Be Gay, Do Crimes: Ros Vs Everything, Apparently

can't think of a funny joke too much going on

Once the dragon had been safely ushered back into the Woods (by actual competent experts from the palace) the Curses cast trudged back to the palace with a nagging feeling that they were about to come to the end of their quest.

Tedros strode after them, swearing to himself, Alex shouting at him from where she was slung over his shoulder;

"I'M FINE DAD IT'S NOT EVEN THAT BAD I SWEAR, DON'T EVEN GET WEIRD ABO–" her eyes unfocused, and then refocused again. "ABOUT IT, LIKE IT ISN'T EVEN THAT DEEP–"

"What is it with you and getting punted into trees?" demanded Agatha, prying Alex's eyes wide to check her pupils.

"'S funny." said Alex vaguely. "Maybe a higher power forgot it already happened once before. Dunno."

"Hope it's not a trend." said Agatha. "You're probably not concussed, though. Who's the current Grand Duchess Unspeakable?"

"What? Unless Great-Grandmother has died recently, which I don't think she really fancies doing, pretty sure it's still her– DAD, WHERE ARE YOU GOING... OH MY GOD I DON'T NEED A PHYSICIAN RIGHT NOW, CAN WE GO BACK–"

"TEDROS." Agatha barked from the end of the street Tedros was trying to go down. "EITHER BRING BACK THE SERENITY WITH WHICH YOU TREATED YOUR OWN DEATH, OR GIVE HER TO ME AND GO AND LIE DOWN SOMEWHERE."

"You can't carry me," said Alex as Tedros mumbled some vague curse and returned to the actual path. "I'm too long."

"I can, I'm the reason you're so tall. I just don't want to, so I'm making your father do it, since he's meant to be good at carrying injured maidens."

"He's carrying me like a sack of potatoes."

"I believe you said about twenty minutes ago you thought this was really funny." pointed out Tedros.

"Well, I did, yeah. Carry on, I guess."

A gaggle of rather dejected firefighters sloped past them.

"Not even a single measly fire," said one, his buckets sloshing dismally. "Not so much as a candle..."

"Maybe we should have let it do one fire," said Alex. "Just to cheer 'em up a bit. Make them feel useful."

"I thought the whole point was that those dragons didn't do fire?" said Tedros.

"Oh yeah..."

"Eunha's called a summit," said Jun, the second they got into the palace.

"She's alright, then?" said Agatha, attempting to get Alex to stand up straight.

"She'll be fine. We need to try and iron this thing out. Sophie went out to catch Fournier, dragged her back in."

"Sophie? Catch?"

"Oh, yeah, she turned up earlier with the kids, went out and caught Fournier near the Ooty border with scary speed, who even knows how. She came with a bunch of the students, they escaped the School and she followed them, they all came here to try and warn us. Good they did, we have a lot more context now. The Everwood Society sent that dragon–"

"What?" said Tedros, but Agatha was looking past them, at Marcus and Rosalind, who had stopped on the stairs, looking a lot like they knew they'd just been caught doing the ultimate school bunking experience. Because they had.

" Escaped the school?" Agatha demanded. Usually it was Tedros who would have had a hernia over something like that, but they both knew what a bad idea trying to leave Good without permission was. "And what, Sophie let them?"