Excerpt: Madness, Machinations, and Reticence

THIS HAS NOT BEEN EDITED OR REVISED OR EVEN LOOKED AT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. I JUST SELECTED THE ENTIRE FIRST CHAPTER AND COPIED IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Chapter 1 ~ In which Joshua discovers the merits of not judging a book by its cover

Joshua was very confused. As he followed his princess down the corridor, he was trying to figure out why exactly they were there. In an insane asylum. Where the princess’ crazy twin sister was kept locked up. Currently walking to the room of said crazy twin.
As they stopped in front of the door leading to their destination, he decided it was a lost cause, and turned to shrug at his two men, who were lancing back and forth between him and the princess quizzically. After the nurse escorting them had opened the- rather large- padlock and opened the door, beckoning them after, Joshua decided that judging from the sound of the babble coming from inside the room, the sister wasn’t as dangerous as she was made out to be in the taverns of the city. That didn’t, however, mean that he was any less on guard as he entered the room.
In the opposite corner of the room, there was a medium sized bed, with a rather small girl in it. This girl was babbling quite effusively about anything and everything to another girl sitting in one of the two armchairs by the bedside. The girl in the chair was nodding solemnly, not really paying attention at the moment, and motioned to the seat next to her.
Immediately, the princess swept across the room and seated herself on the empty space, turning her full attention to the girl in the bed, who had finally noticed her, and began talking to her about how much she had missed her, and how much she was craving something sweet.
“Mehgara, please.” Said the princess, taking one of the bed-ridden girls hands. “You have guests”
“Oh? Well fancy that and color me blind! Hello!” Said Mehgara, smiling at Joshua. “I don’t believe we’ve met before! How charming! You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find a Snaggelputt, do you?”
“Uh…” Said Joshua, as eloquently as could be expected. The princess sighed and dropped her head onto one palm, effectively drawing the attention of Menaiya back to her.
“What ever is the matter, sister dear?” Mehgara asked not at all unkindly, leaning over and placing a concerned hand on the princess’ shoulder. The other girl, whom Joshua had quite forgotten about, silently reached over and removed Mehgara’s hand from the princess, tucking it back onto Mehgara’s lap before returning to her previous pose, all without uttering a word, her expression inscrutable.
“Nothing, nothing at all…” the princess murmured, reaching out to pat Mehgara’s hands, before turning in her seat to face Joshua and his two men.
“Menaaaaaaaaiyaaaaaaaa!!!!” Mehgara exhaled loudly, pouting. “Menaiya, don’t be like that!” The princess turned back to Mehgara indignantly, opening her mouth to berate her, before she caught herself, and settled for shooting Mehgara a furious glare, before turning back to the men.
“As you have probably guessed, this is my sister, Mehgara.” Princess Menaiya said while gesturing to the girl in the bed, all traces of emotion wiped off her face completely. “And this, well…” For the briefest moment, a look of uncertainty crossed her face, before it hardened back into its mask. “This is my sister, Ridona.” The other girl waved slightly, inclining her head regally towards them.
Joshua felt his eyebrows rising slightly, but he was to busy thinking about all the rumors he had heard about the three girls before him. The two in chairs were both staring at him and his men with no expressions, while Mehgara stared absently around the room, having grown bored with the conversation once it was made clear that Joshua had no idea what a Snaggelputt even was, let alone where it could be found.
All at once, Princess Menaiya turned her head abruptly to the nurse who had escorted them in, and raised one brow delicately.
“You may go.” She said, not blinking as she gazed at the unfortunate woman with a gaze made of iron.
“Y-your majesty, I am s-supposed t-to wait in the r-room with you in c-case the p-patient or anyone else n-needs anything…” The poor nurse frightened out of her mind by contradicting royalty in such a way.
“It wasn’t a request.” The princess remarked, the dryness of her voice almost concealing the condescending tone to her voice.
“Y-yes, your m-majesty.” The woman whispered, curtsying hurriedly before scurrying from the room and closing the door behind her. Ridona made a sardonically questioning face at her sister, who shrugged as she turned yet again to face the men.
“Well, these three men are Joshua, Alexander, and Acharon. These are the people who were chosen to help us.” Princess Menaiya said, almost nervously. Ridona merely nodded again, as if saying ‘I got that, thanks.’, but suddenly Mehgara was no longer staring into space, and was staring instead at the three men. Her gaze was clear and sharp, and unwavering as it seemed to hold the eyes of all three at once. There was no trace of madness in them at all, and it made quite a difference to her appearance. Gone were the soft, round lines, replaced by straighter lines and angles. Her face was sharper somehow, and she gave off a slew of vibes, ranging from slightly hostile, to curious, to happy, to bitter, to depressed, to everything else. She was sitting up straighter, and the changes caused the similarity between her and her sisters became apparent.
“These are the best Jacque could come up with? They look kind of scrawny to me!” She said, looking all three of them up and down. Beside Joshua, Acharon stiffened in shock, while on the other side Alexander’s mouth opened slightly to form an ‘o’ shape.
“Yes, well at first appearance YOU are clinically insane, so you of all people should know better than to judge a book by it’s cover.” Princess Menaiya said curtly, eliciting a short, hysterical tinged laugh from the Princess Mehgara. Princess Ridona grinned, and relaxed back into her chair. Joshua’s eyes got really big, and his eyebrows rose up under his bangs. All three of the men managed to snap out of their shock as the Princess Menaiya turned to meet their eyes.
“Can you three keep secrets?” She asked, as though she needed conformation of something she had been told by a third party. All three on them nodded, utterly bemused by seeing their royal highnesses acting like human beings, and utterly confused about why they were in the company of said royal highnesses in the first place.
“They may be scrawny, but they look tight lipped.” Princess Mehgara remarked, nodding and leaning back into her pile of pillows with her eyes closed. “You might as well get on with it.”
“Right.” Princess Menaiya said. “First thing’s first, Mehgara’s not crazy. Period. She can act it sometimes, but she is not, in fact, clinically insane, just a very good actress. Any questions so far?” She looked at all three of them in turn
“Right.” Princess Menaiya said. “First thing’s first, Mehgara’s not crazy. Period. She can act it sometimes, but she is not, in fact, clinically insane, just a very good actress. Any questions so far?” She looked at all three of them in turn and saw from their expressions that it was going to take quite a bit of explanation. "Alright then. Do you all remember the coup that happened several years ago?" There were three nods. "Well, Mehgara saved my life more than once, however she broke the law while doing so, and as a result she had to be tried for treason. I couldn't excuse her without one for saving my life without the conservatives in court crying favoritism, but if she went on trial, she'd be found guilty, and she wouldn't have been any use to me in jail." At this, Princess Mehgara laughed, without opening her eyes, and Princess Ridona closed her eyes as well. "So we hatched a plan to keep her out of one institution, and it was actually a better situation than if the whole mess had never happened, because after the first month or so, she'd be under a whole lot less scrutiny. She pretended to be insane so that they couldn't send her to jail, and then I had her placed in this institution so that she could do her job." At the sight of Alexander’s raised eyebrows, she grinned. "You see; Mehgara is my spymaster. She uses all the time that she's not with visitors or nurses, she spends her time decoding things and moving spies around and telling me the current state of affairs. It was a rather good arrangement. But now, she needs to travel, and that's where you come in." At this, Mehgara opened her eyes again and sat up, grinning at the boys.

"For the first time in over six years I get to see something other than the inside of this building and the small slivers of the outside that can be seen through the windows." She looked delighted at the prospect, and more than a little stir crazy due to being confined for so long. "Now, don't get me wrong, I love the job, and its very cushy, but I get restless if I am confined for extended periods of time. I need a little adventure in my life, whether it’s traveling, or just trying new things or something else entirely, none of which I've been able to do while putting up this charade. But now my services are required on the outside, so I get to leave. The official story is that Menaiya has decided that I am in need of a vacation and I am being sent to a nunnery in the mountains, when in reality, I'm going incognito in civilian clothes. You three will be accompanying me, while your captain and a couple of other men escort a mid who is a personal friend of mine who will be dressed as me to the mountains. Sounds fun right?!" She was now grinning like a maniac at the boys.

"Mehgara, play nice." Princess Menaiya scolded, unable to completely keep the smile from twitching her lips. Ridona was watching it all, giggling silently behind a hand and switching back and forth between looking like she wanted to join in and wanting to escape as fast as possible.

Joshua was watching all this in awe. "May I speak?" he inquired, respectfully waiting for a break in the conversation.

"Ah hell, if we're going to be traveling together for the next couple of months you really gotta stop with the bowing and groveling, you can call me Mehgara or Meg, none of that princess or highness shite, and you can just interrupt, cause you already have spoken so there's not much I can do about it. So just spit out whatever it is you want to say already!" She said, falling backwards and twisting in such a way that she ended up with her head hanging off the end of the bed and she was staring at them upside down.
“I was chosen for a secret mission? Why? Why me of all people?” Joshua asked, staring at the three princesses in front of him. They stared back incredulously. Acharon smacked him upside the head.
“Are you kidding me? Whoever it was that did the choosing would have had to of been crazy NOT to chosen you, you overly modest dumbarse!” He said, desperately repressing a smile at Joshua’s dumbfounded expression. “You’re the best at sword fighting in our class, our division, hell, maybe even our league! You know more languages that I can count, and you’re the best at blending in at taverns and stuff. Why did they choose you!” He snorted derisively, winking at Mehgara and causing her to start giggling madly and causing her still upside down face to turn a bright cherry red.
“You know…” Alexander interjected. “He has a point. You are the best choice for this assignment. If anyone doesn’t belong here, it’s Acharon, the blunt dumbarse that he is.”
“HEY!” Acharon squealed irately “I resent that remark!”
“No, you resemble that remark.” Joshua retorted, overcoming his shock at the unexpected praise. Acharon jumped at him, and Alexander followed immediately after.
“Does this mean that you’ll do it?” Asked Princess Menaiya, somewhat worriedly.
“Of course we will.” Alexander said, looking up from his playful chokehold around Acharon's neck.
“Yeah we will.” Acharon managed to gasp out, all the while maintaining his noogie hold on Joshua.
“No question.” Joshua said, trying desperately to escape Acharon and keep Alexander from killing Acharon at the same time.
“You lot are all idiots!” Mehgara said around her giggles. “This is going to be REALLY fun!”
“Mehgara, do you have robes to wear out?” Princess Menaiya asked, bring attention back to the task at hand.
“Yeah, I’ll go change.” Mehgara drawled, and sat back up. She froze for a moment as all the blood went rushing from her head, before carefully climbing out of bed and making her way to the other side of the room, where a door led to another room. Once the door closed behind her, what had just happened to them seemed to sink into their collective psyche, and all three of them bowed slightly to the two princesses left in the room
“Terribly sorry for the breach in conduct your Highnesses.” Joshua said solemnly, staring at his feet as his face tinted itself a faint pink.
“Oh, it’s quite alright, everyone gets like that around Meg. Don’t worry about it. In fact, I have rather missed being treated like a normal human being since she came here. It really is rather refreshing, and nice to see that the prolonged confinement hasn’t changed her very much.” Princess Menaiya said, smiling slightly and waving a dismissive hand at them. “Please stop the bowing, I imagine it gets annoying after a while, and I really don’t care if you do it or not.” Princess Menaiya said, grinning and shooting Princess Ridona a comically haughty glance. Princess Ridona doubled over in silent giggles, hiding her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.
“HELP!” Mehgara cried from the other room. “I’m stuck!” This brought a fresh wave of giggles, and Princess Ridona had a hard time walking in a straight line as she went to go help. A few moments later, both princesses emerged. Princess Ridona was smiling and she winked at Princess Menaiya as she went to sit down. Mehgara was wearing a tunic-corset over a fluffy white shirt, and she had on a skirt that went down to just above her ankles instead of all the way to the floor, showing off the heavy duty leather boots that had been strapped onto her feet. In other words, she looked exactly like all the common born women living in the capitol.
“Alright.” She said, “Lets Move out!”