The Masquerade

Rendra was quite relieved that James was starting to understand the bigger picture. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell him the truth - she wanted to, honest! But things were out of her control, and she would just have to make do with what she could tell them. Oh well. At least it was something?

"Well," she said, trying to think of the little information she was allowed to share, "you can get out of here if you solve a series of puzzles. I can't say anymore, but the puzzles are key to your escape! I'm just not completely done with some of them, so you're going to have to hang out here for a little bit longer. Maybe you could try to mingle, or at least hang out with your friend over there?" She pointed at Maahes - a different Maahes than the one that Kartiel had encountered, but still Maahes all the same - and gave James a grin.

Oh, so now we had an excuse to mingle. I turned to my other companion, the tall, respectably dressed fellow in the wolf mask.

''My apologies, I didn't catch your name.''

Taber instinctively waved. "I'm Taber!" he said. "Are you having a good time? Or, good as it can be with that super honest and kinda creepy goddess lady and these masks that are stuck to our faces. Is yours as tight as mine? It's no big deal, and I'm sure it looks super cool, but it makes me a little uncomfortable."

The masks would not come off? I lightly tugged on mine. It was indeed affixed.
I had not noticed until someone had brought it up, for I was so comfortable in my mask that it never occurred to me to even try to take it off. I frowned. If that was symbolism, then it was insultingly on the nose.

"As long as it doesn't leave a mark on my face when it comes off, I shall be fine." I told Taber.

God, it had better not. One vendetta against one man who resided in the same world as me was difficult enough. A second vendetta against a dimension-travelling goddess would really make a dent in my schedule.

"How did you meet our mutual friend? Raymond, was it? Radcliff? Romanoff. Reginald. No, give me a minute, I can work it out. But do tell me how you came to know him."

James didn't like the idea of waiting, and as soon as it was proposed he mingle everything inside of him cringed. Even if he wanted to mingle there was no way he would even be able to enjoy himself at a part like this. Not without faking it at least.

When she pointed to Maahes, however, he soon realized that she did have something if a point, even without meaning to.

Him and Maahes only ever met in situations like this. Strange, bizarre, supposed-to-be-once-in-a-lifetime situations that they ended up having little control over, and that meant that this was his only time to catch up. And just... be with him.

It wasn't ideal, being in a loud, gaudy party to do so, but he didn't know when he'd see Maahes next. Assuming that they did, of course, get out of this via whatever puzzles Rendra had in store. He looked back at Maahes, then back at Rendra.

"Fine," he said curtly, then turned to Maahes with a more relaxed expression.

"Oh!" said Taber. "We met at this creepy building in the middle of nowhere. Raiden pulled me out of a window I got stuck in trying to escape." He laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Good times," he said quietly, looking away.



Eugh, he was right. But she was neither in the mood for nor in the right place to give an apology.

"Fine," Eremia said to Asteri, lowering her scepter and putting on a neutral expression. "I am rather familiar with these 'parental issues'. Now, if you would excuse me, I need to find my boyfriend and have another drink. Not necessarily in that order."

She turned around and strode off, looking back a couple times to see Asteri's response.

''He, er, seems the sort who would do that.'' I said.

Consarn it. This conversation would have been much easier if I could properly recall the person that had brought us together.

''Does he usually wear such fabulous dresses?'' I asked Taber.

Taber shrugged. "You'll have to ask him yourself," he said after a pause. Not knowing the answer to something sucked; it showed in his hesitance and stepping back. "We didn't really hang out much or get to know each other? Because, y'know, life-and-death situations and stuff. The usual."

Spoiler

I'm going to throw my girl Mira in so Asteri's not alone anymore. The only things you really need to know about her is her appearance - she has her wavy hair in a bob, and it's light purple hair with white tips. Her eyes are blue.

She's wearing this, although the coat and necktie thing are both dark shades of purple:



And this is her mask:

Maahes gave a small smile as the god disappeared into crowd of people, likely off to wherever her puzzles were. He turned to James, Vala still standing right beside him.

"So," Vala said, "mingling. Not much of a fan of it myself, but if it's a way to pass the time, I suppose I can do it. We never had a proper introduction, did we? I'm Vala. Vala Mal Doran, thief extraordinaire and now apparently a god killer."

"More like a Goa'uld killer," Maahes corrected, ducking his head in embarrassment. It was a feat he had spent years working up towards, but it didn't mean he was any less humble than he had been before. And when she worded it like that, it made it seem like they had done something even more impressive than defeat a corrupt ruler. Which was an impressive thing, but killing a god would have been even more so.

"God, goa'uld, close enough," Vala said, dismissing the correction with a wave of her hand. "And god killer does make us sound pretty impressive, doesn't it, Maahes?"

"I guess," Maahes replied. He was still embarrassed with how Vala was bragging about it.


Lorcan and Second watched the goddess leave, and then promptly let themselves freak out because this was nothing like what they had dealt with in the past. She was nothing like the gods they knew. She seemed to have unfathomable amounts of power, and, even more importantly, apparently couldn't die. How were they supposed to handle something like that?

It took both of them a good minute to realize that they were clinging to the other, Lorcan having pulled Second close to him with his arm, and Second having thrown his arms around Lorcan's waist. Second was the one who ended up leaving the embrace first. It was a tricky process, considering how close they were, but he finally broke free and took a step away.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Lorcan asked, looking over at his best friend.

Second took a deep breath. "I guess we have to go talk to other people."

"But the last time I did that," he said, "someone flirted with me."

Second looked him over. "Oh. It was before you ran into me, right?"

He nodded, face turning red at the memory of his encounter with Boris.

"Then I know what we should do," Second decided. He grabbed onto Lorcan's hand with his own and smiled at him. "There! Now everyone knows that you're already with someone, and everyone will know that I'm with someone, too. Although I think you get flirted with the most."

Lorcan's face turned even redder, and he ducked his head down to hide his embarrassment. "Second," he pointed out, "wouldn't people think that we're together? Like together-together, and not just best friends?"

Second also turned bright red. "B-But it's the only way, right?"

Lorcan hesitantly nodded.

Second didn't look his way. "I'm feeling thirsty. Are you feeling thirsty? Maybe we can go find something to drink that doesn't have alcohol. That sounds like a good plan, right?"

"Yeah," Lorcan said, gaze plastered on the ground. Together, the two made their way over to the drinks table.


"Fine," Asteri shot back, crossing his arms and looking away from her. The temperature around him dropped so much that he could see the breaths of the people in the near vicinity, and most, subconsciously noticing the source was where Asteri was, took several steps back to avoid growing colder. He shouldn't have been that surprised by what Eremia said. After all, it seemed like everyone here had someone that they knew and cared about. And then there was him, the unlucky demon prince who didn't even get the fortune of having one of his friends here. Heck, he would have even taken one of Hades' friends if it meant not being alone, and he barely knew him! He was just so, so lonely-

He blinked.

Had he been mistaken, or did he see someone with light purple hair? He went to turn around, only to stop when he saw the same person slip between the group of people that had stepped away from him. The heights were right, but the owner of the hair was wearing a suit and almost all of the women here were wearing dresses-

Nope, that was definitely her.

He hurried through the crowd, the temperature quickly returning to its normal one as he eagerly reached out and grabbed onto the shoulder of one of his best friends. She started to utter a spell before she had even finished turning around, but that threat was quickly stopped by him putting a hand over her mouth. She angrily yelled something at him, but her voice was muffled by his hand.

"Mira," he hurriedly said, knowing exactly what she would do next if he didn't clear things up, "it's me. Asteri. So please don't bite my hand."

He slowly removed said hand. She finished turning around and took the site of him in, eyes wide the entire time. "You look absolutely terrifying," she said. He stared back at her. "I'm sorry, but you do! Anyways, what's going on? I was in the middle of practicing a spell, and then I suddenly found myself here and apparently people are talking about being brought here by a god."

Asteri sighed. "It's a long story."

"Okay," Mira said. "If that's the case, I'm going to need a drink."

He stared at her. "Mira, you're sixteen."

"Not that type of drink!" she protested. "I meant like a soda or something. You could probably use one too-Oh. You can't drink."

"Yeah," he said with another sigh. He raised a hand and pointed at the drinks table. "We probably could find a root beer there for your."

She nodded, and the two went to go join the growing group of people over by the drinks table.

James watched the interaction between the two - saying nothing, but noting how Maahes smiled, and looked away in embarrassment when Vala spoke of their achievements.

"So how did you two meet each other?" James asked, pulling at a list of conversational questions in his head.

"It was at a bookstore," Maahes recalled, smiling at the memory. "We both went to grab the same book, and ended up recommending books to each other. We didn't know the truth about each other then."

Vala grinned. Playfully nudging him with her elbow, she added, "He must really like me. We kept running into each other after that, and I think it was just a bit too much of a coincidence that we ended up in the same ones."

"It was a coincidence," Maahes protested, face growing red at the first part of her comment. Of course he liked her! She was one of his few friends, and she was the only person - besides Annie, which was weird to think about after being convinced she was gone for so long - that knew the truth about him.

Vala's grin turned downright mischievous. "Like anyone would believe that after how many different books you've given me since we met." Maahes reddened even more. "Anyways, we kept meeting and pretending to be people we weren't for a good couple of months, right up until Maahes pretended to be a Goa'uld on the planet I was pretending to be a Goa'uld on in an attempt to ally himself with me. Let's just say that things got awkward fast. We ended up spilling the truth so we wouldn't say something stupid in front of the planet's people, and went our separate ways for about a week before we ran into each other in the same bookstore we first met in."

Maahes' face turned noticeably less red as the conversation progressed. "We made up and became friends again. Then, about a month ago, the Goa'uld Kek requested an audience with both me and Vala as the Goa'ulds we're supposed to be."

"And we had just finished killing and making a grand escape before we ended up here," Vala finished, taking a deep breath of air afterwards. It had been a long explanation, after all.

James raised his brows, slowly nodding his head as the story progressed. Even with Maahes's mask he could tell when his friend was blushing. He was aware that there was something there between them, but they kept referring to each other as friends, even without saying so outright, so he kept quiet. He looked to Maahes.

"Well, it certainly sounds like you've been busy since I last saw you."

"Yeah," Maahes agreed. He hesitated, then gave James a small smile. "I'm not sure if you remember, since it was so long ago, but Kek was the Goa'uld I wanted to kill for revenge and to complete my charge. It, uh, turns out that my summoner's still alive somewhere."

It was something he had barely had any time to process. It had been hard enough to do it during their escape, but then he had been whisked away to this place before he could truly let it sink in. Annie was alive and out there. All he had to do was find her, and then-

Well, he didn't really know what would happen next. But he could always cross that bridge when he got there.

James stared at Maahes for a few seconds, deep in thought as he scoured his memory for the conversation they had in the rain. It took him a moment, but Maahes's words brought the memory back, along with all of the... troubled emotions he'd felt at the time. But he chose to ignore those and focus on Maahes.

"Yes, I remember," he said with a nod. "And... when you find her, will you be able to back to your home? If I remember correctly?"

"She'll be able to dismiss me," he confirmed. He looked over at Vala and continued to smile. He'd be alright with being dismissed, but just for a bit this time around. He needed to recuperate, but the human's realm - well, that had always been more of a home than his true home, and with both Annie and Vala here, why would he ever want to leave?