Now was her time.
The perfect opportunity to kill the Storm King was placed in front of her.
Lulu knew that no better time to get her revenge would arrive.
All she had to do was enter the communication hub of the ship, the one place where the Storm King spends most of his time.
"Lulu, we're having a trivia party in the lounge in fifteen minutes, wanna join?" An unmasked Storm-born asked her as she passed by, Lulu recognized her as one of the maids that showed her around during her first day on the ship.
Not like it happened long ago, she's only been on board for a week.
According to Lord Strife, The fleet is taking a safer yet slower route to the Great Nilus River border. They should arrive in another two weeks' time.
But it matters not to Lulu how long the flight takes or how many trivia nights she will need to participate in! She has only one goal in mind.
Getting revenge on the Storm King for what he did to her gang, and she will get her revenge.
Even if she has to learn a lot more about the fertility rates of fish in Kirin territories than she feels comfortable with.
Some of those trivia nights get weird.
"What do we know about magic?" I asked myself as I sat cross-legged on the cool metal floor of the comm room, the only sound other than my own being the quiet hums emanating from the magical crystal screens.
"We know that only a small number of species can actively use magic," I Continued speaking quietly, slowly tapping my fingers on a knee.
"For some reason, all the races that can actively use magic have extra organs to make it work," I continue recalling the knowledge the OSK gathered in his years of research and planning, "Be it Unicorns with their horns, Turtles with their shells, Dragons with their internal flame-sacks, or even the plume feathers of royal Hippogriff," While any of those examples are capable of using magic in some form and to some extent, be it the arcane mastery of Unicorns, the geological tempering of Turtles, a Dragon's wide variety of breath related spells, or even just the Royal Hippogriff's imaginary constructs.
No magical species has the exact same magic as another.
Which begs another question, "What of species who have additional body parts yet lack magic?"
Some that come to mind are Minotaurs and Yaks, unless of course the extreme feats of physical strength the species are famed for count as a passive form of magic. Or is the strength purely natural and is simply magnified to fit the cartoon nature of this world?
And what about my people? The Storm-Born? "I have horns, My Strength doesn't seem magical in nature," While I am physically stronger than a normal human, so is a gorilla, or a bull, or even a wild boar.
However I also never tested the limits of how strong this body is, and the OSK never bothered to do so either.
Why lift a finger to fight if your soldiers could do it for you?
I know that the Storm-Born and even myself have a sort of shock resistance, yet that is proven by the archives of the Storm Castle Library to be a symptom of living on Storm Island for generations over many centuries.
In order to increase the species' survival rate, the hair on our bodies grew thick and hard, losing its color in the process, to defend us from the lightning from the sky and the tall cliffs around us.
Or in other words, People kept falling off cliffs and getting struck by lightning they evolved to survive that.
But that is still natural evolution...
Why do we not have magic?
But also if we do, How can I use it?
This was it, Just beyond this door, The Storm sits defenseless.
All the guards left to give him his privacy, the King feeling safe enough inside his own ship to let the guards off early to join trivia night.
Felix apparently knows a lot about Griffonian Mushrooms, this evening's trivia subject.
How lucky for her...
I should shelf this subject of magic for another time, I still need to work on my character.
Kind King, loved by his people, hated by his enemies. I already have that character down, it's almost second nature at this point.
Menacing ruler, his foes tremble at the mere mention of his name. Let's get started on that today.
Yes...
Silently opening the door to the comm room, Lulu entered quietly, stepping on the pads of her feet to minimize the sound.
"I know what you're trying to do," She stops, the intruding voice echoing around the room, its origin coming from the seated form of the king, his back turned towards her as he stares ahead, not even deigning to give her an audience.
Lulu didn't notice it yet but at that moment, inside the comm room where the temperature is at a cool 18 degrees Celsius, she started to sweat. Something that is only possible in a cartoon world such as this where the laws of reality and physics can be broken for as asinine a reason as to make an Aardwolf sweat.
"You are here to try your luck at taking my life," The Storm King continued, not deigning her even the honor of being looked down upon. So insignificant is she, that even an attempt at his life is beneath him.
So much so that he needs not to even look at her.
'H-how powerful is he?' Lulu's mind screamed, her blood turning cold in terror, 'I-I need to get out of here, he still hasn't seen my face, he still hasn't seen my-' but her thought process was cut short when The Storm King said his next line.
"I welcome you to do so," The words leaving his mouth clashing with the body language he exudes, "Just know," Lulu could hear her heart beating in her chest, her blood rushing through her body at speeds she didn't know biologically possible for her species, such was the terror that the simple atmosphere the king exuded left on her.
"That you are not the first to try and take my life," A Pause followed, and the king stopped talking. Lulu instinctively knew that if she moved even a muscle at that moment, she would surely die on the spot.
And something that would forever scar Lulu happened a moment later.
The Storm King stood up.
His body, previously hunched over on the cold floor of the communications room, now slowly lifting itself to stand at a terrifying two meters of height. His arms were corded with muscles bulging under the white coat of his species. His nails, both on his feet and hands, shining a reflection from the subtle blue glow of the crystal screens, sharpened to a point.
"And you certainly won't be the last."
Lulu was already out the door before the words ended.
Later that night.
In one of the female servant bunk rooms, where the cleaners and deckhands sleep until they become Maids, one Hedgehog that recently joined the Storm Armada found an Aardwolf Deckhand quivering under a heavy blanket.
"Do you want to talk about it?" The Hedgehog asked Lulu, who was only able to be recognized thanks to the puffy grey tail sticking out of the blanket.
The shaking stopped before a small grey snout wormed its way from under the blanket, the rest of her face still hidden beneath the soft barricade before it turned towards the hedgehogs' rough direction and responded.
"Not now Roberta." And Lulu once more tucked her body under the blanket that is of a way higher quality than expected for a starting position job, only her small grey hyena tail sticking out from the blanket left to recognize her.