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 Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:14 am
How could anything think he was suitable to rule anything more flourishing than Kainaldia; that land's barren look should be the only thing to suit him. And yet, here some... voice was claiming he was the appointed ruler of Arinas! Mentally, Meeya was curling up and loudly disclaiming the truth of the words, but physically he just swallowed and took a few defensive steps back before stopping again. The sunlight falling through one of the holes were now completely enveloping him in a pool of light and warmth.
I..." What was he supposed to say? He shouldn't be here, if only because he couldn't be right for this sort of position, not with what he was. But she sounded kind, and so assured that Meeya didn't want to refuse her. Lun dove towards his head and ruffled his hair, and Meeya scowled and hit after the waterlight, making the small ball fly heedlessly through the air before Lun got control over limbs and direction again.
Stupid waterlight.
"... All right."
Kushina looked over the dispersing crowd of nobles; a few were still standing in pritave groups silently discussing, but most were heading out and back to their rooms and beds. A collection of maids had earlier crowded around Madiir's table, though now only one was left, looking small and fragile where she stood in front of the table. All was under control, though tomorrow, after she'd gotten a nice amount of sleep, when she presented her report to Lord Jett, he would hear a piece of her mind!
Had she not taught him better!? Had she been alone, or already with Jett, this thought would most probably have been accompanied by a wounded air and a hand to her chest. As it was, she kept the dramatic action mental, saving it for later.
Liozu had slowly wandered through the mostly-empty corridors back to his room. The room was surveyed with the look of someone who was used to much more different standards, whatever they could be, and then judged with a snort.
"Ah, whatever. It's not as if I'll have to sleep here. Good night, darling," the last words were bitingly mocking, but as in their shared mind Liozu had already fallen asleep from exhaustion, there was no answer, and Empress was free to withdraw to her own mind, without having to worry about being revealed by Liozu while she was gone.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:01 pm
The aseemed to be a kind of vibration in the air or softening of the atmosphere, as if she was smiling and the listener was able to feel it. "Once, not too long ago seen in the eyes of our kind but the opposite in the eyes of the Arinian people, when the kingdom was just rebuilt, the Faeries of Arinas were found and awoken by the first Queen. We swore alligance to her and her King because she was of our own blood and we did not wish to see our world so low again. We were the guardians of Arinas, their majesties, the land and the people's first and foremost protection against anything and all. But when the rulers disappeared we went to sleep again," she explained, giving Meeya a short summary of how it came to be like this.
"All but me, that is. As I accepted the role as Stewardess, to wait and guide your majesty when you came along, I'm only partly asleep. With Arinian magic I have been guaring this royal palace to the best of my avail. Deep inside the castle, down far below, lies a hidden sanctuary in which there is a crystal orb from the Old Arinas, from before the time of Cursed Sleep put on us by the Renkin Wizard Kharl. Through this orb I am operate and am present, though only in spirit. I can, however, take a visible shape. Would you like me to?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:16 pm
Meeya wanted to say no. She was faerie, and if he was able to see her... But that would be rude, so Meeya wouldn't do that. Unfisting his hands, they nonetheless fisted again as he shifted on his feet; this was much too strange.
"Uhm... If you like? I mean, go ahead," he felt so stupidly clumsy, and the prospect of having to talk with a faerie like that as was depicted in the mosaic made Meeya uneasy. He felt like he should retreat to the shadows by the walls, not stand here in the middle of the floor in a pool of light.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:33 pm
Kamikits So that was it, then. Ana was still in a slight state of, well, terror at the thought of meeting Liozu later. It wasn't that she was afraid of him (okay, so maybe she was), but that she was scared of the meeting itself. What if she did something stupid? Like mispronounce his name or choke on her words or trip and fall when he was still watching? Oh, so many things could go wrong...
Noticing the slowly dispersing crowd of maids surrounding Madiir's table, Ana decided to slip in and get her fortune read as well. If she put her cart back in the kitchen and offered to help clean up a few dishes, she should be able to get back out just as the last few girls were leaving. She didn't want anyone else to hear what she was going to ask to have foretold.
With this careful timing, Ana soon found herself standing behind the last couple giggling girls at the seer's booth. They soon hurried off to fortunes of improved health and impending news from home and she was left tentatively folding and unfolding her hands before her breast.
"E-excuse me, Madiir, sir..."
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:44 pm
She seemed to smile again, sympathetically this time though. "Your majesty, do not fear the light of your own kind. You are home," she said before there flared a soft glow to life in the middle of the room, right above the mosaic faerie's heart. The light grew into the shape of a female faerie, skin pale and features serene and smooth, perfection. But the color of her hair grew darker until it was that of a deep ruby, far from the often very light colors of the Dusian faeries. High upon her head, held stead by a tightly looped gold bracelet, was a loop of hair big enough to put almost a head through. The rest of her hair then followed down her head to her neck where a similar bracelet held it together in a low ponytail before it was allowed to flow down her back to her waist.
As the woman opened her eyes, they were revealed to be the color of pale sea jade. Except for the light eyes she looked similar to Meeya himself with her partly dark complexion. The dress she wore was simple but flowing and hung lightly on her full and curvy frame. Simling for real this time, warm and friendly, the woman crossed her arms over her chest, fingertips touching the tip of her shoulders as she sank down to one knee. After only a moment she turned her head up again, eyes now open after having been closed out of respect.
"Your majesty... do you accept our plea? Will you take up your rightful place as King and Master of Arinas?" she asked in a soft voice.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:59 pm
Wincing at the mention of faeries as his own kind, Meeya shook his head, as if to deny just that fact, but it seemed to be mostly an unconcious expression. There was a choice? How could there be a choice? She had said he was, however not right it seemed to Meeya, the king of Arinas, and if that was so... However much he felt like he shouldn't be, that he wasn't right for such a position, it wasn't right to decline because of that.
Did Arinas even need a ruler? Again fighting the urge to turn and flee, to ignore it, Meeya knew that it wasn't his place to question... wait, he could question it, all right, that wasn't the problem. Rather, it wasn't his place to deny the people the right to choose, to not even agree even if he thought he was tainted. But surely, anyone could see that, even if the faerie in front of him had darker hair than what Meeya was used to...
However it was, whavever Arinas needed, or perhaps, didn't need, it wasn't his place to decide that. Not really. Choice was less a factor here compared to need. Even if the idea of standing in front of a large crowd of people, of having to work with a lot of people daily made Meeya cringe and want to curl in on himself, he really didn't have the right to step away.
"I... suppose I do..." licking his lips, Meeya shook his head again, looking a fair bit paler than he usually was. "I will," and while his voice didn't shake as he confirmed the decision, it was certainly faint enough to get lost in the large hall without echoing.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:16 pm
"Thank you, your majesty." Her smile was truly happy. "There always is a choice and you always have the right to pick either of two, or more, options. However, depending on how you answered it could have, perhaps, endangered the future world," she spoke, making it clear that she meant the whole world and not just Arinas. "We all thank you for taking this task upon you and we will strive to help you in ever way we can. That is, after all, what we are here for. Now, let me bestow upon you a sign of your choice and a crest that that perhaps not the youngest but the oldest of citizen of Arinas would recognize... as the high royal crest of the Arinian Court," she said before spreading her arms wide and a hazy, violet mist began to swirl around Meeya's limbs.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:31 pm
Shifting uncomfortably before him, Ana looked down at her wide skirt, almost trembling as she spoke.
"W-well, I wanted to know if you could please give me a reading as well..." Her voice trailed off as she spoke until Madiir could barely hear it. Gathering her courage, what little of it she felt she possessed, Ana continued. "Please, sir, I'm... I'm... I'm going to be... to be meeting someone tomorrow and I want to know how it will go."
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Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:28 am
Madiir suddenly smirked. "Here, sit down then. I'll give you fuller reading, since, as everyone knows, first dates are very important. Here, shuffle these." He placed the cards in Ana's hands. Then Madiir's eyelid sank shut. When they opened again, the seer seemed to change, almost. It was very subtle, but still present. He took the cards back from her in a slightly different manner, more delicate and careful, then how he handed them to her. Silently, he spread out several cards, all face-down. "Turn this one first, please." He indicated to one card. "This is you. The Queen of the Thrones of Water. She is an innocent soul, easily influenced by people and events." He indicated the next card. "This one will be the one you are to meet." As the card was flipped, Madiir's eyes went wide, as he snapped out of whatever trance he may have been in. The flipside of the card was nearly black. "What?! What is this?! These cards were cleansed!" He grabbed the card from her and stared at it closely. "The.....Devil....reversed. But how could that be blackened?!" Without letting her touch the rest, he flipped them over. Each and every one of them was blackened, save the first card. "The.....martyr....also blackened...I can't even tell what these last two are!"
((In case anyone is wondering, I did take these cards from the original Tarot deck. The Queen of the Thrones of Water is the name for the Queen of Cups. The Devil (reversed) has the same name. And The Martyr is the name I gave the Nine of Swords. What do they mean? Look them up yourself! xd ))
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:17 pm
Nadil Turning her face from the floor, and twisting it to watch Midare, the dragon gave her companion a wry smile. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. But as long as I have Kanak close at hand... I'll be all right," she said and her smile turned more genuine. It didn't matter what these people's traditions said... as long as she had Kanak she knew there would always be a stable point in her life, there would always be a light however dim or bleak the world seemed.
"How about you?" she asked, changing the subject. "What do you think of this place? Or perhaps you were born in Dusis?" She remembered that it had never really come up where Midare was from. "There aren't many faeries around in Arinas after all..."
"I left. A long time ago." She offered a slightly pained smile. "I didn't fit in ... very well. So I've been on my own for quite a while now."
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:22 pm
((Delte! <33))
Ana had been willing herself to hold back tears at the sarcastic, almost biting tone of Madiir's voice and now she stared bewildered at the seer's words. Her voice and heart were crawling over each other as she began to panic in reaction to Madiir's frantic actions and she was playing anxiously with her hands once more.
"Wha... what does that mean? What's going on?"
Baran rubbed the back of his head awkwardly in the drawn-out silence before Celia finally answered him.
"Really? Oh, good! I thought someone might have beaten me to it. I mean, you're really cute." He laughed out of nerves at his boldness and took a step closer. "So, tomorrow. Are you free in the late afternoon? I'm going to have some free time after four and I don't need to report for anything until the next morning. We can go out into the town. I'm sure I can get permission to leave and you, well, you're a Dragon Knight." He laughed again. "I guess you can go pretty much anywhere."
Baran held out his hand for her to shake, grinning broadly at his achievement.
"So it's a date, then?
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:33 am
((Gahh!! T.T I have no idea what I'm doing here....Honestly, I've never even been asked out before, none the less by 2 guys, so I have NO idea how to do this....>.< *knows how pathetic that is*))
"Alright, I'll see you then,"Said Celia, with a little smile, as she shook his hand a bit timidly. She still wasn't quite used to the idea of dating, but thought that the bolder her she was trying to be should probably at least try it.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:31 pm
Meeya made a muffled squeaky sound in the back of his throat, one of his daggers instinctively clutched in one hand as the magic rose, cool and slightly ticklish-like over his limbs.
In a way, it felt like water, even though it was mist; but it was magic, so any regular senses couldn't really be trusted. The hazy swirled up and around, for a moment fully covering Meeya before it receded, dancing at Meeya's feet before dispersing fully.
"Whaa...?" Staring, Meeya's black eyes went wide. He'd been stripped naked and changed! Well, all right, he'd never noticed or seen himself get naked, but his clothes were all different, so he'd had to! Meeya was now wearing a wide-collared robe-like thing that didn't have any sleeves except for the folds the collar made around his chest, and it had slits on the sides, wide and flowy at the bottom and pure white. Under that he wore a wide-sleeves turtle-neck with clasps over the side of his chest, partly visible from the wide collar of the outer part of the outfit, and the embroidery on it was the same colour as the lighter streaks in his hair.
The mosaic under his feet felt cool, but smooth.
"What the..! What did you do? Where're my clothes?" Meeya didn't exactly shout, but that could be because his voice was mostly choked up from the surprise.
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:33 pm
For once in his life, Madiir was being serious. "I... I'm not...quite sure... It's happened before...but only when I've tried to look in on something alot more powerful than myself...This one..." He indicated what he had called "The Devil". The card was now completely covered by black, even the name was blotted out, "This one idicates pure evil....And this one...." Only the 'm' was visible, now. "Indicates deception, cruelty, violence and scandal. But there is also hope of redemption, as the martyr indicates new life out of suffering..." He mused to himself aloud now, "But am I doing a reading for you...or for the castle?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:47 pm
With a short wave, Baran bid Celia good night, heading back to the HQ with a much lighter heart than he had left it. Oh, tomorrow was going to be great.
Tomorrow was going to be terrible. Ana was tightly clutching her hands before her chest, trying to slow and regulate her breathing. If something this horrible had happened when all she had been looking for was "will I or will I not fall flat on my face", she couldn't even imagine what would happen when she tried to pick out a dress! There would probably be a lightening storm and the gardens would catch fire and burn the castle to the ground, all because she wouldn't know whether to wear a blue or white skirt!
"I, um," Ana looked away, teasing her lower lip as she felt the tears rise back in full force. "I... Thank you very much. I'm sorry I've been such a trouble to you." She rose quickly, dipping into a short bow, the movement sending a trail of water down her cheek.
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