Zayn looks to Chase and Amur, both of her guardians sitting with their hands folded on their laps, their faces gaunt and depressed, and their shoulder's sagged like window drapes. Zayn, silent and playing with her thumbs, isn't surprised at the reaction. In fact, she definitely expected it, but she also felt seriously bad, because if she knew that picking up a glowing stick—oh—right, sword—no, spear would make Chase and Amur's lives a living hell, Zayn swears she wouldn't do it.
"What's the point in keeping you in hiding," Amur said, throwing her head back in aspiration, annoyingly pinching the bridge of her nose, "if you're literally going to be in the center point of everyone's attention for the next--what--twenty years?!"
Chase scratches the back of his neck, awkwardly patting Zayn's back in pity.
"I-I swear I didn't know!" Zayn wallows, "If I knew, I-I'd-."
"To be fair," Chase said, sitting sideways in his seat and looking up lazily at the ceiling, "she kind of can't really help being the hero--Excalibur only has one owner every like, thousand of years, so it was bound to happen sooner or later."
"Then what do we do?" Amur whines, dejectedly holding her face in her hands, "I can't protect her if they-."
"We'll go into deeper hiding," Chase said, nodding his head to his own words, "we'll save up all the money me and Amur have and we'll only eat bread and beans for three weeks and-."
"Or," Zayn sighs, dejectedly raising her hand to speak, "I turn myself in?"
"Zayn-," Amur starts, but Zayn cuts her off.
"I love you both," Zayn said, sitting up in her chair, "and we've grew up together--and I honestly couldn't have gotten this far without you both but I-I''m tired of dragging you both down-!"
"Zayn-!" Chase starts, for Zayn to cut him off.
"And look at the bright side— I'd make money too, no more beans and lettuce every day—a-and I'd be able to take care of you guys-!" Zayn said, a chirpiness in her voice, "a-and it's not like I have to take off my helmet or anything! I just have to be super careful, that's all, and-."
"No!" Amur said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head, he big round indigo eyes glaring at Zayn, illuminating her frustration through her expression, "what if you get hurt, or if something happens, or-!"
A loud siren cuts Amur off. Chase stands up, playing with a device in his ears, raising an eyebrow at the soft noises followed by a soft voice murmuring in his ear.
"What's happening?" Zayn asked, looking outside, rushing to their small kitchen's window. There's a big blob of black smoke from miles away, probably infiltrating one of Avia's small towns.
"So according to the Guild," Chase said, tapping the device in his ear again, "there seems to be a disturbance in one of the small town's, some monster demanding that Excalibur be their's or something like that--I don't know, but they're destroying anything they can and they're definitely trying to burn the town down and-I'm sad, because that's where I get my bread at-."
"Enough with your damn bread!" Amur said, standing up, "Gods, what should we do?!"
"Wait until the knights come?" Chase said, lazily opening a newspaper on the table and reading it, "like who cares? Not our problem. What is our problem is that the price for lettuce is going up-."
"That is important," Amur said, "But if the town is far from the capitol--."
"The town's Kush--." Chase said, to rudely get cut off by Amur.
"That town is at least a good half and hour from the capitol," Amur said, "that means depending on how soon the knights hear what's going on, a-and if all the knights can teleport or if they have to ride horses and carriages and-."
"Why are you worried?" Chase said, flipping another page of his newspaper, "they'll figure it out."
"Yeah but, I-I know Zayn will feel so bad," Amur said, looking besides her to offer her friend some comfort, "right Zayn-huh?"
"What?" Chase said, rolling his eyes at one of the news stories talking about some knight captain and his breakup with the princess--again--like who cares?
"S-she's gone?" Amur said, eyeing the empty, broken wooden chair laid on it's back on the ground. "She's not here."
"She left as soon as I mentioned the bread," Chase said, snorting at something he's reading, "thought she wanted to grab an extra loaf."
Amur smacks the back of Chase's head, rolling her eyes and frantically making her way out their small hut's door.
…
Jeremiah El Carter is having a really crappy day.
He walks into his office--an hour after sunrise, to a load of paperwork on his desk. Not necessarily abnormal, but that itself is enough to ruin his day.
To add more to his plate, the prince of Avia wants to waste his time and meet him over some newly boiled scented tea, the king wants to torture him further of talks of marrying his daughter--again--even though he clearly already severed any and all ties with her, but the royal family doesn't know the meaning of giving up, so colored him surprised.
The new weapons that he's order for his squadron are arriving late, Clarke, one of his closet aids and assistant, barely can keep up with all the paper work compacting on her desk, not to mention, the majority of said paper work are knight applications and results from their trainings and test, resulting in Jeremiah having to chose from countless of applications of who is worthy to be a Black Fawne Knight, which after looking at these applications and results, doesn't seem like many are.
"Captain," Clarke said, her short bright red hair and warm reddish-brown eyes relaxing Jeremiah enough to remind himself that no, he cannot behead anyone today, even if he really wants to. "Take a break? I think we both need it."
Jeremiah pinches the bridge of his nose, his bright green eyes focuses on the mountains of paperwork in front of him.
"Yeah, I'll dream, but thanks," Jeremiah sighs, rubbing his temples, "can you believe how many recruits we got this year? This is ridiculous."
Clarke shrugs, a small, kind smile on her face. "Yeah, but because of how amazing you're doing, I'm not surprised so many want to pledge under you."
Jeremiah shrugs, lifting his white and gold tea cup to his pink, plump lips, readying to open his mouth to savor his favorite tea--rose and lemon, with a hint of honey.
"Ah, I also want to show you something," Clarke said, rummaging through a small bag. She reaches into a large purse until she freezes--like she had an "ah-ha" moment, before she pulls out a small box--shaped like a wedding ring box.
"The prince wants me to show you this," Clarke said, opening the box to reveal a small black ear bud with golden accents tattooed on the small piece, "they're a new magical technology that he's getting one of the guilds to endorse--it's an ear piece our knights can use in battle! Isn't that handy?"
Jeremiah sighs, shrugging while lifting up his cup of his favorite tea, "Yeah, it is, but let's see what he's going to desire in return-."
"Captain!" A voice yells--one of his soldiers in his squadron, The knight gasp and holds his knees, looking up through his light, curly strawberry blonde bangs. Sweat runs down his chin, and he even uses his hand to wipe the sweat infiltrating through his eye lids and into his big eyes. "E-E-E-Exaclibur!" The knight yells.
Clarke and Jeremiah share a look before Jeremiah raises an eyebrow, confused by the suddenly call of the holy weapon.
"What-?" Jeremiah starts to say, but the knight cuts him off, his baby, freckled filled face blossomed red from all the sweating and running.
"Excalibur has been set free!" The knight said, to which causes Jeremiah and Clarke to share a wide-eyed look, "a-and it looks like a monster is causing chaos in K-Kush to find it!"
Jeremiah swallows his tea--heavily--before he slams his tea cup on his desk--hard--almost breaking his favorite tea mug. He rubs the chains attached to his wrist, the stress from today causing the black, anti-magical chains to feel extra heavy today.
Jeremiah stands up, sharing a look and nod with Clarke before he grabs his knight cloak and wears it over his shoulders.
"I'll get a small team over promptly." Jeremiah said, motioning his head to Clarke. Literally today freaking sucks.