[FIN] Lonely in my Hell [Kari]

[Vyn]

For the majority of her day, Mephit was happily cut off from the rest of the Court. Very few people blundered into the dungeons to disrupt her, mostly for fear of running into the official 'dungeon master'. Pravus, of course, was too far out his right mind to really do what he'd been doing and Mephit carried the slack for the time being.

She left the useless ones to be his playthings, to keep him from killing the ones that still had information too quickly.

The downside to this, was that servants and their rumor-loosing tongues rarely ever steeped into her chambers and Mephit remained contentedly oblivious to the turmoil above. She had her dungeon and her current prisoner to torture, little else mattered when she was lost in her experiments. She shuffled quietly through her syringes before finding what she was looking for and filling it with a transparent liquid.

[Kari Muffin]

Peaches hurried down the hallway. This was probably the worst thing that happened in the courts for a while. Shinrai was dead because his SON killed him. What on earth was going on?

Shinrai had been a nice person. Paranoid. Hard to get information on. But nice... as far as she was concerned. It just wasn't right that someone would stab him and accuse him of murder.

But when did the Court of Hearts make sense?

Ha right. Never. People didn't make sense, so why should the bloody courts?

The woman skipped two steps at a time as she made her way down to the dungeon. She had to let Mephit know the horrible news.

"Mephit! Mephit!" She called as she took the last step, stumbling as she went. Honestly she needed to work out. This was just sad. Of course it could have been the stress of listening to someone get murdered in a furious rage of death and destruction, but she ignored that tiny little fact. "I have bad news! Shinrai's dead!"

[Vyn]

The sound of her name being called through the dungeon made Mephit momentarily flinch, the doe accidentally driving the needle she'd been wielding a bit too deeply into her prisoner. He screamed like a prepubescent girl and received a rough smack before Mephit roughly retrieved her needle.

The only thing that saved Peaches from having the same syringe thrown at her was the sheer fact that she was Peaches and therefore a tolerable acceptance to her hatred of everyone else.

"Heartbreaking." The doe offered, her tone less than genuine. "Who is our new Queen?" Mephit couldn't really see anything "really bad" about a new Queen taking over, unless they had some intention of disrupting her daily routine.

Despite Mephit's best attempts to stop caring about others and their fragile, breakable minds, her thoughts still jumped to Pravus and Marie. Marie would be well enough, but if Mephit's routine was disrupted then she doubted Pravus's would be much better. She would have to check on him...

[Kari Muffin]

"That's the really bad news." Peaches said as her eyes started to water. "The new Queen is Perseus, Shinrai's son... who is crazier than Pravus on a good day."

Peaches felt tears trickle down her face. She wanted the "good old days" back. She wanted Queen Serafino back in power. Even if he was a curl sadistic sort of person, at least he was sane. He wasn't going to bring the entire down fall of the Suit of Hearts.

And what about Xiven? Her daughter couldn't be safe in a place like this. What if that mad man attacked her? "Mephit, what are we going to do? The whole suit of Hearts is going to be a joke." She whimpered. It was a rare occasion that she lost her composure in front of someone other than Hatter, but this was a special occasion.

She sniffed. And what the hell was going to happen to Pravus?

Why couldn't everyone just get along? Was it really that hard to TALK?

[Vyn]

Mephit didn't make much of an outward reaction to the news, though her right eye momentarily twitched.

A mad man was running their Suit? Mephit wasn't particularly full of Heart Pride, but she did recognize that an insane man running the show meant that her routine would be disrupted.

The 'gold old days' were something Mephit, despite herself, honestly missed as well. When Fino had been in power, things had been relatively not crazy. She'd been welcome to enjoy her work as she pretty much pleased and Pravus had been alright, which had been the biggest highlight of her time in politics... The doe sighed after a long moment. "What is being done about this... tragedy?" In other words, who was going to kill this menace and remove him from the seat of power?

Would Xiven be strong enough, or willing, to do the deed herself? Mephit at least respected the woman enough to see her in power.

[Kari Muffin]

Peaches sniffed, trying to suck up the tears and misery she was feeling. She would be utterly useless to the courts unless they needed someone to spy. With the way things were going they would need someone from an asylum.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I don't know. Xiven isn't strong enough, and I know she wouldn't rush head first into something like that."

Peaches sighed and flopped down to the floor. "I think they're going to evacuate innocent bystanders or something like that. They'll get the kids out of the palace at least, which I can't imagine Xiven will be thrilled about. This entire thing is a bloody mess that can't be magically fixed. I just... I just.... want Fino back."

She whimpered. "I don't know what you want to do, but I might skip out of the palace for a while until the problem's solve. Or at least hang around to check up on Bernard. Poor man doesn't deserve this. No one deserves any of this mess."

[Vyn]

Mephit listened without interrupting as Peaches ranted and eventually flopped to the floor in her desperate emo-flailing. The deer-snake remained where she was, frowning deeply.

Xiven wasn't powerful enough? Pity... Se had been proving to be rather... well, yes, terrifying did appear to be the word. His human form was unsettling at very least, and his psychosis was equally so. She didn't particularly want to deal with him herself...

The first hint of emotion entered Mephit's features when Fino was mentioned, and regret weighed heavily in her voice when she spoke of him. "We all want Fino back." The emotion was gone as quickly as it had come. "You're right, you should probably get out for a while," she would have typically left but her ties to Pravus and Marie both held her to the Court. Fuck. "I'll stay -- keep an eye on Bernard and Xiven if she stays." Perhaps this meant it was time for a change?

The serpentine doe cast her gaze around the dungeon before returning her serpentine gaze to Peaches. Hmph, fine.

"I'll go see if I can help, I suppose."

[Kari Muffin]

Peaches sighed. "Xiven will stay. She's too stubborn to leave because something was dangerous. She'd die before walking out of the court. Doesn't have an ounce of self preservation in her, I swear."

And that was she took after her father. Reckless idiot. Thankfully she didn't seem to inherit any of his crazy. Or hers. Xiven was the closet thing to "normal" that could ever be achieved. "I think I might still stay to talk to Bernard. Poor old man. The courts are going to kill him."

She said as she got off the floor, ignoring her depression and following Mephit. Or at least that was her intention. She paused as she stood, watching the Jack. “Mephit, should I bother to stay in the courts? Does anyone really need someone like me around? I'm pretty damn useless when anything important happens. We're going through Queens like... socks. I'm just waiting for someone else to waltz in here and slaughter everyone. I don't know... if I should bother staying.”

Why was she even saying this to Mephit. She'd dealt with death before. She shouldn't be this upset. Why should she quit her dream job because just because a man died refusing to kill his own son?
"Sorry. I'm an idiot."

[Vyn]

Mephit took in the woman's words without ever really finding a response for them. Conversations such as these were always mildly uncomfortable, because they seemed to hint at someone wanting consolation and that was the last thing Mephit was good at. She could have told Peaches to just suck it up and shut her mouth from the moment the Torque entered the room, but she didn't.

She let Peaches rant and mused quietly inside her head. Minus the despondence, she had some good points.

Mephit had reached the bottom of the stairs before Peaches managed to say anything to really make her stop. The doe heaved a small sigh and shook her head. She had to wonder the same thing Peaches was thinking. Why was she telling her this?

"I hear you do your job well." Mephit stated offhandedly before turning around, glaring pointedly at the cat. "Your job is to be a spy, mine is to work the dungeons. Kings protect their Queens, unless it was a legitimate Queen Fight, in which Shinrai died as he intended to -- protecting his position on the throne."

Mephit had no clue why their Court was suddenly so prone to death, she hadn't heard of so many lives coming and going like this before. If it was a legit fight and Rai sacrificed himself for his insane son, then Mephit was going to be heartily pissed. In fact, no. She didn't even bother with the emotion. That was probably exactly what happened.

"Stay if you want, Peaches. This Court will destroy itself with or without you."

[Kari Muffin]

Peaches remembered why she didn't talk to Mephit about emotional things. She always got burned. A small sigh escaped her as she turned to look at the woman with golden eyes.

She wished it wasn't that bad. The Court of Hearts could be run behind closed doors. The man could easily sit in the thrown while others made plans behind him. But what was the point of that? What was the point of any of this? Why did people have to die for a title that said they were better than someone else?

"I hope the Court won't fall with or without me. It's been running for so many years, I can't imagine someone would tear it down completely. But..." She sighed. What was the point of staying? Did anyone really need her?

"This is all so stupid. None of it makes any sense," Peaches said as she turned around, making her way past Mephit. "I'll figure something out. Probably should find someone to tell us what's going to happen though."