My hands I starred at the piece of paper. There were some bloodstains on it here and there that came from the two toes of an animals foot. Not any animals foot though, it was the foot of a beaver. Rubin. A Lady and her maid rushed to the shaking me and they gasped when they saw what I held in my hands. 

Rubin? Rubin where are you? Rubin! 

‘Oh my goodness, Rothia, take Miss Ren to her parents, they are in sector two, I’ll bring this to the emperor.’ When she wanted to take the letter from me, I gasped, gripping it harder and I felt the tears starting to rise. I promised to not anything hurt him. I promised to take care of him. I had let him down. I had let my best friend down. ‘Miss Ren, it’s ok, I won’t do anything to it, I’ll just bring it to emperor.’ she calmly explained, yet I could tell she was trying to keep her calm for my sake. Rothia gently placed her hands on my shoulders. ‘Come, Miss Ren, I’ll bring you to your parents.’ I was too shaken to say anything, she turned me around ad we walked through the crowd that had built up around us. 

‘Lord, Lady, Lady Patrice ordered me to bring you your daughter.’ My parents where confused when they saw me trembling in Rothia’s arms. ‘Ren, what happened?’ My mom hugged me tight and my hair, kissing it lightly. I tried to explain, but it all came out as a jumble of words in a mix of korean and bando so Rothia told them what she knew about the incident. ‘Oh, sweetie,’ Mom sighed. ‘Can you reach Rubin?’ I shook my head that was buried in her chest. ‘We should meet with Lady Patrice and the Emperor and see it ourselves.’ Dad said, his voice steady. He was always like that, never shocked or shaken unlike me. 

We walked back to sector four and to the Emperor’s tent, where he was already waiting for us. ‘It seems to be a threat.’ He said handing my dad the piece of paper, the toes still sticking to it. ‘This is a warning.’ he read aloud. ‘A warning for what?’ The Emperor sighed. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. Ren barely talks to anyone here and she most definitely hasn’t made any enemies. At least not yet.’ He turned to me, his wise eyes more alert than they usually were. ‘Ren, I need you to tell me everything that happened today, this is very important. We don’t know if the person who sent this to you is a traitor of ours or a spy that found a maid to give it to you or something like that.’ I nodded at his words understanding the situation. I told them my daily routine, how Youngguk introduced me to Luhan and Soohyun, our fight and then when the maid, Loyla came to me to give the note to me. ‘She told me she was Emperor’s daughter’s maid and that confused me since I’ve never heard you speak of having a daughter.’ The Emperor closed his eyes and let out a heave of air.

‘She did it again.’ He mumbled. ‘Could one of you get my daughter in here.’ He said with, surprisingly a strict tone of voice. A few minutes the maid came back with a tall, beautiful girl wearing a white, flowing dress that moved as gracefully as she did. ‘You called father.’ She smiled sweetly. The Emperor wasn’t as nice though. ‘Janell, would you please explain why you’ve captured Ren’s Animin and have cut off two of it’s toes and threatened her?’ He asked in a threatening voice. ‘Ren?’ she looked at us and when she spotted me, I saw her eyes glimmer. ‘Oh, you must be Ren, so nice to meet you.’ She smiled and as she wanted to walk towards me, her father grabbed her arm. ‘You are not going near her.’ She sighed lightly like as if he were joking. ‘Father, why are you being like this?’ It was like it was all a joke to her. ‘You know exactly why! Because you killed the last girl who touched the guy you liked!’ He practically shouted at her. There was no more smile on her face instead she looked fairly terrifying and scary. ‘So? Is there anything wrong with wanting to protect the ones you love?’ She growled. ‘You don’t love him, Janell, you have never even met the guy!’ She jerked her arm away from his grip. ‘So? It’s called love at first sight, but you wouldn’t know anything about that right?!’ She yelled. ‘You’re pushing it, Janell and you knew exactly what I’ll do with you!’ he shouted back. Her face flushed and her eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t.’ He starred her down. ‘I would, trust me, I would. Before you kill someone as important as her, I’d rather send you back to Plometh and lock you up with Bania in the palace.’ She huffed and looked at me with disgust. ‘If I see you hurting or even touching Luhan again, I’ll kill you. I mean it.’ I paled at the look she gave me before she turned and left. 

‘Sorry about that.’ The emperor sighed. ‘She’s a bit delusional and very protective about some things.’ He looked at me with apologetic eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry, I’ll switch your second trainer to Xiu Min, Ren, I don’t want to take any risks.’ I nodded at his words. Ren, where are you? Rubin! Where are you? Hey, I asked first! I giggled, making everyone around me glance at me. I’m in sector four outside of the Emperor’s tent. I’ll be right there. I quickly walked out of the tent and saw Rubin hopping over to me, his right front paw curled up close to his chest. I hugged him tight, ignoring that I some drops of blood fell on my clothes. 

I’m so sorry, Rubin. I started to cry. I had let him down. I didn’t take care of him properly and these were the consequences. You didn’t let me down, Ren. You were concentrated on your training and lessons, I understand that. I had to do some training myself. You have a big mission ahead of you and you need to prepare yourself. There’s nothing to be sorry about. But, Rubin, you lost half of your paw because of me. So? I’m alive! I can walk! Maybe not now, but when it’s fully healed I’ll be the same old me. I could see a smile spread across his whiskered mouth and I smiled back. Ok, let’s get you cleaned up. 

[Later after dinner] 

I didn’t let Rubin out of my side. He even went into the main tent with me to eat dinner. Some people looked weirdly at us, but I ignored them. Rubin now had a bandage around his paw, making walking normally hard so he sort of limp hopped around. It looked a bit funny honestly. 

‘What are you doing now?’ Kai asked next to me. It was a while since I’ve seen him, actually and I was glad to talk with him again. ‘I don’t know, maybe go and practice some punches and stuff, and you?’ I put a fork of food into my mouth, awaiting his answer. ‘Well, maybe we could do something just the two of us. I mean we haven’t seen each other a lot lately and definitely not enough to talk and I kind of miss that.’ He confessed, looking away which meant he was blushing. ‘Uh, sure.’ I said, trying to hide my excitement. I didn’t want him to know I missed talking and being with him as well. 

‘So who’s your new trainer?’ We walked around the courtyard in front of the training facilities, where the most trees were. And where it was most quiet. ‘Soohyun and Xiu Min. But I haven’t trained with Xiu Min yet since he’s replacing Luhan.’ Rubin and Andy, Kai’s parrot, played with each other in front of us as we walked. ‘Why that?’ I sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’ He chuckled and glanced at me from the side. ‘I have time.’ 

We talked about too many things and about the strangest things, too. We didn’t even know how late it was and from afar I could see Arathna walk towards us, her dress flying a bit in the wind along with her beautiful pitch black hair. ‘Do you even know what time it is!’ She scolded when she was close enough. She didn’t look happy and I felt slightly sorry. She looked between Kai and me. ‘You need your rest. You know you’ll have a busy day tomorrow.’ I sighed. ‘Every day is a busy day. Can’t I just have some fun for once?’ She huffed. ‘Fine, I’ll be back in a little bit.’ She turned and left. ‘Your maid?’ I nodded. ‘She seems… nice.’ I laughed at how sarcastically he had said that. ‘She is nice. Really, she just doesn’t want me to collapse or something. She’s like a second mother.’ We sat down under one of the tree like plants. ‘I really like it here.’ I could tell Kai was looking at me so I turned my head to look at him. ‘I like it here, too. Right here.’ He said softly and smiled. I smiled back, a small smile. His warm hand touched mine and his fingers slowly wrapped around my hand. It made my heart want to burst out of my chest, my tummy felt like it just got invaded by thousands of tiny butterflies and I had a hard time holding back a huge grin. His fingers intwined themselves in mine. ‘I like it right here. Like this.’ He said again and now I understood what he meant. He liked it, with me, holding hands, being together. And I liked it there, too.

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whew~ I had so much fun writing this chapter but at the same time it wa tiring ^^ But here it is, I hope you all like it~!! 

Thank you for reading everyone~!!! <3