Mibbet was glad to finally be back, for such a short trip that particular adventure had stretched out far longer than she would have preferred. Then there was the issue of adjusting back, the black world had definitely been a unique experience, but now she was just relieved to be back in this reality, in glorious colour. It had been quite strange enough the first time she’d had to learn to adjust from a frog’s vision to a human one.

While she was recovering Rosalind was constantly cussing to the point where Mibbet was pondering if the girl was trying to turn the air blue. She carefully made a mental note of the more interesting words used. After her recent life experience, she had come to the realisation that even if you learned every language in the world you could never have too many swear words, and between gods and mortals, magical creatures, and the undead her linguistic repertoire was definitely expanding at a prodigious rate.

Suddenly they were flattened by a ballistic grade cousin as Elvira let them know how relieved she was that they were back, and that apparently her strength judgment had not improved, as Mibbet’s squidgy bits made a desperate bid for escape from a hug that would make a silverback gorilla feel like a wimp.

“Elvira....... need... AIR” she gasped desperately, as Elvira finally figured it out, and bashfully toned it down a tad. (At least enough to only reduce a boulder to gravel if it was made of one of the softer stones, as opposed to her usual granite squidging strength).

Addy carefully watched from a distance, she knew one of her duties now was guarding The Princess, but she was smart enough to not get between Elvira and her mark. Besides anything else what went on between two royals was definitely the business of said royals, and if you wished for a fruitful career it was usually a good idea to not get yourself dragged into it if at all possible. Well that and she knew Elvira was (mostly) harmless, so staying out of it would only hurt the ribcage.

Errol kept well out of it too, mainly because he had no desire to be slugged by either Princess and getting between the duo as a guy would get him slugged either way really. He had enough little sisters to figure that out, and so far this knowledge had helped him live a long, and fairly healthy life, with minimal pranking in which he was on the receiving end.

Sir Leeroy lay on his back, staring up at the blue sky, with an expression akin to a turkey that just encountered rain. (Just try watching some time, they always look surprised, and shocked by it, as if such a thing had never happened before in the entire history of the multiverse, and suddenly it’s happening to them. Then again turkeys do seem to be in a perpetual state of shock, and confusion, so maybe the rain has nothing to do with it.

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Showtyme watched the returning group, feeling a pang of a long-forgotten feeling at the memory of their own troupe, in a mortal being one would expect a smile, but given that Showtyme’s expression was incapable of leaving the default expression of rictus grin, there weren’t really many other options.

Still, they were overtaken by a feeling of nostalgia, and the memories of their friends, now long gone and the bond they shared, was bittersweet. He could have sworn Rosalind’s expression was the spitting image of the grin worn by a young orphan girl, many, many, many years ago.

For now, though, there were more pressing matters than who was who and the petty politics of mortals. (They seemed to come and go in dynasties that barely lasted a thousand years without the aid of a miracle. It was adorable to watch, like a child making castles in the sand.) Showtyme had to make sure nobody opened that door before the next trial. They reached down into the hardest bedrock, pouring forth magic until the door was swallowed up by the earth below it.

“You could do that?” The Princess asked, “Then why did you need our help? Surely you could have handled it easily.”

Showtyme bit back their irritation at this, sure they had to answer the same question every time, but realistically in the mayfly lives of mortals they had not had to explain for a very long time, and those libraries of theirs tended not to store data for very long.

So they scrawled a fresh note and passed it over.

“If YOU WerE noT ABuL to PasS TryUl TheN EyE CoULd Do NoffIng TwO HElP, TrYuLS FoR MOrTuLS, If EYe PasS For YuU WUt Da PoYNt? VeRE aRE RoOlz FoR Me Two.”

That seemed to have worked, the Princess appeared to be more familiar with immortals than a short-life such as her had any need to be usually. Showtyme pondered this for a moment, realising that somebody was playing silly buggers here. That wasn’t a good sign, maybe now their duty was over for a while it was time to get out of here and have a bit of a poke around. It was fairly obvious somebody had been trying to muck about with the elders lately, and they still remembered the last time that had happened.

They had called it the age of havoc, a fitting title really. Chaos wouldn’t have fit the bill back then. Chaos was never big enough, mean enough, or ugly enough to cause any problems. They were far too busy bickering with Order to ever really get anything done. The problems started when beings on opposite sides of the fence started scheming together and decided that maybe the sources of their problems were not in fact each other, but their bosses. That was Havoc. Order was excellently organised, and always had a plan, but was usually held back by longstanding grudges, even when their grudges came in the form of a to-do list.

While Chaos, was, well, CHAOS, they were unorthodox, creative, powerful, in all the worst ways, but lacking the coherence to cause any real problems. The two got on like oil and water, and Showtyme really hoped they stayed that way, for a long, long time.