Post by Shinku on Jul 7, 2015 13:35:02 GMT -5
There was another loud noise coming from the burning palace as another part of the ceiling caved in and Dan looked over to the building nervously. The stupid boy still hadn’t come out and slowly the short man started to worry that his plan hadn’t worked. But he had been so sure that the boy would follow them out, the teenager had seemed so intent on fighting why would he let his opponent escape?
No matter what he did, the boy was just too unpredictable! The normal assumptions, won through experiences collected during twenty-eight years of life, on how an action might affect the other, simply didn’t work with the boy and Dan was pretty sure that even empiric studies would not help in getting a desired result out of the idiot. Or well… had the boy only been an idiot, things might have worked well, for even idiots had some sort of common sense and were easily to trick as they reacted in common manner. But in THIS teenager’s case, all hope was lost. The boy would have to help himself, for Dan surely saw no way to do so.
That didn’t stop Dan from wishing that there was something he could do. Just standing around while others were in trouble, wasn’t like him.
All around the palace, people were running around trying to stop the flames from spreading or bringing important objects to safety. Yet he and the not-Pirate Wackham were standing in a sort of silent bubble. It wasn’t quiet at all where the stood for the sounds of panic and crumbling building were loud and could probably be heard miles away. Yet people were avoiding the odd pair standing in the palace’s courtyard and a feeling of silent exhaustion combined with a grave resolution was hanging in the air so strongly that Dan wasn’t surprised that people felt uncomfortable about approaching it. The not-Pirate was looking as if he was trying to come to a decision and Dan didn’t want to disturb the man. For some reason the short man got the feeling, that the other one would rise again from his fatigue, like the phoenix bird out of the ash. They didn’t lack ash at the moment, so much for sure.
“I should just have taken the boy by the arm and drag him out with me, not caring if he wanted to come or not.”
But it was a bit late to regret that now. It was much too late to run back in and search for the boy who could by now be everywhere…
Suddenly there was a loud cry that could be heard over all the other noises coming from the top of the building. At least that answered one question.
Worried as he was about the boy, Dan was starting to think about possible rescue measurements, when the building collapsed fully. Gasping for air he stood there in shock for a moment, before he realized what he had seen. Surely that black silhouette against the fire lit night sky…
Relaxing slightly as he realizes that the boy was probably fine, Dan turned around and found himself surprised again. While he had been staring at the building, someone else had joined them. And not just someone, it was the pretty Girl in Yellow and she was talking to “Lieutenant Wackham.”
“… knowing that she had lost her cover the revolutionary left together with her men and she looked anything but happy about it. I ended up losing the trust of Prince Near as well, with all that been happening and so I decided to follow her instead of wasting time with him, but short time later we got the message that the palace was on fire…” she reported, her hands resting on her knees, she must have been running here to find him. “and upon hearing that you went back to save the hostages, I changed my mind and came here to see if you needed help but while I found the hostages being leaded out by an old general of sorts, you were nowhere around…“ The girl paused a moment and lifted her head, suddenly noticing that she wasn’t alone with her Lieutenant. Her eyes widened as she realized that she had talked about secret things in front of a civilian. Dan decided that she had just not seen him as he had been standing behind the big Marine guy rather than to assume that he was ignored and unnoticed on a regular basis.
Lieutenant Wackham followed her gaze and saw who she was looking at, then waved a hand.
“It’s fine, he knows already. My cover was blown as well unfortunately." The man sighed heavily bearing all the weight of their mission on his shoulders.
“This is very bad. With the hostages gone, the Queen loses an important piece to her plan, and yet I doubt she’ll give it up just because of that small throwback. And I fear that without anyone near to control her, things will turn very bad indeed. If only I had not made that mistake back there during the fight, but I was really surprised about that boy knowing Captain Zumi.”
The Girl in Yellow raised an eyebrow questioningly but didn’t press the matter. Instead she had some very surprising news for her superior.
“But the Queen can’t move at all.” She told him and earned a very surprised look.
“What?! How did you do that?! No wait, we SHOULDN’T be doing that! The Marine can’t just interfere with an island’s politics, not in the open at least… if your cover was blown…” his voice dropped low and stopped as she raised her hands in a way that was both appeasing and defensive.
“But it wasn’t us. It was that Granny!” She seemed to want a moment to catch her breath but the puzzled look on her Lieutenant’s face made her explain faster. In fact, she spoke so fast it was hard to follow even though there were short breaks between her sentence or rather at some odd points as she hesitated over how to formulate it.
“The Granny with the handbag, she suddenly walked in while me and the escaping revolutionaries… but well that’s only half important right now, … well she walked in and sort of took the Queen hostage - or not hostage. Her actual words were something like “You’ve got house arrest! And you’ll stay here and think about what you’ve done.” And the palace guards looked as if they wanted to interfere but couldn’t or didn’t dare too and honestly I understand them very well. That Granny was scary as well… very scary. Made me feel like a five years old. There’s no way to go against her and even the revolutionaries would not have a chance to budge her...” she shrugged, “And that’s the situation.”
They had both forgotten Dan again, who was standing around, looking into the ashen night sky and thought about this new information.
“So Henry’s likely left the island or will leave soon enough.” He felt oddly disappointed about this. But the sea was vast and mysterious, maybe they would meet again. “At least,” he thought almost happily, “I should have left a lasting impression on her.”