Note from the Author: weekly updates now? Say what? ...I wouldn't get used to it. Anyway, shorter chapter this week. Read. Review. Enjoy.
Ch. 7 – Perona's Plan
"Hey, mon! This has been fun, but I can think of a better way to pass the time!"
Calypso's pronouncement to Paris rang out across the lawn. The Head of Palace security paused, resting his croquet mallet on his shoulder as he gave Calypso an inquisitive look.
Helena hardly noticed them over her own inner turmoil. Her mind remained focused on the marine captain she had dismissed. He had been trying to tell her something, something important, but she had allowed her emotions to get the better of her.
They were still getting the better of her.
Zoro. Some days she could think on him fondly, other days not so much. This week fell into the latter category. She was approaching the anniversary of his supposed death now. It was a date etched into her memory, and not just for its nearness to the City of Dionysus festival. While one would think that the idea that he could still be alive would be enough to erase the remorse of that day, it only compounded it with guilt and self-loathing for her own weakness of character. She should have been stronger. If Zoro really was alive, it was only a matter of time before he found out. – then again, he should have been stronger too. Zoro never should have died in the first place!
"I hear you were one of the semi-finalists in the last tournament ever to take place for her Majesty's hand, mon," Calypso went on. He glanced at Helena to see if she were watching. While the Queen looked their way, her mind was far distant.
Paris puffed out his chest. "You heard correctly," he boasted. "The only one who could beat me, her Grace excluded of course, was the former Lieutenant General."
"Well, I am curious to see what Ilium's finest has to offer," Calypso pronounced pointedly. "Care for a duel?"
"Sure, if you think a Drum-maker can hold his own against a trained guard like me," Paris said with bravado.
The princes cleared a space in excitement as Paris took his bow off of his shoulders and pulled a sword from his quiver. Calypso flicked one of his machetes an inch from its sheath.
"Further back! Further back!" Nysa, the palace event planner cried, waving her clipboard frantically. Yes, with the way Paris fought, the Princes would be in danger if they stood too close. That was no real concern to Helena though. Anyway, her mind remained on the marine captain who had known her husband.
-Her husband who was probably still alive. Of course he was. Dammit. She should have realized!
Helena sighed, briefly hiding her face in a hand. She needed to get a grip on her spiraling emotions before they revealed themselves in an unseemly display. Normally in these situations it was best to walk away until she could get her thoughts in order.
She stood, retrieving her swords from where they hung about her wicker throne. At the precise moment she made to sling them over her shoulder, Paris launched the first attack, firing a sword from his bow. Drawing with precision timing, Calypso deflected the blade with ease.
Both men cried out in alarm, however, when they realized that the sword's new trajectory sent it directly toward the Queen.
In less than a blink, Helena drew her most famous rapier. Known as Peleus, it had been given to the royal family by the god Hephaestus an age ago. Blessed with the ability only to defend, and never to hurt the royal family, it had hung unused as decoration by the side of many a King's wife before now. Thus known as the lesser Queen's Blade by its years of disuse, it had only come to be recognized as a deadly weapon in the hands of her mother before her. Years of training had helped Helena to carry on that tradition.
And a few days of training with the man known as Pirate Hunter had taught her to cut steel.
She sliced through the blade spinning toward her, effortlessly reminding her "guests" what kind of woman they were dealing with. Just as quickly she sheathed Peleus, her mouth set in a hard line beneath her even harder eyes.
Her face held no triumph, showed no pride at her own accomplishment. In reality she was still battling the dratted emotions threatening to overwhelm her, and so kept her face schooled into a neutral mask. To those looking on, however, her emotionlessness made her seem fiercely angry.
"I believe I should like to take a walk," she pronounced blandly. "Excuse me, gentlemen."
Never mind that the swordfight was taking place for her benefit, a fact to which she wasn't completely blind, her Majesty walked toward the palace gardens with apparent indifference. Even Popinjay and Pompadour were too shocked, and perhaps too frightened of her, to try to detain her.
Walking slowly between the paused duel, Helena only stopped for a brief moment when she'd passed the two combatants.
"Oh, and Paris?" she said, turning to glance over her shoulder at him.
He blinked at her. "Yes, Majesty?"
"Please don't put Ilium to shame. We have a reputation to keep."
With Circe safely gone, Perona stood over her strange little flock of animals as they yipped and squeaked and honked at each other, obviously making plans with the new information the Navy Captain had given them. Of course, she had an investment in the way this all came out too – her yacht and cocoa hung in the balance:
"Eh-hem," she fake-coughed after a while. They didn't stop squabbling. "EH HEM!"
Still they didn't pay her any attention. Squatting down beside them, she sent a chubby, round little ghost to sit in the middle of their conspiratorial circle. It exploded with a snap of her fingers.
This knocked Hector, Cygnus, and Zoro onto their backs, successfully dazing them.
"'Eh hem,' I said!"
They finally turned to her. They didn't look amused, but she didn't need them happy, she needed them to listen.
"I don't know what plan you guys are trying to form, but I think I've got this figured out," she informed them flatly. "Don't look at me like that, Zoro. You forget that I was one of Moria-Sama's commanders! I know a thing or two about strategy. So listen up! If we're going to do this thing, we've got to do it with style."
Goose and Rabbit glanced incredulously at the Fox, who shrugged as if to say they may as well hear her out.
Perona flicked Zoro's pointed ear, delighted to see him flinch. He was a lot easier to boss around in this form:
"So we've got three objectives, right? We've got to save the Queen, we've got to save the city, and we've got to get you guys turned back into humans."
The three beasts nodded.
"I think I'm the best suited to confront Circe," Perona informed them. As a form of demonstration she left her body, allowing her astral form to circle above them for a moment before settling back in to reanimate herself. "I doubt she can turn my spirit into an animal. She'll be no match for me."
Zoro shook his head and yipped at her.
"Aw, are you worried about me? That's so sweet…"
Zoro snorted and stole Hector's twig spear. With his still rather dexterous mouth he quickly wrote:
You need to warn Helena.
"You'd think that, wouldn't you," Perona told him, patting him condescendingly on the head. "After all, of the four of us, I'm the only one who can still talk. But here's the way I see it. You want to save your Wifey, Zoro, but if you stop the Princes and the World Government from their betrayal entirely, they'll get off scot-free and they'll be back to bothering her sooner or later."
Cygnus nodded, lifting his wings emphatically as if to say this is what he'd been trying to tell the others.
"I'm a Princess too you know, I know how this stuff works," Perona put in dreamily.
Zoro snorted, then looked conveniently interested in the forest canopy when Perona turned to glare at him.
"I think what we really need is for Queen Helena's true love to make a brilliant comeback," Perona went on again with that same dreamy tone, blushing at the romantic prospect. As she went on she grew more excited, pumping a fist in the air: "You need to appear in that throne room and take back what's yours. Dispatch her lover! Drive out the frauds. But do it at just the right time to reveal them all for what they really are! Assassins! Traitors!"
Zoro's alarmed expression was enough to say he did not at all like this idea. Hector and Cygnus had slowly started nodding in agreement though. That was three against one. Perona grinned and pressed it:
"So we need you to transform at just the right moment, right? Turn into a human in the middle of Helena's court and scare the pants off of everybody!"
Zoro shook his head. Cygnus and Hector nodded even faster.
"That means timing is everything," Perona pointed out excitedly. "But we can't wait for that precise moment to start taking care of the poisoned wine. So we'll set all of the cow-soldiers loose in the middle of the city with orders to smash all of the barrels to smithereens. We'll have a regular running of the bulls!"
Cygnus and Hector both grinned at the prospect. Zoro wrote something with his stick:
Circe?
"Oh, don't worry. I'll keep her distracted so she can't start yodeling again. But first we need to stash my body someplace safe. I am NOT keeping it unguarded here in the middle of the woods. Sorry, boys, but none of you have sharp enough teeth or claws for my liking. – Though you are pretty adorable. Especially you, General Cotton-tail."
Cygnus preened. Hector's ears visibly drooped.
"I could use my ghosts as sentries, but I really should keep all my powers focused on Circe…"
Hector stole back his twig:
Palace?
"Aw, that's an excellent idea! You are so sweet!" Before Hector could hop away, Perona scooped him up in a bone-crushing hug. "I wonder what you look like as a human. Do you have a girlfriend?"
Zoro and Cygnus both chortled as Hector wiggled his way free. When he landed on the forest floor, he turned and immediately pointed as though to a wedding band on his left forepaw.
"What? You want me to marry you?" Perona asked, squealing with excitement. "If you're cute and promise to serve me forever, I'll say yes!"
Hector shook his head with all his might, pointing to himself and the ring paw over and over again, but Perona was too wound up to notice.
Of course, Perona probably had second thoughts about marrying the likes of Hector when he showed her what he meant by leaving her body at the palace. Getting her inside the palace itself would have proven too tricky to accomplish without being seen, and it wasn't like Hector or Cygnus could vouch for her in the forms they were in. It would also be harder to guarantee she wouldn't be found.
So instead Hector led her and the others to one of the now empty soldier barracks on the castle grounds.
"WHAT?!" she shrieked when he pointed into the tidy though now slightly dusty room. It belonged to some of the soldiers who had first fallen under Circe's power, which meant there was no threat of anyone walking in by accident. It had serviceable though decidedly less than luxurious bunk beds, all neatly made and folded with hospital corners (Hector was satisfied to note), but Perona was less than pleased:
"I thought when you said PALACE you meant you'd put me up in a nice king-sized four poster with a puffy comforter and cute stuffed animals!" she wailed. "You're so mean, Mr. Cotton-tail!"
"Wow, Roronoa," Hector squeaked, pulling his ears down in an attempt keep out the sound of Perona's whining. "I thought she said she was once one of Moria's commanders…"
He received no response.
"Roronoa?"
Hector and Cygnus exchanged glances, then looked the room over, but Zoro was nowhere to be found.
"That idiot," Cygnus honk-sighed. "He got himself lost again. I'll go look for him. You two should start working on Circe and the cows. We only have a few hours til sundown."
"Yes, Majesty."
Hector saluted after the manner of the Iliad army, pounding one paw to his chest. It was only after Cygnus had taken wing outside the barrack doors that it occurred to Hector:
"Wait, sire! You'll get lost too!"
But Cygnus was already too far away to hear him.
Helena walked for a while before she found herself satisfactorily alone. Unfortunately, and somewhat unusually, the only part of the public palace gardens she found unoccupied that day was a portion dedicated to the goddess, Aphrodite.
Walled in by carefully cultivated rose bushes for privacy, the small garden was usually favored by young lovers. Then again, today was a festival, and perhaps all of the young folk were out enjoying the atmosphere in the main city, Helena thought. Never mind that Helena could feasibly be considered one of the "young folk" herself.
The grey-haired and jaded Queen faced a fountain amidst the roses, her gaze resting in the form of a glare on the white marble statue at its center.
It depicted a shapely woman in a flowing gown, her come-hither eyes only partially obscured by a mask of scalloped seashells. White marble roses, carved with delicate precision, graced the goddess' puffy cloud of an afro.
"You're a real witch, you know that?" Helena told the goddess acerbically. "You're lucky I don't destroy your temple next."
The goddess didn't respond.
"You hate me and you hate him for the same petty reason Hera did," Helena pointed out above the chatter of the fountain. "For all I know, you're on her side. Feel free to keep punishing me. I'm not about to let up."
The blank eyes beneath the mask seemed to smile with sarcastic defiance at the Queen, reveling in her pain. It was the last straw for Helena that day. Before she quite knew what had happened, the Goddess' roundish head lay in the water of the fountain, cleanly removed from the rest of the statue.
Breathing hard, Helena looked down at Peleus still clutched in her shaking hand. A glimmer of green reflected from a small emerald set into a gold band welded into the hilt of the blade: her wedding band.
The flashing gem held her gaze, and seemed to drain away all of her angry energy, bringing the proud woman to her knees. Releasing the blade to clatter onto the cobbles beside her, Helena folded arms against the lip of the fountain, hid her face, and wept.
Finding private places to weep had been more difficult of late. Her bedroom was no longer one of them. She kept the tears silent, lest anyone should happen upon her in a state of naked emotion.
It wasn't long into her catharsis that she realized someone indeed stood over her. It felt like someone big, someone terrifyingly strong, someone dangerous. One of her hands crept to the sword lying beside her. Without turning, hardly thinking, her blade rested on the throat of the interloper before she lifted her head.
"Don't move," she warned, turning to face him. When here gaze met that of the intruder's, she blinked away tears in surprise, thinking for a moment she had perhaps fallen asleep and was having a strange dream.
For standing beside her on the lip of the fountain, unafraid of her drawn blade, was nothing more than a mangy, moss-green, one-eyed fox.