2013.10.10 - Gemworld 1: He's From Earth

Hiking: never one of Wisdom's favorite activities. Especially not where there's also fresh air and hills. However: she went off, like that, after that. So as soon as Constantine's shoved off with his weird magic groceries, like eye of newt and dick of frog or something, the dressed-down not-so-secret secret agent tromps after Amy. There is also no secret about him following, he probably makes about as much noise as an awkward fourteen year old city kid on Baby's First Orienteering Class.

If Amethyst doesn't actually slow down, he grimly doesn't call out, just tries to speed up without breaking his neck. Okay, no, he calls out. Okay, he calls out even if she /does/ slow down. "Princess--" is as far as he gets before he realizes he has no idea what he was thinking to say.

Amy's childhood included lots of hiking. Hiking, camping, hunting, vicious sword duels with her mother. A little romp through troll country isn't worth sweat.

The ground is deceptively treacherous. The green hills hide jagged rocks and breakneck falls, either from short drops or the holes of burrowing animals. The gentle rolling of the terrain is itself a surprising problem; constantly walking uphill and downhill requires not only a physical commitment of endurance, but also a mental commitment of balance.

Amy doesn't slow down. She hears him, alright. He's probably going to fall and snap his ankle soon. The problem is she doesn't know what to say to him, either. She doesn't slow down.

Calling her name is a little touch of human weakness that is too much. The teen stops, turning to look at Pete in profile. "It's Amy," she shouts back. "Am I under arrest for assaulting a talking cock?"

This man's a city boy at heart, but he's also spent enough time doing stupid things like running through jungles and arctic wastelands that he's not about to actually trip and break his neck-- but he sure as hell sounds like he ought to. Also, smoker. So it's probably not surprising he's out of breath by the time Pete reaches Amy. "Fine," he chuffs out, "Amy, then. And fuck no, he had it coming. Besides me not being a cop, for Christ's sake. I just-- you're not wrong. All right? You're not. I know you really--" Breathing. The Briton's eyes are closed; he just stands there a second and forcibly regulates his breathing, face flushed. "I know you don't," he says, finally, "know me from Adam. He dated my sister. He near got me killed. I can't fathom the scope, but I get it. I just wanted you to know, you're not wrong."

Amy is initially impassive. Pete huffs and puffs and looks like he's about to blow over. She stands tall in contrast, about the same height as him but of thicker build. Vicious sword fighting builds muscle.

Her relatively monolithic presence is eroded with every choked word: she looks away, then looks down, then frowns. When Wisdom finishes, she reaches out and touches his forehead with her index and pinky finger. "Calm down, dude."

The next breath he takes is as if he was coming off of a brisk two hours of sitting at a desk. It is not mentholated.

Amy breathes deep and exhales, tilting her chin up to gaze at the sky before finally turning her weird purple eyes on Pete. She doesn't sound particularly emotional. "Thanks. I knew I wouldn't get anything from him. I just had to try. I had to say something. I think I'm good now. But, thanks."

She raises her eyebrows. It's the look that one gives a child who hasn't fully explained the stains on their clothes. "I thought you were a real hardass. Did you come out here just to say you sympathize?"

And that-- is quite relaxing, yes. Contracts of Eternal Spring, go! Though the agent of SHIELD looks less like he's about to keel over from the dire torture of hiking, his expression's a little uncomfortable through Amy's moderately unemotional -- it reads as 'too tired and resigned to be actively bleak' -- thanks.

Well, uncomfortable until it's abruptly amused as shit, basically. "I'm hardass? We've barely met. What's that about?" But then he shakes his head, shifts his weight, reaches up to run a hand through his hair; he leaves his fingers knotted there for a second as he looks away.

Then Pete's hand drops. "I just wanted to be sure you were all right. I mean." He looks back at Amethyst. "Not as in-- I mean, obviously you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, and probably saving my ass in the field without even thinking about it. And I don't get on well with trolls, had a bit of a misunderstanding a few years ago-- I mean, what I mean is, obviously you're fine, so I'll just, you know, go."

He cocks a thumb back up the hill, finally looking back at Amy, sidelong. "I mean. If you're all right. Which. Is hardly my business, really. But." Subtext: you're a big girl, but that was rough; fairly dickish secret agent man is apparently worried.

Amy shrugs, but the motion is mostly swallowed up by her jacket. "I dunno, you came off as one? You work for the world police and you're friends with Constantine. Not really stellar company."

She crosses her arms and faces Pete, brazenly looking him over. She drops conversation during this. Her expression is difficult to read. Is she disapproving or quietly appreciative? Amy is a finely tuned monster designed to destroy school hallways and eviscerate all social opposition. A few of those skills transfer over, especially with people who remember their teens.

"I appreciate it,"she says, eventually. "I'm not just saying that. I don't think I'm ever going to be alright, but I don't think anyone ever is." She nods over the hill, in the direction of the portal. "Want me to walk you back?"

The cloudless sky is split by a thunderclap. Amy's eyes go wide. She lurches forward, grabbing Pete's hands in her own, breathless with urgency. "Now I'm Princess Amethyst, alright?"

Without further explanation, Amy reaches up and grabs her necklace. She is enveloped in a swirl of sparkles and a beam of light, leaving her as regal and imposing and blonde as the day Pete met her.

Over her shoulder, the situation explains itself. Three winged creatures descend from a glimmering hole in the sky, each bearing a rider. They move with grace that belies their enormous wingspan and bulky bodies; they are some sort of large cat, fanged and multicolored like birds of paradise. Each bears a rider.

They are there in moments, giving Pete the slightest of time to respond, considering the apparent magnitude of the situation. Princess Amethyst positions herself in front of him, hair blowing dramatically as the wind picks up.

Two of the riders wear heavy armor. They have spears on their saddles and swords at their belts, but they favor a free hand as their weapon. The center is a woman in fine clothing, a magnificent crown atop her blonde head, her hair done in complex and tight braids.

"Hi, mom," Amethyst ventures, unsure.

"Not in front of the commonfolk." The older woman--it is difficult to guess her exact age--narrows her eyes. "But I suppose he isn't. Did you bring someone from Earth to Nilaa?"

The guards exchange looks.

Doesn't look like he's trying to come up with excuses, here; Pete lifts his hands while Amy's looking him over, and the expression on his face while he recognises, from the core of 'I hated high school and everyone in it', how she's sizing him up? It's defiant. But then he drops them again, and he's about to answer the bit about walking him back--

Thunder. Sky riders, approaching on impossible beasts, armed and crowned.

--Amethyst's got his hands and he gets what she means yes, of course you're Princess Amethyst now, you're always Princess Amethyst even when you'd rather be called Amy, even when you'd rather just be Amy, and of course this is where you have to play the part) without having to think about it; Pete follows her lead without hesitation.

The mother and daughter speak; wheels start spinning in Wisdom's head as soon as the other crown's identified. The accusation and the looks the guards exchange, they're very nearly foreseen-- something like that follows the general rules; the general rules have loopholes.

Loopholes in magic and in law are things with which Peter Wisdom is intimately familiar. He's not a citizen. He's not a subject. He's an alien again, and one that the Princess may have broken a considerable rule in allowing access to Nilaa.

It's not to save her. Really. It's really just to save his own skin. Honest. This thing happens in the background, while Pete's head's bowed, as he's not presuming to look at the apparent Queen or her guard.

He says really fast, only just loud enough for Amy to hear, "By the laws of-- Order. Within the borders of Nilaa, I will be to Amaya Amethyst faithful and true, and love all that she loves, and-- and shun all that she shuns, according to the-- to this world's principles, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by work, do ought of what is loathful to her; on condition that she keep me as I am willing to deserve, and all that fulfil that our agreement was, when I to her submitted, and chose her will."

It's old words. Storybook words, catching at a storybook loophole. There's no time for anything else: she'll catch the logistics of what out he's offering, and she'll take it, or she won't. Maybe? Maybe she has a better plan. That would be cool.

Amethyst stands tall, facing down the dragon that is every girl's mother sometimes.

The drama is undercut by on-stage directions from Pete. The princess lowers her head, listening with growing incredulity. She looks at the agent out of the corner of her eye. "How did you know about that? Is SHIELD--" she cuts herself off by making a small, annoyed sound.

Her mother, the possible queen, watches with the same purple eyes. She sees what her daughter sees. Maybe she can hear, too. "Amaya? Will you answer me?"

"Yeah, I did," Amethyst replies, chin up. "He's from Earth. SHIELD agent, too."

Amethyst's mother affects that perfect mixture of concern, anger, and disappointment that people learn when they are responsible for children or any other kind of ignorant human. "Amaya. I let you leave Nilaa because you were right to want to defend it from Lord Kalaa. We left the First World because--"

"--because of something that happened thousands of years ago!" Amethyst becomes animate, speaking with her hands, a musical lilt entering her voice that wasn't there before. "There's magic on Earth! Not as much as here, but it exists! I--"

"Amaya."

The princess freezes. Her hands become fists. "You never liked it when I brought boys home."

"Amaya!"

"Girls were worse!"

Another thunderclap. Amethyst's mother has raised her hand. The sky is split, once more. Her face is a mask, hiding whatever emotion has overcome her.

The princess slouches, crossing her arms. Her mist silk ribbon snaps smartly in the breeze. "He's my sworn retainer. Knight. Whatever. I get those, right?" She raises her hand, the one her ribbon is attached to. A strip of it comes off, floating in the breeze back to Pete. The hole in Amethyst's ribbon is replaced before the smaller piece gets to him. A favor for him to wear.

Amethyst's mother pulls on her reins. The flying beast beneath her pads in a circle, exposing its profile to the two. "We'll speak of this at the palace. Alone. Your 'knight' is invited as well. Unless you have a quest to send him on?"

"Nah, I'm good." Amethyst gives Pete an exasperated look, then starts toward her mother's steed. One of the guards turns his mount, evidently Pete's ride.

Questions! But when Amethyst eyes Pete, asking how he knows, he's just giving her a blank look. It's obvious there's this fleeting disbelief going on, like he thinks she's asking him how he knows about fealty. It's just entirely eclipsed by Amy's mom being terrifying, and then--

--and then Pete does his best not to wince visibly when Amy actually outright tells her mom he's SHIELD. And then it just gets better and better. By this point, it's a mercy his head's ducked, because it really wouldn't do for the Dragon Queen to see him smirking. Or Amy, for that matter. He just does a whole lot of the 'not saying a bloody word' thing.

At least Wisdom actually knows how to get on a horse. He's probably seen some really good YouTube tutorials: that's about the level of quality his practice is, as opposed to theory. Hopefully it'll be a short ride, oh god.

It is a short ride. Most tense rides are. If they're too long, the tension turns to something else. The three riders disappear through the portal and are spared having to figure out what emotion to move to next.