[Kiel]

There was a scuffle near the quadrangle. Like, Kiel could hear it all the way from the bakery where he and his partner of the day were ogling cakes in unison. The baker'd just got done ribbing them for drooling on his counters when the yelling started.

“We should check that out.”

“B-but my cake!” When the baker promised to hold it for him (like, but not literally 'cause then it'd be warm and gross), Kiel let the junior guard drag him by the cuff of his sleeve out of the shop, and then hopped a ways after him.

“Oi, oi! What the Hel?” A woman in acolyte robes had some dude pressed up against the broken plinth of Xanth's ex-statue, her fists wrapped around his shirt front and his feet totally, like, a foot in the air. When Kiel copped a look at her red eyes, he realised why.

“Duuuuude, wahahahaha. What the heck are you doing to him, man, for sers?”

She ignored him to shake the dude like a rag doll. “You take that back! Take it back.”

“Get stuffed! It's the truth!”

“Ummmm, what's he gotta take back?” Kiel asked his partner. The other guy just shrugged.

“How can you say Xanth's forsaken us? That's blasphemy!” Another shake, and the dude's eyeballs were starting to roll back. It was way creepy, man, for sers.

“How can you say she hasn't? Look at this place!” He swept an arm across the quadrangle where purple dust and chunks of marble scattered like leaves on an autumn breeze. Kiel gaped about himself. It looked like someone - probably the priestesses - had started to, like, sweep up bits and stuff, but, like, yeah. It was still pretty much chaos. His folks'd be so bummed to see it like this.

“Hey, hey, guys, like, I don't think throttling the dude is gonna make Xanth any happier, you know?” Wedging a shoulder between them, Kiel gripped the woman's thick wrists and tugged. She glared at him, then saw his temp uniform and sighed. She finally backed off when she realised he had back-up.

“You should be grateful Xanth's so forgiving.”

“Get a life, you—”

“Oi, oi! Break it up. Get lost. Go on, before we let her have at you again. Xanth-damned faithless. Get out of it.”

The crowd began to dissipate as Mickey kicked debris at the anti-Xanthian. Kiel patted the Rutilus' arm. “Like, you okay, man? Like, well, but I should prolly be asking the dude that, wahahaha. What'd he even say, anyway?”

The priestess was, like, pretty big, you know? Taller than Kiel, like most Rutili, and clearly a fighter before she was a priest. So when he saw tears in her eyes, he could only, like, gape like a moron. “What everyone's saying these days. That Xanth has abandoned us, that the broken statue is evidence of that. That we have a new god now. Like this Danae's even real,” she scoffed.

“Um, but, like...” Kiel for once was speechless. He wasn't sure that telling her he'd met the dude was helpful, you know?

“The Voice, we think the statue is a test, that the quake was a test. So many have forsaken her, why should Xanth bother with us?” She sniffed, then turned to scoop up a chunk of marble. “So we're going to rebuild it for her. We're going to show her we still love her. And maybe these faithless jerks—” She nodded at the people passing by without even so much as a sideways glance at where the statue had once stood. “—will remember what she's done for us over the millennia.”

Kiel studied the wreckage, like, totally mute for once in his life. He glanced at Mickey, then rolled up his sleeves. “Okay, so like, we totally have no where else to be right now.” Like, 'cause it would totally count as doing their job, like, right? They were meant to keep the peace, after all, and this seemed kind of like a hotspot, you know? And so what if they helped out while they were 'patrolling'?

[Xanth]

Xanth had seen from her temple the destruction in the quadrangle. She herself was to blame, of course. She had not lost control of herself like that for eons, so it was with no small amount of shame-facedness that a slender woman with hip-length lilac-blonde curls and violet eyes stepped onto the dusty grass, stepping bare-foot around chunks of jagged marble amidst the clamour of people collecting debris. She glanced side to side, recognising Kiel for his part in saving Acantha from the Red Mist sickness, allowing a small smile of appreciation for his efforts now. The fullness of her gratitude, however, was bestowed upon the Dracovarian priestess who had so soundly defended her.

“You have my thanks, Iréne.” Xanth inclined her head. A false breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders and wafted sparks of purple across the quadrangle where they dripped from her wings. Though barely visible, they shifted the air as they slowly fluttered. Today, she appeared in full regalia.

Turning her head to pin with her stare the argumentative onlookers, Xanth held out her arms and smiled beatifically. “As you can see, I have not abandoned Elysia. Now,” she added, her smile warming as she looked first to Iréne and Kiel, then Mickey and the others. “Shall we see about making this go faster?”

The wind kicked up. With as much showiness as she could muster, Xanth shaped it into a vortex that whirled her ten feet in the air, sucking with it debris both small and large. Huge chunks of marble whorled above the quadrangle, slotting back into place. Bit by bit, the purple statue reshaped. It was not exactly as it had been before, however. Instead of down, the arms held up as if thrown to the sky in defiant victory, the marble skirt whirled about the legs as if petrified in motion. As well as commemoration for the destruction and a reminder to herself what happened when she lost her temper, the change would serve to remind Elysia that she was still watching over them.

“There. That is so much better.”

[Kiel]

“Okay. So like, okay.” Kiel blinked. He blinked again. He stared dumbfounded at the statue that, only seconds before, was a total ruin and crumbled and stuff on the floor. He looked at the chunk of marble still clutched against his chest, and, like, totally yelped when it was pulled gently from his arms by, like, invisible hands or something. He had to shield his eyes against the whorl of debris and, like, when he was able to look again, the statue was all put together and stuff like there'd never been any quake. “Okay.” Except she was slightly different, like, her pose and all. And he was totally still trying to process the fact that, like, Xanth was standing right there. The real Xanth. Or, well, not so much standing as just, like, hovering. “Okay. Okay. Like, okay.”

The priestess - didn't Xanth call her Iréne? - smiled beatifically. Kiel's face hurt and he realised he was grinning like a loon. “My deepest and most heartfelt thanks, my Lady. You have done us a great service this day.”

“Yeah,” Kiel gulped. “'Cause, like, it woulda taken us forever to pick up all that stuff and glue it back together, and, like, I did that to a vase I smashed once and my mom could totally tell and she totally grounded me for, like, a decade or something.”

The onlookers who had been catcalling and sneering were being all hushed and, like, freaking out quietly to themselves. Kiel totally couldn't blame them, but, like, that's what they got for being doubtful ditties, okay? “So, like, about this rebuilding thing. If you're in the mood for cleaning, my boyfriend's place is all smashed up too...”

“Kiel! What the heck, you can't say that to the Creator.” Mickey's voice was kinda pinched in the middle.

“Huh? But, like, why not? It'll take forever to rebuild if we do it ourselves, okay?”

[Xanth]

Xanth was familiar with Ezekiel Taskel. He had played a large role in several incidents in the last few years, and not all of them to the betterment of Elysia. She would leave it to others to decide if he was a hero or simply a man with the bad luck to get caught up in events beyond his control, but his apparent courage in asking her to rebuild more of Elysia - even his tiny portion of it - was enough to draw her attention to the pink-eyed Rutilus.

Inclining her head toward Iréne in acknowledgement of her thanks, Xanth paused a moment, then burst across the quadrangle to frame Kiel's face between her palms. She was taller than him, if only because she remained several inches off the dusty grass, so her hair fell forward across his shoulders as she peered into his eyes. They were so much clearer than most she had seen. Such honesty made him as much a hero in her book as anyone could ever be, but she hid her fondness in words.

“There is no love lost between Zephyr Cairbre and myself.” Xanth stroked a thumb across Kiel's cheek in a motherly fashion. “You are on your own with that man.” Her brief hesitation and the slightest emphasis spoke volumes of her distaste for the other Dracovarian. “And where would my children be if I did everything for them, hmm?” She gave his cheek a fond pat, then pinched - hard - and turned away.

Her violet gaze raked the crowd to the sound of gasps both happy and fearful. Xanth stepped lightly across the quadrangle on bare feet, still inches above the ground but gradually descending as she came to a stop before Iréne. “Tell your High Wisdom of this day, Iréne. The priests will be my Voice once again.”

[Bay]

"Curiosity killed the cat, but where people are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance."

It didn't take much to attract Bay's interest in a city as large and vibrant as Alexandria. Despite the weeks - entire weeks!- he'd now spent in its streets and among its people, it was hard not to find fairly mundane things fascinating. But the crowd that was gathering near the Quadrangle today had a definite negative feel to it, and even in his fairly naive heart he could tell whatever they were gathered about probably was bad news for whomever it was happening to. Bay found himself following the flow of people, half out of curiosity and half out of being swept along with it.

Crowds were something new to Bay. While they weren't scary per say, he did find them a tad alarming at times. They seemed to have a hive mind to them, like bees...and they tended to watch even very horrible things with fascination. Coming from a small commune, it was a sort of mob mentality that felt very alien to him. The way people got angry quickly in them was kind of scary, he'd admit.

Well, that, and he was now tall enough most people's elbows hit him in the stomach when they shoved past him. That was a deterrent, too.

He couldn't see what was happening from where he was, so he made his way to the edge of the crowd via the clever and ancient technique of squeezing between people and apologizing profusely. But all he found when he reached the crowd's edge was...well, destruction. The statue of Xanth that had stood in the center of the Quadrangle was gone, the remains scattered on the ground in thousands of pieces. He found himself having to watch his step as the shards poked at his bare feet. The scene overall was an odd one, especially as he looked at and listened to the crowd. He'd been raised with the mythos of Xanth, but had never developed much attachment to symbolic items. The crowd seemed effected by the statue's destruction, but Bay wasn't too sure what the concern was. They could just make another, couldn't they? It was just a statue. It wasn't like it was really Xanth -

As his blue eyes scanned the destruction, he found his gaze drawn to the tableau happening on the other side of the pedestal from him, and he paused, thoughts derailed at the sight. He'd never seen Xanth in the flesh, and she was...well, lovely, certainly. And very purple. But she was remarkably...well, real. He'd always assumed goddesses would be...well, different. Strange, maybe. Unearthly? He wasn't sure exactly what he'd expected. But she was just...incredibly existent?

As he struggled to put a name on the feeling, he stepped back, the bottom of his foot colliding with a statue chunk. He yelped in surprise as the stone cut into his foot, but as he looked down at it and grabbed his injured ankle, the sparking nature of the stone caught his eye. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. It was Xanth's eye. Not literally, of course (he was sure the real one would have made a fuss, if this had been the case) but for an eye carved of stone it certainly...looked very much like an eye. It had character to it - he couldn't help but feel like it was looking back.

He looked around cautiously. Despite his yelp, no one seemed to be watching him, and he took the moment to slip the eye into his tunic's billowing sleeve. He wasn't sure why he wanted to keep it, but - he couldn't have brought himself to put it back on the ground where he'd found it if he'd tried.

[Kiel]

“Oh,” Kiel considered, blushing slightly as Xanth brushed his cheek. Like, she was crazy close, you know? Like, in his face goddess close, you know? It was kinda freaky in that, like, totally awesome crazy awesome woo! awesome! kinda way. “So, like, that's a nooooo, then?” He gave her a lopsided grin 'cause he didn't know how else to act around her. Like, he kinda wasn't surprised Zeph was on the outs with their Creator, you know? But he was still majorly bummed and, like, what the heck. She could totally read his mind anyway.

“Like, but, OW!” He slapped his hand up to the cheek she'd pinched, gawking at her. Like, the Nymphs called her the Mother and, like, he could totally see why! His own mom used to do that too.

Stunned silent, Kiel staggered sideways as she stepped away and concentrated on the priestess. He caught a glimpse of movement behind the rebuilt statue's plinth and kinda did a double-take. That dude back there had horns. Like, horns, man! But no wings, what the heck. Kiel was pretty sure he'd just pocketed something, too, but, like, what even was there to steal, you know? Unless he thought he could sell a hunk of the debris as some kinda souvenir or something. Kiel was totally going to collar him when Xanth was gone. Like, 'cause, no way he was being all ignoring the goddess and all while she was standing right there, you know?

[Xanth]

Mortals were so easy to tease. There was really little wonder Danae had become something of a trickster. Even Xanth had to confess the impulse to tweak Ezekiel's cheeks - just to see him gape like a fish. Instead, she stepped across the grass and ignored him. She sensed movement at her back, behind the statue as it rebuilt itself, and twisted her head to look at the Sidhe over her shoulder. If he had still been holding the stone eye, she would have made it wink, but resorted to using her own eye instead. Let him wonder why she was winking at him. Let him wonder if she knew he had pocketed a piece of her. And later, when he was admiring the stone alone, let him wonder why she had let him take it.

“Alas, I have other places to be.” She inserted the slightest sigh, as if she would rather do anything but leave. Nevertheless, her work here was done for the time being. Iréne would tell the priests, and the priests would spread the word of Xanth. The other onlookers would tell tall tales, true or not, that would feed into that word as rumours. This was not nearly enough to bring Elysia back to her bosom, so to speak, but Dazadi had been right. Any action, even that which was questioned, was better than no action at all.

“Take care, my darlings.” She blew a kiss at Bay, winked at Kiel, and waggled her fingers at Mickey. Then, in a delicate poof of lilac smoke, she was gone.

[Bay]

"Curiosity killed the cat, but where people are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance."

Perhaps he should have done the wise thing, and slunk away into the crowd right after picking up the piece of the statue like...like any one sensible would have done. The rattling and clicking of the shattered statue pieces as they began to move had kept him from departing, however, and as he and the crowd watched in awe. Sweeping around the square, the statue's pieces began slowly to move and reassemble. Bay had seen magic plenty, but nothing quite like this. For a moment he wondered if his own grasp of Air would one day enable such wonders. Somehow he doubted it.

The tug of the eye in his sleeve was sudden, and he jumped at the feeling, clutching at the opening of his sleeve and glancing about, guilt open on his features. It was as he took a few steps back into the press of people that he realized the group on the other side of the fountain was looking at him - even Xanth was, the Goddess's eyes seemingly boring a hole in him. Or perhaps that was just how it felt to him, and that was how she always looked at thie - at people. Bay, who sometimes liked being noticed, felt himself freeze and his blood run cold at the attention, the flush that overtook his face so sudden he didn't have a chance to compose himself. Did she know? Was she going to - they were going to kill him, weren't they?

And then she winked, her gaze returning to the men before her. Bay stared on in surprise, stumbling as the crowd pushed past him.

She'd winked? She must know, then - she must. How could she not? She was a goddess. But she hadn't done anything to him, or even seemed upset - her expression had been kind, a bit mischievous even. Xanth's wrath was the last thing he desired, and...what did she...

Bay stood as if rooted to the spot, the weight of the eye seemingly much heavier than he's expected it to be, as if literally weighed down by his guilt. He shook and then, in a moment of near panic, he bolted off. Ducking his way through the crowd, he wasn't sure where he was going. He'd...he'd figure out what all this meant later! For now he wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else.

[Kiel]

“Waahhhh.” Like, she was gone, just like that, and Kiel's jaw slackened. “Wahhhhh.” The dude he'd spotted was gone, too. Like, had she taken the guy with her? “Ehehehehe. Serves him right if he stole from her, 'cause that's so gonna bite him on the butt, you know?”

“Who are you talking about?” Mickey followed his line of sight, but could only peer suspiciously one by one at onlookers who so didn't take kindly to his staring.

“Doen't matter, man, the dude's gone. I totally bet Xanth took him. Like, can you believe that? That she was here, I mean. 'Cause we all know what she does to thieves, you know?” He totally believed the rumours about the crystals in the Crystal Cavern.

“Don't be stupid. Xanth's merciful. The priests all say so.”

Kiel stuck his tongue out at Mickey as the other dude turned away, crooking a finger over his shoulder to summon Kiel to his patrol. “I don't wanna go baccckkkk. Like, can't we stay here and be all, like, protect the statue and stuff? It's not every day you get to see the Creator herself, you know?”

“Protect it from what, exactly?” Mickey arched an eyebrow at him over his shoulder. “Besides, don't you think she's perfectly capable of protecting it herself?”

“Well, like, sure, but, like, what if there's another quake?”

“Kiel, seriously. If there's another quake, do you really want to be standing under a giant shrine?”

“Uh. Well, like. Noooooo.” Kiel hopped to catch up and stuck out his bottom lip. “I'm hungry. Like, let's stop at-”

“Rosie's. Yes. I know. You're buying.[/v]

“I bought last time!”

[q]You're the one who wants to stop.”

OOC: Thread finished. ^^