Everything in the castle was red.
Red carpets. Red tapestries. Even the stone was a slightly ruddy hue like dried blood. And all of it was brought out by the strange black steel that twisted along the walls and ceilings like rose thorns. Frankly, it gave Gavin the heebie jeebies. It probably would have even if he was supposed to be there.
Of course, since he wasn't, it just made things worse.
The young thief picked his way carefully down the halls of the Crimson Queen. Now and again he crossed paths with servitors. Men and women in nothing but paint writhing up their naked bodies like ivy, flourishing the details of naked ass, breast and supple form. They didn't seem to notice him, the eyes in the sockets of their masks blank, their expressions rapturous with their servitude to their mistress.
Some of them might have been thieves like Gavin himself. He didn't know. He didn't want to know. The Crimson Queen was one of the most potent sorceresses across the Lost Lands. Like many of the more powerful magic users, she was a collector of things and people. The more amusing, the better. Catgirls, lamia, holstaurs and more fell into her grasp, toyed with, their minds reduced to pink clouds of bliss as they were teased and cuddled into babbling, silly servitude.
Which, naturally, meant she had some interesting items worth taking.
Still, he was troubled. For such a fabled queen and sorceress, her palace hadn't been hard to break into. Just a few basic wards and a few guards at the main gates. It was... a little concerning, truth be told. But then, such sorceresses as the Red Queen had probably grown complacent over the years. Secure in their power. And the true prizes were likely well protected. Gavin paused, looking around himself. Damn. The corridors all looked the same. The same twisting black patterns, writhing around each other. Curling about the walls and windows. Up along the figures of the servants and maids. So supple. So distracting.
Gavin rubbed his eyes. The red was so consuming. It just... blinded you. Made the dark lines seem like they were moving. He looked around again. He was lost. That wasn't good. The servants were one thing, but he didn't relish meeting one of the Queen's pets. He grabbed the nearest door and eased it open.
The room beyond was finally a relief from the endless crimson. Instead, a soft pink consumed the walls and floors. Gavin looked about with interest as he carefully stepped inside. This looked promising. Though the black metal still bound up the room like some colossal cage, there was... was something about this one. It seemed to have a kind of... purpose...
"Oh, a puzzle," Gavin murmured, brightening. Of course! He'd often heard of these kinds of traps. Arcane workings that needed to be solved to progress. In fact, the closer he looked, the more it seemed like the patterns in the room were leading to something. He squinted, trying to focus. It was... a little hard. A little distracting. The pink background really drew the eye. Made it hard to really look. To really see where the patterns were interlocking. How annoying. But maybe if he wasn't so silly he could do it. Maybe if he wasn't such a dumb, silly bimbo...
Gavin realized he was breathing heavily. He blinked again, shook his head sharply. What... what had he been thinking about? Something... something about patterns on the walls. The steel shapes that just drew the eye. How they all spun around the pink room. How they seemed to shift. Such a clever puzzle. You had to really watch. Really stare to try and make anything out of it. Just stare deeper. Deeper.
Wait. Wait, he could... he could make something out. A shift among the patterns. He just needed to look closer. There! A corner of the room. A shape unlike the rest. Moving in a different way. Soft and pink, bound up in black. There was... there was form there. A dance. A shape that... that was so familiar.
