The Chamber of the Black Queen

[serpentoflore]

"Keys?" She placed the fork down on the empty plate, much calmer than usual. "I don't know anything about large keys or anything." She spoke, not having looked at the pieces of paper she still held close to her skin. "I really don't know anything about that." She adjusted her glasses again.

[MeadowSong]

[glow=Purple,2,300]"I see, then," said the woman, eying her with some suspicion still, but a clear false smile playing about her. "In that case, you are welcome here. You may call me Maleficent, queen of this dismal location."

Maleficent stood up and circled the table, glancing at the girl between intervals. "So you were attacked and arrived here by ship, you say? How interesting. It must have been terrible for you." Inside Maleficent was just thriving on the girl's fright, but as Shadows began advancing from the darkness she shook her head. They retreated, unnoticed, back into the unlit areas of the room.

"Tell me, then, about you?"[/glow]

[serpentoflore]

"I'm just Sarah Appleton." She spoke, one hand making sure none of the frosting or crumbs remained on her face. "I come from a place called Middleton." She looked wary of the woman still, but this was someone who let her at least sit down. Everyone else was cryptic, and the black creatures had no voice at all. "Thank you for your generosity, your majesty." She bowed her head once to show respect, realizing she had not yet.

[MeadowSong]

[glow=Purple,2,300]"Middleton, you say?" she chuckled, covering her grin with a cupped hand. "An awful lot of you lately. Well, Sarah Appleton, I'm afraid time is short, even Nowhere; Beatrix, Shego, and Acteur. Come to me at once. The girl is here. Show her the best of treatment in my palace." Her voice would soon echo throughout the palace. She stood up, waving her hand over the green orb on her sceptre. "I must leave you now, young lady, as matters of utmost importance call. And, as queen and mistress of this dominion...you understand. I'm sure you're very tired after eating that cake." she turned away, that huge grin unmistakably evil. "Now sleep..."[/glow]

[Shego]

[glow=green,2,800]
**From towers of Destruction**

The thief made her way up the stairs and down the long corridors of the castle, making her way near The Chambers of her Royal Mistress of all Evil, Maleficent. She would continue to mumble angrily at how easily spooky her co-workers could be. She would sigh, growing calmer, and just in time. She looked up at the black tainted door, and she reached up to knock at it lightly with a gloved-green hand.

"Knock-ity-knock knock." Shego would joke, trying to collect her cool. "You called, Queeny?" - with that the villain opened the door to peak inside. [/glow]

[MeadowSong]

[glow=Purple,2,300]Maleficent nodded as Shego entered the chamber, and looked back to the other girl. Surely, what with Shego's notoriety in her world, this new girl would know of her. But she would be asleep soon, most likely, because of the tonic she slipped into the cake.

"Ah, yes, Shego. Where are the others?" She felt Atticus' presence somewhere in the palace and smiled. "Oh, now I must be off. I need to speak with someone..."

She turned and left the room to Shego and the others--whenever they decided to show up.

***Going to the Towers of Destruction***[/glow]

[serpentoflore]

Tired. That was the word that echoed through Sarah's mind. It had taken away the emotions she should be feeling. She should be tired and exhausted. After all that running, how could there not be that familiar feeling? Her body moved back, taking quite a bit of effort to reach the back of the chair. Should she answer Maleficent? She couldn't remember anything on how to treat royalty at the moment.

Her eyes closed, zoning out the voice she could vaguely hear entering the room. She let her body relax into what seemed to be a gentle, almost methodical sleep. The pain disappeared, even for a little while.

[Acteur de la Noir]

From the Tower:

Acteur would enter a little while after Shego--fashionably late, such as it was. Of course, it wasn't like he'd been merely watching events play out; he'd had to further direct his Heartless brethern--securing the landed vessel, looking for signs of anyone else (bad enough that they'd had a pointy-headed lone wolf roaming the halls not that long ago!), and so on. Such things took concentration and focus, and by the time that Acteur had been satisfied that things could progress smoothly on their own, he'd found that a lot more had happened in his "absence" than he'd thought. However, the Heartless Puppeteer wasn't one to remain daunted for long--with a swirl of his cloak, he'd gone rushing to meet Maleficent's summons.

Which brought him to the here and the now--walking up alongside Shego, peering over her shoulder to ponder the Keyblade Notes that the sleeping beauty had been carrying. Tapping the chin of his mask thoughtfully, Acteur let out a quiet hum.

"My, my...this one must have a story of some sort, to be carrying such significant text on her person." A pause, and another musing hum--this one laced with amusement. "Hmm...the Lady Maleficent did say she was to be treated fairly. Shall I instruct my brethern to fetch some tea and scones? Perhaps with the proper hospitality, our guest may be able to tell us how she came about these notes..."

[Shego]

[glow=green,2,800]"Ah, my oh my.." Shego would mumble next to Acteur, resting her hands behind her head and walking near the girl, a light step quiet within the darkness, "What do we have here... looks like a city girl."

Shego tilted her head a moment, considering in checking her pockets for some cash, but sets the thought aside, leaning forward, "... she looks the boring type. She'd LOVE some scones and tea, richy types always do." she pouted, examining the girl's features, her eyes twitching at the sight of her glasses and stature, "... a nerdy... boring type, but ah well. I'll take her to one of the empty rooms, I'll see you there, Poe?" She held her hands outward, one wrapping around the girl's back while the other wrapped around her knees and pulled her up, "Reminds me of someone." she spoke almost... worriedly, her thoughts traveling to the other at the dungeon. She shrugged the feeling, and turned around, to take the girl to another of the many rooms.

"Show her the best of treatment in my palace, she says" she repeated what the Dark Queen had said, "I wonder if she was being sarcastic... heh, I'd be rubbing off on her... still, I don't think she's the type to crack jokes...so... better be safe and keep you at a comfy room, huh, twinkle toes?" she spoke to the unconscious girl, taking her stairs down to a new hallway, and opened up the first door. It was a sad sight, a beautiful room filled with a few cobwebs here and there... it was cold from the lack of light it had received, abandoned though the ages, though in good conditions.

Shego walked over and rested the girl on top of the soft cushions, of course, she would pick the girl's pockets while doing so with the most experienced, and talented flick of the wrist to revealed two, nicely folded pieces of paper... "Huh, what's this?" she blinked, opening one of them up. Her eyes would shoot open at what she had discovered. It wasn't gold, or diamonds, but something just as useful! Keyblade notes! She opened up the other, and read both the notes carefully, and re-read them until it was imprinted in memory. Curiouser and curiouser... she whispered, looking to the girl with a suspicious look.

The girl would walk with the notes, pondering about them and sat at a nearby Victorian style chair. She pressed her back against it, and relaxed, looking upon the notes before resting them aside, "Wow, did you step on a dung puddle." she whispered, waiting.[/glow]

[serpentoflore]

The world was quiet, almost too quiet. She saw a dream, a familiar dream that constantly plagued her mind. She stood, watching what looked to be a bird. The gilded copper cage held sharp thorns all around it, as if it wanted to kill something.

"She's just not doing anything right. All she does well is music. Everything else is average."

"We might as well have bought a child with more intelligence."

"She'll never make it."

The cage began to gradually decrease in size, the bird becoming afraid. The copper thorns grew, trying to pierce the gray bird. Was it gray or green? Was it even that large a bird? It was hard to tell from her position.

"We need to kill it."

"Before it breaks free!"

"Kill-"

Sarah's eyes popped open, staring towards the cieling above her. The last thing she could remember... She fell asleep. That was right, the woman in black told her to rest. Her glasses had remained on her face, keeping her vision clear. The sore parts of her body had recovered enough, a dull ache left to remind her in various areas.

"It... It wasn't singing. Don't caged birds sing?" Her hands moved to her face, pulling her glasses off. She breathed against the glass, wiping it to clear up her vision. She sat up experimentally, testing how much of her body had recovered. Her back protested, but she could at least sit up.

[General Beatrix]

[glow=red,2,300]***From the Towers of Destruction***

Beatrix had made her way back into the palace in time to hear Shego and Acteur talking quietly, and watched as Shego took the young lady to a room; quietly, she followed, and stood outside the room a couple minutes until she thought it was okay, and slowly stepped inside.

"Hello," she said to Shego, and look to the girl again, who seemed to be stirring. "What are you reading?" she asked, and inched closer, staring at the crinkly parchment with keen interest. "How familiar."

She reached a hand out to grab them, when the girl woke up. She stopped, and looked over, and then back to Shego. "If you would, please."[/glow]

[Shego]

[glow=green,2,800]The thief stayed within the shadows watching the girl curiously, seeing that she was a bigger threat to herself than to others. She didn't even notice the green woman was there, and neither the General! Shego leaned a bit forward and rested her elbows upon her knees in wonder, resting her lips behind her hands, "Well well... Sleeping Beauty awakens..." she started, putting the notes away and glancing to Beatrix for a moment, "Later, Bea. Ahem..."

"Show her the best of treatment in my palace..." she remembered.

"...Hello there." she mumbled, sitting up to rest her hands over her knees, and resting a leg over the other, "Feeling better, Gumdrops?"[/glow]

[serpentoflore]

Sarah focused, seeing two figures in the room. One of them was almost completely dressed in green. For a moment, she was reminded of how Maleficent looked in her attire. The other seemed to be dressed differently, but she couldn't make out much of her appearance from where she sat. Her eyes didn't like distance, and with her glasses it took effort to take in details at times. It took a few moments for her to speak, not sure how to address the one speaking to her. "I suppose as well as one could feel in this situation." She didn't want to try standing, knowing her body would protest.

Who was this woman? Part of her wanted to interrogate her until she talked, but knew it would be wrong. Queen Maleficent had been generous enough to allow her to rest. Even feed her something that would allow her to feel a bit more comfortable. It wasn't right to bite someone who was at least giving some safety after a crazy event.

"Gumdrops?" She didn't know why the woman called her such a strange name. Did it mean something?

[Acteur de la Noir]

"A nickname, I believe," a voice spoke from a shadowy region of the room nearby. "One christened in the absence of knowing thy actual name...which, I suspect, may change shortly."

This might have been somewhat eerie, especially since the voice carried the subtlest hints of a ghostly echo in its undertone...and yet, despite such, there was no actual menace in it. If anything, the voice sounded like it belonged to a cultured gentleman, one who seemed sincerely delighted that the bespectacled young lady was awake and unharmed.

And perhaps such a guess wasn't that far off the mark--the figure who stepped forth from the shadow was dressed in the garb of a Victorian-era nobleman, with a black ruffled shirt beneath deep violet tuxedo jacket and flared trousers. His choice of accessories further complemented this motif--he wore a long black cape, tattered at the hem, and a tangled mop of silver-gray hair spilled from beneath a fancy noble's hat. The real eye-catcher, though, was the mask he wore--smooth and featureless (save for eye-holes and a crescent-moon of a smile), it gave almost no hint of the visage it hid...especially since it was half-hidden in the shadow of his rakishly-tilted hat.

"I must say, it's a pleasant surprise to hear you're well, cherie," the elegantly-dressed man(?) observed, a note of wry amusement in his voice as he stroked his chin with gloved fingers. "From what I gather, yours has been a busy day. Hounded by monsters, fleeing your world in a spacecraft, finding your way to this lost castle..." A pause, and he shook his head. "A harrowing experience, to be certain. You have my condolences."

Then the Victorian-inspired noble flinched a bit, as though struck by a sudden thought, and chortled merrily. "Oh, but 'tis quite rude of me to not introduce myself!" Taking off his hat, he swept into a theatrical bow, much like an actor taking his curtain call. "Acteur de la Noir at your service...a humble performer and patron of the arts." Rising from his bow and returning his hat to his head--was that a flicker of glowing yellow in his eyes, or a mere trick of the light?--he turned to point at the chestnut-haired woman with the eye-patch and sword. "The lady Beatrix, decorated general and master of the sword..." he then pointed to the raven-haired beauty, she of the green-and-black patterned outfit and ghostly-pale complexion. "...and the lady Shego, talented martial artist and wielder of an emerald flame."

Tipping his hat to the young lady in the academy uniform, Acteur tilted his head to the side as though curious. "And who might you be, my dear? 'Gumdrops' is hardly a proper title, after all..."

[serpentoflore]

Part of her body was feeling uncomfortable. It had started once she had gotten off the ship, but she wanted to ignore it for a bit longer. What was making her so uneasy? She had little to no understanding of why those creatures had attacked. The continuation of that strange dream also bothered her.

She listened to the man speak, understanding there were three people. One was a general while another looked like a nobleman. Shego's name seemed familiar, but from where? Perhaps she had heard it in passing one day. She never did pay attention to news that often.

He had asked her name, she realized after a few moments. "It's Sarah Appleton." Her finger went to the bridge of her glasses, pushing them up a little. When her hand settled down, she noticed her braid had let loose. Tracing a the section of hair down to the tie, she pulled it out. She placed it around her wrist, reaching to check the other braid. It too had let loose, so she removed the tie there as well.