ANIKA: FALLOUT

There is no doubt that being a princess has its perks. But at this particular moment, Anika is having a hard time enjoying them. It’s been three months since she returned. Every day, she gets to experience the joy of morning sickness anew.

Due to her pregnancy, she has been put on indefinite leave from military operations, which has been her field of expertise till now. Of course, the Emperor would not just let a valuable asset such as herself lie fallow.

However, he has every desire to keep her out of the public eye. So she spends her days (and oftentimes part of her nights, too) tucked away in her office performing audits of all kinds on different government departments. In short, she is locked away doing paperwork all day, every day. Oh joy.

On the positive side, the group who attempted her assassination had been identified, hunted down, and permanently removed from the board. An angry Emperor rarely has an inclination toward mercy.

On the negative side, Anika’s own fans had shown a disturbing sort of animosity toward the one who had ‘defiled’ their princess. Meaning, she supposed, the person who had gotten her pregnant.

She had not named the father in order to protect his family from retaliation, even though she suspected him of betraying her. This, however, allowed speculation to run rampant with her otherworldly benefactor (aka Ned) being the prime suspect.

She had taken steps to suppress information which could lead people to his location. She had also pointedly informed the few people who had access to that information that Ned was in no way responsible for her developing children. But people believe what they want to believe.

NED: LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

It had been a rough couple of months. Thankfully, after crushing his knee and his hand, his tormentors never returned. Unthankfully, nobody came around to heal said knee and/or hand.

There’s no way to describe how Ned went about putting himself back together. His knee swelled up like a watermelon. Making it very hard to push around bits of knee cap to try to get them to heal right. His left hand was of no use. Crushed as it was, there was no functionality remaining. It was also swollen to an extreme.

In the end, he made do. Since he had nothing to use for splints, he had to satisfy himself with laying on the floor next to the door. That way he could eat his daily food allotment without moving around too much.

It took about ninety days for the bones to knit. A little slow, but his circumstances weren’t ideal. And of course, the result of his healing efforts could not be described as functional. He had no use of his left hand other than as a mobile paper weight and his left knee would not bend at all.

He was thankful, though, that there had been no infection. A function of the injuries being mainly internal? That’s what he believes anyway.

Another thing he was thankful for was that he had a new roomie. Well, not in his cell, but across the hall within easy talking distance. Thus, he was able to resume learning the Imperial language.

It was slow going at first, but he made steady progress. Thanks to the hundred or so words he had learned from Martheliion, he had enough to kickstart the process.

His language benefactor was a middle-aged woman named Glenelda. She never said what she did to end up in their cozy little dungeon. Ned did come to understand that this is very much a private affair. The kind of place that isn’t officially sanctioned, only a few people know about and even fewer people talk about.

Glenelda appeared about two months after he was mutilated and disappeared again four months later. No one visited either of them during that time except the servant who brought food, emptied the buckets, and never spoke.

Such is Ned’s life. It has gotten to a point such that he can’t really remember any other. Although he does remember Marthelion. She is frequently in his dreams. Which is nice. Mostly they just watch Princess Nekosama and eat snacks together.

Funny how the food and company in dreams is always so good. Oddly, or at least he thinks it’s odd, he doesn’t have nightmares. Maybe because his waking life is more of a nightmare than anything he can otherwise dream up on such a low-calorie diet.

ANIKA: HORRIBLE REALIZATION

Anika is working late, as usual. At eight months pregnant, she has trouble properly reaching the desk to write and sign documents so she has retrained one of her most devoted maids as an amanuensis and personal secretary. This woman, Hildeeth, works tirelessly to lessen the burden on the pregnant Princess while also serving as a confidante and personal cheerleader.

And gossip clearinghouse. As they finish their tasks for the day, the two women, as has become their habit, sit down for a cup of tea together to relax. This relaxation takes the form of a gossip data dump, giving the princess a chance to laugh and cry and vicariously experience life. In other words, since she doesn’t have a life, she does her best to at least live a little through hearing about others.

Most of the stories that Hildeeth tells are meant to amuse the princess. One such story she is telling on this night involves a protagonist with the unlikely name of Glenelda. Glenelda, it seems, had offended the third son of a marquis who had been slumming it at a bar she worked at. Having not been in a mood to be groped by a man who had very little by way of a chin and way too much by way of front teeth, Glenelda had taken a good swing and knocked the misguided youth into next week. She then led his two bodyguard companions a merry chase all through the establishment and then halfway across town before being run to ground.

Sadly she had then disappeared for several months before popping back up again with a wild tale about being locked up in a dank, smelly, and dingy dungeon. She had apparently escaped after performing certain favors for the boy who brought the food in every day. Now armed with an amount of incriminatory evidence which she had deposited with a third party for insurance purposes, she’d managed to barter her way into a position at the palace as a laundry maid (third class). Which explains how this bit of gossip has come into the possession of Hildeeth.

As a bit of an aside, Hildeeth adds some ancillary information. Glenelda claimed that she was not the only one imprisoned in this unofficial fashion. That there was in fact a foreigner in that dungeon as well who could speak little of the Imperial tongue and had the unlikely name of Ned. Since Hildeeth had sometimes heard the princess muttering that name to herself when under stress, she thought perhaps it would be of interest to her that there were others with that name.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

This tale prompted Anika to dictate a quick note for the captain of her guards to investigate the story. Her main concern being that there were people who felt they could safely incarcerate other people without any legal basis or due process.

Two days later this resulted in a report being delivered to the princess with copies to the Justice Department. The report exposed a certain sort of corruption along with some leads as to the perpetrators. And details about the incarceration of a person of no known provenance whose physical description matches someone whom the princess holds in high regard.

Infuriated, the princess seeks an audience with her father, the Emperor.

NED: LIVING THE QUIET LIFE

Ned has developed a routine. His clock is the food tray, which demarcates the beginning of his day. When the tray arrives, he starts with some light exercise: ten pushups, ten situps, and ten deep knee bends. With his current emaciated condition, along with the limited level of nutrition, this is about all he can manage. The knee bends he has to do with one leg, holding the poorly-healed leg straight out in front of him. To be honest, he is a bit proud of his skill and balance in completing the maneuver. It's not much, but finding joy in the small things helps make life worth living.

After exercise, he eats and completes his morning ablutions, which consist of using his bucket and combing his fingers through his long, shaggy, and seriously grungy hair.

Next is meditation. Ned had never previously been much for this sort of thing, but he cannot deny that his current situation is ideally suited for emptying his mind, blocking out all sensation and thinking about nothing.

After meditation, he spends time with his memory. Cycling through practice with three languages a day, mentally recreating significant past experiences, and building a mind palace a la Sherlock.

Then he practices being bored until he starts to feel sleepy. He ends his day with Tai Chi. He doesn’t have a clue how to do Tai Chi, but he hopes that the Chinese will lend him the use of the name for his own Tai-chi-esque creation.

At first, he had been hungry a lot. But he got over that. If he is hungry by evening, he takes it philosophically and with a muttered Qui dort dîne, he lays his head down on the soft stone floor and goes to sleep.

After a couple months of this comforting routine, carried out in a now comforting semi-darkness which now seems bright as day to him, Ned might be forgiven for becoming somewhat angry when his routine is disturbed one afternoon. Right in the middle of Arabic practice.

First came shouting, then the hurried steps of hard boots on stone. then the snap of a key turning the lock and an influx of people. One of them carrying a lamp.

The soft light of the lantern blinds Ned and he finds himself swearing. First in Arabic, then in four other languages one after the other. Ned can be foul-mouthed in every language he knows; an ability for which he contradictorily feels both proud and embarrassed.

Not being prepared for guests, Ned fumbles over to a corner and curls up into a ball. He’s not scared, honestly. Nuh-uh. Just … okay, he’s scared. He’s gotten used to the low-grade nagging pain of his everyday existence and feels now is not a good time to go back to the sharper, more focused pains of torture sessions. Perhaps if they were to return at some other time he would be ready?

Which is probably why he wrapped his arms around his head and started saying in a soft voice, “Please come back tomorrow.” over and over again in one language after another until he had covered them all. Then started the cycle over again from the beginning.

Seeing him like this, all but two of the figures retreat, taking their lamps with them out into the hallway. With the door open, the light still seems glaringly bright to Ned.

One of the invaders, a woman, kneels down next to Ned and says in Imperial, “It’s okay. I am a doctor. We’re here to take you to someplace safe.”

Ned just stares at her.

She tries again, “I am a doctor. We will take you to someplace safe.”

Ned looks at her for another long moment. Finally he says, “Thank you, but it’s safe here. Please come back tomorrow.”

The woman gives a wan smile, “We were sent by a friend. We must take you to safety. I am a doctor, I can cure your wounds.”

“No doctor can cure my wounds,” he states emphatically. “Maybe time. Come back tomorrow, please.”

The man standing behind her, (a guard?) taps her on the shoulder. Holds out a folded piece of paper.

Taking the paper, she turns back to Ned. “Your friend wanted me to give you this.” Unfolding the paper, she shows it to Ned.

Blinking his eyes he tries to focus on the crude drawing there. It shows a stylized picture of a girl with cat ears and a tail wearing a tiara.

Princess Nekosama.

NED: ELSEWHERE

They put him on a stretcher, cover him with a blanket, cover his eyes, and carry him carefully out of his prison. They place him in a vehicle of some kind and slowly drive away. Ned smells and hears horses so he thinks it must be a horse-drawn wagon of some sort. The sway of the carriage and the sonorous clip-clop of hooves soon puts him to sleep.

He awakens as they carry him into a building. Ignoring his feeble resistance, gentle hands pick him up, strip off his clothes and put him in a bath. They shampoo his hair as well. Then when the bath is done, they draw another one and bathe him again. It has been months after all, and he never had so much as a towel available to wipe himself down with.

They finally maneuver him into a soft bed, where the doctor examines him and performs some healing magic. He drifts off to sleep again before she is done.

The next time he awakens, he finds a young woman sitting in a chair next to his bed. Seeing he is awake, she quickly pours some water into a glass from a pitcher and holds it for him as he drinks. It tastes incredibly good.

“Please sir,” the woman says, “wait here a moment, I will get you food.”

She bounces out and almost immediately bounces back in again with a bowl of porridge. Soft rice, soft vegetables cooked in a light broth. He tries to take it from her but she insists on feeding him.

She says her name is Merilee. He falls asleep again. As he drifts off, he decides this uncommon lethargy is the bed’s fault.

When he awakens again, the room is dark. Moonlight is streaming in a window whose drapes are only partially drawn. Merilee is asleep in her chair.

Sitting up, he discovers that he is wearing soft pajamas. He looks around for his clothes but can’t find them. Panicking, he climbs out of bed and starts searching.

His search disturbs Merilee. “What is wrong, sir? What do you need?”

“My clothes,” he cries, “Where are my clothes.”

“They have been sent for cleaning,” she says.

His shoulders sag, and he clenches his fists for a moment. “In the pocket. There was something…”

Understanding dawns and Merilee reaches out to take his hand, the unbroken one. “Here, sir,” she says. “It is here.”

Leading him over to the night stand, she opens the top drawer and shows him. There is volume four of the Princess Nekosama manga. The one he had slipped into his cargo pocket so long ago.

Merilee looks on helplessly as her charge stands there in the moonlight. Tears rolling down his cheeks. Eventually he allows her to lead him back to the bed where he lays down with his back to her and stares at the wall until she nods off in her chair again.