"I like a mix of blues...soft shades, even if they're dark. They make me think of the ocean..." Mycroft's eyes swam with desire. It seemed that even though he lived so far from the coast, he wanted to stay by the ocean.

Mycroft nodded, saluting him playfully, and scampered over to the sofa on the other side of the room. He promptly curled up on it, intending to take a nap until the Archmage returned.

The four servants dutifully followed the orb outside.

The Wizard's soul took the shape of what seemed to be a very young version of himself as he left the palace, and the slightly see-through child led the four servants into the forest just outside of the town at the foot of the castle.

They soon came to a fork in the path, one way led to a near impenitrable wall of various plants, the other seemed to be completely clear and peaceful. The wizard put his hand on a tree near the wall of overgrowth and the vines and branches divided, and the other path became filled with thorns. "You can see what I mean by a misleading enchantment now, can't you?If you had gone that way your legs would be bleeding at the first step in."

The four servants huddled closer together. One of them in particular, the one who had been the friendliest with Mycroft, shuffled forth as the leader of the small group. Unlike the other three, who looked meek and submissive to authority, this one looked a little dangerous.

(OH DEAR LORD HIS HAIR IS BLINDING. )

The wizard continued onward through the traps, similar ones to the first, but a few had three to even five paths to choose from, and some you actually DID take the peaceful, easy-looking route, until he came upon a small, honestly sort of boring looking house. He walked through the closed, locked door and unlocked it from the inside, then opened it for the four servants.

"The furniture can other such things can stay, but I obviously want my clothing, my books, my staves..Nothing horribly heavy except for the books, but there is no way I could get it on my own, especially like this.."

He said, demonstrating that he couldn't touch solid objects by puching his hand right through one of the servant's chests then pulling it straight out. "It's much easier to disarm the traps of the forest in his form, though."

((I KNOW. :eager: ))

The leader of the group of servants rested one hand on his hip, eyeing the place. He was...very tall. Almost seven feet tall...and quite pale.

"...I can take the books then, I can. Obviously, I'm the strongest of the group." His voice was quick, ever-excited. It complimented his wild, almost feral look. The moment he finished speaking, he began to gently gather up most of the books.

(LUCKILY THERE ARE OTHER THINGS IN THAT PICTURE THAT CAN DISTRACT FROM THAT.
I MEAN
DAYUM, SON THAT IS ONE HOT YET TERRIFYING GUY. :heart:_:heart: )

"My clothing is in the dresser and all of my staves are in here.." He said, floating over to a large, closed wooden cabinet ti direct one of the servants to where he should go.

He walked back over to the servant that had gotten his books and he looked up at the man. "There is one small thing I want you to carry, since you seem the most capable of the four of you.." He went over to his dresser, snapped his fingers and a jewelery box on the top of it opened, and a necklace made from thick silver chain with a glimmering blue crystal pendant simply floated out and onto the red haired(more orangeish but whatev. BLINDING HAIR MAN) servant's neck. "Give that to Mycroft when we return, and tell him to put it around my neck."

In speaking of the wizard's body, back at the castle it seemed as if the wizard's soul had gone far enough away from his body that his body had stopped breathing altogether, his tattoos glew dimly, though, as a small sign of hope that he was still alive.

The man grunted, taking as much as he could--he had about twice the amount of items that the others had. "Ready to go, yes. I believe we are. Is that everything?" He glanced around curiously, like he was looking for more possible items.

Mycroft was sprawled out on his couch, asleep. He was snoring softly.

The wizard nodded a bit, but stopped. "Ah..Actually, do any of you have a free hand, to get my jewelery box?It's on the top of the dresser..It's much heavier than it looks, and it looks quite heavy in the first place.To me at least.."

Two kittens, one snow white and one light grey, came up to the servant carrying books, looked up at their master's child-like ghostly image and purred, blue markings glowing brightly through their fur in sort of a tabby-like pattern, but in almost in the style of tribal tattoos, their blue eyes glowing like their master's.

(I might add in a couple characters soon, such as take care of, like, a personal servant for Myca and a neighbouring kingdom's ruler(Who may or may not look very evil but actually be an okay ruler even though he's en egotistical bastard) Just sayin'.So when a mass influx of characters for me to play appears you aren't too shocked.XD)

((XD I'll add more in as we go, to keep up!))

Without too much effort, the man reached up with one hand and heaved the jewelry box onto the pile of items he had. He sniffed a moment, uninterested in the cats. "Can they carry those on their own? I have no free hands. Unless, they want to try to pile them on the top of this giant pile I have."

"No, Baten and Deneb will simply follow us back on their own, as long as I'm with you." The man said, beginning to walk out the door with his cats not far behind, who kept looking back as if they were waiting for the other four men to follow.

(Starting with the king's name(who you named but whatev) I'm sticking with star names. c: Baten and Deneb actually both have two names, Wizzy here just shortened them. Their names are Baten Kaitos and Deneb Kaitos, which are stars.
Betelgeuse, that king's name, is a star in the constellation 'Orion'
The wizard's name might or might not also be part of Orion. 8D

FUN FACT: MY ACOUSTIC GUITAR'S NAME IS ORION. C: JUST SO I COULD CALL THE STRAP 'ORION'S BELT'. 8D)

Quickly, the servant scuttled outside, with his friends in tow. They were struggling more than he was, and he had twice the amount of stuff in his arms. He must have been super strong...

((Star names are the best. :D))

(Also that pendant around mr blinding haired superman's neck has a bit of a dark secret..Notice how it glows the same color as averything else glowy on the wizzy and his pets.. 8D YOU'LL SEE WHEN NIGHTTIME COMES IN RP)

The wizard and his cats led the mean back through the forest and back through the town to the castle's doors, which seemed to open wide simply by the will of the wizard's mind. "Now, this time, do you four have the bravery to simply go into a hallway? Because there is no way I can carry all that into my room..You have a good reason to, don't you?The king is the one who sent Mycroft to get you four for this task in the first place so I wouldn't understand why anyone would have a problem.." He said, actually simply attempting to tease the four a bit, but his almost emotionless stare back at them made it seem like he was meaning to be insulting.

(Here's another thing wizzy's inherited from his inspiration from Harvest Moon: it's really hard for him not to sound like a jerk. )

((Oh my! Dark secrets! :boogie: ))

The leader snorted and ignored him, heading on up to where the royal bedrooms were, followed by his 'posse' of sorts. He seemed like a fun-loving man, but he didn't like to work, and when he had to work, he was ornery. This was the side of him King Betelgeuse often saw, because he pushed him, quite hard.

"Set everything inside the Archmage's room and give that pendant to Mycroft, or the servant boy named Vega..I'll handle the rest." The wizard said, walking through the door to Mycroft's room and re-entering his body. His eyes opened widely as soon as he did so, and his tattoos glew brightly. He inhaled very deeply as if he had not been able to breathe a moment before and began coughing into his hand, coughing up a bit of blood in the process.

The tattoos that had originally glew when he was preparing for that spell also began to bleed, on his face and arms mostly, it could be easily seen that those were the runes that warded off most problems with that spell..Except for this one. Obviously.

(Ow that spell is not pleasant to end after that long of being in it obviously. >_o; THERE'S KIND OF BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE SORRY)

Mycroft woke up when he heard him cough, then stared and rushed over to him. "You want me to go set you in the bathtub? Get rid of the blood? The water should help you out--make everything feel better." He sounded really worried.

As he was told, the servant headed off to the Archmage's bedroom.

The wizard coughed again and nodded. "Y-yes, please.." He weakly said. "As long as the water doesn't make me bleed out faster.. these wounds on my arms and face are open.Gods I hate it when it does that..I-I'm sorry if I bled on your things, magic-tainted blood isn't pleasant to see, I know..To someone will no magic at all it can burn like acid..I didn't know the spell would backfire this bad..Ahm..O-aaa--ow.." He tried to get up, seeming to show that he was bleeding from almost every copy of those runes on hs body, on his hands, arms, face and feet at least. "I'll need your help..I..Hope it's not a burden.Your servants are putting my things in my room right now, w-when I get into a bath, find the servant you sent with bright red-orange hair, he has something for me and I told him to give it to you..It's..hard to explain, but I can't actually handle it myself due to the magic casted on it, but another magic wielder can, you count well enough.."

Mycroft slung an arm up under the Archmage's arms, easily helping him up off the bed. "This way, come on...it's not too much farther." Quickly, but gently enough that the movements wouldn't jar him around, Mycroft walked him into the bathroom and then set him in the bathtub, clothes and all. He figured they would need to be washed, anyway, and this was more urgent. He had medicated soaps he could use to help stop the bleeding.

Quickly, Mycroft turned the dials and started to fill the tub with warm water. He handed a small bottle to him. "Here. Medicated soap. It should help stop the bleeding in the worst places, where the water won't."

"One moment.." He said, taking off his clothing rather shamelessly as the water filled the tub. "I hate feeling wet clothes against my skin.." He took his boots off and put them on the floor outside the tub, managed to get off his robe and cloak then his pants and underwear, sitting shamelessly naked in front of the prince in the hot water. "Thank you, but I won't need it now that I'm here..You see I think your powers that you already have will very much grow within my presence.." He said, pulling the ribbon that held his hair into it's long braid out and sinking into the bloody water, all of the bleeding runes began to glow andd return to their navy blue color and the blood faded from the water.

He hadn't breathed in when he sunk in, in fact he was breathing in water at the moment, on purpose. He lifted his torso back up and pushed his wet silver hair out of his face before letting crystal clear water from in his lungs flow out of his mouth. "Much better..Thank you." The wizard smiled. "Now you see the extent of my runic tattoos.." He said, leaning forward so Mycroft could see the runes that covered his shoulderblades, with two stripes of then decending to his lower back from his inner shoulderblades down. "These were done progressively as I grew up, from my birth. I have had the ones on the very centers of my cheeks and hands since I was a newborn, they're the most powerful protection my father's magic could give me.."

"..I was born in this castle, to the archmage before last, and a servant girl of the same dying race as me and my father..I am only four years younger than your father.My father was Sadal Melik..Only 3 years after my birth, he dissapeared from your world into the forest with my mother..My mother died before I could speak, even my father didn't know why..He raised me all alone until last year, when he died to give me simply a fourth of his power..Tonight I have to honor the promise I made to him as he died in my arms..I..Remember your father as a child..It's..Odd.From gaining my father's power I gained some of his memories..When the time is right to speak my name, I wonder if Betelgeuse will remember me from so long ago."

(HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT PLOT TWIST)

Mycroft, who was as innocent as he possibly could be when it came to seeing others naked, flushed a bright pink color and covered his eyes slightly. "Okay..." He set the soap down, back in its rightful place.

Mycroft tried not to stare. He had never seen another male naked before, and he was afraid to study his tattoos for fear of staring at things he shouldn't be staring at.

He did open his eyes when he explained his past, and then tilted his head. "He's terrible with remembering people, so I doubt it. That, and he's a bitter old bat these days. I like pushing his buttons by giving him funny nicknames. His nickname this week is Juicy, 'cause he's Betelgeuse."

"Well..He might not remember me, but maybe my father.His skills were so great he could make the last archmage look like an apprentice..Why he would run away from this place with my mother simply to give me the chance to be more thatn just a servant, to give me the chance at magic even if he didn't know my full potential..And then he traded immortality to give me power..He never treated me well until the final few years with him.." The wizard sighed, playing with the water with his magic, making it into various shapes.

"He was harsh on me, one mistake and he'd yell, a few tiems if I continued to mess up he'd get so angry he'd hit me with bolts of magic until I ran outside of the house..Put me through rough training every day to boost my powers..But I loved him, because he gave me life.He tried to give my mother a better life..Even if it was in vain..I wonder sometimes if she died because of something that happened during my birth..So in a way he blamed it on me, until he saw the error of his ways..He seemed to hate me, but every birthday he's inscribe more and more power boosting and protecting runes on me, and after I turned sixteen he taught me how to use the needle myself."

He made the form of a man that looks similar to him in his hands out of water and he sighed. "So throughout my life, I was confused..Did he love me, or hate me?Curse my life or praise it..Did he pray to the gods to smite me from existance, or to protect me..Every night that the sky was clear he went through the woods to my mother's grave and prayed..I followed him sometimes..He bound his arms in shackles with a chain so long he could wrap it in circles around his arms, across his back and then to the other arm.It's strong symbolism in the culture he raised me with, especially for mages..It symbolises being bound to the world, and when you reach your highest potential, the gods strike you with lightning and break the chains..The last year of his life, he always wore those same shackles every day, but the chain was broken..He was waiting until his power was at it's highest to kill himself for me, so I could obtain the most power I could..I saw it the night he was struck with lightning..He fell against my mother's gravestone and screamed in pain..His robe had a large burn in the back where the rune for 'infinity' was struck into his back.That night I hid in the woods until the sun came, I feared for my life, that he would kill me now that he could get past my shields..He found me at sunrise hidden in a tree, and he smiled for the first time..Three months later he died in my arms.." The wizard continued to speak, tears welling up in his eyes.

Mycroft lowered his hands after a moment, looking sad. "...I guess I really do have a cushy life," he murmured, guiltily. "I was never pushed to do much of anything...I have had many deaths in my family, though. I take it you noticed I don't have a mother?"

His tone had drooped slightly. It sounded like the subject of his mother was not a pleasing one for him.

"My father and I are the only ones left. He was heartbroken when my mother died--she died in childbirth, with me...my father blames me for her death. He doesn't hurt me or anything...not physically, most of the time. He rarely speaks to me...he avoids me all day...it's rare, but we do fight, and when we fight, it often gets violent..."

The wizard let the watery figure fall through his hands, and he turned to place one hand on Myca's cheek. "We do have something in common after all, then..Although you never had bolts of arcane magic thrown at you..I'm not putting you down because you have the life of a royal..Just between you and me I think you'd make a better king than your father.You can show compassion to those some princes would bully just because they couldn't get in trouble for abusing them..The servants.My father always spoke of Princes as if they were demons, capable of showing great hatred towards servants for no reason, simply because they were lower in society than them..And you make them your greatest allies..So either I've found some aspect of m father's teachings that was wrong, which to be honest is very hard to do, or, you are an exception.."

"I'm sorry to hear that your mother has passed..I was going to ask where the queen was, but I was afraid to stir up bad memories, if something like what happened to me had also happened here, and it seems that my suspicions were true..Tell me..Was her name Bellatrix?My father spoke of..something about the son of Bellatrix, in the future he predicted for me before he died.He also said something about a pair of servants named Altair and Vega."

(NOT THAT ALTAIR
Unless you WANT me to make him an assasin of some sort, or a spy for the king. )

"Bolts of...what? Nope, never had those thrown at me!" Mycroft replied, scratching his head slightly. His cheeks were a little hot from the touch to his face. "The servants are my best friends. All of the noble children my father introduces me to are really vain and bitter...and concerned about looks and status only. That's not for me..."

He paused. "To be honest, I don't know...she died in childbirth, and my father and everyone else in the castle...they never mention her. This is my father's doing--he misses her so much that he doesn't want anyone or anything to remind him of her. Unfortunately, he has me..."

"Would you think there would be some sort of royal family tree, kept either by the library or maybe even the Archmage?I don't think even the king is allowed to erase a name from that record..Or..Maybe ancestry isn't much important in your culture, compared to mine..In speaking of which--I'll explain why I said that later tonight--That servant I sent with my pendant should have come to you by now..Although my wounds have healed, now that spell I used to heal has drained my strength..Whatever I had left from the previous spells I casted to lead the servants that is, which wasn't a whole lot.." He sighed, relaxing in the water that had somehow now turned ice cold. "I'm rambling again..I'm sorry."

(Make any shrinking jokes and I'll just say it doesn't affect him because it'`s MAAAGICALLY COLD. :P )

"...I really don't want to make him angry." Mycroft glanced around furtively, almost like he suspected his father would appear out of thin air to backhand him across the face for mentioning his mother. "He's awful when he's angry."

Suddenly, he frowned. "Oh, yeah...the servants get in trouble if they're caught in my room...but!" He tilted his head at the Archmage. "Was it a really, really tall guy with bright orange-ish hair? He'll find a way in if it was him, but the others are too afraid of my father to press their luck..."