...maybe it had been foolishness on her part, or willful ignorance, but part of Valentine hadn't been expecting her poison to actually work.

Twice she had used poison before, and twice the noble who downed it had been unharmed, proving their value in the most direct way they could. Such a poisoning attempt had even led Valentine to her beloved Lady Wynne, who she hadn't remembered because... because...

Because there were still things she wasn't quite remembering, weren't there? And she had taken that for granted, just like she had taken for granted that it wouldn't really matter if her poison was lethal or non-lethal, because it would just help her find allies anyway. But now Lord Entailor was dead, killed by her own hand, and yes it meant that the poison affected him but was that really a guarantee that he had been a bad guy after all?

Was it just her imagination, or were some of the people whom other servants had tried and failed to poison the same people who were smiling all the wider as the world around them shifted in fits and starts?

And now there was no royal ball, not even a dueling ground. Now this was war, and the surroundings showed it, all fanciful beauty dissolved into the grim truth of the battlefield. It felt right, in a way, because clearly they had been fighting all along, but... but Valentine still wasn't sure what she was fighting for, or even whose side she should be on.

Maybe the pennants meant more than she had imagined. Maybe the forest wasn't just a thing of beauty after all.

Maybe it meant something that she had killed a man in cold blood. And for what? For him looking askance at somebody else, somebody she didn't even know for certain was an ally? For a crush, perhaps. Or even if it was something darker, something cruder--was that really deserving of death?

And why was there some small part of her that didn't seem to see all these deaths as real, anyway? Nobles were dropping like flies around her, and she wasn't nearly as concerned as she should have been about that fact... it was just nobles dying now, but how long would that last, when they all thought servants were the scum of the earth anyway?

Valentine retreated back to what she knew, to what she could truly take for granted. She was... herself. More or less. She could trust herself, at any rate. And she was pretty sure she could trust Lady Wynne, and the princess. (But what if the two were at odds? Valentine shuddered and hoped such a thing would not come to pass.)

And actions spoke louder than words. Kindness perhaps could not be fully trusted, could easily be hiding poison beneath its sweetness, but cruelty spoke for itself.

This time, Valentine wasn't even the servant who was being abused. (And that was what it was, wasn't it? Abuse? When the nobles treated them as mere animals, or worse?) This time, it was somebody else who ended up berated for tripping and falling on their way back to the party they were serving. But it could just as easily have been Valentine herself, she knew.

An enemy to one servant was an enemy to them all.

And so Valentine served the bespectacled Count Hedgemon of Greentuft with a smile, and hoped that when the battle broke out, he would be too busy with his own bodily needs to use that crossbow of his against those who mattered.

Even if Valentine wasn't quite sure who really mattered anymore.

(Attempting to non-lethally poison guest #22)

FAVOR: +2 | INFLUENCE: 5 | TIME: 17
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When you have nothing left but dreams and memories, when illusions appeal more to you than reality, your spirit will be what sets you free.

YOU ARE TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD.

The voice echoes in her head. A voice that isn't that of the princess. A voice she knows well.

TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD. TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD.

Tuesday.

Tyr's day.

The day of war.

There's a reason she had been given this name. A reason she should never have forgotten...

The day of Mars.

Mars, the god of War.

Mars is war. Mars is strife. Mars is conflict. Mars is the patron of Rome. Mars who bears spear and shield. Mars to whom Ancile is shield. Mars whose spear is immovable unless called for an impending battle. Mars who belongs in this forest battlefield.

She breaths in, taking in the scents of this war: the damp of the Birchwild's soil, the decay of the fallen autumnal leaves, the blood, the sweat, the euphoria, the fear, and the mess that has been made of their banquet. Good. Let them kill each other. Let them all die so the princess can thrive with no enemies to oppose her.

But, who will the princess rule if they all fall?

Her?

YOU ARE TUESDAY OF THE QUEENSGUARD.

Had the princess given her this name? Had it been someone else? Someone who—...

"Maid! What is going on here?!" COUNT ROBIN OF RAVENSFORD is incredibly loud and for some reason he approaches her for explanations, despite the fact that until now she has gone unnoticed until wishing for her presence to be acknowledged. This shouldn't be. This is wrong. How? Why? Who is he? No, she's asking too many questions... Focus. Focus. The count comes in company of Ser Jasper, Knight of Ravensford.

An idea comes to Tuesday's wicked mind.

She curtsies, her expression marked by a deep sorrow. "A battle, my lord. The forces of the Birchwild are here to claim the princess' throne. We must defeat them and protect the princess."

"Aye, we must." The Count doesn't even question Tuesday's words, drawing his sword and cutting one of the Birchwild banners with it. Tuesday is starting to like this guy. But, how far can she push this little rumour, nay narrative of hers?

"Yes, with haste." The shadow knight agrees, reaching into her pocket (her inventory unseen to these foolish men) and retrieving a small lavender branch from among the many flowers she had collected during her visits to the Precipice. "But you lords must remember to bless your blades with the princess' blooms. You'll be sure to strike swift if you do."

She speaks with a certainty, a full belief in the princess and her throne, but the tongue of the cat is silver, and persuasive as she is, her intentions are devilish. For, when the count and knight finally allow her to run the bloom over their sword and axe after exchanging a look, this bloom is first dipped into what little is left of her LETHAL POISON.

"And what is that?" Ser Jasper is the one to question her this time, but Tuesday doesn't even flinch. Her mismatched eyes watch the faint trace left by poisoned lavender upon steel.

"Sacred oil, my lord knight." She lies. "Such as the seven by which lord knights like you are anointed."

"Ah yes, of course..."

"May you lords have good fortune in battle. Our princess needs us all." Tuesday curtsies, taking her leave, but in her mind burn questions... where had she come up with all of that? Knights anointed by the seven oils? That sounds weirdly familiar... Knights and dragons... songs of ice and flame...

Her head spins when thinking of it all, but thankfully the sight of Ancile pulls from such strange reasonings. Ancile is headed for the catacombs. Has he finally found M00K:Claw? She must know what her guild leader is up to...

Wait...

Her guild leader?

Tuesday ducks just in time to avoid Count Cleft of Willowbank (19), who charges to meet the blade of Count Robin with a proud "For the Birchwild! I will avenge my brother!"

She ignores him, not even looking when Count Robin slashes him, for she's much more preoccupied with hurrying after Ancile... Who had of course once been the Viscount Buckle of Willowbank. How ironic.

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Ibis had entered as dutifully as all, through the servant's entrance, into the quietness of here and there; the places that people didn't think about, didn't know about - or at least didn't care to wonder about. Why would they, after all? He was just a [STREAMER]. Just a... servant. He runs a hand through his hair for a moment as he feels that throbbing migraine rear it's head once again. Ibis steadies a trembling hand in just enough time for it to be filled again - a notice, from the heterochromic maid, scribbled onto paper and signed with a smiley face. It will make them all smile, huh?

The princess is [NOTHING] to him. [EVERYTHING] to him. When he looks into her empty eyes, he feels his head reeling like a spinning wheel, waiting for some right answer to land on to fill in that blankness. Why did she seem so familiarly unfamiliar? But Ibis hadn't been raised to think about little things like that, he had been raised to stay silent and bite, quietly, from the darkness. He serves his treats, he overhears arguments between fellow nobles, he nods politely at the rare thankyous he receives. Such is life as [PACE]. Ibis. [PACE]. Ibis. Ibis. Ibis. He bites his lip. It tastes metallic.

"Excuse me-"

Ibis turns around quick as a slap, surprised at having been addressed, and a shy-looking noble ponders his face for a moment, eyes half-covered through the frost of a pair of thick glasses. "A drink, if you please" He continues. "I... apologise if I took you by surprise"

Ibis de-stresses himself silently, pulled out of his thoughts by this young noble - Hedgemon, he believed, of Greentuft. How did he know that? He'd never met-
"It's perfectly fine, my lord. Right away." The message from Tuesday burns hot in his jacket pocket, as if calling out to him, but Ibis offers the drink without anything added. No poison. They couldn't all die, after all. Sometime between handing the young lord the drink and leaving, Ibis must have blinked, and something hits the back of his head, whitehot like a poker. What was he doing, serving drinks during a battle? Was he stupid?!

[leaving a gap to edit after action-log stuff]

Ibis may have been raised with a form of self defence, but he was no knight nor squire, and this situation was not one he wished to remain in, and so he did the thing he knew best. Run and hide. Cowardice? Maybe. But he'd rather be a coward who [GETS KICKED OUT OF COLLEGE],
Who... who...

By the time his head stops throbbing, he's breathing hard and heavy and leaning back against the cold, dark stones of the <Catacombs> wall. It's dark and the air down here is almost wet, and it provides a welcome change in temperature and intensity than the raging war above. Something told him to continue, though - perhaps it was the fact that he may have been seen running, or that something may have happened, or... in all honesty, he was just a little overwhelmed, so maybe descending the dark would help.

Ibis runs down stairs and corridors until his legs feel like they might fall off, awkward cobbles much more uncomfortable to [JOG] on than [ROUGE PARK]. Fuck, his head- but there's little time to worry about all that, when he arrives at a scene in-progress. That maid - Tuesday - and another figure were down here, and more concerning still, a Salamence lurked before them. Snarling, sniffing wildly at the new scent of intruders, but noticeably cloudy eyed.

Between the three of them, surely the beast could be felled.

"I suppose we have no choice" He said, out loud to nobody in particular.

FAVOR: +1 | INFLUENCE: 6 | TIME: 24
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A RUMOR spread through the hall like wildfire.

The forces of Birchwild were here to claim the Princess' throne!

But was it just a rumor?

Furrlicity Purrfection, the Corruption King, certainly showed no intention of bending the knee, and Sarah herself had no allegiance left to the winter siren squatting on a throne of cold dreams. The forest was now a battlefield, and with each clash of steel and poisoned blade the enmity between former fellows deepened, and the resolve inside Sarah grew to a burning core.

She reached out a hand to Crawmon Copperriddle. "Do you stand with BIRCHWILD, or with THE PRINCESS?" she asked.

He hesitated, cradling his burned hands. "With you, Duchess." It probably wasn't because she still held the burning sword.

She heaved him back to his feet, and along with Focus the trio cut their way through the battle, looking for familiar faces. Trustworthy faces.

They spotted Ser Price fighting for his life against an armored foe. A second enemy approached from behind but Price sensed the backstab coming and whipped his blade around to fend off the blade. Focus crashed into the man, and after a flash of blades and bloods and the group stood, breathing hard but unharmed.

"Do you stand with BIRCHWILD, or with THE PRINCESS?"

"I stand with House Cayge," Price replied.

"Good enough, now let's find him."

"PRICE! TO ME!" roared orioncayge, and the squad punched their way through the battle to join with the giant.

"Duke Cayge, I hate to ask, but do you still stand with the Princess?"

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SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Guest List}
1: Lady Ann d'Mooka
6: Lady Richtung, Marchioness of Schneeland - BRAIXEN
11: Crawmon Copperriddle
12: Ser Price - ENGAGE
18: Earl Slamson of Breakcourt
19: Count Cleft of Willowbank
20: Viscount Twain of Willowbank
21: Viscount Buckle of Willowbank - Cryogonal
22: Count Hedgemon of Greentuft

FAVOR: 2 | INFLUENCE: 6 | TIME: 30

Count Hedgemon didn't seem the slightest bit phased by Valentine's poison, and that should have been a good thing, right? Another ally found, no addition to her worries about poison gone awry? So then why did some part of Valentine feel vaguely... disappointed?

And the banquet that she had been tending to was entirely gone now, replaced with the clanging of weapons and the beginning of bloodshed, and while it was nice to have all the pretense stripped away, both the battlefield itself and the sudden, unpredictable change it signified left Valentine feeling almost as sick as if she had been the one poisoned.

She trusted her fellow servants, to a point, but they were starting to pick sides now in a battle that Valentine was only just beginning to understand.

And the princess just stood there, seemingly untouched by the chaos around her...

Before she could think better of it, Valentine started running towards the princess at breakneck speed.

She wasn't sure what she'd do when she got there, really. Part of her wanted to slap the princess in her smug serene face. Part of her wanted to kneel at her feet and beg forgiveness for whatever it was she must have done wrong. Most of her wanted to yell and scream and ask for all to hear what was going on, what had gone wrong, why wasn't the princess doing anything about it all, was this her idea or-

But Valentine didn't get the chance to find out what she'd end up doing when she reached the princess, because she was stopped before she got the chance.

<You won't.>

Valentine paused for a moment, then tried moving more slowly towards the princess, finding that she could only get so close before the message popped up again to block her.

<You won't.>

So the princess was no help. Either she was powerless to fix the chaos unfolding, powerless to save the lives of those around her, or she wanted this to happen. Neither possibility was terribly reassuring.

Valentine ran again to the one other [POKEMON] person she could trust, and thankfully, no message barred the way as she barreled toward her beloved Lady Wynne.

Valentine embraced her Lady in a tight hug, and for a moment she thought she saw something tiny and pink in the Lady's place, a Pokemon that was small but held incredible power, soft and warm... and then it was just her Lady again, beautiful and kind as ever.

Only after the hug had already lasted several seconds did Valentine realize, belatedly, that a noble and a servant hugging was... probably frowned upon here.

Valentine broke her embrace, sadly, and shot her Lady a sheepish grin. She glanced around the battlefield briefly, but it was hard to be sure if anybody had noticed them, if anybody was silently judging them.

Time, perhaps, to break that silence.

"Servant or noble, we all deserve the same respect, don't we? It shouldn't matter so long as our principles remain intact. Like Orion-" Duke Orion, part of Valentine whispered, but the part of her that was beginning to awaken once more didn't care. "I care for this land, and for the people in it, no matter what their position. Lady Wynne stands by me on this-"

A quick glance, a tight nod.

"Let the only blood we shed today be that of those who have brought this chaos to this world to begin with, whether they be servant, noble, or even the princess herself! And let the rest of us band together to make it so!"

Lady Wynne reached for Valentine's hand, and Valentine lifted their clasped hands into the air.

Would anybody heed the words of a simple servant and work together despite their differences even in the middle of a blood-stained battlefield?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Only time would tell.

But at least this way, she could at least say that she tried.


FAVOR: +2 | INFLUENCE: 5 | TIME: 35

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Cleo flinches at Raine's call, absolutely ready to ignore them. Not her problem, not her trouble.

But Yggy's panicked voice is a familiar one. "I guess I'm multitalented!" She shouts back. Her path skews towards Yggy and their growing group so they'd meet at the outskirts of the battle.

From there… She chews her cheek.

The delusion's memories linger like stains on her mind, telling her what paths exist. Existed? Hopefully still exist.

The winding servants paths have transformed, winding forestry paths melding into tunnels into… maybe more mansion again? As if the world couldn't quite decide what it was, trying to appease the multiple wills asserting themselves on it.

She starts for one of the open exits.

But there are none. Mist swirls, condenses, then like Lego blocks snapping into place, ice freezing into form, guards appear. One by one, blocking their escape.

The guards can't quite seem to decide who to target first – Yggy Br00ks, who'd tried to attack the princess? Valentine, shouting for people to potentially band against the princess? Furrlicity Purrfection, the king of the nation daring to thaw her Highness' icy domain?

All three at once, they decide. After all, an army that can just spawn in as needed doesn't need to worry about how they use their forces. The growing mass marches, a slow wave ready to swallow them all.

No open exits. At least, not obvious ones.

But those fake memories still remember the hidden ones.

She darts towards a tree. Right… here! An exit, once disguised as a pinewood grandfather clock.  She presses her hand to the tree, feeling through the layers of illusions, and she feels the mist give way. The tree's illusion holds but its physical properties cease to exist, letting her hand clip through.

"Come on! This should get us to… the bedroom?"

And the rest of her clips through, straight into the winding halls just beyond.

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Duchess Sarah gripped Duke Cayge's hand, forging a pact between their houses. Brilliant light surged around the pair and their followers, and a brassy battle song filled the air.

The WhiteCayge Coalition has been formed!

Sarah scanned the thinning forces. Some were dreams, some were phantoms, and many more were mere corpses littering the steel and autumn woods. "There!" Sarah said, pointing at the crumpled form of a familiar brother.

The Princess' theme howled across the battlefield, cold and bitter as a freezing gale. It was a scream of ice that bit into their forces and clawed at their spirit. Sarah pulled her cloak tight and wiped frost from her face. "So this is the reality of battle with Articuno," she said to Orion. "Those who don't succumb to the slow cold or fake dreams must face the howl of absolute zero."

The others didn't seem bothered by the cold. Was it just in her mind? Was the frost from that other Sarah? The phantom who had rearranged her mind and piloted her body?

Focus must have felt the cold too, for her shield ignited with lavender fire and she took point. She was a windbreak against the icy wind, and the crew forced their way through the fight and towards the kneeling figure of Viscount Twain of Willowbank.

Earl Slamson of Breakcourt knelt beside Twain, one broad, golden arm around his grieving friend. "It was the forces of Birchwild," Slamson said, as his friend wept. "They poisoned their blades and slew Cleft with a single cut."

Poison?

"That's not the way of Birchwild. That's the way of C.L.A.W," Sarah said. She hadn't seen her guild leader since the event started, but the glint in Cl.L.A.W's eyes matched the sheen on the bottles of poison that had been up every servant's sleeve. "Birchwild doesn't poison, it either Corrupts, or it Burns to ashes." There was no Corruption blooming in this hall. Not yet. And unless Moltres arrived the only flames they could fight the princess with were their own.

She laid one hand on Twain's shoulder and the other on the gleaming armor of Slamson. "Join us. Groups are forming fast and the last thing you want is to be left out in the cold. We'll keep you safe from the ones who did this, and together we'll break this spell."

Earl Slamson of Breakcourt and Viscount Twain of Willowbank
have joined The WhiteCayge Coalition!

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SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Guest List}
1: Lady Ann d'Mooka
6: Lady Richtung, Marchioness of Schneeland - BRAIXEN
11: Crawmon Copperriddle
12: Ser Price
18: Earl Slamson of Breakcourt
19: Count Cleft of Willowbank
20: Viscount Twain of Willowbank - ENGAGE
21: Viscount Buckle of Willowbank - Cryogonal
22: Count Hedgemon of Greentuft

FAVOR: 2 | INFLUENCE: 6 | TIME: 41