Dinner came that night, along with a couple of hours' worth of light. There was small conversation over a thick stew, and then they both tried to sleep.
The next morning greeted them with storms light through the small window. Rain had come while they were sleeping, but it had passed now, taking his anger with it and leaving him feeling drained and empty.
Breakfast was the same as dinner, but stewed longer and with a few added vegetables, if the place was run anything like the military barracks he had lived in, he reckoned the pot had been on that stove longer than half its tenders had been alive. The taste of it was strangely nostalgic, as he stared down into the wooden bowl.
They finished up their meal and were placing the bowls by the door, when with a rattle of keys, the door swung open, almost taking out Brickwrath, who swore like a navvy at the injustice.
There was a brief standoff as the silent guard indicated that they were to follow, and then with a shrug, they both left the cell.
He hadn't been active on the local council, but he had attended a few meetings and read the newsletters. The council ran the city, which included paying for and running its own justice system, with the final say on laws coming from the monarchy and their parliament.
Although he wasn't sure what was going on with that, there were rumours of a change up at the top, possibly a death? He had been rather out of the loop for the last couple of years, only aware that anything was up due to letters from old colleagues.
After the council, there was the army. They ran their own justice system, but both he and Brickwrath were outside that now, they should be dealt with by the civil courts.
He had had a lot of time to think the night before. If it was the post office which had an issue with them, they might have had their own system, interconnected with the others. He knew they worked with the army sometimes, and they weren't short on money.
They weren't handcuffed or chained as the silent guard led them away, but that didn't mean much.
It had been dark when he'd been dragged here, and part of the journey had been by carriage, but going off the shape of the window and the age of the building, they were somewhere near the river, on the edge of the industrial district.
A grey place, built for scale rather than longevity, with poor workmanship meaning this building would be scrap and dust within the next decade. What a waste of resources.
Halfway down the corridor, another guard joined them, leading the woman he had met on the road… Lillies? Eleph… Elegantlillies?
He struggled to remember, she had been rather standoffish and he had been in the middle of a very stressful journey at the time.
She nodded at them both as their groups merged, and they nodded back, unsure if they were allowed to speak. Nobody had told them they couldn't, but nobody had told them they could, either. It was all very out of order.
As she joined their pack, he caught her eye, and with a sinking heart, realised she was eyeing up the guards.
No, he thought to himself, she reckons she can take them out.
Not that he had any doubt that she could. They weren't armed, as far as he could see, and she was a head taller than anyone else here, but it probably wouldn't go well for them afterwards.
Silently he pleaded with her not to make things worse, and, catching his desperate gaze, she made an eye-rolling gesture, falling back into line. Much to his, and, he saw, the relief of the guard who was with her. They really ought to cultivate a better poker face.
It took them several minutes to reach their destination, walking through a maze of corridors, past endless rooms and offices, all deserted at this time of the morning.
"If they're taking us through the soft bits," Brickwrath murmured as they walked, "they can't keep many prisoners here."
He nodded in agreement, and Elegantlillies frowned down at the two of them. The guards said nothing, simply keeping up the pace.
Finally, they got there, one of the guards striding forward and pushing open a wooden door. It wasn't any different from any of the others they had passed, appearing to be another office. The other guard then shooed the three of them in, before the two of them sighed in relief and settled down outside to wait.
It was an office, but it was a large one, and for a moment Windwashes thought it was a library before his mind took in the furnishings.
Directly ahead of them on entering was a desk of dark wood, strewn with papers. Arranged around it were three chairs, upon which sat three people, all wearing deep blue uniforms. Ah, it would be the post office that had pulled them here, then. That was one mystery solved.
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The wall to their left was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, made of the same dark wood as the desk and built into the structure of the building. Those shelves contained more literature than he had ever seen in one place. To the right of the desk, the room seemed to turn into a library, rows of shelves masking how deep it went, but it couldn't be too far back, maybe three or four rows of head-height freestanding shelves.
There were, he noted silently, no chairs for the three of them.
Behind them, the door shut with a click, and he considered if sitting on the floor would get him into trouble.
-
It took the person behind the desk quite a lot of shuffling before they were ready to speak, and Windwashes considered that this was probably done on purpose, to set them on the back foot, or to see if they incriminated themselves before they were even officially on trial.
With a sigh, papers all in order, the figure behind the desk stood, glared at them, and finally told them why they were there.
"You," She pointed at him, "'The Wind Brings Rain, Washing the Land Afresh', are being charged-" she hesitated, and then giving a little sigh, consulted the paper in front of her, before continuing, "with the theft of the dragon 'Crests the Skies on Wings of Knowledge'. Henceforth known as 'Crests' because I'm not saying that every bloody time. In your vile act of theft, you have caused damages to the scale of-"
She listed off some insane number, and beside him, Brickwrath barked out a laugh, "you could build a city for that!"
She glared, pushing herself forward on the desk and pointing at him, "Shut up, you, we'll get to you in a moment."
Behind him, Windwashes more felt than saw as Elegantlillies placed a hand on Brickwrath's shoulder, which was a feat he hadn't thought she could manage without bending down.
The woman behind the desk started talking again, focusing her gaze back on him and taking a deep breath, "How do you plead?"
Windwashes considered this, trying to ignore the rolling in his stomach. Being glib had never got him far in the military, but the number she had quoted was, truly insane. If that was true, he was fucked either way. As far as he knew the dragon wasn't injured when he returned it, but he had been kinda out of it when they got back, and he hadn't had much in the way of communication with… Well, anyone since then.
"Uh," he started, "I didn't exactly steal it-"
"Him," the woman behind the desk glared at him, and he winced.
"I didn't steal him," he corrected, "you were gonna send him out anyway, I just saved you, you know, a trip to the orphanage."
He thought about this, then spoke quickly, "if there even is an orphanage. You guys weren't too clear on that, and I know most of the buildings here, and I don't remember ever seeing-"
"There is one." Brickwrath cut in, "small place, miserable little windows. I saw it about a half-decade back when I came through." He frowned, "Wait, we are in Oakenge right?"
Windwashes nodded, and he made a snorting noise, "if I'd known you were living this close, I would have visited!"
Windwashes gave a brittle smile, as the woman behind the desk glared at them both, waiting for them to finish their conversation with barely concealed anger.
"If you're quite done. 'I didn't steal him, guv!' is not an answer. Not only did you take unauthorised posession of," she hesitated, "the dragon. But then you also sent him out again, unauthorised, to retrieve,"
She frowned down at her papers, shuffling through them for a moment, before giving up, "These two. Your names aren't important."
"I dunno," muttered Brickwrath, "I'm kinda fond of mine."
She looked like she might explode if this went on any longer, her eyes narrowing at their casual attitude. "Weren't you two in the military, I have it recorded here," she tapped a random sheet of paper, "that at least one of you outranked me, at least at some point. Can't you keep your mouths shut for a moment?"
Windwashes frowned, and then pointed at Brickwrath, who frowned and pointed back, shaking his head in denial.
Behind them, Elegantlillies huffed a quiet laugh, and the woman at the desk continued to talk.
There were three other people in the room, apart from them. Two people sitting on the chairs placed to either side of the desk, and a third was standing up, leaning against one of the bookshelves that made up the library section of the room. He hadn't noticed them when he entered, but it was possible they had been hiding amongst the books.
Windwashes squinted at the one to the left, they looked familiar, but he couldn't place their face. They certainly had a look going though, and he was pretty sure he'd remember if he'd met them before.
"-and so-" he realised he'd been zoning out and struggled to find the flow of the conversation again. "-held up for an extra week, not to mention the damage done to the city by the storm he caused-"
"Wait a minute-"
"Damage which can be measured in the sum of-" she quoted another absolutely bonkers number, and his mind went blank for a moment, imagining how many orphanages that would fund. "-which is beyond our capacity to deal with. You will be shipped down to Lushgrave and tried at the royal court, under your own expense, of course."
Windwashes considered this in a sort of fugue state, while the other two started up a shouting match behind him.
"You can't do that-"
"Under who's authority-"
It was nice to know they had his back, he thought, as the lead weights in his stomach continued to solidify. There hadn't been an execution in years, he was gonna be famous. Would they hang him in the streets like in the olden days, or would it be a private ceremony? Maybe they would send him inland to do forest clearance, or to mine mercury or something equally miserable.
They needed workers for the canal projects, maybe he could get good at digging ditches.
Somebody would have to tell his partner, she was going to be so angry. There was a pang of guilt, as he thought of leaving her alone, but it was a faraway thing. He was drifting free, as the shouting continued around him.
Ah, the one in the chair, he remembered them now, the strange one from the park, who had told him he could adopt the child. He nodded at them in recognition, and they raised an eyebrow at him in response.
Their face had been so different then, odd, it was unusual to Change yourself so much at such an age, but, who was he to judge?
The one who had been leaning on the bookshelves was shouting now as well, as Brickwrath attempted to clamber onto the desk, struggling a little with both his short height, and the woman behind the desk, who was tossing papers at him and shouting.
Windwashes watched the scene for a moment, drifting on a sea of clouds, and then, with a sigh, he turned around, and simply walked away.