Danni was delighted with these turn of events. He had left the military, which had honestly begun to bore him at this point; found an interesting, if mismatched group of rough people, and reunited with an imaginary friend, who was even better than whom he had pictured in his head.<br/>This whole rebellion thing confused him slightly, however. Talk of an evil king of some sort. Lorbull? Korsull? Regardless, it all sounded very boring. A fight for the sake of power held no interest in Danni. He had little lust for power and control, simply moving to where he fit best at the time. If his mother had taken part, and it was the cause of the two to be brought to the mines, then why hadn't she told him about it? Thinking logically, Danni thought that it must have been to protect him. Of course. His mother had always been doing that.<br/>How amusing that his closest tie to his mother looked so similar to her. It again struck him as his eyes met with Fossil's that she looked like his mother. He thought he would have forgotten his mother's face, but it was the sharpest memory for him.<br/>His thoughts were jarred as their cumbersome sea-vessel landed at a dock. Fossil jumped out first, heading to a house nestled in the rocks, which had a bright red door. It gave a rich, pleasant character to a place which would have otherwise been drab and unremarkable.<br/>Pushing the hair out of his eyes and back into his bandana, he jumped out of the boat with the swiftness of the average air nymph. He hit the ground with a tumble, popping lightly to his feet. Not an easy thing to do in a full suit of armour. Proud of his accomplishment, he marched right up behind Fossil, who had knocked unnecessarily hard upon the red door he admired so much, and said something about gooseberries.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">Gooseberries?</span>he pondered, amused,<span style="font-style: italic">why say that to a door? And it isn't even the season for gooseber-</span>just then, the door swung open, revealing a pleasant lady who bid Fossil and he troop to come in quickly. Danni was delighted to realize that it had been a code. Of course. This seemed all very secretive, a new type of adventure territory he had not yet explored.<br/>The woman, now identified as Ms. Robin, was very pleasant, leading them inside a spacious home and offering them hot cocoa. Danni declined. Having survived off of scraps and weeds for many years of his life, rich or sweet food tended to churn his stomach. The food at the barracks hadn't been much better, either.<br/>Ms. Robin offered him some new clothes. Simply delightful. And she had known his mother. This trip had been extremely rewarding. The peaceful atmosphere began to seep into Danni, causing him to relax immensely. This was what his life might have been like, if all this revolution business had never existed. Him and his mother, maybe even his father, living in a peaceful village by the docks. A sense of melancholy filled him as he let out a yawn, sitting himself on the arm of a plush chair. The conversation around the room filtered out as he imagined an alternate life. Perhaps he could have even owned a dog, something he had wanted since the soldiers came with their hounds. He later realized those dogs had been used to track down a prisoner who had escaped. How lucky he had been to have made it out of that place alive.<br/>An annoying man with one less leg than everyone in the room began to mutilate the sound of a perfectly good set of pan pipes. Danni cringed from where he was perched on the arm rest of Fossil's chair. He began reaching forward to smack him upside the head with the instrument before chaos erupted.<br/>It might have helped him if he had been listening to the conversation, but all he had acknowledged was the horrid instrument playing before Fossil began sobbing and a knock came on the door. It was a generic chant of arrest that Danni knew well. He had issued it upon many doors that refused to open before. Now, being on the other side, he regretted those arrests he had made.<br/>Ms. Robin efficiently ripped up the carpet, revealing a trap door. This alarmed Danni to the point of panic. Trapdoors generally meant small crawl spaces. Even the thought of being stuck in a small, damp room caused the former mine worker to hyperventilate. He couldn't control his breathing, but he managed with shaky legs to approach the door in the floor dead last, tentatively looking down to examine the space. It led into the dark, his second least favourite thing. But he had information now, which he had to protect; the secrets of his new group of comrades. A foot began reaching down the step ladder, just as someone in a hurry slammed into him. It was Fossil, who seemed too busy to notice him. Had the plan changed? A glimmer of hope swelled in him as he naively thought that maybe they were safe after all.<br/>Only after he examined Fossil's grief-stricken face did he realize that thought had been a fairy tale. No, this was still wrong. What the hell was she doing? Danni slid into a corner of the room, hoping to be unnoticed by the entrance of Fossil, the more precious quarry. He stayed as still as possible while Fossil marched herself towards the guards who had barged in the moment before.<span style="font-style: italic">No, I just found you, idiot! you can't turn yourself in!</span>He cursed silently. He listened carefully as Fossil pleaded with the group. Who was Nadya? From the way Fossil said the person's name, they sounded incredibly important to her. Just about as important as Fossil was to Danni now. He wasn't letting this chance to save her go away.<br/>An idiotic plan formed in his brain. Barely passable, something that would likely just get him captured or killed in the same manner that Fossil was offering herself up to now. But he would rather her not be alone.<br/>A cut to the face would do, perhaps a slash in the leg for his plan. Self-mutilation was not something he did often, but an arrow proved the perfect blade to give him the appearance of someone who had been in a rather unpleasant fight. The pain was laughable to him, being the former prisoner that he was. All in the effort to make it appear like he was attacked.<br/>A loud, distracting clatter of noise rose as Danni crashed towards Fossil in the loudest, most cumbersome way possible. He came up behind her, reaching for her proffered hands and binding them behind her back with the pair of handcuffs on his person.<br/>One hand reached up into her hair, pulling her head upward in a painful fashion.<br/>"Damn it, miss, you screwed up my plans," Danni said admonishingly, frowning at the party of soldiers "they were going to lead me right to the people that run their whole thing!" He laughed, gripping Fossil's hair tighter. "I had this simpleton believing I was an old friend."<br/>This was turning out perfectly to Danni's standards. He had always been good at fooling people, though even he knew this story was dumb. Dumb enough, hopefully, to be believed. He would play the power-hungry soldier who longed for his big break to soar upwards in the ranks of the military.<br/>Danni regretted the pain he was inflicting on Fossil. He wanted this ruse to seem believable, to buy Fossil's life. His heart hammered, hoping that the girl in his cruel grip would be able to sense the truth.<br/>None of these thoughts reached his face, which simply remained at a twisted grin. "Tarax Matthias, at you service," he said, raising one eyebrow. Thank goodness he had remembered the name he had gone under in the military. The records would check out that he did in fact exist within the city's ranks, which would perhaps provide enough evidence to save him. Or get him tortured, which was just as likely to happen at this point.