Top!

Top!!!!!

Okay, I can't post note, but I promise I will tomorrow. However I'm really busy, so don't expect a lot. But for now, Top!

~In which Aspen and Lili are throughly soaked, and Lili learns a lesson on sarcasm~

~{Lili}~ I know I'm somewhere in the middle of the Forest, being soaked by rain, and I still can't see the castle. I know where the castle is, Aspen says haughtily. "Of course you do." I say, looking around. I tried using a spell, but it didn't work.

You shouldn't use sarcasm. It isn't proper. "Oh, and who said that?" Mother. She says it's only proper for cats to use it. "Well, your mother is Scorn, and her opinon hardly counts for much," I snap.

That's not very nice. But then again, Mother also says that most fire-witches are rude. But usually not to their cats, Aspen tells me disdainfully.

"I'm pretty sure that most fire-witches are sarcastic," I say with a sarcastic tone. So do you want me to tell you where the castle is?

"I would be more than grateful, and I'm sure you would be too." Aspen gives a little sigh, as only a cat can and says, I'll tell you, but only because I hate this rain. Honestly, I don't blame her. It's making my clothes stick to my skin. 

It's fifty human paces to your left. 

I look over there and catch sight of a tower spiraling upward. "Oh." I scoop up Aspen and run through the woods. The ivory castle seems slightly run down, but charming. We're here. No thanks to you, Aspen snaps.

I sigh and roll my eyes, continuing on. The drawbridge is down, so I walk right in. No one greets me, and the halls seem empty. Suddenly, an elf runs out of a nearby door, panting.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am," he says, bowing. "Er," I say, feeling like a fool. "Do you have an appointment? Were you summoned by the King?"

"Er, I kind of have an appointment?" I say. "Kind of?" the elf asks crossly. "Mother said that the King wished for me to come on the quest ..."

"Ah, then you must be Lili," the elf says in a much pleasanter tone. "Come with me," he orders, beckoning to me.

I follow after him. 

~In which Sinnara learns the importance of exercising her wings~ 

~|Sinnara|~

I grab a few books from the library which I deem useful, and walk slowly to the entrance of the caverns. It takes most dragons a day or two to reach the Enchanted Forest when flying.

I don't want to trouble with the caves, so I'll have to fly. Which isn't one of my strong points, mind you. It'll take me double the time it takes most dragons to get to the castle. 

But I hate the caverns. Which makes my choice all the easier.

I spread my wings and spiral upward, then stop, looking down below. There, to the east. That's where I need to go. I stretch my wings as far as they can go, gliding in that direction. Luckily, the wind is helping me, not hindering me.

A few hours later, I seem to have flown into a great storm. It buffets me around, throwing me from one wind to another. The rain pours down, bouncing off of my scales. I have to land before the wind tosses me into something which could injure me.

I try to aim at the ground and swoop down, but I can't. I'm not strong enough. I've spent too much time indoors reading and studying instead of excercising my wings, making them strong enough to prevail against this storm.

I struggle to pull my wings close to my body, and finally, I suceed. I figured that I should keep my wings close to me so that they don't get torn on something as the wind is carrying me lower to the ground.

I let out a sigh of relief. I'm safe enough. For now.

~In which Lili discovers that Kings and Queens don't always meet your expectations~

~/Lili\~

The elf takes me to a grand room, where two thrones sit, but with no one occupying them. "I told them to sit there and wait, but did they listen? Nooo. It's always, 'we're too busy with other things, Willin, we don't have time to just sit there and wait'," the elf, Willin says.

"I'll go get them, but they still aren't doing things properly, and I'll bet that if I'm still around by the time Daystar and Shiara ascend to the throne ..." His voice trails off as he walks farther and farther away from me, no doubt going to fetch Queen Cimorene and King Mendanbar.

He returns a few moments later, a sour expression on his face, but a man and a women behind him. The woman, Queen Cimorene has long, black hair; with a few grey streaks in it, descending in waves down her back. 

The expression on her face is quite serious, her grey eyes darting about. A small golden crown sits atop of her head, but it doesn't quite match the clothes which she's wearing. She's wearing a white shirt, along with grey leggings. 

I must admit, I've never thought that a Queen would wear that. She looks commanding, but in a war-like way. Now, the King looks much more what I thought he'd be. A golden circlet upon his brow, green breastplate and legging, and streaks of dark grey and white in his once brown hair.

"Your majestys," I say, curtsying. Queen Cimorene looks slightly uncomfortable at this, but quickly recovers. "Surely you have not heard of the phrase 'none of this nonsense, please'?" Queen Cimorene asks wryly.

"Of course," I say rather crossly. It's still written on the gate at the house. "Then I suggest you put it to good use." Queen Cimorene says with a slight smile.

I nod, but say nothing. "You know why it is you are here?" King Mendanbar asks. "Yes. Go on a quest, discover the problem, save the day, end of story, bye-bye." I say, rolling my eyes.

Cimorene smiles, but Mendanbar seems slightly annoyed by this. "Well, that's one way to sum it up," he says dryly.

Treabair~

I walk into the orchard, and sure enough, there is a cup sitting right in the middle. The goblet is made of gold and studded with rubies, engraved in small writing around the bottom. I tear a leaf off of a nearby tree, since I have no access to paper, and etch my name on it with the quill and ink that sits next to the cup. Why they couldn't also leave something more suitable to write on, I don't know, but this leaf will do the trick.

As soon as I drop my name into the cup, the wind picks up. That's odd, I think. The world seems to still, the birds stop singing, the crickets stop chirping. The usual bustle of the castle can barely be heard. Then, some of the ink from the inkwell swirls up over the goblet, forming ghostly, swirling words. 'Drawbridge' is all I can make out. I guess I should probably go there, then.

No one stops me as I cross the bridge. I suppose they think I am a house servant, or one who works in the kitchens. After that, I ascend down the hallway, not entirely sure where I am supposed to go. My question is answered when the elf taps me on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, who are you?" he says with a grumpy look on his face. It seems like he has had to deal with too many stubborn people today. "My name is Treabair," I say, bowing. "I entered my name in the cup, and it told me to go to the drawbridge. You wouldn't have any idea what that means?"

He sighs. "At least you're more pleasant than the last one. Come this way." The elf leads me to a large room, where the king and queen sit in two thrones. A red haired girl stands in front of them, Cimorene smiling down at her, Mendenbar seeming slightly irritated. "The king and queen will meet with you shortly." The elf says. They speak with the girl for a while longer, and then dismiss her. She walks out of another door, so I can't see her face, but the way she walks suggests a firey and in-control personality. That's something I admire in a girl; it seems like all the girls I know only care about being rescued by a handsome prince or something of that sort. It would be nice to meet a level-headed young woman, for once.

"Treabair?" The elf says. "Their majesties would like to see you now."

~~~~~~~~

Would you like us to do chapter names like you are, Cho? 

I was linked to this on DtE - would it be all right if I joined? I'd probably not be able to be regularly active until Wednesday, because that's my last exam, but I loved these books back in the day - and still do - and I would have adored seeing an RP about them. 

I'll make my characters in case I can join, because I don't think it's that crowded in here - if I'm breaking some kind of New RP Etiquette, I sincerely apologize. 

Name: Larch Reedshaw

Age: 16-17-ish 

Gender: female

Kingdom: technically she was born in Sathem-by-the-Mountains, although now she regularly travels all over the region. 

Species: Human

Appearance: I can attach a picture in a moment, because apparently you can do that now, but she's essentially got messy black hair that's somewhere between ear-length and pixie depending on how recently she cut it, she's got olive skin with a few freckles, she's tall and broad-shouldered, and she wears loose, comfortable clothing with occasionally leather armor if she's on a dangerous mission. 

Personality: No-nonsense, but generally sympathetic - she respects people by default, though it takes a bad first impression to lose that. She's foolhardy and less funny than she thinks she is, especially when she's trying out allegedly-witty comments on something she'd be much better off being polite to. She doesn't really get riled up easily unless you target her friends, but her easygoing nature can make her occasionally frustrating to deal with. She's certainly got ideals and a moral code, but they can seem downplayed when she deals with emotional issues by never taking anything seriously enough. 

Weapon: Great with a sword, solid with smaller edged weapons, utterly hopeless at long-range anything. Therefore: primarily carries a sword. 

Magic: No way. But she does carry around a variety of magical gadgets, in case she ends up needing them. 

Parents: Jack from the second book is probably a distant uncle. 

Other: She works as a travelling...uh....something? A lot of time, she winds up dealing with curses or magical creatures, because even though she's never been good at magic specifically, she's good at travelling to the locations of people who can help, pointing to - or selling - some handy magical tools, protecting someone until they find themselves a handsome prince, or dealing with the sirens infesting your backyard pond. So she's some combination of a mercenary, an odd-jobs woman, and a general do-gooder hero. She travels with her best friend, whose shared backstory we will discover with the bio of... 

Name: Basil Edgewood 

Age: 17

Gender: Male 

Kingdom: Sathem-by-the-Mountains

Species: human 

Appearance: sandy-blond hair, serious brown eyes, a bit short and skinny. Pale. 

Personality: More cautious than Larch, but also more easily provoked to open displays of emotion; can be easily manipulated into doing something he's indecisive about, but if he's formed an opinion good luck shaking it. Protective; gets shy around new people. 

Weapon: Magic! 

Magic: (if any) He's studying to become a magician, so yes. 

Parents: Stuffy nobles. He knows Telemain, though. 

Other: So as a kid, he was always brought up knowing that he was going to need to defeat dragons/break curses/something of the sort. He also made friends with Larch, his gardener's daughter - for a while people thought they'd fall in love, but A) Larch was never even slightly interested, and B) it soon became apparent that the "gardener's daughter" thing was because she was an actual gardener's daughter, not a princess in disguise. So he was betrothed to a princess and set out to kill a dragon for her honor, which he was unfortunately terrible at, and would have probably died had Larch not dressed up and pretended to be his squire, and enacted some last-minute negotiations with the dragon to prevent Basil from actually fighting him. In the end he was grateful enough, and suffered big enough of an identity crisis, that he decided to set out to help Larch do her assorted quests, and also to do something he actually cared about and was reasonably good at, which turned out to be magic.

Whew. That was long-winded. Anybody got issues with these?

Also, Basil's open as a love interest if anyone ends up needing one, hah.  

Ah, whatever. Guess I'm going to post - the temptation is too great. 

In which Larch and Basil reach the castle, and briefly consider a career in interior design. 

Larch -

When I was a kid, my mother taught me that there were two types of people in this world: those whose friends like them better than their acquaintances do, and those whose acquaintances like them better than their friends. In other words, some peoples' true self is an enhancing factor; for some, it's only a detriment.

It's that advice, which she never mentioned to me again, that let me figure out why talking to Basil made me sad sometimes. I was a fun person to be around; he was a good person to know. I didn't think he knew about my inferiority complex, and it's not like I spend my days staring out of rainy windows and regretting traits like my flippancy and detachment - traits that have helped me survive. But certainly, sometimes his fundamentally nicer attitude came out at me in full force. 

Like right now.

"Basil," I was saying, looking up from where I was ascertaining that our surroundings were real, and existed in the appropriate location. "I appreciate the intent, but we didn't come here to visit your - whoever he is."

"He's a genius," Basil said with annoyance. "It's not like - in any case, Larch, what are we here for?" 

"Like I said," I reminded him, "It's important for the rulers of the Enchanted Forest to stay up-to-date on proceedings. We should tell them about, you know, the continued disappearances." 

He's known me since we were seven; he can tell when I'm lying. "Unless you hate Morwen or Lili - you've made your feelings on Telemain abundantly clear - you wouldn't refuse to visit them just because you wanted to deliver information to them." 

I stood up fluidly and hefted my supplies onto my back, then walked forward without looking at Basil; according to the compass he'd helped me imbue with magic from the Enchanted Forest, we were approaching the castle. "I don't hate them. It's a bad career choice to hate someone who could set you on fire."

He looked crestfallen, and immediately I felt bad. He knew how to do that. "Hey, I was joking," I said quickly. "Of course I like them - all of them. They're a bit scary, but scary's good. Scary's exciting - remember the sirens?" 

"The sirens I had to save you from, because you were just that curious about what their voices sounded like," Basil said, shaking his head; he had relaxed now that I'd taken back the quip about his friends. 

"The sirens I ultimately managed to relocate," I replied without a beat.

We walked in silence for a few minutes more, then Basil sighed. "I don't know why I asked, Larch. You want to join the delegation."

I had to laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation, at how well this guy knew me. "Delegation? What delegation?" I turned to him, wide-eyed, palms lifted up as if in defense, and blinked twice in imitated confusion.

He wasn't phased, though he did smile a little. "The delegation the King and Queen called up, obviously. You used seven-league boots to get here, Larch. Seven-league boots. You know how unreliable those things are - clearly we're in a hurry." 

I sighed. "Fine, you've got me. I want to find out what's happening if kingdoms are disappearing." 

"So do I," he assured me. "If I didn't think we should do it, I would have made myself abundantly clear."

I rolled my eyes. "You wouldn't have been able to stop me."

"Probably not," he conceded. "But I like to think you -"

He stopped. The ramshackle castle rose above us; it almost hurt my eyes to look at it, for fear of it toppling down under the weight of its towers and staircases - I knew it was held up by magic, but nevertheless looking at it made my eyes hurt. "Just imagine all that it's been though," I said, with a sort of confused reverence creeping into my voice.

"It's impressive," he agreed, shaking his head. "And takes all the prizes for instability, no doubt."

We ascended the drawbridge and managed to bypass the elderly elf Willin, despite Basil's protests - I'd listened enough to Lili's warnings about the guy to know a way to save time when I saw one.

We entered the throne room, and I saw two figures talking on the opposite end; they weren't sitting on thrones, but had rather been busy standing in frront of one of the towering stained glass windows above the hall.

"It's tasteless is what it is," one of them was saying; the other put an elegant hand on his shoulder. 

"I daresay it is, Mendanbar, but if it'll upset Willin -" she began in a still-melodic voice, and I smiled; it was somehow fitting that the King and Queen of the Enchanted Forest apparently spent their days arguing good-naturedly about interior decorating. (It wasn't as if the castle didn't need it).

Stepping forward boldly, I cleared my throat. "I think it really adds to to the look of the room," I said in a clear voice, as if I were addressing a formal audience with a rousing speech. "By which I mean, built upon itself by people with bad taste, for hundreds and hundrreds of years." 

The King and Queen turned around; the King was stifling a small smile, and Queen Cimorine was shaking her head fondly. "Are you two more volunteers for the quest?"

The way she said it made me afraid that there'd been an entire procession trooping in hours before we got to the castle. "I hope we're not late," I said, regretting my choice of entrance. "We're from Sathem-by-the-Mountains, technically, although really we're from all over -"

"Don't worry," the King said quickly. "If you're willing and capable, we need all the help we can get. Only two others have arrived - they're in the room next door. If you want to go in and introduce yourselves, we'll explain this evening - it'd be better to explain to everyone at once." Basil nodded politely.

"Thank you, your majesties," he said pleasantly, and the two exhanged a glance.

"That's three times today," the King said, shaking his head. "I liked them better when they were mocking our windows."

With another fond grin, the Queen shooed us from the room; we emerged in time to see Lili and another boy our age shake hands, though we couldn't hear his name. 

They turned around at the sound; both looking distinctly as if they'd been interrupted in much more vital an act than introduction; there was a flush to Lili's cheeks, which could have meant anger, but could have also meant - 

I gave Basil a significant look, raising my eyebrows slightly, and he shook his head. The message was clear: don't tease them, don't form assumptions, don't make comments about the windows, sustain polite social interaction for once in your life. 

"Hi, I'm Larch," I said, looking away from his warning expression. "This is Basil. How about this quest, then, hm?"  

~{Lili}~ 

Treabair and I whip around at the sound of the door being opened.

Larch and Basil. What are they doing here? Larch gives Basil a look, to which he frowns, but says nothing.

"Hi, I'm Larch," Larch says, smiling slightly. "This is Basil. How about this quest, then, hm?" I glare at her, hunching my shoulders up in a kind of shrug. "... It'll be interesting," Treabair says. "Oh, and I'm Treabair," he says, nodding his head.

Why didn't anyone think of bringing cats except for you, Lili? Aspen asks. "Now's not the time, Aspen," I snap. "What did she say?" Treabair asks. He seems very interested in magic.

"She wanted to know why nobody else brought a cat. Or cats," I say with a sort of bored tone. Treabair smiles, giving a little snort of amusement. Larch smiles too, but for some reason, I don't think they're laughing at the same things.

That Treabair isn't very nice, Aspen says. "Aspen!" I exclaim. Treabair raises an eyebrow. "Good grief, I might as well figure out how to make everybody understand cats!" I say rather loudly. "Oh -sorry, Lili," Treabair says.

"I'll tell you, since you really want me to tell you," I say sarcastically. Larch grins like she's been given an early birthday present, but with a sharp look from Basil, she tries hiding it, but to no avail.

"Aspen simply doesn't like you, Treabair."  

Aah, top! Sorry, I'll post soon - I didn't mean to jump ship!