Runesight

29 - The Queen's Ball

--- Aymiae ---

Aymiae really should have expected all sorts of things to go wrong now that Fari was back. They'd always gone wrong before and there was no reason that they should stop doing so. What she hadn't expected was for Fari to keep popping in randomly after days of personal isolation, asking Aymi for things and barely ever giving anything in return.

It was almost like dealing with Harrel, actually.

Earlier today, Fari had opened a portal in the basement of the Ayfel and innocently explained to her that her friend needed a place to stay for a couple of days while the whole thing with the queen died down.

Aymi had been planning on going out to watch her majesty's arrival, but Fari was involved, so of course it couldn't be that simple.

Aymi watched dubiously as Fari and her friend tried to threaten a possessor entity through the gate, and then decided that she would have to supervise this entire operation lest the entire building somehow get leveled.

"Niun, give me that rod there- yes that one." Aymi took it and wielded the rod in both hands while giving the creature a look. "You are going to get in here, and you are going to stay in here."

--- Fora ---

Foralen stood three hours later in the Ayfel, wearing the gown her original self had purchased for the occasion. It was elegant, at least that was the best word for it. It was a deep red, a stark contrast to the blue tint of her skin, it had long sleeves that billowed about her hands and would probably be catching on things all night long. The skirt was thick and white lace was sewn into it. It made her feel like a queen.

The clone was still getting ready though, her hair refused to behave and her mind kept focusing on the little imperfections, she covered her Tuvei markings with makeup -a common enough practice- but then ended up scrubbing her face for twenty minutes when she changed her mind. Tonight was her one chance to talk to Steris about her plan without going to the capital. It was the best time to convince the queen to help her and the clone had no idea if it would even work if everything was in her favor.

She wanted it to be perfect, if it was perfect then the only things she had to worry about was her own incompetence and the stubbornness of a Queen.

--

I gripped Hivren's arm and stepped through the fifth gate, practically pulling him behind me. Hivren wasn't happy about the massive things I'd told him, and he seemed to be getting more out of sorts with each new gate we passed through. To my dismay, it wasn't just from the physical effects.

I hadn't memorized the landscape when I'd been traveling from Ceruleia to Reiaran as Eliax. She hadn't known to even do that. But thankfully the gate spell could work around that since I'd been there before. I could barely tell what time it was, but during the breaks between gates I could see the sun steadily moving downward.

It felt agonizingly slow as I collapsed to the ground again and started the process of recharging the ability once more. Hivren collapsed beside me and barfed all over the path from the strain of crossing such vast distances. Traveling through the between was a common enough practice, but I'd never really done it on this scale before and in my incompetence I kept on messing up the spell. It disrupted our bodies and minds, our souls growing chaotic with each gate.

It wasn't the first time he'd barfed and we both knew it wouldn't be the last. "So...you do this a lot?"

I grunted, feeling the magic begin to flow into me again from the Between. It was starting to hurt. I made sure to memorize each spot we ended up in so that the return trip would be more pleasant, but I didn't even want to comprehend how far we still had to go. "If I did this a lot -huff- do you really think I would be so bad at it?" The reply was sharper than I'd intended, but we were both tired and annoyed so he didn't seem to take it personally.