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Day 1, Part 1
The room was certifiably a war zone. Cupcakes were everywhere, chocolate and blueberries and who knew what else smashed onto the sparkling floor and making themselves visible in smudged curtains and sheets. "Ack," Hawkstar said.
Kauri grinned innocently, though really no one was about to forget who started all this. "Ha, how about we explore the palace?"
"Yeah, right," Oro said with a frown. "Before they throw us out of the palace for doing something like this."
"We couldn't help it," Dragonfly protested. "It was an accident. Maybe we could blame the cat?"
"We could not blame the cat," rainswept said indignantly.
Kauri was suddenly engulfed in a Crescent hug, which were always really the best in the world. "I'm just so glad you're alright," she whispered so that only the two of them could hear. "I was afraid that something had happened."
"Hey, Crescent, it's fine. I'm here," Kauri said, hugging her back. "I honestly feel like we're safe here anyway."
"So, palace?" Rigel suggested. "Now that I've won the cupcake war?"
"Now that you've…" rainswept shook her head. "So you think."
"But does anyone really win a cupcake war?" Crescent asked. "Isn't it just cupcakes for the sake of cupcakes?"
Still discussing heatedly, they spilled out into the hallway. They had barely gotten going when Oro remembered that he'd left his cloak on Hawkstar's bed. He hesitated, then turned and slipped back to the bedroom, cringing inwardly as he thought of the mess of cupcakes that were waiting inside.
He opened the door. The room gleamed back at him, sparkling and impeccable, every surface perfectly clean. But we barely left a few seconds ago, Oro thought. And yet, in those seconds, this had happened? He picked up his cloak and rejoined the others, thoughts swirling in a whirlpool of questions. Something was up with this palace. Something was definitely up with this palace.
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The library was… This was probably where language became completely meaningless. It was a portal, a border along the edges of all the fantasy lands anyone had ever dreamed of. Oro turned in a slow circle, taking it all in as the others scattered with shrieks of glee. Rows of bookshelves stood here and there, not even beginning to detract from the illusion of space and freedom that permeated the room. It was, actually, just one large room, but it felt like thousands because there were all these hidden corners in it that you hadn't been expecting to come across. Light swirled in from semi-circle stained glass windows high above the shelves, so that the whole space was equally lit, with soft, half-golden light that echoed the color of archaic paper. The floor and the bookshelves were made of smooth, slightly glowing amber wood, but the walls were a light cream shade, with places to read somehow nestled against them everywhere. This was a place where you needed to read, where even the most terrible of books would seem wonderful just because it was a book.
Oro glanced at the contents of the shelves. All sorts of books were arranged there, seemingly without much sense (though he had a feeling, knowing this place, that they were going to be in the most attractive order possible), and a dusting of magic over all of them.
"I think maybe this is heaven," Oro announced to no one in particular, diving for the book nearest to him.
But, his companions being the people they were, rainswept obviously had to take him up on that. "Heaven," she said instructively, "is a place where there are no material things and only spiritual perfection, meaning that it cannot be found in a library where the whole point is material things."
It was there that I found them about an hour later, reading peacefully with banter flaring up here and there. It was a scene almost like a painting, with the light filtering in through the windows, and books taking up almost all the space, and people scattered through the room, reading. I must say I'm more inclined to agree with Oro on this one – libraries are something else. Especially this one.
"Hey, kids," I said. "No one's met the doctor yet?"
"The doctor?" Crescent asked, looking up. "I thought it was just you and Finior here."
"Well, the doctor doesn't really count as an inhabitant of the palace," I explained with a laugh, which was absolutely as far as I was going. They'd find out themselves at some point.
"By the way," Oro added, looking straight at me. "If there really is just Finior and you here – I mean, Lord Finior – why's the Lord third-in-command?"
"Customs of this place," I told him, though I could tell by his expression that he thought I'd answered too quickly. "That's by no means what's important right now, though. Ready for what comes next?"
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Ah I am so in love with your writinggggg the library OMG ACK I could live there and phew glad my room was straightened fast hehe
I am, in fact, totally ready for what's next
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Btw, all these top-o things are Lord Finior. If I ever went in for that kind of self-promotion, you'd know it was me because the location would say something like "Let's rock it to the top". I mean, some of us are actually cool.
Not that this is a reflection on Finior's character. Just an observation.
Day 1, Part 2
"I am," Hawkstar volunteered.
"How could I not be?" Rigel asked with a smile.
"Right," I said before everyone else could start adding their own opinions. "What comes next is a comprehensive tour of the palace -" I looked at them all. "Wait, you haven't gone all over yet, right?"
"Not quite," Kauri said cheerfully.
"Good. Then a comprehensive tour of the palace, and some explanation. If anyone wants to stay behind and be buried in books, no one's stopping you. So?" I'd never been a tour guide before, so this was probably going to be cool no matter what.
Everyone said they were coming – apparently being buried in books wasn't quite as appealing to Chatterbox people as I'd always thought – and I led them towards the far end of the library.
"Where are we going? There isn't any door there," Crescent said, evidently feeling that someone had to point this out.
"I know." I reached for one of the sections of the wooden wall and did little magic things to it, and it slid open the way it always did, revealing some of the gardens sloping away beyond it. My visitors were utterly won over, and I couldn't keep back a grin. Even I knew full well that there was something alluring about this palace, something that caught all your dreams and held them hostage until you weren't sure what was the dream and what was the palace.
I took them through the long palace gardens, glimmering in the light of the afternoon that inevitably got reflected and refracted by the roses and the tiny white flowers and even the grass; through part of the old palace, the remaining bits of an older fortress that the new palace was built off of; through the new palace itself, gleaming and sparkling and modern and perfect. Crescent recognized part of it from the video – there were the same bougainvilleas against skies that could not be that blue, the same pattern of marble and mosaics, and the same aura of calm and ocean and a shimmering world made of perfection.
As we went, I explained everything that they needed to know. There was a city nearby, called Sairelin, where I'd take them tomorrow, and which my family had always ruled. The palace was built by magic, founded on magic, maybe even just was magic, and this whole world was hovering a step and a jump from the borders of the Chatterbox's universe.
We were in the lofty dining hall of the old palace when it finally happened. Crescent was turning in a slow circle, drinking everything in, when a few musical notes shimmered on the air. No one had a phone out, and there definitely didn't seem to be any music-making device around.
She turned to me, startled. "What -"
I recognized the song and laughed. "Too charming for its own good."
I'm so glad you made the time to see me…
"Squee," Rigel said suddenly. "I think – but where's it coming from?"
"The palace," I informed her. "It likes to play music. Call it a built-in Spotify, or something. It's one of those quirks around this place."
"I love it," rainswept said, spinning around as Crescent had just been doing.
and I go
Back to December all the time
"Let's go, lizards," I said after a moment. "I left the best for last."
The best? Crescent thought. Everything so far had been so incredible, and it felt like they'd been all over the palace already. What the heck could be left?
Everyone was heading out of the hall and back to the new palace, the music courteously following them since Rigel didn't seem to want to leave mid-song. At least it was a polite palace, was what occurred to Crescent. But, seriously?? Palaces' manners hadn't been anything that concerned her yesterday. So much for yesterday. Life was for the present, after all.
We went down through the palace and finally crossed a garden, to a low, long marble building. Exquisitely built, of course, Crescent noted. There was an almost translucent quality to the marble, and there were carvings along the top of lithe mythical creatures forming complex patterns. I pushed open the doors, and we were inside.
A whinny floated out on the warm air. Inside, it was divided into three sections – two semi-walled-off passages to either side, and a corridor down the middle. The thought that flashed straight into Crescent's mind was Unicorns??? But the horses that she could glimpse weren't silver, they were brown and black and golden. She tumbled inside along with everyone else, and one of the horses reached out and bunted her playfully with its nose. She turned to face it, and –
"Guys, these things have horns!!!" Dragonfly exclaimed.
Crescent really took them in. The one that had reached out to her did have a spiralling horn between her ears, ebony black like the rest of her. This was an authentic unicorn. "What but I mean -" she tried. "These are unicorns??"
"This one's a Pegasus," said Rigel, who seemed to have fallen in love with a delicate little hazel-colored one.
"Whoa," rainswept said, reaching out to a massive gray unicorn.
"Whoa," Oro echoed. He looked vaugely uncertain, eyeing a majestic unicorn who didn't seem to have the same level of interest in him.
"Why whoa?" Dragonfly asked. "I mean, unicorns. Aren't you beautiful?" she asked one of them, who responded with a soft whinny.
"UM," Kauri said. "Are these things real?" Crescent glanced that way over the mane of her black unicorn; Kauri had always maintained that unicorns were simply not. But these unicorns so obviously were. "They aren't so bad," she said, keeping an arm around hers.
"If you don't like unicorns per se, check this out," Hawkstar volunteered raptly. "It's an alicorn."
If Kauri didn't like unicorns, I wasn't sure that alicorns were going to be much of a hit. "We actually have one other, um, real kind of thing here," I said. "I imagine no one will have to be told what this is?"
"…Not if it's a dragon," Hawkstar said, taking one glance at the slim, irridescent, powerful creature in the farthest stall.
"Which it is," I said brightly. "You can ride them tomorrow, but right now we're having supper and going to sleep."
Uproar.
In the end, though, everyone managed to tear themselves away from the assortment of creatures, and we had supper in the dining room with Lord Finior as dusk dropped over the palace. Later, as Crescent took one more look out her bedroom window and switched out the lights, she couldn't stop wondering – about what was waiting for them on the other side of the sunrise, and if they were really as safe as Kauri thought they were, and what on earth that conversation she'd overheard in the very beginning had been about.
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Ahh I love this part!
Turns out freedom meant nothing but missing you…
Also could you be WildWolf?
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*reads happily*
The way you write dialogue is really natural!
*thinks*
*thinks some more*
Wait a second…@The Prince, could you be Poinsettia or Amethyst?
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That's it, thinking is banned in the Palace of the Sun 😛 Yep, I'm Amethyst. I really didn't think I'd be guessed so soon… also, I'm so sorry @all for not keeping up too faithfully with other stuff while updating this so regularly, but it just kind of kept coming, so I went with it. I promise I will reply to all of you rn or at least soon 🙂
And that being said, LYRICCCC *optional tackle hugs* it's so great seeing you around again :DD
And @Moon Wolf, >:D
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dragon! 😀
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Lovely part, as always! SQUEEEEE alicorns :DDD and unicorns and I WANNA RIDE DRAGON ASAP THANK YOU VERY MUCH
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Fine so I'm self-promoting
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Day 2, Part 0
Rigel opened her eyes to dawn, the white walls of her room throwing back rose highlights. The window flashed as she sat up. That was odd, she'd closed the curtain last night, hadn't she? Maybe she'd been too tired.
Anyway, she was the exact opposite of tired now. She'd slept better than any other time she could remember, and she wanted today to really begin. The Palace was waiting, after all. She put her jewelry back on, laced up her sneakers, and headed for the dining room, where Kauri, rainswept, and Oro already were. They were eyeing the empty table and talking.
"The question is, where is he?" rainswept asked.
"Where's who?" Rigel asked. "Mr. Breakfast?"
"Ha, no," rainswept said. "Good one, btw. We're waiting for the Prince."
"He doesn't seem to be anywhere," Oro explained. Honestly, less than a day ago I was thinking of him as Oreobin, cringe. …Though I still don't know his real name, come to think of it, but yeah, we're ignoring that for the moment.
"- Wait, you've looked for him?" she added out loud as the meaning of Oro's words sank in. "How long have you guys been awake?"
"Since about an hour ago," Kauri said perkily. "We're early risers. And also, this palace, man. There's something about it. Oro here isn't exactly an early riser, or so he says, I mean do we trust him? probably not, but yeah."
"The Prince is sticking to you," Rigel said severely.
"If only, Rigel. If he were, we wouldn't be wondering where he was; he'd be right here with me."
"It would be some glue that would make anyone able to stick with Kauri," rainswept said gloomily. "Anyway, so we've been up for an hour, and we went over all the palace that we saw yesterday. It looks like the Prince showed us all the palace there is. And our host has abandoned us, and we're starving."
Dragonfly opened the door and walked in, then looked crestfallen as she noticed the empty table. "No breakfast?"
The explanations were gone through again. Or, at least, they had been halfway gone through when the missing host came in, looking even better than usual. Kauri broke off in the middle of "Seriously, I wish he'd show up -" I've always been very good at timing, as I'm sure you'll agree.
"Yo, guests," I said. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting." I looked behind them, and they all turned back to the table. Rigel's eyebrows rose. There, sitting politely on the table, was the long-desired breakfast.
"Cute boys, right?" Dragonfly said, just softly enough for Rigel to hear. "Even breakfast wants to be around them."
The others joined us a moment later, and we had breakfast together, bantering and looking out over a tangle of hedges and roses in one of the palace gardens. When everyone had finished, I leaned back, looking down the table. Come to think of it, where was Finior? "We're going to Sairelin," I announced. "You know, the city nearby."
"On the unicorns?" Dragonfly proposed hopefully.
"On the dragon?!?" Hawkstar exclaimed, also hopefully.
Kauri and Oro looked at each other and sighed.
"On the unicorns, on the dragon, and, for those who prefer other things, other things. Everything should be waiting outside. Ready?"
"More than," Rigel volunteered, hoping that she could ride the Pegasus she'd befriended yesterday.
We went outside, where Finior was surveying two motorcycles with distaste. "H, what are these doing here?" he asked. "Am I right that no one's riding them?"
"Kauri and Oro are," I told him. "They don't both fit on the dragon."
"But your -"
"I know, obviously. But it's all right."
Finior gave me The Look. "All right with -"
"No, all right with me. We'll talk about it later, all right?" I shook my head at him, and he subsided. I turned back to my guests. "Choose your steeds," I invited. "The Pegasi and alicorns are staying on the ground for the most part, because you practically need seat belts to stay on when they're in the air, and I don't want anything happening. The motorcycles aren't crash-prone – they pretty much drive themselves, so you should be fine."
"Though motorcycles are, in general, best avoided," Finior amended sternly.
I didn't disagree with him, because of course he was right. In more ways than one, actually. And I couldn't resist one glance back at the Palace as we chose our conveyance (and, in the case of the mythical creatures, our conveyance also chose us), even though I knew that no one would be watching.
No one ever was.
So why did I have that feeling?
And the next moment we had hit the road, the morning air lingering somewhere between warm and cool and blowing in our faces like a whirlpool. Rigel let out a shriek of happiness as her Pegasus took off from the ground in a lazy swirl of wings, evidently disagreeing with me about the seat belt thing. Oh well, no one was going to die.
I hoped…
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We arrived at Sairelin in one piece, or, more like, thirteen pieces – the eleven guests, and Finior and me. It was the sort of city that you wanted to spend your summer in, Rigel thought, as the Pegasus glided to the ground. Picturesque, tiny, no cars, just narrow streets open to the sky and lined with sparkling white buildings and others of solid stone and stucco. People were passing back and forth, not too many, not too few, and it felt like a place with thousands of hidden places and secrets that no one was supposed to know but that you might find if you just headed in the right direction.
"Leave the conveyances, unless they want to follow us," I told them. None did follow us, though a motorcycle seemed very inclined to for a moment, and we headed properly into the city on its marble walkways. The city of the Palace.
We wandered at random for about a quarter of an hour, and then, as we walked out into an enormous plaza with a marble sculpture in the center that the perimiter of buildings reflected all the sunlight onto, I left the others for a moment. Rigel barely noticed; she just wanted to drink in this moment that was like the moment in a fantasy novel when everything was still all right, when nothing had crashed yet.
"Hey, kids," a voice said, and Rigel turned to see a middle-aged man coming towards them from across the square. He paused to greet Finior, and then focused on them. "I'm one of the Sairelin locals. You're the Prince's guests, amiright?"
Finior was busy with something else, so Hawkstar answered. "Yeah, he invited us to the Palace."
The man looked at them more closely. "But you're not actually living there?"
"Actually, we are," Crescent told him.
He raised his eyebrows. "Living there? Then you must have actually seen the Sairelin king?"
The Sairelin king? Rigel looked around the square, a chill moving through her, though she couldn't have explained why. There wasn't any Sairelin king in the Palace. But then again, no wonder the Prince was just, well, a prince. But how could someone else be living in the Palace, someone they hadn't met? "Who is he, exactly?" she asked carefully.
"So you haven't seen him either…? No one does, except maybe the Prince and Lord Finior, and rumour has it he never leaves the Palace. Not in our lifetimes, anyway. He's the Prince's father, and he's been ruling for something like fifty years. Everyone wants to know who he is, but good luck on that one." He lifted a hand to them. "I'd better be going. But tell me if you ever do see him. Enjoy the Palace."
I had heard the last few words, and I turned back a moment too late, my ready-made explanation dying as I saw the looks on their faces. He'd said too much, so so much for that. "Yeah, he exists," I admitted. "He'd rather keep to himself, so, I mean, just don't like go looking for him. But I wanted to introduce you to someone who does want to meet you."
Rigel noticed for the first time a young woman – the one I'd been talking to – coming up behind me. She was smiling, and she had straight brown hair and decided, sparkling brown eyes and features that fit together perfectly. She was gorgeous, in my opinion, and I might add that we looked very cute together. "My girlfriend, Irile," I explained.
Rigel stared at us; she hadn't really thought that there would be a couple involved with the Palace. It felt, somehow, like something she should have known about already. Dragonfly looked as if she thought we were the cutest couple on earth, and Crescent was obviously as surprised as Rigel.
"It's so great to meet you," Irile said with a little wave. "I'm spending the rest of the day with you at the Palace, so we can spend time together. It's amazing that Perid invited you."
"Perid??" Rigel asked.
"My name," I explained.
Talk about a surprising morning, Rigel thought.
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Perid haHA the name is discovered
Wonderful amazing part as always! Oooooh, my interest is piqued… I want to find the king now hehe….
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i love this sm, as in totally all of it. your descriptions, the banter, the charries, it's all great! i wanna know what happens next… and yeah, let's go find the king.
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But you're not supposed to look for the King 😐 oh well, don't blame me for the consequences
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I'll be the watcher of the eternal flame
Day 2, Part 1
Night had dropped over the Palace. Oro was standing in one of the halls, wondering about what secrets might be hidden away somewhere here. A king, a girlfriend… who cared. They'd just been eating pizza in the dining room, laughter the soundtrack of the evening, while the Palace chipped in with pertinent song lyrics. It was amazingly good at finding the right ones. For example, when the Prince remarked on how long it had been since Irile had visited, who asked the Palace to say companionably, "Tell her that I missed our little talks"? Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men. Was it trying to get Oro to like it? (If so, it was managing it…)
The Prince had said as they disbanded after dinner that they should meet in the Brazier Courtyard in half an hour. This was very nice; the only glitch was that Oro didn't know where the Brazier Courtyard was. "Where do I go?" he asked the Palace, but it was evidently napping and didn't want to be disturbed and therefore did as it would be done by, and didn't say anything. Which didn't help.
"Hey," Hawkstar said, coming up next to him. "Going to the Courtyard?"
"I would be if I could," Oro said, knowing that this was probably too cryptic but too focused on his thoughts to go into detail.
"Why can't you?" asked Hawkstar, who was having none of it.
"Because I can't," Oro explained, coming out of his thoughts momentarily. "I mean, I don't know where it is."
"Come on, that's easy. Prince Perid said it was just beyond the dining room. I think we can find it."
"Whoa, the alliteration," Oro said, startled completely out of his reverie. "Do you think his father knew what he was doing when he named him?"
(Actually, he did. He knew that Perfect, Positive Prince Perid of the Palace was way too good a title for me to ever want to be King Perid and ruin it.)
"Probably," Hawkstar opined. "Btw, what about the lighting in this place?"
"There's electricity in our rooms," Oro said, not quite following.
"I noticed, yeah. But here here?"
Oro looked around and realized what she was getting at. The hall was full of twilight, without either firelight or electric light. Colors were muted – Hawkstar's cloak was a softer, grayer brown than it usually was – and the end of the hall could barely seen. What if this is the only time of day when we could find the King? It feels, suddenly, as if we could… "Let's go," he said quietly.
They turned towards the dining room, simultaneously skirting the table and the shadows in the corners of the rooms, and headed out the hall at the other end. Oro realized that he'd left Hawkstar behind; looking back, he saw her silhoutted against an arched doorway. "Over here," she called softly.
He went over to join her, and they stepped outside together. Soft, evening air met them, and an expanse of stars.
"Hawkstar, Oro?" I called from the other side of the courtyard. "Great, everyone else is already here."
It was a long courtyard that didn't even quite fit the definition of courtyard; there was a broad sweep of night sky visible above, and down here there was a matching sweep of grass, edged with glimmering white columns beyond which twilight swirled. At the far end, and on either side, delicate black iron tripods held bowls in which fire shone. So that's why it's called the Brazier Courtyard, a part of Oro realized, but most of him was just busy trying to take it all in. The moment. The feeling of a safe, enchanting escape after a long summer's day. The faces around him; everyone else was, as I'd said, there, sitting on the grass, Irile sitting with me and the CBers and AEs scattered through the rest of the courtyard.
"So, what are we doing exactly?" Hawkstar asked beside him, her voice quiet and attuned to the night.
"Stargazing," Rigel said happily. "Living. Whatever; does it matter?"
No, it didn't. rainswept beckoned to them, and Oro sat down. It was strangely all right to be here, with the stars wheeling overhead and the sky still faintly dusky and the grass chilly and soft under him.
The Palace had evidently woken up, or at least this part of the Palace, because a song started to play. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a cold, difficult tune, but here, after a long sunlit day, it was just strangely harmonious on the air, blending into the gently perfect feel that lingered here.
Hadn't Rigel once said something about eternal summer? Well, here we are, he thought, his gaze sliding upwards to the constellations. When it dropped again, it landed on his friends, the people here: Irile, her head resting on my shoulder; me; Dragonfly, her arms wrapped around her legs; Kauri, holding hands with Crescent.
The song stayed for a second more on the air, and faded away. Too soon. There was a quiet silence that spoke of peace, and summer, and constellations.
"Be back in a second," Kauri said, getting up.
"Sure," Oro responded, pulling a fold of his cloak over his knees and leaning back again. These stars didn't form the same shapes as the ones back home – he'd stargazed there, and he knew – but they were equally beautiful, and the starlight and the firelight mingled to give just the right feel to the courtyard. For these few moments, the past and the future didn't seem to come into it at all; it was enough to simply be, and live, and feel. It was easy to forget things.
Kauri should have been back by now…
“““`
Alive: 10 (Crescent, Dragonfly, Ouroborus, Rigel, th3mysticw0lf's 4 charries, Hawkstar, Rainswept)
Gone: 1 (Kauri)
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Yay new part! I love how Little Talks was mentioned, good song. Oh nooo Kauri!! But this scene seemed really peaceful and beautiful 🙂
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In which case, mission accomplished. I'm a superb writer, aren't I? *smiles smugly* *hangs about for a week pondering what to write next and how to end this comment*
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Also sorry to Kauri :^|
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Day 3, Part 0 [Midnight]
Crescent found herself going back towards the library without even meaning to. She'd given up, she realized. Had she ever really believed that she was going to find Kauri? Maybe not. A part of her had known that one of them had vanished, that they were a smaller band now.
But in that case, what had happened? Finior had promised that they were safe here. And Kauri had meant to come back; she was sure of that. She shivered as she looked around the cold, night-wrapped palace. If her partner wasn't anywhere here… then what? Are any of us safe?
She entered the library. It looked different when it was full of lurking shadows and shifting, undecided moonlight, and when Kauri wasn't here with her. But somehow the CBers and AEs had decided to make it their meeting place; maybe it felt as if they wouldn't be interupted here, as if they were at least partially safe.
As Crescent entered, the others turned towards her, then looked disappointed as they noticed that she was alone. She collapsed onto one of the benches, the fact that it was midnight finally getting to her. "Kauri's gone," she said bluntly, the words heavy on her tongue. "We've been looking for hours, kids." But it seemed so strange that it had only been a few hours since everything was fine. What had happened to that feeling of happiness in the Brazier Courtyard? Argh, there were just so many questions.
"Everyone else is here, right?" Dragonfly asked, pushing a hand through her rumpled hair.
"Seriously, you guys didn't even notice that I'd disappeared too," Rigel said from behind her. "What if whatever happened to Kauri had happened to me too? But okay, that's not the important thing. I found something… or I think I did."
The others looked at each other, and then turned to follow her. She led them out of the library, cut across the garden, and paused in front of another of those emblems on the garden's stone wall – the golden dragon eating a sun. She gave it a light push, and it gave way, swinging softly open to reveal a torchlit hallway. Dragonfly gave a soft gasp, and Crescent shot a look at Rigel. While everything was going all right, of course she'd trusted her fellow guests, but now…? On the other hand, what did she have to lose? A lot of things, Crescent, her mind reminded her. A whole, whole lot of things. You've already lost Kauri; do you want to risk everything?
Yes.
"Let's try," she said softly, putting a hand on the doorway to steady herself. One by one, the others nodded, and they stepped inside.
The door didn't swing shut, which was a relief; at least it wasn't some sort of trap. If they wanted to, they could always step outside again; nothing was stopping them. I hope. "Okay," rainswept said quietly. "So let's just, kind of, see what this is."
A few steps ahead, Crescent saw, was another door, this one closed with light fiercely outlining the edges. Hawkstar was going towards it, and Crescent followed. Voices were audible behind it, she realized, and one of them was mine. I'd left the courtyard after about a quarter of an hour to see Irile off, just before everyone started getting really concerned about Kauri.
"Just admit it already," I was saying. "It's not like I don't know. I get it, you think I've been in the dark about so many things all these years, but seriously? You can't always be the one on top."
"I'll never answer on those terms," another voice warned; an imperious, dry, deep voice that Crescent had never heard before. "If -"
"Terms?? Sorry, but that is so not English. I don't have any terms. It's you who's always stuck on terms, and rules, and all that cr -"
He interupted me this time; like father, like son, and all those very wise sayings. Except that like father not like son, but let's ignore that. "I've heard all this before; I don't want to hear it again, understood? Whatever I do is my business alone. Whatever you do; well, that's my business too."
"My guests are not your business, Dad. Not. Your. Business. You would've been happier if you'd never even bothered to find out they were here. How – never mind, the details don't matter, but don't you dare stop me in this too. You always, always, always have to be the one on top, the one who does everything, the king. What's your long-term plan anyway? What's the point in that kind of existence? This is one thing that you can't just wreck. I have a life too, if you want to remember that."
Silence. Impassiveness, in other words. He honestly couldn't even care less.
"Fine," I said after a moment. "But just one more thing. Kauri isn't – you didn't…?"
"Whoever it was is dead to the Palace," he said, understanding what I was getting at and not much else. "That's all you need to know."
Crescent couldn't help the sound that came out of her, but no one seemed to notice.
"…You -?!"
"Perid, I didn't kill anyone. Does that satisfy you? But, as I said before, Kauri is dead to the Palace. To the Palace, Kauri never existed. And that is the last I'll hear of it."
"You're not getting away with this one," I warned him, but after that there was nothing but silence.
“““`
Alive: 10 (Crescent, Dragonfly, Ouroborus, Rigel, th3mysticw0lf's 4 charries, Hawkstar, rainswept)
Gone: 1 (Kauri)
“““
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ACK how mysterious! I get why you shouldn't go looking for the king… maybe just find out ABOUT him instead somehow? Secret passages… mmmhm. there could be more…
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