On the other side of the parlor car, the two dwarves Daran and Ziggy were seated at one of the booths playing a complicated looking card game that involved, of all things, small discs of dolmian stones.
It seemed as if they were having a good time. They were hooting and hollering at their game.
"Stop cheating Ziggy."
"I'm not cheating. Stop stuffing the deck old man!"
"I can't concentrate, you're rattling the dolmian slices too loud…"
Clack, clack, clack, clack
"...am not..."
On the other end of the parlor car was the cat and the wolf.
The cat was languidly seated at the parlor's only chaise lounge. She had a long fluted glass in her hand that held a pinkish colored liquid of which she barely tasted.
Her sole companion, the tall wolf, stood with his shoulder leaning against the wall that connected the parlor car to the entryway.
"Look sharp," Jana muttered half under her breath. "Whatever's gonna happen is going to start tonight."
"Why do you think so?" Theo rumbled.
"Because!" Jana cursed. "Who thought it was a good idea to write the Queen's name all over the freaking train!"
Of course, all this cursing and swearing was done under what sounded to everyone like hisses and rumbles. The only ones who could hear the faintest of sounds with such acuity were the ones doing the hissing and rumbling.
Theo shook his head. "Just because the 'unblended' people cannot see it does not mean every single pantheran, warg, chiro, and gorilla cannot see it."
Jana clicked her red nails. "We are sitting in a huge f*cking moving target painted with big glow in the dark words that say, THE QUEEN IS IN HERE Y'ALL. COME AND GET HER." Her lips pulled back in a sneer. "I wonder whose bright idea that was."
"Considering that this train was built to the Prince's exact specifications, I would surmise that it was his idea." Theo leaned his head back against the wall, his barely veiled eyes never leaving the entryway. "Stick close to my Queen. If she comes to any harm, you will have to answer to me."
"You don't have to tell me how to do my job. Just make sure the bulk of the apes don't even have a chance to get close to My Lady."
"Rest assured. I am not just a warg. I have also been trained in thaumaturgy."
"And I have been trained in poisons." Jana informed with a lilt of her lips.
"Is that even a school of magik?"
"If it's not, it should be. I can make things happen that look as if it's magik."
"Illusions are not real magik. Real magik is real magik."
Jana stretched up to her full 6'2" and looked up at the bogwarg. "You know what's real magik? The kind that kills. Dead is dead."
"I couldn't agree with you more." He bared his fangs.
A dolmian disc flew towards the bogwarg's head.
Without even turning around, the cat had caught it between her long carmine claws and flung it straight back to its origin.
Ziggy caught the returning dolmian slice with a single swipe in the air. "Will you two settle down over there? This is not the time for disagreements."
"Who is disagreeing?" Jana purred. "The warg said he agreed with me."
"Well that's a good step forward," Daran mused. "What did you guys agree on?"
"We agreed that death was real and dead is dead." Theo intoned impassionately.
Daran and Ziggy grimaced at each other. These two beasts had been at each other's throats all morning long. It was like watching a dog and cat fight. Whose great idea was it to bring these two together in one mission?
"I need for both of you to stop focusing on each other and start focusing on the mission at hand." Daran turned a sharp eye at the two. "You only have one job. Protect the Crown Prince and the Queen."
"Correction," Erick called out from across the parlor car. "Your only job is to protect the Queen. If you have to choose between her safety and mine, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take care of the Queen first. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Your Royal Highness." They all bowed.
🌺🌺🌺
As the train paused for half an hour of refueling, the group reconvened at the dining car to have dinner. This would be its last stop before it rolled into Jasper station. The train would continue overnight nonstop until it reached its destination by the end of the following day.
For Jana, the trip up to this point was quiet. Too quiet. Something was not quite right. Her sense of unease did not lessen as the day passed without incident. If anything, the lack of incidents only made her all the more anxious.
Nightfall was just a vague growl of the stomach for her. Under the tunnel, it was perpetual night. There was no sunlight to mark the movement of the day to night as it would on the savanna.
There were four round tables covered in white linens surrounded by six leather chairs in the dining car. Aside from the Queen and the Crown Prince, there were also three dwarves, the warg, and herself.
Since the frail thin Ashryan wizard had gone to take care of some stray demon that the Prince had released, this brought down the total number of the group from eight to seven.
The servers would not be able to squeeze another chair to fit all seven members at one table. It was going to be either Jana or Theo who ate alone.
To solve the issue without turning it into an issue, Theo had caught her eye and they had silently agreed to sit themselves at the table next to the royal couple. They would still be close enough to protect the Queen should anything untoward happened at dinner, but it would also allow everyone the chance to spread out a bit and enjoy some space as they ate.
This was how the wolf and the cat got their own table.
Theo sat across from Jana. His eyes were dark pools of shadows created by the illumination from the dolmian sphere above. Jana grimaced. That dolman looked like it was being squeezed to death by the five-fingered claw that held onto the sphere's round circumference.
She hated the place. The dolmian stones kept everything lit but it was simply a light source that wanly kept the darkness at bay. It could never compare to the all-encompassing brilliance of the sun in the blessed blue skies above the savanna.
Jana stole a look at the warg's ruggedly handsome countenance above the lacy fringes of the large bluish-pink hydrangea blooms. Then she looked at the flowers.
On whose watch would strongly fragrant flowers such as these be placed on dining tables that were meant to hold food?
Her wrinkled nose must have been a good indication of the thoughts running through her mind because Theo rose from his seat and removed the offending floral bowl, placing them onto one of the other empty tables.
"Strong, aren't they?" He asked without expecting Jana to answer. It was more of a comment so he was surprised to hear Jana responding back at him.
"How do they expect us to eat when they place on the table flowers at the peak of their sexual bloom? Do they not understand that this carnal scent is to attract pollinators so the flowers can reproduce?"
Theo snorted. "I'm sure to the 'unblended' people, the flowers' smell is nowhere nearly as powerful as it is to us. In fact, it's much worse for me than it is for you." He pointed to his warg nose.
Jana laughed. "For once, I must agree with you, bogwarg."
"Please. Call me Theo."
"And I am Jana."
After their terse self-introductions, they ate what they could of the food that came out. As Jana ate, her mind continued to ruminate and pick at the situation they had found themselves embroiled in.
Everybody and their grandma knew the Queen of Diamond and the Crown Prince of Jade were both on the same train, traveling to the southern region where their concentration of powers were not at their most powerful. They were neither discrete nor stealthy.
For many powerful Houses, this was a rare opportunity---an attempted coup that could launch a well-known House upward onto the throne currently held by the Houses Rashak and Tamien.
Taking both of them out at this time would tip the scale of power drastically.
If it wasn't for the importance of the mission---rescuing the Wizard King and his parents, this would have been a highly ill-advised trip for both Queen Mira and Crown Prince Erick.
"Stop clacking your nails! The sound is driving me insane." Theo rumbled across the table.
Jana licked her lips and paused the motion of her paws. It was an annoying habit that she had which her family had tried to discourage, to no avail.
"I can't help it. It's too quiet. Do you think it's too quiet, or is it just my cat senses becoming overloaded?"
Theo narrowed his eyes, his teeth bared. "It is too quiet. Keep your senses sharp. No drinking tonight."
"I don't drink on the job, wolf man."
"Then what was that pink stuff you had earlier today?"
"That was watermelon juice."
"How gross is that?" Theo made a face. "You are a cat. Why are you drinking watermelon juice?"
"It's not unheard of for us to have some fruits and vegetables once in a while. It is not toxic to us lions."
"But to actively choose watermelon juice?"
"I did not choose." Jana turned away to hide her embarrassment. "The bartender brought it over to me without my asking for it."
"Why would he do something so…"
"Nice?" Jana offered.
Theo gave her a disgusted look. "I was going to say, 'unnecessary'."
"He was using it as a way to strike up a conversation with me, so the drink served its purpose."
"And what would be the point?"
Jana raised her eyebrow at the warg. "Are you dense?" She moved her hands across herself in a manner as if to present the sensual nature of her lithe raw body.
"But you are a cat and he is--"
"He is a man." Jana interrupted.
"The fact that he is a man does not change the fact that you are a cat."
"As long as the parts fit, what difference does it make?"
Theo bared his fangs. "You are such a crude woman."
"So you finally see that I am a woman."
"When did I ever deny the fact that you are a woman?"
"With every breath you take."