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The Heir is held captive at the top of a tower, imprisoned for his own safekeeping. The Seer observes his place of confinement, and calls the Knight to his aid and defence. The Knight valiantly guards the Heir’s tower, braving confrontation with the Witch, who surges forward with green powers crackling at the base of the staircase that leads to the Heir’s room.
The story page turns. It’s familiar.
They’ve done this before.
--
The Prince’s throne is cold.
The metal itself, is cool. It is a chill that seeps through his royal robes and into his bones, a shiver in his skin that he can’t seem to shake. He thinks of procuring a cushion, a throw pillow, a drapery of animal pelt; anything as a barrier between his being and the cold seat.
But he cannot.
He cannot leave.
The reality slips away from him every time he tries to focus in on it. He cannot stand up and leave. Yes, that’s true. And then the thought is gone. He doesn’t dwell on it. He cannot.
It’s a truth that does not lend itself to be altered. He is The Prince. He sits on the Throne. He oversees the kingdom, and plans. Always planning. Meticulous and calculated. Machiavellian even, though the exact meaning of the word escapes him. He is meant to lead from the shadows, while maintaining a bodily presence as a figure head. There is a ceremonial sword affixed above his throne, and if need be, he can use it.
But he is not to do so. He can fight. He is active. But his role is not to fight. It is…destruction. It makes him feel as if he should be fighting. As if he should leave his throne.
But he is The Prince, and his place is here. Planning.
The story page turns.
He frowns.
--
The Page is ready, as always.
He has a firearm strapped in at each hip, and his spectacles have been cleaned and firmly affixed to his face. In case of battle, of further treachery from the Witch or invasion from the Rogue, he will be ready to assist the Knight in defense, should the need arise, and to serve the Prince in any endeavours and planning he may need to put into motion. To rush to the Heir’s side if he calls, and to stand by the Seer or the Maid if either should need him.
It is a lot of responsibility, he realizes distantly. He is meant to be able to be everywhere and anywhere. To mold himself to any role. To have the potential for anything. He is not so fixed as the others, with their stories that they cannot deviate from.
He blinks.
Stories?
He means their roles in the castle. The roles that they must fulfill. The roles that recycle and repeat, the same circumstances and situations over and over.
His is the only role that changes. He is the only who shifts with incarnation. Potential, and what he believes himself to be capable of.
The part of the story that changes depending on who’s telling it. The little narrative flare added to an old, fixed tale.
The story page turns.
He is not sure who he is, other than potentially anyone.
--
The Maid is alone in the castle.
She shouldn’t be.
She knows this, and it makes her uneasy as she walks through the empty halls. It is not that a castle itself is meant to be bustling and busy, because how is she to know that? This is the only castle she has ever known, and it has always been quiet. No, it bothers her because she knows, she knows that she is supposed to be around people. Helping. It is what she is meant to do. In the sto-
She frowns.
There is a crash, further along the hallway, and she startles. Then she gathers up her skirts and hurries forwards, footsteps echoing loudly within the empty walls.
Near the end of the hall and the entrance to the adjoining corridor, a window has shattered, leaving a shower of broken stained glass littered about the floor. There is a figure in the middle of the disorder, dressed all in blue with a mask tied around their face. The Maid stills, watching nervously as the intruder rises to their feet, picking pieces of glass out of their outfit.
“Fucking ouch,” they swear, one hand rising to pull shards out of the cloud of pink-hued hair. “Coulda, could have, could have done that better. Definitely could have not broken every bone in my body while breaking and entering. 60% marks, need to do some extra cred to make up for his blunder. God damn.”
The Maid blinks. She’s never heard such strange references and expletives before.
(that’s a lie. she knows the words, and she knows that voice. she knows-)
It occurs to her that she may be in danger, that the castle in which she serves might be under attack. Perhaps the Witch has come here instead of battering at the tower, or the elusive Rogue has made an appearance at last. She wonders if she should call for someone. The Prince in his throne room, the Heir in his tower and the Knight to protect it. The Page to assist as needed, and the Seer in her rooms, to impart prophecies when relevant. She herself, the Maid, has the role of giving aid to others, similar to the Page, but only in her particular area of expertise. Which is-
Her mind blanks. She can’t remember. She can’t seem to recall. But…that is inconsequential. All that matters is that, for the moment, her aid is not needed.
(because nobody is is dea-)
The intruder whirls around suddenly, long scratches across her face and blood on her lip. Her eyes are blazingly pink, staring out from the strip of blue fabric wrapped around her head. They light up in delight as they fix on the Maid, and she freezes, finding herself suddenly transfixed.
It is The Rogue. The Maid knows this instinctively. She is familiar, as she should be, but
something is
The story page won’t turn.
The Rogue does not crash through a window. The Rogue sneaks. The Rogue sneaks and the Seer fails to see her and the Prince is forced to dispatch the Knight quickly to catch her and she evades him, stealing the dark corners of the castle as she disappears back into the void. That is how this goes.
She is familiar, but not in the right way. Not in the way that it should be. This isn’t how the story goes.
The page won’t turn.
“Janey!” exclaims the intruder, a blinding smile splitting their bleeding face, “I finally found you!”
--
The Heir is bored.
He is alone in his tower, as always. It is empty. His trinkets and toys, books and puzzles lie about, half-opened and discarded. He leans on the window edge and stares out to the kingdom he is to one day inherit.
(there is nothing there)
If he listens, tilts his head and listens, he believes that he can hear the Knight doing battle. Doing his duty, as always, to protect the Heir, to defend against attacks from the Witch, or thievery from the Rogue. The Heir wishes he could see such battles for himself, just once, but all he can do is listen to the clang of steel and the crackle of magic. It is a lot different from feeling the weight of a hammer in his hands and wind in his blood.
The page catches, sticks together. Folds and frays.
He does not have a hammer. Wind? What?
The Heir is not meant to fight. He is meant to sit in his tower, and be protected. He is meant to be in preparation to inherit the kingdom and castle, someday.
Someday.
The page turns.
He stares at his empty hands.
--
The Seer cannot see.
It is not the first time her vision has been blinded, nor will it be the last. Her all-seeing light can be irritatingly easily to confound at times, specifically in cases in which the Rogue is involved.
This is alright. It is a practiced experience. When her vision goes blank, the Rogue is in the castle, stealing what she will and raising the ire of the Prince as she does. It is how it goes. The Seer is above the perceived struggle of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and she does not fly into panic when her vision fails her. Not when she knows this is simply how it is supposed to go.
Except.
Except it is the wrong time.
It is not the time for the Rogue to stage her invasion. The Witch has only just finished her latest attack on the Heir’s tower. There are several pages-
(….)
There is meant to be more time between the two attacks. If the Seer’s lack of vision has indeed been caused by the Rogue, then she is early. Which is
impossible.
The page sticks a little as it turns.
The Seer stares into the void of her crystal ball.
--
The Knight is guarding the base of the tower.
This is where he always is. Where he always stands, at strict attention, with his sword at the ready. His senses are always keen, watching and waiting for the Witch to appear. Her powers and his clash explosively, but are similar enough that he can sense her if he tries hard enough. He is always able to thwart her attacks on the Heir. Always able to parry and defend, to drive her away. It is his duty to do so, ordained by the Prince, confirmed by the Seer and with the Heir’s wellbeing in the balance.
The Knight does not recall ever having met the Prince who commands him, the Seer who orders him, or the Heir whom he guards. But he knows his place, and his role. And it’s fixed. There’s no room for deviation, for variation, for time shenanigans or dead Da-
The needle skips over the record. Something is scratched.
The Knight looks behind him, to the stairs that lead upwards to the Heir’s Tower room. He knows the way he sounds when he laughs. This Heir that he has never met. He knows his laugh.
The page turns.
The Knight touches the hilt of his sword.
--
It is not time for the Witch to attack.
She knows this, as well as she knows anything. She knows the weight of the crackle of green that emerges from her fingertips. Of the way space bends for her, the way she can be here and then there in an instant. She knows that the boy at the top of the tower is her mission, and that she must fight her way up the stairs to him.
Fly up the side of the tower! You don’t have to take the stairs.
No. That’s not allowed.
Just teleport into his room!
No! That’s not allowed. That’s not how the story go-
She pauses.
Her fingers are bare. Sometimes she stares at them, and thinks they should be more colourful, and decorated. She wonders if it would help.
She does not like fighting the Knight. It makes something twist that shouldn’t be twisting. She does not think the Knight likes fighting her either.
Something is not right.
The page-
--
“No,” Roxy says, firmly, “No more pages. We’re not doing this anymore.”
--
The JuJu should have belonged to Calliope. A Muse, a storyteller, of Space. It’s appropriation by Caliborn, for all his malicious intent, couldn’t transform the root of its nature. In the end, while he had wanted to trap them in an endless Hell of his own design, all the JuJu would allow was trapping them in an endless loop that parodied their titles in Skaia. A story.
But they were Gods, and despite a Lord’s best effort to do otherwise, Gods could not stay trapped for long.
Especially when one of them was being aided by the JuJu’s intended owner.
--
“Break the pattern, break the story, and break out,” says Roxy, grinning back at Jane as she leads her forward by the hand, “We grab the others, then we split. It’s easy, right?”
“Easy,” echoes the Mai-, echoes Jane, sounding faint.
“Yup,” Roxy replies, “Just like closing the cover on a bad book.”
--