Shadow of the Prince

All for a Stolen Pie

Dal stood in front of two archways in a semi-familiar hall, one on the left, and one on the right. They were identical in appearance, and either could lead her in the direction of the hidden staircase Magistrar Garvis took her to earlier today. 

"Which one do you think it is, Beasty? I've gotten us this far," She murmured and turned to the dark wolf who had become her shadow after leaving the kitchens. 

The black wolf cocked his head as if to ask her why in the world she was posing this question to a dog.

"Oh come now, you knew your way to the kitchens!"

The wolf's tail twitched and looked back behind him.

Dal sighed, clutching the warm pie in her hands as if the heat of it would lend some sort of clue that the annoying great wolf would not. If this was some kind of magical creature, like Pernica, he was certainly choosing an inopportune time to hide his abilities; namely the knowledge of this incredibly infuriatingly designed castle.

She studied the large wolf, who seemed content to study her right back. 

Dal looked around at her surroundings, and with a sudden start, realized that she had found her way back to the same hall that Beasty had found her in. 

She took a few tentative steps forward, and then a few more. Gaining confidence, she decided to take the righthanded exit into the adjacent hall.

"It is this way to the third floor, beasty?"

The patter of steps behind her paused, drawing her attention. Beasty blinked at her and glanced back behind them at the other exit.

Dal suppressed her satisfied smile.

So he did know his way around the castle.

"No, I remember now. It must be that one," Dal feigned remembering, and took the lefthand exit out of the hall.

Dal decided not to press her luck and fake ignorance again on the way back to her room. It took most of her energy trying to remember the way back, anyway.

Soon enough, the hidden staircase came into view, and Dal whooped a triumphant, but unladylike, noise of excitement. 

"Finally."

Dal took two stairs at a time. The dark wolf accompanied her, keeping an easy pace. His movements were fluid, like water over river rocks. 

When they climbed the last stair, Da caught the glances of the guards down the hall. It was not lost on her that the soldier closest to her, standing at Magistrar Garvis' room, did a double-take, before jerking his head straight forward and staring down the wall in front of him with such intensity Dal feared it might fall over.

The air in the hall shifted, and Dal suppressed another unladylike chuckle. She remembered the first time she'd encountered the beast. She wondered how often they encountered him. From their rigid posture, she figured that it wasn't often.

Dal and the beast passed the soldiers posted at the Magistrar's room, and came to stop in front of the soldiers in front of hers. They avoided her eyes completely. The dark-haired one that Garvis called Gerallto seemed to be ignoring a bead of sweat on his forehead.

"Well Beasty," Dal sighed and turned to the large wolf beside her, "This is where I bid you goodnight. I thank you for your company to the kitchens."

The wolf only blinked in response. She noticed that his easy demeanor had changed on their walk to her room. Where before he had friendly eyes that eagerly listened to her tales of woe, now, he now had empty ones of cold indifference. The fur on the beast's hackles was raised, and his maw scrunched in a near snarl. He stood to full height, and Dal realized that she'd misjudged him before. 

Beasty towered over them all with ease. A deep rumble came from the wolf, his growl reverberating louder than when he'd found her in the hall. This growl shook the halls. 

The ebony wolf stepped forward and sniffed the blonde soldier, Hennisan's, neck. He shifted to Gerallto, sniffing his neck in the same manner.

Dal noticed that Gerallto's hands began to shake.

She was about to call out to Beasty when he pulled back of his own accord. She made to scold him, but he moved along down the hall without a backward glance towards the final door near the end of the hall - the door that Magistrar Garvis had not taken her to, but had alluded to earlier. The Master Hound Keeper's room.

Dal watched curiously as the wolf scratched at the bottom of the door. He paused a moment before he turned his massive head to look back at her.

Everything in her screamed that she should retreat back into her room underneath the frightening wolf's gaze, but the moment shared in the kitchen eating pie with the creature had forever changed her perception. There was no going back now.

A snarl pulled at Beasty's teeth, and another low growl echoed through the hall as the Hound Keeper's door flung open. It was too far down the hall to catch sight of him, but perhaps it worked to Dal's advantage. This way the esteemed keeper would not see her soot-stained dress and stolen blueberry pie.

After the long day, she couldn't help it. Dal felt the smile pull onto her face unbidden. The last sight she saw before stumbling into her new, overly luxurious room, was Beasty's half-cocked head staring after her, a glint of something besides dominance and aggression in his wolfish eyes.

Dal clutched the pie to her chest in victory. Beasty had served as the perfect diversion from her stolen treat.