Talking to Titania was… a tenuous affair, at best. Puck was hyper-aware of all of his little tics and fidgets in her far-bolder-than-his presence, and even as she reassured him that it was ‘totally understandable’ he couldn’t help but continuously re-evaluate all of his life choices up to this point as he sat in her quaint little rural home while she rummaged through various homemade books in the other room.
This is no place for me, he thought restlessly. She’s got her whole life together, and what do I got? More problems! Problems she doesn’t need!
His hearing honed in on the sound of, well, books being stacked, and he made a valiant attempt to focus on it in an attempt to stay the nervous energy away from being the only thing occupying his current thought processes.
After what seemed like an eternity, Titania emerged from what he could only assume was the designated book-room, given the literal ton of literature he must have just heard being sorted through, porting a thick tome underneath her arm and regarding him with a warm, familial smile.
“You know,” she rasped, “I’m surprised you managed to get here. For someone in the Emperor’s Coven, you’re pretty smart, kid,” she craned her neck to look at him and smirked, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s almost like you’re related to me.” she winked.
“I-um, well,” he began in response. “Used to be… in the Emperor’s Coven, technically, but, uh, yes. And… thanks?”
“Ooh. What’s this used to be business? Old man Jenkins finally work you too hard? Work himself into a rage and pop a blood vessel? Let me guess… had a magic aneurysm. Oh, do tell.” Titania seemed genuinely invested, now, at the mention of Puck’s… well, he guessed she thought he defected or something, since she was acting all… like this. Puck sighed.
The truth, that Belos was indeed dead, was not far off from her jokey guesses, minus the reasons she was suggesting. He figured news might have reached the populace out here already, but they were apparently far removed enough from the Boiling Isles so as to not know… which he supposed he should have already guessed, all things considered, especially considering he had to solve a whole bunch of stuff to even find out that this place existed, let alone what direction it was in. He was surprised, however, that Titania knew that the Emperor was still alive, at least according to her last bit of Isles knowledge; for a moment he wondered what exactly her specific connection with the dead tyrant was… and Titan, the dead tyrant sure was old, if Titania could remember not only him but know of the coven system as well!
Puck couldn’t help but feel he had been missing out on some crucial information while he was out soul-searching in the woods, particularly as to the Emperor's true nature. Oh dear.
Puck couldn’t help but feel he had been missing out on some crucial information somewhere along the pipeline of figuring out how to get here. Oh well.
He rubbed the bridge of his snout as he started to speak. “...The Emperor is, well," he made a face, "...dead.”
Titania’s eyes widened, and a shocked expression made its way across her face, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d just been told.
“You’re kidding.”
“N-not at all, um…” he was struggling to find the word. She was his relative, but they’d also never met up until today, and also she was very, very distant because she was very very old and he didn’t even know she was alive and they weren’t exactly close enough to be on a first name basis, so… “Ma’am.”
“You’re sure?” she pressed, hands pressed flat against the wood of the table.
“Uh, yes. Positively, it’s… a long story.” he rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “And uh, pretty weird. Really weird. Really, I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t live through it.”
Titania was still staring at him with a shellshocked look; her mouth wasn’t agape or anything, but she looked absolutely flabbergasted through her mere eyes alone. When she caught herself staring, she very quickly apologized (which was unbecoming of the persona she’d just been putting on, in Puck’s opinion, of a rough and tumble friendly parrot of a woman) and then excused herself from the room for a few moments, leaving Puck awkwardly twiddling his thumbs together at the table once more… man, was this ever exhausting, and awkward… but it was exciting, too, and Puck couldn’t deny that he felt a sort of rush in being here, away from the Isles. This was the farthest he’d ever gone away from his home in his life, and the fact that one of his ancestors was not only alive but living HERE of all places, that he was visiting her in the flesh, that he had so much to learn about their family and their history and their culture and the perfect person to help him learn all these things was a bookmaker... it was a perfect storm.
He pulled himself back to reality. Now was not the time to go chasing threads of thoughts, lest he get tangled and lost in them; which would be especially inopportune at a time like this, wherein he was personally delivering the news that the dictator of the Boiling Isles was now dead, and that a woman who had been chased away by him (maybe even personally, in fact, given her reaction) and his doctrine had nothing left to fear in coming home, if she so wanted to. Once again he heard her from the other room, this time as a stunned and near-frantic voice muttering to herself as she paced about. He couldn’t exactly make out her words, just the tone of her voice; but that much was enough to tell him that she was really having a go of it, bickering with herself in a way and mulling over the information he had just given her with some rather serious expletives that he COULD actually hear punctuating her rambling speech.
Honestly, he didn’t even know what to say. Or to think, for that matter. He was just kind of… stunned over this whole ordeal, to be frank. The last few months had been utter chaos, one strange event melding into another, and then another and another, to the point they became indistinguishable and chaos became more of a routine than a spectacle… and this was only the latest in a long line of life-altering events, all to their own varying degrees of life-alteringness!
Something told him things were only going to get more complicated from here on out, dear Titan.