Late 20s tgirl. Elf ear pervert. Some say hemipenis girl. Writing mostly original F/F. Stories will frequently be horny so if you're under 18 you're getting blocked.



caffeinatedOtter
@caffeinatedOtter

Holding Court

The feasting-chamber is a relic, like all the spire, of a bygone age; of abundant population, of the necessity of great spaces. Later ages progressively hung it with great filmy curtains, hiding its extent, pretending its size is fitted to the populace of the day.

Later still, the pretence in defiance of decline stopped, even as the decline did not. Now even the closest curtained limit describes a space enough for perhaps one or two hundreds, in which the only the Fool, the princess, and Ser Glorie ever dine.

The princess has spent another interminable day as the linchpin of the Terminus, the capstone preventing reality's unravelling. Removed from the throne, she sits like a marionette with no hand upon the strings, stiff and blank, exhausted. Glorie sits at her elbow, even as she does beside the throne; the Fool sits where she will.

The princess blinks slowly, hand hovered over her plate, forgotten. Glorie touches her elbow gently, reminding her; the princess comes back to herself, jerkily plucks another morsel from her meal, mechanically chews.

The Fool is sprawled on the table, the dome of one of the food providers jammed open with a chopstick, taunting the internal nutrition spinnarets by repeatedly watching them begin to spin the substance of a bread roll, then nudging them out of their paths with the other chopstick, or plucking their work in progress out from between them and leaving the waving tendrils confused. She is holding forth, telling an endless tale, too full of characters and too devoid of appreciable sense or throughline for Glorie to make sense of it.

"—But the vizier, forsooth, loathe to keep his promise, told them that he would relent only if they brought him a certain magic bird—"

"What bird," the princess says, tone seemingly weary and disinterested; but Glorie watches the Fool unobtrusively assess their charge's sudden display of human engagement, her return to herself after being screamed down to numbness by her chorus of spire-bound archived ancestors.

"Why, the magnificent Miracle-Bird of Old Shan," the Fool says. "All will recall its feathers of blue, its crest of shining pale, its voice like a heartbroken maiden. The Miracle-Bird had the power to grant wishes, it was said, and the vizier desired it—"

Glorie gently touches the princess's elbow. The princess remembers to eat a mouthful. The Fool performs, appearing as indifferent as possible to their presence and attention; but always watching, watching, in a mood to be attentive to the princess's state and need.

Glorie watches her watching, and stays quiet.


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