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It so happens that the night after the full moon the recent tithes awaken to find themselves once more in the grand ballroom of the Sorrowful One's manse. Cleared of the fanciful drapes and the tittering otherbeings, it is creepily cavernous. Bone-white pillars stretch up, and up, and up, and up--

the sky overhead is empty.

There is no Melany. Ezra is not present. Nor is Noeh, and Adoelle is lacking as well (for obvious reasons).

The Peaceful One, though, it's there. It is a tall black deer, absorbing light without reflection, except for the six great green staring eyes. Hello, it says.

Welcome

It is time

Now you Ascend

now you will Become

I will assist

Six chairs loom behind it, even as its dark antlers seem to reach up for the missing stars.

Honestly, the night after Shiloh's escape was a blur. He didn't sleep. He hadn't slept. Escaping with Jamie had been exhilarating and terrifying all at once; except he didn't know what he was supposed to do with that freedom. How could he, after living life so long under Melany's thumb?

It happens sometime around 4 when he blinks—and he swears to god it was just a blink—when he's suddenly in the ballroom again, back in court. In his exhaustion, he's left with two possibilities: One: That he had somehow, by some means, been sucked back into this ungrateful hell, or that two: the party had never actually happened and that escape had all just been a fanciful dream. Sleep deprived, the latter seemed like the most obvious choice.

Except he was wearing the clothes from the night before and that time with Jamie had felt far too real to be anything but the truth. He found solace in it.

But he was still back in Court, and he wondered what was replacing him in the real world. Would it be another three months? Would it be years now? Panic gripped at his throat, eyes darting around the wide expanse like Melany might walk out from behind a pillar, might give him that tight lipped smile and tell him to grovel. It's then that he catches the glimpse of a large black deer, it's green eyes being the only vague familiarity; he had seen something like this at the party. One of the deer siblings? It was a deer anyway.

"I'm not—" his voice falls flat when he hears something else familiar, eyes turning to see Thorne. No, is all he can think, no no no no no—why are they here why are they back here, why is—

Why is Thorne going along with this?

Shiloh looked at the man, somewhat dumbfounded. It was true that... the deer thing wasn't immediately trying to destroy him, but that didn't mean it couldn't. He quickly ran over, taking the seat next to him. It dawns on him that the other remaining chairs match the number of tithes.

"Become what?" he asked the creature, hands clasping the seat of his chair as he rocked it back and forth nervously. This screamed bad idea.

Alois wasn’t sure when he woke - if he woke. He knew the night looked like darkness, the pillars climbed toward the sky, and the ballroom stretched before him like a mouth ready to take and take and take. He knew he felt cold beyond the numbness. He knew he moved in stutters and shakes and starts.

And he knew he wasn’t alone.

Alois’ vision lit in a series of starbursts when he tried to look about him. Brilliant flecks, the minute losses of his consciousness, danced about his gaze wherever he looked. People were reduced to mere gestures, including the figure standing far before them. He at because he had to - because he knew that if he trusted his weight to shaken legs any longer, then he would collapse to the floor unceremoniously. He knew the ballroom was not to be treated in such a way. He knew he was expected to stand with grandeur or seat himself and disappear.

So he did as he was bid, and found the chair abiding to his exsanguinated, trembling weight. Fingers tried to grip but lacked the blood to do so. He hardly felt at all. If anyone lingered around him, he could only guess at the identities.

And the words spoken made sense not at all.

He breathed his shuddering sigh, he gathered his goosebumps about himself. His hair remained wet with the cold sweat of loss. Alois set his teeth but they chattered in their loss of fine motor control. Blood loss afforded him no dignity.

But he would endure it, because he had to. Because living wasn’t a choice - it was an obligation now.

Half-healed already, the long, grinning gouge in his left arm smiled out at the lot.

Peaceful One? So it was one of the siblings—when it regressed into a more humanoid form, Shiloh settled at the recognition. If the name was any indication, then maybe it wouldn't hurt them? He looked to Thorne again, noticing as the other tithes started to trickle in. The eggs in Rabbit's lap were a bizarre addition to this already ludicrous charade, but he wouldn't question it. He hadn't noticed Alois or his wounds until the Peaceful One pointed it out.

One night back in Ashdown, and Alois gets himself hurt? Go figure.

"Wait, nobles?" He wasn't necessarily asking Pax, but he echoed the sentiment regardless as he shifted in his chair with unease. Ceremony? Was this what Melany had really meant when she said take you to court?

"The f—hell happened to you?" he spoke a little louder at Alois, though the question was relatively rhetorical. He swallowed, looking to Thorne again. "You could help him, couldn't you?" he murmured under his breath. There had been a multitude of times where, after unfortunate incidents with Melany, Thorne had helped him with his own pain. Shiloh kicked his feet, getting distracted with Rabbit and his eggs again. Seriously, what the hell was up with that.

Granted, Pax's change in size and shape did tame his fear somewhat, but it was immediately replaced when the eggs began to shake. He had been too apprehensive to wonder why they had followed him back here at all, let alone why there was a sixth chair or why Alois had a cut on his arm that looked like... oh... well, s**t. And although he might have had a moment to contemplate these things had it just been his brother and Shiloh and Thorne talking about magic and touching each other, he couldn't concentrate on any of it because... eggs.

He hadn't given up on them, not even while he had been away, but now that they were doing something on their own, Ezra's warning came back to him. You may not like what you find.

Rabbit scooped them up, holding them close to his chest. "Eggs." His voice was a breathy squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Eggs."

Hux awoke within the ballroom with a start. His eyes were wide as he gazed around at his surroundings, cruelly familiar, and a grimace formed on his face.

He was, he realized, facing away from the rest of the group, wearing nothing but a pair of grey cotton pants. The very same pants he'd gone to sleep in while curled on the floor of his sister's living room.

He hadn't woke on the floor, though. He'd come to standing, zombie-like. The deer-thing spoke, and his entire body tensed.

He turned to face Pax, the rest of the dreamers, and the six chairs that loomed behind the being he knew to be the Peaceful One, as he'd been taught the names of all the court members by Adoelle.

Adoelle wasn't there. For obvious reasons.

The scent and appearance of blood no longer fazed him, but when he pictured the way that knife had sliced across her perfect throat he had to curl his hands into tight, angry fists. It had been right there, next to Pax- hadn't it?

It took him a long time to tear his gaze away from the spot on the floor where she had crumpled. When he did, he was almost eerily untroubled by the appearance of Alois' gored forearm.

He was sure everyone in this room had thought about it at least once since the masquerade's end, if their fetch had treated their life anything like Hux's had treated him.

He stayed quiet. He waited.

Thorne hums and smiles at Alois, but it is a ghosting expression, and the pain lingers in the edges of his eyes. His arm feels the same ache now that Alois does, the aftermath of a torturous session. His own scars burn.

"It's nothing," he responds, mild. "Do you feel better? I can't take all of it, or I would. I'm sorry."

He looks up, startling a bit at the sound of cracking eggs. Hux appears, but Thorne has only met him in passing. He nods his head at the other, a silent hello, and turns to the slighter of their group.

"Did you bring chickens here?" he can't help asking Rabbit dubiously. But his eyes lower and the hand makes his stomach drop. "What is that?"

Hux's exposed chest and arms were covered in dark reddish-purple bruises; remnants of his beating in the spire, remnants of his death battle with P'lux. His lip was split, his eyes dark and shadowed. He took shallow breaths, to avoid the inevitable shift of his fractured ribs. He hadn't had the time to visit the hospital.

After the masquerade, he'd ended up finding a portal out. One that Adoelle had shown him. It had ejected him directly into Margaery's room- dark, cold, abandoned. Had he cried? He couldn't remember.

His eyes drifted to Thorne mid-acknowledgemnet. His appearance was wickedly familiar to Hux, and though he did his best to remind himself that it had been the doppleganger not the original that had wronged him something about the other felt... wrong.

Then again, everything here felt wrong.

Hux tore his attention from Thorne. He looked at the eggs. Rabbit's eggs? He glanced at the man he'd run into time and time again, then watched with mild interest as a hand broke past delicate shell.

Weird. He thought.