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]

She can't give everything away right away now can she? More importantly, even if she did, how much of it would be dismissed as lies? It's only the first day, she has eleven more to use to prove any points she needed to prove.

"My inaction leaves them to be destroyed." She answers, but she knows she'll just rile him up if she doesn't give the answer he's looking for. No sense in making him upset so soon.

"They were all destined for destruction without my involvement."

[scandeled]

“It seems better than apathy.” Matilda snaps, then realized she snapped, and goes back to flushing. And the look she’s getting doesn’t help her feel less like an idiot child, either. She lets out a heavy sigh, pausing in her stride and letting her head drop.

“I don’t get any of this...”

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea runs a hand through her hair and grabs it in distress. It's down, instead of in her usual bun, and she's glad she has something to hold on to.

"Thirteen isn't enough. Even if we can pick thirteen each, it isn't enough! I have dozens that depend on me, and more that I've raised and can't bear to leave to die."

[daddykong]

"Wait." Garrot furrows his brow and brings a hand to his chin. Something's off here.

"If you die and the Protector doesn't, then life keeps going. But if the Protector dies and you don't, the world ends and you die. If you die when he dies, does he die when you do?"

[sustainer]

"So you..."

He has to pause for a long time, turning suddenly away and drifting in past these handful of trees. He circles around them first, chewing his lip as he returns to her side.

"So you do this? Kill people for fun?" He tilts his head, annoyance entering deeper into his voice.

"Why not let us die if we're meant for death?" He does truly believe that that would be best, honestly. He believed it when he thought the wizard could kill them any year she chose. He believes it now that she's suggesting she's here to... what? Stop it?

[wizardseason]

Inquisitive monkey knight asking the important questions. She hadn't lied yet, but she does deflate a little as he asks that. Her shoulders sag slightly and she looks up at the sky.

"He does not." She answers, leaving it at that before she turns away and starts walking towards another patch of vegetables. Following after her, Garrot?

[wizardseason]

When he returns to her side, she's taken up a spot on the ground. She's leaning back against the tree, her hat tilted forward and up against the bark behind her so it's covering her face.

"I've let so many knights die. I want nothing more than to see it all stop. The world. The death. This cycle." Her voice is muffled beneath the hat, but there might be the hint of an emotion in her tone as she says it.

[wizardseason]

Again, the Wizard thinks of the way Matilda must be thinking. That optimism would hopefully last and not be snuffed out. Perhaps. But she wasn't going to focus on it if it would destroy her to consider.

"Don't let anyone die." She offers the advice. Sure, it was obvious. Why was she giving this advice? Who knew.

[wizardseason]

Ah, Haizea. Too much of a hero. The Wizard's tempted to make an offer here, but it was too soon. Too soon to promise salvation. Too soon for promises that could end up empty.

"Dozens who should never have been made to suffer."

[daddykong]

He's absolutely in pursuit, she just reacted to something! It's not quite what he wants, her beaten and bloody begging him for mercy as he absolutely murders her. But it's a start!

"So why's your stupid sign say the world's ending, if we can just kill you and stop it? What makes this year different?"

[sustainer]

He stands beside her, leaning his shoulder against the tree and looking out at the other three. Weren't there usually only two? He's not sure, but it's also not important to him.

Instead what he focuses on is that little hint of emotion, and he folds his arms once again. He wants to close himself off, but he's too curious to let it sit.

"What are you thinking about?" what is that feeling she's clearly, probably?, feeling.

[wizardseason]

There were usually only two, but this year there were four. Ask her about it, Gyre, get answers. Instead he focuses on what she's thinking, and, well, she's hardly going to answer that just yet now is she?

"That information is for allies only." She answers, muffled.

[wizardseason]

If there was a window into the thoughts Garrot was having, the Wizard would be grabbing some popcorn to see the show. It's practically a movie itself, the way he's vividly imagining things.

"Four of you." She starts before she looks back towards him, meeting his eyes to see how he might react to the next big bombshell. She knows he won't get it, but she's saying it anyway.

"No dead knights, this year."

[tropicalstorm]

This, somehow, snaps Haizea out of the fatalistic mindset she's been speaking from.

"That's bullshit," she says decisively. "Sufferin' is part of life. You'll never appreciate the good times if you haven't been through the bad." She finally pulls her hand through to the ends of her hair and tosses it over her shoulder.

"Y'know, I'm startin' to think this all might be bullshit. You're sayin' the world ends this year, but will it? Will it really? Or are you just makin' the choice to euthanize it 'cause you think sufferin' should be avoided at all costs?"

[sustainer]

Wait...

"If we're here, you've chosen us as allies, right?" She probably wants something more concrete then that, but she can't blame him for trying to be a little sneaky, right?

[daddykong]

He just smiles at the bombshell, honestly. Garrot always wanted everyone to survive, because that's nice and good and warm and. Honestly. Probably a load of shit coming from her. So he goes back to mildly annoyed neutrality. She'll get what's coming to her.

"Other than cheating, what's having four of us in your summer home supposed to do?" He looks askance, grumbling for a moment. "How does that end the world?" Of course, he's maybe gotten through half of his first page of a dissertation worth of questions, so. This pace is killing him. Probably literally.

[wizardseason]

There were so many ways this discussion could be steered, but nothing would quell the rising fury she'd lit in the dragon knight. She looks Haizea over for a moment, settling back into her usual smirk as she decides to pinch the fuse where it's burning rather than let it all explode.

"You don't want me to answer you." She begins, casually approaching Haizea. She's going to get right in her face, here, a strange glow radiating from her space-filled eyes.

"You'd rather millions, billions are hurt each year. Traumatized by this 'game'. Despairing over the end to come." Her voice stays steady, calm, but there's the slightest accusatory note to her words. Tell her she's wrong, Haizea.

[wizardseason]

"Not chosen." She corrects him from beneath her hat.

"Provided. I only asked for four knights. No specifics." There's the answer, Gyre, she just got a random bunch of knights. So are you her ally, her enemy, or just an elf who asks sneaky questions?

[wizardseason]

"More allies, more chances." She answers, leaving it vague as to what exactly that means. But there was that one little thing he said... She gives yet another vague answer, leaving it wide open for interpretation.

"If I could cheat it, you wouldn't be here."

[daddykong]

"More chances for what?" He raises an eyebrow and looks at her like she's stupid. Mostly because he thinks she is. In the childish kind of way, she's probably not like unintelligent though. Magic seems like a smart people thing.

"I mean, if you wanted to destroy the world then that could've been the first thing you did, so what are you actually trying to do?" It's probably something worse, like harvest the immortal souls of the entire planet to fuel an unending reign of cosmic terror. Or something else on that comic-book tier of evil. Because. It's the Wizard. Duh. So Garrot's emotionally bracing himself to stop his punch reflexes.

[scandeled]

“Is that it? The secret? I just have to make sure nobody dies?” She’s almost pleading, tilting her head back up from where it had been previously staring at her shoes. It doesn’t sound like an easy feat. But maybe if she can try hard enough... her hands tighten on the mug.

[tropicalstorm]

Haizea won't be intimidated any more. She's got like 7 inches on her, she looks down at the Wizard and meets her glowing gaze levelly.

"You're the one who started this game. Sure, the world had problems before, but this is a problem that YOU started. We suffered before and we suffer now, what's the difference, really?"

[sustainer]

Currently, he's just a sneaky elf. A sneaky elf who's squinting out at the sky, trying to pick which thread to pull on first. He wishes she'd push her hat up so her voice was a little clearer.

"Asked who?"

[wizardseason]

Just ask her to push up her hat. Geeze Gyre, it's not that hard.

"Magic." She answers, cryptically, followed by:

"If he'd noticed, he wouldn't have allowed me to take four."

[sustainer]

"What the hell," he mutters grumpily, shifting slightly beside her. He crosses an ankle over his foot, and grumbles softy. Another thread to pull on, huh?

"Magic is a person? Who's 'he'?" Maybe if he goes two in one, he'll get to the real thing faster. Or maybe not. She'd ignored his question the last he asked two.