Kuiper

This trip had been a suicide mission. Kuiper knew as much, and had already tried, several times, unsuccessfully, to talk Azaleon out of even applying for this job.

He hadn’t expected the danger to come from Alouette, but if it wasn’t one thing it was always another, like dominos. He loved Azaleon, he did, and it wasn’t his fault per say, but the man was a magnet for trouble.

“I was wondering how much longer it would be until you arrived. Sorry I accidentally knocked a branch down when I was landing, but I got excited to see you were so close to the cabin! I was getting tired of flying and watching you so I thought I’d just hang out up top–”

“You’ve been following us,” Azaleon said.

“Escorting you,” Alouette corrected, “All the way from the castle! You can imagine that I’m a little tired,” they made a show of standing up and flexing their wings in a motion that might have looked like casual stretching if it had been done with their arms rather than wings that spanned several feet in either direction and blocked the sun out.

Kuiper felt a chill run up his spine. He hadn’t seen them, but he’d gotten the feeling of being watched, so he and Azaleon had made a drastic detour to Forge Lake. But that hadn’t been enough to shake them, and now they were all in danger. The kids in the slidebuggy were locked in, the remote to unlock it on the keyring in his pocket. They were safe, for the time being; but they were looking out the window, shouting something too muffled to make out. Probably wondering what was going on. From their perspective, both he and Azaleon were just gawking up at the top of the slidebuggy as Alouette wasn’t in their field of vision.

At least the rain had stopped. Kuiper thought that if they were going to die, he didn’t want to die while dripping wet.

“I only want to talk with Aspen,” they started, addressing the prince far too casually, “But everytime I try to go to the castle to talk I keep getting thrown out!” So they waited until the prince was in the middle of nowhere with only two guards in proximity. Clever. And a chatterbox.

Azaleon raised his hands with a small smile. “Ah, well, we’re both new,” Azaleon started, “And a bit inexperienced. This is kind of a lot for our first time escorting His Highness. I’d rather not fight, either. Will you come down…um, sorry, everyone calls you Alouette, but that’s not your name, is it? Just a state-issued alias. I feel rude addressing you that way. I’m Azaleon, and you are?”

‘Inexperienced’ was the last word Kuiper would use to describe his partner. The first time they’d met he had been seven, and he had been absolutely petrified. He had to yank Azaleon off of another kid, the kid’s nose shattered like glass, Azaleon still trying to wail on him. He had learned to pick his battles as he got older and his temper calmed, but he was no less brutal to face when they were training– especially now that he was licensed to use cobalt Thauma. Kuiper would quite literally rather fight anyone else, and not for purely sentimental reasons.

“Someone trying to speak with Aspen, not some eye-candy guards, Azaleon,” Alouette said with a sweet smile. “So if you wouldn’t mind opening the door you locked?”

“I’m sure you understand that we can’t do that,” Azaleon sounded apologetic, but Kuiper could tell he was getting annoyed, the way he was twirling his Wonderworking Staff. He was winding up to use it if Alouette didn’t listen to them soon.

“You’ve been trying for twelve years; give it up. We can escort you back to the capital. You can go to an amelioration hub and be purged of all that Thauma. It's painless. We don’t need to fight,” Kuiper said, trying to defuse Azaleon more than Alouette, trying to subtly remind him that they had to at least capture anyone who threatened Aspen, not kill them.

Alouette did look in desperate need of a Thauma purge, clearly ill. They were thin as a rail, and their light brown skin had an almost gray pallor; not even touching on their unnatural glowing eyes with severe bags under them, or the wing situation. Growing entirely new, inhuman limbs was very, very illegal; it was a wonder they were still alive at all.

Alouette tilted their head. “Oh, you can speak! I’m actually not using Thauma at all, if you really wanted to know, it’s–”

“You can explain yourself to the officials who will deal with your case,” Azaleon said, and Kuiper was relieved when Azaleon shot him a small nod, too; a small reassurance that he planned to catch them alive.

“Actually, I can jus–” whatever Alouette was about to say was cut off by Azaleon pressing the switch on his staff, a whip falling from it. In less than a second Azaleon had Alouette’s ankle wrapped with it and yanked them down. As if slamming their head into the top and side of the slidebuggy wasn’t brutal enough, Azaleon twisted his staff and used the back of it to bludgeon them in the face one more time for good measure when they hit the ground.

The noises they made were unexpectedly pathetic. Azaleon ground his boot into their chest.

“Ow! What did I do to you?! I’d think you had some kind of personal grudge or something!” Alouette choked out, trying to squirm out of Azaleon’s grasp. Azaleon’s expression tightened; that was the wrong thing to say.

“Of course it’s not personal. We’re just doing our jobs,” Kuiper interjected, then quietly added: “‘Leon, the kids can see you.”

They were both gawking, no longer tugging on the door or yelling. Both of them looked shocked and ashen to see Alouette. Clover pointed to the door again once she realized Kuiper was looking their way, her face pleading.

Her goal was noble, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t sympathize with her frustration. But she was rearing for a fight, and he absolutely wasn’t going to let a teenager try and fight a wanted criminal with only amber Thauma. If Alouette really had information about her brother, they’d get it through the official interrogations.

Aspen, on the other hand, looked furious, no doubt cursing at them and slamming a fist on the window again.

“Jobs–” Alouette sputtered. “This guy is trying to kill me! In front of Aspen, too,” they added, lips curling into a sly smile.

Damn it, Kuiper thought. They just had to say that. Azaleon lost focus for one single second, his worried brown eyes darting to the slidebuggy.

And it only took that one single second for Alouette to wrap their hand around the end of his whip staff and it turned into confetti, simply falling apart into colorful pieces of paper, fluttering in the wind. Azaleon stared, unable to comprehend what had just happened, and in those precious few seconds, Alouette shot up with a single beat of their wings.

Azaleon waved a hand, unwilling to let the cobalt Thauma that had been stored in the whip staff hit the ground and be wasted. That was way more than anyone should use at once. He was breathing hard, eyes tinged with blue light around the edges of his iris.

“You need to leave,” Kuiper told Alouette, a touch frantically. They were hovering a few feet out of reach, wings flapping hard to keep them up. Kuiper hoped for all of their sakes that they stayed up there, out of reach.

“We have the same goal,” they yelled down, wiping the blood off their nose. “River! You can ask River! I don’t want to hurt Aspen! How many times do I have to say I just want to talk until you idiots understand?! Why does the castle only employ meatheads?! Even the king wouldn’t listen–”

“You spoke with the king?” Azaleon asked, his voice strained. Fighting down the cobalt Thauma until the effects passed would take too long; he was likely to pass out before it worked its way out of his system naturally.

If Kuiper had been a different sort of man, he might have come to the conclusion that the solution to this would obviously be letting Azaleon capture and expend that Thauma on Alouette. But Kuiper didn’t want to capture Alouette if it meant brutality; there was no sense in hurting someone who, for all intents and purposes, hadn’t actually moved to strike them. In fact, for all of the breaking and entering at the castle, Kuiper hadn’t ever heard of Alouette attacking anyone. It was always ‘Alouette tried to take the prince again, and got away again’, but ‘getting away’ never seemed to involve hurting castle staff or civilians.

Azaleon might have disagreed and might have been okay with using violence to capture Alouette, but then, he wasn’t exactly clear-headed at the moment. Seiche’s gift was an intoxicating one, as were all of the hues of Thauma from the six minor Gods.

Oh.

…Clover had amber Thauma.

“Yes, and unfortunately for the king, he’s a fool,” Alouette shrugged. There weren’t many people who would openly bad-mouth the king; after all, his youngest son was favored by the Sol God, so people assumed that the God also smiled upon the whole family. It seemed Alouette didn’t share that opinion.

Kuiper could pinpoint the exact moment Azaleon decided not to pursue fighting them, his shoulders drooping and his fists unclenching with a conscious effort.

“We’ll hear you out. At River’s, if you say she’ll back you up; she’s more credible than you are. You will sit on the top of the slidebuggy. You will not try to speak to Aspen or take him.” Azaleon said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, okay, that’s fine.” Alouette raised their hands. “Don’t hit me again and I’ll behave and we can all get along,” they sat on the top of the slidebuggy, crossing their arms. “See? Not doing anything wrong!”

Kuiper eyed them for a moment. Their feathers ruffled up and they squirmed under his gaze.

“Get in the slidebuggy,” he said to Azaleon, the statement ‘don’t let the teenagers jump out and stir the pot further’ didn’t need to be said. Azaleon shook his head.

“But right now, I’m–”

“I’ve got an idea of how to fix it, just get in,” Kuiper said. Azaleon hesitated. Kuiper sighed, giving him a firm pat on the back that forced him forward towards the door.

“Juniper!” Clover tried to yell the second the door was open. “His name was Juniper! Where did you take him?!”

“I didn’t!” Alouette called down at her. Kuiper very quickly put his other hand on her shoulder, shoving her inside, too.

“Stop!” she snapped at Kuiper, then tried to address Alouette again, “You know him! So you did do something to him!”

Kuiper slammed the door shut after forcing both her and Azaleon back in. He opened the driver’s door and slid in, exhaling sharply through his nose. This was ridiculous.

“Clover, we’re going to talk to them more at River’s,” Kuiper explained, slamming his own door so Alouette couldn’t say anything else to her to upset her further.

“You might be His Highness’ guards, but not mine! Let me out right now!”

At the same time, Aspen started yelling at him too. “What?! Talk to them– are you crazy, we aren’t– they should be shipped straight to the capital!”

“Both of you, shut up.” He said firmly. Aspen looked shocked, but before the prince could refute him, Kuiper continued, “Clover, if you’re able right now, Azaleon needs amber Thauma to purge him of cobalt. Now, before you continue arguing with me, or we’ll have to make a stop at a healer’s station. It is an emergency.”

She clamped her mouth shut and yanked her round vial from her belt.

“I–I don’t know how to do purging,” She admitted.

“Just use it how you’d normally do it. Like you did before,” Aspen instructed. Azaleon yanked up his sleeve for her with shaking hands, as if it was all he could do to stay conscious, and she started tracing just over his veins, focused and steady. Aspen was still visibly upset, and he tore his eyes off Azaleon as Clover healed him.

“May I ask why we’re talking to the criminal rather than shipping them off?” Aspen asked Kuiper with a biting tone. “I don’t need to remind you of this, but you work for me, and–”

“I work for your father,” Kuiper corrected, “And your father trusts River. They seem to believe she will back them up. Attempting capture will result in them running, again and again, as it always has.”

“They think River will back them up because they overused Thauma and their brain is melted–”

“It doesn’t matter why they think so. River, skilled as she is, will be able to help us capture them properly, without any bloodshed. I will not argue further about this. I was hired to protect you, and this is what I believe to be the best course of action.”

“Once we get to Fawn Creek I’ll be going to a communication center and contacting my father about this,” Aspen was far too smug about that, as if Kuiper wasn’t aware of the fact King Alder was incredibly desperate to keep personal guards for his son that would last longer than a month, and the fact that sending replacements all the way out to Fawn Creek would be a massive hassle. He and Azaleon had only been guards at the castle for five and four years respectively, and Kuiper was sure assigning them to Aspen was an absolute last resort before the man started pulling castle chefs and butlers from their stations.

“Okay. You do that, Your Highness,” Kuiper agreed.

Aspen’s nostrils flared. He wasn’t used to people talking to him like this, but Kuiper figured he’d have to get used to it if he wanted to keep acting like a brat. Because Kuiper had zero tolerance for that and hearing him constantly mouth off to Azaleon was starting to wear thin very quickly.

Aspen glared at Kuiper for all of ten seconds before turning away with a huff.

“Why didn’t you just let the Thauma go?” Aspen asked in Azaleon’s direction without actually looking at him, “We were fine in here. You could’ve caught them without it, couldn’t you?”

“‘S against regulations to let cobalt Thauma spill out of a container if you’re licensed with it. Fireable offense.” Azaleon murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose and scrunching his face up. He’d likely have a lingering pressure headache for a few days. “Thank you, Clover.”

She nodded, pulling away and letting the last bit of the amber Thauma on her finger evaporate over his arm.

“Did I do okay? You feeling a little better?” She asked.

“Yes, thank you. You did perfectly fine, much better than I could’ve done,” he said. Azaleon turned to Kuiper, giving him a shaky thumbs up, too. “You can start driving again, I’m fine.”

“You better be,” Kuiper muttered under his breath. This was a bad idea; but their choices were limited, given that they were virtually in the middle of nowhere. River’s cabin was minutes away. They’d hopefully be able to manage anything that happened with her unmatched abilities with Thauma on their side.