Russia quivered. Egypt quivered. Earth dipped her head, wincing at the memories of earthquakes, tsunamis and raging hell fires… but Tsi would not budge.
“Twenty years of peace,” he said firmly. “Nobody touches Shaman or Arthur until the twenty years are up.”
Lorraine tapped one of her long fingernails on the stone table. “Twenty years in relative time, yes?”
“Yes…”
“Thank you.”
Versailles was a heartbeat from Cairo – if you knew how to travel. Thirty seconds after her conversation with the Acting Chairman, the Russian deity was standing in the centre of the Palace of Versailles’ entrance hall, surrounded by immobilised French staff. Pausing only to shoot the inept humans a withering look, Lorraine gracefully ascended the antique staircase and glided through the familiar corridors until she reached the Gallerie des Glaces - the famous Hall of Mirrors. After weaving between smatterings of motionless tourists, she came to a halt before the mirror with the curly black ‘S’ etched neatly into one corner. The tourists’ blank faces stared back at her, but her own reflection was invisible. Lorraine didn’t hesitate before stepping through the gleaming surface.
Shaman was quieter than she remembered. Dappled light peaceably shone through the trees, and the only sound which could be heard were the twitters and chatters of the wildlife. Lorraine would soon fix that. Her beautiful smile lengthened grotesquely as her body shifted and blurred, swelling tenfold in size and ripping the fashionable fur-lined coat from her back.
Murmansk dragons were among the rarest dragon species on Earth, and had become something of a national pride animal to the Russian fairies. Commonly confused with their arctic cousins, their scales were made of an almost impenetrable semi-translucent, crystal-like substance which, coupled with their association with water over fire, had earned them the nickname ‘ice dragons’. Their glittering, reflective bodies were effective at blinding prey and they frequently caused fires when roaming in bright sunlight. They could be found only in the highest, coldest regions of northern Russia.
Lorraine snapped her jaw and stretched her wings, easily uprooting the two trees either side of her and sending them crashing to the ground. She paused long enough to catch a scent of the crisp, sweet smell of burning leaves before crouching down and spiralling up into the air; as she soared away, a slender plume of smoke began to make its way towards the heavens behind her.
The mirror had placed her on the same island she and the rest of the council had arrived on last time, but now it seemed to be uninhabited. She circled it twice to make sure before heading out over the channel and onto the mainland where she’d never been before and, frankly, had never cared to visit. Her presence didn’t go unnoticed, and by the time she’d found what she was looking for – a sprawling castle towards the centre of the island – a number of unimportant people were also beginning to make their way there.
Arthur’s guards were well-trained but ineffective; they didn’t scatter at the sight of her but they did get flushed away pretty quickly by a blast of high-pressure water. For good measure, she blasted the castle too. If Arthur didn’t notice that, he didn’t deserve to rule.
She landed on the grounds in front of the castle, shifted back into her standard fairy form and strode purposefully towards the entranceway. By the time she’d reached it, a man who she presumed to be the King of Shaman had appeared there. Lorraine regarded him with distaste for a moment before breaking the silence.
“You are King Arthur?” She paused for the briefest of moments before continuing. “I am Lorraine, Inter-Species Ambassador of the Council of Originals. As the representative of Shaman, I am holding you responsible for my stolen possessions. I am offering you a one-off opportunity to return them without paying any consequences for thieving them in the first place; I suggest you take me up on it.”
lorraine.
and i sunned it with smiles, and soft deceitful wiles;
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