((Er. Expect a really bad finishing post below this little note. I couldn't decide who on Earth Ilmena was going to be- at first, I thought, "Oooh, Guenevere! *Cackle*", but I realized shortly after that that wouldn't be a good idea, as I know very, very little about Arthurian myth, so I'd probably screw something up or whatever.
Then I briefly toyed with the idea of making her Morgan le Faye, but, well. I can't really do that, as I'd be making a character that's quite resolutely good into one of the most famous evil female characters. So not that.
After that, I was very much, "OMG LET'S MAKE ILMENA LADY ELAINE BECAUSE SHE WAS ALL COOL AND SHE WAS LIKE, "WOAH, LANCELOT. YOU'RE HOT. I LOVE YOU, LANCELOT. LOVE ME, MY LOVE OF HOT LOVE." AND THEN HE WAS LIKE, "GET AWAY FROM ME." AND SHE WAS ALL, "WOE!!! ANGST!!! TRAGIC LOVE!!! SOME MORE WOE!!! *Kills self and leaves instructions for her body to be paraded about in a way that will very definitely make dreamy-boy (Lancelot) feel very, very bad about rejecting her love. Stupid prancing fairy boy.*" Clearly, I realized within a mental sentence or so that that was
not a good idea.
And then I thought, "MORGAUSE." but immediately rejected that thought, because, well, Morgause was Arthur's half-sister and then, uh, you know. They did some rather PPT-inappropriate things (possibly while under the influence of a spell, probably cast by the one and only Morgan) that resulted in her then having his illegitamte inbred son, who then killed him on the battlefield (but right before killing him, or at least fatally wounding him, he was fatally wounded by Arthur, so that was
such a nice, happy family, wasn't it? I love Arthurian myth.
). So, um,
no.
My brain hurts.
*Runs off to think up ideas and maybe try to save her little plotline*))
((Finally found some idea stored in a crevice of my head. So here you go.))
Ilmena cursed under her breath (ignoring the disproving glances of the other ladies-in-waiting as she did so) as she stabbed herself with a needle. Again. For the fourth time in ten minutes. The she-couldn't-even-remember-because-the-number-was-so-high time she'd done since coming to Camelot.
Which was six hours ago.
At this rate, her fingers would fall off in less than a week's time.
Damn.
Well, at least she'd still be able to stare at Lancelot without fingers. It was quite obvious why the Queen was having an affair with him, really.
----------
Her journey back to Earth was, to say the least, interesting.
Well, the actual journey wasn't very remarkable- just the fifteen minutes after bridging the gap between the Otherworld and Earth.
Apparently, she'd passed out and started hallucinating. At least, that was what the healer (her carriage driver had found one upon discovering his passenger was dead to the world) had said.
All Ilmena remembered were vivid memories of her life before stumbling into the Otherworld.
Which really weren't very note-worthy, really. The only truly interesting thing she could now remember was that her two true parents were dead, the victims of an out-of-control fire. She'd run away- small child or not, she could still feel that something bad had happened.
She'd also found out that her parents were both mages, and that they'd lived in a small town that was fairly normal, aside from one thing- every human in the place had magic.
Upon waking, Ilmena had strongly wanted to pay the carriage driver on the spot and set out on her own towards the magical village, but she knew that it wasn't a wise idea, so simply explained to the her driver that her fainting as just being something that happened to any mage when they moved between the Otherworld and Earth. Which wasn't necessarily a lie- she didn't know that it wasn't something that happened.
But even so- she went along with her original plan: she went to Avalon.
That, it turned out, was a really stupid plan. It wasn't a place that one could simply ride a carriage to- no, you could get there by boat and then find your way along a maze of overgrown trails that weren't really trails at all. Besides, she knew she'd never be able to travel alone, with her enormously heavy trunk (she'd tried to lighten the weight of everything she packed, but was unsuccessful), without magic- she'd promised the healer she wouldn't, not until she was either in Avalon, Camelot, or anywhere that was strong enough in magic that her magical energy stores could recuperate- apparently, just fainting took up a good chunk of power when your body tried to heal it.
..Of course, there was also the small fact that before even getting to where she'd find a boat, a Faye had stopped them and explained that since Ilmena wasn't a Faye, or Faye-blessed, or just friends with any Faye (or even from Camelot, but that was another issue entirely), she couldn't go anywhere near the mysterious place.
Which wasn't all that bad, as she'd only wanted to go there out of curiousity, but it was rather irritating when the Faye didn't even bother telling Ilmena what on Earth a Faye
was- a fairy? A human with magic? It was all quite confusing, really.
And so she gave up on that plan.
As a result, she was now in Camelot, and becoming increasingly frustrated with her entire situation.
----------
Torn between throwing her embroidery across the room (it wasn't that she didn't like needlepoint; no, as a noble, even in Imorna, she'd been taught how to be a proper lady. It was just that she'd been taught how to sew with her magic, in place of a needle, and so this was all quite new to her.) and sobbing, Ilmena chose to intead not do anything, just prick her finger again.
One of the ladies-in-waiting looked haughtily at her, a smirk barely visible upon her face. "I thought you'd been coursed in needlepoint," she said, her tone bored, but laced with cold amusement.
"I
was," said Ilmena through gritted teeth, her eyes narrowed as she viciously stabbed her needle through the cloth she was embroidering.
"I see." The girl- for that was what she was; she was probably less than two years older than Ilmena- didn't look like she understood, but her point was clear: she thought the new lady-in-waiting was suffering from a severe case of stupidity.
"It's just that
I was taught how to use magic instead of a needle- you see, that way, if I start to find that my brain begins to fail from wearing far too much rouge so that any male in sight may immediately want to be near me, assuming I'm a cheap-" she paused, knowing she was being far too vicious, but not caring in the least, "Well. You get the point," she said as snidely as the other girl had.
Blushing hotly (for Ilmena had indeed overheard the girl and another of her group gossiping about how they thought Ilmena would be doing such things as soon as she settled in), the girl shot back, "Then why don't you leave, if you find our ways so inferior to what you're used to?"
"First of all, I don't find 'your ways' inferior. If you haven't noticed, I'm quite used to most of the 'ways' here. It's just that I don't understand why in all of the Otherwo-
Earth I can't use magic. It's really damned stupid to think that using magic instead of a
needle must mean I'm going to cause havoc in the kingdom. Honestly, this is silly."
"
Secondly," Ilmena said, carelessly flinging her embroidery behind her as she stood, her cheeks red with frustration, "that's a really,
really good idea. I honestly can't believe I didn't think of it before." She said this quite rapidly as she raised a small breeze and flung it at her trunk, silently commanding the wind to pick it up and follow her.
Bringing some of the gale outside in, through a window that was cracked open, she forced it at the closed door, slamming it open as she strode out. As an afterthought, she held back a small bit of wind to tear apart the ribbon holding her hair in a braid. She'd always hated having her hair in a braid, anyway. And now she could exit properly, with a big bang, her hair flowing impressively behind her. Thank the Gods for happy endings.
And so Ilmena left the rest of Queen Guenevere's ladies-in-waiting staring after her, shocked by her display, as she shouted behind her, "So, sorry, but
goodbye!"
Smiling brightly, she half-skipped down the rest of the tower stairs, thinking back on her departure.
She'd always wanted to do something like that.
----------
Grinning stupidly, very happy indeed with how she had handled things, Ilmena sat on her trunk, glad to finally be able to sit down- it'd taken quite a while to find her way out of the castle, and she didn't want to shock any of the servants
too much by soaring through the corridors on her trunk- she already had it chasing behind her, anyway.
Flying through the night air, just above the treetops of the forests beyond the palace, Ilmena smiled and let her hair be whipped behind her by the wind as she leaned back on her trunk.
She'd found the name of the all-magical community she'd been from, and where it was- it had been surprisingly easy to get the information from Merlin when she bumped into him on her way out of the castle- she'd just stammered out her question about it, and after a short explanation on why she wanted to know, he told her. Apparently, it was the only completely magical village, city, or town in the kingdom, which was the only reason he knew about it.
So that was where she was headed. Ilmena hoped that there wouldn't be any difficulty in finding out more about her family, but if there was, she wasn't really worried about it. She just wanted to find out a bit more about her past. After that, she could go do whatever she wanted. Perhaps she would marry a prince. Maybe she would become a famous mage, one that could do amazing things! What those amazing things would be, she didn't know, but whatever they were, they would be brilliant.
She could go on grand adventures, defeating villains wherever she found them!
Or she could just find happiness- fall in love, have the sort of romance that people dreamed about.
...Well, it
could happen.
Who knew.
((Aaah, it's ooooveeeer. Well, for me, anyway.
...For now. Knowing me, it's likely that my imagination will decide to smack me towards the keyboard yet again, commanding me to write another boredom-inducingly long post. But whatever.
Let's hope, for my own sanity, at least. No, really, I swear, I usually re-read my RP posts, just to make sure I haven't made any stupid mistakes, but for the last one, and this one, I've really just given up on trying to proof-read them. They're very much tl;dr, eh? (Er, tl;dr = too long;didn't read. I sometimes use tl;dbr (too long;didn't bother reading), as to me, that sounds better. Because I'm weird. Hurrah.)
...My brain needs to shut up.))