Snippet #1739965

Yashie - Mitsuga Castle, Upperworld
A short while past dawn

Yashie yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It was not often that he had nightmares but when he did he invariably had them well before dawn. He shrugged and got up, mumbling about how the lack of sleep might give him a headache later in the day. He snapped his fingers and a servant appeared immediately at his side so immediately as to seem that she appeared out of thin air. Presumably, the servant had been standing in one of the recesses in the walls of Yashie's room. He nodded curtly to her and she bowed and backed off a few paces, turned and walked to a corner of the room. Yashie stretched and threw the covers back, rising into a sitting position and accepting the goblet of warm blood which the servant offered him. He downed the blood and stumbled sleepily in the direction of the bathroom which was built attached into his room. "Is the water heated?" he demanded of his servant and she nodded vigorously before returning to wherever she had been hidden at his dismissing wave.Yashie stepped into the bath and soaked in the warm water for a while, letting his body relax. After a while, he rose and dried himself and began pulling on his clothes, humming a merry tune under his breath. He then left his chambers to the room directly next to his, which housed most of his weapons, armor, clothing and other miscellany.

The messenger was shown directly to Yashie's chambers, but found that he had just missed the prince. Hurrying down after Yashie, the messenger had come on him just as he was belting on his weapons. Quickly the message was given, and the messenger was sent away, richer than when he had come. Yashie quickly gave orders to a handmaiden passing, giving her instructions to be given to his general, and a hand of his best soldiers, the least of these instructions being that a tail be pinned, figuratively, on the Elven messenger. The messenger had given Yashie reason to believe that the DemonWorlder who had just infiltrated the upper world was a person of no meager importance; Yashie had recognized the reference to a power gem, a Ruby. The elf was being kept under surveillance so that retribution may follow if the information was wrong (One does not get the Crown Prince's hopes up first thing in the morning just to smash them.) and further reward if the information led to something productive, like the capture and preferably the slaying of aforementioned DemonWorlder.

Positively thrumming with excitement, Yashie proceeded to pull on his armor, something which was not part of his daily toiletries if he was intending to stay in the Castle. He was met at the beginning of the hall by a soldier who claimed to have been sent by his General. Yashie nodded in acknowledgement and asked "Is the first Hand ready, boy?", 'boy' being the word he usually used to address soldiers and people of a rank lesser than him. Maybe it was because of the fact that people tended to condescend (not to his face, of course) since he was very young. The soldier replied in the affirmative. "Good then. Tell the general to move out, and take positions. I shall join them presently." The soldier bowed and darted off.

Filled with a nervous energy, Yashie turned and started moving towards the entrance. He ran into Erika on a corridor. He smiled inspite of himself and patted her head, greeting her. "Hello, little sister. If you run into father, could you tell him I may not be available in court today? I have business of a ... ah, sensitive nature to attend to. Oh, and as a personal favor, stay indoors today please? Thank you! I shall see you soon, then, I must be off". And with that, he charged down to the palace courtyard to rendezvous with his men.