magicianking | open post: further up and further in

Eliot hasn't been depressed, per se, because it's sort of impossible to be depressed in Fillory. There's too much to do, these days: rebuilding Castle Whitespire, helping Josh and Poppy with the baby, and generally trying to run a post-apocalyptic-but-now-pretty-much-fine magical kingdom. Being High King of Fillory is, not to be totally cliche, Eliot's calling, and he's found a peace that he never had before. But it still sucks absolute balls that both Quentin and Janet are gone.

When Janet had first disappeared, Eliot had devoted all of his kingly resources to trying to find her. None of their world-jumping buttons had been missing, so he'd promised a knighthood and a castle to anyone in Fillory who found the missing Queen Janet.

"She won't love being treated like a damsel in distress like this," Poppy had told him.

"Well, if you have a better idea," he'd snapped, and that had been that, until a letter had arrived in the gazing pool. It had been frustratingly contextless, but obviously from Janet.

"Where is she?" Josh asked at the next meeting of the monarchs.

"I don't know. She's trapped, but she seems more annoyed than in danger."

"So she's in another universe? Since she had to use your telegram thing?" Poppy asked.

"Seems likely."

All of them had lapsed into silence.

"Should we call off the Queen hunt? Some of them are getting a little Don Quixote out there," said Poppy.

"No," Eliot had decided. "Just in case." Damsel in distress, Janet was not; but hell if he would ever be the one to give up on finding her.

--

Eliot's on his way to check on the progress of Castle Whitespire, wandering up the path from the comfortable townhouse he's been staying in, when the ground changes abruptly beneath his feet. He stumbles, and when he looks up--Dorothy, he is not in magical Kansas any more. Not in Oz any more? Whatever. The energy of wherever he is is totally different. He doesn't think it's Earth, either, despite the fact that he's in front of a huge Earth-style mansion.

"What the fuck," he mutters, and opens the door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Yes. You're in a different world to the one you've just come from. I can't imagine you're caught here; it's one of those days, so you ought to be back to wherever your home is by this time tomorrow."

From:

magicianking

"You'd be surprised by how unsurprising I find that," he says. "High King Eliot of Fillory. Nice to meet you."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Eliot!" says Susan, whirling from her work to take this newcomer in in full. "Janet's Eliot?"

From:

magicianking

"You know Janet?" Eliot smiles. "Yep, I'm hers, though not like that. You'd think Fillorians would get I'm not interested in women by now, but no one can resist royal gossip."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

Susan ignores... most of this. "Oh, she'll be ever so pleased that you're here," she sighs. "I'm Susan. Queen of Narnia, incidentally, though I imagine if Janet's not heard of it, you haven't either."

From:

magicianking

"I'm afraid not. Is this Narnia, your majesty?"

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"I'm afraid not. It's yet another alternate world."

From:

magicianking

"Some kind of magical queen-napping dimension? Sounds like it's being run by a total perv with a very specific fetish," Eliot observes.

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

There's warmth all over Susan's face as she regards Eliot. "I do see why you and Janet get on," she says.

From:

magicianking

"Seems like you get on with her, too," Eliot says. "You guys friends?"

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Oh, rather!" says Susan, with a peculiar sort of emphasis. After all, Janet isn't the sort to talk about people who genuinely mean a great deal to her with just anyone.

From:

magicianking

"Oh, I see!" Eliot says. Trust Janet to pull probably the hottest British lady in this weird bubble dimension. He looks at Susan with new eyes. She sort of seems too uptight for Janet, but she hadn't blinked at the fetish thing, so Eliot guesses you can't always judge a book by its cover. Susan's cover, he suspects, would be leather-bound and embellished. "Are you a magician too?"

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Oh, not in the slightest." Susan finds that it's easier than usual for her to give a little laugh - she really is tremendously glad that Janet shall get some time with her dearest friend. "I find the precision of it all thoroughly appealing and the idea of Welters in particular fascinating - Janet's trying to sort that out here, as I'm sure you might imagine - but I've not got the inclination. I'm a scientist."

From:

magicianking

"God, Welters. I haven't thought about that in so long," Eliot says. Janet must be bored beyond belief if she's trying to organize it here. "Scientist-queen is pretty damn cool, though. You would've fit right in at Brakebills."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Would I!"

From:

magicianking

"Oh, yeah. We're all complete geeks, as much as we pretend to be cool. Overachievers, and all that." Eliot smiles.

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"I'm no geek!" exclaims Susan, horrified at the implication behind the word as she understands it. "My goodness!"

From:

magicianking

"Okay, I get the sense that doesn't mean to you what it means to me," Eliot says. "Unless you're very offended by being called, like, obsessively interested in niche topics. In which case I apologize and promise I'm not going to shove you in a locker."

From:

quote_gentle_unquote

"Certainly not," says Susan, her feathers still mostly ruffled. "I haven't got any deformities and from what I understand from Janet, you're not the sort to mind sexual nonconformity."

From:

magicianking

"Oh, definitely not," Eliot says. "Nothing wrong with deformities, either. What's with the misunderstanding, though? I thought this place had a crazy good translation spell."