wizardseason | Wizard's House

Wizard's House

"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

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He huffs immediately, unimpressed with her vagueness.

"Are you destroying them? Or do you come to worlds that will be destroyed?" he grumbles, folding his arms and cocking an eyebrow. Answer questions you weirdo!

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."

"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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

"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?

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?"

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."

"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.

There are so many threads to pull, Gyre hasn't even scratched the surface. He pulls on the right string, though.

"Magic is magic, and the Protector." She answers both his questions, surprisingly, but doesn't elaborate literally at all.

"Okay."

He says it like he understands, but he doesn't really. Suddenly he's wishing he'd kept up with all this wizard death shit. The Protector was the one who picked the Princess, right?

"Why doesn't he want you have four?"

Gyre's got the basics of the protector down, that was something. She'd educate him if he wanted, and if he asked.

"He doesn't want to die, and he doesn't want the world destroyed." She answers like it's the simplest thing in the world.

He feels incredibly stupid for just a moment. Of course the dude who fashions himself The Protector wouldn't want the world to die. At least it gives him an easy path back to the other threads.

"Can he stop it by himself? You said the world would end no matter what, right?“

"He can't do it alone. So long as I'm defeated, it spins on."

Her answer fits what's been said about this yearly business. The knights and princess have to fight. The Wizard has to be defeated. The world has to be saved. It all lines up with that narrative.

That is... a lot to take in. His eyes widen, and then widen again. Now is the first time he's actually mad since he woke up here, an absolutely furious snarl in his throat all of a sudden. Sure, the snarl hurts around his scar but fuck, the implication in her statement is so fucking ugly.

"He's making this happen? Why, because he's scared to die?"

Ah, Gyre's one of the few to pick up on a bigger, bleaker picture. She hadn't even given him the details, she'd let him reach the conclusion. He wasn't the first knight to realize it, but if the Protector ever caught wind that he'd learned of it he'd be dead for real.

It's a shame she wasn't going to tell him just how bad it was yet. He just needed the minimum amount to stay alive.

"Don't trust what he says." She dodges the question, she could explain his reasons but that was always the whinny that sounded better from the horse's own mouth.

"He won't let it end."

He's mad! Wow, he thought if he was going to be mad at anyone, it'd be the wizard. So many people hate her so much, and he can't help glancing towards Garrot at the thought, wondering how that was going.

He's still here though, in the moment with her, and he can't help but hit the tree above her hat after another second of thought. If the world is still here because some little coward wants other people to die so he can live, that is inexcusable. But he also knows she's the wizard, and while he's pretty sure she's not lying, he can't be certain. She hides herself well.

"How do I talk to him myself?"

She hides herself well both under a hat, and in her life. She's had over forty years of practice on this issue, and with her life experiences added on top... Well, she's likely around Gyre's age, if not older, there's no telling what she's learned in that time. Whether she's being honest or lying here, she's at least talking.

But she's telling the truth, so hopefully he's listening.

"Ask the Princess."

"Mm." Okay, he absolutely will do that. Then there's another familiar silence as he tries to find his threads again, though this time he's also breathing deeply. He needs to calm down. Being angry at a guy he can't talk to yet is worthless.

"Why do you keep coming back if you want all this to stop?"

Gyre will feel a weight in his hand as the Wizard summons forth a stick of jerky into it, she'd spied enough to get a feeling for what he might eat. She can't tempt him with the coffee she's taking a sip of, here.

"I don't get a choice not to."

He looks at his hand the second he feels it, eyes widening a little at the jerky. He really prefers it fresh to cured. Jerky is usually too salty, but in this moment he doesn't care. He sighs deeply, and slides down the tree to sit beside her, picking the jerky apart, taking tiny bites of it.

This is a long silence as he tries to process the pure rage in him at the idea that she, or anyone, is forced to do a thing like this. Or well... she said she was forced to come back, not that...

"Is it your choice to play this game? In this way?"

Whatever face she might, or might not, be making in response to his question is obscured by her hat as she answers him. Her voice doesn't betray any emotions, though, so it's just a single muffled word.

"No."

He nods, and again he's quiet. Processing her words. Processing the world view that she's laid in his lap. It seems miserable, and everything in him is screaming for him to help her. To make this stop. He knows better then most that forcing something to live past its death is never good.

"You said you tried to save this world, right? How?" he murmurs, touching the grass beside her so she can hopefully see despite her hat in the way. He means this place rather then his world. He wants to know that story.

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