The soft clink of metal falling on stone rang in an uneven rhythm in his ears. The gold buttons that seemed to be sewed into every outfit in the entire palace were so loose they fell like rain when one walked. Even now, as he carried the uncountable amount of silks in his arms, he listened to each one fall to the floor as their thin strings snapped.

Aslan sighed in exasperation as he stopped walking. The veritable trail of gold he was leaving behind was sure to get him at least five lashes if he didn't double back right away and pick each one up. Unfortunately, the round fastenings had an awful tendency to roll away and be lost forever, or at least until some poor servant walked through again and slipped on it.

Aslan turned around, not particularly looking forward to retracing all his steps just for a few clasps, but thankfully someone had beaten him to it.

Hazel Evolet Yolie wore a tired face, as she always had. It was the kind of face someone had because they'd stayed up all night doing some chore or another, but had subjected themself to it and so couldn't complain. Honestly, it was a face that often greeted Aslan himself in the mirror, so he was used to it.

"You dropped these," Hazel said, opening her palm to reveal the small pile of buttons she'd picked up. Aslan smiled genuinely at her.

"Thank you," he breathed. "For a second there, I thought I was going to have to double back all the way to Jasper's chambers to get every last one of these." He reached an arm out to take the buttons from her, but unfortunately they were filled with a multitude of silks, and so he could only paw at them pathetically as far as his arm could reach without dropping everything (so, not very far).

Hazel sighed and dropped them in his hand for him. "Drop those by my door when you're done with them, I'll sew the buttons back in."

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that-"

"Please, Aslan. We all know you can't sew to save your life."

Aslan smiled awkwardly. It was true, of course. Of the many skills he'd developed as a servant, sewing was unfortunately not one of them. He hated putting work that shouldn't even have had to be done on Hazel's shoulders, but at the same time he knew resistance was futile. When Hazel set her mind to something, she did it. No matter what. "Thanks."

She nodded to him, pressed her lips together in a stiff smile, and went about her day.

Aslan gave the silks a quick toss in his arms to make sure they weren't slipping and kept walking.

Thankfully, the remaining buttons must have been sewn on more recently. No more fell, and he was able to beat the dust out of each and every one of them before dropping them off in a neat, folded pile outside of Hazel's door.

He brushed his hands together, glad to be done with his work for the day, before an angry voice echoed through the hallways, startling him.

"What the hell is this?" it demanded. Aslan knew it wasn't his business, but he peeked around the corner anyways to see who was yelling and who was being yelled at. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe he could help.

"This was all we could find," a young boy said shamefully, bowing his head and clutching his woven basket a little tighter. A few small cactus plants were all that the basket held.

"Then you obviously weren't looking hard enough," the man in front of him responded. Sendar Redious had been a favorite of the king's since his birth, or so the servants said. Even though his family were nobles, Sendar preferred to spend his time with the servants, in the kitchens and breweries. This might have been sweet and humble of him if he didn't spend every minute of it yelling or criticizing someone or other.

The Redious family was the family tasked with providing wine to the king. Sendar used to help servants make wine before the drought. However, once the grape vines had shrivelled and died and cactus wine was the only alternative, he'd become much stricter and demanding. Nothing was ever good enough any more. Aslan knew that Sendar wasn't a bad person; he'd once been nice and generous, even if he never stopped complaining. However, in times like these, should his family fall out of favor they'd be left to die of thirst. If Sendar couldn't provide the wine demanded of him, it was likely his sick father would perish within a week's time.

"We searched the farthest we could, there's no plants left," the boy cried desperately. "I swear! We took all we could find!"

Sendar exhaled angrily through his nose. Aslan could almost picture the smoke coming from his nostrils. "If you can't find enough to make even one cup of wine, then tell me, what exactly is your use? Why do we feed you? Give you water? Tell me that, huh?"

The boy almost had tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry..."

Sendar's face was not spelling forgiveness.

Aslan acted without thinking. "Leave him alone. He did his best, that's all you can ask of him." He clamped his mouth shut the moment he realized what he was saying, but at the same time he didn't regret standing up for the boy.

Sendar's attention turned to Aslan. "What did you say to me?" His sculpted face and blue eyes might have been quite beautiful had they not been filled with anger and sadness all the time. Aslan only felt pity for Sendar. Well, pity and fear, at this particular moment.

Aslan didn't wait for Sendar's anger to explode. He took off down the hallway at top speed and prayed.

❂

The soft clink of metal falling on stone in a monotonous rhythm was the only thing keeping him awake. He was tapping a small measuring spoon on the sandstone desk that covered at least half the floor space in the room. Waiting and watching. That's all he'd been doing for the past ten minutes.

The particular spell he'd used was supposed to slowly squeeze water out of stones from under the castle, where the underground river used to flow. Balthazar had been hoping they'd retained some amount of moisture from so long underwater, but it must have dried up long ago, because he'd only managed to get three measly drops. Not even enough for a mouse.

He tapped his spoon and waited, hoping the spell wasn't over. It had been a complicated one, and he wanted to have more to show for it than just the small amount he had.

A ruckus coming from the staircase leading to his tower made him look up. A familiar head of curly hair came racing around the rounded corner and came to a sudden halt right in front of his door.

"Can I come in?" Aslan asked breathlessly.

Zar simply summoned the boy in with his hand. He didn't know why he tolerated Aslan, honestly. One day the boy had just shown up at Zar's door and asked if he could help with anything. He hadn't mentioned he was going to help with anything and everything anyways.

Aslan zipped behind Zar and sort of crouched behind the table where he could barely be seen from the door. Zar pieced together that someone must be chasing him and went about his work as if there was no one there, knowing full well what came next.

A tired-looking (and furious, as usual) Sendar Redious followed Aslan's footsteps up to Zar's tower. Aslan was much faster than Sendar so it wasn't a surprise that he'd beat him here.

"Can I help you?" Zar asked him, disinterested.

"Where is he?" Sendar growled.

"I've no idea what you mean. I'm the only person you're interrupting. Now, get out. I'm very busy."

"Busy doing what? Staring at a rock?" Sendar gestured to the stone in front of Zar.

"Busy showing you who's not in a position to barge in," Zar replied, summoning a small flame in his hand. Once upon a time he'd had to say the incantation for the summoning spell, but he'd used it so often it had become second nature.

The fire made Sendar's eyes widen in fear. "You win this time, Conjurer." He retreated back down the stairs, probably to file a complaint against Zar or be generally sour.

Zar seemed to have a habit of making enemies in the castle; not that he minded. He had to admit that his rebellious nature was not ideal for his current living situation (that being, making the king pay for all his stuff). In fact, it was a miracle that Zar had been allowed to stay this long. But he supposed the kingdom was so desperate for water that they were willing to support even him.

"Thank you so much," Aslan breathed from behind the table. "I was like, eighty five percent sure that I was not going to make it out of that one."

"Yeah, well, uh, I owed you one," Zar said, hoping it sounded bitter. He still wasn't sure if he wanted the servant to know Zar didn't mind him, though he had the feeling Aslan might already know. "For the books you brought me." He nodded to the shelf to their left, where a few new books were resting. They were still a bit dusty from wherever Aslan had brought them from. "Are you ever going to tell me how you got your hands on them? I've perused the library at least a hundred times so don't tell me you found them there again."

Aslan shrugged. "Where I got them isn't important, is it? All that matters is that they're useful now!"

Zar chuckled a bit. "Well then you'll be happy to know that I'm using a spell from them right now."

"Ooh, let me see." Aslan walked on his knees until he was right next to Zar, kneeling on the floor. His eyes were glued to the stone. "I really don't mean to be all judgy and whatnot, but nothing's happening."

Zar resumed tapping the small spoon to count the seconds. "I know."

Aslan cleared his throat. "Didn't see you at the feast last night."

"Didn't go to the feast last night."

They sat in silence for another minute. Nothing happened.

Zar slammed his fist on the table. "Why did that not work? I did the spell perfectly! To a T!"

"Hey, calm down," Aslan comforted him. "Just try again, okay? I don't know what you were doing, but there are other stones in the desert, aren't there?" He smiled at him with the childish innocence that came from the notion that Zar had time. His voice was scratchy from thirst.

Balthazar sighed. Aslan got up to leave. "Oh, before you go-" Zar picked up the half-full bowl of water that he'd left on the table. The guards had given it to him earlier, never uneager to remind him that it was all he was getting that day. It had taken all his willpower not to down the whole bowl in one gulp. "-you sound thirsty. You need water."

Aslan's eyes grew wide at the water. He put a hand on his parched throat, massaging the black tattoo that marked him as a servant from a conquered area. Zar guessed that he was probably looking at more water than he'd seen all week. "I can't accept that."

"I'm telling you to accept it." Zar shoved it towards the small boy. "You've barely had anything to drink for days."

"Can I... can I just take it? I'm sure there are other people who need it more than me, so I can just go give-"

"I saved it for you. If you won't drink it, I'll just take it back then."

Zar saw the battle in Aslan's mind before he eventually succumbed to the thirst. "Alright, alright, fine." He took the bowl in his hands and lifted it to his lips, taking it in small sips at first but eventually downing the entire thing.

"Lovely. Okay, now go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before you came in here. Running for your life or whatever." Zar waved a hand dismissively.

Aslan smiled at him one more time before dashing off again.

Zar looked back at his rock, still sitting on the table, looking like nothing more than a boring decoration. He sighed. Time to get another one.

❂

The soft clink of metal falling on stone was a familiar and welcome sound to Ecthelion Finweson's ears. Honestly, after a day of doing nothing but standing next to a glorified hole in the ground, he was ready to get some food and what little drink was left from one of the only taverns still in business.

The Crying Fennec had been quite unpopular previous to the drought, but perhaps that was the reason it was still in business. Most of the more successful taverns had gone out of stock in no time, many people thirsty for anything to drink, even if it meant living off wine and beer and being perpetually drunk. The food was gone soon after as the animals died and the plants shrivelled. The Fennec was the only tavern that had the time to make rules about purchases and quantities, and the prices got higher and higher each day. But at this point, even if you didn't eat or drink anything, the tavern was a perfect place to go for a rare good time.

Ecthelion threw the door open and sank down to his usual table, the staff not even needing to welcome and seat him. Despite his friendly nature, he usually sat alone to watch people, preferring to observe them and simply enjoy seeing people being people. However, today, someone else approached him.

"Is that the Silver-fist I see? Why, it must be." A young man from a nearby table stood and gestured to Ecthelion. The older man didn't know how he had been recognized; he was wearing a hood and cloak to hide his face. But he realized that the young man was another royal guard, and had probably trained under Ecthelion at least a few times before, thereby knowing his face well.

Ecthelion gave up his mysterious air and threw back his hood, a smile printed on his face. "Yes, it's me. Surprise." He did a small jazz-hands gesture for the effect.

"Well? Is it true?" The young man and his companions looked at Ecthelion expectantly.

"Is what true?" Ecthelion asked, genuinely wondering what they were referring to.

"That you're training the prince and princess," another of them told him. She was just as young as her friend, if not younger. Actually, Ecthelion was surprised at their age. He wondered for a minute why such young kids were already enlisting to be a part of the military, but then he remembered that making money and finding jobs was becoming harder and harder for them. They probably needed to support their families, too. Ecthelion thought of his younger siblings, wondering if they would be in the guard if he wasn't around. He couldn't imagine Daragon wielding a sword, despite the fact that their entire family worked with them every day.

"Yeah, I'm training with them." Ecthelion stood up and moved to their table so he could talk to them a bit more conveniently. "Why is that a topic worthy of you whispering to me 'Is it true?' I thought it was common knowledge."

The kids looked at each other. "Well, I mean, we knew they were going to fight, and we knew someone had to be training them, but it's weird to think that someone from the guard we're a part of was training them."

"Not that you're in the same league as we are!" one boy said quickly, as though he was afraid Ecthelion might suddenly snap and attack. "You're obviously way better than us, getting to work in the castle and meet the royals and all. We're still based at the Den, just doing well patrols and stuff." He shrugged nervously.

"Hey, although I admit I am awesome at what I do," Ecthelion said dramatically, trying to lighten the mood that had suddenly turned dark, "It's not like I'm a god or anything. I'm not any better than you are just because I'm in the castle. Remember that I still do well patrols, just like you do. I actually just came from a patrol."

The kids smiled, clearly happy that he wasn't exerting his power and status on them. Although he was technically higher-ranking than them, he didn't like to act high and mighty. It wasn't that he was humble- he fully accepted his greatness and talent- but he didn't like how it made people act around him. He preferred to be loose and happy, appreciating the humor in life. It was too short to lord things over people when you could laugh with them instead.

"Tell us about the royal twins," one of the kids said enthusiastically. "What are they like? Are they like their father? What kind of rulers will they be?"

Ecthelion's smile became a bit more fake when he thought about the siblings. They were both so nice and kind, and so unlike their father. The thought that he was only training them so they could fight to the death kept him awake at night. "They're both very empathetic and I think either of them could be a great leader. They both have a lot of potential."

The others must have caught on to his discomfort at the subject. "Anyways, does a high-ranking official swordsman have any advice for us young, aspiring peasants?"

Ecthelion reached into his pockets and pulled out a few of the coins he had in there. Drinks and food had become expensive in the Fennec, even if entry was free. Thankfully, his pocket change was probably enough for a drink they could share. "My advice? Never stop being generous. Small favors go a long way. Tonight's drink is on me."

The kids cheered and thanked him, patting him on the back and offering to pay him back, which he kindly refused. They called a waitress over and ordered a single drink and a number of empty cups so they might split it.

Ecthelion suddenly felt eyes on him. Now that the attention was off him and on the liquid in the cup, he could pay attention to his surroundings. He couldn't explain it, he just had the feeling that the kids weren't the only ones who had recognized him. He scanned the room, trying to see if he could find the person looking at him, but he didn't meet any eyes. He figured it must be his imagination. He turned back to his portion of the drink and smiled again, forgetting about whoever might have been watching him.

❂

The soft clink of metal falling on stone bounced around the room, coins being tossed on tables for gambling or for food and drink. Alkemena Irving was watching the swordsman laugh and drink while she waited. She herself did not have the money to order her own food, but she sat at the designated table anyways, content to watch others and listen to their conversations. The swordsman in question had been talking about the prince and princess, two people that Alkemena couldn't care less for. Though he described them as kind rulers, she couldn't help but scoff. If they were truly kind, they would not hide in that castle with all the water they wanted, leaving the rest of the kingdom to die of thirst. Her mask was over her face at the moment, but she still frowned deeply.

The sound of footsteps behind her caused her to turn around. Two figures stood next to each other, arms crossed. They wore masks as well, covering their mouths and noses. One wore dark green and had a tuft of hair over the right half of his face. The other had pierced ears and curly hair, with a bright look in his eyes. "Are you Shadowseeker?" he asked.

Alkemena relaxed at the fake name. It meant that they didn't yet know who she really was, and that they were the people she'd agreed to meet. "That depends on what you want from me."

"You can call me Jax," said the one with curly hair. "My friend here is Abrax." He gestured to the other boy, who nodded at her. They took seats on either side of her. "We want to invite you on a quick run to one of the wells. If it goes well maybe we can work together on other things."

Alkemena tilted her head at them. "I don't usually work with others. Besides, you both look a little young to be doing this. How do I know you're not dead weight?" It was a fake question. She actually knew both of the thieves' names, passed around on the streets or in the tavern. They were almost as well known as she was, and beloved by the people for giving out the water they took.

"Perhaps by the fact that there is still breath in our lungs," said Abrax.

"How do we know that we can put our faith in you?" Jax asked next. Alkemena was used to the exchange of questions that came with deals within her trade. "To be fair, you haven't even acknowledged that you are, in fact, Shadowseeker. And there are plenty of people who would turn us over to the guards in a heartbeat in exchange for a quick drink."

"My older brother lost a hand and most of the skin on his back for stealing." Abrax looked at her with a dark expression.

"You think that's not a threat I face too?" Alkemena crossed her arms to match their identical poses, feeling a bit ganged up on.

"We're just being careful," Jax told her. "We need to know we can trust you."

"Trust is hard to find in a world where we don't even use our real names."

"We want your help," Abrax said, "But we don't need it. Stop dodging the question and just tell us that you'll help, or we'll leave."

"Do you even have a plan?"

"If we do, you'll only hear it after you agree to help us."

Alkemena sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll help you. I was always going to say yes. But there's no harm in being careful."

"Well, careful time is over," Jax replied. "That swordsman won't be off duty forever." He jerked his thumb at Finweson.

Alkemena reached out her right hand. "Pleasure to be working with you boys." Jax shook it, and Abrax followed him. "Let's go commit some crimes."

Word Count: 3383

Character Appearances:

Aslan by 

Balthazar Evander by Cynarr

Ecthelion Telperinquar Finweson by  ShockerGuardian1731

Alkemena Irving by TheShortBosmer

Also Featuring Appearances From:

Hazel Evolet Yolie by Ashgreenleaf

Sendar Redious by Dire_Redheart

Ariel Seghal by Avengers14

Abracius Senakhterne by SincerelyLoki

A/N: And so the introduction chapters are done! We may now get to rising action... muahaha. The next update won't be for a while, I assure you (sorry), but I'll get there eventually. Let me know your thoughts on the story so far and be sure to vote and comment to your heart's content. I have a question for you today: What is your favorite food and why? (forgive me for being cheesy but I barely know anything about you guys and would like to change that. My favorite food is ramen noodles :)