Tales around Mirateia 29

The gods must have looked with mercy upon Azran this morning as clouds had obscured the sun so he could sleep in for the first time in what felt like ages. After having laid in bed and just enjoyed the fact that no one had come to disturb him so far and that the sun had not managed to wake him early as it usually did, Azran decided that he better get up, so after having found some fresh clothes and raided the kitchen for some bread and cheese Azran got the idea that he would visit Ira´s detachment of Imperial Guards and see if he could not get some training done with them.
Making his way towards their quarter where he, much to his dislike was announced, bringing their training to a halt.
"My lord, what brings you here?" the commander asked.
"I was thinking about getting some training in this morning, so if it's alright with you commander I would like you to join you guys," Azran said.
The commander just shrugged his shoulders, Azran walked over to the armour stand to find some training armour he could use, having found some padded armour in his size that didn't smell like a pile of laundry clothes on a warm summer day. afterwards, finding a training weapon didn't take a long time, Azran went for his trusted combination of a sword and shield. While giving the sword some test swings, one of the Imperials came over to him and asked if he wanted to spare, Azran nodded so the two of them found a place on the training grounds with some free space.
The two of them started circling each other, just out of reach of each other, and both of them using the same combination of sword and shield, Azran could see that the Imperial, whose name he had learned was Marcus, did have decent footwork but he seemed to have a habit of lowering his sword to low after having circled each other a couple of times and testing each other defences, Azran launched an attack but halfway through the attack, changed the direction of the attack from being directed towards Marcus' torso to directing it towards his left arm which took Marcus completely by surprise and the attack connected with his arm. after the attack, Azran pulled back, to get some distance between himself and Marcus, the two of them continued to spare for another few rounds, and while Azran won based on the number of hits on target, Marcus managed to set a few hits in himself, but during their last round, both of them were going all out and neither of them noticed that all the others around them had stopped, their final round came to a stop when both of then ended up locking swords with each other and only then did they notice that the others had stopped what they were doing, Marcus were the first one to notice as Azran was standing with his back to what the rest of the soldiers were looking at, then Azran noticed the expression on Marcus´s face.
"She is right behind me right?" Azran asked in a calm voice to which Marcus just nodded
"Good morning your highness"
"What are you doing here?" Ira said walking through the crowd, stopping a few meters from Azran.
"Well, since I for once got to sleep in for the first time since we got here, thank you for that by the way," Azran said while slowly turning around so he faced Ira "So I wanted to get some training done before I would get started on the official work" Azran continued, wiping some sweat of his forehead with some cloth one of the Imperials had thrown at him after signalling to Azran asking if he wanted it.
"I get that, but could you not at least have told someone that you went here? I have been looking for you for the last hour, a messenger came with a request that we ride to some small village, I dont remember the name, they appear to have some trouble with some bandits extorting them."
"And why can't the regular guards deal with these bandits?" Azran said before beginning to take off his training equipment.
Waiting for Azran to have taken the equipment off "In theory yes they could, but I think you might want to be the one taking these down" Ira said and Azran could hear in the tone of her voice that it was serious and that they under no circumstances were to discuss the details here.
Shortly after, the two of them were standing in the stables of the manor preparing their horses for departure, Ira had been almost entirely quiet, only speaking when Azran asked if she needed anything or if some of the servants were to get something or similar, a bit later the two of them were on their way, riding out of the city they had come to call home and it was first when the city were out of eyesight, having disappeared behind a small hill and some forest that Ira spoke up.
"The reason I wanted it only to be us two that goes after them and that it someone that you might take a particular interest in Azran is that the messenger told me that these bandits had a symbol on their arm that he knew he had seen before but just could not remember, and when he described it for me, it ran me cold down my spine, almost as if the Lady of the Dark had ran her fingers down it, Azran that symbol is precisely the same as the one the The harbour master and his gang of scums were using that day," Ira said before she looked over at Azran with a concerned expression.
Azran was riding with a million thoughts going through his mind after hearing Ira´s story, On one side he wanted revenge for what they did to Ira, but he didn't care much for what they had done to him, yeah sure it was inconvenient and would have dishonoured him for failing to protect the princess had a certain goddess not interfered but what he hated most was what they had done to Ira, she had not been herself for months and sometimes he could still feel it, like her having trouble being away from him for long periods. On the other side, he was afraid they might do it again if they failed to bring them to justice.
"Azran, what are you thinking? Azran? Azran?" Azran was thrown out of his mind by Ira who had ridden up next to him and shaken his shoulder.
"What?" Azran managed to say a bit confused.
"What should we do about these bandits when we find them?" Ira repeated.
"Well first of all we should be more cautious than before, but what I think we should do is that once we have identified one to belong to his gang, we kill them, we are not letting them go and possibly getting to warm the harbour master" Azran said in a cold and calculated voice.
"I agree," Ira said with a small smile.
Ira and Azran continued to ride for the next few hours, only stopping for about half an hour to get something to eat and drink and give their horses some time.
A few hours before the sun went down, the two of them stopped in a small patch of trees at a place where a small river was making a bend, Ira volunteered to grab her bow and go out to see if she should be so lucky to catch a rabbit or two, so when she left Azran with their two horses, he decided that he better should get a small fire going, both for healing them keeping the warmth during the night but also should Ira be lucky enough on her little hunt, they could roast it. It didn't take a long time for Azran to get the fire going, there were plenty of dry branches lying around and he was also able to find some larger pieces of wood that should keep them well supplied during the night, he even managed to find a log the size of himself that he managed to drag over to the fireplace so Ira and him would have a place to sit so they didn't have to sit on the ground.
Azran had lost count of the time but the sky was beginning to turn orange when he heard something rustle in the trees and when he looked to see what or who it was, he saw Ira making her way through the branches carrying a rabbit.
"I see that luck was smiling at you again today," Azran said, taking Iras's bow when she held it out for him and he placed it leaning up against the next tree to where he had placed the log.
"That it did, I had almost given up and was actually on my way back when this little fellow poked his head up from his burrow about 50 meters ahead of me and he must not have noticed me or something because he then jumped out of the burrow where shortly after he got hit by my arrow, but he did get the last laugh because the tip of the arrow passed right through him and it must have hit a rock on the other side or something because the tip of the arrow broke, but hey I brought us some fresh dinner"
"That you did, and it seems like a small price to pay for it"
"Sooo I was thinking.."
"Dont worry your Highness, I will prepare the rabbit for you," Azran said in his typical mocking voice before he took the rabbit Ira was holding out.
Ira just gave a small sigh, rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair as she passed him on her way to sit at the fire.
About two minutes later Azran had prepared the rabbit and attached it to a stick that he then placed next to the fire before he sat down next to Ira.
"We should reach the village tomorrow, any plans?" Ira said after having placed her head on Azran's shoulder.
"I think our first step of course should be to figure out how many of them there are, where they have their camp and then we can begin dealing with them, I would like if possible to keep one of them alive to bring back for interrogation."
"Sounds like a good plan, although I'm not I like the idea of keeping one of them alive, they dont deserve it"
The two of them sat quietly for a moment, enjoying the flames of the fire and judging by the rumble of Ira´s stomach also waiting for the rabbit to finish.
"Ira there is something I wanted to ask you about for a long time and now seems to be as good a time as any"
"mhm" it came from Ira still resting her head on his shoulders.
"What happened after they took you?"
While she didn't say anything and didn't move, Azran could still feel how she tensed up when she understood where he was going with the question, for what felt like an eternity she didn't say anything, the only sounds being that of the fire, the light breeze in the trees and the sound of the river flowing nearby, sometimes a bird also made its appearance but Azran hardly noticed it.
"As you probably remember, they cast a paralyzing spell on me when they appeared so I couldn't move anything, I could not speak, and like I have told you before but somehow we are connected with some bond of energy, I can feel if you are nearby, back then I had not realized it but imagine the feeling I had when as totally paralysed, we are turning a corner and suddenly tat warm fuzzy feeling I had in my stomach whenever I was around you suddenly vanished without warning or anything, it was terrible, the worst feeling I had ever felt before" Ira were quiet for a few seconds "they kept me bound and locked up in a room for a few days before someone said it were time for us to go back to Pearlhal, during the entire trip they kept me bound and gagged in a wagon, only letting me out and about for a moment in the evenings, all this stopped probably a few days before we reached the city and one of their mages healed my wrists from were the robes had been, I guess they didn't want my father to find out how they had been treating his princess. By that time I had sunked so much into myself that I wasn't able to speak up about my treatment and after being presented to my father, I quickly vanished back to my room and stayed there until you came.." By the time Ira had finished, she was crying and Azran moved to put his arm around her and hold her tight.
"I... nothing I can say will ever make this feel better but I promise you that they will pay for what they did."
"Just promise me that you will never leave me like that again"
"I promise that I'm never going to leave you like that ever again."
A few minutes later, after Azran had helped dry her eyes, Ira went down to the river to wash her face, in the meantime the rabbit looked like it was done so Azran began cutting out some pieces and then cut some bread that could be dipped in the drippings from the rabbit that had been collected in a small bowl while it roasted. By the time they had eaten, washed up and prepared some of the meat for the next day, the sun had already sunken beyond the horizon, so they laid down on their blankets, Azran quickly fell asleep but was then woken up when he felt something move near him, opening his eyes just enough to be able to see what was going on but not enough that whatever or whoever was moving around would notice that he was awake, he noticed that Ira had moved her blanket over next to his and had then snuggled up next to him, so close that now that he noticed it his nose was itching from her hair tickling it, Azran just smiled to himself and then placed his arm around her, to which Ira unconsciously in her sleep grasped and pulled them even tighter.