opened

The door opened and in strode a questing knight if Jewel had ever seen one, though He was not dressed in full plate harness or even a chain shirt: it would have been a grave insult to suggest that Father could not protect a guest in the feast hall.

But his figure was muscled in that way the fitter footmen were, and he stood a good head taller than any in the room save Father and herself. Below his dark hair, a light scar crossed down from his brow and over his nose before glancing off onto a cheek.

She did not recognize the heraldry upon his tabard. But Jewel had hardly had time to memorize any but the houses of their closest neighbors.

The crier however was ready to do his duty and began to introduce him.

"Knight of Garmendan, Lothlar"

Father tilted his head in acknowledgement and uttered the traditional greeting.

"Be welcome to my house; eat and be at peace." A gesture to a seat with a gap between the knight and Mother spoke of confidence, but uncertainty. So Father did not know what standing Lothlar had but was not at least overly hostile to Garmendan, wherever that was.

The bang of a spear butt on the stone echoed in the hall cuing the Crier to his next announcement.

Jewel idly flexed the toes of her hind limbs and clenched her tail around herself but she did not brush even a single scale upon the floor to feel the subtle tremble.

It would have been improper.

"The Esteemed Lady Sorcerer and Weird of the Autumnal Briarwood of Bothgola, Euewyn"

Wait what?

That was not the name that Jorge had addressed the Cat by!

Jewel could not help herself but gawk as a vaguely conical form made entirely of red, orange and yellow leaves glided into the room. Only on a third glance did Jewel properly apprehend that the leaves in shape and size subtly framed specific kinds of flowing features.

At the top was a tall pointed 'hat' with a wide brim, made of broad three split leaves that favored a bit more red than orange, riding over a heavily shadowed darkness that smelled of peat and old mulch and showed no visible eyes or features.

Framed in a more flowing fashion by somewhat hair-like strands, not unlike willow, were tiny little pricks of orange and red color, strung in chains of color that reminded jewel of clover, if clover turned the colors of maple leaves in fall.

This further draped over what she guessed must be a robe of slender oval leaves, continuing the theme of oranges and reds, mixing in a few deep amber and browns. Jewel presumed it was maybe a cloak or perhaps a very long and billowing gown? But really there was just no details upon the figure to tell, besides assumptions and the overall shape of a pine tree clad in the raiment of an oak.

Father seemed momentarily taken by the appearance but offered his traditional greeting and a gesture to the seat between mother and Lothlar.

Jewel was so flustered by the idea that there were two wizards among their guests that she barely had time to consider what that seating arrangement meant when the next strike announced another guest.

"The Esteemed L- ehr uhm" The crier seemed thrown off for something written on his scroll but then marsheled on "Esteemed Sorcerer and Weird of the Uloghai Bog, Su-" The poor crier again coughed on his tongue trying to say the name and then with a face turning bright red struggled through the rest on a few more breathily whispered tongue twisters before finally doing his duty.

"Tsulogothulan"

If the name was difficult, the figure that entered was something that — well, until this moment Jewel had been sure tapestries and histories were just exaggerating about the countenance of wizards, especially those that pertain to the difficult and strange to find details on the title of Weird.

But no, apparently those depictions had merely been as close as artists and weavers could manage to the actual thing.

What entered the feasting hall slithered in a way that Jewel came to realize she probably would never be able to manage.

Because, for all her slender serpentine form, she still was restrained by the encumbrance of bones that did not bend like rotten swamp grass.

It was wrapped in black clothes around a figure that was ostensibly human-like. At least in that it had two arms, two legs, and a protrusion that was probably a head. But each bent and swayed in a sinewy, sweeping manner that made Jewel even at her most bedraggled look absolutely rigid and graceful.

Legs, arms and necks were definitely not supposed to sway that much in the process of ambulation (she could not bring herself to call it walking).

And the diaphanous material it wore as robes Jewel thought was on closer inspection a many layered thing that looked suspiciously like cheese cloth and lamb gut-lining that had been dyed black and wrapped in layers sufficient to obscure whatever was underneath.

All of that would have been quite enough for Jewel and already strained her composure, but the head and what could charitably be called a hat (wide brimmed and also pointed as Euewyn's but in every other respect nothing like it) were what froze her and the rest of her family transfixed.

It was like the result of someone, having heard a nose described like a beak, then took it terribly literally and sought to sculpt a smooth, pale, blue-veined mass of flesh into just such a shape; the proverbial sculptor however did so without understanding that such things as nostrils were necessary features of such.

It was sharp and fleshy and was the only visible skin in the entire figure, jutting out from a darkness framed by a billowing veil from the 'hat', everything else wrapped in the black cloth or otherwise covered.

And then the head tilted one way and brought a massive, singular eye embedded on one side of the 'nose' to look upon all of them.

It was honestly a very pretty eye, bright violet iris. Clear and hardly veined sclera, a keen and intelligent gaze in the pupil, and very full lashes.

But it was the size of father's fist and every detail was so perfectly, exaggeratedly huge — right down to the lashes being bristly quills in their hugeness.

A few wet and soppy blinks audibly filled the stunned silence of the hall.

The figure poised in a posture that was absolutely bizarre in its normalcy compared to the fluid boneless jaunting slink that had gotten it there.

Finally, father found his words and, with a brief apologetic glance to Jewel (who could only stare blankly in dawning realization) gestured for Tsulogothulan to be seated next to his wyrm daughter.

Which to be fair, Jewel was a dragon and the least needing of protection from something horrific or uncertain. But Still!? REALLY?!

It took the poor crier quite a bit to compose himself.

But Jewel did not blame him, she had snuck her tail down off her perch to the stone of the floor so it could comfort her with the etched laughter of happier times.

The boy needed a solid three strikes of announcement before he could actually find his voice and his place on the scroll.

During all of which Jewel noted how the knight was frustratingly indifferent to the strangeness of either wizard. Even smirking a little in the direction of Tsulogothulan! Who blinked wetly and audibly in response. The lids were almost popping and slapping like lips.

After this Jewel was prepared for it to be a veritable parade of ever more absurd kinds of Weirds but the announcement spoken by the crier was familiar, if not precisely welcome.

"Esteemed Lord Sorcerer and Weird of the Demesne of Ghergeintat, Fizzbunches"

However, that Jewel now felt the presence of softly settling paws then a fuzzy rump and a tickling tail on top of her head was not at all expected.

Her father glared at the cat wizard, who had apparently not seen fit to arrive by the entry door but find a corner to sneak around to the top of Jewel's head, Her fathers eyes fixed above her before offering the traditional greeting and then very pointedly gesturing to the seat next to Tsulogothulan.

Fizzbunches took just a moment too long to acknowledge father's gesture before he leaped in a sweeping arc that barely pressed any force at all upon Jewel's head.

The cat wizard landed in the seat so poised it was almost difficult to believe he had ever been anywhere else.

He was however only just barely visible due to the tops of his ears and his floppy and rather untraditional wizard headwear.

With that, the closing statements came.

"The house of Rochford welcomes you all! Let us eat and be merry."

The voice of Tsulogothulan was soft with a strange foreign lilt that dragged on the vowels ever so slightly. But far too normal for the uncanny nature of the rest of it. Just low enough probably only Jewel and Fizzbunches likely could hear it.

"Must you always be such an over theatrical ponce Fuzzbunches? We are not here to antagonize the lady or her father."

The cat fixed the blank faced side of Tsulogothulan's 'nose' with an unamused glare. His voice, however, was quite clear and carried out to everyone in the hall

"If Lord Rochford wanted me to make a polite entrance, then proper seating arrangements for my personage should have been prepared beforehand."

It barely required a glance from Father towards Jorge before Fizzbunches had enough cushion to see over the lip of the table.

Jewel found herself sharing a look of baffled commiseration with Tsulogothulan's wide glistening orb of an eye. Utterly baffling that the most disturbing of the four guests was suddenly one she immediately felt a kinship with.

It was further cemented when a cloth covered hand bonelessly snaked its way up from under the table and muffled the cat wizard before he could say something else.

Father very diplomatically did not look in the cat wizard's direction, but seemed to share Jewel's sentiment of camaraderie with Tsulogothulan. Who slowly blinked her one eye in acknowledgement to him.

Jewel could hear the faint slimy gliding of the wet skin against the orb so close to her.

"Well then, before we get to the business our guests brought before me, let us eat! A meal to settle the weariness of travelers before I answer your request."

A muffled yowl of annoyance was met with a disturbingly uncomfortable spinning twist in Tsulogothulan's neck as it brought that oversized eye to glare reproachfully down at the cat.

The look silencing whatever protest Fizzbunches was trying to get around the coverings wrapped around his face.

Only after he closed his eyes almost entirely at it did the other wizard release its 'companion'.

Pitchers of small ale arrived. Which was a bit odd for a feast unless it was to the taste of a particular guest, not out of the ordinary for their usual evening meals together as a family but normally anything warranting 'honored guests' would have called for at least one of the lighter wines.

Fascinating for Jewel, despite their strangeness, all three wizards partook, although Fizzbunches required his to be served in a shallow bowl.

Euewyn drank it the most normally of the three. The mug rose upon air gently whirled with hints of old leaves and the smell of coming winter.