"Gods above, I thought that would never end..." I remark, collapsing onto my assigned chair with too much care for such a tire-born action. Morgihranur finds herself in her spot in a far more graceful manner, one far more mindful of the eyes on us. The fake privacy of being at the head of a banquet table.
"Speeches are long affairs. It's an art, really, one I like to feel I must've got quite good at given how long I've done it for." Morgihranur goes on, not taking the hint at all that she's been speaking for far too long.
"Still, this is enough attention for me, and I hate it so much. And you come along and put more eyes on me!" I complain, getting a gentle hand to my lap, none of the usual armour in her gloves and dress at all this time around.
"A saviour of the kingdom deserves all that he is owed," she tells me, leaning in close so she can maintain a simple, sweet tone about it. I meet her eyes as best as I can with this intimately unwieldy mask, a smile on my lips in much the same way as it is hers. Though mine would never be so beautiful as a pretty lady's, even if I was still a proper man of human blood. I don't even have lips now, and unlike with what were my fingers, I know of no word to call it anew.
"What happened to all those others who are also owed the title?" I ask her, and a giggle disrupts her smile.
"Oh, they got their parts in the speech, you know that." she points out and I huff.
"I was drowning your voice out most of the time. Too much going on all around, even now." I try to exclaim, the fear of more attention keeping me from throwing my arms up or making much if any noise about it. Gods above indeed, it's awful to be at the head of the table like this. I'm not even sure what makes it such an awful circumstance. Past trauma or fears? A simple hatred for being placed high and clear?
If only I knew, and I don't particularly want to.
"You can go elsewhere, if you wish? I was thinking of maybe leaving the lights, too. Enjoy the party from afar, maybe." Morgihranur suggests, perhaps not even telling the truth entirely about it.
"Don't think I've ever needed permission for privacy." I quip and she giggles and my words, shaking her head with a knowing look.
"Not what I mean, and you know it!" she snaps right back, that giggle keeping its strength and perhaps gaining some. We both rise, and she offers what she can to the crowd, and we get going. The weight of the crown ploughs our way back to the palace, and an intentionally clear hallway becomes our freedom.
"There, much better with all that haste behind us." I go, huffing out a sigh. I try to nudge an arm, but Morgihranur, in her finite want for attention and my presence, won't let go. Not that I'm complaining, a lot less armour on the person makes it a far more comfortable thing to be near. Soft, tender flesh. Smooth skin with a light fur covering of body hair. Then just the comfort of having a warm, caring body on hand.
Speaking of...
"Not the easiest thing to hold, is it?" I ask, returning the pressure she's applying to my held claw. Four fingers, all delicate and still smooth and soft. A thumb at the end, nubile and wiggly. All that wrapped around three digits of my own, hard things covered in shell and so little agility I can't even write clean and clear.
"I like a good challenge, and all you do is prove to be difficult." she teases, coming in close for a one-sided hug.
"Not to worry, I'll be gone and out of your hair soon." I tell her, and all of that joy on her face vanishes.
Her tongue clicks, a stutter coming to her breath, "I... I don't want that. I have to admit. Having you here makes me comfortable. And I don't just mean that in the sense of fighting monsters who come in through the Crack in the Sky."
I try my best to squeeze her hand back, the clunkiness of my claws more the problem than my strength, "You've been a wonderful host. Not a day has gone by where I haven't had an explosion of excitement in my life."
"Oh, shut up." she goes, rolling her eyes with a despaired laugh carrying on through the empty hall. Our course changes, and we arrive at the closest window, a clean view of the city below. What happens on the surface so very clearly happens the level below. Though, I imagine it's a fair bit more claustrophobic in an industrial district than it is on the open manors and chateaus of here.
"Besides, you've been dealing with a place like this for a while, Morgihranur. This isn't something I can do much for you in. I'm a hammer for nails, not a song for the heart." I point out, trying something to reassure her worries.
"Heh... No, you couldn't be more wrong about it, really. You couldn't be any more wrong about it if you tried. Without Daddy or my usual means to ease the pressure... Things have been hard down here. My act sells me on this divine child, gifted unto the kingdom by the Lord Himself, my father, Daddy. Even before the Crack in the Sky came about, I was lacking my usual council." she explains, leaving an increasingly heavy frown on my head.
"I've not exactly filled in, in that capacity... Morgihranur." I point out, though, as she just said, I'm wrong about it. Her shaking head all but confirms it.
"No, no. Simply being here, constantly growing your strength how you can... It gave me the assurances I need. Where once it was just silence from the surface, it turned to people arriving in my kingdom without warning. Monsters following right after. To have someone be there, someone as strong as me and growing ever more so is a pillar that can hold a house in the sand irregardless of the rocks around it," she explains further, and I give a slight nod at her words.
"Glad to be of service then, Your Majesty." I tell her, smiling as hers comes back.
The door at the end of the hallway slams open, one of the Lady-King's staff there.
"YOUR MAJESTY! THE LORD'S MESSENGER CALLS!" he shouts down to us and Morgihranur gasps, her grip loosening away from me.
"A-Are you certain!?" she calls back, and the footman breaks protocol, simply gesturing and urging for her to come.
She looks my way, stuck in place.
"Please, with me," she begs, urging me in such the same way. I nod in understanding and give chase, keeping pace with her the whole way. Knights are already filling out the halls, ruining the party for all in our way. All the way to the throne room, which is being horribly evicted of people.
The pair of us skid to a halt, the armoured crowd leaving as much as the drunk one is.
"Now what...?" I ask, looking around the throne room, not sure what I am actually supposed to be looking out for. Morgihranur comes close, putting her hand on my beak and then directing it up with a point towards a sparkling light. A gemstone at the centre and a net that's going across the whole ceiling.
"If you'll follow me." Morgihranur breathes shakily, straightening herself up in a way she doesn't ever do unless she's doing things like that speech earlier. There's no one here, and she's already putting on the mannerisms.
"Right behind the throne..." I click, noting the one place here that's actually been barricaded. By a surface-made device of all things, even with all the attempts made to hide its intentions. She pushes the gems and gold bits like they're simple buttons on a console, and the barrier moves away. Both magical and physical.
She rises up the steps and I follow her, my strides far more crass and wide at the hip. We go around her throne, and she clicks some hidden switches and the like. A door slides open, a rather boring sight lying beyond it. For all the pomp, the palace and even the observatory, this place is downright clinical.
Clear walls of smoothed-out concrete and carved stone. Exposed piping of all kinds, bits of machinery going about their days without any pause or rest. Hisses of steam and the whistle of easing magic pressure. The only place in the entire kingdom where that sensation of leeching is not present at all. The Ancient Jhermonikra do not have their fingers here at all.
It's just me, Morgihranur, the ambient noise and all the echoes of our footfalls. A more clear alarm blaring at the far end of the tunnel. The tunnel comes to its end, finally after an endless passing of nonsense. A small console awaits us, though only Morgihranur is to do anything with it. I'm not of much use right now, lingering around.
But... She's shaking a lot. Fear? Gladness? I can't really tell. I suppose I will find out in the same way she will.
"Daddy's fine... Daddy's fine..." Morgihranur repeats to herself quietly, muttering away the same thing. I question whether I should approach or not, but the great vault-like door at the end of the chamber thunks the attention away. Pneumatics kick into action and a certain sturdy firmness of simpler technologies moves about. Dragging, pulling. The extensive metal barricade shifts and buckles, moving aside to reveal not just a man on his own.
But an army at his beck and call.
"Daddy!" Morgihranur enlightens over, practically hopping and bounding her way over to him as he strides in, the power of an Exceptional most certainly there at the barest minimum. The same can be said of the staff he brings with him. Fully armoured and glowing with all the power of the surface and all the intentions of being involved with a weak land.
"Morgihranur... My dearest apologies, my dear. There have been many problems up on the surface that I couldn't answer the calls for help," he answers, holding his daughter close as she starts to weep as the stress finally leaves her person. He turns his attention from her quite quickly, eyeing me with a careful gaze that I can see even through his helmet. He takes it off, showing himself to be a truly emerald-haired man, even with the few licks of blond still present.
"D-Daddy... This is... This is Nin, he's the man who has been helping me in the meantime." she explains, so very much wrong with that sentence of hers.
"You are not of this place." he is right to say, stepping aside of his daughter's affections to test his might right against mine. And for the moment, he has the lead while I'm recovering. But he's certainly a man who is expected to hold his ground in the face of proper battle. Cannons firing to the left and the right, from above and beyond and more than just that.
"I am not, no. I am a traveller, who mistook this for the surface at first." I answer, sticking to the initial lie that secured our stay in this underground kingdom.
"Who else?" he asks, his eyes narrowing while his fist forms tightly around the hip-mounted blade. A weapon I can already tell is practically crystalline with its magical influences.
"A human, and a hwardgon. Both with me. The troublemakers have been dealt with." I say.
"An answer, now." he goes, leaning in close, passing the beak and going right against the lense. A full view of a wide, anger-veined eye that shimmers with the Wind-Mountain's power.
"Osibindah," I say, giving him just that as his jaw tightens, a furious vein already pumping right into existence.
"Nin here... Daddy... Nin here helped me fight them off. He saved my life." Morgihranur admits, forcing her way in between us to put a stop to the well-intentioned madness of a loving father. He yields to her words and actions, giving me but a nod as he turns away.
"HURRY UP ALREADY!" he roars down the tunnel, an army of masons and the like coming on through as much as soldiers proper are.