Return of the Double Agent: Part Five

She giggled shortly. "Yes, my lord. Uh...tell me again why I'm discovering that Jeran sometimes dons petpet costumes and King Skarl dances with plushies every night?"

     "Well...Skarl and I are good friends, right? And friends poke fun at each other every now and then." Darigan whipped out a piece of paper and a purple quill, and started scribbling away Cylene's findings.

     "What kind of costume was Jeran wearing, may I know?"

     "You won't believe this," Cylene said in a gossipy way, hoping to win Darigan's favor. She grinned evilly and drew out every word. "He was being a White Weewoo!"

     "Must have something to do with the Times," Darigan muttered as he scribbled it down. "Anything else you have? Weewoos aren't that odd, you know."

     "And then he started singing a pirate song." Cylene shook her head. "Sadly Jeran can't sing... that well."

     "I see."

     "Oh, and then he managed to squeeze himself into a costume resembling rather nice, pink little Meepit."

     Darigan shook his head with amusement as he noted and wrote those interesting pieces of information down. "Ah, that's Sir Jeran, all right. I presume you've got even more nice things to say about Skarl?"

     "Well," Cylene begun, raising her hands with a dramatical flourish. She suddenly let them down, aware of the fact that Darigan was becoming rather easy-going…way too much, for her taste. Stiffening, the Zafara continued, "He has a certain interesting habit that you might've heard of... Skarl is rather fond of... dancing with plushies."

     Eyeing Darigan, the Agent noticed that he was watching her intently. Nervously she gulped, and took the silence as a cue to continue.

     "He dances with a MSPP plushie!" she squealed, glancing at her notes. "And I think he also dances with a Court Dancer plushie...erm...yeah, that's right."

     "Are you joking with me?" asked the ruler of the citadel. "The great king of Meridell acts like a youngling when nobody's looking around? This is crazy."

     Cylene raised her eyebrows. "I'm serious!" she said, her voice rising slightly. "He even sings while dancing! It's much worse than Jeran's voice, I might add."

     "Yes, yes..." Darigan nodded, taking them down as well. "I can see that you've been doing quite a good job, Agent. And nobody has spotted you yet?"

     The Zafara grinned. "Lisha got a little suspicious, but I don't think she found anything out."

     "Good." He gave her the thumbs-up sign while stifling a laugh. "King Skarl...dancing with plushies!" he chortled. "That's rich! Very well, I am glad that you've been a big help. Not only have you given me the stuff I need, I got a great laugh out of it! Laughter is one of the most relaxing things to do, is it not?"

     Cylene shrugged, but couldn't help smiling back as well. "Oh yes..." She fingered her notebook quite a bit.

     "What is it?" Darigan asked, a small smile creeping upon his face.

     "I'd like to stay here for a while and hold a low profile. Although Lisha isn't all that big of a problem, I'd prefer to not have trouble if I were to return to Meridell, if you wouldn't mind?" Cylene blinked, fluttering her eyelashes in a girly, innocent manner.

     "Of course," the Korbat said. "After all that hard work... But not too long, mind you. I'd like to have some other pieces of interesting information from Meridell now and then."

     "Thank you, my lord," the Zafara said with a polite curtsy. "If you don't mind, I'd like to freshen up for dinner."

     "You are dismissed," he said with a grand wave with his left hand.

     Leaving the large audience room, Cylene was grateful that there were no annoying guards to make explanations to. It would seem that Darigan hired smarter sentries than Skarl, which was a relief. Grinning, the Agent tiptoed around the hallway as she wondered what kind of secrets she would ferret out next.

     The center of Darigan politics was quite different from Meridell Castle, having a slightly darker atmosphere. However, one thing was similar between the two - the prevalence of many corridors and rooms that store loads of concealed things.

     She opened the first door she saw, hungry for information. Unfortunately it only opened to a twisting, turning staircase. Cylene poked her head in and stared upwards. There was no telling what lay upstairs.

     Taking a deep breath, the agent crept up the steps, listening every now and then if she was being pursued. When at last, the blue Zafara reached the top, her eyes met a long ragged purple curtain.

     Quietly tugging it aside, Cylene ducked behind the curtain, diving straight for the space behind a large ornate jar with silver and black designs running all around it. A strange smell wafted from within, nearly causing her to sneeze.

     Cylene cautiously peeked and took a good look at her surroundings. There were shelves and shelves of books, a large cauldron bubbling with a sluggish blue fire underneath, and many tables with a whole variety of bottles, jars and objects that she would rather not touch.

     This was probably the domain of some witch, judging from the environment. Sure enough, Morguss was sitting at a far table, busy staring at herself in a mirror, barely aware of the hidden agent already getting ready to jot down some notes.

     The old, warty pet picked up a finely made brush. From its silvery gleam, the Agent figured that it had to be 100% Uni tail. She scribbled the interesting information down, just as she heard Morguss hum some weird tune. Alarmed, Cylene drew herself back into the shadows, fearing that she would be discovered. Inhabitant of Meridell might just throw her out, but the poor victims in the Darigan Citadel would not be as kind as their Meridell counterparts. Shuddering, the Zafara tried not to think of how nicely she'd be roasted in that wonderfully, yucky, green bubbling pot standing in the middle of the room.

     "Hmm... la, la, that's it..." she heard Morguss mutter. Daring to take a peek, the Zafara was stunned at the scene that was unfolding in front of her.

     One word formed in her mind as she watched the aged Neopet pick up a very feminine round tube from the table, which seemed a bit too scary to be a dressing table. Suddenly Cylene could not help but to grin in glee, for she was viewing the most private thing that Morguss did...

     Putting on lipstick! The warty hands moved with a surprising agility, considering their age and what they had been through. The Agent wrote all the details down faithfully as she had instructed, while shaking her head slightly. Cherry red? That was not a color that suited Morguss well, since bright, beaming red clashed fiercely with the old, murky color of the Morguss' face.

     Stifling even more giggles about to burst out from her throat, the blue Zafara continued to survey her. Judging from the looks of the stuff Morguss was using and the faint but apparent vapors rising around her, they had to be created with her own knobbly two hands.

     Typical, thought Cylene. But before she could think about anything else, she nearly jumped as a scream shattered her thoughts.

     Daring to peep out from her hiding place once again, she saw Morguss flapping her arms frantically...for a good reason.

     Her face began to swell. At first it wasn't very noticeable, but it came to the point where she stood up and hurriedly began grabbing a nearby spell book in order to look for a counter curse.

     Cylene could barely contain her excitement. She ended up laughing. However, this had quite a dire consequence.

     The Moehog witch stopped freaking out for even a moment, despite her bulging cheeks. She started looking behind the cauldrons and the bookcases. At first, the agent froze and started racking her head for a plan to escape before she could blow her cover completely.

     Suddenly the Zafara had the awesome, inspirational idea that she should just jump into the jar she had hidden behind, considering that the old, warty pet probably wouldn't look inside her jars. With the strange smell tickling her nose, Cylene dismissed that notion. It was too risky... What if she ended up like that old hag, her face bulging similarly too?

     Gulping, the Agent thought hard as Morguss' suspicious steps came closer and closer. Noticing a connecting door, the Zafara grinned hopefully. It wasn't over yet. But she had to move quietly. Her feet fleetingly touched a floor, and her shadow was caught by the wall before disappearing again as Cylene moved towards the door.

     "Now..." she heard the Morguss huff angrily. Quickly Cylene pushed the door open and entered the room, hoping that no one would discover her.

     She was lucky. To her surprise, the Court Dancer slept on a rather large and fancy bed in front of her. The Zafara scanned the room for hiding places, and upon hearing the loud footsteps, she selected her second favorite place…the closet.

     The door that she had just sneaked through a couple of seconds ago was blasted open, and from a slight opening the Agent thought she spied a furious Morguss with magic fires in her hands.

     "What is it?" she heard the Court Dancer ask sleepily. The poor Aisha blinked twice, got up and rubbed her eyes, only to find an angry, old hag glaring at her. The look on the Morguss' face told Cylene that the Morguss had acted as she had hoped.

To be continued...