Whatever the honchkrow's concerns might have been, either no one had told Hjálmarr or he didn't care— he could feel Brynja sagging underneath him, growing more and more tired and by now unable to fight her way out from under him. An uncharacteristically wild laugh tore from his throat as he drew back his fist again, ready to drive it into her head one last time—
— and then his fist connected with empty air as an unseen force ripped him off of Brynja and threw him backwards as easily as the chair from before. The prince hurtled clear across the throne room and crashed soundly into Thormodr's abandoned seat, then fell sideways into the glass case placed carefully by its side—
Everyone gathered in the throne room fell silent the instant the glass shattered and the case's contents smashed right along with it. Charmion's gloating and Delyth's complaining cut off abruptly; Ragnvaldr's eyes went wide in disbelief; Brynja and Hjálmarr froze where they lay on the ground, too stunned to fight against their pain and fatigue and attempt to rise.
Ragnvaldr moved first, the rush of his wings finally breaking the silence as he flapped over to the shattered case. He landed next to Hjálmarr's still form with a clatter of talons and gingerly rooted around in the glass with his beak, carefully shifting the fragments aside until he found what he was looking for, and the others waited with bated breath as he got a good grip on the object and hauled it forward to inspect it.
"You've *ruined* it!" Delyth shrieked as soon as she laid eyes on the badly chipped half sphere in Ragnvaldr's beak. "Wretched savages, barbarians, you've *ruined* Thormodr's God Stone!"
"I haven't ruined a thing, woman," Hjálmarr snarled, finally levering himself up on an elbow and wincing when he accidentally leaned on a shard of glass.
"You smashed the case, idiot," Brynja retorted, getting to her feet at last and leering at her half-brother out of her one good eye. "You knocked everything over and smashed the God Stone on the floor. Stupid clumsy oaf! What kind of king smashes the only god-monster relic he's ever going to get his hands on, hm, the only source of the power that will guarantee him the respect of— "
"I haven't ruined *anything*!" Hjálmarr repeated. "*You* smashed the God Stone when *you* threw me into it! For all of your and Delyth's ranting and calling us clumsy savages, *I* don't recall being the one who was throwing chairs around and swinging people into Father's priceless relics!" He stuck his bleeding wrist into his mouth and sucked at it petulantly.
"Actually..." Ragnvaldr mumbled around a beakful of broken relic.
Delyth rounded on Charmion as though she hadn't heard the honchkrow. "Now I *know* you two aren't trying to pin the blame for this on my daughter," she said, laughing mirthlessly. "It was hardly Brynja's idea to start this ridiculous fighting, and right here in the throne room at that! If you two bloodthirsty *creatures* had been able to [curb] your urge to maim something, we could have settled this in *any other way* that would have left the God Stone in one piece!"
Ragnvaldr dropped the piece of God Stone he held behind Thormodr's throne, and then backwinged away from the case's remains, his eyes growing wider again. "Excuse me!" he squawked, balancing on one talon and pointing at the leftover mess with the other. "Look, look!"
"No matter how we tried to 'settle' things, the outcome would have been the same," Charmion snapped. "Complain as much as you like, Delyth, but your daughter will never have the right to be the queen of [Thormodland] and she never did!"
"I am every bit as much Thormodr's child as he is, and as the oldest I think I have every right to— "
Charmion heaved her wine glass at Brynja's head and only narrowly missed her target. "*I* think that you're nothing but a weasely, filthy whore and her ungrateful bastard brat who had absolutely no business marching into *my* husband's kingdom and bringing all of this nonsense and misery down on me and my son!"
"Enough, enough!" Whatever comment Hjálmarr was about to add to his mother's was cut off as Ragnvaldr flew up and landed squarely on his head. "You'll all stop this childish bickering at once and listen to what I'm saying or I'll just have to vent my frustrations a little more forcefully!" Hjálmarr held very still as the honchkrow raised his tailfeathers meaningfully; Brynja snorted derisively.
(different thing from later)
"Do relax, would you, human?" the young woman said, rolling her eyes as she settled back in her chair. "You're *fine*. Well, mostly fine. Someone or other did a rough patch job on those gashes in your side, anyway— and just those bandages will have to do, by the by, since it's not as though we're going to waste perfectly good healing magic on the likes of you— so you're not likely to bleed out any time soon. Or, at least, not likely as long as you don't undo the bandages with all of that irritating wriggling around."
Didier stopped and sat still, then leaned over to look at his side. Upon closer inspection there did appear to be bandages there after all, soaked a dark-reddish brown with his blood though they were. Hardly the sort of careful medical treatment he would have received back at home in Chiennaud, of course, but then again considering where he was he supposed he should have been thankful that anyone had attended to him at all.
"And besides," the young woman continued, now smiling cheerfully and reaching casually for a wine glass that sat on a tray beside her, "we'd hardly be able to question you if you were all full of holes. Not very productive, is it, trying to get information out of people who are all preoccupied with bleeding all over the place."
The phrase "trying to get information out of people" sent an involuntary shiver up Didier's spine, one that the young woman was quick to pick up on. "Now, now," she said softly, still smiling at him over her glass of wine, "there's no need to get upset. Just because my father happened to detest you humans and my half-brother wants to continue his crusade to kill all of you, that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of having a reasonable discussion with you! You look like an intelligent man, sir; surely you know better than to jump to such hasty conclusions."
The [advisor] nervously returned her smile but did not relax; he knew better than that. If he'd had a genuine reason to trust the woman— princess or queen or something, he supposed, assuming that the father she referred to was the late king of [Thormodland]— then she wouldn't have been addressing him from the other side of a dungeon cell door, and she wouldn't likely have had such reservations about "wasting" perfectly good healing magic on "the likes of him", either.
The woman's smile never faltered. "Well, if you're going to continue to remain skeptical then I suppose that's your decision," she said calmly, shrugging a little. "I don't suppose I can blame you for being a little suspicious, given... well." She waved an arm at their surroundings. "I'm hardly going to pretend that I'm fond of your kind, of course, because I'm not. But that doesn't mean that I can't be courteous, you know. I do have reason to believe that you know things that are of interest to me, human, and I'm going to find out what I want to find out by any means necessary... but I'm not some brutish orc or half-orc, like that oaf Hjálmarr and his tiresome mother. If we can do this the civil way, rather than the hard way, well, that would make things much, much less painful for the both of us, would it not? Think of it a little less like an interrogation and more like a simple conversation, let's say. So! My name is Brynja Thormodsdóttir. I don't believe I ever caught yours...?" She paused, still smiling, and watched him through the bars with a politely inquisitive expression.
His name... would it really hurt anything if he told her that? Or, perhaps, the more pertinent question, how much would it hurt if he didn't? She'd gone as far as to admit that she wasn't his friend, but she'd also put forward the suggestion that, at least for the time being, this didn't have to be too unpleasant. He just had to cooperate and the whole affair would remain relatively painless... but how far did that mean he would have to go?
"You might as well tell me, you know," said Brynja, a slight sing-song lilt to her tone. "As I've said, I'm more than happy to be a courteous host, or at least as courteous as the current situation allows. But if you want to draw this out, you should know that I *will* get precisely what I want, and if that means that things take an unfortunate turn for you, well, then, so be it. So, Mister Human, how do you intend to dictate the flow of this conversation, hm?"
Didier sighed. He did have to give this Brynja some credit; so few dignitaries he'd dealt with were capable of getting to the point so quickly. "My name is Didier," he said softly.
"There!" Brynja said cheerfully, raising her half-empty glass in his direction. "That wasn't so bad, now was it? It's very nice to meet you, Didier. I have to say, given the other imbeciles I'm constantly surrounded by, it's refreshing to deal with someone so cooperative."
