mogget_cat | To the Old Kingdom

(From here.)

The door he gallantly opened for her opened out into gently lapping waters, lit from overhead by a multitude of stars uncountable. So many together, they give off a glow stronger than the light of the full moon, singing softly of promised rest for those below. The insubstantial spirits of the dead rise from the waters, some quickly, eager for their eternal rest, and some slowly, fighting the pull even as they rise, foot by foot.

The two of them step down slightly into the water that only rises to their ankles, and Yrael closes the door behind them.

"As you can see," Yrael smiles. "I have been practicing even when not at the Milliways lake."

Despite the fact that the waters of Death aren't exactly the same as other water.

Current Mood: amused

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Yrael's grinning as they head down the hall, listening to the harangue fade into the background.

"We'll have to circle back around to get to the garden. These levels of the castle are warded against anyone going into or coming out of Death. When we get back to the garden, we can walk along the edge of Death until we get down to the rest of the city."

"Well, that makes sense" Rachel admitted easily, loping through the hallways behind Yrael easily. "Wouldn't want immoral death walkers to slip right into the heart of the castle without having to see the gardens..." she teased.

"It'd be rude."

"The gardens are pretty safe, being out under the sun. I would expect that at night they are heavily patrolled."

They make it to the gardens without incident, and are once again under the open sky.

"Which would you rather do, scale the wall and sneak past the guards, or go back and wander the edge of Death until we reach the markets?"

"Well, highness, I really should council for safety and silent escape." she should all told.

"But how ever will they know how poor their defenses are if friendly forces do not point it out?"

"Perhaps we will be lucky, and the Abhorsen will be out on business, elsewhere. Perhaps still investigating my last visit to the Old Kingdom."

He grins, toothily. It was a bloody good time, all told.

"The wall, it is. Shall we be polite and leave by the door?" He smirks, wandering towards the city-side wall.

"We'll keep our fingers crossed, because I'd hate to have to face more assassins when we should be safe, highness" she laughed. Yes, she'd happily slot "Abhorsen" into "Assassin" for ease of storytelling!

"We are guests!" she chided "Of course we should be polite!"

"So would I, loyal guard."

"The assassin's guards probably will not be pleased to see us saunter free of this place where they meant to trap us."

There's a gate up ahead, with a guard on either side. Not expecting an attack from within, however, they have their backs to the approaching pair.

"No doubt" she agreed sagely. "They'll be angered and redouble their efforts to track us down once more" she sighed. "Well...I never did expect a long life of service!"

As demonstrated by the sheer fact that she reached for the door in the gate and opened it seemingly ignoring the guards as cheerfully as she would have servants. After all, brazen was a term oft applied to her.

"We will lose them among the townspeople."

"Afternoon, all," he greets the guards cheerfully as they pass, smiling at their startlement and their begun Charter Spells for immobility and binding.

"Good time for a siesta, yes?"

He politely closes the door again behind them, nudging the now-sleeping guard's foot aside with a toe. He motions to the spread of the city, smoke rising from chimneys in the early afternoon sunlight. "Belisaere."

Rachel eyed the sleeping guards, then sighed, tucking her arm in his "You take all the fun out of being chased you know" she pointed out.

"Though you would be hard to lose that easily. You simply stand out from common townspeople." so said the woman who tended to draw people's gaze regardless of where she was.

"I would rather not have them raise the alarm. It would interrupt our outing. Eventually, news of us would reach the Abhorsen."

And he does not want that to happen. He's already been caught near Belisaere once by her.

"They'd be breathing down our necks the whole time, and wouldn't even help carry our things."

"Would I be so careless a guard as to let them spread the word?" she snorted. Telepathy could so very, very subtle.

Besides, these guards had been far more prominent than the lone treasuring guards. How long until someone connected the reports of sleeping guards and locked away the treasury hmmm?

"Running is good for you"

"Eh. Prince. Flashy. Not so subtle. You know." Yrael waves a hand, airily. "And I forget." He keeps overlooking the fact that she can do things like that.

"Running is good for you, maybe."

"Running keeps the royal body in shape so no silly court bards make up unflattering ballads" she responded airily.

"You shouldn't." forget that was.

"I know, but I do. I cannot remember things as well as I once did." He doesn't like it, but there is little he can do about it.

"Silly court bards who make up unflattering ballads are always sentenced to do some running of their own. With a lion behind them."

Or a not'cat.

It hurt a little sometimes was all. She was a hero, she helped. She had to, it was her nature; her blood and bone....

...and dismissed...

...forgotten...

"Well, you know how those things go highness! It's only sung in lower city at first, whispered like a rumor. By the time we hear it no one knows who wrote it anymore..."

He puts his arm around her, bumping his temple against hers, lightly, in apology. He forgets things. Yrael is more Mogget than he likes to think about: more cat, more human, more mortal than he ever was. He is very little of the Bright Shiner who first refused to take sides in his siblings' feud.

"Speaking of lower city," he says as they head down the hill towards the better class of houses. "Where shall we go first?"

Everyone faded over centuries. Everyone, because existing took it's toll. She forgave.

"It's not my city, Highness, so I've not the faintest clue? Someplace that wants our money I guess?"

He smiles, lopsidedly. "We have our pick of those, then. I doubt there is one place here that would refuse our money. Most of the craftsworkers have their shops down this way, or would you like a late lunch?"

"Well, we shouldn't keep the poor craftsmen waiting then should we?" she noted. Yrael should know better than to think Rach'd actually think about food.

Oh, but Rachel, Rachel, the fish markets are the best ever! And the boats will be coming in with their catches any minute now! The fish, Rachel, think of the glorious fish!

"That would be terribly cruel of us, wouldn't it? Keeping them on tenterhooks," he says as they head down the streets towards the more crowded marketplaces.

The house-lined streets open at every intersection into wide open squares or plazas, with recently reconstructed statues or fountains at their centers. People bustle too and fro, chatting with one another, haggling over prices at stalls of fresh fruit and vegetables. Children of various ages weave their games through the crowd, chasing one another, laughing. Everywhere there is thick, vibrant Life, in the smells of cooking food, in the colors of a passing woman's swirling skirt, in the laugh of an old man smoking a pipe, telling stories with his friends.

Ah, Rachel wasn't addicted to any food. Yrael would have to think of the fish now wouldn't he?

"And we are, not at heart, cruel people" she agreed laughing. This setting? Such a swirl and mingling simple life forces...it made her laugh. A sound as cheerful as any flame as she let the wash of minds flow over and around her like sea waves.

Soon enough the squares began to hold erected stalls, and the lower stories of buildings shops...they seemed to sell everything here.

"Not at heart, no," Yrael says, cheerfully. Some time as they walked, his style of dress changed. Still all-white, but now of a finer, more archaic cut. He looks like he could be a foreign prince or noble, escorting a lady through the street of craftsmen and artificers.

The voices of the sellers mingle in proud declaration of the superiority of their wares, others mix with those of the buyers, deciding a price. A young boy runs past, grinning, to hide behind his mother's skirts and eat its stolen handful of figs.

"Lady! Pretty lady!" comes the voice of a merchant from Yrael and Rachel's right. A brave merchant, perhaps, willing to call to the rather odd pair. He holds up a length of fine cloth, smooth in its pattern of purples and blues with golden thread woven into a delicate swirls at the corners, a shawl or wrap to be fastened with a simple golden brooch. "Lady, would you honor a humble weaver and let him delight to see his work upon your shoulders? It is the finest of my works, and would do me proud to see it upon someone of your beauty."

Yrael's smile holds a trace of his smirk that could only been seen by those who know him. The merchant's wares, from the look of them, are out of the price range for most of the common villagers.

Rachel's attire did not shift and change, but her bearing did. The eye and mind tended to gloss over clothing when the woman wearing them could simply be regal, dancer like upon Yrael's arm.

And there were little things to handle, such as a few coins making it into the cash box of the fig seller after a child ran off, a thief or two stumbling and finding their targets out of reach, a particularly wealthy looking snot of a boy losing the expensive threading in his pants and money belt...

But the merchant, ah, the merchant managed to get her attention, though he paled slightly as Rachel's full gaze fell upon him, an emerald and depth to put any jewel to shame "Shall we?" she asked Yrael graciously.

His smile broadens as he inclines his white head in amused assent. "I do not see why not," Yrael says as they wander over.

The merchant may have gotten more than he had bargained for by calling himself to their attention, but he seems determined to do his best. "Ah, Lady, my poor establishment has never before been graced with such a divine presence as yours," he says, pale but smiling as he wonders where this obviously high-born pair hails from. His hands shake slightly as he spreads the beautiful cloth wrap between them. It falls in almost liquid folds of blue and purple, its edges shining. "This is my finest, see the tiny stitches of gold upon its edges, almost as beautiful as the Lady's eyes."

The merchant pauses, worried he might have overstepped his bounds and offended the Lady. One never knew with some nobles, after all. Some of them were downright weird.

Yrael just smiles quietly, listening. Secretly, he thinks the merchant is holding up admirably, poor fellow.