Royesland [Full]

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola Drake​

Her attention caught by other things, Nicola didn't register the confused look Tom gave her, or his glances at the tower across the bay. She'd never been to the Port, and didn't care that she didn't know where they were so long as it wasn't a collapsing tower in the Kingdom of Peaches.

"N-no, that was..." the former sorcerer bit back another sob. What is wrong with me? Nicola had never in her life been the type to cry, but now she couldn't seem to stop. Devoid of her magic handkerchiefs, she wiped her eyes on the sleeves of her robe. "It was Xanthielex. He banished you to another reality and I tried to bring you back- I thought I'd lost you, I was so scared-"

Half-listening (or probably not listening at all), Tom continued to root around in the ruined marketplace. In his desperation he finally started to push over an entire cart. She hurried to stop him, but by the time she was halfway across the slick paving stones, he was on his hands and knees looking underneath it already.

She stopped as Tom sat back on his heels and looked at her distractedly. "HEY! What am I looking for?"

Nicola stared at him, wondering if he'd hit his head when he re-entered the correct plane of existence. "Um, is this a trick question? I was just about to ask you the same thing."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Uh oh. Tom thought to himself.

The urgent short term memory that had fueled his return to the spell forge to teleport Xanth and the irregulars to Royesland was one of the very last memories being burned up slowly by Xanth's magics. And when it was gone his brain would be full of a whole lot of nothing.

This girl looked like she just watched somebody kill a kitten, so he said; "Well. It's alright. I am here now," hopping to reassure her. This was just before his conceptual memory of Here(royesland) and his name(tom) yeeted themselves from his knowledge. At this point he'd forgotten that he'd been looking for something. He'd forgotten he was a wizard and his favorite color. It was less he'd forgoten and more the data had been forcibly removed- returned to factory settings.

When he looked back on this moment it would his first, sitting in the slick oil looking up an exhausted Nicola with the vague feeling he'd been doing something.

"Hi?" he said becuase she was looking at him funny.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola Drake​

She managed a wan smile. If Tom was alive, and the rest of them were too, then wasn't that really what mattered? The time dilation barrier was down, Xanthielex was presumably dead… they could figure everything else out later. "Yeah, I guess you are here. Glad I didn't fuck everything up today."

Nicola sighed and sat down next to him, running her hands through her hair. "Hi," she replied, continuing to not notice her friend's entire brain leaking out his ears. She was so, so tired. "That could only have been you who teleported us out of there with such-" she gestured to the mess of the square where their teammates attempted to collect themselves, Finn catching her eye and giving her a meaningful look, "-trademark panache. So, thank you. And also, where the hell are we?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Uh," He said thooughtfully looking around becuase she seemed pretty confident he would know. So he answered with confidence; "I don't know."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

"Oh. Really? Well, that's fine I suppose. It's not Xanthielex's tower, that's all I care about." Nicola closed her eyes and laid down on the pavement, hands tucked under her head. "We're like war heroes or something now, right? I might just take a nap right here. I think I've earned that much."

 

[TrashRabbit]

And that's when he realized he had no idea what the hell she was talking about; "Oh yeah. Probably." He said convingly.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn Dolan​

Finn sat in what looked like a small town square, water from the fountain they'd erupted out of washing oil sludge away, and for a moment he was simply peeved that he was going to have to get up again. He wanted to take his boots off, but he couldn't do that with his glove on, and he couldn't take that off by himself, one handed.

He had always considered the possibility of losing a hand (it happened, when your profession involved getting sharp bits of metal waved at you), but he had never properly appreciated how annoying it was until it had happened.

And when Tom ran back in and said they looked like shit, it was almost a relief. Fuck you too, Finn said, only when he said it, his voice box didn't seem to realize it, and instead he said nothing. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Of course. This might as well be happening.

His cloak was too sticky and grubby to clean his sword with, so he struggled to his feet with it again. Then he set it gently on the side of the fountain before he went to find Vidya. And maybe his arm.

Nicola asked for a sound off in a distinctly funeral tone. Finn paused and made eye contact with her instead before returning to his search.

He wanted someone to help him out of his armor and he wanted a bath and he wanted to sleep for a year, but Vidya first.

Cathal McKay (Bathtub)​

The fur along the back of Cathal's spine rose up when Tom ran up and looked at them unseeing, but he told himself it was nothing. He was just busy wizarding, was all. He'd come back. And he thought he was right after the surge of magic at the spell forge. But then Tom simply ran back down and out, and Cathal sprang from Molly Sill's lap and raced after him.

He was a very large cat, but Tom was mostly leg, and it wasn't until Tom was on his hands and knees in the town square that Cathal caught up to him. Convenient, really. Cathal sprang up onto his back and slithered up to wrap himself around Tom's neck, like a very heavy orange cat scarf. He rubbed his face against Tom's, purring ecstatically through his whole body.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola Drake​

She cracked an eye open. "I feel like you aren't usually so agreeable, Thomas. You hit your head when you bopped back into this reality, or...?"

The question was interrupted, however, by the biggest orange cat she'd ever seen streaking past her at the speed of 'cat whose person just came home'. Not minding any of the mess they were covered in, it greeted Tom with great affection. This time when Nicola smiled, it was genuine.

"Oh, what a pretty cat!" she said, sitting back up. Animals had always seemed to understand her, much better than other humans did. With a shiver she wondered if they still would, now that her magic… She cleared her throat, feeling tears rising again. "Tom, you never said you had a familiar. He seems to have missed you very much, though."

 

[CelticSol]

Thomas is back. He doesn't seem aware that he got obliterated from existence, and is going about everything with so much gay chaos that it startles a laugh from Jackie.

Man, she loves this tall blonde piece of shit.

She's covered in sludge and grosser than she's been since that time she pushed Tom out of a window and landed on his almost-corpse, but she takes two bounding steps to Tom as he stares blankly at Nicola, and moves to hug him-

- only to step right through him.

She gasps, her lungs promptly robbed of air, feeling a violent chill race down her spine. Her entire body turns to ice, like someone had walked over Jackie's grave. Her hands fly up to hold her chest, finding her ribcage solid under her fingertips. Stepping back from Tom, her breath shallow and quick with hard panic. Looking to her trembling hands, she finds them mildly translucent, the sludge and ruined cobblestone of the ground just barely visible through her skin.

"Oh," Jackie whispers, in a voice so small and uncharacteristic of her that it sounded foreign in her own ears, "Uh. Hmm. Well. That's not fucking good?"

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola now realized what had seemed off about Jackie from the moment she noticed her teammate getting up out of the muck: she was now see-through. Just a bit, only when you were really looking for it, but it was something Nicola chastised herself for not noticing immediately. Am I really becoming so unobservant so quickly? she worried.

Jackie had tried to hug Tom, but simply stepped through him as if there was nothing there. So much for the presence of the cat warming her heart a bit; this sent it plummeting back into icy fear.

"What the hell, Jackie?" Nicola wasn't a touchy-feely person, but she scrambled to her feet and tried to grab her friend's arm. The result was the same, though: her hand kept going, meeting about as much resistance as touching a soft breeze.

What was going on? Was this some curse laid by the mad faerie, or was Jackie- gods forbid- dead, and now only a spirit sticking with her team as she had in life? The only thing that made Nicola angrier than information being withheld from her was her friends being hurt. She should know what the problem was; she should be able to fix it. And yet here she was, unable to keep the fear off her face, totally powerless.

She swiped through Jackie's arm a few more times for good measure and simply croaked out, "aw man. Hate that."

 

[CelticSol]

"Okay, okay, okay-" Jackie tries to shrug off Nicola's attempts to touch her, but to no avail - Jackie's fingers find no purchase on Nicola, passing through her friend like Jackie didn't even exist. Each time Nicola's hands pass through her flesh without contact, Jackie grows more and more nauseous, panic turning the air so thin that Jackie can barely breathe, until Jackie snaps, "Okay, Nicola, holy fuck, concern is noted and appreciated, but you are freaking me the fuck out. Stop trying to touch me, it's not going to work, and I'm gonna fucking throw up on you if I have to keep watching your hand swish through me. I love you, but you being on the verge of tears while looking at me is fucking stressing me out."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

"Oh yeah, of course! Shit, I'm sorry." She pulled away, shoving her hands deep in her pockets; her now normal, average, totally not bottomless pockets. Nicola's face went pink with shame. "Gods, I'm so sorry. You're right, I just… I can't think straight all of a sudden."

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she looked pleadingly at Tom. "I've lost the brain cell, Tom. Do you… do you know what's happened? Is it something you can… y'know, fix?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom Scooped the absolutely massive cat into his arms and let it rag doll dramatically there- and that's when a ghost tried to hug him. It sent a chill up his spine that made him go stock still on tip toe, clutching the fluffy cat to his chest like a toy.

He started wide eyed at Jackie and then at Nicola. He was pretty sure. None of this was normal. And when Nicola asked him to do something his improve skills finally failed him.

"How should I know," He says the picture of innocence.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Molly Sill​

She thumped along after the cat, knowing she'd never be able to keep up but at least hoping that wherever he went would be apparent when she got outside. Molly did not, however, plan to leave Tuesday in the tower by himself to wreak stars-knew-what kind of havoc.

"Tuesday!" she exclaimed, stopping in the doorway where Tom had paused minutes before. "Tuesday, did you see? The wizard's back! C'mon, we should- my goodness, did this room always look like this?"

He looked up at her from where he stood knee-deep in gadgets, trinkets, and thingamajigs.

"Well anyway, please put that down and come on! Cathal's already rushed off. I wanna see where they went!" She gestured impatiently at the stairs using the grand pearl. Molly was already this wound up in these people's problems, there was no way she wanted to miss the heartfelt reunion of two lovers separated by time and magic. Even if one of them was presently an enormous ginger cat.

Nicola Drake​

She blinked at him, then blinked again. Was he being serious? Nicola knew Tom's sarcasm face (it was how his face looked most of the time, actually), and this was not it.

"Yeah, okay, very funny Tom, but this seriously isn't the time for it. I can't…" her voice failed. "My… my magic…"

Somehow saying it out loud, telling the others, was worse than just knowing for herself. Who wanted to be around a sorcerer with no magic? She was useless- worse than useless since she couldn't fight, or attend wounds, or do anything else they needed.

"My magic is gone, and I don't know if… I don't know if it will, or even can, come back," she said in a low voice. "So… it's all you, Tom. I got nothing. ...I'm sorry." She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to face the group's disappointment, and trying to just keep breathing.

 

[TrashRabbit]

This seems to be a very serious situation. Both women are very upset and magic is involved. He doesn't know anything about magic save that is exists and it makes everything worse.

It's all him?

Uh oh.

this was bad- And then she said his name: Tom. That was probably him, right? Apparently he was important and he laughed nervously.

"We'll figure something out?" He said like he was trying to answer a particular hard math problem.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Cathal​

Oh, to be a large and fluffy cat ragdolling in the love of your life's arms! For a moment, Cathal was very content and very pleased. Tom was home, and soon he'd fix the spell, and he had even made friends.

And then...

And then he started paying attention to the conversation.

Oh dear.

Cathal looked up at Tom's chin. "Mrow?" he asked, because Tom's answers were Tom-like, but the bluffing sort of Tom answers, and not the wizard sort, and they should not be happening to these questions.

Finn​

Vidya was unconscious, and not looking particularly worse for the wear apart from a broken ring finger. She was also purple, but as far as curses went that was fine. Finn very carefully squatted down next to her and nudged her a little.

You're gonna faint on me when all that's happened to you is you got a little purple, Highness? They get you all soft in faerie? he wanted to tease, but he couldn't, so he just jostled her a bit less gently.

He should probably go and see what everyone else is shouting about (crying about) but frankly, he wasn't keen on being ignored in all the hysterics. Ideally, he wanted Vidya awake to snap at them if he couldn't.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidya; Queen of Cats​

Vidya was not hard to rouse and made a sweet little cat activation noise as she cracked her eyes open at Finn. Her eyes did a single lap around Finn and then she sat up. This was not the tower. Finn looked like shit. She looked down at her mingled, purple hand- her wedding band had exploded quite suddenly during the battle- though she thought she had been clever enough to diffuse the curses hidden inside of it, apparently she had missed a couple. she sat up and looked apraisingly at Finn
"Usually you'd had scolded me by now-" and that was when she noticed his arm had walked off some home and gasped, "Finn!" She grabbed at him and it took her a moment to figure out he wasn't bleeding and then another to figure out he wasn't complaining yet. She gave him a squinting once over by way of examination before declaring;
"Oi, you are thoroughly cursed."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn made a gesture at Vidya with his good hand that mostly meant no, you think? Then he stood carefully and offered her his hand to help her up.

Somehow though, it made him feel a little better. Curses were breakable things, after all.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh, Cat got your tongue too?" She teased as he helped her up. She made a fool hardy attempt to brush herself off, but the sludge was sticky and the motion was not at all helpfully. She sighed and then made a sort of dithering/shoo motion with her hand at her pant legs.

"Oh."

She made the same little shoo motion at all of Finn then said; "OH" in more concern. She looked down at her broken finger and the glow-white scar where her wedding band had been, "Well I'm useless now, I guess," She didn't sound too broken up about it. But then Vidya had never needed magic to make trouble.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola Drake​

Tom responded to her confession far more gracefully than Nicola had expected. Which isn't to say she thought poorly of him, but she was fragile right now, and even a lighthearted teasing might just do her in. Instead, he looked thoughtful and said, "we'll figure something out?"

She hadn't realized how much she'd needed someone to say that.

Rubbing her face on her sleeves again, Nicola nodded. "Yes, you're quite right. Thank you. Sorry for the outburst, everyone. Today has been… well, a lot. Not that you didn't know that, of course."

Something moved in the corner of her eye and she looked to see Finn assisting his princess to her feet. The man had his ass kicked, an arm ripped off, and still he attends to his princess, Nicola thought admiringly. That's a real knight.

"Okay," she began, addressing Tom and Jackie, "step two in 'figuring something out' is learning where the hell we are. Jackie, do you-" And then she did a double-take at Vidya. "...Is there something wrong with my eyes, or is her Highness, uh… purple?"

Nicola blinked a few times, but no: the Queen of Cats was still purple. "Hm. My favorite color," she mused. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. Step one, and the most important is…" She glanced back at Tom. "Can I please pet your cat?"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn patted Vidya on the shoulder twice. There there. Then he went and collected his shield, where it lay sadly on the ground, his arm still strapped in, pauldron and all. Then he looked at Vidya, looked at his sword, and set it down so that he could hand his sword to her. It seemed nicer than making her carry the enormous shield. And his arm. That would be weird. The sword was still practically bigger than she was, but at least she knew how to use it.

He rejoined the others--Jackie and Nicola looking very spooked and tired--and Tom looking like the only thing grounding him to this plane of reality was the giant ginger cat that he held like a teddy bear. Finn looked at all of them, and then, very carefully, so as not to hit them with his shield and bowl them over, pointed at the inn not far behind them, in silent answer to Nicola's suggestion that they find out where they were.

We could...ask, he wanted very badly to say, because they were stupid. Lady of Small Things, how were they so smart and so, so stupid?

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom nodded and leaned so Nicola could pet the car, "He's very soft."
__

Vidya took his Sword with out complaint and followed him like a shadow. Like they were fifteen again and she was pretending be a boy in knight school and learn the blade.

She glanced around inquisitively, her mood the only one that could be called good- she'd just gotten the divorce she desperately craved after all.

"How the seven hells are we in the Port of Pearls?" She demanded, "Oh- Yes an Inn. Great idea, Finn."

__

"He didn't know me!" He called after Molly in distress. But Molly wasn't stopping for love or money. So He chased after her, down the tower steps, across the slope, across the bridge and down the narrow streets of Port of Pearls to the disaster that was the town square.

ratmen were still fleeing the scene.

A one armed knight and a ghost stood nearby Tom as well as a Molly doppelganger.

The Queen of cats was here?

There was sludge everywhere.

He put his hands on his head in a very mortal fashion and said, "WHAT THE FUCK!"

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Nicola​

Nicola had offered her hand to Tom's cat, awaiting his acceptance so she could pet him. She watched Finn and Vidya approach, her stomach doing uncomfortable flip-flopping at the sight of Finn's arm still attached to his shield. Oh, I hate that. I hate that so much.

At the end of his gesture was an inn, The Silver Prawn, which all by itself meant nothing to her. It would be the ideal place to ask for information, of course (well, after the marketplace, but so far none of the townsfolk besides the babushkas who'd chased off the rat men had come back out of hiding). What felt odd was Finn's lack of smartass remark that he'd actually had to point this out to them.

A number of dumb comments came to mind, but Nicola figured if she wasn't up to being teased right now, Finn probably wasn't either. "You're awful quiet, Finn," she said with genuine concern. "It feels a little, uh… remiss to ask if something's wrong, given the day you've had. But are you okay?"

Before they had to present their band of battle-weary misfits to the locals in the inn, however, Vidya shed some light on the subject for them. "Port of Pearls…" Nicola repeated. "Why does that sound familiar?"

Molly​

"Oh, I doubt that," Molly replied brightly. "You turn a faerie king into a human man, I doubt you could forget that face." She smiled at Tuesday, blushing a bit. "He probably just had other… wow."

The damage to the Port's market square was visible well before crossing the bridge: the beautiful fountain had been blown to bits (okay, so it was an explosion, then), there was some nasty black goo all over the place. Wizard business if she'd ever seen it.

"Take a look at that," she whistled. "There you go, that looks like some official wizard business. Must be pretty bad too, if he came to deal with this before his house getting broken into."

Coming closer she spotted the wizard standing around with a group of bedraggled people covered in the muck that tainted the lovely square. Some people with rat heads rushed past, chased by old ladies with brooms, but startling Molly nonetheless. While she was pleased to see Cathal all snuggled up in the wizard's arms, she was surprised he hadn't yet returned his love to his true form. Perhaps he needs the pearl to do it?

Tuesday's distress mounted the more chaos they saw. Finally they paused some ways away, and with a shout the magpie let his thoughts be known. Molly nodded in agreement, eyes wide.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Cathal McKay​

Tom held Cathal in one arm, using the other to gesture as he spoke. Cathal didn't mind, though the more he listened the more concerned he grew. He didn't want to put his terrible, awful hypothesis in full words, because then he'd have to think of what to do about it.

The most talkative of Tom's companions seemed vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until she proffered a hand and he got a sniff of her that he realized who she looked like.

She smelled like stale magic and blood, but under that, she smelled very much like Molly Sill.

"Mrow?" Cathal asked her, as if she knew what he was wondering, as if she could explain herself to him, and then rubbed his face on her fingers. He turned and looked at Tuesday and Molly as they approached, and wished that Tom could properly appreciate the sight of Tuesday shouting.

Finn Dolan​

Finn looked at Nicola, and sighed heavily. Even if he had his voice, he didn't think he had words to answer her. He was saved from any attempt at answering by someone on the edge of the square swearing at them, and he turned to see a lanky stranger in an ill-fitting pair of pants, a big knit sweater, and bare feet clutching his hair like he was about to pull it all free, and a girl who looked very much like Nicola, if Nicola was the sort to wear big swishy shirts and cozy sweaters. Finn blinked at them, and then looked at Vidya, though he really had no idea why he thought she would be able to explain anything.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh my gods," Vidya hissed grabbing hold of Finn's tunic in excitment, "Is that Tuesday. Is he!? A MAN!?!?" She said in her most excited southern bell gossip whisper.