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She glanced back up at the colonel, who was intentionally avoiding meeting her gaze.

"Well, just let me know if you need more," the man nodded politely, though rather awkwardly, before disappearing back into the bustle of camp.

Later on, when the Emperor's office back in the capital city received the same man's latest report from the field, Ira's pen shook the same way Kel's bowl had.

With a sigh and shake of his head, the overworked aide tossed the letter to the edge of his desk, where a curious Lucy snatched it up.

"... the emperor has been spending his nights with a young new recruit," the woman read out loud, attracting Thane's attention as he lounged on a nearby sofa.

"What's that you guys are looking at?" the knight's head popped up over the sofa's edge. "Who's it from?"

"It's Colonel Senf's latest update from the Dragon's Heart," Ira responded, nodding for Lucy to pass the paper along.

Pursing her lips into a thin line, the woman handed the report to Thane with a head shake of her own.

While Ira and Lucy struggled to control their expressions, Thane leisurely skimmed through the contents of the letter, suddenly stopping once he reached the last paragraph.

"Calix is.. every night.. with a young boy?!" he exclaimed, throwing a hand to his mouth. "I knew he was riled up, but to think he would do something like this."

Lucy quickly took the paper from the shocked knight and exchanged smirks with Ira as she placed it back on the desk.

"At least we finally have some good news," Ira snorted, reaching idly for the next document in his wobbly stack. "So we won't have to worry about His Majesty being so 'riled up' any more."

"A young new recruit," Lucy chuckled to herself. "It's certainly the last place I'd have looked."

"I know you are both relieved that the emperor has finally found an outlet to vent his pent up emotions," Thane chided his two snickering colleagues, jumping to his feet, "but think of that unfortunate child for a moment!!"

Blinking slowly, he let out a pitiful sigh.

​ "Every night.. I just can't even imagine.." the sympathetic knight murmured. "That boy's poor body."

Ira rolled his eyes as he was forced to witness his friend's oblivious display.

"Come here, Thane," he beckoned in the midst of Thane's sighing. "I also have some pent up emotion I'd like to vent."

The knight gasped, placing a hand protectively in the center of his rump and the other delicately on his cheek.

"Ira.. I'm saving myself," he said quietly, his cheeks reddening under his fingertips, "for my true love."

Ira's pen clattered loudly onto the desk.

For the next several minutes, the only sounds coming from the emperor's office were Thane's fearful whimpers and Ira's booming voice accusing the knight of being both a fool and a pervert. By pressing her ear against the door, however, a passing maid discovered that Lucy's muffled laughs could also be heard underneath the two men's arguing.

The reply that arrived to Colonel Senf afterward instructed the man not to be concerned as the emperor's bizarre actions were 'the best possible outcome of the entire war'.

The colonel was confused and, if he was being honest, still rather uncomfortable with the situation, but he decided to do as Ira had instructed and simply ignore it.

The same couldn't be said for the rest of the Dragon's Heart, however.

The soldiers around Kel were both utterly disgusted with her and absolutely terrified of incurring the Dragon Emperor's wrath. As a result, in addition to the emperor's bullying, she found herself the victim of several petty antics--too small to be worth mentioning and too scattered to possibly blame a single culprit.

Mud in her boots, bugs in her rice, and untimely splashes of water became part of Kel's daily routine. Fortunately, more devious tricks weren't easy to pull off since Kel spent most of her time nestled in the emperor's saddle or trapped inside his tent.

Thankfully, as the soldiers' pranks grew worse, the emperor's nightly errands grew lighter.

The officers bold enough to cross Kel on her first day as an attendant were still forced to set an extra tent up directly in front of theirs every evening, but the emperor had ordered Kel to set up her bed in his tent rather than sleeping in the wooden chair.

The comedy of seeing the arrogant men forced to work around a useless empty tent every night had worn off though, and Kel wished the emperor would set them free. Perhaps she could be free from mud and bugs if Calix would stop making such massive exceptions for his attendant.

As Kel reached her hand into her boots one morning and felt a familiar unpleasant squish, she had the same thought.

"Again.." she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Why do I have to keep playing this game?"

Flicking clumps of mud off her fingers, she slid to the ground inside the tent's doorway to start dumping the filth from her boots.

We aren't moving today, Kel mused, her hand hovering unwillingly over the muddy boots. Maybe I should just go back inside and sleep all day.

Even though the list of tasks the emperor gave her at night was steadily getting smaller, she found it impossible to sleep soundly in the same space as Calix's quiet breathing.

Kel sighed.

It was tempting to leave the mess for the emperor to find just once, just to see what he would do.

Would he do something dramatic again in order to punish the offenders? Would he ignore it altogether?

For some reason, Kel couldn't help but think she'd understand Calix a little more if she could see his reaction. She'd finally have a clue as to how he felt and why he was doing this.

If she just left her boots by the door for a while longer.

But she couldn't do that.

Especially when she didn't fully understand the emperor's game yet.

The tantalizing idea that she might get just a peek inside the Dragon Emperor's head was always crushed by the looming worry that only misery remained on the other side of her ignorance.

"Again, huh?"

The air cooled as a shadow came between Kel's crouched figure and the warm rising sun.