Mirror, Mirror

[DragonSong]

"The risk is hers," Kiara corrected with another heavy breath. "Me, I'm..." She looked down at her hands again, brow furrowed. "Well. I am what I am now, I guess. But if something with this switch goes wrong, it'll kill her. I'll be fine."

It was something of an assumption, but one made with as much information about the frankly insane situation as she had available.

Kit huffed quietly and nosed at her shoulder. She reached up to pat his cheek, but shook her head. "Guess it's a good thing we can only switch when she chooses it then. I think."

[MadEmperor]

"Rest assured, my counterpart would do anything within his power to stop her from taking that risk if it did not prove absolutely necessary," he reassured her.

He tested the meat with a knife. Satisfied, he nodded. "For now, we eat."

"Preparing wild game is not something I have done much of, but I believe I have seasoned it well enough with what is on hand."

[DragonSong]

"Hey, I've lived off camp rations half my life." Kiara admitted defeat to the pacing and sat down at the campfire across from him with a small smile. "Smells good to me."

Kit huffed and shuffled his wings slightly as he settled himself to sit more comfortably. "Don't understand why you humans feel the need to smother everything you eat with plants."

[MadEmperor]

"The answer is simple, my draconian friend. It is because it tastes better to us," Dan answered as he cut off a strip of meat. "And we prefer to savor our food rather than swallowing it down as fast as possible."

"Plus, rare spices let us feel important," he joked.

[DragonSong]

Both Kit and Kiara snorted in unison as the fae woman accepted her portion of the meal. She started picking at it with her fingers, evidently uncaring of the fact that it was so hot it steamed in the air.

"Remember that spice merchant from southern Adela?" Kit asked his rider as he dropped his head down beside her.

Kiara snorted again and rolled her eyes. "Talk about feeling important. Prick."

[MadEmperor]

"Is this a story worth sharing, then?" Dan asked before taking a bite of his meat. He had to say that he outdid himself with the hare; it was quite delicious considering the limited herbs in the wild. It could use salt, though.

[DragonSong]

Kiara waved a hand. "Oh, just some toff jackass--"

She cut herself off as she seemed to remember she was speaking to a "toff" and stumbled a bit. "Errr, I mean--just some big-for-his-britches type who hired us on to protect a spice shipment a couple years back. Turned out he was more concerned with the safety of his product than the people transporting it. He docked our pay because we saved some of the caravanners from a bandit raid at the cost of a few bricks of spices."

She shrugged. "Not exactly the kind of guy you go back to for work."

[MadEmperor]

"He sounds like a fine, upstanding gentleman," Dan said sarcastically.

"Is it any wonder people hate the rich? People like my brother, of course, assume the poor are simply jealous of what we have. It could not possibly be what we do with our position that draws the people's ire." Perhaps his counterpart has a better life, not in spite of his common upbringing but because of it.

[DragonSong]

Kiara shrugged. "I mean--yeah. But I'm not such an asshole that I don't recognize no one chooses to be born where and who they are. You didn't ask to be noble anymore than I asked to be...this." She gestured vaguely toward herself with one hand.

Leaning back a bit and bracing her other hand behind her, she cocked her head and mused, "Guess it's what you do with it, really. How you play the cards you're dealt."

[MadEmperor]

"You are absolutely right," he agreed wholeheartedly. "And it is high time I play my hand, if I may stretch the metaphor."

The earnest nobleman studied her for a moment, just long enough to be awkward. "You are not, you know? An 'asshole', I mean. I apologize for ever thinking you were anything of the sort."

[DragonSong]

Kiara blinked at him, then swallowed her half a mouthful of rabbit awkwardly. "Well. Ahem. Thanks, I guess."

She let her eyes flicker toward him, then refocused on the fire. "You, ah--you're not so bad either. Under the noble veneer, I mean."

[MadEmperor]

Dan chuckled at the qualifier she felt she needed to add. "I do try."

He allowed a companionable silence to settle over them as they consumed the remainder of the adorable forest creature. Once the meal was concluded, he began describing the layout of the manor in exhaustive detail, complete with stick drawings in the dirt.

"And this passage here connects his private study, where he will no doubt take me, to the sitting room, where you will likely be if he does not just bring you along to rub my naiveté in my face. If, for some reason, he has us taken straight to the small dungeon he had installed in the basement, there is a secret escape tunnel he does not think I know about. Unfortunately, I do not know where it lets out or if it is accessible or even visible from the outside. Unless you have a way of discovering it, we cannot just sneak in that way."

[DragonSong]

"I can do that," Kit spoke up. "If you know the likely area it lets out, it shouldn't be too difficult for me to find it, and then I can tell Kia."

Kiara nodded slowly. "Dragons do tend to have a knack for finding cave and tunnel systems. An escape route from a dungeon isn't all that different, I suppose."

[MadEmperor]

Dan blinked. He hadn't thought of that. "Then perhaps we do not need to attempt the bounty subterfuge. If we can get in that way, we will only need a way to force him where we can get to him."

"I am not accustomed to such cloak and dagger, so this is where I need your experience as a... well, as a criminal."

[DragonSong]

Kit snorted, and Kiara smiled crookedly. "Only a Connlaothian criminal," she pointed out. Then she thought for a moment and amended, "Well...mostly. Okay, only a criminal when the law in question is stupid."

Kit rumbled a low chuckle. Still technically crime.

Hush up. Frowning down at the plans Dan had drawn in the dirt, she said slowly, "I think the front gate is still the best way in. We try to sneak in and get caught, we're pretty much fucked. If something goes south once we're already inside, we have more options--plus, sneaking Kit close enough to break in is kind of a non-starter, and we definitely want a dragon as backup if we need it."

[MadEmperor]

"So what you are saying is that we have Kit wait near the secret exit in the event we come out hot?" he asked, unsure he was getting it.

[DragonSong]

Kiara nodded. "Yes--it'll be much less obvious for a bored dragon to go wandering the estate grounds while his rider is collecting payment than it would be for the three of us to try to locate and sneak in through the underground exit."

Kit nodded an agreement. "Most Connlaothians view dragons as just very large mounts, anyway. They usually underestimate how intelligent we are, they won't think I'm up to anything."

[MadEmperor]

Dan released a slow breath. "I suppose I am just as guilty of that bit of human arrogance. My apologies, Ser Kit. My kind indeed tend to assume they are the only truly intelligent species."

Looking uncomfortable, he said, "We never did discuss what exactly we will do with my brother when we find him."

[DragonSong]

Kit and Kiara exchanged a look, though neither said anything for a long moment.

Finally, Kiara sighed and muttered, "I guess...that's up to you, really. He is your brother."

[MadEmperor]

Dan sighed heavily and a little sadly. "I am not so naive that I am not aware that he may give us no choice but to do to him what he would do to us. But perhaps if we can prove to my parents that I ran because of his attempt on my life, then it won't come to that. Then I could become the heir and try to make my small part of Connloath a safer place for mages. I couldn't change the law, but I could see to it that no one in the area is abused simply for being different."