An order was given.

An order Daniel was unable to follow. In his heart, the mention of the dragon brought pain more terrible than the tearing of the bindings.

The Servant Branch refused an order.

Overcome with grief and regret and fear, he could not re-frame his mindset. If he had just a moment's awareness, he could have deflected the question. But the trauma so great that he felt his chest seize and throat tighten.

It meant that when the punishment of disobedience was enacted, it caught him squarely. He had lost his chance to deflect or subvert.

And so Branch was punished.

He remained standing, but not because of his strong will or his training or his experience.

Branch remained standing because it hurt too much to even crumple to the floor. His legs locked in place as an electric power seemed to tear and burrow inside each limb near the bindings. But the worst was around his heart. The binding placed on his True Name of Daniel arched up and raked, like claws through gauze. The twisting and unruly nature of the citadel still toyed with him, like a cat forbidden to eat a particular mouse but still considering it. At least he was more established than when he had no harbor name at all. The name Branch took the blows like a shield. The bindings were on Elswith's name, and Branch was a different person in the eyes of the Law of Fae.

His Lordling name before let him coil and snake through the enchantments that flowed like a snarling river. A servant’s name was different. He felt more protected, but held in place. Before, he had navigated like an otter through water, still in danger but fast and sleek. Now, it felt as if he was trapped in a wooden box or a barrel lost in sea, dry inside but unable to change the direction or switch the current. It did keep him mostly safe from the water, kept him from sinking into the raging torrents of magic. But also kept him from maneuvering.

And the punishment, was like a giant wave crashing overhead. He could not get out of the way.

Pain from the disobeyed order, stole his breathe.

Maybe...next time he should just find a way to disobey without actively defying his bindings, he thought dazedly.

The child of course noticed his reaction. "Branch, are you well? Did you die? Hey...."

The pain ended, because a goose boy had so little authority that the Law of Fae seemed to grow bored.

Daniel held out a hand, not wanting the goose boy to touch him. "If I am to continue to allow you to spy on me, you must never order me again." Daniel said, feeling the husk of emotion enter his voice. He hated revealing he was vulnerable, but he could hardly pretend to be anything else. The deaths he had seen a year ago still troubled him, but since he lost his power, the grief seemed closer still. This was an opening. He was not Elswith any longer. Anyone could be a danger to him now.

"I'm not...spying..." The Law of Fae detected a lie in the boy. The boy had so little power that it would hardly matter. But he would never acquire power if he continued to lie. The Seelie Court was not kind to those inept in its power. "I...am just to tell my mother's friend, who won't tell anyone."

"Do not lie. And do not believe a clear lie either." Daniel said, and sat down. Already the day seemed so long, and it had barely began.

"I hurt you..." the boy said, shooing away a stray goose who then nipped at the boy's legs.

"Don't apologize either." Why did no one teach children anything?

"I just...wanna know about dragons." The goose boy sat down, looking upset. "Honestly, just a little bit."

The mere mention of the word left Daniel fighting the urge to look for cover. He had never fought a true, living, and breathing dragon before. This was evident as he was still alive. But what Elswith had fought was the mere rotting bones of a centuries old dragon. A corrupted corpse.

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Presently, Daniel had to fight not to lose his stomach as he remembered the carnage. The moment of fear, when he and his Circle's own lives had been at risk as inky blackness had swallowed up all light. When Elswith had realized that perhaps they too would fall prey to the corrupted corpse of the dragon. Daniel could still feel the terror in his chest of the last attack of the brute had crashed as Lordling Elswith and a dozen other lordlings during their own final disparate attempts to seal it. They had joined hands with the remaining natives to finally fell the beast, sealing it down to hopefully more permanent eternal rest.

The shadow of the dragon had devastated an entire region because Lordling Elswith, Heirling of the Red Sword, had been too slow to realize the threat, had wasted too much time, then rushed in without being ready, meaning more had to die due to his numerous errors?

Daniel gathered himself and looked to the mountains North. He could not see them, only the leering wall rising to meet the sky. He must break through his trauma so others would not use it against him. He looked back to the earth and found a few fallen feathers, long enough that he could present them. He decided he’d keep the one’s he plucked from warrior goose. “What about dragons?” his stomach churned at his own speaking of it. He must overcome it.

The goose boy beamed with excitement. “Can you tame them?”

“No.” Daniel replied, his voice flat.

“But what if…”

“No. Dragons don’t care about the little things like us. They barely acknowledge the Void attacks. Little things like the Dread beasts are nothing to them. How could any fae, short of the king himself, dare to tame such a magnificent creature? No taming.” He was comforting himself. Dragons may be so powerful that even their fallen may devastate the land and its people, but similarly they simply did not care. He felt the first break in the cloud of trauma. If asked, he would not be caught unawares again.

“But I wanna ride a mighty steed, like the First King.”

Daniel considered what to do next: The boy had hurt him carelessly. But he had exposed a weakness to Daniel before anyone more powerful could try the same reverse scale that Daniel had not considered. Daniel would not force his way through the trauma, but he could shield it and not allow it to be exploited. He would offer something more...attainable and realistic for the young Goose Boy.

“Be a griffin Knight. Dragons are too big to really offer an exciting ride.” He told a small misstatement. Griffins could fly into battle, do loop d loops, and aid in search and rescue missions while maneuvering through the air. Probably more along the lines of what this child was looking for.

Dragons were too powerful to even need to preform those actions. So why would they ever try? Dragons could fly through the realms and worlds. But he justified that that wouldn’t be more exciting to the boy. Besides, the boy would undoubtedly die quickly if he ever approached a dragon with even the stray thought of trying to put a saddle on its jeweled hide.

He looked at the tallest, and narrowest, building in the Citadel. The clock tower. The clock at the top was even visible in the city outside and below the Citadel Keep. The clock proclaimed it was still early morning. Barely seven hours past midnight, by the clocks telling. As that was the time piece of the Time Court, Daniel trusted it to be accurate. He separated the two piles of long geese feathers, with the larger stack from those that had fallen.

He had a teasing of plan and hid away the four long feathers he had taken in conflict from the Gander. The others, around thirty in different states of disrepair, he organized and discarded more than half.

Daniel heard hissing from the gander again. He rubbed the sore spot on his arm in remembrance. Goose in gravy. Could be good.

“Time to go. This Humble servant Branch offers the thanks of the Sky Court to the Goose Boy watching Geese.” He spoke formally. The game and the Law of Fae both listened when things were different and debilitate. He had practiced enough to engage in conversation with his bindings. Few would be as bothersome as a bored child. It could hardly be worse than what had already happened.

The goose boy shifted. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Report back to whoever pays you for spying and tell them you saw a goose bite me.”

“No one pays me for spying. Do people pay money for that? How much money?”

This ignorance didn’t completely exonerate the child, but Daniel at least felt he had established a sociable if tedious place to see the sky.

“A word of advise." Daniel said, pausing.

"About dragons?"

"In future, do not tell those you watch that you are spying."

"I was just being honest. Mother says if I'm not honest, I will never get stronger."

"Speak no falsehood and honor all promises. The Law of Fae will grow within you then. But 'honesty', in and of itself?" Daniel resumed walking toward the old stone wall. "A little bit of Honesty will get you killed."