Browtober

“Have you seen this girl?”

Verity brandishes a handheld portrait of the princess, one of the few where she was allowed to be painted grinning as brightly as she liked to. It captures her likeness better than most of the portraits around the castle. The small group of strangers takes turns looking at it and shaking their heads apologetically. One looks like they might have something to say, but their mouth folds down uncertainly.

“Yes?” prompts Verity, her voice low and flat and intimidating. She has never gotten in the habit of having a good manner with the public, and now that she’s away from home she hasn’t gotten any better. The lands outside the kingdom from whence she came are very strange indeed, full of so many strange technologies that she never would have dreamed of. Still, she is a knight, and she must find her errant princess, no matter the cost. 

The stranger shrinks back from her tone, but says, “If you’re having trouble finding her, you might want to report her missing to the sector authorities. They have a whole hullabaloo for that sort of thing.”

“Ah. Thank you.” Verity has been avoiding doing just that, though not for lack of wanting to find the princess. No, she’s under orders to keep the fact that the kingdom’s crown princess is missing as quiet as possible. If, as Verity suspects, it turns out that the pirates who took her ended her life, they will deal with that as it comes. The panic it would cause to find out the beloved princess is missing would be unimaginable, so they say. 

Certainly, it’s true that there would be some panic, and it’s not Verity’s place to question the Crown. That does, however, put her in the supremely difficult position of hunting for a needle in a haystack. Pirates have every method available to them to sail the Seas and begone from this place. They could be anywhere. They sent their ransom, and then… nothing. She’s been missing for over a year now, and Verity has been sent to find her. Quietly. Without causing a fuss. 

“One more thing,” she says, just as the group is turning away entirely. That same shy fellow looks back to her, ears tilted quizzically upward. 

“Mmhm?” they murmur, clearly made nervous by her general demeanor.

Unbothered, she continues on. “Has there been any serious pirate activity in this area?”

The group looks amongst each other, an uneasy murmur going through them, before the shy one that has somehow taken up the mantle of speaker shrugs uncertainly. “If there has been recently, I haven’t heard of it. Sector authorities really don’t tolerate that sort of thing around here anymore. There was a bad scare maybe half a year back with a raid, and they sent more people to help us out. Palatine presence is a really good deterrent, since they’re so well trained.”

“I see,” Verity replies. Maybe she will have to go to these so-called sector authorities after all, if only to get more information on pirates. There’s no guarantee they’re the pirates she’s looking for. After all, the Seas are full of countless scoundrels. But it’s a place to start.