« Previous Post
+ Show First Post
Total: 450
Posts Per Page:
Permalink
"Hey!" says Secret. She can't haul the creekpearl off of Promise.

...she can steal Promise's bag. She is absolutely allowed to steal Promise's bag.
Permalink
"What are you doing?" shrieks the creekpearl. "SOMEBODY GET THE PRINCESS!"

A sunshine tepal gets the Princess.

"What's going on? Help Nap," she adds, snapping her fingers; tepals swarm over Promise and hold her down. "Nap. Explain."

Nap the creekpearl says, "She was talking to Maria and called her Secret and I think she's behaving very suspiciously and I don't want to go with her, Princess, please."

The princess frowns at this tableau.

"Slipknot," she tells a sunshine tepal, "go get me a sunflower seed."

Slipknot flits away. Promise struggles, Nap's hand over her mouth. Something catches fire. A sunshine tepal puts it out.
Permalink

And meanwhile Secret rummages furiously in Promise's bag, and comes up with a handful of berries, and eats them.

Permalink
Promise watches her do it and sets Nap on fire. Specifically, Nap's hand.

Nap flinches and Promise manages to say, "HELP!"
Permalink
Secret is tall and strong.

She grabs Nap and hauls him off of Promise and throws him away.
Permalink
"What are you -" says the Princess. "You don't have - stop -"

Promise wrestles sunshine tepals.

"WHERE IS MY SUNFLOW-" screeches the Princess.

And then she is abruptly inaudible.

Promise has a tepal hauling on her wing; this looks very uncomfortable but she can't reach him.
Permalink

Well. Secret has been told to stop, so now she is stopped.

Permalink

"I rescind," pants Promise, "ow, your orders, ow ow ow get off me -" This last is directed at the tepal, not Secret.

Permalink

Secret grabs the tepal and throws him away too. Entirely of her own will. It's so nice to want to do things and then be able to.

Permalink
Promise heals her wing and looks at the confused tepals and the screaming silent Princess.

"Do you think," Promise gasps, "we could carry her together, so she doesn't find a sorcerer and -" A tepal tries to rush her; there is fire in this tepal's way. "Get away from all these and think?"
Permalink

"I bet! She's too heavy for me to carry alone but not by much."

Permalink

Promise seizes one of the Princess's arms. She has to kick a tepal.

Permalink
Secret grabs the Princess's other arm. Gently. Of necessity.

She lifts off, trailing wing-dust.
Permalink

The Princess is not cooperative with this endeavor, but they manage to haul her. "I heard her telling some tepals to make sure everyone knew the new court borders. I don't think we'll be followed if we go beyond them," she says.

Permalink

"We'll see."

Permalink
They are chased by tepals, but tepals are not very fast, and Promise has been around here enough to spell-sling with some facility. She doesn't like hurting the tepals but she doesn't want them to come make her hand over the Princess long enough for the Princess to find a loyal sorcerer and get re-audibled.

Eventually they find a spot beyond the Princess's current borders. The Princess is crying in perfect silence.
Permalink

"Okay," says Secret. "Now what?"

Permalink

"Do you know where her gate is?"

Permalink

"Yeah."

Permalink
"I have a friend who can force them closed even when he didn't make them, but I don't know when to expect him to visit, and sorcery won't work in the mortal world so if we put her through it anything stopping her from coming back will stop working. Unless I'm wrong about how your magic works?"

(Princess tries to escape. Princess now has a lot of earth mounded up around her feet. This is inconvenient.)
Permalink

"The secret is: if you would be my vassal you're no one's vassal, ever, even if you were before. And I don't have a name."

Permalink
Promise smiles.

"So we can't order her to stay put. I could make my own gate, but she might wind up somewhere close enough to her original gate to use it, or someplace too far away from what she's used to to find food and shelter and die. Do you happen to know how comprehensively her court is ordered to look out for her interests in cases like this?"
Permalink

"They pretty much aren't. She never thought something like this would happen."

Permalink

"Do any of them like her? Besides Nap."

Permalink

"The tepals like her better than they like their patriarch. She's nicer. But nobody's a huge fan."

Total: 450
Posts Per Page: