Please forgive me your fabulousnesses! I am but a lowly scribe unworthy of your readership. I shall lock myself in my chambers and cry tears of words onto pages and send them to you! Once again, I am not worthy! *bows and slinks away*
"So, I'm assuming that something was messed with in the process of keeping the '2ps' in their dimension, and we were launched into a separate world. Though I don't know what happened to our opposite gendered counterparts."
"Mhm," Gilbert nodded, no longer lounging not on a throne, but an extravagant chair. Alice had just finished explaining what had happened so far, and her theory of how they had ended up here.
They sat in a space somewhat resembling a war council room, a large, dark, table taking up much of the space, which Alice, Francis, Madeline (not that anyone really noticed her), Lovina, Antonio, Feliciana (who was asleep), Ludwig, and of course, his awesomeness, King Gilbert Beilschmidt, sat around.
"So, Iggybrows, what you're saying, is that this is your fault?" Gilbert sighed noncommittally, tracing patterns on the dark wood of the table. Alice immediately started stuttering and gesturing wildly in anger, unsure of which of the faux-king's insults to react to first.
"W-well! I never said that! I simply said it could be the result someone or something tampering with my magic!" Alice huffed, about to continue.
"So yeah, it's your-"
"And don't call me iggybrows!" she finished, causing the inhabitants of the room to flinch.
"Fine, caterpillar brows," Gilbert mocked, even though Francis was gesturing wildly at him, knowing the result of pushing England too far. (Anything from a bruised head to a broken hand).
Ludwig noticed the atmosphere's steady turn towards a full out fight, and commented, "Well, if this was a result of you or Arthur's binding spell being meddled with, is there a way to undo it?" Alice immediately swiveled her attention to the uncomfortable German, excited about being able to not only explain something, but to explain magic.
"Technically yes, if the yearly spell I use to keep the 2ps in their dimension was messed with by an opposing force, I could undo it, but it would be a long, hard, process, and I don't have my spell books, or the proper materials, so it is practically impossible," she sighed, looking distraught at the absence of her enchantments.
"Well aren't there any god damn magic books here? I mean, we're in the medieval era!" Lovina huffed from the sidelines, bored of listening to all this drabble and hungry for fresh, ripe, tomatoes. Bored and hungry were never a good combination with Lovina, and she was bordering on throwing a chair at Gilbert and running out of the room.
Ludwig added to this by saying, "We're in a castle, so it's possible that there's a magic book somewhere…"
Alice's eyes lit with excitement, "There's a library, right?" the blonde was already hopping out of her seat when Gilbert affirmed, though he commented that it was full of boring books and that Alice was lame to want to see it.
Gilbert turned to his brother, smirking at him, "You and the Italian cutie are free to go," Ludwig briefly glared at Gilbert, then softly tapped Feliciana's shoulder. She simply kept napping, not even shifting.
"Feliciana?" he spoke, looking uncertain, which soon transitioned into fearing for his life when he saw Lovina's death glare from her slumped position on her chair. "Feliciana?" his voice was a notch louder this time, but Feliciana still didn't stir.
Lovina begrudgingly stood up and stomped over to her sister, yelling, "Wake up you lazy ass!" in her ear. Even with the volume of her older sister's shout, Feliciana still simply lazily blinked, rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms to their full extent, yawning like a cat.
"Ciao~" Feliciana sang, looking up at the tall German and the disgruntled Italian slinking away from her. Gilbert chuckled and then flapped his hand in a strange gesture towards the door.
"There are some guest rooms down the hall, I'm pretty sure. Have fun~" Ludwig blushed and glared icily at his brother.
Lovina yelped at Gilbert's implications about her sister and the ugly potato bastard, "Stay away from my sister!" she demanded, tugging a smiling and waving Feliciana behind her, heading down the hall.
The women ended up getting just barely lost in the long, wide, corridors, and Lovina ended up waiting while Feliciana chatted with a maid about the castle's size, eventually asking where the guest's room were, then reported the information back to her older sister, who had refused to ask the maid herself.
They then quickly hunted down the guest rooms, and Feliciana meandered about the corridor, inspecting each of the rooms carefully, even though they were all the same, aside from some small color scheme variations. She eventually settled with a classy room decorated with intricate flower designs on the walls and a plush carpet, a warm theme of golds and tans resting on the furniture.
The hyperactive Italian female then proceeded to gush to Lovina about the castle's decor, who simply sighed and rolled her eyes, wondering if they really were sisters.
"Ooh!" Feliciana exclaimed, noticing the smudges of orange and pink fading in on the horizon, "We should tell Alice about the guest rooms! And we can help her find her book!" Feliciana was soon dragging a reluctant Lovina out the door, through the halls, past MANY doors, down the grand and shining staircase, and to a towering door, thrown open.
Inside, Alice's quiet mutterings to herself drifted over and breezed past the two sibling's ears. They stayed out of sight, listening to Alice talk to herself about the library's beauty and the sheer number of books.
As the pair stepped out of hiding, they saw that the library extended far past the maybe ten or so climbing rows that had been visible from their spot, an ocean of books spread out in front of them, and navigating it like a well-trained swimmer was Alice Kirkland, currently inspecting a pile of books, setting them aside after skimming through the pages.
As Lovina noticed similar piles of books in a few other isles, she interrupted the Brit's search for magic, "All this for one book?"
Alice's head shot up, and she shut the weathered hulking blue book that rested in her hands, "Do I need to remind you that our safety relies on this spell?" she huffed, and was about to return to reading, when Lovina spoke.
"How do you even know it exists?" she objected, crossing her arms across her tattered brown dress.
Alice seemed shocked by the Italian's question, and was stumbling over her words, searching for an acceptable response, when the nearly forgotten red-head intervened.
"Don't worry Lovi~ Alice knows lots about this! She'll get us home!" Alice smiled at the praise, gathering her wits.
"Indeed. Well, Lovina-"
"Oh! Also, we came to tell you that we found the quest corridor and you should come and pick out you're room~" Alice seemed put off by the stalling of her schooling on magic to Lovina, and was just opening her mouth to restart the sentence, when a loud knock shot through the room.
"You have been summoned for dinner by his majesty." the announcer stood in the doorway, looking slightly nervous, dwarfed by the huge door.
Alice huffed and brushed herself off, placing the blue book on the pile, and stood up, smiling politely at the maid.
"Come on" she ordered the two Italians, leading the way out the door, pausing so the maid could guide them the rest of the way.
The triad found themselves soon enough in an extravagant space, a long table sitting in the middle, at which their companions sat, chatting among themselves. Francis stood, seeing Alice neat the table, and pulled out the chair next to him, which the lady accepted, though she glared at the Frenchman as she sat.
Antonio began shouting to Lovina to sit next to him, as he didn't seem to realize that there was not spot next to him, as he was next to Gilbert, who sat at the head, with Francis on his other side, who had just been joined by Alice.
Lovina personally would've preferred sitting at the very opposite edge of the table, away from the excitable company, or even better, in her room. But she was instead forced to be seated by Feliciana, who was across from Francis, therefore placing Lovina across the table from the irritable English woman.
Pounding footsteps announced the arrival of a new person in the dining room. The whole table looked up, to see Alfred running towards them, only skidding to a halt when he reached Alice.
"Heya!" Lovina, Alice, and Ludwig cringed at the appearance of his loud, irritating voice. The man had been kicked out of the meeting earlier after making up a whole new, completely untrue story of what had happened.
"Hello" a small voice squeaked from behind the immature blonde, and Madeline stepped out, waving. Francis was the first to react, grinning at the Canadian girl.
"Bonjour~" he chimed, followed by Alice, and then the rest. They had all forgotten about the petite blonde girl, and were feeling rather embarrassed now that they had been reminded of her presence. Madeline noticed this, though didn't comment on it, as she knew she tended to fade into the background, but was sad that even when people could see her she still wasn't noticed.
"So, what are we eatin'?" shattered the awkward demeanor of the room, which was quickly replaced by annoyance as Alfred plopped down next to Alice, Madeline gently seating herself across from him.
The food soon arrived, carried by servants, and Alice sat at the table, picking at her food to try and cover her annoyance. She wanted to shout for everyone to shut up, but it would surely only make things worse, so she ate.
On her left side sat Alfred, who was chowing down, nearly consuming the whole table. He would often look over at her, mid-chew, and say something loud and unimportant, like how he thought Superman would totally win against Batman, or how he had eaten 12 containers of ice cream in the last week, the fact were slightly endearing, but also made her want to duck tape his mouth shut. On her other side, Francis laughed melodically at not very fun jokes made by Gilbert, who was boasting about highly annoying and trivial matters, like the front of some magazine recently, or some girl at a party.
She tried to occasionally poke into the conversations going on around her, but she mostly just sat and nipped at her meal. She would sometimes pose a feeble attempt to engage Madeline in conversation, but the noise resonating from the table drowned out the other girl's voice.
Eventually, Alice gave up, leaving her seat next to Alfred and Francis, who was sipping a glass of wine, and snuck out of the door, ignoring the curious and worried glance of Madeline as she slipped away.
The English woman marooned the loud dining hall, and followed the many doors back to the library, which sat silently, holding it's breath for the moment Alice returned to it's safety.
Seeing the piles of books she had left behind, the blonde slipped through the isles, and found a thick, brown, worn-down book. Scrawled on the front was The History of West Evenovv Alice nodded to herself, and carried the book over to a flamboyant settee, which hugged her as she laid on it, gently placing the book in front of her. She whispered a well known spell at a flame that was dwindling nearby, revitalizing the candle's comforting light.
Alice sighed as she opened the cover, relishing in the candlelight, comfy sofa, and the unique smell a dusty book gives off as you heave open the cover.
This was all you really needed in life. Warmth, comfort, and a long, over-descriptive book about a foreign country's history.
*Still weeping in corner*