* * *

Koh had been having fun a minute ago, but now he was having anything but fun. The man had made the loudest noise he'd ever heard anybody make, except for mommy when she stepped on his toy rake just that once, and it had been really scary. Koh had fallen onto the floor from where he'd been jumping on the man's tummy, and then suddenly there were a lot of other people in the room.

Sissy was yelling at him, about how she was gonna tell on him and stuff. He'd never ever seen sissy so mad at him before. He started to cry.

The other two had very different reactions. The knighty-guy stood there for a moment looking down at Mr. Soldier. "Give me a break," knighty-guy shook his head and left.

The girl frowned at Mr. Soldier and started a very long lecture about how Koh was 'just a kid' and why he shouldn't pick on him. Koh wasn't really sure what a lot of the words the girl said meant, but there sure were a lot of them. Koh wasn't too upset when Elly lead him downstairs for the inevitable Talk.

* * *

The bath house walls shook when there was a loud noise coming from the direction of the inn. Jillia looked in that direction, though she couldn't see beyond the walls, wondering what on earth could be happening this time. It couldn't possibly be as bad as earlier, though, could it?

* * *

Elly had dragged Koh downstairs with the intention of telling mommy and daddy what he'd done, just like he'd gotten her in trouble with the fishies. But at the last minute she decided not to. Koh could get in really big trouble this time. He'd probably be mad at her for a really really long time. Elly frowned. She didn't want her little brother mad at her for so long.

Instead of taking him to the front of the inn or the kitchen, where their parents would probably be, Elly took him back to the room they shared. Koh looked confused by her actions, but she sat him down on his bed and sat across from him like mommy did when it was lecture time.

"You can't go jumping on the customers, Koh," she said. "If you do that, they might decide they don't like us an' never come back. And daddy would be really sad."

Koh looked down at his feet. He didn't mean to make the custy-people mad, he just wanted to play...

"And Jill, the girl who was with those guys, is really really neat," Elly continued, "She knows all kindsa stories. She even knows a story about a Tenkai!"

Koh brightened up at that. "Really?" He wondered what that could be. Except Elly wasn't supposed ta know he didn't know already. "'Cause she can tell you what and..." He couldn't pretend any longer. He jumped up and hugged his big sister as tight as he could.

Elly grinned. "An' maybe she'll tell us the story afta dinner if you promise not ta jump on the customers any more."

"I pwomise!"

* * *

Jillia dipped below the water for a moment to rinse the soap out of her hair. She'd had to keep that promise for Elly, too. She was definatly glad there was a shortened version used for history books that tried to recover all human history. But that didn't even come until later. Before that, there was dinner to contend with.

* * *

Alen came down to dinner late. He wasn't in the mood to be desturbed, but in a small inn like this, eating in his room was impossible. He'd have skipped dinner entirely if his stomach hadn't insisted. He sat down at the end of the table away from everyone else in the attempt to not have to deal with Rowd any longer than necessary, not to mention Jillia's freakish glowing trick.

He was served a plate of food that would probably taste very good if it didn't taste like sandpaper. He was definatly not in the mood for eating right now.

At the other end of the table, Jillia was seated between the innkeeper's two children, and all three appeared to be in reasonably good moods considering everything that had happened. The boy didn't even look like he'd been punished for jumping on Rowd. Rowd, on the other hand, was concentrating mostly on his food. That made Alen think briefly of what he'd been told back in Gregminster about the man's eating habits. Human trashcan. The innkeep and his wife behaved pretty much like any normal happily married couple in the republic.

Alen mindlessly ate his meal in silence. His mind was too occupied on other matters, such as maybe actually taking a nap.

* * *

"ROWD!" Jillia jumped in surprise when she heard Alen yelling like he was out for blood. She now noticed the sounds of people running around outside. She got out of the bath and was just putting on a wrap when the door to the bath house opened.

Rowd charged in and then suddenly noticed that Jillia was there. "Uh, Jillia, I didn't know, um, er..."

Jillia grabbed the large wooden mallet that was hanging against the wall and started to swing it at him. (It's uncertain why, exactly, the bath house of a small town inn would have a mallet hanging on the wall, but it would certainly be an interesting story.) "Hentai!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Rowd was chased around the bath house a few times, narrowly avoiding the mallet swings, and then fled out the door.

Jillia angrily started to chase him, but didn't get far.

Alen spotted Rowd exiting the bath house and started running after him again, sword drawn, when he noticed who came out of the bath house next. "Ugh...Sorry M'lady, I didn't mean to disturb your bath. It's just that Rowd is driving me to insanity."

Jillia turned bright red, realizing she was still dressed in nothing but a wrap. She fled back into the bath house and got dressed. After that, she stalked off back into the inn and her room.

"That's it," she muttered, "I can't stand them any more. Either of them! I'll get back home on my own!"

Her bag was still packed from when they arrived, so it didn't take her long before she was stalking upstream along the river bank, without either of those two.

* * *

Rowd and Alen returned to the inn together, neither showing much sign of what had happened just a little bit earlier. Alen had worked off enough stress just by running around in the attempt to kill Rowd that he didn't need to, and Rowd noticed that fleeing for one's life would make you forget about being hit on the head by a mallet. Of course, being hit on the head by a mallet could also make you forget about being hit on the head by a mallet. In any case, they managed to have a somewhat civil conversation with each other on the way back.

"So did you see Jillia?" Rowd asked.

"Yes...," Alen replied.

And thus the conversation continued until they reached the inn. After that, it was still several hours before either worked up the courage to see if Jillia was still up.

Rowd peeked into the room, ready to run away the instant any large wooden objects came in the direction of his head. But there was no mallet. In fact, there was no Jillia either. Uh oh.

He went down the hall to Alen's room peeked in. Well, Alen was still around, at least. If that could be considered a good thing.

Alen sighed, "What now?"

"I just looked in Jillia's room," Rowd said. "She's gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone."

"Where the heck could she have gone?" Alen demanded. "We're in the middle of nowhere, and there aren't any ships leaving at this time of night!"

"I don't know!" Rowd defended himself. It wasn't his fault she'd disappeared. Of course, he was supposed to be her body guard. His Majesty probably wouldn't agree that it wasn't his fault if he came back without Jillia.

Both men's thoughts echoed the same thing. Damn. I lost the princess!

"And I didn't even get the chance to mention I'm not going back to Toran..." Alen muttered.