Sora leapt up the stairs of the east tower of Goldeneye Fortress. She was very, very angry.

It just wasn’t fair. She had done her part. She had gotten up early, gotten dressed, eaten breakfast and waited for her uncle, lord of the manor, just like she was supposed to. She had been so excited about the the trip she hadn’t minded the wait. So she waited. And waited. And waited.

When it got to the point where she had waited about three hours in the room and the sun was coming up even though they had to leave before dawn, she came to the conclusion that the trip was cancelled.

Cancelled! And did anyone bother to tell her? Oh no! She could have been waiting up there all day, waiting to go on that trip. Until someone, one of the maids probably, found her in there, bored to death but still waiting. At least she had been able to come to the conclusion to come and talk to the secretary about why her uncle was spending more time with the horses than with the orphaned daughter of his brother.

Deep down, she understood that her uncle was a busy man, had a keep to run, and things to take care of, and all that other junk the secretary, Raben, had lavished upon her the last time she came up complaining. But she was angry, and she needed somebody to take it out on. Since her uncle was not handy, the secretary would have to do.

She finally made to the top of the gray staircase. She couldn’t think of any better way to make a staircase forlorn and boring than to paint it gray. At least the walls around the manor were bleached a sparkling white, so that it didn’t seem like she was living in an old castle.

She pushed open the wooden door and opened her mouth to start to give that secretary a talking to.

"Why-

And stopped midway through the first word.

There, sitting with her feet propped up, an apple in her hand and a book in the other, was Blue.

Yelling at the secretary was alright, but if she got her best friend mad Blue would probably start chucking books at her. And looking at the secretary’s room, she could see that Blue would have no problem finding books to chuck.

The room was covered with bookcases full of books. You had to give the old guy credit; every single book was in alphabetical order, with none lying around except for a stack of books he must have been using on his desk. The walls were the same dreary color as the staircase, but at least he had a red carpet in the middle of everything to cheer it up a little bit. Even though three windows were set in varying directions in the room, allowing plenty of sunlight in, there were candles on his desk next to the books for those times he had to work late.

In the middle of all of this order and organization, Blue sat with her feet up on the desk, in breeches, with an apple and the book she was reading in each hand. Typical Blue.

Upon hearing Sora say her choked out "why", Blue glanced up and replied, "I’m not sure. The old raven flew to my rooms, told me to watch his books and tell you what happened - the excuse this time is that some farmer didn’t pay his taxes and walled himself in in his home - and then flew off again."

Oh. So Blue was responsible for the lack of information concerning her uncle’s departure. Oh - well. In that case it was ok. Things like that could happen, of course.

"Sora, you can’t tell me you have noticed anything funny in these last few cancellations in your trips," Blue said, exasperated.

Sora smiled. That was the thing about Blue. Her lady-in-waiting and, more importantly, her best friend, used to be an orphan living in a poor orphanage in town. For food, she had filched pies from the kitchens. When Blue got herself caught, and ended up having to work scrubbing pots, Sora met her - mainly because she had been scrubbing pots for the exact same reason! When it came time to choose a lady-in-waiting, her uncle wasn’t too pleased, but luckily the choice had been all Sora’s.

Blue could always see something that others could not. She could probably answer the question of the universe if she put her mind to it.

"You’ve tried to convince me that my uncle’s ‘errands’ aren’t really errands at all before. What makes you think that we’ll be able to find anything that follows your logic this time?"

Blue sighed as if speaking to a dull three-year old. Blue never could understand that logic was a flimsy thing that wasn’t always reliable. Sora had been trying to get that across to Blue, but when Blue was almost convinced, her logic ended up being correct - come to think of it, it was very rare for Blue’s logic to be wrong . . .

Sora shook her head. No point in going through that thought line again. It was like asking herself what came first, the egg or the chicken. You could look at it from a dozen different sides, but there was still an argument for each of them.

Suddenly Sora started back at the book suddenly being waggled under her nose.

"Sora, are you listening to me?"

"Wha?"

"Sora, you drifted off again! Pay attention! I’m going through all of the facts of why your uncle is not really doing all of these excuses!". Blue glared at her. Well, geez, she hadn’t meant to drift off! Maybe if Blue wouldn’t always depend on logic so much, she wouldn’t have!

Blue produced a piece of paper from the inside of her book.

"Ok. The first time, your uncle said that he had to meet with some merchants, but when we went to the kitchens to ask for pastries, they weren’t making the special supper they make when even the lowest farmer comes to the fortress!". Luckily, after that incident with the pot scrubbing, the cook told them they could just come down and take pastries whenever they wanted. They still liked to steal them just for fun sometimes though.

"The merchants didn’t have to eat here. Maybe they ate on the way."

Blue shot her a look over the piece of paper. Fine. She wouldn’t interrupt anymore.

"The second time, your uncle said that he had to supervise the guard who went with the merchant trains. They needed guards because of the leopard bandits who are living in the woods and robbing the trains. But all of the Castle Guards were still at their posts. He must have been working with some non-existent Guards in that case."

"Blue," There was no need for Blue to glare at her like that. She could say her opinion too about all this nonsense. They had gone through this before. "Blue, they’ve been recruiting for weeks. They could easily have put the newbies at the posts and taken the old guards to guard the trains."

"That’s the other thing! Why did they suddenly start recruiting about a month ago - the same time that your trips started getting cancelled?"

This was getting ridiculous. Blue was convicting people on nothing.

"This place has always been undermanned. Maybe the lord of the keep suddenly realized that maybe this place would be more impressive with guards inside it. Besides, with the bandits, the people need more protection!"

Blue glared at her. Again! Blue never liked to be proved wrong.

"And finally. Today. Sora, the taxes were collected two weeks ago. If a farmer was going to rebel, he would have done it directly after the taxes were collected." Blue gave a satisfied smile and folded the piece of paper, putting it back in her book. Sora couldn’t believe she had gone to all the trouble to right that nonsense down. Of course it was nonsense. Of course.

"Fine." This was getting tiresome. "Right. So what are you suggesting with all of this?"

"That there is something seriously wrong. Individually, these things would mean nothing. And that’s how you are looking at them - as nothing. But if you put them together, you see the big picture. And that big picture is that something is wrong that your uncle doesn’t want you - or anyone else - knowing."

Sora paused. This was ridiculous. But what if Blue was right?

"What do you want us to do?"

* * *

Sora let her blonde hair fall across the paper. This truly was ridiculous. She should be grateful Blue hadn’t come up with anything dangerous, but this was about the most boring way she could think of to get information.

The raven secretary had all of his documents organized. In the cabinets in the desk were dividers, and in the dividers were documents. The dividers were in alphabetical order, from "Agriculture" to "Taxes" and beyond. The documents inside the folders were exactly ordered from most recent to about a century ago. After a century the old documents went into nearly identically cabinets on the walls.

You would think that this would make their search easier. Not a chance. Blue had insisted that they leave no stone unturned. Which meant reading every single document from ten years ago to now in alphabetical order. Sora was only thankful that she had talked Blue out of looking through the ten-year-old documents in the cabinets on the walls!

"Blue, what in the world are we actually looking for?"

"Well . . . anything out of the ordinary. Anything that might pull your uncle out of the keep, and in such a way that he wouldn’t tell anybody.."

Sora sighed. That was no answer. To save time, she had started at the start of the alphabet and Blue at the bottom. Thus far, after hours of searching, she was only up to "Bandits", which seemed to only consist of complaints from merchants and farmers whose goods had been raided by the leopards who lived in the forest. Nothing else. They had no idea who headed the group, where they met, or even if they were really living in the forest. On to "Blue".

Sora did a double take. Blue? The secretary had a folder of problems concerning Blue!

Blue glanced up from "Water Contamination" when she heard Sora laughing. She set down the papers and went to see what was making Sora laugh so hard.

Sora quickly pulled back the papers as Blue tried to grab them. She had to read this aloud!

"Blue. Immature, sneaky orphan who is-" at this point Sora had to take a deep breath to stop laughing long enough to continue. Blue was looking madder and madder, like a storm cloud descending. "-is influencing Sora in bad ways. She is convincing-" Sora had to gulp air this time. Oh, Blue was mad. She’d better make sure Blue didn’t shred the documents by the look on her friend’s face! "-convincing Sora to become mischievous, doing things such as stealing pies. Must be kept an eye on." That was as far as she could read before she collapsed in hysterical laughter. Blue took the folder in her hands and placed it back in the cabinet.

"Well, that isn’t important. I’m sure we won’t find what we’re looking for there. Stop laughing, Sora." Sora just couldn’t stop. Blue was convincing her to steal pies from the kitchen? "SORA, STOP LAUGHING!"

"Sure," Sora said, panting for breath, "Sorry!" She still had to hide giggles behind her hand though, and just thinking about it sent her back to hysterical laughs. She was sure she could hear Blue’s teeth grinding.

"Blue," she said when she had finally calmed down, "at the rate we’re going, we won’t be even half-way through all the folders by the time somebody starts looking for us or my uncle comes back. And since it doesn’t seem like he has a folder that says ‘Top-Secret Documents’, I don’t think that we will actually find anything here."

Blue sighed. "I know," she said sadly. "Just looking won’t uncover anything. We have to think. If he had the documents, where would he keep them?"

It was Sora’s turn to sigh. She had actually been hoping they could sneak downstairs and get some pastries.

"But if you’re hungry, I brought up some pastries from the kitchen."

Sora grinned. Great minds think alike. She looked around. Where had Blue hidden the pastries?

Blue cocked one brown eyebrow and gestured towards the desk. "I put them under the desk. They should still be hot."

Sora crawled eagerly to the desk and threw back the cover of the picnic basket. There were about ten pastries in there!

"What were you planning on, camping out up here?" Sora exclaimed. Each of those pastries were the cook’s best; heavy, fluffy and delicious. She and Blue together could maybe finish one if they were really, really hungry!

Blue shrugged. "Well, I was filching them from the kitchen when the cook came in. It was either take them all and run or get caught. And so - well, I didn’t feel like scrubbing pots."

Sora sighed. Blue never had really gotten the hang of the "ask the cook for the pastry" concept. At least Blue had only taken two bottles of water.

She began to pick up the bottle when it slipped out of her hands. Darn! It would probably have been better to take the water out before she had eaten part of the buttery pastry. She crawled under the desk and grabbed the bottle. On the way out, she banged her head against the bottom of the desk. Boy, this day just keeps on getting better and better! she thought sarcastically.

She shot a spiteful glare at the desk. And then suddenly she spotted it. Directly under the right cabinet of the desk was what looked like a knob. Cautiously she extended her hand towards it. It could be booby trapped, or maybe you needed to say something special to prevent in from blowing your hand off . . . No! She was acting silly. It was probably nothing. Right. Nothing. She wished it didn’t sound so much like she was trying to convince herself.

Her hand touched the knob gently, and she began to slowly turn it. It was like a screw! She moved it gently, gently, gent-

"Hey Sora, I want one too! What’s taking so long?"

She leapt so far back that she slammed her head into the top of the desk. She gave a yelp and clutched her hands to the back of her head. Ow! That had already been a soft spot!

She glared up past the desk at Blue, who was leaning down over the top of the desk. Blue looked deceptively innocent with her brown hair hanging down around her face.

"You planned that, didn’t you?" Sora said angrily, still clutching her head. It was an empty accusation, but - ow - did her head hurt!

"Don’t act dumb. How was I to know you were going to slam your head into the desk?"

Sora bent back under the desk, still grumbling. "Well, just don’t do that again!" If Blue so much as whispered something that sounded even remotely like "Boo" she was going to strangle her!

Sora went back to unscrewing the knob, too unhappy to take any precautions. She unscrewed it quickly, then gently lowered the piece down. It was like a box, about the right size to hold a piece of paper! Or the right size for a jewelry box, she reminded herself. No reason to get her hopes up. Just a little farther, and she would be able to peek inside . . .

"What are you doing?"

Sora was rather proud of herself. She only jumped a little bit that time, not nearly far enough to slam into the top of the desk again. Unfortunately, a little bit was all that was needed to send the contents of the box flying.

Papers scattered everywhere. The red carpet was covered with documents that had flown out of the box when she jumped. It would take them forever to clean this up!

Slowly she raised her head to send Blue, who was leaning over the desk again, a look full of malice. Blue was looking very chastened.

"Ops."

"Yeah, ‘ops’ Blue. A very big ‘ops’!"

"Where did all those papers come from?"

"From the little box hidden under the desk, which I was GENTLY trying to pry out WITHOUT scattering the contents all over!"

"Ops."

Sora sighed. She could stand here yelling at Blue all day or she could pick up the papers, hopefully before the secretary walked in. Or worse, her uncle.

She quickly crawled out from under the desk, but not before Blue was already there, picking up the papers. She joined Blue in picking them up, holding them to her chest with one hand while she scooped up the papers with the other hand. Luckily, there weren’t as many papers as she had originally thought. Within a few minutes she had already picked up most of the papers on her side. She turned around to see Blue just sitting there with her back to Sora. This was all Blue’s fault, and then she just sat there? No way was Sora doing all the work!

Sora prepared to call out to Blue when she realized her lady-in-waiting was reading something. She crab-scuttled over to where her friend was crouched. Blue was so absorbed in what she was reading that she didn’t even notice it when Sora began reading over her shoulder. It was in Raben’s handwriting, and it seemed to be a rough-draft of sorts by all of the scratches and markouts in it.

To the Good King Keran,

I have come by urgent news. An army has been amassing in the west. Scouting trips by the Lord Fanard, myself, have revealed about ten thousand men beyond the mountains west of Goldeneye Keep.

It is almost wrong to call them men. While not humans or Saliens, they are beasts of varying size and power. As far as I know, they have not entered Tera yet. But almost certainly they mean to invade, and Goldeneye Fortress will only be the first victim.

I have taken many precautions: I have told no one yet of these people, wishing not to cause panic. If the people flee, they will be easy picking for the bandits and the invaders. I have driven more people into the fortress using the rumors of bandits. I have reopened the caves used when Goldeneye Fortress was first built, in the first war against the humans. In there, the people can hide until your armies come to rescue them. I have made sure that Goldeneye Fortress will be able to hold them until all can make it to the caves, but it is pointless unless your armies come to rescue us. By the time you receive this letter, we will already have fallen to the enemy. Please save my people!

Your loyal subject,

Lord Farnard

It was dated about a month ago.

"It looks like we found your piece of news." Sora said, sitting down slowly to make sure she didn’t fall the rest of the way.