The Witch of Space
The Maid of Life
The Heir of Breath
The Page of Hope
Seer of Light
Rouge of Void
Prince of Heart
Knight of Time
Jane and Jade share a room in the servants' quarters, but neither can "drift off to Prospit" (as Dirk and Dave would say) without snuggling something for comfort, so they also literally share a bed. Jade is a witch in secret, and because of this she doesn't sleep very much, for fear that someone will know what she is and she'll have to escape at a moments' notice. She spends the nights curled up with Jane, watching the sky she feels such a strong pull for, the stars, the moon; the giant grey planet, the pink and green moons, that share their orbit around the massive sun. Another concept she knows but can't tell anyone but Jane and John – and Jake.
John is the heir to the kingdom, but can't stand sleeping anywhere near the seemingly-watchful eyes of the subjects that guard the castle during the night. It isn't home anymore, since his mother was burned in the courtyard. He walks to the servants' quarters to bid Jade and Jane goodnight and then slinks off to the stables where Jake sleeps.
No one is supposed to know Jake is alive, nor that his grandmother, a 'witch,' is entombed in ashes under the stables. The room Jake is supposed to sleep in was burned down when his grandmother was accused, and is seemingly abandoned. John goes through the rubble every night, in a strange ritual, to reach the back and go through a trap door; it leads to a small bedroom, stone walls and earthen floor. There's a small bed against the far wall, a little chest of whatevers against another wall with an almost-empty shelf next to it, and a washtub full of cracked dishes in the corner farthest from the bed.
John knows Jake doesn't sleep often anymore, and knows where he is. He crawls under the bed, and continues crawling down a tight tunnel until it is big enough to eventually stand up in. The circular dirt room held up with wooden beams is sparsely lit with candles- but is very full with other things.
The urn containing Jake's grandmother and his is held in the hands of Jade and Jane's stuffed grandfather, on the right side of the secret cave. To the left of them is the stuffed body of their dog, Harley, and to the left of that is a pile for a makeshift bed, made of animal pelts and the newest weapon- guns- of all kinds. Next to the pile is the stuffed, well-dressed corpse of a black cat- that doesn't belong to any of them, but means no less and is taken equal care of- sitting in its stone box. The final item in the room was directly across from the memorials; a large table, grayed with age, holding eight candles. And two books and a creepy puppet.
The two dead grandparents, siblings, tie John and Jake with Jane and Jade. Jane is John's half sister, from the same father, and Jake and Jade are half siblings from the same mother. Since there's only a three year difference, the four consider themselves to all be brothers and sisters.
Jake was a page when his grandmother was accused, and was forced to flee and hide where John's dad told him to. His grandmother was burned at the stake, the ashes scooped up secretly by the young queen of a visiting kingdom and put into the urn. Her brother, king of this kingdom at the time, was hung for being brother of the witch, and was stuffed in secret by the prince of the same kingdom. Their direct offspring weren't spared and Jake was hidden away, but Jade was left alone just barely. She was the granddaughter of the former king, so it was deemed that she wasn't going to show any signs of the 'witchcraft' Jake's grandmother had. She was sentenced to the life of a servant, though, as if they expected her to pay off some debt. John's father was next in line for the throne, his mother being killed for being daughter of the witch, and is the only reason they're all alive (including Jane, who he literally pulled off the stake next to John's mother). John was spared because his father showed the people that John could do "the windy thing"- he could move The Breeze, the sacred symbol of their peoples' power.
John will find his older cousin/brother sitting in front of their grandparents, hugging one of their grandmother's inventions to him, the evidence of her so-called crafts. He clutches the article to himself, and if John didn't come every night he knows Jake would fall asleep with it, or just not sleep at all and eventually make himself fatally sick.
He pries Jake off the invention of choice and wraps his arms around him tightly, before guiding his half-conscious brother to the fur pile and laying him down. He blows out all sixteen candles, starting with the alter-table; eight there, two for the cat, one for Harley, four for their grandparents, and one for Grandma English's inventions. He feels his way over to the pile, and curls up with his bro to sleep, interrupted only by his many psychotic nightmares.
Across the kingdom, far outside the walls of the town, is a traveling caravan- a gypsies' wagon. Inside rests two siblings, sisters, hiding from law and on the run from conformity. The oldest, Roxy, is a rouge; she drinks heavily and often, brash with speech and men, though her body is pure. And in her dreams her spirit walks. A wisp travels even now, alike to her in looks but bears none of her jewelry or adornments, and wears a purple gown as transparent as her ghostly form; all see through her, but she remains unseen. Except by her Rose, who sees everything. She sees what may happen what would happen, and steers her paths to match the best ways.
Long after Roxy passes out, she tends to her wagon. Outcasts of royalty, they've stricken their family's name of Strider to remain outside of interest. They are only Roxy "RoLal" Lalonde and Rose Lalonde, traveling entertainers, selling helpful 'medicines' and 'tonics' along the way. Rose makes the potions, consulting her (ironically) dark grimoires and scrolls, seeing what mistakes will lead to botched mixtures, while Roxy charms desired information from those who own taverns and brothels, and in the night slips past them with her wisp to carry out the goods to sell in the next town and drink along the way, sharing Rose's natural affinity for horseshittery and changing the drinks to her own.
Rose winds and pins up the advertising curtain, "Graceful Lalondes, Medicine and Tomnis," written in light pink paint, where the flourished "Tomnis" is crossed out and a simpler-handed "Tonics" is written in an orchid hue. She douses the fire outside and blows out the lanterns. Then she heads inside, passes the peaceful dream-wanderer (whom she covers with a lovingly "R.L." embroidered knit-blanket) on her plush-wizards-and-cats pile to the back, securing all the books in order by healing ability and then by alphabetical, putting up the cleaned cauldrons and ladles, the full and empty phials, before turning to her and Roxy's pride and joys. She takes an entire hour buffing, polishing and tuning her violin- as Roxy had with her fiddle- before she deems her work suitable and re-cases it.
She makes a final sweep of the wagon, smiling at Vodka Mutini as she passed the mutant kitten's cage, and its outside before returning. She lays down in her own pile of scarves and balls of yarn next to Roxy's and eventually drifts off to Derse (What an 'ironic' word for dreamland.), where she dances and laughs with her brother to sicknasty beats in their purple clothes and castle.
The sisters are royalty from a neighboring kingdom to John's, miles (or weeks) away, whom they have a strong alliance with. Though Rose and Roxy fled for their own reasons (that only the sisters know), they left their brothers behind. The oldest, Dirk Strider, is the Prince of their kingdom, and Dave is a well-accomplished knight, even at thirteen. Their mother, though beautiful, never remarried once their father died, but began to take up her daughter's hobby of excessive drinking. It suited her well.
Because he is the next in line for king, Dirk has already begun his training: he is taught privately four hours of every day, he helps his mother sign documents of importance, and spends random amounts of time listening to the troubles and problems of the villagers with his mother. He doesn't enjoy any of it, but he understands they're things he must do for his people. So he always slinks away from the tutors trying to teach him and finds things to entertain himself.
Usually, this means a quick strife with Dave, who excelled quickly past the ranks of page and slammed into knighthood. At Dirk's personal request to their mother, (who only smiled and pinched their cheeks for being adorable before guzzling her wine (gracefully)) Dave became his personal knight. This was also partially to spare Dave having to be the knight of some crazy douche or gross pedo, or some shit.
If Dave isn't available for strife or a quick jam session, Dirk goes to the stables to be with his horses, which is frowned upon. Like he cares. He fucking loves horses- they're the shit. Right next to his hobby of sewing smuppets. Smuppets are also the shit. There's one thing he'll never let anyone but his siblings and mom know about though: his affinity and obsession with technology.
Decades ago, the giant grey planet must've broken out in some shitty war or battle- because literal tons of shrapnel from huge explosions rained down from the surface of that planet into the atmosphere of Earth. For years if anyone found any of it, the materials were destroyed on sight, deemed too dangerous for humankind to deal with. But when Rose and Dave got old enough to walk (age one, the fucking weeds), they lead him and Roxy off of castle grounds, where Rose had unearthed one of the material crash-sites. Dirk didn't tell anyone about it, nor that his infant siblings had lead his small-child self off grounds. He doubts their newly-widowed mother would even realize it or understand what was being said to her anyway.
He dismissed it at first, occupying his little-man-time with learning to read and making his first sweet puppet, Lil' Cal; showing Dave how to use a sword and fine-tuning his sick fires; but little Rose-whose-first-word-was-Grimdarken (two year olds shouldn't know that shit, man; not a thing that should happen) was waiting for him at the gate when he finally had to see it again. He carried her on his shoulders, making ironic whinnies like a good big bro while she said 'neigh' and steered him in the right direction. When he could see the crater, the irony was put aside in favor of forbidden curiosity. When he tried to put Rose down she only held onto his hair tighter in one hand and loosely gripped the tip of his shades in two fingers. Sneaky broad like her sister, even in infancy. Stranger still, when he tried to get closer to the crater with the somehow-bigger-looking twisted mound, Dave-who-can't-be-in-the-sun-without-wearing-shades appeared out of nowhere with Roxy, scarf billowing, on the other side. Eventually, this led them to believe Rose and Dave had wanted both of them to become interested in the extraterrestrial tech. At the time, Dirk only fist bumped Dave in approval for his wicked flash step.
For months, the four went in separate parties to the shrapnel mound, which they found out was growing like a plant that had recently taken root. Which they found out was exactly what was happening. Which was awesome. It took them Rose's nagging toddler-speak and Dave's impatient silence (okay, he was probably just bored or something) for Dirk and Roxy to gather- or rather harvest- some of the material to be studied at home. Dave ended up taking his and burying it in some dirt in a mixing bowl he'd toddler-nabbed from a cook. Shit grew extra fast since there was less space for its roots. He uses his home-grown material to make secret weapons and what Dave calls robots; he took an old beat-up, excessively edited bunny Jane messangered over and modified it with his 'robotics.' He had Dave get it to Rose to give to Jake, next time she saw him. Er, went to visit. Who the hell knows what Roxy did with her living-metal.
Though, when the staff found out Roxy and Rose hightailed it the fuck outta dodge with Frigglish/Jaspers about a year later (Rose and Dave were fuckin four, dude), Roxy's room was filled to gogdamn bursting with random ass pumpkins of all fuckin sizes.
Being the middle of the night as it was, Dirk wasn't surprised to run into his little bro in the massive hall. He was on his way to Dave's room anyway. Following his own ritual, Dave had polished and sharpened his sword while Dirk sewed smuppets before heading to bed, which consisted of tossing and turning on itchy fabrics that irritated his albino skin, until he got up and went to the kitchen. For some apple juice. Which is the shit, no matter what Dirk says about his fermented orange juice. He stared at his bro through their shades for a minute before giving him a nod and walking towards the wine cellar, where he knew their mom would be. Dirk hums in mock thought before following, agreeing silently that nothing could beat the sandman to the punch like mom's lullabies at bedtime. Ironically.
In his last few moments of consciousness, Dave long gone to Derse to catch up and have 'family time' with Rose, mom humming away without remembering exactly what or why she was humming but that it felt right, Dirk thinks of Jake English from the burned down stables of The Kingdom of Skaia, and his smiling face when Dirk said he'd be his friend. Then he follows his brother, and bids them goodbye to go find Roxy's wisp's sleepwandering butt and steer her back to her body before sunrise.
How the fuck does she get to the pink moon in four fucking hours, anyway?