[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img] [b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 3,930 (+3) [b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 4[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]/////////////////////////////[/color]/////////// (29/30) [color=92278f]Queen Sectonia[/color] Level 6 Sectonia (holding 1 level up) - (17/60) +3 [b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b] Sandswept Sky - Desert - Hollow Heights [/center] Midna chowed down on the leftovers from the Thieves' rations and reflected that a breakfast of meat and candy probably wasn't a massive improvement over just one consisting of just sweets. It was for this reason that the first thing she thought about when being informed that there was a city nearby was to look forward to having something cooked by a proper chef for lunch. Or, falling that due to their completely broke status, just some bread. Maybe someone would be interested in the various odds and ends they had acquired through spirit crushing but had no use for, she thought, and only then did she get taken by surprise by the fact that there was a city out here in the first place. After the endless wastelands filled with ruins and rolling desert she’d not expected to find groups of people much larger than this town, the mercenary camp or the roving bands of robots, and yet apparently there was not only a major population center out here, but also some kind of machine called a train that would take the there quickly and safely. Thinking that it left the train tracks behind as well, tracks, the princess was briefly convinced it would be some new titanic marvel of engineering till she saw it. [color=Aquamarine]”You know. I’m not sure what I expected”[/color] she noted when she saw the dinky cakey contraption, but as it turned out it worked well enough at its intended function. After being very unimpressed with the local princess, her attitude a personal affront to the princess and to royalty everywhere, the Twilight princess boarded their latest miraculous mechanical transport along with the others, finding a spot at the back of the small passenger carriage. Anything to stay out of the sun. [hr] Sectonia found that her new appearance made eating the rations of the phantom thieves was much easier. Having some actual teeth took a bit to get used to, especially since they weren’t really teeth but jagged mouth bits. Either way, she enjoyed the sweets a bit more than everyone else but she’d prefer honey or fruits herself. She wasn’t really much of a meat eater, but she tried a bit with the others. Not her favorite thing, but at least it didn’t take her ages to eat it this time. After getting ready, apparently they were going to make their way to a city made of sweets, at least with what Sectonia could gather. They were going to travel by train, although it looked like it was made of sweets much like everything else around here. That was the good part, the bad part was the ‘princess’ who decided to pay them a visit. Sectonia really disliked this person, they acted like a baron more than royalty. Although if the ruler of this place was like this ‘princess’ it would be really, really easy to incorporate this kingdom later… With that whole unpleasant interaction done, Sectonia boarded the back of the train, sharing a cabin with Midna. Due to her reduced size, she could fit into the train as long as she kept her wings tucked in, but she did fill a lot of the compartment. Sectonia’s Alcremie moving down to rest on her head instead of her top-hat to avoid not getting squished. Funny enough, while her imposing visage would probably scare lesser people, it did block out a good amount of sun. [hr] The train chugged out the station and out into the desert. The proper desert. The one that wasn't a pun. Sweet canyons, trees and wildlife was replaced with the now familiar endless barrens of sand and stillness. While there were some things to look at, they were all far away and hazy to the Twilight princess. Also, despite the shade, it quickly got a bit stuffy inside the passenger train, prompting Minda to turn round on her seat and push open the back window to let some air in, before settling back down and, with little else to do, striking up a conversation with the transformed, yet still imposing, Queen she was sharing the compartment with. Given her impression of the queen so far, she wasn't expecting much, but what did she have to lose? [color=Aquamarine]”So, I see you’ve taken the plunge with the whole fusion thing”[/color] with her earlier comments about only wanting to choose something beautiful, Midna had assumed the Queen never would take on a spirit due to having too high standards, but she’d been wrong on that point. The unlucky caped and top hatted creature she’d trapped in crystal before its death hadn’t been what she’d been expecting to fit, but seeing the result it had certainly worked out well. [color=Aquamarine]”How are you finding it?”[/color] Sectonia looked at Midna, giving her a ‘’toothy’ smile with her new red glowy mouth, since she couldn’t really move much besides her hands in this cramped spot. [color=92278f]”Fine, fine. I couldn’t manipulate time before. Finding spirits that work well for me is going to be tricky however ”[/color] She said candidly. [color=92278f]”Your first fusion looked fine. I’m not sure how I feel about the second one. Hanging jewels on your crown feels awkward. Glad you're trying to match me in the lower area though.”[/color] She said, laughing a bit at the end. Minda was rather taken aback by how the Queen brushed past the fact that she had time manipulation powers now of all things and went straight into lightly criticizing her look. Not that it was [i]her[/i] look exactly as she hadn’t chosen it, indeed to an extent even her “original” look hadn't been her look, but it still stung a little regardless. It made her entirely miss the implications about her now having a larger, more queenly, ‘abdomen’. She self consciously flicked one of the red baubles hanging from the fused shadow and asked [color=Aquamarine]”They aren't that bad are they?”[/color] The bit of her getting touchy about the baubles was also the one that warned her to have absolutely nothing to do with the cream creature that was resting on the queen’s head which she hadn't realized was there till now. Apparently they’d picked up more than the red hooded woman while she’d been sneaking around the village. [color=92278f]”No, they are solid so that is fine. I’m just speaking from experience. If you don’t feel uncomfortable with them then they ‘should’ work?”[/color] The queen said to clarify her point on the matter. [color=92278f]”So, how are you enjoying your powers? I still need to play with mine.”[/color] Sectonia continued, shifting the conversation a bit. [color=Aquamarine]”They’ve been fairly useful so far”[/color] the princess replied, leaving the bauble be for now before clicking her fingers and lighting one hand’s worth with purple flame for a moment before dismissing the dragonfire again [color=Aquamarine]”Dragon powers have been incredibly useful. Still need to test out what I can really do with the sand part if I go all out with it though, but considering how nasty the sandstorm the dragons whipped up was for everyone involved, it’s not exactly applicable to use in a big group.”[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”But you’ve probably seen most of mine. What’s really interesting is yours. You said you had time manipulation? So casualty too,”[/color] that fact still floored her [color=Aquamarine]”Tell me about that”[/color] [color=92278f]”Hm. I would prefer to not be in another sandstorm as well. Sand takes forever to get out of your fluff.”[/color] Sectonia said, giving a friendly chuckle. [color=92278f]”It doesn’t seem to be anything too severe, I can just speed up or slow down time in an area. Also...”[/color] She said, holding her hand out and producing a starry darkness from it, much like Midna did with her dragonfire. [color=92278f]”I also have some slight control over ‘void’, whatever that is. It is a magic type I’m not familiar with. It is like darkness, but far more powerful and empty.”[/color] Sectonia said, explaining her powers. [color=92278f]”Tora didn’t appreciate the time magic when I used it on him as an example, I suppose being made ‘faster’ isn’t much his speed.”[/color] She said. They both let out a short laugh at the joke after which Midna wondered if the queen had always been this personable and was opening up more, or if the act of absorbing a spirit had had more of an impact on the queen than it had on her, a thought that lacked a great deal of introspection. [color=Aquamarine]”best hold off any more experiments with time till we arrive. Not sure what speeding up one part of this ‘train’ would do, but I can’t expect it would end well. Unless you think you could affect the entire thing? Get us to Al Mamoon faster”[/color] Midna asked [color=Aquamarine]”after trudging through the desert all day yesterday and the weirdness of that dessert I’m looking forward to being in and seeing an actual city. It’s good to know the world isn't just full of little towns, though I’m having a hard time imagining how you could build and sustain a large population in the desert. Maybe we’re reaching the end of it? I’m more than ready to be done with this wasteland.”[/color] she added [color=92278f]”Ah, I doubt that would be a good idea. Too much speed and a train will fly off the tracks.”[/color] Sectonia said, dismissing Midna’s idea of speeding up the train. [color=92278f]”But yes. I’m not a fan of this desert as well. The Dessert area was quite fascinating, although why it was next to a desert we can only speculate. Some sick sense of humor perhaps? Either way, if I had the opportunity, I know i’d remove this desert and replace it with a much more beautiful flower field. Although I suppose you could make some glass from the sand...”[/color] Sectonia said, continuing on with the conversation. As the two royals chatted the sandswept desert outside passed along, not much of note to comment on all things considered. [color=Aquamarine]”The dimension annihilating and rewriting the sun is a fan of puns. Terrible, isn't it?”[/color] Midna noted with dry humor [color=Aquamarine]”But yes, the world could do without deserts. There's a certain bleak beauty to some of it”[/color] she glanced out the window before admitting [color=Aquamarine]”Though not this part. But as the ruler of a realm can be the epitome of bleak beauty, I’d prefer useful land to some that makes a nice vista any day of the week. Also, though I’m by no means an expert at glass making, I assume you can use sea sand for it, and oceans have more uses than the desert, that I know for a fact.”[/color] [color=92278f]"Yeah. Although you don't have many oceans in the sky. "[/color] Sectonia said.[color=92278f]" Volcanic ash is all we have to make glass. But we make it work."[/color] Speaking about kingdoms the two of them were rulers so there was a topic there. [color=92278f]"So who rules your kingdom then and what is it? Floralia is my kingdom, a chain of islands in the sky with flowers as far as the eye can see, my palace at the top where eternal moonlight shines, and the usual things you need to run a kingdom.”[/color] [color=92278f]“What about you?"[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”That would be me. Ob-”[/color] Minda paused and then went about clearing up a cultural difference [color=Aquamarine]”The Twilight realm, my home, is ruled either by a King of Twilight or a Twilight Princess, i.e. me. We don’t do queens as there's a lot of, shall we say, negative connotations with that title.”[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”As for my kingdom, it’s also a chain of floating islands funnily enough, though some are so large calling them mere islands becomes a bit of a stretch. There is no sun or moon in the ream of Twilight. Instead only light comes from the ambient twilight glow that turns people into beasts, and from the Sols, magical power sources we use to keep ourselves from succumbing to that corruption. It was the Interlopers’, our ancestors, prison, and eventually it became their tomb, but we, the Twili, their descendants, have made it into a home worth living in.”[/color] She explained. It was bleak and dangerous and could make the desert seem tame in comparison sometimes. But it was home. She missed it, though she wasn't going to tell Sectonia that even if she was more personable now. [color=92278f]"Why is there a negative connotation with the Queen title?"[/color] Sectonia said, pointing out the weird convention of having a king but no Queen. [color=92278f]"The floating island thing seems to be commonplace. Tora comes from sky islands as well. Although a world of corrupting light that needs your own science or magic to deal with doesn't sound pleasant."[/color] Sectonia said. [color=92278f]"Floralia is similar. They are sky islands but still quite large. No corrupting light though. We do have a stone that emits light as well. We call them Sun Stones. But they just emit sunlight."[/color] Sectonia continued. Seeing how feisty Midna was Sectonia wasn't surprised her realm was so hostile. [color=Aquamarine]”Not sure, there just are. Probably there was some kind of reason or historical event that caused it, buuuuuut nobody decided to write it down because ‘why would you. Everyone knows why queens are bad!’ And then that goes on until you get to the point where they don't because the event so far removed from the event and no-one wrote about it and then you're just stuck with the word being bad but no one knows why. Probably. Or maybe I could dig up the reason in an archive somewhere back home. Or in Hyrule. But we have no way of accessing those records normally, and finding out wasn’t exactly on the top of my priority list the 2 times I was there unfortunately.”[/color] Midna replied with a tirade against poor record keeping [color=Aquamarine]”And they do, do they?”[/color] She said in response to the news that Tora and Poppie also came from a world of floating islands [color=Aquamarine]”Huh. Maybe they are. I only have my home and Hyrule, or I guess the whole light world, for point of reference, and so it was one for one floating islands vs planet. Ironically Galeem seems to have made the inverse? A world with a big hole in the middle, at least if that “empty space” on the map is literal. Then again who’s to say the ocean doesn't just end out beyond the edges of that man and so maybe it is a floating island too?”[/color] [color=92278f]"if I'll be so bold. I think why Queen has a negative connotation in your kingdom is because one of your ancestors wanted to feel forever cute and Princess is cuter than Queen. I prefer the beauty of Queen myself though."[/color] Sectonia said, laughing while Minda made an exasperated sound at the thought that she could well be right. [color=92278f]"Ah we have a planet below our realm called Popstar. Funny enough before this whole Galeem thing happened we were looking at handling that lower world. It's ruled by an oversized penguin funny enough.*[/color] She said, giving a casual smirk as she thought dedede was just silly. [color=92278f]”All he does is eat and sleep. And without style I might add.”[/color] Midna decided not to comment on how strange that was. She was talking to a giant bee after all. [color=92278f]"Now how do we know this isn’t just one huge island that is floating in a sea. Although I would think if this was made by mashing all worlds together it would be far bigger."[/color] Sectonia commented. [color=Aquamarine]”It is concerning. What exactly did Galeem do with, well, everything else? Part of why I’m glad there are living cities is it means more people haven't been, well, left out? I hope that what Galeem didn't use they just… sorted away somewhere? Because if not?”[/color] the alternative was too awful to say out loud. [color=92278f]"No clue."[/color] Sectonia said, doing her best to shrug. [color=92278f]"Or there are multiple Galeem and we have to deal with another one after this one? Let's hope not. "[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”Probably would be easier after the first one,”[/color] she suggested. She’d do it, if it got everyone back. Her people at least. It took a bit to dawn on her just how many worlds that might be if that was the way it had been done. [color=92278f]"Now here is the question. If we beat Galeem, do the worlds go back to normal or do they need a new ruler?"[/color] Sectonia said, making her intentions clear about the second part. Unlike Midna her goal was expansion, not stability. There was a pause. Then Midna took a deep breath to steady herself and then said [color=Aquamarine]”If things do not go back to normal by themselves, and we need to usurp Galeem’s power in-order to set things right, that might be acceptable. But when they fall a new ruler is not needed, as Galeem does not ‘rule’ in first place. The ‘god’ itself sleeps, and the three guardians I’ve heard about had their own little domains surrounded by a world under Galeem’s influence, yes, but not under it or their control. To ‘rule’ this world a person would need to take the power used to overcome Galeem to go forth and conquer, and I for one will not stand idle should anyone try to do so”[/color] she tried to give Sectonia the benefit of the doubt, but couldn't keep her past and her convictions out of her words as she added a not so subtle threat tot he mix [color=Aquamarine]”There was a man who turned my kingdom to that once, who brought twilight to the light world to make it his own, and I personally saw to it that that path was dead and buried, along with his corpse.”[/color] Sectonia listened to Midna talk about her opinion on the whole thing, and from what she could gather she was on the receiving end of a conquest, a poorly done one at that. Now if this was the pre-fused Sectonia, the conversation would’ve probably ended here with Sectonia distrustful of Midna, but that wasn’t the case thanks to the recent fusion. After Midna had calmed down a bit after venting, Sectonia said, calmly. [color=92278f]”We certainly come from different worlds. Creatures like Galeem are, oddly enough, somewhat common on Popstar. Eldritch horrors that just want to destroy everything or corrupt dreams or turn the world to yarn or paint.”[/color] Sectonia started, getting into a bit of a speech herself. [color=92278f]”Its sad to hear someone tried to take over your kingdom with less than noble pursuits and frankly, sounded like an idiot. But where I come from, a more united kingdom would be better at dealing with stuff like that.”[/color] Sectonia said, pointing her thumb at the light ball in the sky. [color=92278f]”And if this all happened again, a more united front would be better at dealing with it.”[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”Oh he was mad. He hid it well at first but...”[/color] she said, and then had a thought. She had been intending to confront the queen’s claim on a statecraft level, but instead realized there was something more fundamental, more powerful, that she could draw on instead. [color=Aquamarine]”There is one evil above all others in my world that returns again and again and again. Ganon. He whispered in my usurper’s ear and planted the idea of conquest in his mind. He also corrupted the guardian of time herself, who ended up tearing both herself and time apart, and because of that I don’t just know the history of my world, I have walked it. So I speak with certainty when I say it is not armies or empires that throw back the darkness every time. It is a boy wielding a legendary sword, aided by the sorcery of a princess and a few close companions.”[/color] Something clicked for her then, mostly from her time as part of the smash tournaments, but also just a little from Crow’s ability to vaguely guess what was going on. [color=Aquamarine]”From being in smash I know that's how it is in other places. It’s a Plumber. A bounty hunter. A pink puffball. Heroes save the world, and we have plenty of those already.”[/color] There was, of course, a touch of a lie, or rather an omission, in there. When time had fallen apart they’d needed armies to make it through. But that didn't help her argument, and ultimately it didn't matter in Minda’s opinion anyway. They’d pulled one together from the various races and times easily enough without having them preemptively united under the boot of an overlord. You didn't need to have a grand ruler to get various kingdoms to unite in the face of evil, just a plan, a cause and heroes to lead them. [color=92278f]”You mean all of those ‘heroes’ who are running around mind controlled right now?”[/color] Sectonia said, pointing to the huge flaw in Midna’s reasoning. [color=92278f]”They didn’t stop this, they can’t stop everything.”[/color] She was getting a bit annoyed with Midna now, who was clearly reliving some bad memories. Maybe this would be a discussion for later when the twilight princess had cooled down. [color=Aquamarine]”Things get worse before they get better-”[/color] Midna began to say, against drawing heavily from her experiences, but fate conspired to interrupt their argument as a strange box on the ceiling suddenly started talking with Gnorbu’s voice. Through the communicator, Midna realised what it probably was after a few moments, he warned them that they were about to hit an upswell. A quick peek out the window told the royals all they needed to know, as the giant column of sand being blasted into the sky was hard to miss. [color=92278f]”Wonderful. And this time I have more than fluff to clean…”[/color] Secotnia said upon seeing the approaching upswell of sand. Seeing this would be an issue, she scooped up her Alcremie and told it to hide under her top hat. As they approached, they were also notified of the canyon they would be passing over, a seemingly bottomless canyon where the train tracks were held together by some basic looking metal struts and that was it. [color=Aquamarine]”Been there, done that. You have fun with the sand”[/color] Midna told her, having had enough of sandstorms already after her fight with the flygon and so rather than toughing it out with everyone else she, after taking a brief look at the bizarre hole they were about to go over, slipped into a shadow and vanished from sight. Sectonia, being a flyer, wasn’t too worried about the pit itself. The sandstorm meanwhile was a much bigger concern, forcing her to keep a good hold of her crown and top hat. At least her new wings could be used as some kind of cape, letting her block much of the sand blowing into her face as her other hand held her headwear, the Alcremie inside her hat being kept away from the brunt of the sandstorm. This only worked for a tiny bit of time before the updraft became a huge issue. Seeing as she only had one free hand, Sectonia dropped her wing cloak and summoned her staff, using her new powers to slow down time around her, trying to affect the updraft so it didn’t bother her as much. Seeing as she was trying to affect such a large object, she decided to extend the reach of her power to far in front of the train, but not affecting the train itself or the people inside. Hopefully the slower sandstorm would help out everyone else as well. At least being inside a cabin made the sand not as bad as it could’ve been.