The Cerulean Brigade, Ch. 1

[PyrosNine]

Faze snapped awake, having proved the victor in his dreams. Just like in real life, he'd beaten the dragon near to death with the chains he'd had locked to his arm, and smacked the woman unconcious with her "beau". Then, he calmly explained his situation, and they finally backed down. Then, after apologies were made, Faze had to hightail it as the woman wanted to know if Faze was into threesomes.

"I don't do no dragons." Faze muttered under his breath as he took stock of where he was.

He was thinking clearly now, having burned through the alcohol quickly as he was prone to do. However, while he was able to get out of the drunken stupor quickly, there are few things that can get rid of a hangover quickly. Faze head throbbed, but he could still tell that he was in some sort of fancy banquet hall. Perhaps even among royalty.

Royalty...royalty....what reason did Faze have to be amongst Royalty? Was he a summoned guest? A hired hand? or did he wander in while drunk, whacking away with his spear? Or WORSE, was he engaged again?

Under the pounding of his head, he managed to search his past memories, particularly the ones involving royalty, until he found a memory about a summons from a king which he'd stopped a bar before he went. It seemed fairly recent, and the only one more recenter was a large table full of wine and food.

Fazed looked down to see the remembered table. Yep, this was where he was summoned to, and where he was supposed to be.....but who were all the riffraff?

Putting those thoughts on hold, Faze knew he had for more important tasks to attend to. Most importantly, curing his hangover. He went up to the table without saying a word, and looked for some fruit juice and some cheese.

[Lumaes]

Pinchette now made her way across the floor towards the talking dog. Her shoes clacked loudly with each determined step she made as she bore down on the animal.

As she drew right up to him she bent ridiculously, almost doubled over with her hands on her hips. Eye to eye with the animal, she pursed her lips severely, he nose wiggled under its rainment of freckles as she launched into an icy but melodic monologue, her eyes threatening terrible things if he dared interrupt and armed as she was with a parasol ones she could carry out easily.
"Now then sir, I will make this very clear so as to reduce the need for repetition. I have no distaste for animals at all - in fact I have something of a weakness for them. But, this I do confess also, I also believe that all things have a place and a wild-thing's is hardly in the cold elegance of these halls, no?" she barely paused despite seeming to invite response.
"you, of course, I may make an exception for as, despite your obvious lack of patience and ellegance" she paused here for a moment, her face splitting into warm and gleeful grin, "You have a most intriguing and blunt way of statement and, I suspect, a grand intellect!"

She straightened suddenly, turning swiftly and clacking her way back to the other side of the hall, one her way however, she pivoted suddenly, waving her bumbershoot dramatically,
"And it's a parasol"
She smiled happily to herself, unloading the prop to her manservant.

[mauve]

Curua was taken aback for a moment at this sudden turn of events.

"Not sure if I should feel complimented or belittled," he said slowly as Pinchette handed the umbrella--sorry, parasol-- to her servant and click-clacked away. He had expected his earlier words to get under the woman’s skin, but he hadn’t quite expected her to retort by complimenting his manner of speech.

“Good gods, I think they ARE all mad,” Curua mused quietly to himself. “But I think I might enjoy this bloody stupid quest a bit more than I originally thought.”

He lay back down on the cold floors.

"Heh heh heh..." he chuckled to himself. " 'A most intriguing and blunt way of statement.' And here I thought I was just being a right barstard."

[Raiden]

Thomas arrived at the front gate, passing through with little trouble from the guards. It was lucky he had missed most of the aggression. His cape had been fidgeting slightly ever since arriving on the castle grounds, and he severely doubted that it was from any wind.

<The smell of the taint hangs thick in the air here. Corrupted beings do dwell in this vicinity...keep thy wits about thee, and thy sword near thy hand! The stone floor may yet drink the blood of demons...>

Thomas didn't respond. His blue eyes merely darted about, looking over the group and the hall. He didn't have much time to look as the doors suddenly burst open. Four guards sweeped their hands in toward the doorway.

"Enter this way to the throne room. The king and his scryer await you inside." Through the doors the group can see the extravagent throne room, with the stairs leading up to the throne itself. Sitting on the throne was the king, an older man that still had a sense of intense power about him. His purple and gold robes were wrapped about his body, and a gold and jewel encrusted crown rested on the crown of his head.

Kneeling beside the king was a very young boy, seeming to have only recently entered his teen years. He had short-cut hair, and seemed to be quite handsome except for a blindfold about his eyes. From the looks of the damaged and scarred skin poking out above the blindfold, the fabric was covering more than simple blindness.

A guard looked at the group as they passed by. "Kneel before the king. Show your respect."

[PyrosNine]

Faze stayed to the back and in the shadows as much as he could. While as a drunkard he may have been wildly conspicuous, when he was his usual self he rarely ever stood out amongst the crowd. It was a timehonored personal skill he'd long since taken, having found out every waking day of his life that being different was trouble.

So Faze did not bow, but made sure no one saw that he wasn't bowing. Personally, he really didn't bow to kings and lords, as he had no fealty to them nor did they own the land he stayed on. He was a wanderer, who reported to no one but himself. It had to be so, for one day the royalty would summon you to save them in their time of great peril, another time they would send a battalion to make sure you bugger off their kingdom.

Besides, he had Kings in his lineage anyway, he thought.

[Tarrin]

Tyrrine entered and stepped to the side of the door, He lowered his head in resect to the king of these people, He didn't however kneel, His only master was nature and to her only would he kneel, But respect he showed the king as fitting his station.

The two wolves droped to their haunches on either side of the druid, each touched his leg giving him the much needed strength to stop the shakes that were becoming more apparent.

[Truce]

Carus bowed instead of taking a knee, though it was more out of habit than out of respect, for he was too curious of the King's condition to even care about his nobility. However, he kept silent on the matter, and simply watched.

[Astral Harmony]

Aishel didn't know how soldiers kneeled before this particular king. So she decided to kneel as she would before King Bahlar of Duvashnia. Removing her sword and switching it to her left hand, Aishel aimed the blade straight down and dropped onto her left knee, placing her right hand on her right knee and leaving her left hand on the sword hilt. Head bowed at a fourty-five degree angle, she closed her eyes for several seconds as though genuflecting to a god, then opened them, raised her head straight, and affixed the king in her eyes and tried to make her face completely unreadable.
She preferred doing this to walking up to the throne and strangling the son of a bitch for taking so goddamn long to get everything rolling. Seriously, King Bahlar was a prick as well, but at least he didn't demand that his own soldiers, let alone mercenaries who don't even swear loyalty to his kingdom to bow down before him.
One she stood up and put her sword away, she turned off her brain somewhat and decided to daydream, waiting until the formalities were all out of the way before His Majesty of Gillnor got to the point. Riven should be back from the ruins expedition he went out on roughly four days ago. He was probably worried sick about her now. Serves him right for not confessing his true feelings to her yet.
-----
Riven sneezed as soon as he saw Tsubasa and Kiyomi, talking to each other while standing before the giant four legged metal monstrosity just behind them. "I wonder if someone's talking about me?"
Tsubasa turned to face Riven as he draw close enough. "Hey there, Riven. Slow down and catch your breath. It's not going to make any difference how fast you run, 'cause I'm not telling you where Aishel's gone off to."
Tsubasa's crimson eyes were in contrast to her beautiful skin and white hair and kimono.
"How did you know I was looking for her?"
Tsubasa got up close to Riven, allowing him to smell her scent. "Tell me now, Riven. How often do you think of Aishel? I'll bet not a single minute passes when her face isn't on your mind." Tsubasa stepped back and saw that Riven was obviously upset.
"Why won't you tell me where she is?!"
Several soldiers who were off duty turned to face the angered Riven. Tsubasa was calm and unsympathetic. "Riven, I can understand how you must be feeling. But things are different now. I've already sent out Chizuru to keep an eye on Aishel so everything will be fine."
"Different?! How is it different? Sounds like you're just making excuses for not wanting to tell me where she is."
Kiyomi spoke up this time. "That's enough, Sir Riven. We may prefer to be rather informal to each other, but please remember that Miss Tsubasa outranks you. Do not be so passionate that you'll yell at a superior."
Riven couldn't stop the tears anymore. "I...I'm sorry. But I'm just-"
Tsubasa's hands fell on Riven's shoulders. "It's all fine, Riven. And wherever Aishel is, she's fine as well. Listen, the summons came from the king of Gillnor."
"Gillnor? So Aishel is there?"
"Yeah, but I don't think she'll be there for very long. Go ahead and proceed there and ask around if you want to find Aishel. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you again."
"...Thank you, Miss Tsubasa. Thank you so very much." Then, Riven snapped out of his emotional state. "Oh, Miss Kiyomi. Miss Rio told me to pass on a message to you. She wants to meet you privately at the archery range in three hours."
Kiyomi flushed slightly. "You know you don't have to go just because Rio wants you to." Tsubasa said. Kiyomi nodded. "True, but I have done about as much as I can do today on the Trampler Tank. Besides, in spite of how bizarre or just plain wrong Rio's requests are, she always has a way of making me want to go. I think I'm becoming a real pervert."
"Miss Tsubasa. Miss Kiyomi. I'll get going now."
"Yeah, sure. Be good to Aishel, okay?"
As Riven fled, Kiyomi turned to Tsubasa. "Are you sure telling him was the right thing to do?"
"It'll be fine. I think Riven's grown enough since I last saw him and that he's finally ready. He'll stick by Aishel until the bloody and happy end, I'm sure."

[Skyshot]

Hunpher slowly rose to his feet with the feigned assistance of his cane, followed the rest into the throne room, and bowed his head. Chances were, the king knew he wasn't so feeble as to not be able to bend at the waist, but head-bowing conveyed essentially the same thing anyways -- "I respect the unity and functioning of all my parts enough to make a gesture of respect towards you, so as to preserve them." Whether or not respect was included was irrelevant.

(OOC: Yes, for the record, I'm implying the king knows about Hunpher's actual age, given his apparent commander-in-chief status and Hunpher's past military service. Who knows, maybe he's just lazy and simply went for a really good physician. Raiden's decision, not mine.)

[Mesden]

Tayuumi walked forward and bowed.

Little else to it, really.

((OOC: No, really, why make a multiparagraph post just for that?! You crazy peoples))