Bri put a hand to her chest and her eyes went wide. “The king is dead?” she asked in a quiet whisper.

“That’s what they say,” the soaked man said. He was out of breath and looked like he was in serious need of a sit down.

“Come sit,” his mother insisted, coming around the bar to help him pull his soaked cloak from him.

I didn’t know if she gave it any thought, but I found it mildly amusing that she guided him directly to our table to sit. We were seated close to the fire, but with her show of trying to influence Mable earlier it seemed very suspicious to be a coincidence.

“Mother I’m fine,” he said, but complied with her gentle guidance towards the chair. “Mom please, I don’t want to interrupt their dinner.”

“Oh it’s fine,” Mable said, moving her reeds so that the table in front of him would be clear.

I followed suit moving my destroyed bow from the table and tossing it to the floor next to me. “We don’t mind,” I echoed.

As soon as he was sat at our table, Bri disappeared into the back with her husband. We could hear them talking in hushed whispers, though I couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about. I assume they were distressed about the death of the king, I know I was distressed. Would the marriage still happen and would I get paid? I know that seems like a terrible first thought to have, surely I should be more upset about the death of the monarch that ruled over me, but in reality it rarely came up in my everyday life. Being raised as a druid meant that I was not used to the normal idea of masters and lords, it just wasn’t something that existed in nature in the same way. I was taught that I had no masters amongst nature, that everything society had established as a ruling structure was just arbitrary rules that did not matter. I had intentionally bucked off much of my druidic upbringing, but the part was hard to sluff off. I still believed that if any royal or noble were put out into the woods away from society and their status, they would end up living the same life as anyone else, there was not anything inherently special about any of them. It was all just societal trappings insisting that some people were lucky enough to be born to certain people made them special and unique.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt your dinner,” the soaked man said, awkwardly peeling off his outer shirt button up shirt and laying it to rest over the back of a chair to dry. “Probably should have chosen another table.”

“This one is the closest to the fire,” Mable said with a shrug.

The man looked up to her for the first time and I could see the flush of giddy hormones run through his features. I had to swallow a giggle to avoid laughing in his face about how obvious it was that it was love at first sight for him. By the smirk that blossomed on Mable’s shapely lips it seemed like she had noticed it too.

“I’m Mable,” she said with a light chuckle, “I’m assuming you’re the innkeeper’s son?”

“Uh um uh uh um…” he stammered.

“Bleu, right?” she offered, grin widening.

The pleased look on her face said this was a scenario that had played out before her many times and she took great pleasure in watching him struggle. The look on his face said that he was terrified and embarrassed that it seemed like he had forgotten his own name. In his defense I don’t think he had been prepared at all to look up and discover what could possibly be the embodiment of the goddess of love staring back at him.

“Um yes, yes, of course, I’m Bleu,” he said, face turning a deep scarlet. If it got any redder it might start steaming off the residual water from his cheeks. “Sorry to seem rude, I just ran all the way here and I’m a bit out of breath.”

“Oh of course,” she said with her voice syrupy, “you do seem a bit out of breath and tired. It seems like you really booked it back here as fast as you could. So you said the king is dead?”

“What?” His face looked confused for a moment, then blinked and let out a small laugh. “Right, yes, the guards were all stirred up in a fluster about it, I barely evaded getting held for questioning. The whole castle is being locked down from the looks of it.”

Mable let out a long groan and moved her enchanting eyes over to me and gave me a look of annoyance. “Guess that bodes ill for our chances of actually having a job anymore.”

“Maybe there could still be a wedding?” I suggested.

It was a long shot, who would want to still go through with their wedding with their father freshly dead though? Seemed insensitive at the very least and certainly not socially acceptable.

“I suppose there might be…” Mable looked contemplative, raising a forkful of potatoes to her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “The king is- was, not a popular man. If I had to guess, not even his own son is going to shed too many tears about his demise. Probably it was only a matter of time before someone finally got fed up enough and offed him.”

I glanced around, expecting the castle guards to burst through the door of the inn and drag her off to the dungeons. Even though I didn’t really believe in the whole institution of royalty overly much, I still knew it was bad for your health to openly speak bad about the people in charge.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Everyone in this kingdom has some grudge against the guy, he wasn’t a very likable person. Not even just as a monarch, he was just one of those people that seemed to take pleasure in the misery of others. It’s no secret, his own guards talk about how terrible he is all the time.”

“If he was so bad, why was he still king?” I asked.

Mable looked at me like she was trying to decide if I was ignorant or stupid. If she came out and asked I didn’t know which excuse was more accurate to give her.

“Because he was born as the heir?” She gave her answer with a scoffing laugh like she was trying to play it off like I was obviously joking to help me save face. “I don’t know why you play so dumb about this kind of stuff. I know you were raised in a tree, but you’ve been out among the city folks for long enough to know the basics by now.”

I gave my own laugh and shrugged my shoulders like she had found out my little joke, but we both knew that I was still a backwoods bumpkin even though I hadn’t had to forage for my daily meals in several years. I didn’t care much for finding out the political workings of the kingdom, just seemed like a boring way to spend my time when instead I could be drinking, playing, and making jokes filled with thinly veiled innuendo to any pretty face that seemed like he might have a nice big, family manner in need of a wife lounge around in all day. As long as I knew the basic rules, like not say or do something to get me thrown in the dungeon, I should have been fine.

“Well then maybe there will be a wedding,” I said, starting to feel a bit cheered by the idea that it could be possible. “If he was so hated, no reason to stop the march towards true love.”

Bleu gave a soft laugh. “About that.”

“Uh oh,” Mable said, leaning in close, “you know something you shouldn’t, don’t you?”

Bleu opened his mouth to reply, but his parents emerged again from the kitchen carrying a plate and tall mug of beer for their son. His father also had several rags thrown over his arm so Bleu could dry himself a bit better.

“Eat up and dry out,” Bri said, fusing with an errant strand of Bleu’s ginger mane, “we will need to discuss taking shifts to wait up tonight for the nobles to finally get here. Don’t want the inn to look closed when they finally do come this way.”

Once done smoothing down his hair, she moved on to taking rags from her husband and patting some of the beads of water still clinging to his skin where his hair was dripping onto his neck. She made little fussing noises while she dried him off that seem to be standard among mothers of all ages and even species.

“Course,” Bleu replied, grimacing at the overly childish way his mother was acting around guests, “though I don’t think it will be too long before they are released. I only caught a little bit about it, but the guards that were murmuring were talking about it being really obvious who did it.”

“Practically anyone who ever got near to the king?” Mable snorted.

The others joined in on the chuckle and I knit my brow together trying to imagine how everyone had managed to come to despise him, yet allow him to sit the throne. In the wild, if a buck became too aggressive the does would simply stop entertaining him during mating season and his overly showy antics made him an easy target for predators. Aggressive, unlikeable males rarely made it more than a couple seasons, but I supposed that humans and humanoids have an annoying habit of upholding even the most illogical situations out of tradition or some mystical idea of power structure.

Sensing my bewilderment, a look of realization played across Mable’s features. “I keep forgetting you have almost no frame of reference from growing up and are stubbornly avoiding all talks of royalty and politics. This doesn’t make sense to you, does it?”

“Not really,” I admitted, “seems like for being someone so terrible and temperamental everyone should be cowering and not wanting to stir him up. Instead, you all act like you’ve always mocked him which makes no sense with everything I’ve been taught about monarchs and dungeons.”

The three of them fell silent, looking between themselves as if they hadn’t really considered why everyone was so calm and free about talking negatively about their monarch before this moment.

“He couldn’t throw us all into the dungeon,” Cam finally said, rubbing his rotund stomach in thought, “I suppose that’s part of the reason why we’re so free and open about it. Also the lack of people who might disagree and tell anyone who matters what you said. He had distanced himself from all the noble houses and been such a generally miserable person to be around that very few people are going to come to his aid. I do understand what you mean, I remember from my childhood, his father would not have been someone people spoke so openly against and people did watch their displays of criticism, but I think people have become tired and annoyed enough and his dungeons are not full to the brim with all of us, so it has become normal.”

“His wife had a lot to do with it I think,” Bri added. “She was from a very powerful and old bloodline, quite frankly the king lucked out in the arrangement and she was a saint to have put up with him for as long as she did. Queen Maria tempered him a bit and pushed back against his rampages against those that spoke out against his actions and manners. She realized that she had a special influence over him and made sure to use it so that only those that were a true threat to the crown ended up in cells. Is it not the same with all men? They stomp around angrily pretending to list all the ways they will get revenge and the wife rolls her eyes and tells him to come to bed and stop being ridiculous?”

She cast a glance at her husband with a sly half-smile. He returned her gesture with a sheepish nod of admittance.

“When she died, we feared that perhaps he would go back to his old ways, but even as ill-tempered as he was, she had some lasting effect. He was as angry and prone to bouts of tantrums as ever, but he never did execute anyone again for the crime of sedition, just threw them in the dungeon or did some other like punishment until he forgot why he was upset at them in the first place.”

“So now he’s dead everyone will be happy at least,” I said with vague understanding. Still seemed like a silly social structure to uphold, but I supposed that lots of people would think the commune I came from was just as ridiculous.

“The prince is likable,” Mable confirmed, “I don’t think anyone will have major issues with him ascending the throne. The worst I’ve heard anyone say about him is that he keeps to himself, but with a father like his, it is no wonder. I wouldn’t have come out of my room either if that kind of attitude was always waiting to greet me.”

We stayed up eating and chatting until our stomachs were full to bursting and perhaps a glass or two too much wine had been drunk. They kept trying to further explain their royal line and social structure to me, but after the fourth glass of wine I admit I wasn’t trying very hard to keep track of the conversation. When I drank, I sometimes started to worry about things that normally I could push to the back of my mind and the idea that I might be in a new, very expensive city with a half-broken fiddle and no job was terrifying. Eventually they realized I was getting caught up in my own thoughts and not paying attention and instead turned to light hearted conversation.

Mable was being especially playful and flirty with Blue, even going so far as to inquire if we were being two rooms or one together and how if possible she’d rather have a room to herself and she’d pay for the extra space so that she could sleep with more privacy. I had to stop the chuckle from escaping from my lips. We had already shared a bed more than once on the road and she seemed put out if I had insisted it was too warm for us to cuddle up together. It seemed that she had been missing the company of a man in her bed and Bleu had passed the test to be acceptable for that purpose. Bri was all too accommodating, upgrading Mable to a nicer room with a bigger bed and hurried to rush us both off to our rooms. We stopped at her room first and it was indeed spacious with a large bed covered with a fluffy down comforter that I imagined felt like a cloud to sleep in. Mine ended up being a much rougher set up, though still nice, but it seemed like Bri was still set on focusing on making Mable a potential future daughter in law.

“Thank you,” I murmured through the haze of wine and closed the door behind me.

Now that I was alone without their chattering, the weight of my situation was heavier than ever. After a stay in a place like this, replacing my bow, and possibly my case, I would have so little left to live on. Sure, when I had first left the commune I had left with nothing, but that had been so hard and I had to rely on the kindness of strangers far too many times for my liking. From my experience, people seemed to be less generous in cities, so that meant at the very least I was going to have to leave and find somewhere else. Damn, I should have known things were working out too well for them to be true.