I moved slowly while taking in the beauty of the palace I was in. The long corridor that we were moving through, had all sorts of paintings and statues as decor. The statues looked as if they would come to life anytime and their eyes seemed to follow me as I kept walking. While some of the paintings in this corridor were of Sirius and his parents, some of them were of different people. I had noticed several different portraits of various old men in their dazzling armors.

Every painting portrayed the old warriors with much detail and respect. It was clear that these people had a great influence in this family. While I noticed that most of the paintings were of old people, some of them portrayed a young man.

The young man had silver hair with bright green eyes. His expression revealed the sharpness akin to a beautiful sword. In some of the paintings, he was shown standing on top of a massive, hulking dragon, with a sword pierced through its heart. The sword that pierced the dragon’s heart was portrayed with the size as impressive as the dragon’s.

It was pretty safe to assume that this family came from a long line of warriors. And they wore their identity on their head as a sign of pride.

We had been moving steadily all this while. The palace was big enough to dwarf the merchant’s mansion I had lived in for 4 years. It was so big that my marvel had gone down considerably as it looked like the entire palace was built just for the praises of these old heroes.

The only amount of decor I could find were these strange statues and the old paintings. Some of the other rare decorations included swords and shields. It felt more like an armory than a palace.

Sirius and I were walking a little distance behind the old genial man. I slightly leaned into Sirius’ ear and whispered so that the old man couldn’t catch our conversation.

“That is Father’s personal butler, Grandpa Blake Elmare.”

“Was he ever a warrior?”

“Of course. Grandpa Blake was once a Royal Knight, and one of the best one at that.”

That explains it. The killing intent that was directed at me wasn’t something any normal individual could direct. That solved the mystery of who. But the mystery of why still stood tall.

“Oi, Sirius.”

“Not Oi. That is the language that commoner’s use. You should say ‘Hey’, because we are of the same age. If we weren’t, you should have said, ‘I beg your pardon’.”

Sirius looked at me intently as he said this. While he was trying to put on a serious face, his eyes showed how proud he was of teaching me something.

“Where did you learn all these etiquettes?”

“Master of etiquette taught me, of course. And Father always says that a Lord should know when and what to speak.”

While this cute child felt pleased with himself, I started speaking again.

“Okay, Ser Lord of the high horse, could thou do the honours of endowing this knowledge onto me as to why did thou taketh thine precious time to save me.”

I revelled in the feeling of making this small child baffled as I waited for a response out of his mouth. However, the only response he could utter was the opening of his mouth to form a circle as he looked at me with bewilderment.

“...What…?”

“Why did you save me?”

I replied as I giggled to myself at another victory in this verbal joust, that Sirius was not even aware of. I hopped about a bit ahead as I enjoyed this feeling of victory. Sirius also quickened his pace as he caught up to me.

“Should there be a reason?”

“You… saved me on a whim?”

“Hmm? No. Shouldn’t we save people if they are in need?”

I looked at Sirius as I tried to pry into any thread of lies he might be weaving. However he looked ahead with his head held high and kept moving forward. There didn’t seem to be any ulterior motive behind his actions. I sometimes forget that people of my age are just children, after all. I was just projecting my doubts in the decision of a child.

“Is this also something your father says? Save people in need?”

“No, that is just… common sense, isn’t it? But Father says it is my duty and responsibility to save people.”

Common sense, huh. I smiled as I realised that it was that simple. Somewhere, in my past bed of blood and betrayal, I had left behind this innocent thinking somewhere. It's just that simple. Looks like this joust was my loss.

After walking, what felt like a day and night, we finally reached the main hall. The corridor we had travelled through opened into a gigantic dome, the ceiling of which seemed to touch the sky. My eyes immediately went to the two red seats kept beside each other in the far end of the room.

The red seats were elevated by a platform, above all the other seats and stands that existed in the hall. There was a carpet unfurled that started from the corridor and reached the foot of the seats. On either side of the carpet, there stood tall balustrades. People were sitting on their chairs behind the balustrades as they looked upon the two people sitting on the red seats.

The man I had seen during the night, father of Sirius, sat on the right seat. The left seat was occupied by a woman who looked to be in her early 20s, but had eyes that seemed ready to tear everyone in sight apart. She wore a long, flowing, black gown with embroidered petals. While Sirius’ father sat with utmost poise, in his long red garb as he looked at me.

We went ahead, crossing people who were looking at us from behind the balustrade. I could feel curious eyes fixated upon me. The most curious of all was, of course, Sirius’ father.

The old man, Grandpa Blake, asked us to stay as he made his way to the couple. He bowed slightly and proceeded to stand behind Sirius’ father. Sirius and I stood near the foot of the platform, which seemed like the middle of the entire hall. I felt as if we were being tried for some heinous war crime.

“Name.”

A voice boomed across the entire hall as I jolted by surprise. I looked up to the Lord, father of Sirius, and he too looked down at me.

“Speak your name, child.” The woman, who looked too cold to show any emotion, spoke in a surprisingly gentle tone.

“My name is Mehr, My lord and My lady.”

I bowed down as I said my name. Through this conversation and the first encounter I had with the Lord, I could assume what sort of lovely person he was.

And for some reason, I really wasn’t looking forward to speaking to him.