Chapter Eight

The Archer

By Queen Tessandry de Sanyochisei

"Tess, I'm serious. The only time I can do a scrying in the near future is next Wednesday after Herbology." Venus explains impatiently.

"Venus, I'm serious too. I have an Archery Club meeting that day and Aymery is expecting the Elves' response today!" Tess counters desperately.

"I can't do anything, Tess. I have a Potions paper due Monday that I haven't even started on due to all the Easter Break work that got piled on me." Venus says with a sigh, gesturing to the piles of books on the library table.

"Then can you at least tell me how to do it?" Tess asks, pleading.

Venus sighs in resignation. "Fine… I'll write out the steps for you quick. Then, at least, I'll only have to do the scrying for Earth."

"Thank you, V!" Tess says as Venus writes out the instructions. Venus then hands the paper to Tess, who snatches it with a "Merigati!" and pelts away from Venus's table.

~*~^~*~^~*~^~*~^~*~

"Tess, I still fail to understand why you need to use the Head Boy's bathroom for a scry session." Garret sighs, giving up on studying.

"Gary, please! If I use one of the public toilets, anyone could walk in on me! I've already tried to get Morwen and all but the Slytherin Prefects to let me uses theirs!" Tess pleads desperately.

"Tessandrilene…" Garret groans, "What could be so important that you don't want anyone stumbling across it?"

Tess bites her lip, unable to think of a prudent reason that allowed her to keep Garret in the dark about the unstable politics in use on Parth off the top of her head. However, before she could come up with such a reason, a feeling of stomach-wrenching dread twisting her insides cut her thoughts.

Tess turns slowly and starts walking, unnaturally calm, from the library.

"Tess? Tess, where are you going?" Garret asks, for once genuinely worried about the empress's behavior, getting up and following her.

As Tess exits the library, her pace quickens, forcing the following Head Boy to hasten his pursuit. Soon, Tess reaches full-pelt, making Garret use all the shortcuts he knew of in order to keep up.

Coming out a passage, Garret catches a glimpse of Tess barging into what was commonly referred to as "Moaning Myrtle's Toilets". With a slight amount of hesitations, he follows her into the bathroom.

He enters the girls' toilets to see Tess casting the last preparatory spell. Within a few seconds the image appeared. A sooty Aymery was helping a girl that looked like a Tess in inverted colors to carry Tess's mother away from a smoking city in the background. Tess stares at the mirror's image before shaking her head.

"Humph… First time mess up. I did cast everything in a minute." Tess shrugs and recasts the spells, focusing this time on the capital, oblivious of Garret's approach and proximity.

The image of Tess's cousin, mother and the strange girl blurs and fades into a picture of a crater-riddled city.

Tess stares at the image for a fallen Parthmet in shock. She grips the edges of the sink, not trusting her legs to keep her upright.

Garret, standing behind the empress, stares in similar, yet well hidden, shock. A cracking sound makes him look down at the sink to find webs of hair fine cracks spreading themselves in the porcelain from Tess's hands.

He pries one of her hands from the breaking porcelain only for the other hand, clenched into a fist, to connect with his gut. Garret doubles over, gasping for breath.

"Oh! I'm sorry Gary! I didn't mean to! You just startled me." Tess, having whirled around, kneels on the floor to see Garret's face, placing her left hand tentatively on his right shoulder. Garret looks up from his examination of the stone floor, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"That's no excuse Tess. I had nothing to do with that." Garret states tersely, jerking his head to indicate the still bewitched mirror. Before he could blink, let alone argue further, he had his arm twisted up behind his back and a fist full of hair grabbed, pulling him upright against an icily glaring Tess.

"Those with nothing to hide would explain why they would grab my hand, not attempt to displace the blame." Tess whispers menacingly. "So what do you have to hide?"

Without any explanation, Tess removes her right hand from Garret's hair and reaches inside his robes to pull out, not a wand but, a dagger that'd been a bulge against Tess's side.

The dagger was fairly simple; the only decorative adornment was a crest, an arrow and sword crossed over a crown. This however, was not alone what made Tess pale. It was the initials, G.A., engraved in the pommel that had her attention.

In her distraction, Garret wrenches his arm away and starts for the door but Tess catches him and presses the dagger against his throat.

"Don't you so much as twitch, Gryffin Archiah, or so help me, I'll see you dead." Tess snarls in Sarcastian. Surfer chose that moment to poke his head into the room.

"I heard Sarcastian and it's been my experience that it can't be anything good." Surfer explains, ignoring the murderous glares from both enemy and ally. "Is everything kosher here?"

"Yes. I'm having a bloody picnic with Archer-boy here." Tess snaps, sneering.

"So you want me to call an E.A.M.?" Surfer asks, his attitude brightening considerably. [Authoress's Note I: E.A.M. stands for Emergency Authors Meeting. These are held in the same place as the Authors' post-match parties.]

"No, I want you to notify Draco and the rest of Slytherin House. What d'you think?" Tess responds, each scathing syllable drowning in sarcasm.

"Right-o then! See you in an hour!" Surfer says with a grin and leaves.

"I'll see you at the top of the West Tower in one hour, but other than that, I will see none of you or you're as good as dead on this floor." Tess states venomously, her usual detachment starting to reassert itself. "And if I see you anywhere on Parth but with the Elves, I'll see you hanging by your heel over the Sar Chasm." [Authoress's Note II: If you don't get that intentional pun… WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING READING THIS STORY?!?!?!]

Tess spins on the ball of her foot and leaves the toilets, dagger flashing dangerously in her hand.

Authoress's Note III and Disclaimer: My standard disclaimer for this story is still applied. Don't make me retype all that crap… All it does is boost up the file size.

Notes about this chapter specifically: So… Tessa figured Archer-boy out… Note for future reference? Don't piss Tess off.

The next chapter, everyone goes home after getting royally reamed out by a 'goddess'. I translated the Sarcastian so I don't have to create the language… HEY! I'm NOT J.R.R. Tolkien! (For those of you who don't know who Tolkien is… READ A BOOK!!!)

Once I'm done writing this, I'll think about opening up the group as a discussion list but until then… And until Chapter Nine: The Writing On The Sky Ceiling…

Tah-tah!

~Queen Tessandry de Sanyochisei~