Of all the worst possible times….

Daisy lets out a stream of muttered curses.

"Language, princess," The Ghost Rider drawls from inside her closet. "You call yourself royalty?"

"Shh!" she hisses, before calling to her visitor, "Just a minute!"

"Stay quiet or we're both dead," she whispers to her captive.

She doesn't hear a sarcastic reply, and thankful that someone is finally listening to her, she strides over to the door and opens it.

"Sir Gordon," she greets, feeling a flash of panic turn her stomach into knots

"Your Highness," he replies, his eyes staring ahead as lifeless, milky white orbs. Thin, tall, and graying, one would never think he was Jiaying's advisor, head of the guard and a talented knight. "Your mother wished me to inform you that she would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience."

Her stomach turns. "Of course. Could you give me a moment to change? Go on ahead without me, tell my mother I'll be down shortly."

Gordon only nods and turns back to the long flight of stairs before him, but pauses.

"Something wrong?" Daisy asks innocently.

"Why is your dresser in front of your closet?"

How the hell he knows things like that being as blind as he is, she has no idea.

Channeling the same scatterbrained part she'd playing for the past two years, she laughs. "Oh, that. Well, I'm thinking about doing a bit of redecorating and I wanted to see how the dresser would look in that spot, so I moved it. Took a lot out of me, but I managed."

"You'll need to get to your closet to change."

"I will, won't I?" she says, a little uncertainly.

"I could help you move it-"

"No, but thank you, Gordon. I did it once, I can do it again- why don't you go on and tell my mother that I'm coming."

His expression is one that clearly conveys that she is odd and an idiot, but she ignores that and he continues down the stairs.

Daisy's always amazed that he hasn't tripped and broken his neck without the use of his eyes. She shuts the door and hopes Gordon hadn't heard her talking to Ghost Rider, otherwise they're both as good as dead.

She waits, listening for Gordon's steps to echo away down the stone steps. "I think he's gone," she says, turning back. She's suddenly immensely grateful that it was Gordon and no one else who came because all of the Ghost Rider's weapons and supplies are shoved half-heartedly under her bed from where she was going through them, poorly hidden, but concealed enough that Gordon couldn't sense them, or however he gets around, really. It reminds her of Matthew Murdock, a boy she used to know when she was a child.

"Let's hope so, or else you've damned us both. Now let me out of here," the assassin in her closet says.

She approaches the dresser, scooping her blowdart gun (a present from one of her old mercenary friends) off the top of it, toying with the key in her pocket. She'd locked the closet, but wasn't sure how strong he was, so she'd moved the heavy oak dresser in front of the door.

"Hello? Are you still there?"

In response, she starts pushing the dresser out of the way, wincing at the way it scrapes across the floor.

"Who was that?" the Ghost Rider asks.

"My mother's advisor, and the head of her security," Daisy answers, leaning into the dresser with her shoulder. "I think he's a mage of some sort...or something."

"What makes you say that?" he scoffs.

"He's completely blind, but I've seen him kill four armed men with ease. It's like one minute he's there, and in the next he's somewhere completely different. It's not natural."

"Lots of things aren't natural in this world," he counters.

"Like what?"

Silence answers her. It appears she's treading into darker waters.

At this point, she's ready to drown.

The dresser is out of the way now, and she's only a few inches away from the lock. Gripping the blowdart gun in her hand, she slips the key into the lock and turns it.

She steps back as the door swings open, not sure what to expect.

Light floods Robbie's vision, more than the crack in the door had allowed, and he's staggered by it. He doesn't have any of his gear with him save for a single dagger sewn into the folds of his cloak, and he rips the flimsy stitches holding it in, stepping out of the closet cautiously with the blade in hand, cursing at the ache in his cramped legs.

He only has to turn his head to see her. He's not sure what he expected, but it wasn't quite this.

She doesn't look like much at first glance. She's short, with long dark hair that tumbles in waves past her shoulders, and her stance screams defensiveness, but there's a determined fire in her brown eyes that skews his entire impression of her.

She's lifted to her lips what would look like a smoking pipe to the uncultured soul who's never stepped foot outside his own village, but Robbie is a seasoned traveler, and he knows a blowdart gun when he sees one.

"Not my weapon of choice," he says, gesturing at it with his dagger, "But it's original, I'll give you that." He twirls the blade in his hand, just to mess with her a bit. It works, too; he can see her shoulders tense and her fingers curl around the blowdart gun a little tighter.

"Drop your dagger," she orders. He scoffs at that.

"So you have free reign to put me to sleep for all of eternity? I don't think so."

"I need your help," she says, irritatedly. "I need you awake, but that doesn't mean I won't defend myself if this goes badly."

"And you'd have me defenseless?"

"Considering what I've heard about you, you wouldn't be completely defenseless. Drop it."

"You have no authority over me, princess. I don't have to do a damned thing you say."

"Don't call me 'princess.'"

"What would you have me call you, then?"

"My name. Daisy," she replies. "What's yours?"

"How adorable. You really think I'm going to tell you," he says dryly.

"I can't keep calling you Ghost Rider," she argues. "I need some sort of name for you."

"Why would you need a name for me? I'm not going to help you."

She gives a frustrated sigh. "I'll pay you in full once Jiaying is dead."

"You'd dip into the royal treasury to pay an assassin? You must really want to be queen," he comments. All the more reason not to help her, really. He'd rather not deal with ambitious heirs. In his experience, they make everything messy.

"I don't want to be queen," she says quietly.

"I'm sure." His condescending tone seems to only anger her.

"I don't!" she says hotly. "I want to go back to my old life and leave this pile of marble in the dust, but I can't, not while Jiaying is in power, and definitely not once she's dead."

"The fact that you're willing to throw away everything to do something you don't want to makes no sense," he says.

"I don't give a damn what makes sense to you. I'm the one who has to live with this decision, and I'm making it."

"You'll have to make it without me, then," Robbie says curtly, his gaze flicking over to the window. Maybe…

"Jiaying is a tyrant!" the princess exclaims. "She's done horrible, horrible things, but she covers it up with veiled threats and promises of favors."

"Like what?"

"I've seen her kill loyal soldiers to prove a point, I've seen her murder innocent people in cold blood; and I know that's she's ordered experiments on those in debtor's prison. Good people have died at her hands," she says, sounding more and more desperate.

If it weren't for the plea in her voice, he'd be out the window by now.

"You said you try to kill people who deserve it," she presses. "Doesn't a corrupt monarch sound like someone who deserves it?"

He doesn't respond, as he mulls over her proposition. "You only want me to teach you?" he clarifies after a few moments' silence, and she nods in reply.

He has a feeling he's going to regret this as he says, "My price isn't cheap by any means."

"I can pay it," she says firmly.

"Send the man I met with earlier back to the tavern. I'll give further details to him then," he says. "If you're going to do this, you need to do it quickly."

"How do I know you won't run away or try and kill me once we meet?" she asks.

"You'll just have to risk it, won't you?" he replies. "Just like I have to risk you bringing soldiers along with you."

"I wouldn't-"

"You have a queen to see, princess. I'd get to that appointment." He takes a few steps back, confident enough in her desperation that she won't do anything to jeopardize their partnership.

"I wouldn't bring guards," she says quietly, lowering the blowdart gun ever so slightly. Perfect.

"So you do have some common sense. Wonderful, you shouldn't trust anyone."

"I know. I've learnt my lesson about that."

There's a story behind that statement, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued.

"I'll be leaving now," he says. "We'll see each other again soon enough." And with that, he hurls the dagger, close enough to distract but not to kill. In the time it takes for her to react and recover, he's already taken advantage of the nearby window.

A shame, really. He'd have loved to see the look on her face.