Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute

 

ChaCha wondered just how long it took to make a plan. She thought Milo was procrastinating.

"Oh, you don't even know the meaning of the word," he snapped back as if plotting had its own rhythm. "Did things happen that fast back in the palace?"

"Well?" She winced as she sat on the branch with him. It was true, crazy things happened with the queen from time to time. She was always sending someone to their death. Usually, servants, she was tired of. Father never let her have a hand in any of that. He would always let them go, but the queen would never know. In fact, he sent them to another country. 

Oh, she hated to think of violence, but still, she thought they could be doing something instead of sitting here in the middle of the cherry blossoms.

"I wonder if there might be another way, you know, to find out about Old Sands. Did he live somewhere else when you were a kid? Maybe somebody might know something." She didn't say this out loud, just a thought to prod that brain of his.

He looked at her as if why hadn't he thought of that.

"There is a valley, but it's the valley of sorrows," Milo said when he looked at her. She sensed he hoped not to go there.

"Why can't we?" She wanted to know.

"It's haunting," he said. "They say the ghosts of forgotten tribes cry there."

"Well, you lived there, didn't you?" She didn't like his excuse.

"Maybe if I went on my own," he shrugged.

"Oh, you aren't going alone." She shot him a look. "I'm going where ever you're going."

He sighed. She knew he could read her mind. This was why he was procrastinating.  About then, what appeared to be something falling out of the sky, barely missed the tree they were in. They heard a soft thud. There was someone laying in the flood of pink petals on the ground.

"Well, that's unusual," ChaCha looked to Milo.

"Yes, indeed."