Hello!

It is SO great to see the tag game still alive! I can't believe you all made it this far!!

Also I am aware that I fell off the face of earth... I got really relaxed during thanksgiving break and then came back to school and woah everything was busy! But falling back into school again, only to be the erminegtester??.... That was meant to say "end of the semester" but somehow erminegtester came out... Anyways I'm back!

Akhalia felt warmth seep through her. Warmth. And there was the noise of a fire snapping, too; and two voices talking softly.

"I keep expecting someone to jump out of those bushes," Xavier said, half-laughing but with a serious undertone. "I don't know when was the last time we actually sat still for five minutes."

"Yeah, feels weird," agreed Crieff. Akhalia studied him. His face was across the fire; she was lying on the ground, and looking up at him this way, she felt as if she'd never really seen him before. His square chin was overgrown with brown stubble. His skin was tanned by the wind and sun and the harsh treatment it had gone through. His gray eyes were bright still, though. With a sudden rush of gratitude Akhalia realized how much she had depended on him. Even if he had disobeyed her orders, it had worked out for the best. He was loyal and brave - a true friend.

Xavier, too. It seemed odd to think that once she had thought she could be in love with him someday. Maybe she'd just been swept off her feet by his good looks and pleasant charm. Either way, she was glad he was here.

And Ardie? Was Ardie all right? She sat up suddenly.

"AAAHHHHH!" Xavier shrieked, leaping into the air. "Ooooooh!"

"Xavier, Xavier, calm down," soothed Crieff. "Don't be frightened, it's only Akhalia."

"Oh. You're right. Um. Hee hee." He sat down again, looking embarrassed.

"Is Ardie all right?" demanded Akhalia, without further preliminaries.

"She's still alive," said Crieff seriously. "We were waiting for her to wake up in order to give her the cure, but so far she hasn't, and I think we'd better just go ahead. We can't afford to waste any time."

"Let's do it," agreed Akhalia. "Where's the bottle?"

Xavier pulled it out of his small leather bag that was attached to his belt. "Here."

Akhalia took it. It was made of glass, sparkling like an opal in the firelight. The liquid inside it was red. Pomegranate juice, she thought. Her grandmother used to make pomegranate juice, back in the old days. Pomegranates were the fruit of fire. 

Or was it just some other unknown liquid?

She turned to Ardie, who still lay motionless, her delicate face framed by golden-brown hair. "Ardie," she whispered, "it's going to be okay." 

Unstoppering the bottle, she poured the vibrant liquid into Ardie's mouth. As the bottle touched her face, color suddenly blossomed over Ardie's pale skin, and her throat made a violent swallowing motion. It was like feeding a newly-hatched chick, starving for love and food. Tears pricked Akhalia's eyes. Ardie still seemed unconscious, but she swallowed the entire contents of the bottle.

A few moments passed. It was nighttime. Everything was very quiet. 

And then Ardie's eyes opened.

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It looks like we're nearing the end of this. Should we continue it for a while, or take advantage of Gold's death to finish it up? We should probably hold some sort of discussion ig :P

Anyway, tag @Rora :)

I know I'm the most wishy washy person ever, and I know I left, but: I have decided to rejoin this beautiful story! It's so amazing and I'm sorry I left. I didn't exactly like the lesbian part of it and that's why I left, but now I see that it made all the plot twists really really exciting. I just read the whole story over again and I think I'm ready to come back. However, I know that I have one more day left to post, and my mom told me to get off the screen so I won't be able to write the next part. Is it okay if I'm just a bit late?

Everyone did such a great job and the story got SO INTRUIGING! I'm so excited to be a part of this again.

- Rora <3 

THE TAG GAME IS ON INKWELL'S MOST REPLIES PAGE!!!!!!! If you click on replies twice, you can see that it is one of the threads in Inkwell with the most replies, out of 15 threads ranging from 2011-2022.  

For some reason that is very, very exciting to me :D 

Okay, it's now been like three weeks or something, so I'm going to tag you, @Lyric, if that's okay :)

The fire was rippling in a wind blowing from a deep gash in the wall–forced open by charred, crumbling vines as Ardie awoke. She felt her heart move with the flames, its rhythm becoming steadier, stronger, with each moment.

She saw Akhalia kneeling beside her, and trembling ever so slightly. Crieff and Xavier stood behind her. Ardie’s eyes smarted with the smoke of the fire, and their faces were blurred by the fire, but she knew them. 

“Akhalia,” she said. “Crieff, Xavier…you’re all here.”

Tears flooded Akhalia’s vision until all she could see were blurs, silhouetted by the fire. “I was so afraid I would lose you.” The sound of Ardie’s voice–a voice she knew had nearly been claimed by ice, and cold, and…and death–left her own voice lost in the depths of her throat. 

Ardie started to take Akhalia’s hand, trying to reassure her that she was, indeed, alive, but her hand touched a little glass bottle instead. She looked questionably at Akhalia. “This isn’t…the cure Gold offered in exchange for the crown, is it?” 

“It is,” Xavier said. “Crieff stole it from the Ordinary Brotherhood.”

“Really?” Ardie asked, fascinated.

Crieff blushed a little, embarrassed. “Xavier did most of the stealing. I just followed along.”

“I’m sure you’re underestimating your contribution,” Ardie told him kindly. 

Crieff’s eyes started to water. He’d forgotten how Ardie was still the only person who saw potential in him. She was a good friend, he thought. 

Ardie started to rise, but Akhalia stopped her.

“You need to rest,” the queen urged. She had dried her eyes with a handkerchief, but they were still moist. “I don’t know how well the cure worked.”

“It worked fine! I feel better already,” Ardie said. And it was true. She could feel fire racing through her veins like it always did, thawing the pain of the cold that had ravaged her for days.

A piece of the wall flapped, and Akhalia looked up in alarm.

“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. “We can’t give this palace back to Canderra with it looking like this!”

“You could ask the Forest Witch to pay for the damage,” Xavier suggested. “If we defeat her.”

“What does the Forest Witch have to do with…this?” Ardie asked, gesturing to the dying vines around the room.

Crieff and Xavier told her the whole story–everything that had happened since Ardie had fallen unconscious.

“Then if Akhalia did promise the Ordinary Brotherhood the kingdom, they must be heading to the palace in Delfer at this moment,” Ardie concluded. She stood up. “We have to get there before they do!”

“They won’t be alone,” Xavier noted. “The Forest Witch also wants to take over the kingdom. And she wants to kill all of us.”

“She almost succeeded,” Crieff added.

“We can’t let the people of Delfer down, though,” Ardie returned. “We should go. Now.”

Back to where it all began, Crieff thought.

***

I really like how the book Of Mice and Men uses the same setting at the beginning and at the end, to reflect character changes over time, so I thought it’d be cool if we did that here, since our characters have also changed quite a bit :D I’m thinking that soon there will be one more, grand battle like Poinsettia and Rora said, and then we’ll tie loose ends up (example: rebuilding the Canderran palace, because it got ruined by the vines and the fire). Wow, we’re almost at the end?!  

Tag: @Moon Wolf

"Now? Are you sure you're okay?" Akhalia asked, worry clearly etched on her face.

"Yes, yes," Ardie replied rapidly. "Come on! We need to get back to Delfer before any damage can be done."

"True, we really should get there before both the Forest Witch and the Ordinary Brotherhood do," Xavier agreed. He got up and began to gather his belongings.

"And we can just...leave this palace looking like this?" Crieff asked, glancing around at the dying vines and broken parts of the walls.

"We need to get to Delfer first," Ardie explained. "Then we can come back and deal with this palace."

Akhalia looked at Ardie right in the eye, and said, "If you really are fine, then I guess we should go to Delfer."

Everyone began to gather their belongings and after a few moments, they were all good to go. By now, Ardie was really starting to become impatient. The moment everyone had just put on their bags and Crieff put out the fire, she headed out.

It was still well into the night, but Ardie knew that would be all the better for stealth. However, as they traveled on towards Delfer, it was beginning to become difficult to see, due to the moon being only a small white sliver, and it was clear that they'd need a light or torch of some kind in order to continue. Thinking fast, Ardie found a convenient thick piece of wood lying on the ground, and used a bit of fire to light the end. The light instantly made it easier to see for everyone. 

So the group continued on, with Ardie in the lead. Far in the distance, she spotted the beginnings of the kingdom of Delfer, otherwise known as the outskirts. She caught her breath and immediately began to pick up the pace. Would they make it in time before the Ordinary Brotherhood and the Forest Witch?

Crieff was in the middle of the group, behind Ardie, to the right of Xavier, and ahead of Akhalia, and was surveying the empty lands they were in. Suddenly, he saw some figures in the distance, not too far away. As they walked onwards, he realized that the figures resembled what looked like members of the Ordinary Brotherhood.

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Can't believe we're almost at the end!

Tag: @Nyxie