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[u][b]Jailbreak In Fairyland V[/b][/u][/center]
[sub]The Royal Palace, Bathhouse, Faerie[/sub][sub][hr][/sub]
[indent][indent][color=lightgray]Their previous escort had left two guards posted at the door. Each roughly stood at least a head and a half taller than Zatanna, dressed in knightly metallic armor tinged with green as a moss-like substance grew in the cracks of the armor, their insectoid-like wings reminiscent of a dragonfly's tucked tightly against their backs. Their purpose, either to keep them safe or prevent them from wandering Zatanna couldn't have guessed, but they served their uses well enough to the dark-haired young woman. Amicable enough to the prospect of conversation they listened to Zatanna as they leaned on their long elegant polearm their tip covered large jagged protrusions of glass. Between the two of them, they were able to aid Zatanna in her plight directing the magician towards a bathhouse located on the lower levels of the palace's guest wing.

Giving them her thanks Zatanna took a left down the hallway stopping at the third door before the end. The wooden door opened to reveal a long spiral stone staircase descends downward, the pathway lined by floating globules of light that changed color from a bright pink to a deep purple as Zatanna passed by them. Following the directions given to her, Zatanna followed this colorful display of light down passing by various landings similar to the one she entered the stairwell from. As she continued her descent, the magician couldn't help but notice the decrease in temperature around her, splashes of gooseflesh appearing across her skin as her breath became visible on the air. Pulling her arms closer against her body to try and ward off the cold, Zatanna soon arrived at the bottom of the staircase. 

Reaching for a handle encrusted in frost she pushed open a wooden door and entered another hallway. Particles of ice hung suspended in the air creating a breathtaking effect as spheres of light similar to those in the hallway were reflected through them like a kaleidoscope. On either side of her were long windows that looked down onto a large workshop. Workers rushed about large vats filled with strange frothing liquid hauling containers of the strange substance to the craftsman busy sculpting the strange glass covered armaments that the guards around the palace and the city seemed to carry. Though the surrounding environment lead Zatanna to suspect that it wasn’t glass at all, but rather a kind of magically enchanted ice made resistance to melting. The bridge-hallway fusion that the young magician stood upon lead towards the center of the workshop where a large furnace continued to belch flames that the works thrust containers of the liquid into which seemed to cause the frothing liquid to stabilize. Above the furnace was a large egg-like structure that a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway lead into. Zatanna could only assume that was the titular bathhouse using the residual heat from the blasting of the furnaces to its own ends. 

The thought of warmer climes spurred Zatanna onward as she picked up speed. As she reached the pair of doors they opened on their own volition scraping across the ice-covered stone of the hallway as they went. Immediately upon crossing the door’s threshold, Zatanna was hit with a burst of warm air, her extremities beginning to break out in pinpricks as blood began to rush back. A thick cloud of steam hung in the airlifting upward from a series of large pools that were dispersed across the room. Each pool was closed off from one another by an array of decorative paper walls inscribed with floral designs. A podium carved from a singular protrusion of stone jutting upward from the ground greeted Zatanna but there was no one manning it. Zatanna looked around experimentally for someone that looked like they knew where they belonged but couldn’t find any and so with a shrug she went deeper into the bathhouse.

The stonework of the podium served as an aesthetic prelude for the rest of the chamber that opened up into a cavernous space carved out of stone. The smooth stonework of the hallway and the rest of the castle faded into impure darken stone that rose and fell, made up of interspersed sections of smooth stone worn down by countless footsteps and rough cracked surfaces. Zatanna carefully made her way across the stone paths slick with water from the pools that they navigated around. The pools themselves were sparsely populated, a handful of patrons who mostly clustered towards the pools nearer to the bathhouse’s entrance. They paid little mind to Zatanna talking quietly amongst themselves as they enjoyed the water.

Not particularly in the mood for company, Zatanna made her way towards one of the pools towards the rear of the cave. Small and approximately the shape of a lopsided crescent, the pool was tucked away into the back left-hand corner. Stepping behind a privacy screen constructed out of the same floral paper walls, Zatanna began to undress. At first, getting in and out of her stage uniform had been something of a hassle which was made only worse by the fact that she was the one who designed it in the first place. Yet in the four years since then and an innumerable number of fast changes later, the outfit had become more or less a second skin for her and she was able to efficiently and quickly undo the many straps and hooks that held it all together. Gingerly like one would take care of a child, she grouped the clothes together in a small pile and left them on the driest area of rock that she could find. 

Tentatively she dipped a toe into the water testing the temperature, Zatanna was aware of how human bathhouses worked in regards to efforts to prevent their inhabitants from boiling alive, but there was no way she could be sure that such establishments in Faerie work along with similar guidelines. Much to her relief though while the water was warmer than she was used to it was not excessively so. The young magician eased herself into the pool of water making sure to keep her head above the water. Sinking downward so that everything above her neck was submerged Zatanna let out a long sigh of relief as muscles that she didn’t even know she had began to loosen from the heat. Closing her eyes she leaned back against the perimeter of the pool resting her arms upon the stone,

She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she was able to properly relax. Between her show’s west coast tour, her father’s death and then everything that came after it had to be at least months. The sense of relief that she was feeling came with its own share of guilt. Zatanna had everything that anyone could have wanted, her name plastered in lights on marquees across the country and yet all she wanted to be was normal. She saw what famous meant, it meant having a father that barely existed, it meant a trapped existence defined by the high walls of your estate, it meant never feeling like you had a family. If Zatanna wanted to she could have lived the life of any rich Gotham socialite, but she had no desire to be the next Bruce Wayne. But no matter how she tried to desperately avoid it fame had managed to entrap her.

Deep in her own contemplation, the magician did not hear footsteps approaching her until a voice asked in an easy southern drawl 

“You mind if I join you?”

Causing Zatanna to nearly leap into the air.

Crouching at the edge of the pool was a young woman roughly Zatanna’s age her blue eyes looking down at her inquisitively, a smile across her face as she nestled a hand along the shaved stubble along the back of her head, her sides shaved in an undercut, an uncontrolled puff of white hair cresting her head like a cloud. Her whole appearance screamed more punk rock show in Brooklyn than a royal palace in a parallel dimension: a worn-in pair of converses, black skinny jeans with a rip over the left knee, and a shrunken white crop top with a stylized black raven across the chest, the crop top in turn revealing the pale white skin of her stomach the definition in her abs clearly visible. Zatanna felt a blush coming to her face as her gaze rested on the exposed skin for perhaps a second or two too long. 

“Sure?” Zatanna responded after a minute or so delay still caught off guard.

“Thanks” The other woman responded offhandedly before she began to strip.

Zatanna wasn't a prude, a quarter's lifetime of working in show business expunged any faux-pas or taboo that may have existed over nudity, but the blatant disregard that the other woman showed still managed to surprise her. Letting out a sound that generously resembled a squeak, Zatanna quickly spun around facing away from the stranger directing her gaze downward as a discarded bra landed in her periphery. This small display earned an amused laugh from the other woman. 

"Aww," She teased "there was [i]much more[/i] to stare at then just my abs." 

Her comment was followed by a splash as she entered the pool.

Zatanna tentatively turned around just in time to see the stranger burst upward from beneath the water in total disregard to the potential bacteria that could find a home in the warm liquid. She stretched her arms out wide taking in all the warmth that she could manage, a large smile across her face as her eyes closed in bliss.

“My name is Tefé by the way.” 

“I’m Zatanna”

“Oh,” the other girl laughed again “I know who you are”

“You know who I am?”

“Z’, it's your first day here and you've already managed to have an audience with the Queenie herself. [i]Everyone[/i] knows who you are.”

“Is that why you wanted to join me?” 

“Well, I ain't a liar so I’m not going to say I’m not curious” Tefé admitted “and you being cute only helps in that regard.” 

“Cute?” Zatanna asked flustered before quickly moving on “I mean, curious what about?”

“Well, the rumor is that you are looking to free the Kingkiller.”

“The Kingkiller...” Zatanna sighed “the way all of you keep on talking about them I can only assume he’s some kind of boogeyman or the Second Coming, maybe both.”

“Wait?” Tefé asked with a cocked brow “Are you telling me you don’t know who the Kingkiller is? Have you been living under a rock or something?” 

“Might as well of been considering the number of surprises I’ve had this week.” 

“Somebody sounds a little angsty. Well, maybe I can help clear up that angst a little bit. 

Once upon a time, all of Faerie was ruled by a cruel king by the name of Oberon. A warrior born and bred he ruled his kingdom like a general would an army demanding complete obedience and respect. But the Fae valued freedom above all else and so conflict between Oberon’s loyalists and those who stood against his rule. And so civil strife as nature tends to will it became civil conflict and soon all of Faerie was plunged into war. A war that would only end once the hired assassin known as the Kingkiller’s cold iron plunged its way into Oberon’s heart.”

“But who would have hired them?”

“Someone is asking the right questions! I had a good feeling that you were going to be a clever one” Tefé proclaimed. 

“The most common belief was that it was Titania herself. The Queenie at the time was a neutral party choosing not to align herself with either faction in the squabble, and because of that, she was in a fine position to become a “neutral” party to rule after everything settled back down. So I don’t know about you Z’, but that might just cause a girl to hasten up the process.”

“And then she had him arrested to cover up her tracks!” Zatanna declared 

“Elementary, my dear Watson.” Tefé concurred with a grin before leaning in closer to Zatanna “But that still leaves little old me with some questions, [i]particularly[/i] what a pretty girl like you needs with a big bad assassin like him.”

“Well...” Zatanna said as she slipped out from around Tefé causing her to have her back against the wall “as you mentioned this Kingkiller is particularly proficient at the whole killing business and my companion and I, need help killing a very particular kind of monster.’

“Ah yes,” Tefé commented “the venerable Doctor Voodoo... so are the two of you an item? Not that I’m judging, he just seems to be a bit of a bore.”

“Ugh of course not!” Zatanna protested shaking her head and in her distraction, Tefé was able to switch their positions around again leaving Zatanna up against the pool’s wall “he’s a family friend and totally not my type.”

“Oh, you have a type?” Tefé prodded curiously 

“Of course I do,” Zatanna explained with a wink “Not that I would tell some random stranger I just met though” 

“Hmmm, that’s fair.” Tefé admitted with a shrug “Maybe you would be willing to divulge if I helped you?”

“Help with what exactly?”

“The Queenie isn’t going to let you have the Kingkiller,” Tefé explained like it was obvious

“Why? She said she would think about it! And Voodoo said she owed him a favor!”

All the flirtatious energy withdraw from Tefé as her face grew cold. “Because of the living shithole that calls himself Anton Arcane.”

A shiver went down Zatanna spine despite the warmth of the pool as she remembered Arcane’s ember eyes. “Arcane? I mean from what Voodoo has told me he sounds like a total creep but he has no control here right? He’s not the Queen?”

“He has what the Queen wants. The daughter of the late King Oberon and the Queenie’s former lover, the Girl-Traitor Queen Mab of the Court of Dawn is slowly rebuilding her father’s lost army to reclaim a throne that her lover took from her. The gristle of it is that Arcane is promising to create the Queenie an army to crush this rebellion before it can begin in exchange for her patronage, and that army will be constructed using the Kingkiller’s blood as its catalyst.”

“How do you know all of this?” Questioned Zatanna 

“Let’s just say that I’ve made it my mission to keep tabs on Arcane.”

Zatanna shook her head “This.. this isn’t good. We came here specifically for the Kingkiller! They are the only one that would be able to help us.”

“Hey don’t be giving up just yet Z’, maybe the two of us could help each other out?”

Zatanna looked up at Tefé smiling face “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Tefé explained swimming in closer so that their noses were mere inches from brushing against one another, as she looked Zatanna earnestly in the eyes. “I know where they are keeping him and I don’t particularly want Arcane securing such a powerful ally as the Queen. So while most of the staff is attending the needs of the court at dinner, the two of us can stage a little jailbreak in fairyland. What do you say?”

Zatanna didn't even need to think about it.

“I’m in.”[/color][/indent][/indent]