Chapter Text
Crimson velvety drapes hang from ornate ceilings, the delicate hand painted murals on the wall are less vibrant than when it first got painted.
Rough stonecut walls, chiseled delicately as if their life depended on it.
Several painted portraits lay across the entire hall, the first one starring a youthful man with the sleaziest smile you've ever seen.
If it weren't for the regal royal clothes he's wearing you would mistake him for a con man that would trick you into a slave contract.
The next painting depicts the same man but with more wrinkles, this pattern repeats until the last painting where the sleazy young adult has turned into a silver fox, still sporting a cocky bastard smirk.
The same middle aged man is sitting on the throne, his face resting on his closed knuckles. Looking down on four death row inmates kneeling on a continuous red carpet, spanning from the start of the ridiculously long hall until it's under the throne.
He smiles towards them, but it doesn't quite reach his wrinkled eyes.
Two guards wearing armor made out of a dark metal with an ethereal purple shine from enchantments stood behind them, “Four death row inmates, your highness— ahem. their names in order from left to right!” one of the guards barked out, “Jay-mowjee, Daarnell, Burrandy andd-UH!, Skipzz-terrr” The four men kneeling felt irritated as he said all of their names, loudly and incorrectly in an over exaggerated tone.
“Wonderful!” The old man clapped his hands, he straightened his back.
“I’m sure you all know why you're here… now usually your kind is supposed to rot in the cells until the day that I so graciously liberated your soul from your body!” Everyone except the king thought that his tone was too cheery for the topic he's talking about.
“But!” He loudly shouted, one finger pointed upwards. “I’m feeling very benevolent today..” His hands slowly drag to interlock under his chin.
One of the inmates wearing purple piped up “Uh.. maybe you're gonna let us go?” his voice was laced with meek hope.
The other three were also hopeful, but they didn’t want to get their hopes up.
Instead what they got was a ringing shrill of “SILENCE!” from his highness himself.
His hands gripping on the thrones armrests, knuckles white and face absolutely red with fury.
The blonde wearing red robes elbowed the white haired man who just talked, letting out a tiny accusing “dude!”, which got him a glare from the other.
The king calmed himself down, clearing his throat “As i was saying before I was–” he inhales and shouts “RRUDELY.” pausing for a second to glare at all four of them as if they just offended his entire bloodline, he probably felt that way.
“Interrupted.” His voice calmed down but his smile was gone. “You will be given a chance to experience the outside doors again.”
Four pairs of eyes looked up to him, hope sparkling in them.
“But!” His highness fiercelt said,
“on ONE condition!”
—
“Well this is going great” Skip said, his pure white long eyes blinked as he rode on his milky white horse. He decided to shapeshift back to his red humanoid blob instead of his human disguise with blonde hair, now that he isn't under the creepy watchful gaze of the royal guards.
Seriously, he once tried to feign sleep and peeked between his eyes to see if the guard would blink, the shapeshifter swears the stoic guard didn’t blink at all for two hours.
“Really Skip? Being expendable for something that isn't even real ‘s great for you?” Jay said in a clipped tone, His locs sway as it follows the rhythm of the horse he's riding on, hooves clip clopped on the dirt road.
The ends were weighted with gold, he remembers having to convince one of the greedier guards that it was wood painted in faux gold paint, he doesn't really want an unwelcome abrupt haircut in prison.
“Look! What if we just ran away and not go to this pail garden! A garden full of pails sounds boring to me” Dan chimed in to offer a solution from behind Jay, his fairly innocent face lighting up with a smile, finally being able to breath fresh air instead of the musk in the cellar.
Skip once shapeshifted into Dan because of a bet, so he had to do his menial daily prison work for a week and he swears some people are nicer to him when he's Dan.
The next day after he said that to the group, he got beaten up for looking weak and puny by “Shnur-Geelack” , who is a guy who could lift up 8 metal benches in one hand, but only has 25 words in his vocabulary.
The blonde man had been laughing hysterically seeing Skip come to their cell all black and blue, although it felt weird to see a mirror copy of him beaten up, he also felt relieved that Skip was the one who endured it rather than him.
Being a shapeshifter made the blonde have more endurance and could heal faster than a regular human, he healed any bruises or sore limbs he had overnight.
“And be fugitives for the rest of our lives?” Branzy said to Dan as if it was obvious, his white fluffy hair bounced as the black horse he rode trotted along.
Even though this was an okay deal, when Branzy said if they could be set free to the old bastard, three out of four of the party half expected the king to accept it.
Branzy, despite being the oldest out of all of them, could sway even the scariest guys.
He managed to convince “Shnur-Geelack” into not beating up people who looked weak, and even made an alliance with the brute to Skip and Dan's surprise.
“I mean, it's not like we aren't fugitives now” Dan said while leaning the side of his face onto Jay's back.
“No, but at least we can go out and adventure!” Skip said cheerfully while itching his nose, well, blob equivalent of a nose.
Two different voices groaning can be heard while Dan chirped a cheerful “yeah!”
“Just like the old times!” Skip continued, Dan put his fist up and copied what Skip said before his hand slumped onto Jay's shoulder.
Just like the old times, before they got caught trying to steal from the King's secret vault.
Skip had forgotten to shapeshift to a normal blonde guy instead of his distracting bright red self.
Safe to say, when Skippy T had remembered to shift to an inconspicuous blonde guy they were already seen by some guards.
The rest is history.