Setting
The woman in question was seated in the center wagon with the shade upon the window pulled up so she could watch out of it as they progressed at their slow plodding pace. There were faster ways of travel these days - for those who could afford them - but Ling was in no hurry to reach her destination. She had enjoyed these trips to the city even as a small child, and the horse-drawn wagons left her with a sense of nostalgia.
This would be the last time she made this trip to Tiānshì City as the daughter of the Minister of Trade, for she would be returning home as the Minister of Trade.
It was strange how fortunes could change so quickly she thought to herself. With her brother in prison, and her elder sister disowned, Ling had almost overnight risen to heir of her ailing father's estate, and his position as Minister of Trade.
She fanned herself lightly against the late summer heat before settling back into her seat to enjoy the rest of the trip.
Two hand-maids sat across from her, but both seemed content to endure the trip in silence as well.
Why did he have to hear them now? He had just gotten used to the peacefulness of this particular road and the land around it. The dogman rolled his eyes and turned around to face the carriages, walking backwards for a time to examine the 'regalness' of it all. Jarkal backed up and tapped his chin, everyone in that entire column looked pretty rich.
Except for the guards, but nobody cares about guards.
Jarkal swung his hands over his head and called for them to stop.
"Hey! Wait! There's bandits up ahead!"
"Whoa," the head of the column said as his horse snorted and shook its head at the abrupt stop. "What are you on about?" he hollered to Jarkal. "There's no bandits out this way."
"Sir," another man replied. "Maybe it's not bandits." He nodded his head towards the wagon that held the minister's daughter as explanation.
The other guard scowled. "You two go on ahead and check it out. The rest of you stay with the wagons."
Meanwhile inside of the wagon Ling lifted the shade over the window to get a look outside. "Why have we stopped?" she asked.
"There was shouting my Lady," one of her handmaiden's told her as she pulled the shade back over the window. "We should not be seen."
When Ling lifted the window, Jarkal tried his luck at waving towards her, grinning.
Get their attention and rob em' blind, right?
Whatever was in that wagon, they didn't much seem to care for Jarkal giving it his attention.
Meanwhile inside of the wagon Ling swatted at her handmaiden's hand. "I am the Minister of Trade," she reminded the young hand maiden. "I will do as I please." Of course she was getting a bit ahead of herself. Until she reached the city, her father was legally the Minister of Trade still.
As if to iterate the fact that she was unafraid she pushed the side door of the wagon open.
One of the men at hand started at her appearance. "Lady Wu Ling," he told her lowly as he shifted his horse around. "You shouldn't be out here. We have sent riders on ahead to ensure the safety of the road."
"If you still wish to have a job in the morning, you will not tell me where I should or shouldn't be," she replied indignantly.
One of the other men had the thought to swing down off his horse to hurriedly retrieve and place a small footstool beside the wagon for the Minister's daughter.
Gathering the long lengths of her robes in hand, she stepped out onto the footstool and down to the roadside
"Now tell me what is going on out here," she instructed. "And who is this..." she trailed off as she looked over Jarkal. "Person," she settled on finally.
Jarkal quickly bowed and waved again. "They robbed me and stole my cart, all of my merchandise gone! Who do I talk to get it all back?" Jarkal put on his best worried face and sniffed pathetically.
She turned about to re-enter the wagon. "I want these wagons moving. I have an appointment to keep," she told the men as she retook her seat.
One of the men shook his head before gesturing for the drivers to get the wagons moving. Hopefully the pair of riders that had gone on ahead could warn them of any trouble should there be any.
"Lucky you're not police then!"
The two-hand maiden's simultaneously began shrieking while throwing whatever was at hand at the man who was now sprawled inside of the carriage with them. Combs, hand fans, and even a shoe were thrown at the strange dog man.
Ling Wu herself was all but flailing within her tangle of robes as she attempted to disentangle herself from the would-be thief.
Slap!
As she got an arm free, the resounding sound of her hand striking his cheek filled the carriage. "How dare you!" she yelled indignantly at him.
The guards outside were in a frenzy which had the horses spooked as they stamped their hooves restlessly and shifted their weight causing the carriage to rock uneasily.
"Someone grab him!"
One of the guards drew a pistol but a second stopped him.
"Don't be an idiot! The minister's daughter is in there!"
Jarkal climbed to his feet, and caught the fans and the shoe in his hands and bundled them up and quickly looked down at his prizes, decided they were subpar and dropped them on Ling Wu.
"Ladies, this is a robbery." Jarkal proudly announced in broken Losenji, he hoped he got his point across.
"Are you stupid or something?" she asked. "There'a a half a dozen men out there on horses. Where do you think you're going to go?"
As if to emphasize that point, one of the men shouted loudly from outside.
"Step out of the carriage, or we will shoot."
"All your valuables, we can do this the hard way or the easy way, and I'd rather keep you from slapping me too." Jarkal grinned, looking behind him and checking if all the windows inside the carriage were covered by the blinds.
She all but threw it as his feet.
"Take what you want. You won't make it ten paces from this carriage before the guards catch you."
"You won't either if you don't come with me."
To Ling Wu's credit, the woman maintained a sense of dignity as she held her head high and regained her sense of composure.
"You won't get away with this," she warned him vehemently as he drew her close.
Setting
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Lighting tore across Losenji Island mercilessly, forming a wall of energy so bright and intense as to blind people for miles around.
When the light faded, the entirety of the island was scorced bare. There were no survivors. The cities and forests were raised to ash, the caverns collapsed upon themselves. There was nothing but barren, scorched earth.
Even that would soon be swallowed by a rising tide. Losenji was gone.
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