Eventelia: Awakening

[Professor Ven]

Unmoved by the literal epic failure of Air usage, Gibyr stood up, brushed aside the tent trappings, the knife sliding back down his right hand's sleeve. The ring, ting, ting of the bells atop his hat spoke of his approach. The Air magic affected him little, save for the collision with the tent; Null magic had kept it from entirely harming him, and sent the would-be cocoon of tent canvas away from him, as the victim walked away. I don't like you, mister, but I would love you dead. Hee.

He espied the victim, the girl, and then the child, for only a moment, before leaping and performing a front flip in the air, and running quickly towards the child, ignoring the victim and girl, not really caring. An arm grabbed the Imperial brat, hoisting him up over a shoulder, as Gibyr stopped for only a second with his struggling prisoner. He waved silently, the mask shifting to a wide smile. Goodbye.

Before he could be stopped by the guards, Witticus jogged off, bells tinkling as he went, towards the mobs of the Many, all clamoring about the festival's outer edge. Kill one, let two go, and keep three, no? After all, he's technically my employer, unless this kid's the runt of the litter. The silver mask tilted up for a second, glancing at the boy's head for a moment in mid-step. Hello Emperorspawn. Time to take a walk in the woods; be sure to keep an eye out for Elves and Fiends, don'cha know.

[IceBlueWings]

The sudden turn of events stunned Cardea. The hooded man disappeared and only a few moments later the tent collapsed. She stood still unblinkingly, unsure of what to do. She looked around the crowd near the tent for any casualties. She spotted the hooded man reappearing from where the tent collapsed. The other man ran towards him.

"Z! What, what happened?"

Cardea followed. Z? That's his name? She thought. And then she saw him, awfully familiar colours and that eerie aura she felt earlier. He grabbed the young man, hoisted him over his shoulder and turned back to them, his mask a wide smile as he bid goodbye. She gasped, frowning as she looked at the man named Z and then back towards Gibyr's figure. "That jester! I knew there was something funny about him!" She said, running towards the direction Gibyr went. She halted and spun around to face Z. "I'll help you save your friend!" She said.

[LongLiveLife]

The tinkle of metal resonated in the air and vanished before Zayen turned to face it, taking with it the prince. A flush of heat followed by penetrating cold flashed in his core as adrenaline surged through his blood, rising from the pit of his stomach to his heart, and finally reaching his head; percussion in both ears from an accelerating heartbeat blocked out the gypsy’s voice. Fylel! He looked to the distance and met the signature shades of the deranged jester, broken now by a band of white strung across his right shoulder. Fylel? No. Do not get attached to the boy. This is just business. You are only chasing that psychopath because he’s taking away your money. You don’t care about the boy; you just want the ransom. The flurry of color spun and vanished into the crowd.

“…I’ll help you save your friend!” the gypsy offered. She seemed oddly insistent for someone who had only met him only minutes before; perhaps she wanted her share of the loot too. She must have recognized the face of the prince.

“He’s not my friend,” he muttered, breaking into a jog. She followed. “I am not a good person.” They accelerated. “And you probably won’t want to involve yourself any further with this once you find out.” They reached the outer perimeter of the festival, where the pavement ended and forest began, and paused. “Emperor’s youngest kid, Fylel: I kidnapped him. It was only money for me; I would never hurt the kid. But that lunatic who stole him from me—he could really damage the prince. Permanently.“

They entered the woods, led onward by the peals of the jester’s many bells, until the sounds stopped. They were in the center of a clearing, a wave of golden-brown leaves blanketing the ground; autumn had robbed the trees of their verdant foliage. “On guard,” he commanded, both his newfound companion and the air itself. A sudden gust roused the surrounding carpet in tempered gilt vortices.

[Eventua]

In a rapid blur of movement Fylel found himself hoisted over the shoulder of a large man in the garb of a harlequin, his voice stifled by some sort of overpowering force...
Magic...?!

The man did not speak or even laugh, and the prince couldn't see his face. However, he was more concerned with the knife pressed up against his throat.
What in the-?!

However, before he could do anything (not to mention the greater strength of his captor) he found himself being taken through a forest, the festivel a fair distance away, out of sight. Indeed, this was the border of the city: when it had been founded, the walls of the city had been built around the forest, leaving the city with a rather nice and vibrant park in the northeast corner.
He was finding it hard to breath, and perhaps it was the lack of oxygen, but the whole place seemed beautiful in the extreme. For a moment, he almost forgot he was being kidnapped. From his kidnapper.
No wonder the nobility spend all their time indoors...

He needed to escape, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't struggle... he desperately tried to focus, clearing his mind of everything but the magic and the arms that gripped him.
Decay, entropy... weakening!
As he thought, the unsettling birthmark on the back of his neck began to glow a deep purple, and shadowy smoke began to crawl along his captive's arms.

[IceBlueWings]

Hearing his explanation as they ran, she thought of whether he really was a bad person. They were soon on the outskirts of the town, towards an area where she remembered practicing her dancing with her family. She smiled at the memories. She turned to face Zayen.

"You're evil." She joked, mocking a frown. She soon smiled. "You're being silly. You're clearly concerned about that 'kid' being hurt." She said with a grin. "Not everyone's born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Well, I don't know much about the Emperor and his sons but they must have it better than us. Though I'm very happy being able to dance whenever I want to." She gave a small smile.

She noticed the appearance of the vortices. She looked up at him. "You can control...wind?" She asked, tilting her head to the side, unsure. She decided to stop talking, knowing that they should concentrate. Gibyr must be around, but where? She glanced around, though she stood calmly. She would have never expected someone like Gibyr around. It frightened her a bit, but she kept a straight face. "I wonder where they are." She said softly.

[stripes]

Leena looked at the biscuit, they did not look so appetizing, but she did not want to be rude, she took one and nibbled on it, it was good. She smiled to herself and looked at him.

"No, I am going to run some family business errands."

The festival was much to celebrate, since the country was constantly under attacks and a war was in the midst.

"Are you going for the festival?"

[Aliahya]

“I might have a glance” he said, “But, I’m visiting a friend…”

Jarin watched the people around him, their were all sorts of races and castes, as he took another biscut and bit into it.

The emperors son…to be exact…he thought, but he felt that due to the recent different views on the world between folks. It was best to keep the conversation as neutral as possible.

“I use to live there” he smiled…

[Professor Ven]

As he felt something tickling his arms, a nine-pointed star, a birthmark some had said, when he was a child, lit up suddenly, revealing itself to the boy's eyes, and the minor tickle jitters ceased, and in turn, the starry birthmark was dispersed of its light. Gibyr wondered whether the spawnling of the Emperor, may he live forever, had managed to get in a position to rankle him; the Master Witticus stopped in a simple forest glade, watching the animals scurry about, imagining their mutilated and buzzing corpses as he plopped the boy down on the ground, and brought his mask into the child's own face. A half-moment later, and a dagger came out at the boy's throat, joining the malevolent mask, its eerie smile piercing through any sort of dismissive barriers of hope.

Hello, don't you look familiar? Much like the Crown Prince, perhaps? Perhaps he'd count his winnings if I carved your neck from ear to ear, eh? Or dangled you by your intestines from one of these trees, and kept you alive to see it, hmm? Something tells me he'd like that, but not as much as I would. Stupid mengling never got half of my jokes the way they were meant to be understood, even when I actually tried to explain. But you wouldn't know that, would you? You reek of books and page-shuffling, the dust of such shelved commodities might even still be marinated onto your clothing, little eggling. And from the looks of it, you don't even know the pleasures of life, dressed all in white.

A cold, sneering laugh erupted from the mask, a chilling sound no organism in Eventelia could replicate; at least, those with souls, or otherwise. The dagger disappeared down a sleeve, and gloved hands grabbed the boy's face suddenly, pulling at stretching his cheeks, inspecting him further. Ah, now I see it. Gibyr pushed the spawnling's cheeks up, making vast wrinkles around his eyes. There's the Emperor, old and frail! The jeering, mocking, soul-wrenching laugh followed, and the hands pulled away. Now, what to do with you. . he pondered, bells on his hat jingling as Witticus adjusted his masked face this way and that, a hand stroking the chin part of the mask, going down and adjusting back up, and down again.

[Eventua]

It didn't... it didn't work. I'm stuck, alone and held captive by a madman, and I'm going to die.
A cold sweat slid down his face, and he found himself frozen in place. The knife still at his throat, his face being examined by the crazed harlequin.

I'm going to die, before I've even done a single thing with my life! I can see it now: dieing, alone, no one caring. My father hates me, my brothers despise me, the common people view me as a spoon fed coward... only mother & Albert will miss me, and I didn't even say goodbye!
As he thought, he wanted to cry, but he was frozen, his face stuck in place, blankly staring ahead.

[stripes]

"I did too! Long ago..."

She looked down and sighed. So long ago it was, she couldn't even remember where she went to school at, all she remembered was their old home and her Grandfather shop. Leena bit her lower lip thinking about the day her father told them they were moving.

"Life there was just... Not what my parents wanted for us..."

She said it to herself, but she said it loud enough for Jarin to hear.

[Aliahya]

As she whispered, Jarin felt a wave of compassion touch him. He gave her a sweet smile, “Its beautiful…I guess when you visit…all your memories will flood back…I doubt it would have changed much…Everyone seemed to be set in their ways. The caste system isn’t changing anytime soon I expect”

Reflecting back too his ignorant and selfish friends who use to manipulate The Many and Joyful members for their own amusement. He shuddered…

“To much dismay” he said with a glint in his eye.

[LongLiveLife]

Zayen faced his companion. “Yes, it’s my thing. I talk to the wind; it listens. The air is an army, and I am its commander. And right now, I need my army to make it sound like there are more than two of us. That crazy clown is going to return me my money even if I have to bring down a hurricane.” Straining his ears to the distance, he heard once again the distant resonance of metal bells. Gotcha. His body whirled on the balls of his feet. “Sorry, madam, I don’t believe I know your name yet, nor do you know mine. Zayen at your service.” He put one arm across his abdomen, the other behind, and bowed to the gypsy girl. Still angled, he raised his head and gazed at the sky in her eyes. “And the pleasure is entirely mine.”

He pointed to the denser growth of trees in the distance. “See there? I think that’s where the psycho took my ransom. Tell you what: help me out, and I’ll split the ransom with you…ninety-ten. Actually, for a pretty lady like yourself, I’ll sweeten the deal—eighty-twenty, and not a quarter lower.”

Gold and umber leaves rose and fell in a swan dance of grace on either side of his path as he strayed deeper into the forest. “We can combine our magic,” he whispered. “I’ve seen you with the water: think you can leach it from the air? If I raise the barometric pressure and you aggregate water vapor, we can precipitate a fog; we’ll want to move in unseen.”

[IceBlueWings]

She gave a smile at his etiquette. She took a step back and twirled in her place, ending it with a giggle. "Cardea. Pleased to meet you, Zayen." She said.

While he told her where the jester was, as well as making a deal of splitting the ransom money, she gave a chuckle. "Well aren't you a charmer?" She gave a small smile. "I'll let you have all of it. It seems as though you need it more than I do. After all, like I said before, dancing makes me happier more than anything else." She said.

As they moved deeper into the forest, Cardea following Zayen as he led the way, she heard him whisper his plan. "Alright, that's easy. Leave it to me." She whispered back with a confident smile. "So...I'm not sure where that Jester is, but are we near?" She asked, whispering closely.

[stripes]

She smiled at him and nodded her head.

"Yes that will not happen anytime soon. My father hates the caste system so much... "

She looked at him and shook her tilted it to the side. She never really talked to people on the train, not even small talk. She wondered what was so special about this guy, that have her open up. She looked out the window, the train was getting pretty far, soon she would be in the mist of celebration and craziness around every corner.

"So where are you staying?"

[Skitty Cat]

Tora accepted the outstretched hand, staring after the jester; she suppressed the urge to shiver. Shaking herself from her trance, she turned on her heel and headed back to the festival, intent on forgetting all that had happened. Meeting up with Rhys, she stared at the two newcomers, looking at her brother; Tora returned her gaze to the show in front of her.

No sooner than it'd started, was the 'child' kidnapped by the jester, tensing she watched said psychopath take off running. Watching as Cardea and Z took off running, she bolted after them, her footsteps falling silent; she felt Rhys running after her.

"Tora, what are you up to now," her brother called.

Not breaking stride, she tossed back, "What does it look like? I recognized that boy, he's the emperor's son. So, naturally going to help him get out of the mess he's gotten himself in to."

Her feet it the forest floor, muffling them even more; Tora stopped and closed her eyes, listening for signs of the two that headed out before them. Pin pointing them, she opened her eyes and carefully, moved over to them. Standing back a little ways, Tora observed them and felt Rhys move to stand next to her.

"Think we should help them out?" Rhys asked softly.

She bit her lip softly, debating on if they should reveal themselves straight away; or hold back and observe them for a little while. The soft throbbing started, raising her hand to her shoulder, she rubbed it and whispered under her breath, "Soon, let's wait a little while longer and figure out what they're like first."