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The Queen's Court



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Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:39 am
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Mageheart says...



"You can touch it," Lex reassured Rekan, one of his own hands absentmindedly reaching up to touch it. It was one of the unexpected side effects of getting his soul stuck in the body of a wither - the strange pulsing light had decided to stay when he took the humanizing potion.

He turned to look at Enide. "We probably should go now, shouldn't we? I know he might have left the area near the king, but it's hard to predict what Aleks will do."

xXx

Télos was reminded of Oracle when he saw the flames appear on the sword, and that little bit of recognition made the more important event - the reveal that the fox was Enide's husband - take a moment to register. But it had registered fairly quickly with the other three. Zeph and Aquarius both hesitated, and Aleks lowered his sword ever so slightly.

"Well, I guess he f****** knows, then," his chosen said.

It was after that insightful conclusion that the comment really registered. Télos stared at the stranger before them, but quickly managed to comprehend what that implied. Or, at least, some of it. He lowered his own sword, watching the flame blade out of the corner of his eye as he looked the fox over.

"So that makes you Amaya's brother, then!" Télos said, immediately perking up. Of course he had liked Enide - he wouldn't have looked for her if that wasn't the case - but he had liked Amaya even more. They were on a similar wavelength, if that adventure in the underground city was anything to go off of.

Zephyrus stepped over the bodies and joined Télos at his side, Aquarius hurrying over a second later. Aleks was the only one who remained in roughly the same location - he was glaring daggers at the fox while simultaneously pointing his sword at any guard who looked like they were moving.

"Something's not adding up," Zephyrus said.

Télos frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Theoretically, government could run differently here," the demigod continued, "but I don't think it does, based on what you told me. She's just supposed to be an advisor, so why is her husband also influential? He could have been the leader of a royal guard, but he's not armed to the extent someone like that should be."

"...Did she lie?" Aquarius whispered.

Télos made his sword disappear now that he wasn't the only one facing the fox, folding his arms as he thought what Zephyrus said over. "I'm going to say yes to that," Télos said. He studied the clothing the fox wore, then came to a conclusion that honestly shouldn't have been so surprising. "I think Enide's the queen. All of the things she described were things that a queen could be in charge of, too. No wonder she wasn't intimidated when I said what I ruled!"

He turned back to the fox.

"Sorry for the rudeness, your highness," Télos apologized. "I'm still a little iffy with the whole diplomacy thing, and Enide didn't exactly give us all the information - but I could see why she avoided that. We just wanted to talk to Enide because we thought she could help us out. I'm guessing she's mentioned it before, but we're from another world - she met me and Aleks back in a really weird underground city place, along with some other people."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:57 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Running his claw through Lex's hair gently, Rekan stared at the pulsating colors, freezing up for a few seconds. Then he pulled back his paw and bowed his head. "Sorry," he said. "I really haven't seen anything like that before, and I thought it looked ...cool."

"Lex seems to be the forgiving type," Enide said, standing up. "And also the correct type. Without any awareness of where you might be, it is perfectly plausible for Aleks to attack the King yet again." She extended a paw behind her. "So I suppose we must leave and look for the center of any chaos that we might come across. May you come with us, Amaya? And your husband, of course."

Rekan immediately got onto his feet, though he shuffled nervously, glancing between Amaya and Lex.

Tugging the bedsheets off of her face, Amaya used a claw to tear out a strip of fabric and wrap it over her eyes. Then, blindfolded, she got onto her feet and clasped Enide's paw. "Might as well," she said. "I don't like either of them, but as long as it gets Shiruba to shut up."

******


"Of course she lies!" Shiruba said, eyes darting between different attackers as they sheathed their weapons. Why weren't they afraid of him? How could they have figured out that he was the King, he was Amaya's brother, and Enide was the Queen? Why did they look little like any other human he had ever seen before? This 'other world' story was absurd, but he couldn't help but admit it made the slightest bit of sense. Nobody was supposed to know about Amaya. Few people could've put that much information together, and all of those people were supposed to be working for him. They must have met Amaya and Enide somehow, but no one like them had ever stepped foot in the palace. "What other choice does she have? And, for that reason, I refuse to invite the idea that you might visit her. Leave this palace, and dare you never to come back."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:41 am
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Mageheart says...



Lex glanced over at Rekan and gave him a sheepish smile. "It's okay," he reassured him. "I thought it looked cool when I first saw it, too, and you're not the only person who wanted to touch it." A lot of the chosen were wowed by the strangeness of his hair, and even those from Minecraftia were amazed by it.

He turned back to Enide and Amaya, ready to follow them. He didn't address the blindfold - after living with people like Télos for two years, you just learned to accept odd little things.

xXx

"I don't think she told him about you," Zephyrus guessed.

Télos was inclined to agree. He didn't why she hadn't thought to bring something like that up, but maybe the king and queen weren't on as good of terms as he assumed they would be. "Yeah, I'm getting that feeling, too."

"Well, s***," Aleks swore. He must have really been in a bad mood - he hadn't sworn as much as he had in the past five minutes in quite some time. He still kept his weapon out as he joined the other three, seemingly convinced that none of the guards would be coming to in the near future. "I thought she was f****** smart enough to tell her f****** husband about getting f****** kidnapped and brought to another f****** world."

"It wasn't kidnapping," Télos pointed out, but knew his correction wouldn't amount to much.

He spun around to face the king again. It was weird being around other royalty - especially when he suspected that this king was the typical type of king, not in the way he was. He knew there was probably etiquette he was supposed to follow, but there had never been any need to use it.

"We don't want to harm Enide," Télos quickly clarified, raising his hands up in the universal sign of peace. "I just thought it was a good idea to go to her, since we already knew her and she could tell us what to do."

"...We can't leave here," Aquarius quietly added. A glance back showed that he was peeking out from behind his twin, gaze nervous as he watched the king. "We...we would if we could, but we just ended up here and don't know how to get back home..."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:04 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Rekan ran over to the door to open it as Enide, Amaya in tow, walked out into the hallway. "It looks nice," Rekan said, looking back at Lex and gesturing for him to walk past. "It reminds me of the ocean. It'd be neat to have fur like that. But, uh, do you like your hair?"

******


Ugh, raising a hand against the royal personage. Shiruba took a step back, scowling at Télos. "You can quite easily wake out of this this palace," he said. "And my wife may not be particularly honest to me, but excuse me if I should sincerely doubt the idea that you traveled here from another world."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:21 am
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Mageheart says...



His smile grew. "I think I'll always miss my old hair," he said, following the group as they exited the room, "but this hair's pretty cool, too." He knew they no longer had to hide his appearance from the king, but Lex wisely pulled the hood up in case they encountered someone else. He was sure their procession looked more than a little odd - him with the hood, and Amaya being led around by Enide with the makeshift blindfold over her eyes.

xXx

"Weren't you listening to us?" Aleks growled. "We don't know the f****** way, a******! We're not from your s**** world-"

Télos loudly cleared his throat, trying to avoid making the situation even worse than it already was. His chosen's frustrations made sense, but this was one of those times where Aleks really had to avoid making someone mad with his swears and anger.

"I would have doubted it, too," Télos said. He didn't clarify that he would have doubted it awhile ago - now, he was pretty used to the idea of other worlds. Lex and Katy were both from Earth. Liz was in the same boat, too. Magic could do amazing yet confusing things. "But I swear we're telling the truth."

He gave him an awkward smile.

"Maybe names are a good place to start?" Télos guessed. "I'm Télos, god of gold and ruler of the End because democracy takes way too long to put into place! Aleks is the swearing one - he's my chosen, and isn't actually a human. He's a wither skeleton that took a potion to look one, if you have potions or wither skeletons here."

Aleks glowered at the king in response.

Télos put his hands down and pointed at Zephyrus. "This is Zephyrus, god of ice! He's technically a demigod, but we count demigods as gods where I'm from. He's my younger brother - same mom, different dad." Zephyrus gave the king a casual smile and wave.

Télos finished his explanation by gesturing at Aquarius, who looked like he desperately wished to not be the center of attention. "The last member of our little group is Aquarius, god of water! He and Zephyrus are twins, so he's also a demigod and my little brother." Aquarius nervously raised his hand up and waved at the king, promptly ducking behind his twin a second later.

"Oh," Télos suddenly remembered, "I don't know if Enide or Amaya even mentioned your name when talking about you! What exactly is it, your highness?"
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:32 pm
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TheSilverFox says...



"None of your concern," Shiruba hissed. Waving his sword, he took a few steps back. "All of you are insane! I have no evidence by which to confirm the notion that there might be gods such as yourselves, much less other worlds with other deities. I can only confirm that you are threats to the well-being of the royal family. Leave this palace, leave this country, or will you find that the guards you have struck down are but a sliver of the army at my disposal. And may you-"

Shiruba heard footsteps behind him. Whirling around, the smug grin at the idea that his spies had arrived just as quickly died when his family appeared at the other end of the hallway, accompanied by one of the strange humans.

"Hey!" Amaya said, cupping her paws over her mouth. "F**-"

Enide placed a paw over Amaya's mouth. "My King," she said with a small bow.

"What is the meaning of this?" Shiruba said, staring at his wife. "What incurred their wrath? Did you steal that human from them?"

Glancing around Shiruba, Enide frowned. Shiruba bit his lip - how bad was the situation that he could actually tell something had bothered Enide? "It is essentially a mishap, my King," she said. "Due to factors outside of my control, these newcomers found themselves in our palace, and I was attempting to navigate them to safety.
Though I had only believed to be one other visitor here."

"By all means," Shiruba said, spreading out his arms, "Explain it to me."
Last edited by TheSilverFox on Thu Feb 21, 2019 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sun Feb 17, 2019 1:26 pm
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Mageheart says...



"We just f****** did," Aleks said with another low growl, only to stop when he saw the person standing near Enide. Their face was hidden in shadows, and their clothes were unfamiliar, but the comments on both the king and Enide's parts made him pause for once in his life. He recognized the hood - it had a little white stain from the time that they had been helping Liz paint her room.

Relief immediately flooded him. He quickly bridged the group between Enide's group and his own, stopping when he reached the hooded figure. "You're alright, b******," he said. He resisted the strong urge to hug Lex. He wasn't going to do that, especially not here and now - there were too many other people present.

Lex pushed back the hood and gave him a smile.

(One that made his heart melt and his cheeks grow warm, but he quickly pushed that thought away.)

"I am," he confirmed. Lex took a step forward and raised his arms ever so slightly, like he was about to hug him. Aleks quickly turned around and returned to the group of gods, listening to Lex's footsteps as the player followed his over.

"Hey!" Télos said from nearby, waving at Amaya and Enide. "It's a good thing you came when you did - we're not making much progress explaining things to him."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Thu Feb 21, 2019 8:03 pm
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TheSilverFox says...



Shiruba glared at the reuniting taking place in front of him. He always did hate to not be the center of attention. At least it gave enough time for Enide to compose herself and prepare her argument, after nodding to Télos.

"Do you remember the time that Amaya and I disappeared for a couple of weeks?" Enide said. "And I told you on my return that we had attempted to evade a potential assassin."

"Dumba**!" Amaya called out. "We got sucked into another world!"

Sighing, Enide nodded. "Essentially," she said. "And we met the people you see before you."

"So-" Shiruba began, but Enide raised a paw. He huffed and tapped a foot.

"For reasons that are, as of the moment, beyond us, some of them have paid us a visit. I apologize for my dishonesty, but I was attempting to avoid any undue attention that might jeopardize the safety of ourselves or them. Unfortunately, it does not appear that fortune favors me."

"What would you like me to do?" Shiruba said, throwing up his arms. "Just let them stay here?"

"Precisely," Enide said. "See them off to the guest quarters, keep them out of the public eye, and debate what to do with them after Fenella leaves." She looked around at the others. "If you should find this to be acceptable."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:14 pm
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Mageheart says...



Télos gave her a thumbs up.

"Sounds good to me," he said. He didn't know too much about what was going on in this world - or even who Fenella was - but it did seem like a good plan. He glanced at the others from Minecraftia. All were giving similar gestures of agreement, though Aleks was still oddly avoiding looking in Lex's direction.

Hm...

He shared a look with Zephyrus.

"Aleks," Télos mouthed.

Zephyrus shook his head ever so slightly, gaining an odd look from his twin in the process. "Lex," Zephyrus mouthed back. Télos didn't press the matter, not wanting the two in question to realize just what they were arguing about.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:14 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Enide glanced over at the interdimensional travelers in interest. They were mouthing what she believed were people's names, but she couldn't read lips, and the conversation ended almost as quickly as it had begun. She couldn't help but be suspicious, even if the travelers had been nothing but polite and friendly so far. But, keeping an eye on them had been the entire point in the first place, so she didn't worry about it too much at the moment.

Besides, Shiruba had stared to talk.

"So be it," the King said, pulling a paw down his face. "Take them to the guest quarters, and never let Fenella see any of them - I do not believe she would take their origins well, and the court would be abuzz with rumors." He turned around and walked off, pulling up a couple of his guards. Dripping and shivering, their armor dented and rusting, most of them looked terrible. But they got onto their feet all the same.

"Enide?" he said, right before he turned down the hallway and vanished from sight. "Next time, do tell me sooner. I imagine we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache."

And then the King left.

"Because you totally would've believed her," Amaya mumbled.

Bowing her head, Enide sighed. "It would have been honest," she said, lifting her head up. "Whether he would have chosen to believe in me would have been his own decision. Now, are we ready to pay a visit to the guest quarters?"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Sat Mar 02, 2019 2:21 pm
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Mageheart says...



Télos looked at the others from his world before giving Enide a confident nod. He didn't like the idea of being confined to guest quarters, but he guessed he could understand the need for diplomacy. "We're ready to go whenever you are."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:24 pm
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TheSilverFox says...



Nodding her head, Enide strode past the travelers. Holding Amaya's hand, Rekan followed Enide, glancing back at the travelers at random intervals as they made their way through the maze of hallways in the palace. Enide pretended not to notice how nervous Rekan was.

A few minutes later, Enide stopped in front of a small pair of straw doors. Sliding them apart, she let light spill into the hallway behind her. Taking a deep breath to smell the perfume that was hundreds of flowers, she walked out onto a grassy courtyard. The flowers coated the center of the courtyard, coloring it red and yellow and orange. Stone steps extended from the flower garden, leaning to a wooden deck that stretched around the courtyard. To her right, a flight of stairs rose up to the second floors of the building that surrounded the deck. On both floors of the building, dozens of closed doors showed just how expansive these guest quarters were.

"Make yourselves at home," Enide said, turning back to the rest of the group. "Though I am aware that at least some of these rooms are occupied, most of the wolves are not expected to arrive until the queen visits tomorrow. You have at least the night. I imagine that will be enough time to decide what to do next."
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Gender: Nonbinary
Points: 1234
Reviews: 590
Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:46 pm
Mageheart says...



The five marveled at the sight before them. Even though all of them lived within Télos's palace in the End, it was nothing like the guest quarters before them. This area felt far more free. Télos wanted to embrace his inner child and run in the open air, but decided against it when he remembered that Enide and the others were still there.

He would just have to wait until only the people from Minecraftia were left.

"Thanks," Télos said, giving her a big grin as he turned back to look at the people from this world. "We really appreciate it. We'll try to come up with a good way to deal with this whole situation tonight."

Aleks frowned at the promise, but Lex nudging him with his elbow promptly stopped him from making any protests to the declaration. He cast a glance over at Lex and scooted a little farther away, cheeks gaining a distinct red tinge as he looked at an indeterminable point in the distance.

"...We'll make sure to keep everything the way it is right now," Aquarius quietly promised. His twin gave a confident nod from beside him.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.








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