A forest that was not there yesterday

[unprophesied_of_ages]

The Lord Ruler is in his palace, when he sees a sight he hasn't seen in centuries. Trees, sunlight...is he hallucinating? The fact that there's a forest in his living room isn't the surprising part. The fact that there's a forest on his planet is. As soon as he walks through the door to where his living room isn't, it's definitely not a hallucination.

His stores of Allomantic metals abruptly disappear. They're still physically there, but the power is completely gone. He immediately turns to go back, only to see more forest.

At least his Feruchemy still works—he can tell because he's still alive—but that won't last him forever. He only has so much stored youth, and without both sets of abilities he can't replenish it. He hasn't been in so much danger since the beheading that one time. Returning to Scadrial is the highest and currently only priority. If spontaneous forests are a thing, he needs to find someone who can explain them and more importantly how to get back.

The next few hours are spent walking in an essentially randomly chosen direction, with the sun to his right. He's quite certain that suns are supposed to be moving across the sky, but that's not a pressing emergency. He already knew he wasn't on his own planet when he saw proper trees and plants instead of ash-covered monstrosities. Whenever he calls out, nobody responds. If it's an empty spontaneous forest, he's probably doomed.

After some time, he hears his stomach growl. He hasn't seen much that looks edible, but possibly that's just because he's not used to real plants. Berries. Berries used to exist. Those berries look tasty, and if they're poisonous it's not like he needs to worry about it. As always, he has a truly ridiculous amount of stored health in his gold jewelry. Tapping gold just in case, he eats a handful.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"I hope the little gate's settled by then. I don't want to leave it unattended and still trying to settle; I can't close it if it opens while I'm gone."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"You don't have to be there if here is more important. It'll make people slightly more likely to trust you, but that's probably not going to be too much of an issue anyway."

[imeanforever]

"There might be other leaflets, who might match my description, in Thorn's court somewhere or the Queen's... it could be important to have people know my face. But if it doesn't settle soon put it off by a few hours, maybe."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"It's for tomorrow anyway. People who need sleep are doing that at the moment. For now, I've got a couple errands to run."

[imeanforever]

"Yes, I mean, if tomorrow we find that the gate has not settled, put it off in case I can have the gate closed for during the announcement."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Of course."
He leaves to find out whether anyone in the Empire actually uses weaponized darts.

[imeanforever]

And Promise keeps an eye on her gate. And makes fairylights. And practices, in small doses, pulling stored things out of her earrings.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Eventually Alendi returns with some obscure weaponry, a tray, and some less bloody clothes. "Hungry?" he asks, offering food.

[imeanforever]

"Yes. Thank you." Nom. "What's that?" she asks, pointing at the obscure weaponry.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Blowgun, crossbow," he gestures toward each in turn. They're both very small for the kind of thing that they are, and boast more concealability than power. "Some people in the Khlenni empire used to use poisoned darts for assassination, and that's more or less what we're doing. Just replacing the poison with fruit juice."

[imeanforever]

"If you show me how they're put together I can try to enchant them for accuracy."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Good idea. We'll need every advantage we can get."

He disassembles the devices to demonstrate.

[imeanforever]

She peers at them. She puts them back together and takes them apart again and then puts them back together and then stares at them. And then she says, "There."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

They look exactly the same as before, but do seem to work better. When combined with luck the enchanted projectiles can reliably land in bloodstream-sized target areas, at least here where no sorcery is stopping them.

[imeanforever]

Promise goes and checks her little gate again.

"It's settled," she says. "I've closed it so it's less noticeable and so nobody little can blunder through. I'll open it and start scoping out the Queen's court if there's nothing else to discuss aloud. Yellow will be awake in a few hours and will also need food."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"I'll take care of him then.
I think we've covered everything important. There's questions like whether it'd be a better idea for you to publicly appear dressed as a fairy or as a noblewoman from Luthadel, but that doesn't exactly have the world hanging in the balance."

[imeanforever]

"This dress has seen better days. But somehow I doubt noblewomen's clothes are designed to accommodate wings."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"There are probably emergency dressmakers somewhere in the city. But the benefits aren't essential and your time is at a premium right now."

[imeanforever]

"Yeah. I can spruce up the dress a little bit, anyway. Anything else before I stare at the court?"

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"No, I don't think so. Good luck."
He provides some, just in case helping her with this is a thing it can do.

[imeanforever]

Promise reopens her gate. And she peers through it. And she sharpens her vision a lot and speeds her thought a little to accommodate that.

[unprophesied_of_ages]

Alendi notes the conspicuous lack of Promise being dragged through by a hostile sorcerer, and starts manufacturing more luck. Mainly because there's nothing immediately pressing he needs to be doing, and this has very few drawbacks after all.

[imeanforever]

After a few minutes, Promise says, "I think I've found a good place to put the gate you'll go through. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near the routes the Queen's vassals are using to fly around and if you drop straight down from it you'll land on a balcony that's usually unoccupied but leads to what I suspect are the Queen's sleeping chambers. I've spotted her; she had six vassals with her, which seems likely to be typical, but they may not be in the room with her when she sleeps because no one expects anyone to be able to make a gate like this. I should probably describe the Queen herself, I suppose you don't know what she looks like."

[unprophesied_of_ages]

"Definitely.
Would it be safe to leave this open to get a sense of a typical day on the other side, or should we just check back every few hours to find out when she sleeps?"

[imeanforever]

"I will definitely look through it more, but we shouldn't talk while it's open or leave it open and unattended. Some fairies are small enough to outright fit through this gate, some sorcerers are keen enough to notice it. The Queen is about a foot taller than me. Silver skin, long white hair that at least right now is worn curled and up and full of fresh red flowers that match her dress, solid blue eyes. Outrageously complicated clothes. Giant, glossy wings with scalloped edges and swallowtails and patterns that make me dizzy to look at, blue and white. She's thin, sharp features, very narrow hands, I don't know if she's consistent on a scale of days about her makeup but right now it's black and glitters, very dramatic. I'm being so detailed not because anyone naturally resembles her but because I spotted two decoys. Without the boosted vision I wouldn't have noticed the sorcerously reshaped wings on the one or the missed spot of skin recoloring on the other. They don't seem to dress alike, though, so unless she changes outfits every half hour or the disguise department gets abruptly perfect at their jobs I'll be able to identify her for you reliably."