Roman Holiday

Kingsword

"Wow it feels like we've been here for weeks," Piper said, nose buried in the brochure as they slowly traveled forward through the thick mist.

"It's been like five minutes tops," Reyna grumbled as she squeezed the daughter of Aphrodite's hand tighter. Because If I lose her in this pea soup, I'm not looking for her. She squinted her eyes to try to make out anything in the unnatural mist, but she could barely see her own feet. "Does that thing have any useful information?"

Piper stopped suddenly, making the praetor nearly fall over. "Well, it says that the Otherworld is divided into numerous counties -and please forgive me as I butcher their names- the Welsh county of Annwn, the Irish counties of Tir na nOg, Emain Ablach, Mag Mell, with Tech Duinn for the dead, the Arthurian county of Avalon, and a then Shakespeare's Globe?"

By the time the Greek had finished insulting the any nearby spirits with her piss poor pronunciation skills, Reyna had been spat on no less than a dozen times. "Okay..." she sighed, wiping her face clean of daughter Aphrodite juices (ew... never think like that again). "But is there a map or anything actually useful? Diarmuid and Cú are Irish so it might make sense to start in one of their... numerous counties."

Piper unfolded the brochure further, struggling to open the numerous tiny flaps and folds with one hand. "Uh... there is... but you're not going to like it."

"Why wouldn't I like-" she started to ask when Piper shoved the Marauder's Map of Brochures in her face. There was a map alright, just one that was completely useless in every sense of the word. It was a large circular shape, with a large golden banner above it proclaiming it was the Otherworld, but all details of the map were hidden beneath a thick mist; save for a few castle turrets that were tall enough to pierce through the mist. "-fuck." She swatted the paper form her face and pinched the bridge of her nose tight and took a deep breath. "Alright... looks like we just keep blindly wandering forward and hope for the best. Just... fuck!"

"You have been swearing a lot since we got here," Piper said as they stumbled their way forward. "Like no offense, but I didn't even think you could swear. But here you are with a mouth that could put Arion's to shame."

Reyna felt her left eye twinge, and she took yet another breath to steady her nerves. "That's because I can't most of the time. Now would you please focus on getting through this pea soup, so we can save your friend?"

"What do you mean 'you can't'?" the daughter of Aphrodite asked as they stepped over an ancient log, clearly ignoring the second part of her statement. "Like you're under some kind of curse or-"

"Because I'm professional!" she snapped, the sudden outburst making Piper lose her balance and drag Reyna down with her. They of course fell into the stereotypical huge mud puddle that could only result from someone actually digging a hole, filling it with loose dirt and then flooding it. But that was neither here nor there, as they both sat up taking deep, gasping breaths as they did their best to wipe the mud from their faces.

"What does that mean?" the Greek asked between spitting out the filthy water.

Unlike Piper, she just swallowed the mud and hoped that it wasn't filled with some kind of magical parasites. "What is my rank?"

"Uh... praetor? Same as Frank?"

Reyna frowned. "Is he? Is he really?"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Okay, in name alone... We all know that."

"Thank you! Now, what is the function of a praetor?"

The daughter of Aphrodite began to fold up the mud drenched brochure and answered, "like the leader or something?"