Welcome To Hell

Before they left, Monroe gave each of them a signet ring. Sliver, with the design of a black twisting tree, Len noticed that unlike the others, his was a soft blue with a sliver design. Keeping that in mind for later, Len listened as Monroe explained what they were for.

"You use those rings as payment for anything that's being sold at the festival tonight. Just give it to the teller, they'll do the rest, and give it back."

Once that was done, they headed out, through the gate, down the hill and to the village market. And while the village had looked nice that morning, tonight it had transformed into something that could only be described as well….magical. An odd thing to think as they were in Hell.

White balls of lights float—no, weaved through the air, and the crowd, some were even being chased by children, the villagers were dressed as elegantly as them. The mood was joyous, excited, and just plain happy, from the entertainers, to the spectators, store, stall, and cart sellers.

Nate had happened to look up, and the stars were freakin dancing! He stared, jaw to the floor, just watching until Amaya tugged at his arm.

When Monroe, after saying hello to a passing group, turned to his own to tell them to not to run off, he merely sighed when he found an empty spot.

They were gone.

~.~

The Legends had split into two groups, Amaya, Sara, and Jax in one, and Martin, Nate, Rip, Mick, and Len in another. With an amused smirk, Len followed Mick with everyone else as the man made a beeline for a food stall.

"Hello," smiled the woman, red reptilian eyes as warm as her smile.

"I want whatever that is," Mick tilted his head to the other person cooking the meat on a grill a bit away to her left.

"Okay!" She chirped, before talking to the one cooking in a different language that had a slight hiss to it.

The person answered back in the same language, before they went about preparing the food.

"How will you be paying?" she asked.

Mick took off the ring, and held it out to her, the woman's expression brighten a bit, before she took it, pressed the symbol in an ink pad, stamped it on a parchment, cleaned it off, then handed it back to Mick. The food is soon handed to the man, Mick took it with a nod of thanks.

"Thank you very much!" The woman called after them.

"How is it?" Martin asked watching with some fascination as Mike shoved about half the food in his mouth.

"Pretty good." Mick said around a mouthful.

The group weaved through the crowd, stopping to look at anything of interest, At one point Rip had to drag the Professor away from a small store where he gotten into a heated debt with the owner that Len was pretty sure was a ghost.

They eventual bumped into the others, who excitedly told them about the baby dragons they were able to play with.

"Their mother said that the herd comes every year so that their younglings can interact with the villagers." Jax told Stein, "apparently they live in the nearby forest, and—"

"I'm sorry," Stein interrupted, "but did you say that their mother told you this?"

Jax nodded, "Yeah, dragons can talk apparently, cool right."

"That not much of a surprise," Rip looked away from where Sara was showing him the knife she got from a Dwarf selling them, "stories have told of dragons talking."

"It is to me, my studies and interests never ventured into the subjects of dragons."

"I imagine not," Rip smiled a little.

The group go their separate ways, Len and his group going to where Jax told them where the dragons were.

~.~

Monroe found all of them fighting in a tavern, sighing, and not for the first time wondering why. The Knight easily weaved through the mess, grabbing one Legend at the time and shooing them out, once he had the last member, Mick, and by the ear of all things, he herded them all to the village courtyard. There was already a crowd there, they parted for Monroe and the others, some even calling out to the Knight.

"Here," he said once they were in the front, "stay. Don't move, it's about to start."

"What is?" Nate asked.

Monroe grinned, before disappearing into the sea of people.

~.~

There is a shift in the air, and the crowd goes quiet with anticipation, Len glanced away around him for signs of something until movement in the front gained back his attention.

Eyes, big, brown, and familiar to him, because he spent who knows how long on a ship that was only so big, he knew what they looked like if light hit just right. Knew what made them shine, and what made them darken with sadness. Eyes, big, brown, and familiar to him.

They weren't.

Eyes big, brown, and old. Far older than anywhere they've been, they told stories, of lands, people, the seen, and unseen. Eyes, big, brown, old, and powerful.

A power that radiate from body, and made his shiver, made his knees weak. And that scared him, because he hasn't been weak in a long time, hasn't felt this kind of fear since the first time his father took his fist to him, to his sister. And it hit, all of this hit him.

This was real.

Raymond, who he was, was real.

Eyes, big, brown, old, and powerful looked at him, and smiled. Warmly, gentle, and welcoming. And the fear, and weakness, and the panic was gone, a familiar warmth replacing them, and it was, like always, even if he'll always deny it, welcomed, and wanted.

Raymond then started to sing.

Voice smooth, clear, yet soft, the language was unknown. No doubt as old as the singer was, perhaps even older. But it captured his, and the others attention all the same.

His voice is joined by his mother, who he only looked at once, then looked away back to Ray, the moment had been quick, but it was enough for him

Their voices mixed together until they were one, the same, yet different. Singing to them, and the starry sky above, who, to his amazement sang back. No…not the sky itself, but some place beyond it. The place where it's said that light is eternal.

And when they were done, when voices faded, and when the gathered crowd clapped, and cheered for the pair, he stood there with the other Legends. None of them moved, pinned by the eyes. Big, brown, old, and powerful, that never once looked away.

~.~

Jax is the first to wake, body heavy from both sleep, and the events of last night. He laid there, curled up with his pillow, briefly wondering if it was all just a dream, and if he was still dreaming. It when he hears the noise of bird—at least it sounded like birds— outside, that he decided to move.

"Not a dream," he concluded upon entering the bathroom, and seeing his face in the mirror.

What was once elegant designs of orange and red, was nothing but a smeared mess. He remembered, after Ray's song, he, and the others had been dragged by the man—demon?— to a section of the village where Orcs had apparently set up shop. And after an introduction to a few of the chiefs, Jax had found himself playing with some of the children, and the paint had been courtesy of one of older ones.

Either way, it had been fun.

Smiling a little, Jax went about cleaning off his face, brushing his teeth, then upon realizing he was still in the same clothes from last night, took a shower. When he emerged from the bathroom, there was a light grey shirt, and lounge pants waiting on the bed for him, a bed he was pretty sure wasn't made before he went into the bathroom.

Jax stared, shrugged, and put on the clothes. Afterwards, he headed out, intent of finding a kitchen. Instead, he bumped into Ray's dad. Sean, he was tall, hair dark, with eyes grey. They had all met the…man last night, each with feelings over the fact this was the King of Hell. He had been friendly enough, before Nick had dragged him off.

"Erm," Jax said, eyes finding and locking onto the obvious hickey on Sean's neck.

Sean raised a brow, amusment in his eyes.

"Erm," Jax said again, "Hi?"

Sean snorted, "Good morning," he then greeted amusment in his voice, "where are you off to?" he then asked.

"The kitchen…..does Hell have coffee?"

"Who do you think invented it?" Sean grinned before indicating for the human to follow him.

"…..That explains a lot." Jax mumbled as he followed.

Sean laughed.

~.~

Considering that the house was obviously bigger then it looked, Jax expected something grand when he entered the kitchen. And it kind of was, large with a fancy stove, counters, cabinets, a big fridge, and a pantry. However, the feel around it was different, it felt homey, which honestly was a little weird, Jax is pretty sure he's not supposed to feel that way because of the fact that he was a time traveler, and one half of basically the Burning Man. But then again, all that was overlapped by the fact that he was in Hell, and had spent much the night before partying with Orcs, and talking to Dragons.

"Do you like pancakes?" Sean then asked going over to the stove.

"Who doesn't."

Smiling, Sean started opening cabinets, "Good, you can help make them."

And that's how Jax ended up making the perfectly golden, "With a slight crispy edge" and fluffiest pancakes ever with the King of Hell.

"All I wanted to do was play football" Jax thought as he sipped his second cup of coffee, and Len came strolling in, dressed as casual as Jax was.

After greeting Jax, Len turned his attention to Sean, and stared at him. Probably had something to do with the fact that he was wearing a pink frilly apron.

"Pancakes?" Sean offered.

Len blinked, then shrugged, and helped himself to the ready food and coffee. Half way through the man's meal, the rest of the Legends came stumbling in, with Rip having the biggest hang-over in the world.

"You only have yourself to blame," Sara teased the groaning and whimpering man beside her, "Ray told you participating in a drinking contest with the Dwarf was a bad idea."

Rip groaned, and prayed for the sweet release of death…..which, considering where he was, he could actually already be dead, and this was just one of Hell's punishments.

Chuckling, Sean went to a cabinet, pulled out something, he poured it into the human's drink before handing it to him.

"Hangover cure," Sean explained before Rip gulped it down.

Movement had Jax looking away to the entrance of the kitchen, and he went very still. It was Ray, his teammate still half-asleep, hair sticking everywhere, and sleeping pants hanging dangerously low.

He had wings.

Six in total, big, and long feathered, they twitched as Ray went over to his father, mumbling hellos to the stunned humans. Sean merely smiled at his son, flickering his nose playfully, before fixing him a plate of food. Ray took the plate, and settle between Len and Nate.

Sean watched amused as his son's wings flared out then curled around the two humans, tickling feathers had Nate sneezing, while Len just sat there, eye comically wide. By the time Ray was fully awake, they were partially cocooned in them.

"Sorry," Ray blushed, uncurling, and pinning his wings to his back, "sometimes they have a mind of their own."

Sean snickered.

~.~

Not surprisingly, the place had a garden, and it's where Amaya found Ray talking to a female centaur, upon seeing her, Ray smiled and waved her over.

"Hey Amaya," he greeted.

He was dressed in red robes, designed for his wings in mind, they had twitched upon noticing the woman, and when she had settled by his side, Ray's wings curled around her. Ray didn't notice, Amaya did, and she quickly felt a feather, marveling at it's softness before turning her attention back to the Centaur, who was naked from the waist up.

"We will look into it." Ray told the Centaur.

The Centaur bowed, "Thank youTataiu,"

Then with a bow of the head to Amaya, left, "Trouble?" Amaya asked when the Centaur was out of sight.

Ray hummed as he offered his arm to her, a little surprised as the sudden gentlemanly behavior, Amaya paused before taking it.

"Not sure," Ray answered as he lead her further into the garden, "that was Ku, one of the Herd leaders, apparently, the trees have been getting sick."

"Do they know why?" Amaya asked, pressing close to Ray to prevent herself from falling off the small somewhat narrow bridge they were now crossing.

"No, that's why she was here, she hopes I will have better luck at finding out."

"Do you know why the trees are getting sick?"

"I have an idea," Ray admitted, smiling when a bird landed onto of Amaya's head, and settled there happily, it was cute.

Well if you can call a puffy white, golden spotted bird with six pink eyes cute.

Apparently, Amaya did, cooing at one that landed on her shoulder.

"If you want, you can join me" Ray then offered, wiggling his finger at a bird that settled on on top of his head "I'll be leaving in two days.

Excited, Amaya agreed.

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