RP:Tomorrow's A Dream Away, Today Has Turned To Dust

Part of the The End's Not Near Arc

Summary: Reginae accidentally takes the wrong potion after Jaize vanishes from the battle at Chartsend and ends up in the Uyeer Kingdom, in Muzo's jellyfish tank. During their last exchange, he'd given her two potions for Alithrya and one so she could come visit him here. In a panic, she confesses to how she's always loved him, no matter what crazy unethical experiments he does and tells him she has to go face Jaize. She kisses him and drinks her potion, only to find Muzo is not on the other side.

Muzo's Quarters, Uyeer Kingdom

Muzo struggles against the urge to recoil, his hisses coming in sharp, quivering bursts as he works. A larger mirror would make this much easier, but the alchemist is getting by with what little he could pack. Tools in hand, Muzo pries and probes carefully at the edges of his prosthesis, tenderly adjusting the chitinous edges of his facial plate. Mouth agape in pain, he struggles to keep steady, frustration mounting with his pulse as his nose hovers inches from the handmirror atop a broad, nacre-finished desk, a lonely ornament in a room made more expansive and imposing by its sheer bareness. The walls are white, sometimes stained with faint purple growth lines--in typical Uyeer fashion, Muzo's been given the hollow shell of a giant snail for a home. Tall tanks of bright, bio-luminescent jellyfish stand at even intervals around the windowless room's edges, bathing the interior with faintly shimmering, pinkish light. Against one wall, sits Muzo's trunk. Large pillows lay here and there, well plumped and woven of some coarse, iridescent fiber. A calm pool of water, the only apparent way in or out of the domed interior, lays in an indentation on the floor, surrounded by rough sponge mats that show some signs of recent splashing. Muzo hisses again, and his tail writhes in misery. There's an audible snap, an energetic buzz, and his optical gem brightens with sudden depth and clarity. Muzo pants and slumps. He drops his tools with a clatter and grips the desk's edge for support.

Reginae’s blood pumps in her ears; the thunderous and repetitive crash ocean’s would envy. The plumb of smoke had been blinding, sneaking in to suck out the oxygen housed in her lungs. Maybe it had been adrenaline of the battle field, the smell of blood and ash, the persistent and piercing glare of her certifiable sister. All factors that could cause a delay –required more magic or focus for the potion to piece her back together proper. Unlike every time before, her arrival after downing the vial was not announced with a crash. Instead, she was pushed back, as if hitting a sturdy but smooth barrier. Here she hovered – suspended in cool, glistening waters. Muzo might hear the dull thud of her arrival from his position on the outside of the Jelly fish tank, but Reginae’s eyes were still closed. Her mouth opens, to draw breath that she’d long been denied, only to find her humanoid lungs fill with water. It was a compulsion she couldn’t have stopped if she tried. Immediately, the form of the male rogue unfurled into muscular shimmering scales that threw back glimmers of the iridescent scene. She saw nothing and everything as the glass hesitated to give way to her bulk and spinning head. In the shadow of her jaw line, small gills appeared. They expelled the water inhaled and drew in a fresh batch, to process accordingly. Her palms press flat on the interior of the jelly fish tank, their barbed tendrils lazily floating nearby – too dumb or lazy to sting her. The edges of her hands and face were stained with thick ashen mud, ground in so deep that even the tank’s water did not dissolve it on impact. Azurite orbs, wide with confusion, stare back at Muzo’s scarlet prosthesis as her brain scurries to catch up with the rest of physical being.

Muzo feels a dull "whump" and flinches, expecting a wave of pain to follow, some agonizing echo of the pounding sensation in his head that, to his mild surprise, never comes. But wait a minute, he tells himself, stretching his tail across the smooth, white floor. The sensation hadn't come from his head. It was something external. Perplexed, Muzo glances about the floor, looks to the rippling pool, studies the walls, the tanks of jellyf-gadzooks! Muzo would have dropped his tools now if he hadn't already. "Ha! Oh, my, oh." Arms, fingers, and attention all scramble in a useless display of urgency. What an oversight that the room should have no clear provision for getting visitors out of the light tanks. With no obvious alternative, the naga flips his trunk open, snatches an insect net and a washbowl, and with these in hand, he dashes over to Reginae coil up around the cylindrical tank. Swishes and splashes greet her ears as he begins frantically clearing the water above her one jellyfish at a time. His work is quick, but the bowl fills quicker, and soon has to dash off to dump the jellies in the adjacent tank. Maybe a couple trips like this, and the unexpected Regi might have a clear path to ascend.

Reginae would happily bully the glass to spill water and jellyfish onto the tile. Perhaps the tanks were not built for this; she has no success with jamming her slow motion battering ram shoulder into the walls. Ah well. Good thing she’s a naga… She watches with sobering interest as Muzo takes care of the jellyfish in a strangely caring fashion. Would it disturb him to let them die? After his last trip, the bloom of jellyfish has become little more than a dusting and she can wiggle her way up. Her elbow brace against the tank’s top, gills vanish into pale skin and a sopping wet naga makes her way onto the tile. Reginae shakes, wet dog style, to splatter the glass behind her. Once grounded, she blinks at the unfamiliar area and then at Muzo. This is the first time she’s seen him as…him in quite a while. Since their confrontation in the lab. She is not yet used to his replacement eye and finds herself rudely staring. “What is this place? Some cornered off section of the castle?” She looks around again, trying to place ANY familiar item. Nothing comes to mind, beyond the trunk she recognizes from his lab. “We- uh,” She clears her throat, uncertain but determined. “We need to get to the throne room.” Right? Her head tilts as if straining to pick up a sound, her tongue reflexively smoothing chapped skin that did not exist on her own lips, but was a distinct trait of her rogue disguise. The heels of her palms simultaneously cut along her cheek bones and she exhales while she gathers her thoughts. “Maybe we beat Jaize...” She whispers, eyes glazed as she listens for either a response from Muzo or something outside the room they occupy.

Muzo hurries to get out of Reginae's way, and while she climbs out, he dumps the last bowlfull of jellies. "Stunning entrance, my queen," he remarks, still astonished amid his bustling. "No castles here," Muzo blurts, and he opens one of the desk drawers to retrieve a couple heavy towels, one of which he tosses to her. "Have yet to see any throne room. Have yet to explore much at all." He busies himself drying the tank, the walls, and the floor as he goes on. "My quarters, unfinished. Sea floor. Uyeer kingdom." If her staring bothers him, Muzo doesn't show it. "Stung at all? Any burning? Swelling?" Laying the sopping towel over his shoulder, the belt-clad alchemist glides over to the queen's side to make a quick visual inspection.

Reginae’s reactions are still delayed. Her face gathers around the central point of her narrow nose and she examines the room once more through slitted lids. “Uyeer…” She mumbles. That –would- make a better explanation for …everything. “No…” She groaned in sublime anguish. There are no jellyfish stings but plenty of gathered scratches across her arms and face. Surfaces wounds that no longer bled. They surround the thin scar that fell across her face from her battle with the Uyeer king himself. “No stings. No time. Here – “ From her cloaked pockets, Reginae pulls the remaining two vials. “Either she knocked me off course, or more likely, I took the wrong one.” You sneaky devil, Muzo. Giving her a potion to the Uyeer kingdom! What a cad! It’s charming, she grins despite the life and death circumstances. “We have to go.” She swallows, stares down the cork on the vial and looks back at Muzo. Who knew what they would find on the other side. Maybe they’d land in the garden, be swarmed by guards. Jaize could strike them down before they gathered their bearings. Muzo may not drink the vial immediately. May not follow at all, in the chaos of her explanation. Ah, well. Just in case.

Reginae squares her shoulders, exhales until her clavicles become sharp plateaus against her chest, and places her hands on either side of Muzo’s snout. No need for platitudes. Just in case it’s the last time she sees him. The naga queen kisses the scientist with the passion of all the good and all the bad that’s transpired. The years that have unspooled like thread since their meeting. The years that may or may not be to come. If nothing else, he’d know how she felt in the end. The true end of all things. That despite the secrets he’d kept, the battles they’d fought on opposing sides, she wouldn’t let any real or imagined station divide them. No politics could change the truth. As sweet as it had been to kiss him on the boat, now…in their own skins, felt as deep and wide as anything she’d ever been privileged to feel. The kiss breaks. Her head spins as she uncorks the bottle and with her last inhale of Uyeer air, her eyes clear with determination. “I love you.” And then she downs the bottle and vanishes in a plume of crimson smoke, leaving behind only the water that had pooled beneath her snowy tail. Would Muzo follow after? Only time would tell.

Muzo bewildered concern piles in manifold layers as Reginae goes on. Matters at present stand roughly as clear as the overcrowded jellyfish tank, and significantly less illuminating at that. "No?" He echoes, far yet from gasping the root of her apparent anguish. She wasn't stung, then, thank goodness, but that's very little closure amid this unexpected gush of uncertainty. The sudden appearance of familiar vials confirms what he'd suspected; she'd arrived by potion. "Go now?" His fingers close around the offered potion. Friendly indignation fills his face, and just as he's on the brink of an outburst, something extraordinary happens. Reginae kisses him. They'd kissed before, Muzo knows it, but that doesn't stop his heart from doing somersaults, doesn't stop the quiet gasp against her lips. It's abrupt, abrupt as everything else as been from the moment she arrived, but somehow, at last, there is a communion, and Muzo understands. He answers, kiss for kiss, passion for passion, and when at last it breaks, Muzo can release the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. I love you, her words blaze through him like lightning. "I love you, too," it's hard to say, though, pains him to hear his words tumbling out over the top of her hurried drinking, over the hissing of blood-red smoke. As soon as she'd some, she's gone. Did she hear him at all? Coming quickly to his senses, Muzo shakes his head and asks the more pertinent question. "God and graces, what just happened." A moment, he looks around his lab, tries to sieze upon some hint that will suddenly make everything clear. There is none. "What just happened." Rushing over to his trunk, he flips it open with wanton haste and roots around, stuffing his belt and bandolier with this and that as a fanged sneer begins to spread across his ophidian face. "What just happened." With a huff of conviction, he whips out his scolar's robes, veritably throws them over himself, and without another second's delay, guzzles his own teleportation tonic. There's a coughing, a sputtering, and in moments, the smoke is bellowing from his very pores. So, Muzo and Reginae are in the same boat. Where and how the return to they world depends much on the present state of Alithrya.

Cenril Beach

Alithrya itself has always been a city touched by time. Vuryal knew it, Kahran knew it…all naga who’d come and gone, in and out like the fickle flicker of fireflies knew it. The magic barrier that warped the city was never a secret, though it’s inner machinations were an enigma to most. An ancient thing, long before the thought of humans, it twisted and twirled through time and space in effortless chaos until the apprentice of the gods brought it back. It was anchored in time by unstable cords; Vuryal’s creation. His planned use for the city seemed to be temporary and yet the city remained. A chromatic plum of browned scarlet smoke appears in a cove. The rich color that pinched Reginae’s pores had faded with exposure or misdirection, filling the small space to do more harm than good. The naga coughed loudly, the sound echoing off the low ceilings and narrow acoustics of her dim surroundings. Reginae strains to gather her breath, stifle her sounds, and sift through the rush of water and wave to decipher her location. This place doesn’t smell –quite- right. Trembling hands dust off her robes, dirt and mud still cake along her exposed forearms and cheeks. The tanks had done little to dissuade this filth. Though she is not yet aware, she’d ended up in the wrong location once more. Reginae does not know the cove she inhabits belongs to Cenril instead of Alithrya and would not know for some time to come. She stares with longing at her surroundings but no plume of smoke or coughing fits follow her.

She is alone.