ROSE
The minute I stepped back into Derse people ran over to me, all asking questions at once.
"Where have you been?"
"Is that a lizard?"
"We were worried sick!"
"How could you run off like that?"
"Isn't that a Prospitian salamander?"
"Did you go to Prospit young lady?!"
This was exactly what I expected to happen. It was very rare for me to leave Derse, much less without telling anybody and with daytime coming so quickly. Daytime meant that meetings with the Prospitians were more likely to happen. Not to mention that I was the only other young Hero they currently had what with TurntechDiety on a mission. I tried to answer but they just bulldozed right over my words with more questions.
Suddenly, something that felt like a cold hand closed around me. Darkness encircled me and a few or the Dersites made some disgruntled noises, but made no act to actually grab me and pull me out of the dark void that had swallowed me. Horrorterrors screamed as I passed by but I brushed off their words easily. It wasn't like we had enough time to have actual conversations.
I was soon pulled back into the world of the living and awake in a room of differentiating shades of pink. A woman sat in front of me, reclined in a chair and sipping on a martini glass. She was wearing a short, sleeveless purple dress, long black gloves and tall black boots. She had bleach-blonde hair that had a spiral. Cotton-candy pink eyes looked me over. Lips tugged into a smirk/smile. Just over the top of her dress pink markings peaked out. Dark spaces of simply nothingness dispersed around us.
"Hello mother." I said, looking her straight in the eyes. Waiting for her to play her move.
"Hi dalrnig. Darling." She slurred her words a bit, a sign that she had been drinking again. Well, drinking more than usual. My mother was always drinking, but she could usually keep the slurring under control. "You're welcome for saving you from the papzarii. papriziz. paparazzi."
"I could've handled it myself." I responded confidently, back held high. My mom laughed at that.
"Yeah, you were halndig it great out there. Where were you anyway? An' why do you have a lizzrad? Handling. Lizard."
"I was out for a walk. I didn't know I wasn't allowed to leave Derse. Dave leaves all the time and nobody questions him. I wasn't even gone for that long."
"Oh honey you know I don't care. But to be fair Dave even couldn't stay in his crib when he was a baby. You know the Dersite's just think you're a flareig little rose. Fragile." She downed the contents of her glass and then refilled it.
"I don't need to be coddled. I am more than capable of handling myself."
"I say good for you for going out. But the lizards a bit weird."
"Viceroy is a salamander. Now if you need me, I'm going to be teaching him about the gods of the Outer Rings." With back held high, I spun around and left the room, going through the corridors until I came to the Light room, my room. Ugh, my mother was always trying to smother me. Couldn't I just have a few seconds without her? And I most definitely didn't need her help. I was old enough to take care of myself.
Needing to blow off some steam to someone, I pulled open one of my drawers and took out an iphone. The phone itself, along with a few others, had been stolen from a store not too long ago by TurntechDiety's older brother when he was bored. He had then proceeded to suit them all up to be solar-powered. How they were able to get internet, I don't know, but it probably wasn't by legal means. He had given one to both TD and I telling us to charge them during the day, don't use them outside of our rooms, don't try to call random people, and under no circumstances tell the Dersites about them.
The Dersites just had this thing about doing things traditionally, the way they were always done. If TD's bro really wanted to integrate modern tech into the society, though, the Dersites probably would've rolled with it. In fact some of them might even take to it very well. But I always got the feel that he enjoyed having a piece of him hidden from the rest, a secret to help him get through. At any rate he had made these when his hands had just been itching to work on some things, during a lull in missions, and now I had a means to contact my fellow Hero from across distances with little interruption.
- tentacleShaman [TS] started pestering turntechDiety [TD] at 11:01 -
TS: Please tell me that you're not busy right now
TS: I need somebody to talk to and frankly you're the only person available right now
TD: hey
TD: yeah i am doing fine
TD: no no dont worry we havent been spotted
TD: i am a bit hungry though and theres frogs everywhere
TD: on a scale of one to ten how desperate do you think i would need to be to eat frogs
TS: I'm glad that you're okay but Derse is driving me crazy and you know that you're the only person I can talk to about this type of stuff
TD: all we are doing right now is watching them mill around and crap
TD: one dropped a stick woop de doo
TD: how thrilling
TD: go ahead and spill
TS: It's just that nobody seems to trust me
TS: I am 15 years old I can take care of myself and take down anything that could possibly pose a threat to me in the woods
TS: I've been trained since I was young by the best fighters Derse has to offer
TS: I have even been able to hold conversations with the Dark Gods of the Outer Ring, which is not a thing for the weak of mind or stomach
TS: But if I leave for longer than 30 minutes by the time I come back everybody is distressed and planning to go to war with Prospit in case they caught me or something.
TD: you and i both know they are all dramatic
TD: you are 'the seer' so thats supposed to make you special and crap
TD: just wait out another year
TD: after the tier ceremony there is no way they can try and control
TD: and if they do you can show them who is boss
TS: I guess you are right
TS: By the way Turntech, I met John today
TS: Or maybe I should call you Dave
TD: i was bored okay
TS: I think it suits you. I told him to call me Rose
TS: Which seems strange now since my mom compared me to a fragile rose today
TD: just show them that this rose has a ton of thorns
TS: He was very nice and I got a new apprentice out of it
TS: It's a Prospit salamander
TS: I have named him Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer
TD: nobody should let you name kids ever
TD: kay we are moving position now
TD: gonna need to log off
TD: now we stare at the heroes base
TD: can you read how thrilled i am
TD: i am so thrilled its a surprise that im not exclaiming it to the world
TD: bring all the prospitians down on us
TD: then we can take notes on how they react to finding spies
TD: might really make a leapt in our notes
TS: Do try to contain all of that. I know it must be hard but our people are depending on you oh-so-brave Knight
- tentacleShamen [TS] ceased pestering turntechDiety [TD] at 11:13 -
I really wanted to keep pestering TD, but I understood he was busy. If their group got caught, while he and his brother would probably be okay the Dersites with them would probably be killed. Shutting my iphone off, I looked over at Viceroy. She had wrapped herself in a black cloak I had lying around. It had belonged to my last apprentice I had taken on, a Derse turtle, but she had proven not to be suited for it. A shame, she had been so promising.
I had never actually seen a real live Prospit salamander before, or even heard much about them. I suppose that was what one was to expect when they've lived in Derse their entire lives. At any rate, this just gave me a great excuse to go to the library. Making sure that the cloak surrounded him well enough that anybody passing by wouldn't realize what he was.
By now at least the crowd outside had shrunk. Any Dersites still surrounded me, some even stating that if I ever 'ran off' again that they would bring the queen in on this. When they weren't looking I rolled my eyes. We all knew that when in came between a Hero and royalty, our power goverment-wise was basically on par with theirs. I walked with my back straight and passed right through what had remained of the crowd until I arrived at the library.
The librarian gave me a smile and a nod, she was always nice and quiet. Viceroy stuck close to me the entire time, looking at the Dersites suspiciously. Or I think that look on his face was suspicion. It was really only a minor shift in his expression, from happy to slightly less happy. Luckily there were even less Dersites in the library than there were outside, as most of them were heading to bed for the night.
I grabbed a few large and musty tomes from the shelves, such as 'A Guide to Consorts', 'Flora and Fauna of Prospit', 'Salamanders of the Golden Lands' and 'Turtles, Crocodiles and Other Blessed Creatures'. Viceroy grabbed a book too as we passed a shelf, 'The Gods of the Outer Ring'. I could already tell she was going to be a great student. While she plopped down on a chair and read that, I started to skim through the book.
'A Guide to Consorts' turned out not to be very helpful. It was too vague to be of much use. The book mostly talked about what the different types of consorts are, what of their secrets we have found out, and how they are to play a part in Days of Reckoning. Nothing that any Prospitian or Dersite hadn't heard a million times over.
I ha+ve no idea why the next book was called 'Flora and Fauna of Prospit' when it was basically 90% about the Flora and 10% about the fauna. It did mention that salamander usually eat bugs but speculated that it was possible that a Prospitian salamander might be able to digest different foods as well. I wrote that down on a piece of paper for later.
On another day, if I wasn't looking for something in particular, 'Turtles, Crocodiles and Other Blessed Creatures' would have been a fascinating read. This one delved into the connections between the creatures, their languages, possibilities of Heroes that they would feel more attached to or connected with.
'Salamanders of the Golden Lands' was exactly what I was looking for, seeing as it was apparently written by a Prospitian and presumably stolen from their library during an attack year (there's been too many to know which). Like the first book, it delved into how they were supposed to come into play in the End Times, but it also talked about what their culture seemed to be. According to this very extensive study they were all known to have yellow skin that should be kept at least moist or risk death (very important). Their language, to those who cannot hear it, sounds like 'glubs' with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it. Prospitian salamanders are known for blowing bubbles of spit. They seem to do this especially when exited.
I closed the tome, deciding to take it back to my room with me. This should be very useful. Viceroy noticed me getting up and followed suit, small arms wrapped around his book. He truly seemed intelligent, especially as far as young consorts go. A very promising student. But in the mean time, the sun was getting higher and higher in the sky and after such an eventful day, a little sleep never hurt anyone (too much). Who knows, perhaps I would learn things in my dreams today.
DAVE
Ugh.
If one more iguana tried to steal my jacket I was going to bring out my sword. No more mister nice Strider. Bam, twenty dead iguanas, the rest of ya better look out 'cause here comes the evil Dersite Hero, come to steal your children away and kill all the consorts that dare step in his way. Not that your scouting party really needed any more bloodshed on your hands. I mean, we hadn't killed anybody yet, but it would only be a matter of time until one of the Dersites snapped and killed those annoying little pests at my feet.
By which I mean frogs.
It was a well known fact that all Dersites detested frogs. I'm sure that there was some type of mythology behind it and that TentacleShamen had tried to explain it a time or two but I wasn't really listening. I just knew that, excluding Bro and me, the rest of our group was itching for their weapons as a frog ribbited and hopped past us. But the Prospitians highly respected frogs and if we wanted to get out of here unnoticed than the less dead frogs/consorts we leave behind, the better.
We were deeper into Prospit than I had ever been taken before, just outside of their Building of Heroes. God, why did it have to be so bright? Why did everything in this place have to be all golds, yellows and whites. Even with my sunglasses on it was a bit overwhelming. Probably didn't help that I had grown up with purple/black black buildings and awake at night. The leader of our group was technically Bro, but I could see that he was letting one of the Dersites who had gone on missions similar to this one numerous times take the reins.
I had seen Analysis Reconnoiter around very often. He was usually the one to tell Bro that I had run off during my duties again. He was basically head of the police. He gestured for Bro and I to watch the Building of Heroes while he and the other two Dersites on my team went closer to the castle. Honestly I didn't want to keep sitting around, especially when I could see something blue and vaguely iguana shaped in the corner of my eye.
It was around then that somebody left the Building.
In the times that we had come here for reconnaissance before nobody had ever left the building. All I knew about the Heroes of Prospit was that there was only, like, one or two and they had been trying to get their hands on some of us. Obviously Derse was like 'no-way josé' and then there was another war or something. Bro nudged me and nodded to her, which really wasn't all that necessary since I was looking anyway.
She had long black hair and large round glasses over bright green eyes. Her buckteeth sort of reminded me of John, which was sort of weird. She was wearing a long sleeveless black dress fringed with electric green. It was hard to see from this distance, but it looked like the dress was supposed to look like the night sky. The girl looked over at a short Prospitian and smiled. Then she started to walk our way.
I tensed at first while Bro remained as cool as a cucumber. She steered off course and went into a building, coming out holding a couple frogs in her arms. Now that she was closer I could see the tips of some green marking peeking up over the top of her dress. They looked a bit sloppy though. She then proceeded to walked back into the Building of Heroes.
"That was HylaGnostic." It was only years of practiced that caused me not to jump at the sudden whisper in my ear. Apparently AR and the other two were back. "Once you have grown older you'll probably see a lot more of her during meetings. She is the only young Prospit Hero that they have."
I nodded, not really knowing what to know what else to do.
"C'mon, we found a secret entrance into the castle. We're going in." Finally, something to do. As glad as I was to be moving, I let the others head off ahead of me a little bit so as to check my iphone. No messages. Hm. Hopefully I would be able check up on the others later.
For now, I put my iphone back in my pocket and flashed set towards the others.
A girl looks out her window as she sets some frogs down with the others in her room. She could've sworn she'd seen something move in the trees. Oh well, it was probably just an iguana or salamander tripping over some froggies. She pays it no mind.
AN: Hey, just wanted to say a special thank you those who have reviewed: REader7289, L3MONSNOUT413, me, and random reader. Also, thank you random reader for pointing out the flaw with Jade's name, I fixed it. :)