The Knight and Ifrit
Robert, the dragon rider knight of the Astral kingdom, is not asked for his opinion when the delegation from the Ifrit Empire comes to their capital. He is appointed by Councilman Elliot as an escort to one of the dignitaries without any preamble or forewarning. Simply pulled out of the paddocks where his sick partner Blue was recovering, covered in a layer of sweat and stinking of dragon puke.
Privately, the knight thinks that he has been picked as a not-so-subtle snub towards the delegation, seeing as his scrawny 5'8 frame is to play being an escort and a bodyguard to a 7 foot tall fire mage who smoulders with the same consistency as Robert breathes. There were plenty of knights with a much higher rank than his own, ready and most likely willing to do so.
Even though his own low rank is a recent development associated more so with being demoted, and not his lack of skill.
Hard to be counted as high-leveled when your soul partner was on an indefinite health-related suspension and you didn't have any powers of you own after all.
It took nothing away from his intellect though and so, the knight still understood enough about the court politics to know when he was being used as a pawn in someone's game. In Elliot's game to be precise.
Welcoming a foreign dignitary with a knight that was covered in puke and wearing smelly leathers was a fool-proof way to ensure any cooperation in the negotiations between nations would be off to a bad start. Doing so with a fighter fresh off the field might have worked in the kingdom's favor, but with Robert currently being listed as a common knight, with no titles he could legally use without Blue under his belt, he was a walking insult to anyone he was assigned to. Especially so to a species that prided itself on raw power and abilities.
He does take the time to wipe himself down and snag a clean shirt out of the castle's laundress' hands as she walks by. Its larger then his recently diminished frame, still slightly damp and wrinkled , and very much not his own, but it is better than what he was wearing initially. That's used to quickly scrub his face and pits, just to give at least an illusion of being put together.
It does very little, if the face of the ifrit that Robert is told to go towards is any indication.
He is summarily insulted for his looks, smell, intelligence, position, rank, powerlessness, lack of stature, and, finally, shit taste in clothes. All Robert can do is keep his dead-eyed stare, clench his hands and breathe. The other is not wrong but damn does it stings to have it be pointed out so blatantly and in front of so many people.
He knows he can't respond in a way that would be court-appropriate, and despite his position he does not want to throw more sticks into the wheels of the court's negotiations. Princess Mandy will have enough on her plate as is. So, having long since learned to swallow his pride, Robert does nothing else but take the insults, stare, and delight privately as that tactic makes the ifrit before him steam up at the lack of a reaction.
With how frustrated he seems to be getting, Robert's dead-eyed stare might just turn out to be his best weapon in this situation. It might just be a good thing the dignitary is a tactless asshole though. Those golden eyes are really pretty staring down at Robert and the flush of anger on his cheeks is abso-fucking-lutely delightful. Hmmm…
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Robert is pretty sure that Councilman Elliot wants the negotiations with the ifritians to fail. He had been trying to undermine Princess Mandy's hold on the courts and declare her unfit to rule since she took the temporary throne over. Robert is also sure that the men that are gathering in front of the door he is guarding were not just walking by with their weapons out and decided to stop for a chat.
He is proven very correct when the trio fans out, draws said weapons and attempts to get past him.
Now, Robert has been out of commission since him and his soul partner Blue were shot down over the ifritian border by what looked like the fucking lightning rod shooting through their foot, leaving the dragon without a limb and Robert with psychosomatic symptoms that mirrored the same sensation. He was forced into a lower rank since his value has plummeted, his titles were tied to the ability to merge with the 'beast', and the painful length of the recovery took away most of his body mass.
But, you can't drink away mastery, just like you can't get rid of muscle memory and reflexes that have been drilled into Robert since he was a young square.
He might be smaller, he might be individually weaker, lame on one foot, and his weapons might not be as long and impressive as the ones pointed at him from three directions, but he has something that these three clearly don't. An ability to say fuck it all, take the hits, use his environment, and keep getting up.
He rolls, dodges, gets punches, kicked, and mildly stabbed in the leg. At least its the one that's already been hurting, and merely adds to the sensation without fully incapacitating him and his fighting style. Which Robert has had time to adjust to his lovely new disability. The decorative curtains make for a wonderful distraction, as well as surprise weapon that ties the hands of one of his attackers, before the knight goes low and uses his dagger to slash at his tendons. It leaves the man wailing and clutching his legs. A vase full of fire lilies and monkshood is upended and smashed across the face of the second, with Robert shoving the poor flowers deep into the man's gullet and watching his spasm at the poison. The third one takes some finagling, a stab to the thigh and an ornate doorknob to the nose.
It is as Robert stands over the three downed opponents, trying to catch his breath, that he hears the door he had been guarding click shut.
More guards conveniently show up after a few moments, looking appropriately stunned at the sight before them, carting away the assassins into the dungeons for treatment and interrogation.
When Robert stops one of them to ask how they knew to come, he gets a shrug and a response that one of the noble's in a cloak told them that there has been an attack on the dignitary in the west wing.
It takes Robert leaving his coin purse in the hands of the man to make sure that the news of the altercation don't leave their immediate circle. No need to make the delegation panic and think they have been insulted with more than just Robert's presence after all.
