War of the kingdom of Peaches: A Royesland spin off [Completed]

[TrashRabbit]

Tom caught the Apple instictivly and then looked at the Apple and then Nicola with his best what is this look. The answer, he discovered was an Elysium Apple. An ELYSIUM APPLE. No wonder Xanthielex had made a mess of things.

A lot was happening at once including Jackie climbing an armored juggernaut like a tree and the time dilation field shuddering out. Time chugged and heaved, accelerating and lagging intensely as Jackie and Finn continued to struggle with the armored construct. The Magic had faded from where it had sparked visibly at the joints but it continued to fight on.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Of course Jackie was climbing the knight while he was trying to stab it. At least it distracted the knight sufficiently from whatever the wizards were doing. Finn let it flail against Jackie--it was rather like watching an oak tree suddenly and violently protest having a squirrel in its branches--and took a step back, trying to ignore all the weirdness spilling over from the spell forge. As he went, he reversed his hold on the sword, so that he had it by the blade, and then moved forward, using the pommel like a hammer against the side of the knight's head. The steel helm rang out loudly.

 

[CelticSol]

The knight reels from Finn's attack on his skull. The wobble he takes from the rattling of his helmet brings his hands down and away from trying to haul Jackie off his shoulders, which was her biggest concern prior. Jackie secures her grip on her other dagger, positioning the tip against the eye hole of the helmet, then uses her free hand as a hammer to drive it hard through the knight's face.

The knight stiffens, then slackens, and Jackie realizes this fucking thick ass knight is about to fall right on top of her.

Jackie shouts in alarm, scrambling to climb out of the range of getting absolutely crushed under plate armour, and in the process falls flat on her back, mere centimeters away from getting crushed underneath his torso. She coughs, her air pushed out from her lungs viciously by the fall, flopping onto her stomach to try and breathe. Through gasping breaths, she rasps, "Holy fuck."

 

[TrashRabbit]

The Knight screams the shrill teakettle noise of a wounded thing, staggers, totters and crashes to the ground mere inches from Jackie. The plate mail, with out the reinforcing magic of the spell forge and its occupant, shatters like glass when it hits the ground and the shrill scream cuts short. The figure inside of the armor is smaller than any of them expected and also the Princess of Peaches. She lays prone on the floor, long dark hair in disarray and blood pooling from the knife in her eye.

Tom gives Jackie an impressed thumbs up.

 

[CelticSol]

"Oh. That knight is smaller than expected."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn stared for a moment and then dropped his sword. "Vidya? Oh no. No no no," he said, face pale beneath the blood, and ran to the princess' side, stripping off his shield and gauntlets. He dropped to his knees next to her. "Vidya? Please don't be dead. Again," he said, very gently checking her pulse below her jaw.

 

[TrashRabbit]

She was very much alive, but the knife in her face was troubling.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Will somebody who can heal come over and help me?" Finn said, because he knew better than to take knives out of people will-nilly.

 

[CelticSol]

Jackie watches Finn kneel down with, of all things, concern, calling the knight lady by name, then he says ‘don’t be dead, again’.

Weird.

Hm.

Oh, wait.

“Oh shit! Oh SHIT-“ Jackie, of all things, laughs, but quickly smothers her laughter with her hand, “Oh shit, that’s - oh my god, oh my GOD -“ And another burst of hysterical laughter, “Y’all, my bad. Oh my god. My fucking bad, y’all.”

There’s a pause as Jackie collects herself between bursts of apologies and laughter, then, barely holding back a smile, “... She’s still hot, though.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tom, seeing Jackie struggle to mitigate an intense emotion takes an instinctive step to her before Finn calls out.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn didn't answer Jackie. If he did, he knew he'd either start yelling or crying. Maybe both. Instead, he gently cradled Vidya's head in his lap and gave a loud, slightly soggy exhale.

 

[theunearthlyfool]

"Jackie!" Nicola screamed when the knight began to topple, surprising even herself with the pitch her voice hit. She dropped the various forge components she was holding, dashing to drag her friend out of the way.

She didn't quite make it before the knight crashed beside Jackie, armor shattering to reveal a young woman with Jackie's knife sticking out of one eye. Nicola gasped loudly, skipping back a few steps from the debris.

"Oh." She watched Finn rush over to the woman. "Yeah. Armor falling off. Like that. Not… quite what I was expecting..."

Finn looked up between her and Tom. "Will somebody who can heal come over and help me?"

Jackie burst into semi-hysterical laughter at the revelation of the knight's true form. "Hell's bells, Jackie, there's a time and a place," Nicola sighed, stepping between her and the downed princess.

The rest of the world tuned out as Nicola knelt, rolling up her sleeves and finding one more handkerchief from somewhere on her person. "Hello, Princess. My name is Nicola Drake, I'm a sorcerer of the court of Royes." It didn't matter if the princess consciously understood her or not. What was important to Nicola was giving her something to focus on, to anchor her when the time came.

"I'm sorry we aren't meeting under better circumstances, but I'm here to help now." She gently brushed the young woman's hair from her face. "We're going to get this nasty knife out, okay? I will try very hard to keep it from hurting, but I'm afraid it probably will a bit anyway." Talking was hopefully going to help Finn too, she thought, so he'd know exactly what was being done to his princess.

Every step of the process she continued to describe what she was going to do before she did it. Nicola gathered the handkerchief to the princess' face around where the knife was embedded and carefully pulled it out, a purple glow washing from her hands down over the wound. Once it was completely out, she tossed it aside and quickly pressed the cloth down over the princess' eye, the glow brightening in intensity.

She held the cloth there for several long minutes. "This is better than a bandaid, she'll be able to see eventually, but a proper healer should still check it out when we can," she said to Finn, not thinking about how her "patient" was supposed to be dead anyway. Finally the glow subsided, and Nicola waved her hands over the handkerchief so, without lifting from the princess' eye, it morphed into a purple eyepatch.

Sitting back, Nicola looked to Finn for approval. "We'll want to leave this on for a few more hours at least. I'll wake her up now, if that's okay. She shouldn't be in too much pain. Jackie, come get your blade and try not to make the world's worst first impression, okay?"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Thank you," Finn said, still looking at Vidya rather than up at Nicola. He thought the assessment that she'd be able to see again was hopelessly optimistic, but saying so seemed pointlessly mean. "You're gonna be the death of me, you fucking goblin," he told Vidya seriously, stroking her cheek with is thumb.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Im...the queen of cats," she said petuently and only half conscious. Her hand raised for her now bandaged eye as her other very blue eye open suspiciously to squint up at Finn and Nocola before zeroing in on Finn, having only just realized who he was.
"Did you Mordstreich me?!?"


Tom looped an arm around Jackie's shoulder, "At least you only stabbed her eye out, im sure...itll be...fine." he told her encouragingly.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn started to answer and found himself crying instead, and could not stop.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh you big baby-" she said sympathetically and then struggled to roll over and sit up, but made awkward eye contact with Nicola and sat there looking at her in confusion while Finn sobbed. "...Hi."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Watching that moment, Finn brushing a thumb over the Princess' cheek, sent a pang through Nicola's heart. She shook her head and scooted back to give them space. Now that had struck entirely more deeply than it should for someone she barely remembered anyway.

The words of the Princess- or the Queen, as she insisted, meant nothing to Nicola. But then Finn started to cry, so she assumed it was very bad.

With a tiny "oh," she got to her feet and crept around to Finn's other side to discreetly offer him a handkerchief.

"Er... hello." They stared at each other for a beat. "Um. Do you know where you are, Your Majesty? Or what's going on, like... at all?"

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

Finn made a terrible ugly snuffly noise and wiped his eyes. "You were DEAD and then I Mordstreiched you and then Jackie stabbed you in the EYE and I've had a long day and I think I'm allowed to cry about it," he said.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Yes......No....I mean- Zan had a questionable idea-" she said to Nicola seeming to work through her own timeline before Fin broke in. She leaned up and wrapped her arms around his neck, "Oh, I know I know you're sensitive, you always had been-"
Wich to the three onlookers was absurd, Finn was the picture of stoicism at all times.
"I mean I did die...a little bit. Not really, I took a deal from the goblin king. He was all be my bride. Don't die. And I was like. Sounds great. it was mostly fun. Untill it wasn't. Please don't cry Finn. You're too pretty to cry." While she spoke to him she made a two fingered I see you motion at jackie over his shoulder. "I'll let stabbing me in the eye slide cause that move was pretty hot," she whispered conspiritorily to Finn, like she was doing him a favor by letting his friend off the hook, "but don't you ever tell her that. I want her to sweat."

 

[theunearthlyfool]

Overhearing Vidya's whisper to Finn, Nicola managed to turn the strangled sound of surprise she made into a polite cough into her elbow, her most impressive magical feat of the day.

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"Oh, Lady of Small Things, you married him? On purpose??" Finn asked. And then he made a strangled noise. "Vidya. Please. Don't flirt with Jackie. She's awful and I would die."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Oh! You've no sense of adventure," She retorted sounding hurt and petty,

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"That's why I was hired, as you may recall," Finn said.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidya crossed her arms and pouted, "...Hmph."

 

[wickedlittlecritta]

"I missed you too," Finn said, and patted her on the shoulder.