forum "I Will Never Bow Before You" (Fantasy O/O Closed)

Started May 31, 2022 by @ShadeStar

tune

The Day Queen's name was Ro, or that was a nickname perhaps. Then the Day Queen, Ro, told David not to call her Ro, so Cicada was only going to call Ro that from this point on. In fact, this entire conversation was giving Cicada a lot of information about her "soon-to-be" wife. At the very least it didn't seem like Cicada was going to be blamed for what happened, and that alone caused her to relax ever so slightly. With that off her conscious, she could focus on gathering the information just being handed to her on a silver platter. The Night Queen was the Day Queen's mother and the Day Queen seems to have two brothers, David, the one who got her in this situation in the first place, and Edward. Somone Cicada knew nothing about, which scared her ever so slightly.

(So sorry! School and poor mental health are not a good mix ^^;)

The Day Queen glared at her brother. “I should let you take her place inside it.” David only laughed, and she let him go to turn her attention to the Demon Princess.
Letting out a sigh, she approached the cage. The guards stood at attention. “Princess.” She nodded to her. “I’m sure my brother has explained to you that that this will be your new room. I would say make yourself at home, but… well.” She gestured for a guard to unlock and open the door. The cage was moved inside, and Rowena followed behind. David attempt to follow too, but his sister sent him away with another glare.
The room was much larger than either of the previous rooms Cicada had stayed in. It looked plain and simple though, merely a spare room that hadn’t been used much. The bed was a circular nest, with a soft mattress and white sheets and pillows. There was a desk in one corner, and a high ceiling to fly around in. However, the room was windowless.
The Day Queen nodded to a guard again. The guard moved forward, unlocking the door to the cage and swinging it open.

(Don't worry about it! I like to live by the law of as long as you respond eventually, it's all good.)

Cicada stepped out of the cage once unlocked and scanned her surroundings quietly. She noted that it was bigger than the last room and it seemed like she wasn't going to be stuck in a cage, which were all on the plus side for her. All those plus sides could not eliminate the one major downside, there were no windows and it felt like it was closer to a bird's nest than an actual room. At the very least Cicada could spread her wings in her new prison. She glanced over at the Day Queen, "This is only until after the wedding I presume?"

The guards were nervous, Rowena could tell. Some were still, as if ready to shift into their bird forms at any moment. Others held their hands ready to grab the swords at their hilts, and those who were in bird form had their wings partially unfurled or quivering, as if readying to take flight. But Rowena was still, just keeping an eye on the Demon Princess.
“Yes, unless you would like to stay here after the wedding,” she shrugged. “I would not blame you if you decided too.”

Cicada could sense the tension around her coming from the guards. She had to hide her smirk as she flexed her wings a little just to startle them even further. While Cicada never wanted anyone to fear her, she could relish that in this moment, surrounded by the people who took over her kingdom, they were afraid of her. Cicada looked back over to the Day Queen, "We will have to see what happens between then and now. So what now Ro? We play twenty questions forced betrothal edition?"

(Twenty questions forced betrothal edition I-)

The Day Queen just seemed to watch her like before, as if she were a specimen in need of examination. Some of the guards, meanwhile, seemed to flinch. The queen simply shook her head and gestured for a few of the guards to take the cage away while the rest waited outside the room.
Then a deep frown pulled over her face. “Don’t call me that. If you must call me at all, please use Your Majesty, Your Diurnal Majesty, or Rowena.” She sighed. “I leave you now to get settled in, Princess Cicada.”
She turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

:)

Cicada still didn't like the way the Day Queen, Rowena, watched her. But the reactions of the other guards were worth the slight amount of pain flexing her wings caused. And the reaction of Rowena when Cicada called her Ro, yeah, she was only going to call her Ro from this point on. Right before Rowena left, Cicada gave a mocking salute and curtsey, "Farewell Ro."

Cicada was now left on her own to begin planning her escape. It was much easier to break out of a room, than to break out of a cage then a room.

The Day Queen didn’t know why the nickname was the one thing that got her riled up, but it was. She scowled, even in her sparrowhawk form, all the way to the dining room where she and her brothers shared their meals together.
Prince David was already there, of course, sitting at the rounded table and filling his plate. Rowena flew in and perched at the top of her chair, her yellow eyes inspecting both her brother and the food.
“Hey sis,” David greeted in that casual manner of his. “Edward is coming soon, you know how he is. Always buried in research and scholarly literature.”
Rowena just chittered her beak, not in the mood to shift into a human to talk.
“Awww, is the poor Day Queen having a bad day?” Her brother teased. “Does the Day Queen need some solitude, an escape from the harsh realities of the world?”
Immediately, she turned her piercing gaze on him, ire curdling in her eyes. She stared and stared and stared until David gulped his food down. “Fine, fine,” he backed down.

Cicada had a decent escape plan started, but a large part of it required her wings to be at full strength. At this moment they weren't from the holes that had been pinned through them and the days of disuse. She decided the best thing to do while she was semi-unsupervised was to practice flying. Something she hadn't done since she was a young demoness and hadn't taught anyone how to fly since the hostile take-over. Her eyes scanned the walls trying to find any good footholds so she could practice gliding finding a few, but not many. Cicada stretched her wings as far as she could wincing at the slight pain it brought but took a deep breath and kept moving her wings to full and then back to her back.

Soon enough, Edward arrived, and the three siblings dined together, mostly in silence. It seemed that the brothers wanted to discuss what was going on with the Day Queen, but she was quiet, only asking to talk about it later. Meanwhile, a few servants (escorted by guards) brought the Demon Princess her own meal.
Some time later, there was a polite knock at Cicada’s door. Rowena stood outside, feathered wings half unfurled from her back and a curious but dubious look on her face.

Cicada stopped stretching her wings when the meal arrived. She took the meal from the servant and placed it down on the floor. She sat cross-legged and silently prayed to the gods to give her strength and thanked them for the meal. One prayer later she ate her dinner in silence and had just finished it when the knock on the door came. Cicada let out a long sigh before she stood up and walked over to the door. Her eye brow raised when she saw Day Queen Rowena at the door, "Why are you here?"

Rowena fully folded her wings behind her back as a small smirk spread on her face. “You know, twenty questions doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Mind if I come in?”
Her hands were folded in front of her, her head tilted slightly.

"I made the offer, didn't I?" Cicada responded as she backed away from the door leaving it open behind her. She walked over to her dirty dishes and picked them up off the floor before then putting them on the desk. This was an opportunity for her to learn more about her captor.

It seemed the Demon Princess was having the same thoughts as Rowena was. She entered the room, then closed the door behind her. She was just chuckling softly in reply, shaking her head. Seeing the dishes, she suggested, “I can have a servant fetch those, if you’d like.”

"That would be nice," Cicada replied as she settled down cross-legged on her bed. She let her wings stretch out so she could get properly seated and let her head rest on her hand. She gestured over to Ro, "So Ro, care to go first?"