The Courtship of a Queen & Her Knight

Lord of the Electrifies

Trumpets heralded the return of the Queen of Dreamland and her escort, Sir Pendergast. The hooves of the pair of riders thundered across the castle's drawbridge before the horses were reined in to a stop in the bailey. Odval, Sorcerio, Bunty, and a few guardsmen stood in a line to greet the return of Queen Tiabeanie. Pendergast dismounted from his stallion and began to talk to one of the guards to begin to be caught up on anything of note that might have occurred while he was gone. Bean also got down from her bay gelding and handed off the reins to one of the guards. She was smiling and greeted everyone warmly, thanking them for coming out to meet her, which had mixed reviews. Bunty and Sorcerio were pleased to see the queen in such high spirits, while Odval found the woman's jovial demeanour to be a bit suspect.

"Welcome back from your trip, Queen Bean. How lovely it is to see that you have returned safely from... your destination."

Clearly Odval had discovered that Bean intentionally hid her and Pendergast's true destination from him after they left. If he was displeased with this realization, well that was just too bad. Bean smug smirk said as much when she turned to him.

"Why thank you, Odval! What a joy it is to be greeted by my loyal subjects," Bean stated, setting her hand upon her hip.

"Indeed," Odval replied through tight lips. "And, remind me again as to where you and Sir Pendergast rode off to?"

Bean just waved him off and walked past him. "Not important. Bunts! Walk with me down to the baths. I am in desperate need of one."

"Aye, ma'am!" replied the plump handmaid.

As Bean walked with Bunty, the queen looked over her shoulder and caught Pendergast's eye. "We'll talk later!" she called, before disappearing into the keep.

With Bean gone, Pendergast found a few sets of eyes falling on him and he matched their gazes with sternness. With authority did the knight approach Odval and Sorcerio, who slightly bowed their heads out of respect to the Leader of the Dreamland Knights.

"All is well, Odval?"

"Indeed, Sir Pendergast," the triclops replied curtly.

Pendergast nodded and glanced around, "Good," he said simply before walking off to head to the knights' locker room.

Odval glanced down at Sorcerio and under his breath he whispered, "One can only imagine why Her Majesty is in need of a bath..."

Sorcerio clapped a hand over his mouth and looked around in fear. Such a comment could very well spell his doom.

While they had played it cool, Bean and Pendergast had actually devised a plan as they had rode back towards the castle. Bean would meet with Luci to get any updates from the Trøgs and Pendergast was to meet them both up in Bean's room in about an hour. From there, they would figure out their next move. Until then, Pendergast planned to wash up and don his knight's attire and make sure the other knights of the kingdom were fulfilling their duties. Let's be honest: the majority of the Dreamland Knights were bumbling idiots and far too many of them had died simply by accidentally falling on their own weapons or some other nonsense. Admittedly, Pendergast wasn't that better than them... until he died, of course. Since he'd been revived, his wit had been sharpened as his body was strengthened. Or maybe death just forced a man to become wiser, that was also a very likely possibility.

Meanwhile... somewhere in the castle's depths.

Bean enjoyed a thorough soak in the castle's bathing room, with Bunty washing her hair. The kind handmaid to the queen prattled on and on about her life and what menial events Bean had missed. Bunty also tried commenting about the queen's newfound close relationship with a certain handsome knight. Because it was Bunty, Bean only half meant it when she told her to shut up, but the kindly woman caught how the young queen was blushing and smiling, and Bunty gave her some knowing advice: make the man work for it before you give it your all! That bit of information was a bit much for Bean, and she commented as such.