carl@fire

Isemeine sucked in a breath. "I've heard similar rumors," she allowed.

"Hm," Tomas frowned. "That's certainly not a good thing," he said, tsking. "To think, the very day—hours—after your betrothed disappears, and here I find you with another man?"

"Is it now a crime to speak with man aside from my betrothed?" she said, suddenly amused. "Shall I file a grievance against you with the city guard?"

Tomas chuckled. He leaned forward in his seat a little, likely the best he could do with Delsanra's head between his legs. "No, no, nothing like that," he said, shaking his head with each denial. "However," he drawled, "I wonder what Her Highness, the Queen, would think of it? Especially given her continuing paranoia about… Well, I'm sure you know."

What Mother would think of it? Isemeine frowned as she considered it. Supposing she heard that I was seen at one of these coffeehouses, with an unknown man… Depending on the small details that the story was told with, what the proprietor and other customers chose to say… She saw Tomas's knowing grin. "Oh," she said, her face going pale. She would lock me in my chambers again as she did after Mister Godfry was executed. Destroy my steamcar, my notes, anything that might be seen as—

"I see you've grasped my meaning," Tomas said, looking suddenly very pleased with himself. "My father always did say I had a head for business opportunities; I don't mean to boast, but I decided to give the proprietor here a small bonus when I entered. Five hundred thousand coins—with a promise of more later, naturally—if he had no qualms about answering any future questions regarding your visit in precisely the manner that I specified."

Isemeine swallowed, and she felt her fingertips grow cold, beginning to tremble again. No, no, no, no…

"Now, Isemeine, you must know how I've fancied you all these years," he said, his leer growing more evident as he spoke. "And this seems like the perfect opportunity for you yield dividends for all the time I've invested in you, wouldn't you say?"

Her breathing quickened, and her eyes widened. "What do you want?" she asked, fearing the answer.

"Simply a small transaction," Tomas said, his eyes boring into her as though his gaze could somehow unbutton and remove the thick blouse she wore. "I'll disguise your little indiscretion. In exchange, you can begin to repay my thoughtfulness and consideration by joining me in my bed for the…"

The words seemed to drone away into nothingness as Isemeine listened, her breath coming in shorter and shorter bursts, her heart pounding frantically as though it would escape her chest. She felt the walls closing in, and her surroundings seemed to be growing oddly dim. A slavering dog barked furiously next to her ear, doing its best to break its flimsy-looking chain and bite through her neck.

A hand clamped around her throat, squeezing tighter and tighter.

She lacked for breath.

Her eyes widened, and she stared, trying to gasp for air that wouldn't—

Something cracked, then crashed down next to her, and she was suddenly covered in a soft green light.

"It seems the lady is displeased with your presence," came a deep, quiet voice to her side. "I'm willing to be lenient this time. Leave at once. Otherwise, you can leave your head."

Isemeine sagged in her seat, feeling the tension somehow drain away as she finally took in the breath she had been denied by her fear. Her vision came back into focus slowly, and through watery eyes she caught sight of Tomas staring with his mouth open.

Carl was standing next to the table.

Except…

Isemeine blinked, realizing that her eyes were watering.

This was a different Carl. He stood tall—huge, almost impossibly so for a human—and he scowled down at Tomas with a glare that did not lack for anger and radiated intent. The outworlder's beard now seemed to add an air of menace on top of his looming presence as he casually rested his hand on a giant, green-glowing spear that had crunched through the wooden floorboards and into the concrete below, creating a sizable hole in the floor that he now stood at the edge of. The light from the spear was so strong that it spread over the entire table, dimming her view of everything beyond it.

Carl glanced slowly to Isemeine. "He's one of them?" he boomed, his voice seeming unreasonably deep. "One of those wasting your time?"

Isemeine nodded with hesitance, her mind not working properly at that moment.

Carl nodded, rotating his giant spear slightly. There was a cracking sound as the tip carved deeper into the concrete of the building's foundation. He looked back to Tomas with a flat, pitiless gaze that would not have been out of place on an executioner. "Choose," he said in the same quiet voice. "You gonna leave here in one piece or two?"

Tomas gulped, his teeth visibly chattering.

Delsanra's head poked up over the table next to him. "Tomas, what's wrong?" she asked, giving him the same ever-present smile she always wore.

"I think Tomas is feeling an intense need to be elsewhere," Carl said, his scowl continuing to pin Tomas in place as though it was a spear in itself. "Isn't that right, boy?" There was another crack, and the spear sank even deeper into the foundation.

"Y-yessir!" Tomas said, nodding frantically. He leaned forward to stand, but his trousers, not having been fastened, caused him to fall to the ground—directly towards the small crater the spear's tip was resting in. He screamed as his face got a little too close to the source of the weapon's glow, then scrambled towards the entrance, desperately attempting to simultaneously pull his trousers up and run at full speed while accomplishing neither to a credible degree as the incredulous patrons watched in silent shock.

"Nice meeting you!" Delsanra called in a cheerful voice to Carl as she exited the booth and followed after her owner, clicking along in her heels.

Isemeine stared up at Carl.

He slid into his previous seat, leaving the spear to stand on its own in the floor nearby.

Suddenly, he was back to being the Carl she'd known. "Looked like you needed a little bit of a rescue there," he said, giving her a concerned look. "Sorry if you had it under control or whatever, but…"

The princess sniffled, then rubbed quickly at her eyes. She felt impossibly light at that moment, as though a crushing weight had lifted from her shoulders. "No, not at all. My thanks, Carl. I… I'm not sure what I would have done if you hadn't arrived when you did."

"Well, you probably wouldn't have been here to begin with," Carl said with a wry grin. "You okay?"

She started to nod, just as she always did when troubling things had happened and the maids and guards of the castle posed the same question to her.

She stopped and shook her head instead. "No. No, I'm not," she said quietly.

"Wanna talk about it?" Carl asked. "No pressure or anything, but I've been told I'm a pretty good listener when I want to be."

Isemeine chewed her lip. Did she wish to speak with someone? To finally unburden herself?

Her mother hadn't cared. Today wasn't the first time it had been proven to her. If anything, she enabled everything that had happened.

Her sisters ranged from Sosanna's casual dislike to Emma's outright accusations of secretly being a devil sympathizer as justification for her cruelty.

Her father…

Well, her father had created that problem for her in the first place. Surely he was not a person she could have spoken with.

There were maids and guards she'd chatted with through the years, but none with whom she was particularly close—or who could ever be trusted not to repeat what she might tell them.

Her tutors each stayed for a year and departed immediately, no doubt having been informed of the dire fate that befell the last tutor to befriend the possibly-devil-tainted princess.

As it so happened, Isemeine Charus, fourth princess—and most beloved princess—of the Kingdom decided that she did, in fact, need someone to speak with.

Someone exactly like the clueless outworlder who'd just terrorized and humiliated the son of the most powerful noble in the Kingdom on her behalf without a second thought.

He was a blank sheet of paper, yes, but he would not be for much longer.

Impartiality could fornicate itself.