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 just grunts at that information, going silent and even closing his eyes as he adds the information to his growing bank of mind-boggling, fucked-up, world-shattering nonsense. They weren't supposed to make people fight, and both the Wizard and Protector used to be stronger. At least it wasn't supposed to be a kid-killing mission? But something about this room has been setting off a Garrot Tingle in the back of his mind, something that didn't quite add up.

"Twelve monsters, and you. Twelve companions, and him. That's the cycle." Garrot gestures to one of the pedestals, roughly in the middle between the monsters and Web. "Is number twenty-seven our incubating little friend, or did I miss something?"

[wizardseason]

Garrot, don't talk about your Garrot Tingle. Please, it's a Monkey Sense.

But at his assumption, there's a little jingle sound that plays. It turns out to be a little floating spoon that's manifested beside her mug and tapped it rapidly, but it sounds like a 'you got it right!' bell. She slowly takes the spoon into her hand, bringing it up to the mug to stir the contents of it.

"Of course it is. Who else would it be?"

[daddykong]

It's absolutely more of a Primate Premonition.

"I dunno- you're not exactly direct about everything." For a moment, Garrot's slid back into that condescension he feels so comfortable in. But then he crosses his arms and just sighs.

"So the seals are you, the Protector, and the planet twenty-five times." Of course, the planet stole some of the two cosmic beings' powers, so his next question seems obvious. "Why didn't you two ever try to just make more seals? Why only twenty-seven?"

Because you can cover a broken bone with about seventy band-aids and then it's fine.

[wizardseason]

A primate premonition? Why not just ape awareness?

She lets him get through his thoughts, wondering how he'll react to more facts. Condescension? Disbelief? Anger?

"We didn't choose how many of them." She lifts her mug to her lips, taking a sip.

"That was just what it was after the air cleared."

[daddykong]

Garrot's more of a gut instinct person than one who cultivates a conscious, and deliberate awareness. So the fact that they'd just winged it and this was how it all worked out is annoying because, ew, empathy and something he can relate to.

"Wait..." He brings a hand to stroke contemplatively at his beard. "If the monsters and companions are part of the planet, why don't you just ask them to help fix things, instead of making them fight each other?" A beat. "That's less power for the planet itself to have, right?"

[wizardseason]

"You've solved the mystery." She answers, watching him calmly. She takes another sip from her mug, waiting for him to consider the pieces before she drops the whole thing in his lap.

"A certain someone" As she starts speaking, she turns the side of her mug towards him and it has a shield on it with "Protector" written under it.

"Came up with this plan to handle the out of control planet." Another sip.

"And everyone went along with it."

[daddykong]

He furrows his brow at this very to-the-point revelation. Garrot's normally on board with, uh, bullshit improvising to save lives, he's a trauma surgeon for goodness sakes! But this... it feels sloppy. It's been forty years since people had to kill personifications of the planet's power in the form of kids, and nothing's changed except the theme of the year, like a mandatory workplace party.

"You went along with it." It's a moment of stating the obvious, but Garrot feels it's worth emphasizing. "Why keep trying the same thing even though it doesn't work? Why not just break the planet's power into another, like, thirty pieces? Keep doing it until the power is so spread out that there's no risk?" Like, you know, removing cholesterol from arteries or a similarly appropriate medical analogy.

[wizardseason]

"Because he thinks he can tire it out." She answers, first, and then takes another sip. Her mug has to be empty by now.

"And we can't cast another spell, the magic was taken from us." She watches him as she reveals it. But she wants to get back to that first thing he said.

"Does a corpse go along with it, or is it forced along for the ride?"

[daddykong]

"You're not a corpse if you're alive enough to die every year." Garrot sort of sneers that remark out, a sharp turn from the surprise and contemplation when he learned that this is all they're working with.

"Does he even know what tiring it out looks like? Do either of you?" Garrot's brow furrows at all that, because she hasn't exactly been subtle about them winging it forty years ago. "Sounds like a great reason for you two to keep in touch."

Is that... empathetic sass? From Garrot?!

[wizardseason]

"He has no idea, and I know they're getting stronger." She answers, simply. The situation is fairly straightforward to anyone who has half a brain, and...

"He and I fundamentally disagree on what we know. He thinks he knows everything, I know no one knows everything." She gives a slight shrug. How's that for being open, Garrot? And, most importantly.

"And I'm alive enough to kill and be taken out of the picture.

[daddykong]

Garrot's brow furrows and he's glaring at the Wizard with some kind of mix of exasperation and disgust.

"Who gives a shit if you disagree!?" He cannot believe you, Wizard! "Sometimes you gotta show some tough love and force someone to see the world your way!" He is, of course, speaking from experience on both sides of the situation. This is kind of what it's like to for people to disagree with Garrot.

"Why not use that account you share food pictures on to message Luka?" He shrugs and leans forward a bit, trying to play off the Protector and Princess's bond. "Or share what you know with world leaders so we don't come in clueless?" It's a PR campaign! Maybe if it's a little less hush-hush, the Protector will listen. But then Garrot throws his hands into the air, clearly getting frustrated again.

"Just stop acting like you're dead already!" She says she cares, that she wants people to live, and it feels like she's just given up! And Garrot hates that almost as much as he hates the Wizard. At least if she was more active, he could see her as more of a villain than a prisoner...

[wizardseason]

"You act as if I haven't tried those things. Because you don't know I've tried those things. No one does. Except for the one who buried the knowledge." She watches him over the rims of her glasses, curious if he'll just get angrier and angrier the more she shares.

"I'm far from dead. The moves I've made this year are bigger than every year prior, but not big enough to get anyone killed."