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

[wizardseason]

Fen looks so very thoughtful for several long moments, eyes drifting up the nearest tree before they start to topple over. They flop onto their side with a soft 'thud' before they blink back to attention and explain:

"I can't hear it right now." They blink once more before relaxing on their side.

"It said it wanted to meet the knights."

[sustainer]

He watches Haizea closely as she tries to change the weather, glancing occasionally out the window until she finally gives up. He tilts his head curiously, and his eyes snap to the wizard when she says they're going to go back to the beginning.

"Why can't you change the weather here?" he asks as he sits at the table finally. "Are we going to be dreaming when we go there?"

[scandeled]

"I can teleport here." Matilda interjects, peeking up at the others to make sure no ones's shoving sausage up their nose or something equally horrifying like that. It might sound like a brag if she didn't sound so weirdly unsure of herself. She pauses to politely dab at her mouth with a napkin.

"If it's not the beach... what kind of place are we going to? Is it dangerous?"

[wizardseason]

Xaljim appears as if on command, hanging from the ceiling as if it's a net he can grip hold of. Somehow he's dangling, watching Garrot now that he's been called on.

"Yours." He answers immediately, eyes locked on Garrot.

"Why?"

[sustainer]

His eyes widen enormously, and he almost thoughtlessly reaches out to put a hand on their side. His fingers run lightly through their fur, and he glances around his camp. Searching.

"Do you know how I can talk to them?"

[wizardseason]

They let out a big exhale, laying there as Gyre pulls a rub-the-triceratops-tummy scene from Jurassic Park. Before either of them know it, Gyre's gonna be elbow-deep in a pile of crap.

At least that's how the scene in the Pig Knight Movie is going to go. The studio was already writing it.

"I don't know. It talked to me. I don't know if it listens back?"

[daddykong]

He's pensive for a moment, balancing the vague answer against his own tense situation. Garrot's not sure if he can trust Xaljim with this, or anyone. The only reason he can trust the other Wizard knights is because they can't rat him out. He'd take all this to the grave, if he could.

"Three years ago, when the Monkey Knight was with the Wizard, you didn't know." He gestures his head to the skies, and his tone turns a bit sullen. "When my father was with the Princess, you didn't know." Garrot's hands halfway enter his pants pockets. "You've never known, not in forty years. If you're on my side, and the side of every other Monkey Knight, shouldn't you know?" He narrows his eyes and furrows his brow, not in apprehension but as if he's trying to run calculations in his head.

"So why can't you know?" A beat. "Or do you just not want to?"

[daddykong]

The fact that some powers work here while others don't is interesting. Haizea can't control the weather, but Matilda can teleport. As much as Garrot wants to summon a clone, he does not want to run the risk of it saying something stupid here. Plus, there really doesn't seem to be enough room for two of him.

"But didn't this all start at Harsen Island?" Garrot sounds skeptical of this little field trip. He wants to buy into it because everything started on the Island, so whatever she wants to show them they can see when they're awake. So it's a waste of time, and good for the fate of the world. But she's been at this for forty years, she knows how to manipulate people.

"So tonight's a meal, tomorrow's the date, and then you start tricking people into wanting to fuck over the world." He's sure there's something to learn there, something about the center of the planet being alive and her relationship with the Protector. But he doesn't trust her one bit to be the narrator on that story.

[wizardseason]

It's a good thing she won't be the narrator then, huh Garrot?

"I can stop the rain if you'd prefer." She offers to Haizea, curious if she'll take the offer. Either way, there are other questions on the table that she has to address.

"You'll be dreaming, it would be dangerous if you weren't." She leans back against the far counter, letting the last foods float to various plates to refill what had been eaten. She doesn't start cooking any more.

"This year might be different." She offers in contrast to Garrot's accusation, but he'd also asked if this all started here and: "It started here, so it ends here."

[wizardseason]

"Both the Wizard and the Protector don't tell us because we're not on their sides." He really wishes he had something he could throw at Garrot right now to make him stop asking so many questions. But there's an important bit that Garrot's assuming here and he wants to set it straight.

"You don't know what happens on this island. Not every monkey knight was like you."

[daddykong]

That just raises so many questions, and Garrot finds himself responding without much of a moment to think.

"I don't know?!" He's calling bullshit on that, Xaljim, and it doesn't help that it sounds condescending. "What don't I know, when I've been here multiple times?!" Tell him, Garrot is all ears, buddy! Xaljim definitely knows something he doesn't, but what? Is it about what makes him different? And what could that even be?!

Just give him the straight facts, Xaljim.

[wizardseason]

"Every knight chooses a side. There's no such thing as a neutral knight." He answers, bristling with annoyance at how annoyed Garrot is getting. His temper's going to get the better of him here and he doesn't care.

"Even if they're Wizard or Protector at the start, they can be whatever they want by the end. I don't care what my knights decide, I'll help them do whatever they're going to do. They'll die or they'll live but it won't be on me." And suddenly he's got a balled up piece of paper that he plinks off of Garrot's face.

[daddykong]

The moment that balled up piece of paper starts to fly, Garrot is already growling. He doesn't care what they do and he's completely detached from whether they live or die. Whether his father lived or died.

"You don't care, even if someone wants to end the world! That'd kill you, you realize that?!" And he's breathing deeper, trying to calm himself down, to stop his claws from cutting into his palms. "Are you like this every year, or am I getting special treatment because I'm different?"

Hell of a way to bring things back around, but okay Garrot. At least he's got his head on straight enough that he's still trying to make progress.

[wizardseason]

Why did he have to get the frustrating knight!!! Everything Garrot was was frustration! He wishes he had more paper! More ways to vent his own frustration! But he notices when Garrot tries to switch himself, and he can't keep the frustration out of his voice but at least he doesn't throw more paper.

"I didn't ask to exist. I'm here. I do my job. I come back next year. I can't change any of it. I can't change any of it!" He lets out a deep exhale from getting himself riled up, shaking his head.

"I'd help you end the world if you wanted. Fighting or not, I'm on your side."

[daddykong]

Xaljim didn't ask for this? Can't change any of it? Garrot's eyes go wide because he feels bad that the only way he got good info was by pissing off his companion. In fact, what he got is also making him feel bad. Garrot pushes off the wall and closes the distance tentatively reaching an arm up to clasp onto the monkey's shoulder.

"But what do you want?" He's sincere about it, an easy shift after years raising troubled kids. His other arm opens a bit, a half step from offering a hug. "We don't have to fight; you could let me help you."

Garrot wants to trust Xaljim, but they're just... they're arguing too much. It's one hell of a secret for someone who keeps throwing paper balls at him.

[wizardseason]

He immediately turns himself upside down where he's floating in midair, not allowing the hand on his shoulder. The last thing he wants is to get crushed by his knight's frustrations.

Even if it wouldn't actually hurt.

"I'm tired of it. When it ends, I wake up and it's the next year. There's no rest. I want it over with." He answers, eyeing Garrot suspiciously for any indication that he's not taking him seriously.

He's actively considering if he needs to get more balls of paper to fend him off.

[daddykong]

Garrot is absolutely taking him seriously. Not just because he sees an in for information that could help them all save the world, but because Xaljim is in pain. And Garrot helps people, he heals them, so his heart is really going out to Xaljim.

"So why can't it end?" His voice is softer, his frustration shifted nearly to pleading. "Why can't we just find a way to keep the world from being in danger every year?"

[tropicalstorm]

"Nah, don't stop it, I like the rain. Just wanted to see if you were right or not 'bout my powers," she shrugs. She's a little irritated, honestly, but she keeps her cool.

When the Wizard starts talking about this year being different, and making insinuations about the end, though, her irritation becomes harder to conceal.

"What if we refuse to go?" She wants this year to be normal, she doesn't want to think about a beginning or an end.

[tropicalstorm]

"Huh," Haizea says, drawing her knees up to her chest and leaning her head on them pensively. "Do you think the Wizard or the Protector made you all like this? Or was it something else?"

[wizardseason]

If Garrot said that, Xaljim might actually start to loosen up. Instead he's tense as he gives his information, his skepticism still very much alive and well.

"Because of whatever they messed up forty years ago, that didn't work and now we're in this stupid... stupid... purgatory! What other word is there for this year after year?!" He suddenly has three paper balls in each hand and he hurls them downwards in frustration, huffing in exasperation as they hit the ground once and poof into nonexistence.

[sustainer]

Gyre is watching the wizard pretty closely as she answers each question in turn. He wants to pick out every detail that he can, his eyes narrowing in thought. He wants more information. He wants to go to this place she's talking about now, and he begins to open his mouth to say just that.

Instead, there's Haizea and his attention snaps to her, his nose wrinkling in distaste.

"Why would you refuse?"

[wizardseason]

They continue floating around the room, letting their gaze drift away from Haizea.

"Neither. They wouldn't avoid us if they had made us." They answer, slowly twisting in a circle in midair.

"I don't like that I don't have the answer."

[daddykong]

Garrot just sighs, because Xaljim is only getting angrier. He knows what they messed up forty years ago, at least kinda. And he knows it turned the Protector and Wizard against each other.

"But what if there's a way to stop it?" There's a pause, and the doctor raises an eyebrow. "You've been working with Knights for forty years, you had to have learned something, right? Like what they messed up." And he's got a slight little smile, as if to say what if there's a way to fix it? But then the smile gets wider.

"We can toss a baseball around instead of those paper balls, if you want." Garrot is, naturally, very curious about what the deal is with that paper. Do they have writing? Or are they blank? Where are they coming from? Can he use them?

[wizardseason]

"You'd get hurt if I hit you with your knight weapon baseball." Xaljim's response comes immediately and he folds his arms, slowly rotating in a circle in midair in front of Garrot.

"I've had forty times thirteen days. No off time. No rest of the year." He corrects him, squinting. "And as far as I can tell, they messed up everything."

[daddykong]

"Everything. Both of them?" That's not very informative. Garrot brings a hand to stroke at his beard as his eyes track Xaljim's rotations. "You gotta have some more details after five hundred and twenty days." Then he pauses, looking hesitant and vulnerable for a moment before he asks one question with just a hint of a shake in his voice.

"Did... did my father tell you anything he learned?" He's wistful, because Garrot's had to come to terms with the fact that he's both reliving his father's death and memorializing him while he's here. "I bet he and the Protector got along well." Of course he knows nothing about who the Protector is, he's assuming.

Give him anything, Xaljim. Any specific details about why the world is like this and what the Wizard and Protector screwed up.