the broken compass

A thud reverberated through the room as Tangletrove gracelessly fell to the stone floor, kicking up a thick layer of dust. He groaned, halted and looked around quickly, checking to see if no one saw (and also where, exactly, he landed, but keeping his reputation intact was infinitely more important). Nothing around but endless rows of books. That, combined with the dust (which he was trying to remove from his feathers as he stood up) could only mean that this place was a library, long abandoned (that, or whoever ran this place really didn’t care about it). Though Tangletrove found reading and literature about as interesting as watching paint dry, he figured he might as well have a look around, see if he could find an exit or something (and with that, something more interesting; he needed to have something exciting to talk about next gathering or this whole trip would be in vain). The fae got up (while still trying to pluck away the dust in his feathers) and started walking in a random direction, the only sounds his breathing and his steps, which were dampened by the sheer amount of dust on the ground. And then he heard something, something shuffling, moving. Though he was only half paying attention to his surroundings, in the almost oppressing silence any sound was amplified tenfold. Tangletrove stood still, his heart in his throat. He started channelling Breath to open up a portal to his Court. No exciting tale was worth possibly dying for, and Tangletrove was not going to take any risks (others might have seen it as cowardice, but Tangletrove preferred to call it having a good sense of self-preservation, something much more vital to surviving the Courts’ cutthroat politics). The portal was taking an awfully long time to appear, though, with only an outline currently visible. His first portal, which brought him here, only took a matter of seconds, but maybe creating a connection to the Courts just takes longer? The outline of the portal flickered and then fizzled out. Oh. More shuffling sounds, now with the faint scraping of claws mixed in, getting closer. Oh no. That’s it. Tangletrove was going to die a horrible death in some dusty library, all because he thought he could just open a portal all on his own and explore the Other Side a bit. The scraping was getting louder. He could hear heavy breathing behind him. The air smelled of something rotting. Something touched his shoulder. He turned around. A massive three-headed dragon creature stared at him, its flesh decayed and mouths open. One of its claws talons was on his shoulder. The right head laughed. “So you’re the one making such a racket! We were wondering who was behind that noise. I have to say, you’re scrawnier than we expected.” …What? “You mean scrawnier than you expected,” The left head, bearing skeletal markings on its scales, snapped back. “Me and Lach’ both thought it was rats, can’t get much more scrawny than that.” The middle head, preoccupied with a book clutched in two of the dragons’(?) many hands, looked up with a quiet “Leave me out of this,” before going back to reading. The left head rolled its (their? her?) eyes and scoffed, but stayed quiet. What? “I’m sorry,” he spoke up for the first time. “But what are you?” All three heads froze. “You mean…” The right head started, the middle (“Lach’”?) continuing: “You’ve never heard of Emperors?” It sounded like he was supposed to know what that was (he did not, in fact, know what that was), so he didn’t say anything. They seemed to take that as an affirmation. “ How do you not know what that is? What kind of rock have you been living under these past, I don’t know, millennia?” Tangletrove remained quiet, looking away in shame. The head (Emperor?) continued. “The “Lightweaver's Mistake”, Luminax, hello?” He looked at the Emperor again. They still looked as gruesome as they were at first glance and his legs were still shaking, but now that he wasn’t under the presumption he was going to, you know, die a horrible death, he might be able to work with this. “Living under a rock… I suppose you could call it that. I assure you, though, my arrival here was wholly unplanned.” He paused, thinking about his words. In just how much trouble would he be if he decided to leak the Courts’ existence to this creature/these ladies without prior permission? Best to keep it vague. “I do not seek to harm you or your(?) collection, and I’d like to return from whence I came as soon as possible. However, I appear to be… stuck.” His tone grew more strained, and the next part sounded as though the words physically harmed him (it certainly harmed his pride). “If you could… help me… find out how to open a portal, that would be… great.” Sweet Titania that was painful to say. Tangletrove wanted to sink through the cold, dusty floor. The right head looked at him curiously, but didn’t comment on his tone (surprisingly enough). “A… portal? I’m not sure if we could help you with that.” The left head grinned at him with razor teeth, and he felt his legs starting to shake (again). “You, however, can help us plenty. How about you help us with this library? You can even look through the books on portals, free of charge, how’s that sound?” It sounded like an offer, but Tangletrove wasn’t that naïve. He knew fully well that he had no choice.

A warrior with a cool demeanor and a protective streak more than a mile wide, though his self-preservation skills are rather...lacking.