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

[sustainer]

Well that information isn't enough for him. His thoughts spin for a moment, considering her words. She sounds like this world is still alive? But she said it was destroyed right? Or maybe she's talking about his world? He's so confused, shaking his head.

"What were you given? What happened to the seals?"

[wizardseason]

"A mess" She doesn't give him much more in the way of details than she had previously. But she can at least give him more of the truth.

"We get a year at a time. The world spins on in single year chunks."

[sustainer]

He grumbles at her refusal to answer, squinting in her direction. If she just answered questions, she'd make things easier for herself honestly. He at least takes in her words, chewing his lip for a moment.

"Here? Yeah, I know. What happened to the other worlds though?" He taps this foreign tree she'd called her friend earlier. "Like this one. What'd you do to save this one?

[wizardseason]

If he keeps up his curiosity, he'll likely get all the answers he could ever want. He just has to ask.

"Fractured. The center wanted out, the outside wasn't strong enough to stop it." She gives a little more detail into how she'd described it before. That world had been incredible to watch perish.

[sustainer]

He does not know how to process her words honestly. It doesn't match up to anything he knows about any world, but he just tucks it away for now.

"How did you try to save it?" he repeats. "Is it the same here? The inside wants to... escape?"

[wizardseason]

Cute. She would elaborate if he asked her to, but he doesn't know that.

"No." They aren't the same at all. "This world is filled with something much worse, something alive."

[sustainer]

"Something...? What is it?"

Is the world an egg?? He has no context for what could live inside a planet and he actually sounds awed as he asks.

[wizardseason]

"You could call it magic." She answers, back to vague answers. Or is her answer vague because she doesn't know? Or does she know but not have a word for what it is? Or is she sparing Gyre the details he doesn't need? Either way, her now-empty mug makes the straw-sucking-at-nothing sound and disappears a moment later, followed by the straw.

"It might be sentient."

[sustainer]

He has no patience for cryptic bullshit, and she's officially pushed him past his limit. He sighs, clearly sounding a little frustrated.

"What does that mean? You're so vague."

[wizardseason]

Of course she's vague. She can't just sit him down like a child and give him a history lesson about all that was, all that is, and all that will be.

Also she's tired.

"The thing filling the planet has a will of its own." There's your clarification, Gyre.

[sustainer]

It's bad clarification! He actually turns where he's sitting, trying to stare down the side of her hat as if that'll help him convince her to answer in more then single sentences.

"And that makes it magic? Is that what you asked to pick us? Why would it listen if all this," a gesture around at the four knights, "is just a means to keep it trapped?"

[wizardseason]

From the angle he's at, he'll probably catch sight of her giving him this little smirk as her one visible eye meets his from under the hat. Her hair looks a mess, like she hasn't taken the hat off in decades.

"It isn't listening." She wonders what he's expecting out of this line of questioning.

"It doesn't like us. But it likes me more than him."

[sustainer]

"Then how are you asking it for knight allies, or whatever! It has to be listening!" he nearly shouts, throwing his hands up. There's something so annoying about her smirk, and he feels like he's going to explode the second he lays his eyes on it. Just answer questions like a normal person, god dammit!

"Why do you only half-answer half the things I ask! Do you want me to understand, or not?"

[wizardseason]

"I never asked for them." She idly answers as her hat flops off the front of her face, landing in her lap. As it does, she leans back into the tree as she brings a hand up to stifle a yawn. One moment, Gyre.

"Did I miss something?" She doesn't react to his frustration, locking her eyes on him after her yawn has passed.

"Ask again."

[sustainer]

"You just said--" he snarls at her, feeling his patience running steadily dry. He catches himself before he can get too far, taking a few deep breaths while she yawns and her hat falls off. It's... the first time he's seen her without the hat, and so he pauses here, looking at her face in this new fresh light. She's cute, even if right now, he's supremely annoyed with her.

He holds his fist up after a second, poking a finger up for each question as he asks it, "You said you asked 'magic' for four knights and the thing in the world is magic, so how did it give you what you want without listening? Can you make it listen? How did you try to save the previous world you were at? How did you try to save this one? Can you try whatever you did again?

Then he touches each finger he's held up, as if indicating travel between places. "Why are you going from world to world before they're meant to die?" This is a new question, but he does want to know the answer while she seems to be promising to answer him fully.

[wizardseason]

If he went too far, she could mute him liked she muted Garrot.

She copies him, holding up six fingers. Where the sixth finger came from is anyone's guess, but she touches a finger to each as she answers the questions he'd posed to her. She can keep up with this game.

"Different magic, the world magic didn't give me the knights. It doesn't like to listen. We tried changing its inside. We tried sealing this one. We can't try it again." And, with a little sigh as she slides down the bark of the tree, she answers his last question while letting her hands flop into the grass. She looks incredibly tired as she says it.

"Everyone wants to be a hero."

[sustainer]

The sixth finger definitely startles him, making him recoil just slightly from her hand. What the fuck. It takes him a second to realize she is actually answering his questions. Sort of. She seems allergic to detail, but at least it's the beginnings of answers.

He's already plotting out what he wants to pick at next, when she says that last bit. Slumps in the grass like that, and he just falls silent. Watching her. The statement makes his nonexistent heart hurt, and he hates it. He hates that he feels so awful for her so quickly, but all he can think to do is reach out and set a hand on the top of her head, rubbing slightly.

"When's the last time you got some sleep...?"

[wizardseason]

Quality or quantity, one or the other. But she doesn't stop him from putting his hand on her head. She doesn't react, either, almost like he wasn't doing it at all. He asks a question that she's been asked before but the answer never seems to be taken seriously or even acknowledged as anything more than a joke.

"Forty years ago."

[sustainer]

Well. She is an all-powerful wizard who's been talking about jumping planets like it's nothing. Talking about trying to stop the entire world from ending. He's seen her blow up a mountain and one of the moons. He can believe she hasn't slept in forty years.

He can even sort of relate! While he has slept a little in forty years, he hasn't slept well or without hideous nightmares since he returned to life, so there is this terrible bubble of empathy in his chest. God. God dammit wizard, why did it have to be this?

"Can you... Can I help...?" The question sounds stupid even to him. If this body in front of him sleeps, it probably wouldn't be refreshing when she still has to attend to the other three. And that's assuming this body even can sleep. Ugh, he hates feeling useless!

[wizardseason]

Reality sucked, and that was that. Things never went according to plan and that meant that revelations like this were just the norm. Gyre's definitely impressed her with his reactions so far, but he wasn't the first. One out of thirteen, at least.

"Don't die." She answers, simply, her head tilting a little to lock eyes with him. There's an odd firmness in her voice, almost commanding.

"Can I help you?" She follows it up, back to her detached slightly-smirking self.

[sustainer]

"Too late," he says, shrugging slightly. He's sure she means don't die again, but he feels like he has to deflect that kind of firmness from the wizard of all people. Same impulse that made him refuse to get her food earlier.

He can't help but run his fingers thoughtfully through her hair when she smirks at him like that, returning to this sort of deflated posture as he considers her face. He shifts closer after another beat, knuckles running along her cheek. This is weird. He shouldn't do this with the wizard, but he wants to comfort her somehow?? It feels useless, just like the thing he requests after another second.

"Let me help you stop the world from dying? Permanently, I mean, not a year at a time." He tilts his head. "If not, then let it die. Peacefully." Whatever he has to do to achieve that. He's good with it.

[wizardseason]

Don't die permanently, more like. She wasn't fully versed in his tricks, but she knew a little. Eavesdropping and limited world knowledge had their benefits. She lets him have his attempts at comfort, still reactionless. To get a knight on day one was unusual, but she wasn't going to complain. She's still slowly sliding down the tree, the tiniest inch by tiniest inch at a time. She'll be flopped all the way on the ground before long but she's not quite there yet.

"I'll have to kill the Protector." She answers, searching his face for a reaction. "Are you okay with that?"

[sustainer]

He looks. Pensive mostly. Thoughtful. This feels like a big step and one that even he, in his isolation, knows the world hates and disapproves of. She has spoken so frankly he can't help but believe her though. He chews his lip for a few moments, pulling his hand away from her finally. She doesn't seem effected by it and he feels weirder and weirder the longer he touches her. Instead he folds his hands neatly in his lap, nodding just the once.

"If what you've told me about him is true," he murmurs, taking a short, affirming breath.
"Yes."

[wizardseason]

The Wizard's body finishes its slow slide down the tree and now she's laying flat on the ground. She'd wondered how long he was going to play comfort with her, but he ends it and answers her question immediately.

"Pig Knight." She says with a smirk.

"What's your name?"

[sustainer]

He definitely wasn't playing! He wanted to comfort her! He just stopped because she wasn't responding gosh!

Either way, he literally flinches when she calls him a Pig Knight. He hates that that's the animal he got stuck with. Fen isn't even a pig this year, but he won't argue with her about it.

"Gyre... is fine. You don't know it already?"