2013.10.10 - Gemworld 2: You'll Never Guess -- They're Made Out of Gems!

The other side is the same sky, but a different place. It's the same time of day. Amethyst and her mother ride in the lead, the guard and Pete in the middle, with the second guard trailing behind. It is presumably her job to kill Pete where he sits if he makes trouble.

The capital beneath them is a metropolis of its own kind. Buildings stretch on as far as they eye can see, but they are woven into a healthy tree coverage. It is not quite the fairytale city that it seems at first blush: these are a people every bit as advanced as those on Earth, but their magic and smaller population has allowed them to control their civilization's growth in another way. They have chosen conservation of the land, it seems.

The magic of the place is evident in the occasional strange building. Observatories, slender towers, bizarre gem 'forges'--then there is the palace, a massive complex flying banners and adorned with titanic amethysts. It, and the public lawns surrounding its walls, are especially filled with colorful birds, though animals appear to be common throughout the city.

And mounted, flying guards. They are at war.

The steed bring them down to a landing jutting from the central tower. Servants are guards are there, ready to act. Some beg the attention of Amethyst's mother, casting furtive glances at Amethyst herself. Others take the reins and fly off, presumably to guide the flying beasts to their stable. Others are security.

Amethyst does her best to stay above it all. Her mother plays her part well, ignoring the bemusement her daughter's presence is causing and demanding attention. One task catches her, however, when a robed man requests her to read a map.

"Amaya, you may retire to your quarters for now. I will call you when we need to speak. Representatives from House Turquoise and House Topaz will be joining us this evening. House Diamond is already darkening our hearth."

"Yes, Lady Graciel," the princess responds, stiff. She gestures to Pete and begins walking. Her mother catches her hand as she passes.

"Amaya, I'm glad you're safe."

"...thanks, mom."

Lady Graciel releases her daughter's hand. The princess continues, moving through the crowd, a door, another door, and into a stairwell. She starts up them, not looking back. "My 'quarters' are like two entire floors. How'd you like the show?"

It's funny as hell, really, in what's possibly a somewhat creepy way: once Pete's taken the role, he falls into it perfectly. It works on the same principle as usually wearing a suit and tie-- in the circles through which he generally weaves, there are a lot of suits. Anonymity. Do what's expected of the image you're projecting, and people are less likely to notice you, remember you, or keep you in the fronts of their minds. So despite the leather jacket and the jeans and combat boots, he's perfectly serious and follows the protocols he found out, once upon a time, were actually followed in, say, the thirteenth century. Protective camouflage!

There's a lot of silent flanking of Amethyst, and a lot of deferential body language, generally speaking. Pod person.

Finally, they're alone and Pete mutters, "Because you like stairs," as he starts to follow her. Right: not a pod person.

"Oh, sorry!" Amethyst whirls nimbly around, walking backward up the steps with bouncing leaps. She wiggles her fingers at Pete. "Did you want me to levitate you up?"

The princess stops at a landing. The door, a solid wooden slab decorated with gold and gemstone, opens on its own. She grins and steps inside, only turning around to walk properly when she's passed the entryway.

The royal quarters are open. Divisions in space usage are suggested through pillars, rises or recess in the floor, and furniture. There is no far wall, only a series of pillars dividing the room from the open sky. Presumably, there is some sort of magical barrier for comfort and privacy.

There are riches here. Pete may have been around royalty before. House Amethyst is one of, if not the major player in Nilaa. The artifacts used for decoration are likely priceless in the 'it would be unable to accurately price this at any market value that would have meaning in the world economy' sense.

Amethyst leaps onto a divan, bouncing once and displacing pillows. "I didn't mean for this to happen." She stares up at the ceiling. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. Should I call you Pete, or is that a friends only type of thing?"

"Oh god no," says Pete fervently, lifting his hands in surrender. He can't properly manage a sour expression after that, either, and attempts at scowling or trying to look disapproving to cover what's skirting dangerously close to a smirk, in the end, utterly fail. He just grins back up the stairs at her, then follows her through the doors.

Hands jammed in his pockets, he looks over the place, momentarily stopped in his tracks by the loveliness of the space. For a half-second, there's something lost about his expression, but it's gone too quickly to put a better name on it. Instead, he just wanders over until there's a column he can lean against, facing Amethyst; his focus is summarily shifted to fall squarely on the princess.

Half-crook of a smile. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. It's not like you needed another responsibility-- but at least I'm only one if I'm here."

How the hell do you ask if you can step outside the magical barrier to smoke a cigarette. God damn.

And then Pete shrugs and just grins like a kid who got away with something major. "You get to call me whatever you like. If I were you I wouldn't actually call me a knight unless you're planning on knighting me, which, please don't, jesus fuck please don't; I'm technically your liegeman. Me, I have to call you by your titles unless there's no chance of anyone else overhearing. But even aside from the rules: Pete's fine. Wisdom's fine, too. Don't care which."

"You're friends with Constantine," she says, "and it sounds like you already had a good reason to avoid him. I don't think I'll be calling you Wisdom."

The princess sits up, swinging her legs off the side of the divan. With a tap of her necklace and a flash of purple, she is wearing a purple tunic and laced slippers. She sticks her bare legs out, rubbing a large bruise on one with the toe of the other. Memories of Nazis stomped.

"Liegeman. You know more about this royal stuff than I do." Amethyst looks up, eyes bright and inquisitive. "Why did you come to Hell? Don't say it's because your partner asked you to. Why did you help me when I was doing something so stupid?"

Pete rolls his eyes, slouching against the pillar as he looks away, hands still in his pockets. "I'm not-- exactly friends with Constantine. I could tell you what the deal is, but it's not particularly important: at least you're not calling me it out of irony." He takes his hands out, straightening up off the pillar and turning around to look out the 'windows'. And, incidentally, poke at the air with his hands, trying to feel out whether there's a tactile barrier of some kind. He's Not Looking At Amy's Legs.

"I just know a lot of things. Most of 'em'll never be useful," he says with a wry grin over his shoulder, then looks back at the nothing he's probably doing, with that there air. "Seemed like it needed doing," he finally answers. "What were you asking me, back there? Did SHIELD do what?"

Pete is not magically rebuffed. There is nothing to touch. "There's magic there, but don't worry. You can walk through it," Amethyst says, noticing his trepidation.

Her sandals are mostly silent on the carpets and stone between her and Pete, but it's still possible to realize she's walking over. The princess walks out onto the balcony itself, leaning over the edge to watch the courtyard below. The House Guard is running through evening drills, mock combat and individual instruction.

"The Order stuff." Amethyst gives Pete a hard look. It's her mother's look, now that Pete has familial context. "You don't know anything about what I'm talking about, do you?"

"What?" Pete takes a second to reorient: apparently he did think she'd been asking if SHIELD taught him what fealty was. In that second, clear blue eyes searching for context in Amethyst's scary-face-making. "Oh. What I swore by? I had to mean it, I couldn't swear to God. Order and Chaos are metaphysical constants that every single set of rules and laws boil down to." He comes out on the balcony as well, and now his hand's definitely trying not to twitch toward his jacket pocket. "I figured if you'd been studying with the Sorcerer Supreme, it'd be something you'd recognise as binding. No time, many concepts, shorthand via weighted words."

Then Pete's expression's gone all smirk again. "You seemed bright enough to pick up on it, though I'll admit to near having a heart attack when you dug your feet in. Shouldn't've. I expect you know your own mother's limits."

Amethyst is frozen, rapt with attention at Pete's explanation of Order and Chaos. Then she breaks. "Pffffft--"

The princess covers her mouth, fighting her laughter so that it's reduced to giggles and a gasp for air or two. "I--haha--oh, wow! Yeah, dude, I, um. I recognized it. I'm smart as hell like that."

She breathes out, slowly and smoothly. It's the only test that will confirm that she won't start laughing again. She passes, only smiling. That fades, too, as the topic of her mother is broached. "I'm not sure I do, anymore."

The princess looks out over the city. The sun is close to set, and then it does, all in a few seconds. This is not Earth. The moonlight is brighter than on the First World, as they called it. It's a silvery sun of a sort, twinkling in the thousands of gems that dot the city. Amethyst's tunic and hair twinkle with little fairylights because she's a princess with the home field advantage.

"I think I'll have to stay for dinner. My father was from House Turquoise. Seeing me will help the negotiations." She glances at Pete, gauging his mood with a mild but forlorn look. "I should send you back. Before I do, I wanted to ask you something."

Wide eyes for a second, almost comical. Pete has, see, no idea what the hell was-- "What's so funny?" he glowers, crossing his arms and thumping back against the balcony rail like a daring darer of derrings-do. And then she's twinkling with fairy lights, and Pete sighs and runs his hands roughly down his face. He turns to look out at the vista again, elbows on the rail. She isn't sure if she knows Terrifying Magical Lady Mom's limits. Before he can even think about how to start addressing that, or whether he even should, Amethyst's rolling business right along.

So, there is straightening up again. And Pete, he gives Amy a look she may actually have seen him give Rain: affectionate mild exasperation. "Do you -want- to send me back? If there's anything here I can do for you, you may have noticed I swore myself to your service." He relents, though, hand tapping idly at the railing. "Ask away."

Amethyst clasps her hands together, resting them against her cheek. "Oh, fair liegeman, how noble art thou in conduct and intent!"

For the third time in the past thirty minutes, she falls silent and appraises Peter Paul Winston Wisdom. This time, it ends with a slight smile. "Okay, Pete. We'll get you some honest clothes and you can live the Game of Thrones dream."

The princess turns and walks back into the royal apartments, hands brushing a table set with busts of princesses past. They all look suspiciously like Amethyst. They were, after all, Princess Amethyst at some point. "I really hate these," she murmurs, then looks back to the balcony.

"I was going to ask if you still wanted to help me and the doc save the world from the Angel of Vengeance, but I guess you'll say yes, if you're willing to hang out in Nilaa. I'll say this, then: is there anything that I could do that would make you stop, call SHIELD, and point them at me? I'm unregistered. I don't think I want to register."

"You are such a bitch," Pete finally laughs out, after spending that appraisal time eyeing Amy incredibly warily. Now? No, no wariness, just sort of a helplessly amused resignation: he signed up for it. He always does. He trails after Amethyst, sticking his hands back in his pockets; there's just the most cursory of glances he affords the busts. "Could put drop cloths on 'em," he offers cheerfully. "Used to have to do that with my sister's dead cats when I were a kid. Creeped me right the fuck out, going to bed. Every time."

The question's reasonable, honestly, even if the end of it is kind of annoying. So: he glosses over the annoyed, and Pete answers the last bit first. "I don't give two tugs if you're registered. I'm not an American citizen, and I'm not law enforcement, and even if I were, it wouldn't be American law enforcement. SHIELD's UN, and I'm special ops, occult and interdimensional focus. Former MI-6, fired for whistleblowing. It'd take you having a serious go at toppling world government without a good reason, or staging a Nilaani invasion of Earth (without a good reason) for me to point at you, and I'd definitely spend a lot of time arguing with you over it first." By the end he's just grinning.

"Most people generally agree that I am, in fact, a huge bitch." Amethyst returns to inspecting the busts, though she does glance up at the mention of dead cats. She decides not to pursue it. With a wave of her hand, the gemstone heads go floating toward the other side of the room. A closet door opens and swallows them whole, slamming shut.

"Nilaian," Amethyst corrects, tapping a finger to her temple. "Nilaani sounds like a cookie."

She grins too, because she's standing in Gemworld and doesn't feel like a total outsider. The princess spins around on her toes, back to the now cleared table. With a hop, she seats herself where the busts once were. A much greater resemblance than the other ones, to be sure.

"Alright!" She claps her hands together, then touches her necklace. A beam of purple light shines out, zigzagging through the air and then landing in her free hand. A ruby now shines there, as big as her palm. "I'm going to heal this bruise so I can wear this to dinner. I hear Lady Turquoise is around my age and really athletic, so I gotta bring my A game and show off. You go out that big door over there and tell a guard you need, uh. Livery? You probably know. Say your name's Wisdom, it's a little less suspicious than Pete. People will just think you're full of yourself."

"Begs a glottal stop, that," is Pete's kneejerk comment. He does toast to Welsh jokes. But he behaves, otherwise, especially considering the twirlingly girly magic telekinesis; his expression's one of those 'I am slightly dubious of this representation of reality but I will let it wash over me, zen zen zen' things he gets sometimes, usually with regard to Booster Gold.

"And they'd be right," he answers Amethyst's diss almost breezily-- only 'almost' because it's a little too caustic. But then he laughs, and heads doorwards. "I'll ask for the renfaire special. And then eventually someone'll scrape me up off the pavement. It'll be brilliant. By the way don't you dare take pictures."

"But Nilaian cameras are so cool!" Amethyst shouts after Pete as he crosses the enormity of the apartment. "You'll never guess--they're made out of gems!"