Wonderland

[Thysbae]

56 Vhalar 718

"I don't think I like that tone you're taking with me."

"And I don't like that idea of yours. I'm sure we remember what happened last time we listened to one of those."

"That." She stopped, as if to consider her words. She blinked once, twice, before taking a deep breath and continuing. "Was an accident and you know it, Thys. Don't act like you've never made a mistake."

"Well, I don't because I've made exactly one mistake and that was giving you control."

It was silence that reigned supreme as they stared each other down. It was not unusual for their interactions to go this way; Thys was quite clear of his animosity towards Adora, but for the time being - while Bae slept - they had to deal with each other. Here, locked in the grandest of rooms, they remained. It wasn't so much that they couldn't leave - just that they wouldn't. It meant someone lost. But in this instance, one of the many doors opened up as Thys departed, dusting his jacket off.

The room shifted, no longer a grand palace with a nauseatingly expensive looking chandelier. The red the room had been bathed in faded out, leaving it grayscale as the smile dropped from Adora's face. It was cold, enough that she could see her breath mist in front of her. But the plastered walls became stone, arches leering overhead and the pale would-be blues of a stained window stretched over the floor. And yet another door opened. When she turned, it was a new face.

"You shouldn't be here." Her smile had returned.

Speech | Thought

[Rakvald]

Rakvald must have eaten some bad pork that evening, because while dreaming he found his feet falling upon a void as deep and dark as the night sky, with sharp points of light that burned his skin as he walked over them. The landscape was shifting and vaguely defined around him, setting aside the fact that he was walking on outer space. There were grand structures resembling the Gleam in Quacia all around him, or at least they tended to appear as such to him. He thought he could hear voices in the distance, and lacking any direction otherwise, he followed these voices.

He could hear, and perhaps he was the only one, the voice of a pig oinking in the sky. Looking up, he saw a moon that was distorted, as if under water. Pink and spotted, and vaguely in the shape of a pig. He frowned, and turned forward, determined not to examine it too closely. Time distorted as he walked along, it might've been bits or breaks. Eventually, though, he did reach the point where he'd heard those other voices. The human voices.

He peered in through a window and saw a room that was grandiose, and blindingly saturated with the color red. However, as he opened the door, all that color turned to grayscale. There was somebody inside, and she told him: "You shouldn't be here." Her smile didn't seem like a kind one, although he didn't interpret it as forbidding him to enter. So enter he did.

He looked around at his grayscale surroundings, and shrugged, "I'm sorry. I seem to be looking for somebody... Do you know where I can find a woman named Quacia?" He asked, turning to face the woman.

He couldn't even register how nonsensical what he'd said was. Rakvald might be dreaming.

[Thysbae]

Visitors to this space were a rarity. No; an anomaly. Adora could not recall the last time someone had managed to make it all the way here, even if by some accident or stroke of luck. She regarded the man who'd found his way here with interest, brow raised as he proceeded to walk further into the room and state his supposed reason for being there. Quacia? "We don't know a Quacia here." She gave him anoter once over, standing. The hem of her dress brushed along the floor as she walked towards him, head inclined. "She must be important if you came all the way out here to find her." She enclosed him in a small circle of steps, smile a bit more inviting as she returned to her seat.

The mortal born patted the chair closest to her at the table, drawn closer by her legs hooking onto it. All others seemed to move back further along the table large enough to seat a war council. "Come tell me about her. She sounds like a lucky lady." No; there weren't many visitors to this place. Stuck with Thys or Bae was how she'd remained since her conception, and the beauty of seeing new faces was a permanent novelty she embraced readily.

"Stay a while, please?" She tried those puppy dog eyes that Bae was so good at, a small pout on her lips in case he felt an inclination to decline her generous invitation. If the man turned, though, he would find that the door had shut behind him and would be firmly shut. It was only nice to ask, after all. And expelling him from the room would be a real pity.

He had nice hair.

Speech | Thought

[Korva]

*Speaking Rakahi
*Speaking Common

The water rippled darkly in the sky, the stars dripping from it to fall into the endless void below where there was nothing but exploding stars, in front of her were languid clouds of sky that swept by gently to swirl the hem of her simple, moss green dress. It was these she stepped on as she walked forward with a purpose she couldn't recall, what was it she had been doing? A frown marred her made up features as she gracefully stepped onto the next cloud, surging forward with it as colors exploded all around her but no sound. Just strange impenetrable silence, not even the swish of her dress to accompany her as her bare toes dug into the cloud as if it was sand.

Not until she heard them!

All at once it rushed back, as did her feet, the stars continued to explode around her, their shrieks of agony ringing in her ears now with only the pounding of her heart. But not once did she falter, not even when the gray loomed towards her, not even when the last of her cloud path gave sending her screaming into the darkness. And in the darkness the colors of the exploding stars leaked out everywhere, painting a whole new landscape as the world flipped, sending the Biqaj tumbling head over heels until she was ready to slip into the door as well. But that would not happen, the door would shut, the whole world seeming to send her howling around like a wind strewn leaf until she smash straight onto the roof of the room, the gray bleeding up from it, staining her until she was as a statue. Gray in her dress, like a carved caricature of herself.

The words of conversation seemed to pour from the walls so she could hear it even as she waited on...the doorstep for gone was the roof, now she stood regally in the doorstep, "I demand you open it, for I am Quacia! Open it or I will send my guard to open it."

A bluff for around her there was no one but she would complete...whatever it was needed doing. The strangeness of it registered distantly with the bursting stars, the words tasting foreign on her tongue, all of it right in its wrongness.

**Made by the awesome Kes

[Nasod]

蛇 56 Vhalar 718 蛇
蛇 Mood: Impish, Clever
蛇 Current Thought: I wonder if I can torment her?
蛇 Current Theme: Yinyang

蛇 So many places to be, so little time, so many victims, and yet so little chaos to be had. Dosan had been slithering around, using his tongue to find them, the scaly devil slithered his way into the room. He could smell three beings, and by the looks of things they didnt see him, which was good on his part.

Slithering into a corner he watched, listening to the different voices in the room, two people seemed to be arguing, a woman and a man. He couldn't tell nor care what they were fussing over, he just wanted to frighten them, targeting the woman in particular, as women hated snakes. The toxic snake smirked as he slithered his way up a pillar, peeking around with each revolution to make sure he wasn't the focus of their attention.

By the time he reached a ledge to move upon, another figure had entered the room. A rather large fellow, Dosan didnt think he'd be afraid of a snake like him with such impressive size. So he waited, still listening to the words spoken.

"Now how to make her scream?" He pondered, his reptilic eyes trained on the amethyst haired woman like unphased tunnel vision. He figured he had one thing on his side, the element of surprise, and sprung into action. Launching off the ledge he was perched on, the viper with his fang bared, coiled around her.

He wound around the woman as fast he could to try and limit her reaction time, and once he was at eye level with her, he spoke. Who would expect a talking snake after all?

"Rawr, I'ma bite ya!!!!!"

he hissed. 蛇

"Speech"

[Rakvald]

"Oh? I don't feel like I've gone far, maybe just down the street." Rakvald scratched his head at the woman and shrugged. He took a seat next to her when she bid him to. "Quacia is the opposite of lucky, she's actually deadly sick, I'm here to drop off her medicine. I think?" There was something confusing about this whole scenario. Why'd he gone to the wrong house, and who was this woman that was clearly not Quacia. "Poor Quacia's husband is on the verge of leaving her.
It's really a sad situation."

He looked at the woman, who was making doe-eyes at him, as if to plead for him to say. He heard the door shut behind him but didn't think much of it. "Who are you, if you don't mind my asking?"

As if it seemed their chat had been uneventful, everything went upside down soon enough, as a woman claiming to be Quacia could be heard outside the door. "Don't open it! That's not Quacia. Whoever it is is lying..."

Soon after hearing the woman at the door, they were interrupted once again, this time by a beastly viper, winding its way around Rakvald's companion and threatening to bite her. Shocked, but suddenly remembering having dealt with snakes in the past, Rakvald took the snake by the tail, and began unwrapping it from her, before it constricted her to death.

"What kind of snake are you, that you can talk...?" Rakvald muttered in question.

[Max]

An ornate door flung open, spitting out the raven-haired woman unceremoniously onto the floor of the chilly room. She was only on her back for a trill before she found her feet to sprint toward the opened door. A menacing gladius in her grip, she'd nearly crossed the threshold when the light of whatever was on the other side dimmed. The door shut in her face. The boisterous, muddled chaos shrieking from its other side did not muffle, but wholly silence. A jimmy of the handle quickly let her know it was locked. Max reared a knee to her chest and threw a front kick against the face of the door. It rattled in its wooden frame, and as strong as her heel struck it the second time, it refused to let her inside again.

"Rat bastards, she cursed before realizing she was not alone in they new greyscale landscape. A man was posed beside an intriguing woman with violet hair, busying himself by uncoiling the snake that had apparently found itself wrapped around the woman's neck. She blinked at the trio and furrowed her brow. Suddenly she couldn't...quite remember how she'd gotten into this room. In fact, now that she thought about it, she couldn't be sure what she had been so fixated on on the other side of that door. Caramel eyes looked down toward the sword still clutched in her righteous right hand. Whatever it had been, it certainly must've pissed her off. That did little as far as helping narrow down the possibilities went. She cleared her throat before awkwardly calling out, "Sorry to, uh, interrupt."

The fuck did I stumble into? Some weird type of foreplay?

"I'll just be on my way," Max was happy to make her escape, walking to yet another door. She turned the handle and this one indeed opened. This time she was face-to-face with another woman. Another stranger. She left the door ajar and back away with a strange expression on her face.
"Y'know, dear," Beatrice, Maxine's honey badger companion, started in as she too arrived. "I thought by now you'd recognize when you're in Emea." The ex-convict halted her advance and closed her eyes. A long sigh escaped her lips.

You again?

Her eyes flashed open as she turned to find her Emean companion. It seemed she was linked with this animal across every dimension, in the dream world as well as reality. The ex-convict still didn't trust the creature as far as she could throw her. Then again, the number of people she trusted was few and far between anyway. Perhaps that was why Beatrice continued to stick around, hounding her. Mere exposure was her only hope of winning the woman over it seemed. With a strategy like that with a target this cold, the honey badger would have to be awfully patient.

"Well," Maxine addressed the room as she slowly elected to slide the gladius into its sheath. "I'm guessing these damned doors aren't really working the way any of you want them to either." Another wary glance between the trio before she caught B's beady eyes. Emea. That's where she must've been again. At least the creature wasn't giving her dodgy responses in this go-around. "Unless one of you found one that does?" Where she was hoping to go, Maxine hadn't a clue. With a huff of icy vapor, the only thing she knew was that she was, once again, trapped.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Thysbae]

So many visitors today - what was the occasion? There was another voice at one of the doors, calling to be let in. Quacia? She claimed to be Quacia, was this the one? She looked to Ravkald for some confirmation and thought perhaps she ought not to. The feel of muscle coiling around her as the black snake slithered over her shoulder and around her neck was neither frightening nor uncomfortable. And the reptilian eyes that glared at her as it declared intentions to bite her were really quite beautiful. But it wasn't the reaction it wanted - so it would get it. The man's explanation on who Quacia was lost to her as she inhaled and opened her mouth.

A blood-curdling shriek left her, eyes wide. It lasted only several trill before her composure returned as if nothing had happened at all. "Was that what you wanted, pretty boy?" This was a pretty snake. A certain appreciation could be had for the legless reptiles, and that was what she possessed. Her smile wide, it dipped only as her first visitor attempted to uncoil the snake from around. "Oh, he's quite fine where he is. Leave him be!" Her defensive stance of the creature was immediate, shooing the man's hands away. The snake was cool to the touch, comforting in its own way.

"Oh, you're right; I've not introduced myself." She let out a soft giggle, ready to make herself known. Her presence was something of a secret - it was entirely a secret and perhaps most people would not think her possible. But there she was in all her glory, finally with someone who might carry on who she was. And maybe they would be of use. The man was certainly well-built, robust and most likely capable of great feats if he so wished. Someone she would not mind having on her side. Before she could make her introduction, another person entered.

It was only slight surprise that colored her expression as she regarded the woman, gaze falling first to the weapon in her hand. Another capable one? Pretty, at that; prettier than the man before her and the snake around her neck. If she could be so inclined to say, her heart might have skipped a beat at the display of rage and strength the woman exhibited. Beautiful. She could completely forget that the door the woman had come through was supposed to be closed. Just like the one the man had come through was supposed to as well. But closed doors didn't bring her visitors. The woman opened another door, this time letting in a fourth visitor - one, two, three, four! - the one who'd named herself as Quacia.

Delight carried her all the way over to the woman, who seemed intent of leaving. Just as the first had. "No, no! Stay, stay! Here, with me. Oh, you've even brought.....what is that?" Thysbae - and she, by extension - had never seen whatever that creature beside the woman was. "Doesn't matter! Just stay! Both of you!" She laced her fingers around the woman's free hand, tugging her towards the table. Another giggle, a glance back at the others.

"All of you - have a seat."

Speech | Thought

[Korva]

*Speaking Rakahi
*Speaking Common

The first thing she noted was the sword, followed by the annoyed expression but before she could scold her guard the guard was whisked away with another woman. And the one who no doubt called her a liar as he was the only he she could spy.

“A liar am I? And yet here stand my guard, opening the door as I, Quacia, have said. So tell me,” Korva asked in annoyance as she swept into the room grandly, much too grand for such simple hair and dress. The Biqaj could hardly understand why she was doing it but she
was Quacia, she had to be or else…the thought was swept away by the tide of the happenings, “who here is the liar?”

She sniffed as if miffed before gliding after her host and guard, “Do forgive my guard for barging open, there was trouble on the way here. She worries about me so, and I will stay, of course would, you invited us for the tea after all.”

There was genuine confusion on the Biqajs face as she said this, uncomprehending as to why they wouldn’t stay. Then her gazed flash to the man who deemed her a liar when it was clearly he, “Though I see I am not your only compan—“

The words trailed off as her gaze landed on the snake, true terror in her eyes though she pressed her lips together tightly, flicking her eyes away only to finally land on her guards pet. Confusion, more fear but she manages to seat herself, hands clenched in her lap.

“A lot of company it would seem. You…are an animal lover?”

Not even here could she escape her primal, strange aversion to four legged or no leg beasts. But she schooled herself, that was no how Quacia would behave, thats not how she would behave. Primly she smiled, trying to relax her shoulders, “That is a…fine snake. Now, tell me what you needed us for. Me and my guard are at your service for the evening.” She looks around once more, relaxing slightly in the glamorous room, “Do you have anything to drink, the trip over was…eventful.”

**Made by the awesome Kes

[Rakvald]

So much was happening at once. First some imposter claiming to be Quacia, then a snake that could talk, then a woman who looked all too real, or would've if it weren't for the fairy companion accompanying her. He shook his head, holding his temples in his hands. He felt himself, melting. His bones turning into puddy in his arms, his legs, his head and his torso. When the transformation was complete, he was an amorphous blob on the ground, sliding this way and that while loosely covered by the clothing he'd been wearing.

"Oinknoinoinoinkn." Was all the sound he could manage while in that stsate, as the fleshling blob moved over the ground. The lump of flesh rolled around for a while longer, until it rolled against Adora's ankles, where it came to rest.

"Have you ever heard of a hippity hop?" Rakvald asked nobody in particular. "I think if you took my head in your hands, and used my body to bound about you might be able to find the correct door, and find our way back to Quacia. Away from this obvious imposter!"

Having said that, Rakvald demonstrated his bounciness with a few bounds about the room, each bounce picking up speed until he flew headlong toward the serpent's face.

"OINKNOINKNOINKNOINIKKNOINk Do you know what oinker means? Comere coil boy, I'll show you with the power of the pigs!"

"Power Pig, Power Pig, club the Snakes!"

He bounced in place, up and down in front of the snake, smiling his toothless, mushy grin.