Announcement

[royal_obligation]

Edarial makes a list of necessities for a wife. He has Zevros check it over, who promptly rips it up and throws it at him. He is of the opinion that if Edarial doesn't actually want to marry a specific person, he shouldn't, and Zevros will have nothing to do with any of it. Edarial sighs, rewrites it, and keeps it and a copy of it away from his twin in the future.

He makes the announcement to various interested people that he will be looking for a bride. Just saying it makes him feel sick. Edarial manages to keep it together long enough to give a list of the qualities he's looking for before he flees. He says he's busy, no one will look twice at him being curt and disappearing to get work done. So no one comes after him when he hides in his room and locks the door.

Face buried in his pillow, he realizes that there's no way he can be personable to his - whatever they are. Potential brides, suitors - whatever, he doesn't care. He'll hire someone to vet them, so he doesn't have to torture himself dealing with women trying to persuade him to marry them.

Comments

[come_midnight]

Iobel doesn't even dignify that with a response.

"[They're getting impatient, kitty.]"

[alicornucopia]

"[Don't let them touch you,]" hisses Cricket.

[come_midnight]

"[Love you, kitty.]"

And rather than wait to be dragged, she hauls herself to her feet, glares as much venom as she can at all of the conscious guards, and stalks back the way she came to her room.

[aestrix]

Several guards follow her there and make sure she gets there safely. The rest go to retrieve their two downed fellows, find that they're alive, and dump them into spare beds to sleep it off.

[come_midnight]

The guards are going to wake up with splitting headaches the next day but are indeed alive.

Iobel goes to bed. Maybe if she waits another couple of days she can go out of her room with a complement of six spells and use them all on an escape attempt and then have the changeover of midnight and - her limiting factor is still charging time.

In the morning she opens her door again to see if there's anybody there to ask for paper.

[aestrix]

There is. He's unfamiliar and looks at Iobel with a bored expression. "Yes, miss? Is there anything you need? Breakfast should arrive in a few minutes, we weren't sure when you would wake up."

[come_midnight]

"Paper, pens. Spellchart paper if you have it, the big kind, but I'll take regular."

[aestrix]

Eyebrow raise. "Why do you need that?"

[come_midnight]

"I'm bored out of my mind. That's what I do with my time when I'm not being kidnapped. I'd ask for my in-progress work from home but I'm pretty sure no one here can be bothered and I don't like the idea of you lot in my place anyway. So spellchart paper, pens, I'm not asking for a caged firebird and the Jewels of Valreen."

[aestrix]

"... Fine," sighs the guard. "I'll see what I can do."

[come_midnight]

"Good."

Iobel shuts the door and waits for breakfast.

[aestrix]

Breakfast arrives - with spellchart paper and several pens neatly stacked on the tray.

[come_midnight]

Good.

She usually does her spell development in Marlese - she publishes, after all - but it's no harder to do it in Cricket's language. Spirit animals and familiars don't come with writing systems, but Iobel's always had a lot of private stuff to write down and it wasn't hard to come up with ways to spell Cricket's words.

She eats breakfast with a fraction of her attention while she tries to plot out a spell to walk through walls that will last long enough and combine well enough with invisibility to let her find Cricket.

[royal_pain]

While she works, someone has noticed some of the strange results of her captivity. Two guards that complain of splitting headaches, and a third is absolutely covered in - what are those, claw marks?

Zevros is of the opinion that something is up.

He goes to his brother's door, and knocks. "Open up, it's me!"

[royal_obligation]

"Not in the mood!" replies Edarial, muffled by application of pillow to face.

[royal_pain]

"Weird things are happening! Two people have splitting headaches and a third looks like he got mauled by an angry pocket-sized bear! You're the magic twin, you figure it out!"

[royal_obligation]

Edarial sighs. The door opens, and he looks at his brother. Edarial is not at his best - he's scruffy looking, his eyes are red and a little puffy, and he's wearing the same clothes from yesterday.

"Yes?" he hisses.

[royal_pain]

"... Um!" says Zevros, raising his eyebrows and eying the state of his brother. "You also look like shit. Are you in on whatever the thing is?"

[royal_obligation]

"No. And no, I am not in the mood for investigating things right now."

[royal_pain]

"Clearly. Way to bite my head off."

[royal_obligation]

"Not. In. The mood," Edarial sighs. "Please go away."

[royal_pain]

"Okay," says Zevros, "Fine. Leaving now, call me when you're off of your period."

Then he leaves.

[royal_obligation]

Edarial doesn't dignify that with a response. The door closes, and he goes back to burying his face in his pillow and wishing there was a simple solution to all of his problems.

[come_midnight]

Iobel works almost continuously on her spell. By the time the wedding day rolls around, she actually has something that she thinks might work, but has yet to succeed in cramming the whole thing into her head for the one minimum instant necessary to have it to keep. It's big. Contingencies for different types of walls, affordances to allow the subject to breathe, failsafes to prevent falling through floors, guarantees of awareness of when it wears off - maybe she should prune some of these, maybe she can just hold her breath every time she goes through a wall, she's in a hurry -

She doesn't get her pruning done fast enough.

[aestrix]

There's a knock, on her door, on the day of the wedding. Her wedding.

It's not people with her cat. It's a bright, perky young woman with a smile that looks like it's had a forced take over and is ruling over all other expressions with an iron fist.