Flynn vs Sonya

The queen tilted her head as she looked at Flynn, the action nearly knocking the crown off of her head. "I'm sorry, but... who are you?"

"He's a practitioner of dark magic, I found skulking about the kingdom." Mei-Mei answered.

"He helped us defeat the monster." Test added. Not wanting the queen to come to the wrong conclusion.

“The name is Flynn, and I wasn’t skulking around, I heading back to my residence after dealing with some pirates before someone picked a fight with me,” Flynn sighed.

"Really?" the Queen asked as she approached Flynn. "I don't recall hearing of a dark mage within our borders before."

“Probably because I don’t make myself known. It’d be bothersome if people always looked for me when they are in need of help,”Flynn sighed.

"Still, it sounds like you have been helping my people for some time." Charlotte said.

“Yes, I have, so what?” Flynn replied, not sure where she was going with this.

"There must be something I can do to reward you for all your service?" the Queen asked, her emerald eyes staring directly into his own.

His face briefly blushed as many ideas, mainly focused on legs, rushed through his mind, but he managed to say one that wasn’t focused on his new obsession, “I’d like a staff capable of empowering curses and dark magic.”

The queen blinked at that before she nodded slowly. "I'm not familiar with that kind of magic. Nor do I think Valla is either. But I will see what we can do for you, Flynn."

“If that was too specific, any equipment fitting for a mage would do,” Flynn replied.

"That we can do." Charlotte said with a beaming smile. It soon left her face, replaced with a serious expression, and she stepped back and addressed the group as a whole. "What can you tell me of this person that would dare attack the people under my care?"

"It was some sort of enormous slime. Capable of splitting into multiple smaller slimes. It seemed to be attacking people in order to feed off of them. But it's massive size and ravenous hunger were driving it to kidnap entire villages at once." Test explained.

“To expand on he said, it could divide itself into smaller copies of itself, but it could also spit out slimes other than itself, which seemed to take up different properties of liquids it had absorbed,” Flynn added.

The queen's gaze saddened at the explanation. "So she was motivated by hunger?"

"Seems like it." Mei-Mei answered with a shrug.

"I brought back a sample of it's body. I'm hoping Val will be able to use it to tell us how it came about, and hopefully help us find a way to track it." Test added.

Flynn saw nothing he could add in to the conversation, so he just remained quiet for the time being.

The Queen nodded. "Then let's get it to Valla immediately. Test, Mei-Mei, come with me. Sonya, stay here and look after our guest."

Test quickly followed his liege.

With the others leaving, Flynn turned to Sonya and asked, “Earlier, what about me made you think I was the villain?”

"Simply that they brought you here." Sonya told him once they were alone. " I apologize. I didn't think they would bring someone unrelated, and the thought they had gotten outside help hadn't crossed my mind."

“Do all you kingdom folk make such quick assumptions like that. First Mei-Mei, then you?” Flynn replied.

Sonya's eyes narrowed at that. "You say that like you aren't one of us. Just who are you really?"

“I’m just a dark mage who wants an easy life,” He answers, “I do live nearby this kingdom, in a house in the woods, but as you just said I wouldn’t consider myself one of you. I come by and help out sometimes, only when I need to make some profit.”

The knight let out a sigh as the tension left her body. "Again, I apologize. I've been a bit on edge recently, but that's no excuse to be rude to you."