05-03-2015, 12:52 PM
Quote:Agnès joins the thread! Woo!
Only the last four paragraphs are really relevant to Nippur, but if you feel like reading, the whole post is there, too~
Agnès stepped through the other side of the arch, where her boots connected (Barely) with the sand below her. She felt herself almost lose her balance, which was hard enough to keep with what she was wearing. Going from invisible but perfectly solid ground to sand, which was almost fluid in texture, was certainly a strange feeling - More so when it was immediate and uncalled for. The closest thing she had to a hint of what she would see through the gate was the gate's material, and that did little to impress. Fortunately, the desert felt much more like home than a blank canvas of a world, so Agnès broke the closest thing to a smile she had made for a while. How long had it been since she had spent time in a desert aside from the short walk between Grandship's ideal landing point in Ancheim's desert and the Wind Temple?
The Wind Temple... Oh, and Ancheim's desert. How they rung bells in the vestal's mind made her heart ache. She knelt and took a fistful of sand, only to let it slip between her fingertips; She could feel the familiarity in the sand, how it felt so welcoming. Though many had distaste for this kind of place, it felt nostalgic for Agnès. She rose and looked around - Brief bursts of hot wind flew past Agnès from the west, kicking up some sand here and there, but no sand flew up higher than her hips, so her vision was not obscured in any way. With a quick squint at the sun, blistering in heat as it always was in deserts, she wondered if what she was wearing would be adequate protection from its rays. She doubted so, but white reflected sunlight if her limited desert survival knowledge did not fail her, so everything but her hands would likely be fine.
Her eyes drifted about, finding little stimuli in the rolling hills and occasional flatlands in the sand, with the rare beaten path leading to nowhere barely visible through the sand. Civilization had crossed this desert at one point, she could figure out that much, but where had it gone? Other than the gate she had traveled through, she saw no immediate answers. If Omnilium could truly make anything she desired, it could make her some water if she began dehydrating, so she decided taking a worn dusty-rose stone pathway just west of the gate. Perhaps that would lead her somewhere in this ocean of sand, as her lack of navigational skills certainly would not.
Before long, her travels led her to a fork in the road, with a few signs pointing in various directions. She tilted her head slightly to the left and involuntarily made a puzzled expression, as none of the locations reminded Agnès of anything, or anywhere she had been. By now she knew Luxendarc like the back of her hand, as she had traveled almost everywhere that one could travel to thanks to Grandship and Ringabel's natural talent when it came to piloting it... But even the signs seemed confused as to where they were pointing to. On each sign the words were very messily written, as if whoever was writing them was in some kind of hurry. Agnès could make out an e, w, capital B, a and y on one sign, with a scratched-away b in between the a and y. On another she could see "LAV /" and the third sign was just blank. Either the literacy rate in this desert was worrying or its inhabitants were less than intelligent. She decided to continue towards "ew Bay", since it appeared as if there were not many other options.
As she continued her walk, with little thoughts to occupy her mind, she considered a possibility for the signs she had seen earlier being messy was that this desert had only recently been inhabited again. While some signs of civilization from long ago did exist, so did similar signs exist in Ancheim's desert. She had yet to find anything to prove the latter part, which involved finding some sort of new camp or town or something that passed for an abode.
It was about then that she saw a city that very much reminded her of Ancheim. All it needed was a massive clock and Agnès might have mistaken it for Ancheim on first glance. It certainly seemed extravagant, more so than the desert and giant clock country, making it appear to be some kind of diamond of the desert. As she drew closer, however, it seemed while there were more than a few people about, she felt a strange sort of tension in the air. It was unlike anything she had ever felt. She received curious looks as she continued her stride through the city, which spread the worried feeling to Agnès herself. She hoped, desperately, that this was the city she knew deep down and that she might find Khamer inside the palace ahead... But he had loyalty to the Duchy of Eternia, not his own country, and he had made that clear. She began hoping instead for someone else, though the strange familiarity she felt here was slightly comforting.
She stopped a few steps from the palace gates and was greeted non-verbally by an elderly man, who seemed less than impressed by her. Agnès felt a bad feeling almost immediately - She hadn't handled royalty or even nobility in a while. It was always Tiz or Edea that did that in their group, though her title did hold weight among most, so she was used as leverage so people would hear them out. Here, she imagined, she would not have that same luxury. She was receiving a glare from the man, a glare that made a feeling like her words fleeing from her. Still, she stomached the feeling and kept herself going. She offered a bow, with one hand over the other on her thighs. "I am Agnès Oblige, vestal of wind. If I may request--"
"I don't know anything about any vestals, or even what a vestal is," the elder interrupted. "Are you a new Prime?" he asked, and his confirmation came from Agnès' confused expression - She was not often interrupted, so that caught her off-guard, and she had yet to meet anyone that called her a 'Prime' or did not know about her status as a vestal. Poorly dodging the question in her mind of what are you talking about, she continued, "I would like to request an audience with--"
This time she was interrupted not by words but with laughter. "You want to see the great King Gilgamesh? You? You're nobody! What makes you expect the King would give even a moment of his precious time to you?" That made Agnès think. What right did she have to barge in and expect audience? Perhaps the King was busy with matters of his own. Or perhaps he wasn't, and just didn't see fit to give her the time of day? Then again, this was not the King himself. Would this man be saying this if his King were looking over his shoulder? "...Hm. Then again, you don't look completely incompetent. And if you are a new Prime, my King would without a doubt want to see you." Agnès looked up and let a little hope spill out onto her face as the gates began to open before her.
She stepped through the gate and walked through the palace certainly fit for a king, proven only by the fact that it was for a king.