Well just absolutly lovely.

I’ve betrayed him, pure and simple.

I deserve to be thrown out on my ass. No, I deserve to have the shit beat out of me and then get thrown out on my ass.

If it was anyone else, even Ann, I know I wouldn’t feel- like this. Like I’m going to keel over and be sick. As much as I respect and like her, I wouldn’t- fuck, what the fuck did I do? What am I going to do?

After some of the things he said to me- the trust he puts in me- and it gets tested first day out under saddle and I buck and balk and leave him on his ass in the dust, after meaningless words of trust and loyalty.

Hell, anyone else, and I wouldn’t have cared half as much. Dagon, Simon, Ann, Damon, anyone, and I may have felt guilt over putting them in a bad postion but in a way, it feels like they’d expect me to bite them in the end, so when I did it’s not a shock, and they know how to bite back. We’re allies and partners, but we all know, in the end, what we are and will always be.

But he- never , I think, did he expect me to do this. I’m not afraid he’ll be angry, not even a little. I want him to be angry. I want him to yell at me and storm off and hate me and never trust me again. Okay, no, so that’s a lie, I don’t. But I don’t think he will.
What I’m afraid of is what I think- I know- I’ll get. Quiet disappointment. Resignment. Hurt. Surprise. Tired anger. And he won’t, I think, turn away and never trust me again. This will shake it to the core, though.

Fuck.


And just what, you may ask, is the emotional Seimei being so melodramatic about now?

Let me start from the beginning. Because this has not been a very fucking good week for me.
For one, I pretty much had my hopes crushed. Dagon didn’t confront the Man in Black, barely even interacted with him. Instead he watched from inside the little room with the portal, watched the Man in Black and a companion walk down the hallway. They were discussing something, and then came into his room unaided. The Man in Black said something about wanting Dagon to ‘come back’ with him, and other illusions to the idea that the man had known Dagon, once, and had dealings with him. He wanted our dragon boy back, and when he said ‘no’, the were changed, and the room itself blew them- out? The magic came unraveled, I guess you could say undone, and all had likely gotten hurt.

Our dragon boy came back with a clump of were fur, and a bit of skin. I felt a little better.

I investigated around a little bit, but found nothing- and apperantly so did my elf. We came together again in the courtyard, where Dagon sat under a tree. Questions got me nowhere with him, of no real fault of his own, and then Ann took me back inside to the banquet still occurring. She claimed they wanted me back in there- me, not us. I steadfastly refuse to let myself acknowledge that I know perfectly fucking well that that is supposed to mean.

Ardremides too the fur and skin, too, and then slipped away, the only one absent from our lovely little event. And when it was over, it seemed very much like Talron wanted to say- something else, to me. It was an akward little moment, but it was what, in the end, convinced me to do what I’d been planning for at least a week now.

I went to his chambers.

The gaurds out front informed me that he wasn’t in, at the moment, and so I trumped my little self over and sat against the wall until one of the gaurds got me a chair, wordlessly, and helped me up into it. Very amusing, if I do say so myself.

Of course, it didn’t take too fucking long for the help to start running past me and giggling, and I knew full well what they were on about. Rumors would start spreading in minutes, probably already had, but oh fucking well.

Besides, I was kind of getting a kick out of this.
Soon enough (boring hours and hours later) a male servent came up and told me my lovely King was waiting for me in the courtyard.
And so off I troddled, disgruntled as all hell and sure I was going to get yelled at.

He didn’t yell at me.

Instead he was standing under the huge tree that was in the center of our courtyard, the only tree there, in fact, barely lit with his back to me. For a moment, I had to pause- striking image that scene made for, and faintly lonely. I got within a few paces before he turned and closed the gap between us himself- smiling at me.

Okay, yes, shut the fuck up, I liked that he was smiling at me. Fuck you.

Just like a few days back, nothing mattered just then- not the ring around my neck or Damen, not Dagon or the Man In Black or the were or anything. Just that he was waiting for me, smiling at me, smiling for me.

Motherfuck, Semei girl, you just got it smashed over your head with a giant fucking club, didn’t you? May as well follow the man around bleating, you stupid little- what was the word that captian used?- ah yes. Frilly.

But at the time, I wasn’t thinking any of that. I was just thinking total brain function shutdown, rational abandoned, body tempeture dangerously high, unable to vocalize, retreat, retreat! Get out of there, man!

I didn’t move, needless to say.

We talked softly, and I tried my damndest to keep the conversation off the unpleasnetness that had been everywhere lately. We just talked, though he did most of it- honestly, I wasn’t fucking joking in the above statement. I couldn’t put thought together well enough to do much more then encourage him to keep speaking. I probably looked like a fool, but I didn’t feel like one. I was embaressed, yeah, but even that went away the more he talked.

He did tell me what Ardremides was doing with that fur and skin- he should be able to keep the were out of our keep, and maybe even track him. More then I expect to get out of that bit of fur and skin, but I was vindictively pleased. .

He was more open then I think I’ve seen him, and that’s presicly what I was after. I want to know him. And the more I do, the more I-

Oh fuck this bullshit. If I can all but say it to a vampire, I can write it down plain.

The more I know him, the more I find myself falling, stupidly, pointlessly, dangerously, idioticly, brainlessly in love. It can not be returned, it will not be returned, I might be married, he’s a fucking King, but there it is.

Son-of-a-bitch. Just- stupid, stupid girl.

He told me that he’d thought he’d never hear himself called ‘my King’ again for a very long time. Told me how he’d lived for what I can only guess is years on years after Nabudel, but in the end- a King is what he was. He said he couldn’t put that aside, but, at my instance, said he’d always be my- friend. There was a softness in his voice I wasn’t used to, and it turned my insides to fucking pudding. It only got worse when he admitted one of his favorite memories was nearly when he’d first met us, and sat it the woods when we camped, playing for us.

Ironic, isn’t it, that it happens to be my best memory of him?

He said he’d picked this spot both because it was beautiful here- and it was, with the faintest of lighting and the moon and the keep what seemed like a million miles away and this huge old tree standing watchful sentinel over both of us and he and I and a sky that was dark and huge- and because it reminded him of a place in Nabudel. Not around the keep, of course, but just outside. He said he went with his father there- rarely- but always in times of peace.

Only in times of peace.

And then Thandriel came and the entire illusion was destroyed. Suddanly the keep was there again, and everything settled back into my stomach like a heavy load, making a tight knot that had just started to let go.

And then, after saying a soft sendoff, he lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, leaning close to my ear. And said maybe next time I wouldn’t have to wait outside his chambers.

Ann told me later that she could hear my squeal from inside the keep. What? I was damn well pleased with myself.

But then my fantastic night turned sour real fast. I got back into my room, only to find a small lamp glowing the in the corner and a note on my bed that read ‘stay in your room tonight’.

I went over to the wall, hissing Ann’s name. No reply, though- and a few minutes later, the sounds of a fight broke out. I spent a good twenty minutes trying to work out what to do, then checked my door for traps. Found none- but yet still got zapped by one I’d missed. And when I opened it, there was a Halfling there before me.

He scowled.

I blinked.

He shifted.

I slammed the door.

Okay, exit one, no option. Exit two?

Yet another trap I missed. I yelped with pain and swore so vividly that in another situation I may have actually emabaressed myself.

And just outside the door, there was another trap. I yelped out, down to the gaurds, that Ann was being attacked. And then I was trapped in my room, exchanging banter with a wise-ass half elf and too afraid to push my luck with the sound of Ann getting her ass kicked going on just beyond my wall.

The little man told me this was all part of the ‘test’, and that Ann’s life depended, more or less, on his partner’s mood.

He also decided I was stupid. Apperantly, sarcasim doesn’t always work well.

And no sooner had I contented myself wit the fact that acting would only cost Ann her life, then did an very naked (okay, so she had a cloak and a robe on, but that wasn't hiding much) Ann and an almost as naked older woman apper on my balcony.

The Halfling seemed altogether too interested, and I resisted the urdge to cover his eyes.

The fight went on hours, but Ann managed to loose her attacked by turning into a cat and leaping off my balcony. Dispit me, the pair left, and THEN, of course, the gaurds came running.

We got questioned about everything that happened, and absolutely nothing got resolved- it went right back to something on you is letting these people come and go as they please, just as before.

It took us a day or two before we got our heads together enough to see Ardremides about it, and he never saw us at all. It was his apprentice who agreed to check us over for magical items, and she found nothing unusal about our things- but I did have a crystal in my packs I’d never known was there.

Now, this crystal came from the same place I did- the experimentation place Ann and the others had pulled me from, where the Man in Black had first popped out to say ‘hello’.

We took our findings to Talron, who suggested that the crystal was, in fact, the Man in Black’s in to Nabudel, and that we take it back to Ardremides and tell him that, on Talron’s own word, this was important.

Poor man looked like a wrung out rag, or a horse that had been pushed to damn far- but he saw us, and had us set the crystal down. He refused to touch it, and Thandreil, who had come with us, again per Talron, also refused. But they gave it a once over, and then came back with the- um- more then a little jarring information as to what this thing was.

They said it was a psy crystal- an intelligent being all on it’s own, with a will and a personality. If not careful, it could take over the mind of who ever held it…..depending on the crystal’s personality. If it was aggressive and ‘mean’, it could be dangerous…..if it was more timid or, I guess, ‘gentle’, less so.

Neither Ann or I could use it or talk to it, though it was determined that it was in my pack because it wanted to be, and that Lim Dul had had it long enough to have put himself in danger, if there was any.

We also figured there was a very real chance Lim Dul’s familer, Mahpoo, had put it in there.
And so off we went to find Mahpoo. We got stopped, on the way, by Thandriel speaking to Ann- but I couldn’t understand what was said or even hear most of it. We passed through the portal without any trouble and popped over into Shoulwater.

I have gotten past all pity for Lim. I have moved up to annoyed as fuck at the big, stupid dope. He was still moping around in his rooms, and yeah, it was hard to see someone who’d been as- alive as him so lifeless, now, but all I could feel, suddenly, was annoyed.

She’s dead, get the fuck over it.

But we got the monkey from him and took him, without fuss, out of the keep. It’s when we got back to the portal that we had a problem- the little beast refused to go through, and flat out ran away, though he didn’t go far. Ann caught him again, and this time we brought him to the druid that had been working on our ships.

Now, I hadn’t had much to do with this particular person, but I must say, I rather like the snarky son of a bitch. All the other druids I’ve met up until now have been as pale as water, and it was a refreshing change. He told us he would get what we needed out of the little theif (apperantly, our little friend had taken some of his gold) the next day. And we went back home. Or at the least, Ann did-I stayed in Shoulwater, curtisy of the crystal at my hip. I entertained myself for the day, doing nothing of importance (I find myself doing that more often then not) and bored out of my fucking skull. But it was kind of entertaining, and I’m becoming rather fond of the help around the keep- both keeps- the more I have to do with them.

Ann appered sometime in the day, and with four-legged companion in tow, we went back to the druid.

I have never in my life seen anyone quite so annoyed or bored with asking questions of a monkey- or with being made to do so.

I have never in my life seen a more evil smile when he voulenteered to make the little familer tell him what he wanted to know. He seemed to take entirely too much pleasure in doing that little trick, and along with being scared, Lim’s little theif was pissed off about it; I don’t know what chatter-squeak chatter squeak means, but I can guess.

I think I’m mildly impressed.

We found out, though, that he had put the crystal in my pack, and that he’d done it because the crystal had told him to and he didn’t want to make it angry. (And that put my nerves a bit on edge, let me tell you.) He said he didn’t know if the crystal had ever talked to his master, our moping sorccer friend, and that the crystal had been in my pack for what balanced out to being a good couple months.

And I had never known it.

Forget nerves being on edge, that made me downright shivery. Inatimate objects should not have a will of their own. It is just not fucking right.

Least of all so when they get yanked out of a giant monster that has been experimented on.

Whatever possessed Lim to take that thing-

-Never mind. I just- I don’t want to know. Enough that he did. Don’t need to know why. Nope. Absolutly don’t.

Probably will anyway, because I don’t usually get a say in these things, and if I do, it doesn’t usually matter.

Yeah, I’m sure you have a good idea of the look on my face right now.

And no Ann, I’m not pouting. I don’t fucking pout.

Anyhow, we found out our monkey friend had taken some things off us, too, and hidden them in our airship. He’d somehow hidden the things inside a panel on the ship, and not just ours.

We found Thandriel’s things and Ardermides’s , along with the druid’s coin and some ladies’s jewelry.

And an amulet with the sign of a scarab beetle on it. Fucking typical, isn’t it?

Anyway, we assumed that amulet was what had been planted on us- me- to let these freaks in and out, more then the crystal, and took it to our pair again.

We gave them back their stuff, too.

Ardremides agreed that this amulet had been the cause of the pair getting in, and took it- he said it should be pretty nulled, now. He also saw that the beetle on it was a façade, and drew us an
image of the real symbol on the thing.

And then we took off again, as we had planned- to see Ivy and King.

We hitched a ride as mercanaries- gaurds, if you prefer- to some merchants headed Tolgron way (the town about a day before Jhadu.) We got there pretty unharrased by orcs.

It was when we got into town the harassment started.

Okay, not really, I’m exaggerating. But the diadem of this town- the new diadem- is a slimey, greasy little man I don’t like or trust for shit. He had dinner with us and made what seemed to be general small talk, though his entire manner was enough to make me wonder what he was up to, even if it was absolutely nothing.

The man he’d replaced was, according to him, ‘ill’, and could recive no visitors.

At least I’m not the only one that wonders if this ‘illness’ is all natural. Ann had doubts, too, but when we saw him-

-a frail, helpless old man, half mad, who’s ’mad ramblings’ turned out later to be rather spot on for mad ramblings. But he did talk about a ‘she’….a ‘she’ who was ‘waiting’. And about water- water being all around. But we couldn’t get more then riddles out of him, and left. And then we left the town.

We arrived at our goal late, and of course, we were accosted by the same, stomach lurchingly eery cleric-now-vampires that had sent me scurring the other way weeks before. Ann slipped into the darkness at my back, and after some nervous babbling meant mostly to make me- us both-feel a little less tense, we followed them into the building we’d last met Shane and Thalice in. Ivy was waiting for us, in the very same room, and was- unsurprisingly-pleased to see us. To see Ann, I should say, though she’ll fight me on it.

Ivy was pleased enough to see us, and we got a surprising amount of information from her- mostly confirmation or rejection of what we’d already heard.

But this is where my melodrama from above comes into play.

She asked us what she got in return for helping us, for giving us what information she didn- and told us what she wanted.

A cup of Talron’s blood.

I don’t know what made me do either of the things I did then. Something in her tone made me bristle, protective and, yes, I was fucking possessive for the first time that I can remember.

I asked her what she wanted my Talron’s blood for. And you know, I didn’t regreat it for one minute. Even after she echoed me with faint disbelieve, I confirmed it, startled myself to hear the tone in my voice but not showing it.

But in the end, I agreed to give her what she wanted. Why? Because I don’t think she’s a threat. I don’t think she means any harm with it. I don’t see any danger. And I don’t feel threatened.
But I do feel like I’ve betrayed him deeply, offering something so precious and almost- intimate. But then, I’ve been over that. See above.

I got to see King again, too. It made me happy. Grumpy and bitchy as ever, he was, but he and Ivy at least now know about Feng and the oddity going on with the lycanthropes in the citadel.
Ann and my fuzzy puppy had yet another stand off, one that nearly ended in her becoming a werekitty again, I’m sure. The funny bit is, I just watched this time- watched him almost tenderly lift her arm, ask her if she wanted to know if a were could control someone he changed, if King could change her without a full moon.

Watched her say no. I was a little surprised, I admit. I half-thought….but I guess I was wrong.

Nevermind.

Anyway. We talked. We got information and gave it. We stayed the night. And we checked on the beast people, only to find they’d packed up and left.

Damn, they worked fast. It was almost spooky, seeing things kind of- wither, without them around. Seeing everything empty and deserted, and it actually felt empty and deserted. The glowing flowers that had lead to the big moose man were the only things not somehow less, and those were overgrown and everywhere- I think I saw Ann take a couple blossoms. I couldn’t bring myself to even touch.

And when we left, and headed back for the keep-

-I started thinking of ways to stall having to go see my King. The real one, I mean not the- ah, fuck me sideways, you know what I mean!

.......I'm screwed, aren't I?