3.

"DG?" The soft call rang in the still air of the dark bathroom. "Deeg? Are you there?"

With a sigh, DG uncurled herself from the dry bottom of her tub and sat at the vanity. She reached out and gently touched the mirror, activating it. The silvered glass ceased to reflect her own face, and instead displayed the concerned visage of her older sister. The spell, an ancient connection between Gale women, allowed the sisters to communicate with each other, or their mother, through any reflective surface. "I'm here, Az."

"I wanted to check. Ambrose said you weren't too happy." Azkadelia glanced at the room she could see behind DG. "Are you…. Pouting in the bathroom?"

DG scowled. "He wouldn't leave. It's apparently the only place where I'll find any privacy until this mess is over. You wanna fill me in on this now?"

Az hung her head slightly. "It's the Eclipse, Deeg. The threats and the stirrings we're hearing are all Anti-Dark. Someone is rabble rousing in the countryside, convincing people that you're going to do something to banish the suns or some such nonsense, during the Eclipse."

"You have got to be kidding! The people of the Zone should understand by now that the Dark doesn't automatically mean evil." DG groaned with frustration. "Maat worked for that understanding, Serene before her worked for it! I work for it! It's been the policy of the Temple for two centuries to be transparent!"

"I know Deeg, but these people are stirring up trouble. And we don't know who it is or why they're doing it. All we know is that they're out to destroy the Temple, every part of it, and they've threatened to…"

"Utterly destroy me and the 'evil' I serve?" DG finished.

"Something like that."

"Spectacular."

Az rolled her eyes. "Sarcasm does not become you."

"Oh yes it does." DG leaned forward and thumped her head against the vanity surface a few times.

"Stop that. We'll figure this out. Ambrose has the best people working on it."

"Well, tell him I said to figure it out soon, alright?" Despair colored her voice.

"Deeg, honey? What is it?"

DG looked up to meet Az's worried gaze. "Oh nothing, only that I'm now forced to live day in and day out with a man who hates me." Even though part of her understood this to be a temporary arrangement, the romantic expectations she'd had growing up of what her Protector would be like were shattering in her head, like glass birds tossed off a balcony, unable to fly.

When the Princess – he refused to think of her as Priestess – shut herself in the bathroom out of pique, Cain felt perfectly justified in his disdain of her. She obviously had no sense of self-preservation. No doubt she felt that her pleasures and the continued catering to her every wish by the Temple staff superseded any inconveniences. Royal and high ranking clergy, he expected Princess Dorothigale to be spoiled rotten, and he saw no reason to adjust that opinion yet.

But as long as she was going to stay put and pout, he'd take advantage of the time. He quickly circumnavigated the room, memorizing the layout, the number of steps it took to reach the bed from the door, the bathroom or enormous closet. He checked the mechanism that controlled the windows, satisfied to find a locking setting which he immediately switched on. He stood at the foot of the bed and checked the lines of sight, picking the best place to set a cot, both within the bedroom before the other doors were bolted, and once he could be situated in the study.

Then he sat and worked his way through the packet of information provided by Ambrose.

Inside, part of him seethed at what he perceived as a bait and switch on this assignment. If he'd been told outright that the assignment involved the Temple of the Moon, any member of the clergy of the Goddess Cybele, he'd have refused. But of course, strategically, he understood that had he refused, he'd have found himself in the furthest, most inhospitable reaches of the Zone, probably patrolling from snow-bank to snow-bank. Instead, Ambrose Fiyero had cleverly pushed and prodded Cain's long dormant sense of duty and honor back to life, grooming him to become the ultimate bodyguard, before targeting that focus on the Princess.

Slowly, he started to pay attention to the brief in front of him. The threats were… disturbing. They promised not simple death for the Princess, but a horrible, degrading, tortured death, described in almost gleeful detail. There were also a few badly written pamphlets, detailing the evil of the worshippers of Cybele. The author told his readers that the Plague had been only the opening salvo by the evil Cybele worshippers, Dark Witches of the worst sort. It claimed they only cured the Plague when it got out of control and began to threaten their own people. It accused the Princess of being the mastermind behind the Plague, claiming even the cure was a ploy to weaken Queen Lavender, in order to maneuver the less experienced Azkadelia onto the throne, whom Princess Dorothigale would undoubtedly overthrow shortly.

Cain's fists tightened around the pages as memories of his wife's suffering came back to him. The pamphlet made a sick sort of sense, and his grief urged him to accept the accusations, agree with them, while his honor, bolstered by Ambrose's training, dismissed them.

The cheap pages urged the people of the Zone to rise up and destroy the Temples of Cybele, with vague dire warnings of worse disasters yet to come if they did not. It pointed equally at Princess Dorothigale, the clergy of Cybele, and even those people who attended Moon services regularly. It advised 'good, Light-loving citizens' to look with suspicion on their neighbors who went too often to the Temple of the Moon – never specifying what qualified as too-often – and be wary of their secret plans.

All in all, the pamphlets did a great deal to promote paranoia against the worship of Cybele. For most of his life, Cain didn't much think about religion. Like the vast majority of the Zone, he attended festival services at the Temple of the Twins, the worship of the two suns and the Light they represent. He'd occasionally attended the Moon services, at the Solstices, since Adora was fond of the music. It wasn't until the priest of the Moon has refused to treat Adora that he'd felt anything other than indifference. That hatred bubbled in him, fueled by the sick logic of the pamphlets, but then he set them aside, and breathed deeply, calming himself. His job was to protect the Princess, no matter what he might think of the situation personally. And as yet, she hadn't shown herself to be evil in any way.

Of course, if she did turn out to have nefarious plans……

Cain turned to the other information in the packet. So far, no one had been able to trace the source of the pamphlets. No one was claiming responsibility, though people were apparently reading them aloud in gatherings. The four satellite Moon temples that had been burned were clearly cases of arson, but no arrests had been made. Several clergy had died in the blazes.

Just then, he heard a noise behind him. He turned his head just enough to see Her Highness come breezing out of the bathroom, head held high.

"Ready for bed, Your Highness?" he asked calmly.

Her smirk threw him. "On the contrary, Officer Cain. I thought it best to be out here when my handmaids arrived. I wouldn't want you shooting them accidentally." Her haughtiness was apparently back.

"Handmaids?"

"Of course. They have to prepare me for the moon-set ceremony."

Involuntarily, Cain glanced up at the windows. To his point of view, it was full dark, very late. Almost all of Central City slept by this time. He could not see the moon through the high windows.

DG smirked again. "The Temple observes moon-rise and moon-set every day, Mr. Cain, except the three days each cycle of moon-dark. Then of course, on high-full-moon is the monthly observance that the public attends. Then there are the two Equinoxes and the two Solstices during the annual. I generally appear at all the services, catching a nap between, then sleeping after moon-set. Any business I need to see to is usually handled in the afternoons." All this was delivered calmly, clearly, as if she were briefing a visitor to the Temple.

Cain didn't like all the running around. He tried to formulate a protest, but just then he heard a noise from the enormous closet. He sprang to his feet, startling the Princess. Reaching out to drag her behind him, he drew his pistol to aim between the eyes of a terrified handmaid.

"No! That's Naymi, one of my handmaids. And Erynna is right behind her!" The Princess cried, forestalling any violence. "They're here to help me get ready for moon-set."

Cain relaxed, dropping the gun. The Princess rushed to salvage the situation.

"Ladies, Officer Cain here has been assigned as my bodyguard until the investigation into the destruction of the satellite Temples has been completed. I'm sorry if he scared you." Both women nodded, but kept a careful eye on the Tin Man. "We'll all have to get used to some changes, I think. Naymi, once we're done tonight, could you let Hank and Emily know I'm going to need to have a staff meeting tomorrow? Thank you, now let's get ready." She glanced over her shoulder at Cain. "Um, Mr. Cain? They're about to help me redress…. If you insist on watching, that's fine with me," she offered slyly. To her everlasting amazement, two spots of color appeared on Cain's cheeks, and she thought she saw his ears turn red. Ah, that fair skin must be SUCH a curse, she thought gleefully, and vowed to try and make him blush at least five times a day. Shouldn't be hard, after all.

Cain promptly turned, shutting the door to the study, and rigidly stood before it, staring into the dark blue painted wood from less than a foot away. DG silently snickered at his back before shooing her handmaids to fetch her dress and accoutrements for the ceremony.

Cain heard the soft noises of cloth rustling and whispered conferences. When the Princess indicated she was decent, he turned to take in the transformation. Now garbed in deep blue, like a summer night sky, the Princess wore a diadem of silver and diamonds, sparkling like stars.

A sudden traitorous thought flitted through Cain's head, that the Princess was in fact quite beautiful. Just as quickly, he squashed the idea. A pretty face and pleasing form was meaningless.

He followed closely as she led him and the handmaids to the lift. Down several floors again to the ceremonial chamber, she paused and gave him an assessing look.

"You have to come in, I presume?" At his nod, she glanced into the chamber, and to his surprise, chewed on her bottom lip as she considered the situation. It was an oddly youthful thing to do, again proving she wasn't nearly as mature or as together as she tried to act. The insight bothered Cain for some reason. "Well, if it suits your requirements, you could stand directly to my left against the wall. You'd be no more than… maybe thirty feet away. No one who's not actually living in the Temple attends the moon-set service anyway."

He considered her for an extra moment. Whatever she thought about in that bathroom, she'd obviously decided to cooperate with him. "That should be fine. Can Naymi point me to the spot?"

The handmaid nodded quickly as the Princess shot him a small smile. She recognized his attempt to set her staffers at ease.

Several other clergy arrived, and with much murmuring and bowing, arranged themselves around the Princess. More and more members of the Temple were slipping into the chamber. Then, the Princess led off the procession, and he followed Naymi to the side wall, where he actually had a clear view of the Princess, and the front of the chamber.

Cain didn't listen to the ceremony. Much of it was performed in the Ancient's language anyway, a language almost no one in the Zone actually spoke anymore. Instead, he tuned out the chanting and focused on the Princess.

Since she was being so accommodating now, he felt a little bad for how harshly he'd behaved initially. His memories of Tin Man training came back to him. Your protectee must trust you. You cannot protect someone who won't listen to you. He'd trained under Chief Johnson when the man was head of the Mystic Man's detail. If the protectee doesn't trust you implicitly, you can't do your job. Cain had allowed his own anger and grief to sour the partnership with his protectee from the very first minute.

He surreptitiously scanned the crowd. Somewhere in this mass of people was the odious priest who'd taken the last of Cain's life savings and refused to treat Adora. He felt the anger surge again, but squashed it. He never knew the greasy priest's rank or name. And at any rate, he had no right to call the man to scratch. Clergy were generally inviolable.

After no more than twenty minutes, the ceremony ended. Cain slipped along the edges of the chamber, keeping a close eye on the Princess, and by the time she exited, he was within ten feet of her. Again, she surprised him by glancing about quickly, and giving him a brief nod when she located him. Perhaps she was about to take these threats seriously.

"Short," he observed as he accompanied her, and the ubiquitous handmaids, back to the lift.

"Always is. Folks want to get some sleep," she told him wryly.

He nodded, slightly unsettled by her casualness. He couldn't seem to get a lock on her personality. One minute she was all haughty royalty, just what he'd expect from a spoiled highborn noble. The next, she was making wry asides.

Back in her room, he discovered that a cot had been added. While her handmaids helped her change, he dragged it over to block the door to the hall. Then he went into the study and started pulling a large upright wingback chair into the bedroom.

She watched him, dismissing the maids. "Um, are you going to sleep in here?"

"Yes, but in this chair."

She tilted her head. "I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Mr. Cain, but the COT is for sleeping in, not a chair."

He shot her a quelling look and said, "I'm not going to be sleeping much anyway, Princess. Not until those doors get bolted, and the windows get tested."

Her brows lifted to her hairline. "Well, if you say so." She went about the room, turning off lamps as he settled into the chair. Finally, she climbed into the massive bed. He situated himself to have an equal line of sight to the study door and the closet.

Just as he started to settle in, he heard a whispering from the bed behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted a soft silver glow over the bed.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, somewhat harshly, as the glow of magic was an unpleasant shock. At his voice, the whispering stopped and the glow disappeared.

The Princess huffed in exasperation. "It's a cantrip against insomnia, Mr. Cain. I was trying to make sure I got some sleep tonight."

"I'm not going to be noisy, Your Highness."

He heard the bed creak as the Princess must have propped herself up on her elbows to glare at him in the darkness. "If you think this room isn't warded by my own magic, Mr. Cain, you're an idiot, and I'll have to insist Ambrose find me a smarter bodyguard. I can feel your presence as if you were here in the bed next to me!"

A slightly shocked and embarrassed silence filled the room. Cain felt silly for discounting the protective aspect of her magic. And he figured she felt pretty silly over her analogy. As if he'd be in the bed next to her, for goodness's sake.

"Now if you don't mind," she said, and her subdued tone confirmed her embarrassment, "I'd like to finish the cantrip and get some sleep."

"Of course, your Highness," he muttered, and her whispers floated on the dark air again. The glow shimmered over the bed, but after a moment it sunk down into her, and he could hear her deep and even breathing.

TBC

*AN: Why yes, her handmaids are named after Certain Fandom Friends. :-)