you, and sod off.

In the meantime, he suffered the disgrace of his presence.

In the middle of the hallway.

Mopping floors.

This was the kind of menial task the Knight King was glad he hadn't been assigned (at least yet today, since the High Advisor could be fickle with quest allotments). He did consider it the perfect task for a sharp-toothed, carnivorous hellspawn who had the audacity to live in a vaunted place like a fire cathedral with the rest of them. The Knight King would have just as soon not let him into the building, but the Eighth King had a big, soft heart that apparently had room for everyone, even devils, and by his endless mercy the fiend was allowed to stay.

Also, the Devil was here first.

By one day, but who was keeping track.

Where was he, now?

Ah yes. On his way to finish his quest. With a pit lord in his way.

The demon sent him a glare and bared his teeth, and then turned his back on him to continue his mopping. The Knight King smirked; might as well spare a moment to remind him of his place here.

"Enjoying your manual labor, Devil?"

"Shut the hell up." He began to mop faster.

"At least you've been given a task befitting your station."

"Don't you have your own chores to do? It would get you out of my face."

"I am almost done with mine, but enjoy mopping the entire cathedral by yourself."

"You realize that is not your only chore for today, right? I bet you only read the first thing on the list, and forgot everything else."

"Hmph. I know my quest."

"'Quest?' Ugh, you make my head hurt." Somehow, he got even more aggressive with the mopping. "Just keep away from me. I don't want to even be nearby when you get punished for only doing one chore. I mean, I do, it will be hilarious, but I don't want to be close enough to catch a punishment with you."

"You can spare me your sympathy. I don't need it from a Devil cleaning the floors beneath my feet."

"I will bury your feet in the floor, up to that stupid onion knot on your head."

"I'd like to see you try."

The Devil gripped the mop handle in such a way that made the Knight King think he might actually test his mettle. He set down his sack, and reached for Excalibur's hilt. Many disparaging things could be said about the fiend, but cowardice was not one of them. Good, then this would be entertaining.

Except that someone's light footsteps could be heard marching down an adjacent hallway. In most cases, this wouldn't bother either Knight or Devil much at all, except that there were a few people in the castle who could either forcefully disrupt or calm this age-old feud between Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil.

The cathedral's Priestess was one of the latter.

"Oh! Hello Shinra, Arthur." She looked between the two of them. "I do hope there's nothing here to be interrupted."

There were no princesses in this castle, but their Priestess was more enough a maiden fair.

Their only holy maiden up until recently (if the Shapeshifter from the First Kingdom even counted), their Priestess occupied a relatively enviable position in the castle. Her rank seemed fluid; while nobody from the Eighth Kingdom truly approached the levels of the High Advisor or the Eighth King, the Priestess seemed to flow around the castle as she saw fit. The few times the Witch found herself as the highest appointed member in the castle, the Priestess followed her orders without question, but whether it was deference to her rank or a simple wish for another to lead were not well defined. The Knight King had watched the High Advisor scold the lot of them (usually himself, the Devil, the Witch and the Shapeshifter) literally right over the Priestess' head, like she wasn't there (except that he had watched the warmage one time pass her some tea while scolding them without even looking in her direction, which meant he was still very much aware of her presence); she often used that time to quietly get out of his way, as would most people who put value on their own lives. She jumped along with the rest of them when he hissed, but if she ever caught any punishment of any kind, it certainly wasn't ever with them, running some number of miles in as many minutes through the neighborhood, doing reps with the Eighth King's weights (no, they were not allowed to take any plates off, and those ten reps better be absolutely perfect), or what have you. It was a nice standing to have, being able to slide right through the ire with little regard. But she was a Priestess, not a soldier, so he supposed that came with certain advantages.

Also, did being a sister to the Fifth Princess then also count her as a princess, too? Was the sister of a princess then not also a princess? How did one define a princess, really? Hm, such a tangled family relation was too difficult to think about.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. The Devil had not relaxed from his stance one evil centimeter.

"Don't worry, Sister. I'm about to mop the floor with Arthur's vapid face, and then we'll be good."

"I think what the Devil really means is that I'm about to put him out with all the other refuse."

She sighed, and calmly placed herself right between the both of them. Courage indeed; no sacred flame, and no training in arms, but she didn't think one ill thing about confronting the two of them. Whether that was because she knew they wouldn't hurt her—and the Knight King would admit that this fact did fully extend to the Devil too—or because if they did manage to accidentally mar her skin the Eighth King might actually maim the both of them. If they were lucky. The High Advisor and the Witch had much worse than that up their sleeves.

"Maybe I should rephrase." And she gave the both of them a look that the Knight King was unable to really read, except that it looked too sneaky for a Priestess. "I do hope that the two of you are not about to partake in any sort of activity that will have people in the offices down the hall coming to…check on you." She brushed a little hair out of her face. "It's a beautiful day and it's been pretty relaxed around the whole district, so it would be a shame to agitate the higher ups."

Knight and Devil shared a look.

Such wisdom. He expected no less. The High Advisor did have some frighteningly good ears, and the Devil's abilities, by nature, ran pretty loud.

She was another person with an almost impossibly big heart. Never mind himself, to extend her consideration to the wellbeing of a Devil seemed counter to a Priestess' nature, and yet she continued heedless. It was impressive; misguided, but impressive.

The Knight King and the Devil regarded each other for a moment more, minding change in stance, change in breathing, for any of the hairline adjustments that would trigger a mutual attack, before the Devil humphed and turned his head away. Bared his throat. His sharp teeth were still set and exposed, but it would be most dishonorable for the Knight King to attack him now when he had his gaze willingly diverted. He returned Excalibur's scabbard to its holster.

"Whatever. I have cleaning to do anyways." And the Devil returned to his duty with even more vigor, back now turned fully to the Knight King.

"I suppose the wisest use of time is to finish my quest and then go on patrol." He picked his sack back up. He was almost done regardless, and he rather liked patrol. Despite the Witch's protests, their roof was relatively free of dragons and griffons. Notwithstanding the efforts of their Artificer, who liked to coddle and even feed such beasts.

The Devil muttered some foul incantation at him under his breath as he walked past, which manage to do nothing to him at all. Of course. He bowed politely to the lady of the court as he left, and was determined to pay the Devil not one more thought until he had to.

Never mind the various receptacles for scrolls dotted around the castle, this next stop was possibly the most hazardous, in an accidentally-lost-an-arm kind of way.

Their Wizard was weird. He supposed all wizards were weird, but theirs was a special brand. Also outrageously tall, putting his head in the clouds in more than one way (in the castle, only the Eighth King was taller, but only just). Most of the words that came out of his mouth were the most complex manner of incantations and pieces of spells that the knight King had ever heard, and he wasted not a single part of his brain trying to decipher it. That level of arcane knowledge was not meant for knights. The High Advisor and, occasionally, the Eighth King could follow the meanings of the invocations, but only their Artificer and the Fifth Princess (when she visited and deigned to listen) could make true sense of it and them turn it into something fantastic.

All that to say that his space was cluttered with a wide variety of strange spell components, bizarre alchemical reagents, and other things that would probably kill a person dead if they made skin contact, were inhaled, or otherwise ingested.

And old scrolls. Floor to ceiling, scrolls everywhere. The Knight King was afraid he'd need four or five more sacks, just for what was in here. And it easily got like this every half a fortnight. Just a nest of dangerous arcana.

The Knight King found him firmly entrenched in his work, hunched over a small flame and boiling some manner of purple, swirling liquid that smelled pungent enough to sting the Knight's eyes. The Wizard looked up from his work as he entered, giving him a crooked smile.

"I can guess why you're here. Hinawa doesn't play with chores." He looked the Knight King up and down. He didn't like it; he had no idea what the Wizard could see with his eldritch sight, but it always made him feel like he was pulling out secrets of his being while he did so. "I hope you brought more bags."

The Knight did not feel like playing any games today. He held the open bag out.

"You will fit them all into this one." It wasn't a suggestion.

The Wizard's grin got broader, entirely unphased by the Knight's tone. He rested his hand on his chin, drumming on his jaw with one long finger.

"Oh, it must suck to be you today."

In the end, it took six (six!) more sacks to collect all the scrolls inside the Wizard's lair, each scribbled with all manner of unfinished words of power that could definitely be used by spies to break the Eighth Kingdom's wards. Still, the more he collected the angrier he got. Stupid wizards and their stupid stuff. His huffing just set the resident Wizard to snickering unrepentantly, which did not improve his mood one bit.

He stomped his way back out, dragging all the sacks behind him. They weren't heavy, especially considering the brutal training held by the High Advisor every day, just…irritating.

The last area to check was in a place, and with a person, he liked substantially more.

The Knight held the castle's Artificer in very high esteem. A forger of weapons and armor without peer, they would need a whole guild's worth of lesser blacksmiths to rival his skill. And they would probably still fall short. Even blessed Ogun, who could pull weapons made of his own soulfire to cleave his enemies apart, still only made temporary armaments; as the Devil's burning feet needed rest, and the Knight could not wield Excalibur's holy flame endlessly, Ogun's fiery weapons needed to be recalled eventually.

The Artificer's weapons were forever.

Or until he destroyed them to make superior ones.

Which was often.

As such, there was always something amazing being created down inside his forge. Whether it was more of his animals or equipment for the castle—and these were not always separate things—new stuff came out of his workshop on a daily basis. The Knight could never tell if he was driven by purpose, or simply bored, because his productivity never wavered.

Also, watching him beat a sheet of metal with a massive hammer while wearing that horned, beastly skull on his head was just awe-inspiring. Sparks and flames everywhere, and all without any resistance to fire at all.

If the stars aligned just right, maybe Ogun could be convinced to join their Artificer at the forge for a few hours. The arms that would come out of there would be legendary.

The Knight left all of his sacks save the lightest one at the door. The Artificer had a short temper in regards to tampering with his den, and despite a lack of weapons training, he had a fiercely good throwing arm. Not much in the name of scrolls came out of here. Like the rest of the Artificer's creations, they were either kept close and saved for later, or returned to ash inside the forge. Still, with the High Advisor overseeing this quest, it paid to be thorough.

Turns out, the Knight was not the only visitor down here.

Upon entering and picking his way through the labyrinth of wonders, he could see that the Shapeshifter from the First Kingdom was here, too. Everyone that came from the grand castle of the First was a holy member of the Temple, their mighty King included (and no amount of reaching for Nirvana could erase the memory of having the First King block Excalibur's blade with his bare hands with no effort whatsoever). This included the their Shapeshifter, who while not as refined or focused at the Priestess, nevertheless had received the training in performing the holy combat rites. She was currently the Eighth Kingdom's Shapeshifter, a werehellcat (holy hellcat? Holycat? Heavencat, there we go) with a resistance to flames that put everyone else in the Eighth Kingdom to shame. Given what he had seen of the other members of the First Castle, she could be frighteningly fierce.

Too bad she was afflicted with some sort of terrible curse that struck her clothing with such fright that it fled her body at any perceived opportunity. Only a few people seemed to be completely immune to its immediate effect (both the Eighth King and High Advisor sometimes caught the aftermath, but were never struck by the curse itself). The Knight had suffered his fair share of indignity because of it, but the evil in the curse seemed to reach for greater evil; the Devil was the first and most common target when within range, the curse's poor werecat host obviously not included.

For now, everything seemed normal. They were exchanging words and the Artificer handed her a set of palm-sized orbs. Some manner of bomb? Given that he could understand the arcane languages spoken by the Wizard, it could be something alchemical in nature. None of his business, in any event.

He was quite correct in that there was not much for him to collect here.

The Knight was greeted by the Artificer's assistant, a potent sorceress in her own right—who had also done a brief stint as an enemy, until the Artificer and the Eighth King took it upon themselves to rectify the issue while inside the Nether. And considering that the Artificer was as vicious in protecting his family as he was in his lair, and the Eighth King had come out of that whole confrontation almost uncharacteristically angry, it must have been a hell of a fight. The Knight was sorry that he'd missed it; the Eighth King never sparred with them (although there were rumors that he had traded blows with the High Advisor and the Witch prior to the Knight or the Devil's arrival), but he could only imagine the damage those fists could do, barring access to a pile bunker or a mace.

The sorceress assured him they had nothing; lots of metal scrap that would be made into something else, but paper tended to feed the flames as much for fun as for efficiency. He bid her a good day and made about his way.

The Knight sighed. Knight King. He didn't forget. His task was done, other than seeing these sacks outside for proper disposal. That would be a satisfying report to give later, now that his quest objective was completed. Chest puffed out and with all the aplomb he could muster, the Knight King dragged his quest items outside to turn in.

Akitaru looked up from his coffee just in time to watch Arthur prance down the hallway, dragging what must have been at least half a dozen laden trash bags behind him. It was either a prance or a very pompous march, chest puffed out and head thrown back and very, very proud of himself. For what, nobody new. But at least he seemed to be taking his chore list seriously.

Just about as seriously as Arthur could take anything.

Like… when his rookies got serious they became a brutal force to be reckoned with, but that was, maybe, only about one percent of their total uptime. The other ninety-nine percent was spent doing… whatever sort of behavior prompted things like this. It was almost bizarre enough to make Akitaru get up out of his chair to stare down the hallway after him. Almost. He'd seen much worse, though. At this point, he'd have to smell burning or hear screaming in order to think something was truly amiss. Even if that suddenly became the case, Hinawa would probably be on it much quicker—and more effectively—than he would. He was good like that.

Speaking of, his lieutenant hardly spared a glance as Arthur traipsed down the hall with his haul. A quick look over his shoulder, and that was it. Akitaru set down his coffee; even if it wasn't alarming enough to investigate further, he figured it at least warranted mentioning.

"I don't know what you did to make Arthur enjoy taking the trash out, but good job."

Hinawa spared him only the barest look over the rims of his glasses before returning his attention to the stapled file in his hand. He was in that kind of mood, then, hellbent on ignoring all the rest of the nonsense going on around him, out of possible fear of losing his sanity. Akitaru grinned. He'd be fine; if he was ever going to crack, it would have long-since happened.

"I didn't do anything."

They were playing this game now, were they?

"Okay, what did you say to him, then?" Because that was the kind of semantic argument Hinawa would have when he felt like denying something.

Hinawa thumbed over to a new page.

"I didn't say anything particular to him, either." Another page. Given the speed, if Akitaru couldn't see his eyes moving, he would have thought he was pretending to read at all. "This is Arthur. There's a reason I gave Company 2 a dossier on how to handle him during our Nether ops with them."

"Touché." And a point for Hinawa. The speed at which Arthur could turn the mundane into the fantastical bordered on a magic trick.

The lieutenant picked up his coffee without looking.

"However, I am about to amend his chore list, now that he is done with that one. I doubt he will have remembered the rest of the original list, regardless."

"Oh?" Even though none of it was directed at him in any way, the way Hinawa said it made some of the hairs on Akitaru's arms stand on end. That almost imperceptible, lilting undercurrent of "you have slightly annoyed me, so I am going to deign to slightly punish you for it."

So when Arthur strolled back through the cathedral, popped his head into the room and greeted Hinawa with a, "good sir, I have disposed of this castle's scrolls and other detritus," which made Akitaru take a hard, burning swallow of his coffee so that he wouldn't laugh instead, he was entirely unsurprised when Hinawa flipped to another page of his report and responded with a nonchalant, "good. Now help Shinra mop the cathedral. Starting with that hallway."

Arthur balked a little.

"But that is the Devil's chore."

Someone was feeling confident today. Akitaru almost felt sorry for him, but everyone knew not to step in the beartrap, even if it hadn't grabbed anyone in some amount of time. And poor Arthur was just about to plant his foot right in it. He took another mouthful of coffee at Hinawa's slow, deliberate turn to give Arthur his full attention.

"I never intended him to do the whole thing by himself."

Trap set.

"The Devil is clever and quick. He can handle something menial like that."

Foot down…

"And you just 'handled' dragging several bags of trash down this otherwise unsoiled hallway. And now you are going to clean up after yourself. With a mop." And even without a clear view of Hinawa's face, he knew exactly the hard, knife-edged look that was probably lurking behind his bangs. "Unless you would like a repeat of when you two scrubbed all the floors with no mops…"

And there were the teeth.

Arthur's back straightened immediately, and he bolted down the hall. Presumably to steal a mop from Shinra.

Hinawa turned back to the table and his coffee and his reading without even the slightest hint that anything had happened. Akitaru grinned into his own cup.

"You're awful."

Hinawa shot him another, much more deliberate look through his bangs.

"But our trash has been taken out, and our floors will soon be cleaned."

"…Well played." And point two for Hinawa. Akitaru knew when to fold.

Kinda.

"'Scrolls,' though? That's a new one…"

AN:

Because the fact that nobody else has bothered to use Arthur to write a Not Quite fantasy AU makes me cripplingly sad. So I just did it.

You know that if you got this kid to sit at a table and roll some dice, he'd be the best tabletop gamer there ever was. Also the worst, simultaneously. XD

Writing Shinra and Arthur's dynamic is frickin' hard, mostly because my brain cannot bend in the ways required to have some of their stupid arguments.

I'm exhausted and it is late at night and I'm sure there be typos everywhere, but I gotta hit the hay. I'll sift through my nonsense later.