[A/N] It's still Wednesday in Las Vegas. I mean I'm in the UK but let's pretend〜This chapter is third perspective, might feel weird, let's experiment a little....

There was no breeze in the air as he stepped out into the sunny middle-of-day, the grass and trees were still and the bustle of activity could only be attributed to the men below, rushing back and forth in organised chaos.

Guilty eyes turned on the King as he stepped out of the carriage, those standing guard, who took up position in front of the carriage whenever it was stopped looked an inch to the left of him when he glanced their way, worried he might select them to rebuke, to them it appeared to be  the soldiers failing after all, the guards were only soldiers in different armour set at different stations, and not all knew exactly why the soldiers had been ordered to hurry away so early in the night.

He ignored them and let the veil fall behind him, stretching in that discreet way that men raised to sit up straight as an arrow and admonished for the slightest human indifference to etiquette, did.

Despite viewing Elpis with shrewd eyes that were relatively certain he did not disobey rules for the sake of it, but rather was not raised around the fear of disorder, he felt it necessary to consider that the Joker was a little too curious for his own good.

"You," He directed at the servant waiting cluelessly by the back wheel.

Leon looked a little startled. "Me sir- Your Majesty?" 

"You, friend of Elpis." King Demos appraised him briefly. "Guard the carriage and make sure he doesn't go out unless danger or necessity betides." His eye darkened after a moment glancing around the area. "Remind anyone who attempts to move him that his master gave him permission to wait there."

He bowed low, nervous. "Yes, Your Majesty."

He had been called a friend of Elpis. That was strangely humanising, but then again as a servant who spent much time waiting on him the amount most knew of him was surprisingly little. 

Too often they were pushed away from a master who was too quiet and disinterested, dark and foreboding. Most saw him as a sort of gold clad statue, waiting up in his tower, surveying them all like ants.

Demosthenes turned to leave then turned back, paused a moment and turned to him.

"Put a meal together... sit inside and share it with him." He ordered. "Yes," He murmured to himself. "He'll rest easier with that I'll bet."

Leon brightened up a little, wanting to confirm that he did indeed order him to share a meal with the Joker... inside the King's carriage. Then he felt some nervousness set in and glanced about before replying, "Um, Your Majesty, what defines danger?"

The King rolled his eyes, "Life has taught you it's definition." He spoke, turning and setting off in a long slow stride. "You are a man with a brain, use it."

The servant bowed low as he left, a stranger might think such a speech was a condescending, chiding of his question, yet there was a mutual understanding in this instance that Leon was being given permission to use his brain.

The guards too bowed as he left and the King was soon marching toward the head of the trail.

There was a gathering of people there, examining with some detached interest, the wound in the path up ahead.

It was a deep cavernous grave, just over the width of an average carriage, and yet still a little too small to ensure significant damage.

He observed it with some scorn. Whichever individuals had taken it upon themselves to work, no doubt deep into the night, on this, was passionate yet clearly unused to their new found employment. 

For the royal carriage was even wider yet than that of servants, which were still wider than the average travelling carriage. Special thick cladding to hide noise and retain it, masked in detailed aesthetic engravings in gold that were affixed to it's walls.

Still, it could have killed the horses, it could have killed the coachmen, if they had been lucky and the jerk of the carriage had been strong enough to throw him with some strength into the cushioned walls perhaps he could have been injured. But death still was unlikely.

He looked down on it and considered the strangeness of it. Planned or amateur-inspired?

The noblewomen and men examined it with false horror.

"Oh, we are truly lucky. This journey has been a treacherous one, I cannot be still one moment." One whispered in dramatics.

"Should I get my hands on these cruel mimics I would throttle them daft, I can tell you that." Her husband comforted her, slapping a hand on the chest just above his rather heavy chest. "There's no getting past me!"

"Spectacular." A younger lord marvelled. "I mean that's got to be just the right size for a carriage, any more would have drawn attention to the land I suppose. They must be clever in such things!"

"Wouldn't the coachmen see it?" The even younger Lady Baukis doubted.

"The coaches were going very fast. It's probably far too fast for a coachman to see, Baukis." He told her.

"Your Majesty what do you think?" Lady Baukis asked him, big eyes on him as she half curtsied.

Kind Demos looked up at the sky, one of the clouds floating past looked like bowl of soup, another like a cup of wine. He was probably hungry.

"The grass and wooden supports that have fallen down inside indicate the soldiers triggered it but had no time to fill it. Its normal figure would have been covered by a layer of transplanted grass, upheld by thin beams of wood. When the horses step onto it the earth turns soft the beams snap, the horses fall and it is in their best interest for the carriage to do the same."

He was not watching, hands resting behind his back on each other, looking up at the floating tufts of white images collapsing as they rolled by, but Baukis admired him carefully with the rounded face of someone who has some growing to do.

"You know so much on such a matter, Your Majesty." Lord Velius bowed low as he stepped out from behind the small gathering in order to get closer.

He turned slowly to face him, clad with a cold expression and something cool in his eyes.

"It is not my first time encountering such a creation. Though the spikes at the bottom are usually a little longer..." He took another look down at the bottom of it.

"You judge them quite harshly..." He chortled, edging closer, trying to gauge his mood but assuming he must be on somewhat good terms with him. 

Demos looked at him, the same cold look on his face.

He looked a little unsure. "I mean, my apologies, I did not mean to make a joke of something so serious as an attempt on your life..."

There was a murmur of agreement.

"It's quite awful." Baukis agreed.

The younger lord agreed too. "Our King brings about peace and prosperity and all that and all those churls can think to do is stir up more trouble."

From this continued a sympathetic conversation about how rather terrible it was which migrated into various different topics, the diversification of which lead to scattered dialogue and the conversation soon died on it's own.

They began to head back in ones and twos while Demos stood and observed, waiting for some clue to present itself, some kind of certainty in thought.

Finally it was only he and Lord Velius, waiting with his chest puffed out, hoping to pry from his King what exactly he had done with Elpis the Joker.

He had not spent the night with the rest of the servants, this much he had ascertained, and his lover had been beaten so that he could do nothing but recover in his carriage, though to what extent he could not tell, as he had been barred from entering even at the false promise of his own goodwill.

He rather hoped he had not killed him.

Velius had been oddly intrigued by the quiet Joker the moment he saw him, the thin white addition to his face left him looking rather elegant, if whorish, it reminded him of a brothel boy. His speech used formality with an unfamiliarity, soft spoken but clear and gently decisive. Expressive eyes sometimes shielded, always clear.

Oddly unaware of himself, as though he were directly in the Lord's grip, yet seemingly untouchable.

He still wanted to know what it might feel like to touch someone like that, inexplicably invulnerable.

See him scream dramatically perhaps, give in and become apologetic eventually.

Demosthenes, meanwhile, was quiet, and an icy breeze slipped between the two of them.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, may I ask about the results of that unfortunate night?"

Demos squinted at the scene in the path ahead and turned to him slowly, a hidden look on his face. "The servant sits in his carriage. The Joker sits in mine." He spoke casually.

Velius tried to digest the words, but after a moment of silence couldn't quite grasp it. "The Joker..."

He spoke over him as the words trailed off. "What a grand view..."

"Ah," He smiled, a little bothered by the switch in conversation. "Yes, a fine view, a landscape of blossoming flowers and fertile land." He spoke grandly. "Our kingdom is rich, impregnable and blessed by the gods. Your Majesty is to thank for it all, of course. By your graceful, unerring ruling and intelligence, we all strive to follow in your footsteps." 

"Of course." He replied flatly, possibly sarcastically.

Of course Velius felt rather smug at that, feeling that the King was pleasantly easy to influence, for men who wrapped themselves up in such insults usually were. 

"Ah," He announced more to himself. "What crisp air."

The King briefly agreed, "Quite." He said cooly, noting that the back of his robes appeared well maintained, crease free and clean, as he extended his arm and pushed him casually forwards.

Velius let out a garbled yelp as he lost his footing and expressed the extended, impolitely loud, and disfigured version of the word; "help" or possibly "gallop".

He screeched and flailed his arms like a drunken dancer, left foot slipping down on the earth sinking under the uneven wait as the upper half of his body tipped forwards. It was a screech that caused the bird in the nearest tree to screech in reply and flitter away in fright.

Demos watched as the figure of the man disappeared ungracefully into the depths of the trap below, an ultimately brief fall that ended with another mournful screech and a small landslide of dirt as his hands caught the walls of the man-made grave on his way down.

"Maj- Majesty!" He shrieked just before he hit the bottom

But Demosthenes was already moving to leave, and he did not bother to gaze down the fruitful trap once before he made his way back.

Calmly he returned in time to catch the servant on his way out of the carriage, cheerfully grinning at Elpis who seemed to be unaware of the way he beamed at Demosthenes as he returned. Thankful for the company of someone like Leon, who was as kind as his friend Natham. 

"What does it look like?" He inquired, attempting to peak through the veil no doubt not for the first time. "Is it dangerous?"

"Sit down." He demanded. "It is quite dangerous after all..." He hummed to himself.

Velius's disappearance was noted and the servant taking charge in Ophelos's place demanded that all search for the missing Lord before proceeding to fill the trap, under the impression he must have slipped and fallen or lost his way somehow.

So the men searched and searched and servants too, their efforts in vain. Elpis waited in the carriage then, while food was served for the noblemen, a brief interval before they would have the finish the work and move on. A rather sparsely arranged, informal gathering about a fire, meant to placate them while they waited impatiently, as the servants hurried to look after them.

As the King was eating food by the campfire a figure limped out to his side and stood still, a careful pace away, as if wishing not to be seen.

"Step forward or return as commanded, Ophelos." The King spoke evenly, before taking another bite.

Ophelos stepped forward and bowed low, with some pain.

"Stop that." He spoke, without moving to look at him.

He stood up, a little paler than normal. "Your Majesty..."

He only continued eating.

"Is it right to continue searching?" He asked in a quiet determined tone.

"For who?" He played the fool, casually turning to his cup of wine, staring into the flames as a man basks in the sun.

Ophelos played along impatiently. "Lord Velius."

"Oh him," He set his wine to the side of him. "Is he still in the pit?" He asked casually, the fire crackled as it waved and bowed to the spasmodic breeze coiling around it.

The eyes of some of the soldiers standing by the royalty, after shifts of routine searches, widening slightly at that, glancing at each other.

There was a long silence which Demos ignored.

Ophelos turned particularly red but said nothing as he turned on his heal and moved to disobey his master's order to hold back from work as fast as he could.

He knew the Demosthenes, and he knew that he had expected to some degree that finally Ophelos would stand the rumours no more and step in. Which he did. 

Despite his order for bed rest he stiffly demanded all men retrieve the unfortunate clod from the eleven foot trench.

And to their great relief he was alive, dirty and bleeding and returning with a bitter expression but alive enough and in fact, a little too energetic for those tasked with recovering him.

He was injured and bloody, angrily blaming them in his helpless anger, declaring it a conspiracy against him, even throwing a tantrum as he was evacuated with a sharp piece of metal in his leg and side breast. 

In his exasperation he knew that something had gone wrong, that the King had pushed him and that he must have done so on purpose, that no one had come to help on his wishes. 

That truth sat on his shoulders, fear mingling with indignance to result in him dramatically insulting whoever was attending to him. When he attempted to discuss it with his wife she grimaced at his name, saw the direction of his words and quieted him, and despite being angry at all others, he privately agreed with her imposed silence, for he valued life to much to risk another word.

Elpis heard the debacle through Leon with some incredulity, and when Demosthenes stepped back in the carriage, the deadly trench filled to his satisfaction and now safe to pass by, he turned to him and watched with attentive eyes as the wheels began to roll.

It was impossible. He told himself, looked up at him and saw that devilishly handsome face turn and raise an eyebrow. 

A cool, easy gaze. His heart thumped loudly in his chest.

The moving carriage made his stomach turn and he reached out and wrapped his hand in Demos's. Demos looked down at him and ahead, seemingly not noticing nor pulling away, the taller man simply sitting quietly, his fingers enclosing that elegant hand a little better.

He gripped Demosthenes' hand tighter. His back was still badly discoloured, swollen where it had bruised, cuts still healing.

I must be depraved... He thought to himself as he looked up at Demos, a desirable darkness on the King's face. For wanting all of what I cannot have, every last bit.

Was it at all his intention? To spin himself around me in this way, to seemingly turn a fearful appearance into one that causes my heart to waver as his fingers slip in between my own... 

The wheels rolled on, an approaching distant neighing penetrating the easy quiet.

[A/N] All hail the kind people who support me on patreon (シ_ _)シ  ♡

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