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[[??? : ??? : ???]]

[[Cue: Kiniro no Choshou (Golden Sneer) by Akiko Shikata from Umineko]]

"Are you sure that's the move you want to make?" spoke a voice from the dark figure across from Noelle.

The girl sat in a dark, cloth covered room, adorned with several silks draped like tapestries and streamers through the small space. It was dark, apart from the shadowy colors of purple, black, and red that made of the cloth walls, the only light came from the crystal ball like item that took up most of the table before her, and the soft glow from incense sticks that smoldered about the tent-like structure. In the crystal she could see herself with her father, sitting on a bench. This wasn't real.

Somehow, Noelle had found herself in this space, a tiny pocket of a world with this man dressed in robes of eccentric and esoteric design. He smiled at her, chuckling lightly, "You must know, there are far better things you could have done."

Somewhere along the line, she had found herself in this room. How she got there, when, or why were all mysteries to her. She couldn't remember arriving, nor what she'd been doing before, simply that she awoke here and has been stuck ever since. This man, had been present since the beginning.

There had been a time of confusion for the girl, the young man had done his best to explain what he could to the girl, but none of it made much sense despite his best efforts. After all, even he couldn't answer her most pressing questions, where were they? How did they get there? Why were they here?

The cloth walls around them offered little resistance to one's attempt to leave, doubtless the girl had tried, but slipping through was a confusing loop, that simply led her back to the chair she'd woken up in, it seemed there was no escape. Before them was a game, an illusion, where she was told to control herself and play a part; a role that would, according to her fellow occupant of this small space, free her from this room should she complete the game. The point of this game wasn't very well explained, merely she was told from the beginning the goal would become clear in time... and the only rule that was set in stone was not to break the essence of the illusion, in other words, remain in-character, else consequences would surely follow.

And here she was, making her first move wandering blindly until something developed to give her reason to do otherwise, all while watching these illusions of everyone move about on their own like watching a movie, or a play of marionettes dancing about on invisible strings.

There was a certain instinctive cruelty in his smile as the male questioned her move, like a spider toying with a fly, "Guess that makes it my turn then?"

((OOC: This scene is a special scenario only related to Noelle. No one else is aware of this interaction and can't participate in the conversation. I apologize in advance if this feels unfair in any way.))

[Amy : Narnia : Grand Hall]

"That's kind of sucky," Amy commented, "I would like to show off my magic to my babe."

Zee kissed her on the top of the head, it being convenient to reach with how tall he was compared to her. "I've got some cool stuff to show you, too, babe. You wouldn't even believe." She could tell he wanted to elaborate, but he held back and rested his chin on her head instead. "We can show each other later."

That one girl whose name she forgot mentioned a riddle. It was a direct question, aimed to anyone, and no one had answered so far, so Amy felt comfortable answering, "King's Riddle? Never heard of it." Maybe it would give her and Zee an excuse to go off to solve it, and conveniently disappear from the event.

[Joe: Narnia: Grand Hall]

"...It is, Bobbi."

The mention of the Negator had thrown Joe's anxieties into a direction. Probably not a useful one, as he was getting a mix of fear and anger. and he was starting to latch on to it. Which didn't help little 'Benjamin' who was suddenly being annoying.

"Go away, kid." He said this through gritted teeth, his good eye glaring daggers at the kid. "I have more important s**t to deal with then answer your stupid questions."

"Take care of this kid already, as your host has already insulted me as well as the rest of the Earthlings." His body was tensed, shoulders squared, jaw locked into place as his voice took an edge. How dare they use the Negator? Had he even known that was going to be in play he would've fought against them coming here harder than his passive resistance of not wanting to be at a party.

And anyway, how did Nanaki find out about the Negator? Was he told once he got here early? Why weren't they told about it when they got here? That should've been something they should have been told as soon as possible, and Joe would've known if someone had mentioned that information to him. He wouldn't have forgotten it, considering a Negator was part of the reason he wore his eye patch.

So, the fact that he didn't even want to be here already was suddenly compounded with new information, making the male anxious, angry, and more than a little annoyed.

[Amy : Narnia : Grand Hall]

Amy was sometimes unobservant, and didn't realize Joe had gotten angry at the young boy. She understood only through the context of what people were saying what had happened. She hadn't seen it, so it wasn't like she could really judge, and Joe looked pretty uncomfortable and on edge. Amy wondered where his loved one was. She was sure she saw him earlier with who must have been his mother.

Amanda continued, bringing the subject back to the King's Riddle. It was the perfect excuse to get out of the main hall, and away from the crowd. Amy liked riddles; riddles were fun.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," Amy said, "I've always been a fan of riddles. That's what Zee and I are going to go do right now, I think. We get to see more of the castle and look for gold plaques. Kind of like a treasure hunt. What do you think, babe?" She looked up at her babe.

"Right, I'm in. Sounds like fun."

Amy nodded to the group, and she and Zee left, leaving the hall through the nearest exit.

[Joe: Narnia: Main Hall]

Joe was about to yell at the child for asking another question, though bit back his tongue when the next barrage of questions came out. Though, he was still too on edge to properly tend to the boys feelings. With words, at least. And he just kind of stood there as the hostess came up.

She seemed to realize something was amiss, and attempted to resolve the issue. In fact, he was about to openly say why he was insulted, when someone else cut in.

The monk gave Danial a look as he spoke. It was a look of mild confusion, which slowly bubbled into anger. After all, how dare he speak for the Earthlings on this one? He wasn't there. He didn't go through the Negator. He couldn't possibly know what had happened to their large group.

That rage started to turn towards Alan once he spoke, his anger leaving him temporarily wordless. How dare the two of them look at him that way? Alan at least should have known what had happened!

And then Kichi...that was the painful one. Not because of who it came from, but because it was a verbal brush off. Like Joe didn't have his reasons. And he had plenty of reasons as to why he did the things he did. But to be brushed off like that, by someone he fought next to....

Joe was literally shaking, hands clenched into fists. He stood there, shaking, his rage jumping everything he wanted to yell and scream out at them. But before anything could be let loose...

People came to his defense. He stood there, jaw locked into place, hands still shaking, as everyone said their thing. He moved a little at Mathy's hand, as if to move from under it, but it didn't move. And thus, it stayed.

Finally, he could speak, now that he had someone on his 'side' and calmed down a little thanks to that...though it was slow, drawn out. He was clearly still angry.

"Yes. We have a poor history with Negators. Had I known one was going to be used, I would've attempted to keep everyone back at Disney, surprise or not." He might have been mistaken to not add that, if they had been told it was their loved ones as the surprise, he probably would've tried scheduling a pick up instead of attending this...party thing.

He ignored the talk of a riddle. He didn't give two flips about it. He was just glaring around(finally not shaking, but still visibly angered) at the three that spoke against him. "I would do anything I could to keep my allies safe, and to not experience anything any of us experienced on that godforsaken ship.

As the group of Earthlings, Narnians, and other party-goers continued their respective conversations, the orchestra shifted to a new string-centric piece to narrate their smile-less soiree.

"W-we weren't aware that such a thing had occurred," the woman in blue replied, her composure cracking slightly with despair, "I-if we'd known, I'm sure we would never have put you in such a stressful situation. We only hoped to make the party safe for you and your loved ones to relax and enjoy yourselves. I can only apologize in my lord's absence and I assure you we never meant to insult you so gravely."

Something about her way of apologizing didn't sit well with Daniel, that, and he wasn't one to back down from a fight no matter how pointless, "Like I said, there's no reason to apologize. You can't be expected to have known what you didn't know. You prepared an excellent party and despite the personal problem he has with your methods of securing everyone's safety, this guy's claim that you insulted us is only secluded to a select few."

Kichi wouldn't look Joe in the eye and repeatedly glanced around for a way out and away from the infuriated male.

"So what though," Alan shrugged, he seemed apathetic now more than ever and drove the wedge deeper, "So, you had someone use a negator on you, bad things happened because of it. So. What. Do we ban the use of negators? Knives can be used for murder, should we ban them from use in the kitchen, go back to dwelling in caves because at some time somewhere someone has used technology to hurt someone else? The negator isn't being used as a weapon against us, so maybe we should stop complaining about the negator and just enjoy the gift that's been given us?"

Sven, who'd been torn between listening to the story about the riddle and the idiotic argument, eventually sighed and walked away. He made his way over to the circle of chairs and couches near the warm fireplace and flopped down, now decisively removed from all involvement.

Meanwhile, the conversation about the riddle continued and moved on to more pleasant topics as Amanda laughed, "Haha, have fun dears!" she waved at Amy and her lover as they split off from the group and proceeded to the closest exit, heading through to the southwest wing, passing below the statue of Lucy. Beneath her statue, a golden plaque was bolted to the slanted stone that led into the alcove that housed the massive carving. On it, two lone words lay etched into the gold:

"The Savior."

[Joe: Narnia: Main Hall]

He honestly was starting to settle when the Hostess started to apologize. True, while ignorance still didn't really lessen the insult, the fact that she seemed to even get mildly distressed and apologize once she realized what was going on, that helped him start calming down. Mainly because it was obvious to him, now, that they just didn't seem to know.

Then his 'allies' opened their mouths again, and the anger started to come back. And Alan was playing a very dangerous game, shoving words into Joe's mouth.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, others piping in with their opinions of his defense. And suddenly the anger seemed to dissipate. Oh, there was still an edge of it there. But he seemed to have boiled over, 'cooling off' in a malformed way.

First, he spoke to the Hostess. "I accept your apology. I don't take surprises well, and don't do parties like this well, either. But you don't appear to have malice in your actions. And I apologize to you." He turned to Benjamin. "And you, too. But now's not the best time to riddle me questions, alright?"

He turned now to Alan. "Don't shove words in my mouth. Did I say I'd stop them? Did I say 'take it down'? No. No I did not. I just said I would've tried to not have us come here. Or I just wouldn't have come unless explicitly asked to because I was needed. So maybe you can take your attitude down a few levels."

Next was Daniel. "And you. You wanna pick apart my wording? Fine. Let's play that game. Do I have a personal problem? Why, yes, yes I do. Otherwise I wouldn't be saying anything. Is it more than personal? Why, yes, yes it is, because the event happened to more than just me. Oh, and by the way, that 'select few'? Still multiple people, and thusly an 'us'. So you can take your high and mighty attitude and...well I'd tell you to take it down a few levels but you need to just shove it up your a**. Especially considering you have no right to speak for anyone but yourself and any of your loved ones here because you have not been with any of us long enough to speak for anyone but yourself." He spoke quickly, anger keeping an edge on his words and not letting anyone interrupt him, though his voice was kept low.

"Now, if you excuse me, I need to find some place to cool off. Jenny mentioned air, so I think I'm going to find a place to step outside and let that cold air cool me off."

And with that, Joe moved, Mathy's hand lifting off of him from the motion and he left, planning to head to the nearest exit to outside. Anyone was free to follow him, he wasn't going to snap at them. But he needed the cold to calm down. And he was done with this conversation and needed to be away from the arrogant p***k of a newbie turk as well as two allies that...

He wasn't going to dwell on that. Right now he needed to calm down and forget.