Silly Plots 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Morty]

[Rescue Mission]

Fayyaad notices Cassandra's tension. Does she have a better idea about those vials? She seems to be very wary of them.

"Do you know what those are? They seem unsettling."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Rescue Mission]

"Demon essence," she says, far too casually. It's pretty apparent that she's forcing herself to be calm, as she takes both of the vials. "You can hold on to both the healing potions, I suppose. I already have more than I hope I need," she admits.

[Morty]

[Rescue Mission]

"If you say so," Fayyaad says, taking the healing potions. "I don't see any use for demonic essence, myself. What do you want to do with it? You don't sound like you want it."

[Ashen Lilies]

[Rescue Mission]

"It's power at a price." Says Cassandra, frowning. "I intend to destroy it if I can, and keep it locked away if I can't." She continues, lying to herself about as much as she's lying to Fayyaad.

[Morty]

[Rescue Mission]

Fayyaad raises an eyebrow. Cassandra is being cagey, but it seems to make sense.

"Well... good luck with that, then. You seem to know a lot more about than I do." He pauses, remembering Cassandra has his clothes. "Should we head to Trog's so you can drop off my clothes? Or would you rather take care of those vials quickly?"

[Ashen Lilies]

[Rescue Mission]

Cassandra blushes uncharacteristically (not that Fayyaad would know much about what's characteristic or not for her) when she catches his expression, her cheeks deepening in color from ash to cadet.

"Sorry for being cryptic. What I mean to say is, imbibing demon essence would certainly increase your might - both physical and magical, but at the cost of your own purity. Taking a demon's corruption into yourself is a dangerous affair. I wouldn't wish anyone I knew to risk that kind of temptation."

She clasps her hands behind her back, gripping her own arms tightly as she nibbles her lip briefly in contemplation.

"They won't do any harm closed - it's only a risk if we imbibe them. I don't see any reason we can't stop by at Trog's. Besides, a successful adventure deserves some form of celebration, right?" She says, giving Fayyaad a sheepish grin.

[Recaiden]

"Here!"
Alexis doesn't seem to be hurt, just tumbled over, now sitting with her legs all in a tangle and one hand against the ground.

Sarina may notice a spidery magical signature: something approaching through time (and not through the normal 1 second per second way everything else does).

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina crawls over to Alexis, resting on her furry abdomen. Even in their confusion her snakes nuzzle Alexis. She reaches out and tugs Alexis' furry ears.
"Are you ok? Your face looks so grim and dour to be framed with my silly ears." she says with a weak smile.
"Oh, I want my legs back. All of them, and my giant butt, and my big, stupid ears. Message can't help us, can she?" asks the gorgon.

[Morty]

[Rescue Mission]

Fayyaad nods to the explanation. He can see why it might tempt someone, but imbibing demonic essence is asking for trouble. He doesn't pick up on anything Cassandra might be hiding. He's not terribly perceptive about that.

"It certainly does. We saved someone, escaped danger and got paid for it. Let's go."

[Recaiden]

[Summer Tour]

"I think I'm alright."
Alexis nods, and goes back to pushing her hair out of her face. It seemed like a nice thing to have for a moment or two, but what's the point of a head-covering that can't move on its own? Not much at all, is there? She can't help but smile, amused, at Sarina's touch on her ears.

"What? Of course she can! Here, let's get up to the center." The spider-creature sounds a little offended that Sarina is questioning the goddess's capability.

It is at this moment that a proper giant spider appears along the edge of the pit, emerging from the ground like a phantom, blurry for a moment before coming into focus, a spiky tan thing mostly well-camouflaged in this environment. Sharp ridges along the arms glint in the sun, bright as any blade and eight eyes (mostly all the same size) look over the pair before settling on the false-drider.
"Little sister Sarina-who-has-only-a-human-name, hello! The-eyes-of-one-being-the-window-to-the-soul-upon-every-person did not describe you very well, did she?"

[Ashen Lilies]

[Rescue Mission]

To the tavern!

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina waves to the spider. She'd been hoping that was the feeling she'd felt and not a horrible time anomaly. "Hi, that's me. We're having a bit of a shape mix-up at the moment. Were you sent for something?" she asks the spider. Hopefully Alexis can have them fixed up in a moment.

[Recaiden]

The spider looks between the two of them.
"The gorgon is the sister and the sister is the gorgon?"
Quite disconcerting!
"Yes, but, of course, it can wait."
The Huntsman Princess seems to pause there, freezing completely in place, not disturbed by events or wind or anything. A brief chrono-hibernation where time scarcely touches her.

With great effort and care and probably holding onto Sarina, drider-Alexis climbs up the slope to the rise at the center of the crater.
"So, definitely, going back to normal, right away." she hazards saying, sounding like she's convincing herself.

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina nods to the princess and snuggles up to Alexis as she climbs up the slope.
"I believe in you. You two can do it." Sarina insists, and waits expectantly for her legs and ears to return.

[Recaiden]

And believing in it helps make it true!

Alexis takes a meditative posture, left arm straight, right arm angled, palms half-together.
"This is a place of change, of endings. No change is itself unchangeable, no ending forbids beginning."
"In the cause of serenity I call Hunter of the Cup."
"As the First Messenger regained her wings, let us regain our forms!"

Sarina should feel herself getting numb, distant, drifting off to sleep...before snapping awake as her normal many-legged silly-eared self.
Alexis is on her (only two) knees at the crater's center, outfit in some disarray. There's tracks of tears down her face (once again warm and somewhat expressive), and the snakes are a tangled riot squirming this way and that.

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina sighs with relief. Maybe she should have asked for normal ears again, but she doesn't want to mess with the mojo. Especially with the ears being a gift from Message.
She looks about for her saddle but her attention turns to Alexis. Poor pants-less Alexis.
He "Hey, what's wrong? You're crying." she asks gently.

[Recaiden]

The saddle's probably back on the slope down, near the edge of the crater.

A bundle of snakes curl down and forward to hide Alexis's cheeks and eyes from easy observation.
"I'm alright." No false elaboration follows, she just thinks it's not Sarina's concern.

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

"Are you going to be okay? I can tell him to wait if you need me. I don't think he'll mind." Sarina insists, giving Alexis a hug. She most certainly does NOT look alright.

[Recaiden]

Alexis holds her tightly, even some snakes draping around her, for rather longer than is usual.
But she insists, "Of course I'll be okay. I have Message with me, after all."

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

"If you insist. I don't think I'll be long." she tells Alexis with a peck on the cheek.

Then she has to go over to the huntsman princess and give him a temporal nudge to get him out of that stasis.

[Recaiden]

Alexis nods and trembles slightly, but then sits herself is a posture of prayer.
The snakes mostly uncoil and calm down.

Now, Sarina, you should know that the Huntsman Princesses is a female. It's only the role of Mimic Princess that's played by a man.
Regardless, the spider speeds right back up to rejoin the normal time-stream.
"Oh, yes. You look much more correctly corresponding now." she confirms, waving her fangs.

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina folds her arms, trying to be smiley at the nice spider princess.
"So, I'm guessing that the Queen sent you for something? Or did you just want to show up and say hello?" she asks her. Oh, up close she is much more obviously female. Her mistake. No one will ever know.

[Recaiden]

"Oh, no, the Queen would only send me to you in the most grievous cases of emergency. Ones where we wouldn't have time to wait."
She has no particular ability to smile in return, but it's well received.

"I did think we ought to get acquainted, but I also wanted your help with a matter a little smaller than that."

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Oh. Okay then.
"Fair enough. You know me. Is there a name I can call you? And what's the favor you need?" Sarina asks, subtly flicking her ears as she's quite happy to have her enhanced hearing back.

[Recaiden]

One could take that as "I'm too important to deliver messages" or as "I'm so much more important than you." Both happen to be applicable.

The other princess bobs her head.
"Well, I know of you, but we haven't gotten to know each other at all!"
"Our elder sister frames my name 'Mark of Seven-hundred Swords Upheld'." She shifts awkwardly from foot to foot to foot, well-aware that that's too many words. It's not 'The Memory of a Perfect Flower Arrangement that Provides you Insight into an Unrelated Dilemma', but it's still pretty bad. "Maybe 'Blade'."
"As for your help, I've been squelching negative-lottery-class probability waves, and, uh, the weaving required is pretty difficult." And Sarina is supposed to be particularly gifted at that.

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina blinks.
"So, can you show me what it is that you need, Blade? I admit I've never woven something like that before." Sarina admits, trying to wrap her head around what the princess just said.

[Recaiden]

"I mean outcomes that probably won't be called, but would really be bad if they were. The solution, other than disengagement, is usually little things, like diverting the course of a river with a well-placed pebble. Which means the possibility-threads are very slender and hard to work with. Here-"

In the space between Blade's front legs, the fabric of reality is suddenly more visible to time sense.

"The closest one: somewhere in here is the possibility of the angel fallen here causing a war in the heavens. We want to block off that path."

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina blinks at the tangle of space and time. Who would have thought she'd be doing this, a year ago?
"Okay. So...you need all the threads to be as far from that possibility as possible? Is that it?" she asks. She's never even looked at something this complex before!

[Recaiden]

"Oh, uh, yes, that would work."
"The difficulty is not tangling anything up in doing so."
"So normally I would try to tie other unlikely strings around it, so it can only happen if they also do? Like this-"

A second copy of Blade jumps up out of the crater where the first one did.
"Don't do it!"

[Deathkeeper]

[Summer Tour]

Sarina looks from Blade Number One to Blade Number Two and suppresses a sudden desire to groan. Gods, she hates time travel sometimes.
"Yeah, wouldn't that potentially result in basically all the bad, unlikely scenarios happening all at once if they start chaining?" she asks, looking between the spiders.