The Ruler's Rift

The One Who Understood

The crunching of leaves and snarking of crickets danced in the wake of the queen. Amber was left in the stark silence of the group and the burden of explaining fell upon her shoulders. She couldn't deduce why Celeste threw her back against her chair, nor could she infer the exact details of her sudden panic. However, the assassin did surmise one thing.

Amber had been called "death's sibling" on more than one occasion and regardless of her wishes she would always be Violet's sister. Celeste would always be Violet's daughter, and the empathy that surged through Amber nearly brought her to tears. The pain of comparison proved too strong for Celeste - that much was certain to Amber. She could get the details later, but for now the demon needed space.

"Sorry about that," Amber said at last, "the queen is tending to-"

"Is she all right?" One of the noble mages spat out. Further questions followed.

"What can we do to help her majesty?"

"She seemed unwell!"

"Was her back itchy or something?"

"Yeah!" Amber blurted out, happy to be given an excuse. "She's been dealing with a nasty rash lately, please excuse her abrupt departure..." The assassin nearly bit her tongue - she'd never get used to speaking so formally.

"Oh," added Excuptero, "I thought the mosquitos might've been causing that itch, haha! They're ruthless this time of night."

Amber blinked. That would've been a less embarrassing cover story for poor Celeste. "Heh," squeaked the Frostylian.

From within the woods came distant whimpers and whispers. Brown eyes glazed. Amber hadn't a clue what Celeste was doing back there, but she needed to maintain her image. To drown out the noise, Amber boomed, "About the previous queen, she was terrible, huh? Since we're talking about how awful she was, I happen to have a few..." she paused to chortle. "A few disrespectful stories."

Every attendant leaned forward in their chair, eyes widening at Amber. Excuptero hummed, "Oh? And how would you have such information?"

Amber twirled a curl of golden hair. She playfully rolled her eyes. "Please, who doesn't have embarrassing stories about their wittle baby sister?"

The god's eyes grew even larger, somehow. "I knew you looked familiar!" He gasped. Several noble mages shared the notion, pointing and exclaiming about Amber and her rebellion. She quickly waved off their comments.

"Okay, so get this," Amber said, leaning in and lowering her voice as if the deceased Violet would overhear. Amber hoped, if she somehow could, that she'd roll in her grave. "Due to a tragic event in her childhood, she had a crippling fear of bunnies. The goddess of death - afraid of bunnies."

Laughter erupted from the circle. Amber figured the cocktails aided in the humor, for her story was impressively childish. The cherry on top was that it was entirely fabricated. Amber smirked; hopefully Violet enjoyed the lie.

Excuptero's laughter fell into small snorts. He sighed, "After all the damage she caused...it feels kind of good to just laugh at her."

Discussion continued and, once the group was distracted trash-talking Violet, Amber slid off her chair.