Lieutenant Muk Chin-Hwa had been told to wait no less than two hours upon the mouse who had garnered the queen's blessing and intended to wait no longer, either. He could be with his soldiers, back at the storehouse, finishing his reports. He could be setting up a caravan of heavy supplies to be sent far from the center of Yellowrock. He could be doing any number of useful things, but his mother had insisted he partake of the social season, and here he was...

The planting and harvesting season was over, and so it was the festival season and all that came with it. The balls, the dances, the feasting: it all tasted like ash in his mouth. He’d recently returned from a caravan to the outpost, and after seeing it firsthand, everything back here in Yellowrock just seemed so quaint. The Union worked hard to keep the peace in the capitol and its surrounding neighborhoods, but farther afield, vagabonds and roving bands of cats yet lurked in the woods. Yellowrock felt still and stifling in comparison.

Still, it helped to remember the people that the coalition worked so hard to support. And if he met someone that made him happy through the dark times, perhaps it would be… well, he didn’t know. Maybe like those fanciful stories in which a demure princess ran away with a dashing soldier, much to her parents’ despair. Moles, in particular, were fond of those, though in their tellings, happily ever after always seemed to take place in the Underground. Muk found them far too naive and simplistic for his taste, though some of his peers disagreed.

One such peer was the rabbit before him, Mr. Cobbler. He’d been going on and on about the latest volume of The Mixing, a pulp romance serial in which the protagonist had most recently saved his mole princess from the clutches of the evil cat overlord only to find out that the princess’ brother had been married, making her a duchess instead.

Muk inferred that this Cobbler fellow would drop the habit of reading these silly stories only as soon as they stopped printing them. They couldn’t be making enough to support the author, could they? It was probably some landed gentry who wrote the novel—someone with the time and means.

The Cobbler brothers - Philip and Cole - had resorted to small talk as they waited for the mouse of the hour to arrive, chatting amiably with the elderly Lady Uki and her daughter-in-law... Muk kept one ear trained on the conversation, in case something useful was hidden in the inane nattering. He’d been pleased to learn that Freya Uki’s father worked in some capacity with the coalition efforts.

Unfortunately, the brothers either did not pick up on his disinterest in chit-chat or had chosen to ignore it. “Do you think she’ll return anytime soon?” Cole asked him, not for the first time. His garish yellow tie made Muk’s head hurt.

“I believe that I don’t have the faintest idea, but perhaps you can spy a clue, Mister Cobbler.”

Cole Cobbler, the better looking of the Cobbler brothers, peered out the window for far too long looking for any sign. He would have been lost as a soldier. Muk pointed out the chickens had come home to roost.

“Remember her mother saying that Miss Uki would be walking the beasts?”

“Why yes, now I do recall that, Lieutenant.”

“This kind of attention to detail would make you a better merchant, given enough practice, Mister Cobbler.”

“Why Lieutenant Chin-Hwa,” the rabbit said, “that is what we have strong mice like you for, to keep the cats away from the door.”

There was a rustle of movement as a tiny ball of fur darted directly to the table with the tea, grabbed a biscuit faster than Muk thought possible, then disappeared down the hall.

“Was that a breeze?” Cole said, “I… I felt a breeze, there.”

Muk sighed. He turned to the clock, wondering how two hours could be so long when Da Sueng returned.

The two mice nodded to each other. By some unspoken ideal, they both independently believed they would not directly fight each other. Rather they should leave it to whichever lady they called upon to render a decision, as when they were young and courting Opera singers or those dancers that Da seemed to admire.

Da cleared his throat, and said, “I believe that I have the distinct honor of presenting Miss Freya Uki, just returned from some important duty.”