by Kell Inkston
“Alright, please feel free to ask any questions you please, I’m confident as to my Knight’s honesty, and I will take full responsibility of her actions,” Order says outwardly. “Now then, if no one has any initial questions, I’ll go ahead and proceed for the events of last night. knight Love, where were you early this morning?”
“Hmm, what part of the morning?” Love asks, quickly winning another sigh from Gallin.
“Tell us about what happened after the fairy royalty and I last saw you,” Order clarifies.
“Ahh ... of course! I suppose ... hmm, I ...” Love pauses a moment and realizes there’s really nothing she can do. “I took the necromancer to be interrogated. It came out that Lain and Aoline had been kidnapped, and I could only get them back if I let the necromancer go,” she says, quickly ushering a rush of concerned whispers between table-holders as Gallin loose a long, victorious huff. So much for being secretive.
“Aha! You let the necromancer loose, under the impression that it’d return your comrade knights, eh?” Gallin says with a direct, threatening gaze. No one at the table stops Gallin, some disagreeing with his directness, but all interested in what Love has to say.
“Well, yes. They are here now, after all.”
“Is that so?!”
“Yes.”
“Well have them brought in!” commands Gallin to the guards at the side of the room. The spook and the elf salute and dash off to have the knights brought forth.
“Hmm, you know, I feel as though this is all a bit unnecessary. After all I went to their hideout. We could all just go there and- ... oh,” Love stops herself, realizing she has very-quickly backed herself into a corner. She’s more of a long-term planner than a short term tactician, she’s afraid- definitely not the most level head when things go awry.
“Ye know where they are, then? So, tell us!” Gallin demands with a victorious grin.
Love knows she can’t tell them, or she will have broken her word to Oa, and Lain and Aoline will be killed by its spell, along with anyone else around them; and if she explained the situation in full, Lain and Aoline would likely be banished or killed immediately, again activating the spell. Meeo takes a deep breath, and then faces the group.
“Ehem, well ... well I’m afraid I forgot! Such a shame!” she says with a sheepish smile, quickly breaking a sweat.
Everyone is quiet for a moment in disbelief.
“Swineshit! You’ve sided with them! You want us dead!” Gallin yells as he delivers a damning finger-point in her direction. Suddenly there is a rush of voices exchanging thoughts inside the room.
“Unheard of!”
“I can’t believe it!”
“T-the Knights have betrayed us!” are a few of the alarms spoken among the confused chorus. Order promptly rests her weight on the table, barely pulling the chair-member’s attention away from panic.
“Now wait a minute, everyone. Knight Love has not sided with necromancers! This is all obviously a big misunderstanding and will be cleared up once the two knights get here,” Order says, calming the group down, with the exception of Love, who has “read ahead” and can guess how bad this is about to become. The worst part comes right after, as Order glances to Love just a moment to give her a trusting, affirming gaze.
Only a moment passes of silence before the two knights are led in.
“Ahh, excellent, thank ye. Now you two ... hrm, what are your names?” Gallin asks.
“Lain Gainswold, sir,” Lain says with a wide gaze, still in shock from his chastisement a la Law.
“Aoline Rayworth, sir!” Aoline says right after, quickly forcing the possibility of her being booted from the knights to the back of her mind; she’s the kind of person that feels the actions of the present can quickly rewrite the past, as taught by her Ragnivanian parents. She’ll do her best to look like she’s worth keeping.
“Aye, so tell me: Were you two really kidnapped by necromancers?” Gallin asks. Lain looks over to Aoline, and she quickly blurts out her answer.
“Of course we were, sir!” she says with military straightness. Gallin chuckles.
“Are ye certain? Do you have any proof?” he asks with a straight forward gaze. Aoline clenches her teeth in thought. She’s never actually seen a necromancer before; Love just told her that’s what happened. She looks about, weighs the gazes laying on her, and clears her throat.
“Well, actually we d-”
“We don’t have any proof,” Lain says, slowly believing the untruth that Love had set this all up. Gallin grins amidst the fervent exchange of whispers between table members, as Love shrugs.
“This true, young human?” Gallin asks.
There is a pause.
“Yes, sir. A matter of fact we didn’t see a single necromancer. We both just woke up being carried by Knight Love,” Aoline admits.
At this very moment, a sharp chill of humiliation runs down Order’s spine.
“Aye, ahn there ye have it, everyone. Necromancer disappears, we know who did it, she tried to make an excuse. I don’t see a reason we should have this go on any longer,” Gallin explains amidst the room strangled with thoughts of betrayal. “Is that not true, Pitch, milord?” Gallin adds, giving the king of the fairy folk a leading glance. Both are well aware that if Pitch openly denies the most-obvious possibility in favor of The Knights, he will quickly lose face among the majority of his subjects, who like the idea of the majority of humans being cheating, lying, deceptive bags of inferior trash. Order quickly speaks up.
“That’s wrong! Love went into Everlock to retrieve the necromancer! Why would she let it go after she went through all of that?” she says with a direct gaze to Gallin. The Dwarf scoffs, as if it were the opinion of a child.
“To deceive us, of course! How else could we trust a necromancer to enter our home? It must have been a spy to collect information! What say you, milord?” Gallin says, again trying to get a response from the Fairy King.
Pitch shifts his eyes around the room, noting Order especially; her eyes are shining an enthused gold; she knows this is bad, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to give up. Regardless of what he thinks, unless he wants to start a real war between the fairy folk and the humans, his hands are tied for now. He looks over to Tylvania, who shrugs with royal lightness.
“I ... My heart is weary with all of these dark words directed to our very own knights ...-”
“But they’re not our knights, milord! They just pulled a necromancer from right under our noses! You know well there has not been a single account of Oa willingly giving back a stolen creature! Her story is riddled with holes! We should do to them what we do to all traitors of the crown of light!” Gallin says, quickly loosing a quiet sigh from Pitch.
Solemnly, the King of Leaves searches the eyes of the people around him for an answer, but locks again onto Order’s eyes. Very gently, she nods, giving her approval.
He swallows. “You speak ... truth, good Gallin. You are for true the most bellicose of my high fairies, and for that, you show us all the ... the grim deceit that has slighted our noble souls. Let the body of the knight, Love, be arrested, so her soul and motives may be better known. At that ... I will deliver my address to the fair folk on the early morrow, after the tea of the first realm-ones. Begone with her, bleed her of her knowledge, and trouble me no more with such bitter conduct. I rest,” says Pitch, Gallin quickly supporting his decision with a nod. Tylvania quickly follows Pitch to console him amidst the new uproar of chatter between the fairies in the room.
The two guards quickly present themselves in front of Love.
“Us with come. Dungeon to bring,” the Spook, by the name of Spinamus, says as he makes four authoritative squats. Love looks over to Order, who only returns her gaze with a blank gaze.
Love turns to the guards, smiles and goes along with them amidst the gazes of the fairy folk all around her. The guards make certain to acquire both Everlock and Worldloss from her and bind her hands with magic cuffs, designed to cut of
f the mana-flow to one’s hands.
Love is led deep into Liefholn, into a cell made of the living bark of the structure itself- thought to be impenetrable by all but the greatest of creatures and blades. She is placed under the watch of Yeinwyll, a lesser ent said to be Liefland’s greatest, fiercest warrior, only lesser than the king and queen. For the next several hours Order is left talking to the various members of the table, grilling Aoline and Lain again and again for any information, and attempting to get into the dungeon to speak to Love.
Chapter Eighteen: Ticking…
It now being around lunch time, Love is served a plate of herb-roasted fairy bread and criminal tea. The bread is perfectly fine, but considering criminal tea is supposed to be used to make criminals confess their wrong doings out of disgust, has been steeped way, way too long. Love thinks it smells like urine and, should being stabbed in the back by one’s inferiors have a taste, would likely be this. She enjoys the bread, takes only one sip of the tea, and waits until there is a knock on the door at the entry to the dungeon. Yeinwyll sighs, puts aside the latest issue of “O.E.L. Archivist” magazine, obviously an import, and goes over to open the door.
At the other side is a tall, snooty-looking spirit, and Order, who quickly presents a writ of permission to speak to Love so long as the conversation is recorded by a scribe. Yeinwyll snorts out a breath of treeish air and steps aside.
Order is pulled up a chair by the lady ghost, and she readies her quill and paper to record their words. At first, Order simply stares into Love’s eyes, waiting for some sort of sign. All Love gazes back is honesty; Order knew she was innocent, but this only proves it more so to her.
“Meeo,” Order begins, starting off the ghost’s purplish ink, shining on its luminescent parchment.
“Well hello, Ranalie.”
“They’re very serious, Meeo. You know we were going to use that living necromancer as proof that they’re out for the fairies, and now that it’s gone, there’s no way they can explain it to the public in a way that would make them happy; they’re furious, Meeo, they want someone dead for this- justice served.”
Meeo’s smile doesn’t move as she nods with certainty. “Yes, I’m well aware.”
“And now the talk upstairs is that they’re going to blame us for this. If we don’t fix this problem, they’re going to execute you, or else they’ll declare war,” Order says with a sharp, white-eyed gaze. Love pauses a moment in thought and returns with an even wider smile than before.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Meeo. If you can’t ... very carefully tell me what happened, they’re going to execute you by soil tomorrow during Pitch’s address. You need to tell me everything you know, do you understand me?” Order says, referring to the legendary Fairy-punishment of planting a live Crying Crillion seed in a person’s chest, causing a very slow, very painful death as the seed germinates, spreads roots, and kills the host over several days.
What the scribe does not take down is the very sudden twitch on Knight Love’s features when she imagines being given the same treatment she had read about in all of those infamous legends.
“Ahh ... oh my ... alright then, I’ll do my best to clear things up. Well, I interrogated the necromancer and, as I said, it communicated that it had agents that stole Lain and Aoline. It offered an exchange of, you know, prisoners, so I thought I might as well because ... well ... well you know me, Ranalie; I don’t want anyone to die if they don’t have to,” Love says, quickly receiving a sigh in return from Order.
“Is this really the truth?”
“Yes. Is something the matter?”
“Well, first of all, necromancers don’t know how to write. I’ve never heard of any of them communicating in the common language other than Oa, so there’s no way they would belie-”
“Well maybe they know how to write but just don’t,” Love says, connecting her gaze to Order’s as clearly as she can. Order presses a finger against her forehead.
“Yes, Meeo, I get that, but they don’t know you like I do. That, and also Gallin’s right. No one has ever heard of necromancers trading for human specimens ... they don’t care if one of their own dies. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Ahh, well this is an exception.”
“... Is it?”
“Yes, you see, I me- ... hmm,” Love stops herself again, realizing that, because this conversation is not truly private, were she to reveal that she is in fact collaborating with Oa to save the lives of Aoline and Lain, that would only solidify her label as a traitor and a double agent. Love turns her gaze to the cell for a moment, ponders simply dying to save Lain and Aoline, but then thinks of the fairies, and all that will die should Oa succeed in its goal. It must be kept a secret. She can fix this. Not a soul needs to die- the question is, how will she do it?
Meeo turns back to Order.
“Ran, I can’t tell you that. If I told you what happened, things would go badly,” she says, giving Order a look of pity, a rare expression for her. Order inhales sharply.
“That’s not fair, Meeo. You can’t keep me in the dark like this. We’ve been friends for too long-”
“We haven’t spent all that much time together in the past few hundred years.”
“And that’s okay, Meeo. I still know who you are, and the Meeo I know would tell me anything. Is that not true?”
Meeos gaze trails off to the side of the cell. “It’s a life or death situation, Ranalie. There are many lives at stake, and perhaps ... perhaps were you to simply let me die, and you and the Knights were to ... hmm,” Love says, strained for the right words.
“No, this is a life or death situation, for you! Meeo, you’re my oldest friend, next to Redemption. Please, please tell me what happened! I don’t want ... Damn, I’ve really messed up this time, I should be in that cell, not you. It was my duty to ... Oh Meeo I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, you. Ranalie, You were just doing what your post requires of you. I was the one that acted out and got myself in trouble. I suppose I can tell you that the two were definitely, honestly captured by the necromancers and that I did trade the prisoner for them; but it’s a little more complex than that, and if I tell you everything, all of you will be in danger. The fairies won’t understand.”
“... That so?” Meeo smiles and her eyes squint bleakly.
“That is so.”
“... Okay, Meeo ... So, I guess this will be goodbye?” Order asks, reaching through the bars just a moment to reach Meeo’s hand. The two make contact for just a moment as Love rests against the tree-like bars.
“Hmm, possibly.”
“I won’t be there tomorrow. I couldn’t stand to see you ... you know.”
“I know. Simply ... should I somehow get the chance to speak to you privately before then, perhaps I can fill you in on everything. For now, however, I suppose there’s not much else to say.”
“... Alright. I’ll ... I’ll live for the two of us.”
“I would ask nothing less, Ranalie, now you enjoy your time with the fairies.”
“You know by this point that’s impossible ... All this in just a couple damn hours.”
“Oh, do your best. I hear the Liefland public spa is free for political ambassadors!”
“Meeo, please.”
“Hmm, alright. Goodbye, Ranalie.” Order sighs.
“I must say, I’m shocked. You seem so calm, even now... You’ve been a great friend ... Goodbye, Meeo,” Order says as the two hold hands a moment more, and then release. Eyes blue with sorrow, Order sits up from her chair, and leaves with the ghost, pad filled with dialogue for the table to look over the moment she can deliver it to them.
Meeo watches as Yeinwyll retakes his spot, gives her a slow look to make sure she understands she’s being watched and then he returns to his magazine. Meeo retakes a seat on the bed in her cell, and begins pondering how she could fix all of this.
When it comes down to it, she is really okay with dying, but she can’t give up here, not now
. Should the necromancers invade, even if it is for Oa’s perfectly sensible-sounding goal, hundreds of fairies will be slaughtered. She needs to find some way to combat Oa, while being able to somehow educate the knights about the death seals placed on Aoline and Lain ... perhaps if Order cast a spell of concealment over them all; they could stay in the castle, Oa would enter, and seeing that there were no knights, release the spell so they could attack it.
...
Wait, no- she doesn’t think that would work. Oa would not release the spell unless it needed all of its mana to battle Pitch and Tylvania ... and while they are far stronger than most, they still pale in comparison to Death’s Owner. The only way out of this that Love can see is if somehow she can both tell Order of the explosion-causing seals on the two lower knights and also find some way to defeat Oa, who will likely have all of the necromancers at its disposal for this attack.
Love ponders her escape attempt and then realizes she has everything she needs thanks to Everlock. As she begins to devise her plan, she also realizes that she can get the fighting force she needs. She knows where Chaos’ dimensional door is, just right up in the clouds. She can get to him, and somehow persuade him to help ... perhaps if she were to tell him about the High Tea, and that he can take it for himself, he would go down and defeat Oa, saving everyone. Perhaps he would take the seat to the High Tea, but Love feels it would be worth it to save everyone. She’ll need to find some way to persuade him that she’s truly friendly, however; he’s infamous for not only having terrible memory-loss, but also for being pretty much completely insane. He’s legendary for his inconsistency with people, after all, not that she’s all that worried. This time, she’s more sure than ever that she can talk her way out of anything she runs into.
She snaps her fingers and makes a covert, magical gesture. Even though the shackles are supposed to inhibit magic use, doesn’t mean that they work on a witch knight over three thousand years old; silly fairies.
Chapter Nineteen: Coming and Going