Wizard's House

[wizardseason]

"Hey"

The Wizard greets the evil-allured knights the same way every night, with the same word, while casually sitting on the steps of the porch outside of her little home. The building looks handmade, like it was built by people who cared about the place they were going to live. Surrounding it on all sides are fields as far as the eye can see. Vegetables of all kinds, with fruit trees and bushes placed throughout the landscape. Closer to the home are bigger trees, willows and others, providing shade from the strange three suns above. Wherever this is, it isn't the world that the knights know.

Plunged into the ground a mere few feet away from the steps leading up to the home is a handwritten sign that states the following:

Knight Rules:
- Tell others if you want
- You can't reveal others
- The world ends this year

Comments

[daddykong]

Garrot's retreated to the basement of his house. Far from prying eyes and ears, and insulated enough to muffle any sound. The light in the master bedroom is on, but the shades are drawn. He's used to subterfuge and hiding stupid, trivial things from his kids, and that practice has served him very well tonight.

"Hey Xaljim, question for you." He's leaning against a wall, enjoying the nice, cold stone in an otherwise hot and humid island "If the companions don't know who's connected to the Protector or the Wizard, whose side are you actually on?" Blending common knowledge with a question raised by his dream the night before. If they all knew something about where the Knights fell, they'd be clearly on the Protector's side. But they aren't, even though they supply the weapons to let the Knights fight!

It's fishy.

[wizardseason]

Haizea asks for bacon and eggs and, true to her word, a plate of bacon and eggs slides across the counter on its own.

Gyre gets his pick of the food laying around.

Matilda gets a similar self-sliding plate but hers has a little bit of everything, a small serving of each breakfast food. Most importantly: Sunny side up eggs.

And then, of course.

There's Garrot.

As he approaches the Wizard, she lets his screaming moment pass but she mutes him the moment the word 'platter' leaves his lips. She isn't going to let him keep screaming, this is hardly the place for it. But she's not going to leave him unanswered. She's also not going to leave him feeling like his tirade had any effect on her at all.

"Would that make you happy?" She offers, knowing full well that he can't respond. "We both know it wouldn't."

And she deliberately waits thirty more seconds to unmute him, but she doesn't give even the slightest indication that she'd done so.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea picks up a slice of bacon and chomps down on it. Crunchy, just the way she likes it.

“Damn Garrot, muted again?” she says around her mouthful, then gestures at the Wizard with a second piece of bacon. “Why don’t you make him a pancake that looks like your head instead? Bet your magic could whip up something like that.” Or could it? The Wizard’s sheer power and reality bending abilities are a given, but how much fine control does she have?

[sustainer]

Oh good, Garrot's making a scene. He winces a little as the other starts screaming, only letting out a held breath when he's finally silenced.

At least the rest of the room is looking that way? It gives him the chance to get up finally, sneaking over to the counter to steal a raw egg. Which he'll just toss into his mouth whole while he watches this work itself out. The egg is crunched one (1) time before he swallows. Gross!

[wizardseason]

"I can't feel what I can't touch, but I can hear it?" They start slowly walking in a circle thoughtfully. They're trying to think of how to answer his really important questions.

"I can only hear people, so if I can hear it, it's a person?"

[wizardseason]

"Of course. Once it is known that there is a risk, it cannot be forgotten." They answer immediately, watching Haizea.

"Some lasted the entire time, they were not known at all. You are certain you do not suspect someone is keeping a secret?"

[scandeled]

Matilda's actually too busy smiling at her plate to pay too much attention to Garrot's yelling. She trusts the Wizard not to hurt him, just make him quiet, which honestly, is kindof nice once and a while.

Unfortunately, that leaves her open to look up and watch Gyre put a fucking egg in his mouth, which means her breakfast is falling out of her mouth instead of being chewed.

[daddykong]

Garrot can't tell the Wizard that the only thing that'd make him happy would be breaking her goddamn neck. He wants to shout and grumble and throw a tantrum but it's really hard to keep that motivation when you can't be fucking heard. It's basically his own personal HELL! So he simply rolls his eyes at Haizea's snark and watches Gyre slink off to the counter. Then there's the crunch of eggshells, and Matilda has stopped dead in her tracks. Garrot, eager to investigate and give the Wizard the cold shoulder, walks over. And it's at this moment that the mute seems to wear off.

"What, you've never seen someone eat a raw egg before?" How has Matilda never seen this? It's in so many movie workout montages! So he grabs an egg but instead cracks it over his mouth and the yolk and slime fall right into his mouth. Munch chomp. Almost like he's done this before. But then he faces the rest of the kitchen, eggshells still in his hands. "I mean, you can get salmonella so you really shouldn't eat a raw egg at all, Matilda." Garrot will be fine because he's a doctor and this is all a dream.

[tropicalstorm]

Hm, maybe she can get through this then. If she survives, it’ll be bad enough to be known as a knight, let alone to be known as a Wizard knight. She shrugs nonchalantly when Fumicq asks her about secrets.

“Suspect anyone? Nah, I don’t.” This isn’t a lie, she doesn’t suspect anyone, she KNOWS who they are. “I guess it don’t really matter though, so long as we all kill the monsters then who cares?”

[wizardseason]

The Wizard's got a wild bunch this year, four totally different eggs sitting around her here in the kitchen. She answers Haizea's request by spinning a finger gently over the cooktop. A squirt-bottle filled with pancake batter starts floating above the surface and it uh... it goes to town on making a little wizard face on the cooktop. It looks pretty good!

Gyre, meanwhile, gets an extra egg rolled over to him. Eat up, carnivore! Matilda's meal doesn't stop smiling.

"Those eggs are safe, you could eat them all." A beat, then: "I won't let any of you die to an egg."

[tropicalstorm]

Huh, look at that, pancake art! She wonders if the Wizard is good at art naturally or if it’s because of the magic.

“Safe or not,” she says, making a bit of a face, “I bet they taste better cooked!” To illustrate her point, she cuts up a chunk of her eggs, which are fried, and chomps down. “Yep, pretty dang good.”

Watching Garrot eat a raw egg didn’t kill her appetite, but if Gyre eats another one whole that just might. Why these men so nasty.

[wizardseason]

"You are correct. I hope we see nothing from the wizard knights. Things are better without them." They answer plainly, still floating in a circle around the room.

[sustainer]

Oh my god, he was trying to eat privately!! He doesn't eat eggs in front of these people for this exact reason!! He knows he's fucked the second Matilda looks at him, and then Garrot has to make it a whole thing. He sets his attention on the new egg he's being offered, picking it up and turning it over in his hand.

"If you say so," he mutters to Haizea, watching her eat a tragically cooked egg. It's not for him, and yes, unfortunately for her, he is going to eat his egg whole and raw because that's the way eggs are supposed to be eaten. His eyes shift over the lot of them as he does it before he settles his focus on the Wizard. He doesn't need his tastes criticized!!

"Why are you making food in a dream anyway?"

[scandeled]

Matilda’s watching Garrot like she’s witnessing a deadly accident in slow motion. Her entire face falls into complete despair, her cheeks flush, there might even be tears welling—- she pulls her goggles down over her eyes and begins scarfing the smiley face breakfast aggressively. Can’t focus on gross egg eating if she’s busy eating her own cooked eggs!

[tropicalstorm]

Hm, well, that doesn’t feel great. She never asked to be a wizard knight!! She keeps her cool though, maintaining her facade of nonchalance. But then another question hits her-

“What did you and the other companions do before this yearly bullshit started? Did you even exist before then?”

[sustainer]

"Oh..." He nods very slightly, licking his lips. Okay, progress is being made. Fen seems calm for the first time in their entire life probably.

"What does it sound like? Does it say anything?"

[daddykong]

Garrot just stares in awe as Matilda's face falls and she starts eating... because Gyre ate an entire raw egg. Maybe she realized how hungry she was? Either way...

"Oh, is that what we're doing?" Garrot's glance slides to Gyre, and suddenly he's smirking, and hey look, the doctor also pops a raw egg into his mouth, and monch cronch. See? He can be cool!

"Sho, shiddy Wizerr-" Chomp chew. How did Gyre do this in one bite? "Is it nighttime, or is that just stormclouds?" Why is it even raining if she can magic her weird crops? Also, this egg is like eating a dollar burger with the paper wrap still on.

Garrot keeps chewing. No point in the eggshells cutting his throat!

[wizardseason]

"It's raining, food helps knights bond." She answers, keeping her soft smirk on her face as she watches the raw egg shenanigans unfold. Good thing Haizea and Matilda are eating the cooked eggs, otherwise they'd go to waste. After a few moments, all the sound from the cooktop ceases and the room is left only with the ceaseless sound of the rain outside.

Which should answer Garrot's question. It's just a storm.

"I won't be cooking tomorrow night, we'll be outside again."

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea continues to make a face at Garrot and Gyre, but especially at Garrot because she can just feel how performative his whole egg eating is. Gyre at least didn’t make a big deal about it! She shoots a conspiratory glance towards Matilda and shrugs with a sigh. At least the two of them aren’t comitting food crimes!

“I wonder if I could make the rain stop?” she muses, but doesn’t actually try. It’s kind of nice to hear the rain outside and she’s still got bacon to eat. She’s unsure how much headway she’ll make on the eggs for a while.

She perks up a bit when the Wizard says they’ll be outside tomorrow, she’s lowkey been thinking about the lake Gyre took a dip in last time. The desire to swim in it is STRONG.

[sustainer]

Gyre swallows his egg in one bite again, watching Garrot with this irritated expression that gets more and more concerned the more he seems to struggle with it.

"Don't hurt yourself," he says eventually, slowly raising an eyebrow. "Didn't you just say that's bad for you?" Why did this dumb doctor throw another egg in his mouth? What was the point of that! Garrot is a true enigma honestly that he will never understand. Instead, he glances towards the wizard at Haizea's question. He's curious if knight powers work here too!

[scandeled]

Matilda keeps her head down and her vision rose-tinted as she scarfs the smiling face down, refusing to look up at Garrot, though the crunch sounds are ripping her very dignified heart apart. The wizard's suggestion that there's no cooking tomorrow makes her pause though, and she peeks up, pouting.

"We could still eat tomorrow. A picnic?"

[daddykong]

"I'm fine! Just being thorough." Garrot nods at Gyre, before finally swallowing the egg. The tiny little eggshell pieces go down like sand. One chomp really was the best approach. "Besides, the eggs can't kill us, and we're asleep." He brings a hand to stroke at his beard and glances around the room at the others.

"Nothing we do in this world seems to matter." Garrot breathes out through his nose. He'd woken up just fine yesterday, even though the contents of his discussion with the Wizard were incredibly troubling. "But we're still here, when we could be having a picnic on the beach!" He'll see your idea, Matilda, but Garrot is yes-and-ing it.

As tantalizing as the riddles of this cosmic struggle are, he'd rather distract the others from the Wizard so she can't get her fucking hooks in as easily. If they take her too seriously, some of them might be trying to end the world in a few days.

[wizardseason]

The Wizard watches Garrot and Gyre's shenanigans out of the corner of her eye, deciding to only address it when he's taken hold of Matilda's idea. But she can't leave Haizea's comment unaddressed, so:

"If you could change the weather here, you'd be stronger than me." She offers, knowing full well that Haizea can't even make a single drop of rain stop here. Her magic has no power here.

"We aren't going to the beach, tomorrow. We're going to where it started forty years ago. It's not a good spot for a picnic."

[tropicalstorm]

She raises an eyebrow at that. “Well, now I gotta try it, don’t I?” she says, contrarily, and thinks very hard about the rain stopping, When she’d practiced before, the rain had always stopped within a minute of her telling it to, but the rain outside today does not let up. Eventually, she sighs.

“She’s right, I can’t stop the rain at all,” Haizea sounds a little disappointed. Just when she’s starting to get used to cool powers!

When the Wizard speaks of tomorrow’s plans, though, she doesn’t say anything. She’s more bummed that there won’t be a chance to swim than she is interested in history.

[wizardseason]

"We did not exist." They answer without any hesitation, though their slow float around the room does pause for a moment before resuming.

"At least we did not in our current forms; I have no memory before that time."