Raven contemplated a fourth glass of champagne. Well, she thought it was champagne. It looked similar; the bubbles, smell and taste were all the same, only the color was darker, so that it resembled beer instead. With a deep frown, she moved to drink it with all the grace of a drunkard, when a hand stopped her. Malchior pulled the alcohol away from her and set it on the tray of a passing server.
Currently, they were in a large hall, moments after their engagement had been 'officially' announced, and Raven had immediately been swarmed by a host of people whose very smiles sent out an air of upper-class. Everyone seemed to be leering at her, all desperate to gain the favor of the girl who was supposedly stronger than their ruler. Some ingenious idea on a stranger's part was to offer her a drink, and now she was standing aloofly against the far wall, a conga line of empty glasses on a table beside her.
"What do you want?" she scowled at the dragon, who shrugged infuriatingly and grabbed her wrist before she could retrieve her cure, "What? It's not like I'll ruin the party – no-one's even looking at me anymore."
"Yes, your father has done a fine job of directing away all attention from his piss-drunk disgrace of a daughter," Malchior commended, sending her a glare to stop any interruptions to his lecture. And where did he get off talking to her about etiquette, anyway? "Luckily, milady has noticed your disposition and has chosen to assist him."
Raven snorted, crossing her arms. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered at his words, but she chose to get directly to that which had been troubling her up until his theft of her liquor, "How did you even get out of the book?"
He leaned back against the wall, the epitome of nonchalance, "Her Highness needed someone to solidify the alliance; she remembered me, and thought it would be grand if her cousin was to come and spend some time in Hell," he shrugged, "I had no quarrels. I needed a way out of the book, this was it. Little did I know you were 'Trigon's Conqueror'." He sent her a calculating stare.
"I didn't want to be here at all," she attempted to imitate his pose of indifference, but nearly managed to lose her balance. She ought not to drink so much when she was around her enemies. Even if it was in their best interests not to let her publicly humiliate them.
Malchior smirked, "Your father made you?"
She scowled, "Earth is in danger. It is my duty to take the opposing side out before they attack my home."
He gave a humorless laugh, and she turned to stare at him again, because (damn it!) her empathy was having a field day. He was way too depressed for a sociopath who had practically been given the green light to eradicate an army's worth of people. "We're not going to win, Raven," his eyes scanned the crowd, every inch of him portraying the hero who knew it was a lost cause.
"Don't lump me in with the likes of you," she recited automatically, but kept her ears pricked.
"Even together, this isn't enough. I've been called out of my prison for a suicide mission." Malchior paused, "And everyone in here knows it."
"Then why bother? I guess I can understand why the ruler of a country wouldn't want to back down, but why would you…?"
"There's no such thing as death, Raven, you should know that," Malchior said, and offered her his arm, "Let's go."
She raised an eyebrow, "Where? We're supposed to be in here, aren't we?"
He shook his head, "If the two betrothed want to sneak away and spend some time alone together, no-one will object. Come on."
She began walking, but didn't make any move to touch him. There was no need to, anyway. With a long-suffering sigh, he led the way back into the chamber they'd met in previously.
"Explain what you were saying about death," she said, sitting down on the loveseat she'd occupied before, while he took the armchair her father had sat in.
"If a creature is strong enough to survive down here, they will be strong enough to leave an imprint. Humans call it a ghost," Malchior explained, "And while they are nearly untouchable in the human world, down here the only thing that changes is that they cannot be easily found."
"With the right magic, you can harness the power of a ghost," Raven guessed.
Malchior nodded, "You just need to know what ties them down enough that they can't get to wherever it is that they're untouchable."
"Being people who've ruled over them for centuries, Trigon and Serpentaye would have a lot of information on a person. Enough to know why they're not 'moving on'." Raven said, the mist from the alcohol slowly giving way to reason, "So…it's better to die and be left alone than die at the hands of your ruler and then undergo…whatever it is."
The room had lost its hearty glow from before and was now lit by only the embers from the fireplace. While her sight was better than the average human's, the tiny amount of light was only allowing her eyes to play tricks on her and that third glass of champagne wasn't helping. She breathed out a huffy sigh, reverting to just watching Malchior stare at the dying flames.
"So?" she asked.
"Hm?" he turned to her, an expression of interest on his face.
"What's the plan? Why did you bring me here? You must've had a reason," she said with some irritation.
He shrugged, "I was sick of hearing every last bit of chatter in between your overly-rebellious statements."
She narrowed her eyes, "That's it? You're just going to contemplate your death." She had a planet to protect. The dragon-turned-king-of-angst wasn't going to get in her way.
"That's all we're going to do. Trigon wants to go down in a blaze of glory, and Lady Serpentaye isn't about to stop him. We'll learn the dance that we're supposed to do at the ceremony, we'll march into battle and we'll die."
"Go ahead and die, then," Raven said, scowling brilliantly, "I have more important things to do, like get back home. I can't do that if Lord Blaire – "
"Bane."
" – is marching his troops right into my home." She eyed him, "And don't correct me. I'm going off on a drunken rant. You'll just kill my buzz." He stared. She continued, "I know for a fact that we've got at least two people powerful enough to take on far more soldiers than normal: you and my father. I haven't seen Serpentaye fighting yet, but she's probably just as good, if not better. We've got, what? A month?"
"Twenty-nine days," Malchior corrected hoarsely.
"I can train in that time. Miasma resistance and all of that." She crossed her arms and leaned back, pursing her lips in thought. Her father had many books in his study if nowhere else. At least one of those had to be useful. The issue was getting him to lend it to her. Her eyes strayed over to Malchior, who was looking at Raven thoughtfully. "What?"
He tilted his head in acknowledgement and stood up, "It'll help with Trigon's hopes for the affair, if anything."
"You're going to help me?" She said, a bit surprised. Though semi-emotional speeches did have that effect on people, he had seemed fairly accepting of his demise a moment ago.
"Get to bed. We're starting early tomorrow," he said, lifting her onto her feet with magic.
They left the tunnel and departed in opposite directions, Raven giving him an interested glance over her shoulder. It seemed that her magic lessons with him were starting up again.
With a groan, she remembered the alcohol and made a mental note to get Elimona or Adrian to bring her some water, just in case.
…
…
A/N: Alcohol makes everything so much more intense. Or, at least, it makes Raven bolder. I wonder if I can incorporate it again soon – writing semi-drunk characters is just so much fun!
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