Tawnykit: Thanks for always being first to review! Thus far, I am trying to include everyone into my story, but that makes a lot of random characters to pop up. Oh, well, as if the rest of the story isn't random. As to Blaydelot...come on, I have to have at least one secret!
Garowyn: Thanks for always reviewing! Sorry, don't have much to say, except I hope you continue to laugh.
Oh, one last thing: Sorry, but I won't be updating until Monday again at least, but thanks for reading anyway!
Chapter 17 Brotherly Affection
How odd. He sensed a tremor of magic in the air, and it wasn't from him. Unheard of. There was no one who could do any sort of spells—
Wait. He always forgot him. Actually, he was always trying to forget him. But it was rather difficult, because his twin refused to just fade into the rest of the population. Oh no, first he had to glue himself to Mugguba, who was required to learn lessons from the sorcerer (both agreed to that, but they never spoke of it), and then he had to make himself a spokesperson of the land who wouldn't shut up. So, it was a rather difficult endeavor to actually forget Put'oh.
But there was no way he had just done magic.
Was there?
Sir Blaydelot, much too alert for Kiaba's preference, was watching his face and narrowing his eyes, already trying to come up with ideas of what was happening.
Magic was HIS domain. Put'oh may have taken Mugguba, but there was NO WAY he was taking his power as well. None. Whatsoever. Kiaba had to go have a chat with his brother right this instant.
It had been amusing for the first three minutes. Then, Axel decided it had become extremely boring. I mean, how well do you think someone who cannot stay still on his own for four minutes will take to being forced to be still for an unspecified amount of time?
He was going to go crazy soon.
Unfortunately for the others, Axel had been doing something with his mouth when he got frozen, so now he was well-equipped to drive them all insane with his ceaseless noise. But then, de Vlin and Tanner, both of whom were looking at him, were stuck seeing the drool slide out of his mouth unchecked. Well, it wasn't as if he had had a choice.
There was a little more drool than one would commonly suspect. Well, that would have been because Axel had been hawking his phlegm and was about to land the wad right on the nearest guard's body. But it never had gone from his mouth. Now, it was slowly oozing and making a puddle in his lap. Needless to say, the others would be wondering if he had been unable to hold his urine in long enough to make it to a respectable invention of waste removal.
Therefore, bored to his scantily few wits' ends, The Sir Prince Axel was vocalizing, being unable to hum or whistle. And vocalizing just made him drool more and just grossed the minstrel and troubadour more and just gave everyone a growing headache he (or she!) could do nothing about.
It is astoundingly surprising that everyone was relieved to see Kiaba come thundering down the stairs appearing ready to throttle everyone he came across. I surely wouldn't be thrilled to see a sorcerer with power crackling at his fingertips, eyes narrowly close to a Death Glare, and naturally in a bitter, sour, sarcastic, cruel mood.
But, hey, to each her own.
"Rutha!" cried Muggy, which if you recall from the previous chapter, meant "Brother" for the more tongue-enabled.
Observing the situation with a critical eye, Kiaba could not help but smirk. Apparently, he had no need for his fears that his twin would take over his control. Put'oh could hardly have appeared more panicked. After all, his face was frozen in whatever it had been doing (yelling "CEASE!") and still managed to look uncomfortable and near one of his attacks.
Kiaba sighed. His brother really needed to get some professional help for that.
Now…he could undo this simple spell. But it was so amusing to watch them all in their plight. Over in the corner, Axel was making a complete mess of himself. If only for that, Kiaba would wait just a little longer in doing the counter charm.
A gasp sounded behind him.
"What have you done?"
It was Sir Balydelot, of course. You should realize by now that he's following this guy everywhere.
Giving one of his there's-no-way-he-can-actually-see-but-it-looks-very-intimidating corner eye glances, Kiaba crossed his arms, smirk still firmly in place.
Put'oh made a hissing sound, for that was all he could do. Looking at his twin closely, Kiaba chuckled. For the lack of being able to blink, everyone down here was crying.
With a start, Kiaba's frozen glance strayed to his youngest brother. Mugguba was "crying," his face a strange contortion of excitement and strain. Strain to be so long left in this form.
Muttering the word that would free them all, Kiaba extended his hand and waved it with the word. Then, he turned aside and glanced away from everyone wiping their faces (or mouths), staying silent.
The guards immediately began blubbering apologies at not being able to keep control in their own prison. Blowing them aside, Kiaba look through narrowed eyes at the sordid bunch of travelers on the quest for the princess. Blaydelot had informed him of just what they were doing.
Behind him, behind all the guards, one figure slipped into the shadows and vanished up the stairs.
"Gross your face was indeed. And now others will think you have peed."
"They'd better not!" Axel cried when he had finally swallowed enough saliva in order to speak clearly. His hand instantly went to his sword to salvage what dignity he had left with the threat of a weapon.
"Others he said!" Tanner shouted, backing away from the threat, for although it was blunt and rusting, there was still a semi-sharp side.
Sama-san-dono, arms still crossed, was matching Kiaba's glare for one of his own. Somewhat uneasily, Kun glanced between them, wondering if he should introduce his other self who was now a djinni. But then, he couldn't exactly say who this other man was. He looked a lot like Put'oh, but that Gruff was on the stairs still recovering.
This djinni was news to him. The guards had reported six people. The djinni, whose powers he could already sense, he was certain had not been one of those numbers. And Sir Blaydelot had not mentioned his presence when describing the group, but he had mentioned Kun turned into a giant.
Instead of dealing with that problem immediately, however, he turned toward his twin with one of his customary stares apt to make him weak in the knees.
Put'oh's glance strayed automatically to Kiaba's, as if the latter was emitting a magnetic pull, and he gulped.
"Ah…I…" There were no words to describe what had happened. The poor environmentalist did not know himself.
Kiaba smirked; the gesture was more of a threat than a portrayal of amusement, however.
"I see," he said lowly. "We'll be having a little…chat later. Don't miss it."
Barleyo, eyes narrowed, was comparing the two brothers' faces. The one was merely a kinder version of the tight-lipped, narrow-eyed, annoyed face of Kiaba. Both had the same chestnut hair that was dark umber and close to black in the dim light that strayed into the deep blue eyes, but Put'oh's were not the set that caused an observer's heart to skip in shock of the bitter emotion held frozen within them; instead, Put'oh's were like warmed oceans of the southern seas.
The twins were almost like two versions of the same person, which a certain part of Barleyo found extremely intriguing.
By far, the only one who had noticed a certain person leaving was the one who had caused all of this to happen in the first place. Muggy chose to keep silent, glad that the prisoner had been wise enough to leave while she could. Not like that other group who was still arguing…
Blaydelot, a calculating look on his face, looked at his comrades before focusing again on Kiaba. Then, the same girly smile crossed his face. Cloak wrapped tightly around himself, the knight strode over to Kun and the others.
"If you're ready to go, we have a princess to hurry up and save."
Axel's jaw dropped as he saw the knight head over to the stairs. "The nerve of him! He's the one who wanted to come here, where the Princess Tranquility most certainly is not, and he was the one who got us into the trouble in the first place. I'm going to go teach him a lesson…"
Automatically, Tanner and de Vlin grabbed his arms and held him in place.
"I don't like the way he's looking at me," Sama-san-dono muttered to Kun. Helplessly, Kun glanced over at Kiaba, still seeing the same cold look emitting from his eyes.
"Well, I can't do anything about it!"
"Maybe you should."
"Why don't you?"
"Hmmm," was all the djinni commented on further.
"Or," Kun added brightly, "you could go back inside the hat instead of being out at all. He couldn't look at you that way if you weren't visible.
Now, what do you think that did to Sama-san-dono? He was highly insulted, of course. He was just commenting on something and his other self had to get rude and tell him to get back in the hat as if he were a prisoner not allowed to be free.
Right then and there, it was a competition between the two "selves" of Kun. Sama-san-dono would refuse to go back in the hat and Kun would continue to try to make him. No matter who won, it was bound to make things confusing within Kun's mind.
