open post: further up and further in

[magicianking]

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.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"Crowley doesn't do anything. He just makes things happen."

[magicianking]

Eliot shakes his head disapprovingly. "Very unfair. At Brakebills we have to learn a million languages and hand positions and Circumstances. Luckily Janet and I are very smart and good at it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Queen Janet is very skilled. She also turned me into a cat."

[magicianking]

"How was it? I've been turned into a goose, and a bear, and an Arctic fox. None of them were much fun."

[onthewillowsthere]

"She said I wasn't as cat-brained as she was when she was a goose. I could speak to my friends. But I was distractable, and my husband was able to intoxicate me with catmint."

[magicianking]

"Hold on, hold on, you're married? What are you, like, twenty-three?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes." As of Monday!

[magicianking]

"That's young. When I was twenty-three I would never have gotten married. I feel like I was barely a person yet." Eliot still isn't married, but whatever.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'm not you," Galahad points out sensibly.

[magicianking]

"No, you're Galahad from Arthuriana," Eliot agrees. He's a little disappointed that Galahad's married, since he's so pretty, but it figures he got snapped up young. "Well, I bet being high on catnip was sick as hell."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It creates a combination of arousal and aggression. Claudius took notes on my condition for me since I couldn't write."

[magicianking]

"Maybe I was high on catnip for my entire adolescence," Eliot jokes.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Really?" Galahad asks, blinking, as if he's seriously entertaining this possibility. He's aware that Eliot is joking, simply because of the sheer absurdity, and he's attempting to play along, but this is virtually impossible to tell.

[magicianking]

"Oh, yeah. I made some terrible decisions with boys," Eliot says. He's, like, seventy-five percent sure Galahad is going along with the joke. He's reminding Eliot a little of Julia, now. "Only explanation is catnip."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It is often the culprit," gravely.

[magicianking]

Eliot laughs. "Okay, now. Have I made sufficient small talk to see this tramp stamp? Or will you at least describe it to me? You have me dying of curiosity."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It is my husband's and my heraldry." It's also not for anyone but Claudius, but-- he was exposed when he and Magnus went swimming on the beach and when he and Claudius sunned on the shore, and Claudius seemed pleased by the idea of other people seeing the tattoo. It is a marker of his devotion. And he would like Janet's friend to be impressed by her magic.

Once he's decided, he turns his back on Eliot and lifts his sweater to display the dragon rampant around the myrtle branches. Only half of it is visible like this; the rest is below the waistband of his corduroy slacks. The colors are still vivid and crisp, blue and silver and green.

[magicianking]

Eliot gives a low whistle of appreciation. "Janet did some excellent work," he observes. It suits this guy, too. Obviously, he literally is from Arthurian myth, but it definitely adds to his fey-type vibe. "Maybe I should get her to tattoo me."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It hurt," just so Eliot has all the information. "But she is very skilled."

[magicianking]

"Nothing worth doing is totally painless, right?" Eliot muses.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is that true?"

[magicianking]

"In my experience, yeah. Even having a nice afternoon lying around drinking comes with a hangover, right?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't have very much experience." He's only been drunk once. He did, admittedly, feel terrible the next day, and Claudius tended to him indulgently, bringing him water and crackers with salt, assuring him it would pass, smoothing his hair back from his brow.

[magicianking]

"Right. I sort of remember that. God made you be straight-edge and chaste, et cetera, right? But you haven't stuck with that here, I assume. Given the husband."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I am not now chaste," he agrees. "I sinned in error and God forsought me. Now I seek to offend Him through my purposeful sins and my apostasy."