Hello! Thank you for all of the attention you've brought to my story! I hope I can live up to your expectations! This is the best thing i've written in a while and i'm beginning to think that my writer's block has gone away. \(-)/yay!
Before approaching any one else in the party, Beast boy snaked his way up to Cyborg who was busying himself with looking about at the clouds in the sky. The journey around the island of Azar had begun.
Shepherding Cyborg off to the side slightly, Beast boy cocked his eye- brow at his formidable brother.
"What was that about?" Beast boy asked, nodding his head in the direction of bee dressed female.
Cyborg blushed slightly and scratched at the line where his human and mechanical head met.
"I was, accepted well by our hosts last evening…" He began.
"And by that, you mean, the girls flocked to you and your godliness?" Beast boy interjected, smiling up at the taller prince. In the back of his mind, he knew that there had never been a maid that could refuse Cyborg's charm. Had Cyborg finally met his match?
Cyborg shushed Beast boy with a wave of his hand as Slade pointed out a distinguished weapon shop along the main street of the City. In his lecture there was a history of its beginning (thanks to funding by himself), and how it thrives now by supplying weapons to his both his army and his navy. Both princes received this show as a manner of boasting, and warning towards their own armies that were across the sea.
It took over an hour for the large group to reach the out skirts of the city, where a stable of purebred white horses awaited them. They were to spend the next four hours riding these beasts through the mountains and along the beaches of Azar.
Along the way, Beast boy found out that the yellow and black dressed girl was actually named Bee. And that she had been a server at the party the evening before. According to Cyborg, she was the only woman uninterested in him and there fore made the biggest impression on him.
As Cyborg was about to go with his description of the night, Beast boy wiggled out of the conversation and trotted his horse to the other side of the small heard. It was there that he found Raven, perched upon the horse as if she were a log instead of a queen. Her face was dotted with beads of sweat. Beast boy slowed his gelding down to a walk.
"Don't like riding?" He asked good-naturedly.
She did not take her wide eyes off the mare's head.
"I'd prefer to be walking." She stated in a monotonous voice. She did not want to relinquish the sound of her voice to the fear that lined her back and stomach just yet.
"Then why don't you walk?" He asked, unconsciously showing off his hips as he rode.
"Because it is undignified for her Majesty to walk anywhere." A familiar light voice said on the other side of Raven. The blue-eyed girl from earlier nudged her way closer to Raven. It appeared she was there more to interrupt Raven's conversation than to speak up for her queen. Beast boy's eyes met with the girl's blue eyes and a strange connection was formed between them in that instant.
Raven felt uncomfortable in between the two eye-locked people and stiffened her body even more to slow her horse down. She was leaving Beast boy to the blonde maid.
"Okay…" Beast boy said, disappointed that his plot to make Raven smile was cut short. In his head he made yet another mental note about the Islands.
Over the last day or two he had been educated about the people on these islands. They practically believed in the same gods and demons as he did, but paid more attention to the sea and war gods than to that of the earth and sun gods. Their queen was loved, but feared and never touched. And they feared their king most of all, but loved his rule over their will. Was it doublethink? It was as if they believed all things and gods were connected to Slade's feet. But how could that be if Slade was mortal?
Beast boy decided to put these questions off till later.
"So, I'm sorry, but I forgot to ask what your name was." He said politely.
"Terra." She answered quickly. "My name is Terra."
--
Late in the afternoon, the party came to a tall, misty waterfall, guarded by a thick lush jungle. At the top of the sheer rock cliff there was a palace built not more than a half a mile away from where the river fell over the cliff.
It belonged to the War Lord, Blood, who had excused himself from the previous night's festivities to prepare for the caravan's arrival. He was called Blood because of his unnatural pleasure of drinking it and had led the last bloody battle of the civil war against a neighboring island. Robin had fought for his enemy and he was still bitter because of it. It was to be the last civil war battle either of them would ever fight in.
Blood's mansion was designed much like that of the palace and soon they had all gathered into his great hall. With a withered smiling face, Blood welcomed them all and encouraged them to begin the feast. He then turned his attention to the two princes and, after a whispered word from Slade, engaged Cyborg in a conversation over science.
The grand hall, itself, was adjacent to a vast patio that was only separated by familiar looking marble pillars. The patio led straight out into the forest and had torches that were unlit at the moment, lined at intervals on the patio. During a storm the hall was unused, but as soon as the skies were clear, the hall was swept clean of jungle trash and upgraded to the last missing tile. During the welcoming speech, the queen eyed the patio with impatience.
With her status and figure already known to the crowd of people, Slade excused Raven from their ritual of stand and show off. Instead he brushed her off and she easily snuck away from the small palace and began to walk off into the jungle. It had been in her experience that one should always walk away from predators, for running only attracts their attention.
The feasting and celebrating had begun early that day, so when Raven traveled through the crowded, humid jungle, she did so with the setting sun's dying rays.
Beast boy, caught up in a conversation with Terra, only saw the tip of Ravens' cloak, as it vanished into the dense forest. His curiosity over her only grew when she did mysterious things like this. He excused himself from the intricately designed table when Terra began to cut her chicken into pieces. Earlier he had told her of his tenderness towards animals and his inability to eat their dead bodies, so now she would think nothing of it if he vanished while every one ate their meat.
Blood's calculating eyes caught sight of the younger prince as he exited the hall in the same direction as the Queen. Cyborg had moved on to different conversations and was holding Bee in the corner of his eye as he flirted outrageously with other women. When Bee poured a man a drink of wine, the metal handle was crumpled to fit her hand perfectly.
"Do you think it is wise, my Lord Slade, to allow that young prince to wander about so ignorantly?" He said in a low voice.
"There is no need to worry, General Blood. He is watched, even now, by one of my spies."
Just then, a whisper came close to his ear.
"My King, he does not eat meat, I believe he does not like to watch it being eaten either." The party did not notice the third person that had appeared beside the two powerful men.
"Good girl." Slade answered in a rich, venomous voice.
"I'm going to follow him." The figure said, and moved to slink away but Slade's quick hand caught her wrist. He pulled her down into a twisted, passionate kiss.
"Don't be long." He warned. With that the girl stalked off onto the patio and into the jungle. Blood analyzed his Lord with amazement.
"Is there anything you can not control?" He asked rhetorically, smiling as he sipped at his goblet of wine.
Slade turned his good eye towards the old General, a small evil smile pressed on his lips.
"No," he said as he pulled his own goblet to his mouth, "No there is not."
I think i've forgotten to mention a disclaimer about not owning the teen titans...