~25~
"The Orange Sea"
In the seemingly boundless sea awash in the exuberant hues of brilliant yellows and softly warm oranges, there floated a room akin to one from a hotel that drifted endlessly across the sea. Beyond the pane of glass overlooking the room, one would see creatures hailing from different borders and different times, all gathered together underneath a single roof.
Falcon laid upon one of the two queen-sized beds belonging to the room, while his white fedora covered his hazel colored eyes, and his lips began to part. “It’s been awhile since we a last met under the same roof, decreeing long ago, that these meetings were a waste of time.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled lightly. “So why don’t we play a little catch up before the big guy joins us from the Orange Sea? Did any of you become likable over the course of all these years, or are my eyes just as great as detecting your lies as they were before?”
A black as a midnight on a moonless night coated earth pony sat upon a wooden chair in the middle of the room, the glow emitting from the orange sea shining upon his sealed eyelids, as his hooves rested upon a sheathed katana pressed against the wooden floor. “You claim to read us so well”– his eyelids then slid open –“when your eyes aren’t even open to the truth around you.”
“I really had hoped that you would've been one of the few to change, Regal.” Falcon finished with a sigh, lifting his fedora off from his eyes. “Eyes aren’t a requirement to hear what my intuition speaks to me. But, since you’ve been the one who's all so gracious to kick off this conversation, why don’t you start by giving us a slice of your life?”
Regal’s nostrils flared from the chuckle repressed by his lips, as his eyelids slid closed over his emerald eyes. “Wandering is not a slice of my life, but what dedicate it to. I go to where I’m needed and avoid where I’m wanted, offering my services to divine opportunities to offset the ill deeds carried out by our little agency.”
Despite a coat as black as night, Regal’s wings were as white as light when they fluttered lightly. “But if your question delves into the depths of our personalities, then you are indeed correct in your statement: I still wander the world in search of the answer to the question I’ve long forgotten.”
Falcon sighed as he rocked his head forward, the fedora sliding back over his eyes. “You ever think about getting a diary?”
Another chuckle was repressed by Regal’s lips.
“If you boys are finished with your banter,” The griffon lying upon the other bed slurred her words, “I’d like to give my statement in the vainest of hopes it’ll be enough for me to skip this redundant meeting.”
Falcon couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Now if it isn’t the one and only, Lola! The lady responsible for destroying kingdoms by seducing their kings, tossing them afterward to the mobs of gathering fires that once used to be their loyal citizens. But more important to us, the Lola responsible for abolishing our meetings in the first place.”
“Don’t be so glum, chum. After all, conversations like these are designed to solely relieve our hearts, while the work capable of actually changing the world awaits us outside this realm.” Lola noticed the smile on Falcon’s lips, which gave her the confidence to continue speaking in the sarcastic tone, although the frown on Regal’s face brought back to her her unsurety.
Before she began her banter once more, Lola tail lazed back over to before her chestnut-colored chest. At the end of the tail was a pink ball of fuzz. “As usual, kings and princess fall quickly to the whims of an exotic and eccentric gal. Doing all that is in their power to uncover my charms, while meeting my demands in an attempt for me to stay by their side.”
She rocked her at the blurred images of her past lovers, heaving a sigh at how easy it had been to seduce love out of such great beings. Lola’s right eye was covered by a waterfall of highlighted green hair, allowing her to clench it privately in attempts to repress those memories.
“But if it's my latest diary entry you seek to hear, Falcon,” Lola’s head fell onto her resting paws atop the plush bed, “then allow me to give my latest update. I understand perfectly how to become every individual male’s needs and wants, and use that knowledge to both toy with and advance our plot. But the fun of stringing you boys along is starting to run its course, as I’m becoming a believer that love is truly dead.”
Despite the fact that his eyes were hidden underneath his fedora, Falcon could still see the moment of sorrow that washed over the usually playful griffin’s face. “Is must be tough to see such a pure emotions being so easily manipulated. But isn’t that why you fell in love with your duty in the first place?”
Lola blinked away the momentary sorrow that seeped into her consciousness, banishing it down to the darkest reaches of her subconscious mind, and allowing her usual playful persona to take over once more. “You’ve got me in that regard, Falcon. I suppose I my love for others was simply replaced by my love for the job.”
Flacon smirked, though not of natural impulses, but by force of a wavering will. “Null!”
Leaning against the paper thin wall of the hotel was a light-blue coated unicorn, whose eyes were but a moment ago sealed close, now stretched open in shock. “Where! What?”
Falcon couldn’t help but sigh. “Asleep again? How many wars and battles have you slept through now?””
“Hey. You trying having a symbiote merged with your conscious and subconscious that likes to talk crap and sing, and then we can talk about the importance of not getting sleep whenever possible.”
The gray earth pony sat up on the bed and removed the fedora from his head, realizing a mane swept back by a thin-toothed comb. “If we didn’t wake you up, you’d end up sleeping on the end of time.”
“Yeah, I would.” Null bounced off from the wall and raised up his hoof, half of it consumed by light green fur. “Luckily I have a Virus that wakes me the whenever he gets bored.”
The green strands of fur began to transform into a thick liquid that shot forth into a swirling stream. “Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!”
Null hovered his eyes over everybody in the room. “See what I have to deal with? I don’t care about any of you or of anything you all have to say. My only concern is doing enough interesting things to keep Virus from getting bored, thus allowing me to go back to sleep.”
Null stood back up on his hind hooves and fell back onto the wall once more. “I would love to be dead, that way, I could sleep to the end of times. But if that happened, then my body gets taken over by Virus, and the end of times will come a lot sooner than intended.”
“Riiight.” Falcon’s eye twitched at the concept of working with those two once more, the very idea tiring his head back down onto the pillow. “Welp! Since we’ve all played out little keep-up, it's about time we greeted our host.”
His eyes shifted left, to where the candles of the room went out with a trail of gray smoke, and rushing winds blew up the blinds. From the window, a gray ball of a raging current began its approach.
“Isn’t that right, Mr. Count of the Orange Sea?”