Once Upon a Time…. by theFrey (Sections 11-12)
***** Section 13 *****
The minute Kai and Prince left, Stanley unwound one of the coils of wire from around the various bundles that Kai had left with Xev.
“Xev,” he said absently, his mind already lost to the problem at hand. “Why don’t you sort through this stuff and see if there is anything else in this bundle that might be useful.”
Then turning his attention to the problem at hand, he prodded 790 to display information about metal hair fas…pins. He was making pins he reminded himself. The wire was stiff enough that working it back and forth for a few minutes was enough to break off a section. After he had several sections broke off, he smoothed the sharp edges as best he could on the underside of the window ledge.
Xev glanced over at Stanley and smiled at how focused he was on his project.
She quickly sorted through the bundles of vegetation that Kai had brought her. Vegetation was the only way to classified it she thought bemusedly, since it did not by any stretch of the imagination resemble a bouquet. Separating out the flowers for the vase, she then sorted the twigs, grasses, and weed like things into individual bundles and wrapped each separately in some of the plain white paper.
Xev plucked out the broken teasels from her wreath and replaced them with the new, undamaged ones. She was just wrapping the broken bits and old wilted flowers in a bit of the white paper so that they could be disposed of when a brisk knock heralded the return of the morning cleaning crew.
Stanley started and then frowned when he noticed that Jane was not with the other two, never the less he pasted a smile on his face and echoed Xev’s cheerful “Good Morning.”
Which was again ignored. As two of the guards stationed themselves inside the closed the door and the crew once again began to briskly clean. The only interaction that Stan or Xev had, was when Xev handed the parcel of trash to the young female, and when the man cleaning the windows and floors pointed silently at 790.
“Oh, sorry”, Stan said jumping up to grab the cranky robot head off the window sill.
“Grrrr,” he growled startling the cleaning maid, who was passing Stanley, to start making the beds. “Nobody better make any plays for my cold hunk of hot love while I’m cooped up in here with these two idiots!” he yelled at her.
“790!” Stan hissed in a low voice, as the wide eyed maid edged over to the bed. “Stop that right now, or I’m telling Kai!” 790 grumbled a few times but subsided, merely flashing his eyes menacingly at the cleaning crew and making a few low snarls when they passed near.
“Um, excuse me.” Stan said as he withdrew from the area the cleaners were working in and drifted over towards the guards. “Hi, I’m Stanley H. Tweadle, Captain of the Lexx…,” he sighed. “Or I was the captain… anyhow, do you know where our breakfast is? Will it be here soon?”
The older of the guards looked at Stanley for a long silent minute. “The housekeeper was delayed this morning,” he rumbled in a rough voice. “She will be here shortly.”
“Ah, thanks.” Said Stanley, waiting hopefully. Unfortunately, no other conversation was vouchsafed to him or Xev, and within a very few minutes the cleaners and the guards withdrew.
Not quite an hour later, Jane was escorted into the room by a different guard. Setting the tray on the table, she nodded to him and he exited silently , locking the door behind him.
“Good Morning Captain, Xev,” she greeted them as she uncovered the various dishes and began placing them in front of them.
“Good Morning Jane,” they chorused, except of course for 790, who merely growled from the window sill.
“I’m sorry I’m late with your breakfast, but I wanted to delay coming until after the regular guards were scheduled for training.”
“Oh really?,” Stan smiled as he reached for a peach-like piece of fruit. “Does that mean you can talk to us this morning?”
“It does.”
Jane regarded them gravely, “Exactly how dangerous is this Kai person?”
“Well…,” Stan began taking a deep breath and puffing out his chest.
“Why do you want to know Xev interrupted.
Jane glanced over at Xev, “I have my reasons,” she replied.
“Don’t you dare tell her anything that might imperil my dead-o-lious one!” 790 yelled.
Stanley curled his lip and shot an annoyed glance at 790. “Like what?” He inquired sarcastically, “you think she could find a way to make him deader?”
“Hush, both of you,” Xev said, waving a hand dismissively at Stan and 790. She then turned her attention to Jane. “Look, you obviously want information from us, well we want information from you too. Perhaps we could trade.”
“Fine, but quickly, I can’t stay long. And you need to eat while we talk, I have to take the trays with me when I leave.” As they resumed eating, she looked at Xev closely. “So how dangerous is this Kai?”
“Very dangerous you hag,” 790 spat from the window sill, “He was a Divine Assassin, and has killed thousands of people. He is virtually an unstoppable killing machine, skilled in tactics only dreamed of on this cesspool of a world.”
“Now it’s our turn to ask a question,” Stan stated just as Jane started to ask another question. “How would we fix Xev’s hair in a bun that looks like Kai’s, rather than one that looks like yours?”
Of all the questions they could have asked, this was clearly not one that Jane was expecting. She looked at Stanley with a confused expression, while her lips moved silently repeating his question.
“A bun?” she asked puzzled. “Like the one… Kai has?”
“Yes, you wretched cow, a bun like the one that my beloved corpse-sickle of love wears!” 790 shouted, exasperated.
They watched as Jane’s expression changed from puzzled to thoughtful. “Well, she said frowning slightly. “I don’t know how he does it, but if I was trying to do it to my hair…” she paused looking up at the ceiling as she concentrated. “I would use a doughnut form of some sort underneath it…. Draw the hair up through the center of it, and then arrange it all around the form, pining it up underneath it.”
She looked at Stanley, re-focusing her eyes and said, “My turn now I think. What do you think this Kai would do if the former governor tried to dispose Lord Prince?”
“That depends, Xev replied. If the governor threatens Prince with injury or imprisonment he will kill the governor and as many people other people as necessary to protect him. If Prince decided to leave on his own, which is highly unlikely, he would see him safely away, regardless of what the former governor tried to do. Now how could we make one of these doughnut forms using only the materials we have in this room?”
“Could he really do that?” Jane asked skeptically, then seeing the expressions on Xev and Stanley’s face, she quickly said, “Never mind.”
“A form using only the material in this room?” Jane began a slow circuit of the room, “Wait, let me think a minute,” she said, absently twitching bed clothes into straighter lines and inspecting furniture for dust as she surveyed the rooms contents. As she passed the window on the way to Stanley’s side of the room, she stopped. Ignoring the growling and muttered insults from 790 she gently removed Xev’s wreath from the window and surveyed it intently. Frowning in concentration, she flicked her eyes from the wreath to the bundles of grasses and twigs that Xev had sorted and wrapped in paper which were lying on the foot of her bed.
“If you took the smaller twigs, and soaked them for a while in the tub to make them more pliable it might be possible to make a small wreath to use as a form.” She set the wreath on the corner of the table and made a small circle with her hands to show them the size she was thinking of. “I’m not sure how you would smooth it out though, perhaps you might be able to cover it with the grasses…. Or a bit of material, like a scarf.” She plucked a few of the grasses from the bundle and wound them around the wreath crosswise from the direction from the twigs.
“Is that how they are made?” Stanley asked eagerly.
She glanced over at him and grimaced, “Well no,” she said, noting the crestfallen look that her words produced. “Usually they are made with a special type of material sewn into a tube which is stuffed and the sewn into a circle, but you have no material of that type or anyway of sewing it into the proper shape.”
Raising her hand, she stopped Stanley from asking another question, “Is there anyway to protect the former governor from this Kai person?”
790 immediately took exception to her again referring to his beloved stiff as a ‘Kai Person’.
Ignoring the flying insults, Xev’s furrowed her brows as she studied Jane.
“Shut up 790,” she commanded. “Jane, if he is the master, why should you care about the former governor?”
“Is it your turn to ask a question?”
“Well, no. But I am curious. I won’t tell Prince of course,” she assured Jane hurriedly, “and it might help me know how to answer your question.”
“I serve this Castle, which like all the fortifications in this land belongs to the Emperor. However…” She stopped, took a shaky breath and went on, “However, the former governor was stationed here for fifteen years, I watched some of his children being born. I have cared for his family most of my adult life. One of my daughters is apprenticed to his treasurer, and his recommendation enabled my son to be accepted as a student with the imperial engineers.”
She took another shaky breath. “I would not like to see anything happen to him or his family at the command of Lord Prince.”
Stan felt a warm happy glow come over him, perhaps he thought, things were finally going to go their way. “Well Jane,” He purred, sounding not unlike Prince for a second, and standing up with a small smile. “I can answer that. If Xev and I learn to fix hair in the style of the Brunnen-g, Kai will make Prince release us, and then we will all leave, taking Kai with us, eliminating him as a danger to your governor.” He noted the skeptical expression flitting across her face and grinned broadly.
Jane shot Stanley a suspicious look, “If this Kai is powerful enough to make Lord Prince release you if you learn to… fix hair, why could he not just free you now? No offence Captain Tweedle, but that does not make a lot of sense to me.”
It took a few minutes to explain to Jane how they had come to be in this predicament. And a just a little longer to explain their current progress. The entire conversation threatened to bog down on the why’s of Kai’s seemingly irrational demands, until Stanley finally pointed out, ‘The dead do not have to make sense.’
Although still a bit confused and disbelieving, Jane seemed to quickly reach a decision as she heard a rattle in the door lock. “Here,” she hissed, swiftly snatching a few pins out of her hair and thrusting them at Xev.
As the door swung open Jane hastily placed Xev’s mostly untouched plate on the tray, and began to gather up all the rest of the breakfast dishes.
Stanley, glanced at the door and snagged a piece of bread and a few small sausages placing them out of sight under the table just as his plate was whisked away.
As soon as the door shut behind Jane, Stanley offered a share of the bread and sausages to Xev.
“No thanks Stan,” Xev said, showing him the fragrant yellow fruit that she had snatched off the tray as Jane was turning to leave. “You keep them, I’ll eat this.”
They grinned at eat other as they ate the flinched food. It wasn’t much, but it would tide them over until dinner.
“Tell you what Xev, from now on, while one of us talks the other one should eat.”
“No, Stan, I’ll tell you what. You finish up your hair pins, and I will make this bun form thing and we will be out of here by breakfast!”
“Oh! Here.”
Popping the last bit of sausage into his mouth, Stanley accepted the hair pins from Xev.
“Great. Using these as a pattern, I should have some pins made in an hour or so. How long do you think it will take you to make a form?