Written Wonderland

"Okay," Adrianna nodded, and pushed herself to stand up. "Thank you. This was very helpful. I believe I can get you back to the goddess soon."

She smiled reassuringly to the human, and began to turn toward the door, but hesitated. Partly, she anticipated the human might have more to say, or maybe their own questions to ask. She put on a good show of shyness and awkwardness, prepared to offer the human a "Hang in there" if they left too big a gap of silence.

"Okay," Adrianna nodded, and pushed herself to stand up. "Thank you. This was very helpful. I believe I can get you back to the goddess soon."

Raccoon watched Ada as she stood up to leave, sitting up straight at her sudden departure. They tried to listen for the guard--maybe footsteps were coming--but they didn't hear anything. Something about that made Raccoon's stomach twist.

"Wait!" Raccoon said, getting to their feet, eyes wide.

They said it before they really knew what they were going to say next, blinking a couple times to figure it out as Ada paused.

"You gotta let me out of here. Or at least give me some food? Please?" Their eyes were as large as they could make them now, pleading with her. They'd given her gratitude, hadn't they? Didn't they deserve some more food?

"Wait!" Raccoon said, getting to their feet, eyes wide. Adrianna pivoted slightly back toward them, her own eyes attentive and pensive--a fabulous performance, if she did say so herself; the impulse to smile wickedly tugged at her with a quiet thrill, and she expertly overrode it. She felt she had the creature in the palm of her hand, and that felt good.

"You gotta let me out of here. Or at least give me some food? Please?" Their eyes pleaded with her, gratifying her deeply. She kept her expression uncertain, staying in character as the sweet noblewoman come to help at her own risk. Though, to be fair, there were some ways in which that was not entirely a ruse. She needed to get a message to the queen soon, to head off some of the ways this could go sideways for her otherwise.

But first, yes, food. She nodded to the creature, apology in her brow about some constraints, but acquiescing what she could.

"I'll make sure you get some food. Hang in there."

Then, she took her leave, deciding this was the perfect place to end the interaction. Her footsteps padded off gently down the hallway, followed by a long silence.

Some minutes later, the door opened--without any footsteps having come. The tall, shadowy custodian from before slammed the door shut behind them, a plate held in their hand of bread and cheese and nuts and fruit. The custodian clunked it down on the table--not too rough, but just enough to bounce some of the nuts off of the plate. Then the custodian turned and walked away, their footsteps silent and followed by another loudly slammed door.

---

At the party where the queen still attended to their guests, a server discretely passed her a note.

It was short and sweet, amounting to "meet me after the party" should some prying eye have intercepted it--indeed, as likely would have happened. But in the exact phrasing were some additional hints for the queen:

This note was from Adrianna (that much, a very clever interceptor could have likely figured out);

Adrianna wanted to let the queen in on why she'd left the party early (a handful of possible interceptors may have been able to guess, presuming of course they'd gotten the first bit);

And she would be waiting for the queen in a particular spot where Adrianna often had quite secretive conversations with the queen (unless Adrianna had lost track of something, that bit only the queen herself should be able to figure, at least short of a very lucky guess).

Ada looked curious and sympathetic, though her eyes and mouth were stoically contemplative.

"I'll make sure you get some food. Hang in there." Raccoon rushed toward the door to prevent it from closing, but Ada had already closed and secured it by the time Raccoon made it.

They crossed their arms angrily, looking around the room. Feathers everywhere, gah. What a mess.

Just to keep themselves busy, they tidied the feathers into one corner at least, though they kept sneezing them around. Some of the feathers stubbornly would not get out of Raccoon's short, wavy hair.

The door suddenly started to open, and Raccoon's head whipped around. They hadn't heard anything. They shivered. They did not like not being able to trust their senses. Not at all.

The tall, shadowy figure slammed the door closed behind themselves, and Raccoon gulped, at least until they registered that the figure was holding a plate of bread, cheese, nuts, and fruit. Some of it looked... weird, but Raccoon wasn't going to complain.

This new person placed the plate down on the table hard enough to scatter some nuts to the floor. Raccoon noted that for later.

The figure didn't say anything and left as soon as they had come. Raccoon was too speechless to do or say much of anything. Down the hall, another door slammed loudly. Raccoon shivered again.

Eventually, though, they collected the nuts from the floor and ate those first, brushing a couple stray feathers off them. And then they started on the rest of the plate, eating about half before they curled back down and promptly fell asleep.

Melisade was growing somewhat tired of the party. Really, ever since she had seen Adrianna get up to take her leave, the queen had been a little on edge. She didn't like not knowing where Adrianna was. Over the years of working her way into the court as one of several magical advisors, Adrianna had made it clear she was not someone to be trifled with. And, lately, Adrianna seemed to make a point of involving herself in everything.

It was always subtle, of course. Connections that Melisade didn't find out until many moon cycles later, often. But Melisade was wary when it came to Adrianna. She felt that, if it ever became convenient for Adrianna, she would betray Melisade and possibly the entire court.

"Excuse me, your majesty," said a short dark fae lord with an oily mop of hair from another fae city along their shared coast. "You know, there are rumors..."

Melisade didn't like where this was going.

"...that the king hasn't been at court in a number of weeks. Now, some more pernicious individuals are saying maybe... maybe he died and all this talk of his travel is just a cover-up. Of course, I don't believe them for a second. I just want to make sure you aren't lonely without him. No one would judge you for taking a consort during this time, you know."

Melisade nodded. This wasn't the first time sometime had tried to court her since Puck had left on whatever this latest adventure was. She had grown accustomed to ruling on her own--Puck wasn't of much use even when he was present.

"Thank you, Lord Minet, I will keep that in mind. The king will be back shortly. His people do so love his playful and adventurous spirit." Melisade smiled, thinking more of how much she enjoyed when Puck went away than the thought of him coming back. She had to keep her emotion genuine.

She fielded a few more errant questions about Puck with playful gestures and waves of her hand. She had drunk slightly more than the single glass of wine she typically allowed herself at such events, and it was beginning to make her feel light and airy--but also tired.

But when one of the servers came over to deliver Melisade a note, she perked back up quickly, looking around to see who was paying attention.

You have a visitor.

I'll be waiting to discuss further.

The script was unmistakable. It was Adrianna's handwriting. Subtle, as always, with never enough information for Melisade to fully prepare. Typical.

She sighed and stood up from the table. The queen knew it was a bad idea to keep Adrianna waiting. Too often, the advisor took that as permission to act herself without input from the queen.

After bidding the guests farewell and giving them permission to open another cask in her absence, Melisade made a show of heading back to her chambers but soon took a detour down a servant's stairwell toward a long-disused area of the palace. Sure enough, Adrianna was there, waiting in the hallway far away from prying ears.

Adrianna changed into a far more practical outfit to traversefarther from her safe haven within the palace: simple black and beige harem pants and a sleeveless, form-fitting black top, with gentle magic woven throughout - one of Adrianna's specialties: Oh, don't mind me. It would be easy enough to dismiss when one very much did mind her, but it was useful for passing down hallways without accidentally drawing any attention.

She leaned against a wall in the abandoned corridor she and the queen had negotiated some time back. For a little while she watched the human through her crystal, but it was asleep by the time she'd arrived here, and that got boring quickly. So, she pressed her ear to the facet connecting to the forest stream, and closed her eyes in contemplation, recounting what she had learned from the human.

There was a war on in the human realm.

A rogue soldier from one army - Evan, likely the man who'd been seen with the goddess in nights prior - had summoned the goddess to the human realm and made a deal with her: volunteers from his army in exchange for the Shel'ti souls the goddess kept in her company, presumably to secure an alliance between the Shel'ti and his army in the war.

War of whom against whom, Adrianna hadn't been able to glean, but she lamented that she was rather behind on human politics, anyhow.

The human Adrianna had acquired was meant to be one such volunteer from his army. Nine or ten more would be coming tomorrow.

This human had disobeyed Evan's instructions and come to the land of myst early. The goddess had been sick or angry, and asked this human to filter a heavy, terrible-smelling necklace.

Then she set this human free to roam her orchards -- from where it ended up on the city outskirts, and ultimately into Adrianna's custody.

She was strategizing on what to do with all of this information -- with Melisade, and with the goddess -- when she heard footsteps approaching with the queen's gait. She serenely conjured a necklace to secure the crystal around her neck as she stepped away from the wall. Normally she might slip it into a pocket, but the queen assuredly had already gathered much of the crystal's purpose for Adrianna by this point; she saw no need to obfuscate its presence, and it was a pleasant weight on her chest.

"Your majesty," she said, greeting the queen with a smile. She paused, hesitating divulging information without first gauging the queen's state, but that was more impulse than strategy, and she continued just as soon as she could relax around it. "We received a visitor from the goddess earlier this evening, without her knowledge. A human -- not one of the Shel'ti. She'd set it to wander without warning it away from the city, but she will presumably want it back."

There. Surely that was enough of a good-faith gesture to begin with. She raised her eyebrow slightly there, taking a more spatious pause to now gauge the queen's response as she took in the information.

The queen hadn't thought to change out of what she was wearing for the party, and she realized now that was likely a mistake. Adrianna wore something significantly more subtle--loose beige pants and a black, form-fitting top. It would be simple enough for the queen to conjure something less conspicuous before she left, however, if that was what was still called for.

"Your majesty," Adrianna said with a smile that Melisade found rather unnerving. "We received a visitor from the goddess earlier this evening, without her knowledge. A human--not one of the Shel'ti. She'd set it to wander without warning it away from the city, but she will presumably want it back."

Melisade resisted the urge to blink a number of times, somewhat dumbfounded. This was a lot to take in. Instead, the queen looked down momentarily at the stone floors in contemplation.

Partly as a way to stall so she could think on what-all this meant and partly to obscure her reaction, the queen asked, "What condition is our visitor in? Did they come here willingly?" She suspected she already knew at least part of the answer, but it would take a moment for Adrianna to explain herself.

In the meantime, Melisade breathed deeply, her mind turning over this new information. A human. The queen knew that the goddess had a fully embodied human with her--he had been spotted by dark fae spies wandering about the forest--but Melisade thought it incredibly unlikely that the goddess would allow him out of her sight. She didn't much like to share her toys.

Unless... was it possible that this was yet another human? Briefly, Melisade wondered if perhaps one of the fae gates had affixed itself somehow, allowing human through. But, surely they would have noticed before the goddess did if that had been the case.

As with far too many other situations lately, it seemed that the queen would need to rely on the information that Adrianna had.

The queen looked down in contemplation, and then asked, "What condition is our visitor in? Did they come here willingly?"

Adrianna didn't answer right away, and she caught Melisade take a deep breath, gears nearly visibly turning--to Adrianna's sight, anyhow. Adrianna was hungry to learn more about what Melisade was turning over in her mind, but she didn't dare pry into the queen's thoughts unwelcome, tempting though it always was. Instead, she finally acquiesced, giving the queen cover to think while Adriann answered her questions.

"The visitor met a child on the outskirts of the city, and the child's mother, frightened, captured and sold the human to get them off her hands. The human ultimately came into my custody and is presently sleeping somewhere safe. They would like to simply be set free, but it seemed wise to keep them contained until we understand more about the situation."

"The visitor met a child on the outskirts of the city, and the child's mother, frightened, captured and sold the human to get them off her hands. The human ultimately came into my custody and is presently sleeping somewhere safe. They would like to simply be set free, but it seemed wise to keep them contained until we understand more about the situation," Adrianna said plainly, though the queen could feel her curiosity even when she wasn't looking at her advisor.

Still, there was much to think about. How long did they have until the goddess realized her charge had ended up in their hands, she wondered.

But perhaps it was time for Melisade to at least act like she was playing into Adrianna's hand.

"What do you imagine the best course of action is from here? Keep our visitor confined and simply use the situation as leverage for the goddess when she arrives?" Melisade put a hand on her hip for effect, looking directly at Adrianna as though issuing a gentle challenge. She wanted to see Adrianna rise to the occasion.

Melisade turned over Adrianna's words for just a moment before shifting her posture, a hand on her hip in a courteous challenge as she addressed Adrianna next.

"What do you imagine the best course of action is from here? Keep our visitor confined and simply use the situation as leverage for the goddess when she arrives?"

Adrianna gently shook her head and crossed her arms, her smile delicate. "I think we should go to her. Tonight." Adrianna paused briefly for dramatic effect--or, really, just to gauge Melisade's initial reaction while she pondered how many cards to reveal to the queen.

"The human indicated that something of import would be happening tomorrow. We can still angle for a trade, but regardless, it may engender some good faith to be proactive. Besides," There, Adrianna let her smile curl not-so-delicate. She tended to wear sweet masks overall, sometimes sultry, but in the right moment she enjoyed acknowledging some truth of what she was, especially to those who were plenty clever to know already. "I suspect there is quite a lot to learn in the goddess' territory, and this is a good excuse to venture into it."