2013.10.10 - Gemworld 3: I Left My F***ing Cigarettes in F***ing Gemworld

It doesn't take Pete long to find the guards. They find him. They seem to already know who he is and what he's going to ask. They take him to a parlor. Twenty minutes of measuring and waiting later, the tailor leaves Pete with his new finery: purple tunic, sash, and trousers, embroidered with golden details, and a cape with a gemstone clasp. He is also afforded a sword, a slender dueling blade with an amethyst set in the hilt.

Back in the apartment, Amethyst stands in front of a full length mirror. She doesn't do anything to change her appearance. She's just staring and toying uselessly with her hair. At the opening of the door, the princess turns around. "Oh, I see. They didn't have any armor for you, so they set you up to look like some young noble. You must not have looked like the scholarly type."

Honestly at this point Pete'd hardly be surprised by the toilets being made out of gems. At least, that's what he keeps telling himself. The longer he stays here, after all, the greater the chance of him eventually having to collapse the quantum state of the loo, and this is the kind of thing that happens when Wisdom has to wear clothes like this. This is where his head goes. Because it's better than accidentally catching his reflection.

"I can't really imagine a situation where I'd be able to pull off 'scholarly type'," Wisdom says, only not muttering by sheer force of willpower. He looks... itchy. Even if they're probably magically comfortable clothes or something. He looks rather like finery might cause some kind of spontaneous combustive allergic reaction. "But I can't reckon how they got 'noble' of any stripe. What are you even doing, your hair's perfect. It's doing this-- I don't know, ghost firefly thing. Is it meant to do that?"

Amethyst returns to her mirror. She continues playing with her hair even when Pete voices his opinion. Her reflection is smiling. When she turns around, she is composed. "Everything I learned about hair came in a box of dye. I guess, um, my family's nicknamed the light bringers?"

The princess flicks her hair hard. A few of the fireflies sparkle off, fading into the night. There is no appreciable difference in the amount in her hair. "Did that do anything? Nevermind."

She walks toward the door. As she passes, Amethyst brushes a hand across Pete's elbow. "I'd say escort me down, but it'd probably be better if you followed behind me and looked servile."

There can be no response to the flicking of ghost-fireflies.

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'deferential,' Highness," says Pete, giving a half grin, finally. But he offers his arm. In its very purple sleeve oh god help him this is so much worse than danger. "What I'm wearing's good for something, anyway: implication by presentation's all anyone's looking for. It'd look odder if I came with you but didn't escort you, all got up like this." There's a pause. "Besides, don't you more or less do what you want anyway, when it comes to protocol?"

"Is that a challenge?" Amethyst says with faux offense, placing a hand on her chest. "If you put it that way..."

The princess links arms with Wisdom and continues on. She's leading. It's a consequence of being a decisive person, especially one who has been challenged so recently. The guards fall in with the two of them as they pass, their oiled armor clinking reassuringly behind them. Or threateningly. Ear of the beholder.

There are more stairs, though they are grand foyers and thankfully not tucked-away stairwells. All eyes turn to Amethyst when she passes, and Wisdom by association. She keeps her chin high and pays the increasingly large audience no mind.

A large set of doors, twice as tall as a person, lead to a large meeting room. It is circular, with raised audience seating ringing the main floor. In the center, an enormous table carved from a single block of stone sits underneath a suspended amethyst.

Lady Graciel stands in her armor, overlooking a map dominating most of the table. Beside her stands a nearly identical blonde woman in clinging robes. She is fleshier than Graciel, though not unpleasantly so. She holds a glass of wine.

"That's my aunt, Lady Mordiel. She tried to kill me and my mom for awhile. Got my dad killed." Amethyst does not seem angry at this. She's stating facts. "Kind of an ass, really. She's family, and she helped us. Don't make eye contact. Or, um, do. Maybe she'll like that."

"Why do I get the feeling," Pete mutters to Amethyst, "that either way lies doom and possible dismemberment? My Lady, please don't go setting me up with politically bipolar cougars. Why does everyone speak English? Or is it magic?"

The British secret agent in the terrifyingly purple attire does, otherwise, the same thing as Amy: ignores the fact that everyone's staring at them. Obviously, his plan to not have any attention paid him is subject to a fatal flaw: he didn't take into account he's escorting a princess. I mean, duh, but it's this whole thing he's really not used to.

For the record, he does not make eye contact with Lady Mordiel.

"Magic," Amethyst confirms. "Did it when I grabbed your hands. It'll wear off eventually. We're all speaking Nilaian, actually. It's kind of like--" she tilts her head and frowns in thought. "I guess Sindarin, sort of? It sounds magicky."

Amethyst remains a cruel taskmistress and advances the both of them to the table. She chooses the nearest edge, which puts them not quite ninety degrees from Ladies Graciel and Mordiel on the circle.

"Mother," she says, icy. "Mordiel."

"You brought your... liegeman," Graciel says, choosing her phrasing with exaggerated care.

"Her liegeman," Mordiel repeats, letting the word roll off her tongue like a knotted cherry stem. She leans over the table, resting her nearly empty glass. "My dear Amaya, please introduce me."

The princess is like freshly cut stone, glittering and sharp. "Wisdom is an adventurer from the Garnet barrier islands. He has sworn to House Amethyst."

Mordiel glances at Graciel, lips curling into a kind of a smile. Graciel is her daughter's mirror. Mordiel raises her glass. "To Wisdom, who wisely fled the stormy peaks before Opal swallowed them up."

Graciel turns her head, "Mordiel!"

"It's not like anyone's here yet," she replies, speaking mostly into her glass.

Amethyst leans over and whispers something into Pete's ear. It's gibberish, but pretty gibberish. A moment later, her voice in his head: |"Don't worry. No one would dare interfere with my spells. Well, Mordiel would, but she kind of gave her power up."|


 * "Excellent,"| comes Pete's voice back in Amethyst's head with an undefined rush of relief. |"I think I may actually be terrified out of my mind. It's kind of interesting."| All background; experience with telepathy means he's capable of having meaningful interaction concurrent with brain-conversation.

What this boils down to is Wisdom offering a textbook courtly bow on being introduced, face a mask of pleasant unreadability. "My Ladies Graciel, Mordiel." Awkward! A toast and baiting him over his fake home country, all in one go. Best bet: be perfectly uninteresting. Seriously. |"Are they waiting to sit down until you're seated? I gather you sort of outrank them, technically."|

When he admits he's terrified, Pete's head is filled with giggling. At least the confidence is only being telepathically challenged.

|"I hold the blood power of House Amethyst, but my mother still rules. As a retired head of the household, my aunt also holds a position of respect. Kinda. I'll sit down so you can."|

She does, folding her hands on the table before her. "My quest isn't finished, mother. I can't stay forever. We are in danger as long as Lord Kalaa lives."

"When the Princess Amethyst of legend first vanquished Kalaa, he was gone for thousands of years. Is this really our problem?" Mordiel says, eyebrow raised. Her affected boredom implies that she does not believe what she is saying.

Graciel is more direct: "Amaya, I appreciate your concern, but this stalemate cannot last forever. Lord Opal--"

"Dark Opal," Mordiel corrects. She looks sidelong at her sister. "They call him Dark Lord of the Opal. Because his brother, clearly, was a much better man." The lady smiles, the way one does at a child asking charming questions. "A development that occurred while you were raising Amaya on the First World."

|"Oh my god, one of these days my mom is going to start punching Mordiel and never stop."|

As soon as Amy's thinking 'I'll sit', Wisdom's stepping to pull her chair out for her and all that, and once she's seated, he stands to her right, one hand on the back of the chair there. |"Can't sit until they do. Have to get up again when other ladies enter, anyway; may as well stay standing."| His face holds just the right amount of interest in Graciel and Mordiel's conversation so he doesn't look like he's distracted, but doesn't look like he's paying dangerously avid attention. |"Look, I had dinner with Queen Elizabeth once, you don't forget this shit when you speed-learnt it in terror. Appreciate the thought, though."|

So, right: standing. Not saying a bloody word. Out loud, anyway. Telepathic speech is pretty much the best thing ever. |"Epic catty. Epic know-it-all catty with a side of the Rani."| Insert mental replay of clip of 'Time and the Rani', an 80s Doctor Who episode. Kate O'Meara, basically Dynasty in a catsuit with shoulderpads. |"Reminds me a bit of Emma Frost, actually."|


 * "Whatever, dude,"| Amethyst replies to the etiquette lesson. She crosses her arms and slides down into her chair, rebelling enough for the both of them. Graciel's look is pointed but silent.

"Regardless, Amaya, the blood power of Amethyst must stay in Nilaa. If Opal and his allies attack--"

"--you'll have the rest of Nilaa at your side! How many houses swore to Amethyst? Opal just has, what, Sardonyx and Emerald and Sapphire?"

Graciel slams a mailed fist into the table. It is not a gesture of rage, but rather of firmness. "The neutral houses swore to Amethyst because of you. Amethyst is a house with a history, one that you have stepped into."

"You should have seen Lady Turquoise last month," Mordiel interjects while exchanging her empty glass for a full one with a servant. "'Princess Amethyst reborn! Come to lead us to glory in battle!' The woman's a fiend when someone opens their cellars to her."

Mordiel locks eyes with Wisdom. Her mirth is suddenly gone, but she still smiles. "That's an expression referring to the provision of alcohol by a host. Do you have cellars in the barrier islands?"

Amethyst sulks. |"Ask her about the wine, that'll distract her."|


 * "I just don't want to piss them off, it'd only give them more ammunition against you,"| Pete thinks apologetically at Amethyst. Apologetically and uncomfortably. |"The amount of canny calculation of slights and deferences just between these two is giving me a headache, compensating for it. Oh shit. I know fuck-all about wine."|

The polite bent to Wisdom's expressions never falters. "My father has a cellar, Lady Mordiel," he says with mildly self-deprecating amusement, "says the flooding gives his casks flavor. However, most of the cellars belong to houses up the slopes. Not a lot of merit in digging below sea level."

Insert Pete mentally playing back his last interaction with his completely insane stained-nightshirt-wearing shotgun-toting wild-haired conspiracy theorist ex-cop dad. Something about Amerikan pagan witch communist aliens and their blood sacrifices and JFK.

Still, though, the facade's unbroken; blue eyes are clear, a slight smile playing at the corner of his mouth. |"I'm so completely fucked. I can give her something distracting, anyroad."| "To be perfectly honest, my lady, the drink called uisgebaugh is more common than wine in the area my family's from; it keeps well unchilled." |"Damn it. Is there any particularly whiskey-swilling port city there I could name if pressed?"|


 * "..."| Pete watches in a flurry of attempting to patch things together in some semblance of 'what's going on' by who gets mad at what and how; eyes and ears recording, mind whirring in analytics.

That doesn't, however, mean that he's distracted from what's known colloquially as 'GTFO'. He glances to Amethyst as she stands, and when she pulls out a portal from hammerspace, he gives the two sisters a brief, deferential nod, then steps through it.

He is so hoping he is not stepping into downtown Manhattan, given what he's wearing.

It is in the middle of New York. However, it is in the Hallett Nature Preserve, a private forest enclosure designed to emulate unspoiled nature. The clearing Pete stands in is weirdly dreamlike. His footsteps make no sound. There is light to see, but no source. The birds nesting around him seem to make no notice of his presence.

He is alone for some time. It's just thirty seconds, but that can be forever when you're alone and wearing borrowed pants.

Amethyst finally steps out from the air, angry and exhausted and as unaware of Pete's presence as the birds.

One of the weird things that happens when you were born in 1985 instead of 1968 is that it's a lot harder to be a dick about smoking in things like churches and nature preserves. And he left his mobile phone in Gemworld, so Pete really has no idea where he is, except it looks suspiciously magical, and for that matter--

"I left my fucking cigarettes in fucking Gemworld," he says to himself in disbelief. Which means yeah: his wallet, too. All his ID and access to things like cash and credit cards. And his keys. And his sidearm. And...

It's a very long thirty seconds.

When it's over, though, Pete interrupts the 'unaware' as quickly as possible, because nobody likes a sword to the throat. He's in her field of vision but away from the portal; he clears his throat. "Amy. All right?"

"Yeah," Amethyst replies, unsure. She walks past Pete to a fallen tree and sits down, legs together. She crosses her arms over her stomach, hugging her torso.

"You look like you've got a fucked up family story just waiting to come out."

The princess grasps her amulet. Flash, sparkle, Amy Winston of the Two Tone Hair.

"... uh," says Pete a little dubiously, lifting a hand and rubbing the back of his head, looking up at Amy. "Honestly, got nothing, me. I mean unless you want to hear about the time Da had to go to work and bail my sister out 'cause she'd got caught breaking and entering the chief inspector's house."

He comes over as he's talking, though, and when he comes alongside her, he nudges her with his side. "I'd offer to get you pizza or something, but all my shit's back in your rooms. Or chips. Chips with gravy and cheese."

Pause. "Fuck, I really want chips. A tub of them. No, a keg of them."

Amy is dead weight. She doesn't resist when Pete nudges her, but she also outweighs the guy by like twenty pounds. The most movement he gets out of her is a sporting grin.

"Don't talk about kegs of chips, I have no idea if they really do that in Britain."

The hidden princess stands, looking toward the sky. A shape rustles in the woods, sliding through the close trees into the clearing. It's a unicorn. It has wings. Amy wiggles her fingers and the beast shakes its head, pearly horn glinting in the moonlight. Unicorns don't disappoint.

"I'll spot you, dude. I'm not going back to Gemworld right now, though. Don't worry. She flies pretty fast, I'm sure barely anyone will see your cape."

Cape. "Oh my god," Pete says, because really, there's absolutely nothing else he can say. "And a gallon of scotch."

Fun fact: the Helicarrier does, in fact, have landing protocols for air cavalry.

Funner fact: the rest of Pete's clothes are in the Helicarrier.

'I'm sure barely anyone will see your cape,' she says.

"Oh my god."

Amy walks over to her unicorn and puts a hand on its mane. It neighs, slender and silvery and too precious for this world. She reaches up to grasp the gem that transforms her clothing.

"Hey, don't worry. I'll change back to Amethyst. We'll match."

Her eyes twinkle just like Mordiel's.