Edria Meredith

Edria had pitched the idea to the three of them to meet and they'd all agreed. It was a nice restaurant and outside of Dog - whose protection she would not deny - she would go alone. It was coming into that time of year when that was more normal than not.

But then it was normal for all four of them it seemed. Dasia, icy and frozen and wintery distant. Kalen, who laughed more now and had fire back in her, but she used the fire as a shield as isolated in heat as Dasia was in cold. Between them Edria and Toi Breaker, walking between two colder and hotter seasons but with their own purpose. Toi who could not remember her love, and Edria who purposefully knew she would distance herself and sacrifice if needed.

They were, all four of them, and in their own unique ways and despite all the love and connections offered and around them, utterly and irrevocably alone in some way that could not easily be defined.

If Edria had her way, that would not be the case any longer. She loved Drago with all her heart and soul. She had loved Gaius the same way, and so that small tiny bit of reserve was there to keep her sane. Anything else and she would still be weeping upon his grave. Kalen as well, despite the anguish, was still here somehow. Toi overcame tremendous odds. Dasia...goodness wasn't Dregs enough? And all of them, of course, had their durance.

In those three other women there was something of the same steel, the same iron. She knew Kei had his own pursuits now and the time for her reswearing would be at hand in another few days.
She didn't want to reform the motley with him, was swearing another oath with Drago entirely, didn't need such things for the others in her life.

But for those three... steel and iron and ice and fire. Hearts. Spades. Clubs. Diamonds. Yes, time to start thinking of other things and find out what could happen if the four of them were willing to balance and support one another as they allowed no other to do.

It was going to be a very interesting dinner.

An apartment potted tomato plant is not the same as a proper grove by any means but it was at least greenery and so she sat by it for morning meditations. After, she took her coffee out and watched the bustle of people coming and going into the complex while Dog tinkered something with the vacuum cleaner that she couldn't fathom.

There were no messages from him this morning and there had not been any after late yesterday. She had stayed awake and watched the phone. The only blips had been from Mercutio checking on her and Erised calling from New York.

She was happy that the fear hadn't utterly paralyzed him. That was step one. He was trying, with however much difficulty, to do something. She was a little surprised he'd gone to New York, but Erised was a common sense choice and a few words to her spring paragon brother resolved that problem.

Like her, he understood that sometimes your service to the court made for strange actions. She needled and nettled the fear inside her, testing it's limits. It hurt, made her want to seize up, but the terror that he would leave her was managable if she didn't focus on it too much. She could survive this if she had to.

Had to, however, and want to, were totally separate things.

What she wanted to do was weep and crawl into bed and not emerge until she heard his voice and wrapped his arms around her. But that luxury in this was the last step and he had several more to take before her task would be over and she could be herself again.

The phone beeped and she looked at the message. She smiled faintly. "Thank you Erised." Spring was supposed to be autumn's opposite. But then she knew that fear and desire often danced hand in hand, and no more so than when one needed the support of the other to remind people of the duel edge of both.

Still, she hoped this was over soon. She wanted to hear his voice in her ear, feel arms around her, feel safe and comforted and loved and love him in return.

I'd ask why you do this to me, season dearest and goddess divine, but I know better. You do it because it must be done.

She'd have waited until Autumn, but there were vows then that would preclude her doing so.

She'd have waited but she was afraid if she waited she'd lose the courage to uphold what she was supposed to do.

She'd have waited, except the longer she waited, the more her own fear grew and became overwhelming.

This lesson would come down, in the end, to trust and faith and hope and a reminder, none of which he would know until after and so she would have to trust that CJ and Mercutio and Braden could keep him in the right line of thought to puzzle it out. Her stomach lurched and she felt sick even thinking about it.

She surveyed the suitcase on the bed and the contents within and carefully zipped it shut. he was out for his morning run.

Edria hefted the suitcase, filled with clothes and books and set the envelope and its note on the bed. She'd told CJ. She'd told Mercutio. Dog would follow and go back and forth she figured.

He'll understand. Even if I hurt him? Won't he? Won't he eventually see that this is what I mean when I say Autumn is different? That these are the things I sometimes have to do? And it's not me... not the real me. But it's part of me. It's part of me and I must do it because no one but Autumn can.

She lugged the suitcase down the stairs and out the front door and put it in the car. If anyone saw her crying, it was only more convincing that way, right?

The apartment, the one she used to run to, was where she'd left it, empty and waiting but this time she didn't want to be here. She hoped he figured it out soon. And then she hoped he forgave her for being what she was.

It was in the darkness of night, chatting with Mercutio from the over-stuffed arm chair in the corner of his room, that she realized it.

She let the fear wash over her, turned it, examined it, sighed, closed her eyes. She knew what was coming but she had not previously considered this angle.

Every autumn there were things to teach.

For some, like Dog, like Mercutio, like Toi, it was the slow and gentle lead out of the overwhelming territories of their paranoia. It was the soothing aspect of her work and teaching, the slaying of invisible and non-existent dragons so that a person could live more fully. It was the destruction of unreasonable fears, of the irritating little nagging doubts that kept people from full potential.

But there were other types of lessons too.

These were the destruction of the sense of safety and complacence, the reminder that together there was more strength than alone, and the careful line between that and foolishly trusting everything.

There was also the one she liked the least, but often the one needed most. She hated it because it was cruel and brutal.

And it was that no one was immune to fear and those that were posed a risk to them all.

It was this last, she realized, she would have to teach this autumn for at least one person. When Mercutio looked over and saw the tears in her eyes, the way her shoulders hitched, holding in breath and the urge to run, his expression for a moment was both knowing and sympathetic.

All she could pray was that they would all, once again, understand.

He's only teasing, idly winding the silk of my sleeve around my wrist as we sit and talk at the table.

I freeze.

My fingers twitch, unwind the fabric. I fight for my breath to stay normal.

Autumn is coming my love. I'm not sure you understand. I hope you do. Do you know I'm afraid of everything? That nearly every moment something startles me? That my breath catches? That I stop and have to think my way through something that might make me run? Do you know? Do you know the lessons I have to teach? Do you know how I hate it? And then how I love it because afterward I know I am alive again?

Right now, it's an old memory. A reminder that my old friend never leaves me. My heart pounds. I'm alive. alive. alive.

He doesn't say anything, just nods and lets me release the bond that was not a bond.

A month and a half. Right now my greatest fear is that of all of them, he will be the one that does not understand autumn's chill.

Edria sagged against the bed post of the bed where Dog slept, fitfully and tossing, his brow beaded with sweat. She patted away the moisture again, took his hand back, taking a momentary ragged breath of respite before she sank back into meditation and into his dreams.

She was not a skilled oneiromancer by any means.

But she was a skilled Autumn courtier and this was the less terrifying side of her tasks.

In his dreams, he was terrified. The fear rolled off of him in palpable waves that day and to her surprise, Dasia had been nervous back. Dog's recovery was slow and his "recovered" state wasn't what most would call sane to start. The fact that he managed to mutter that he was scared was both impressive and worrisome.

So tonight she'd given Drago a kiss and slipped into Dog's room and sat by his bed and plunged into the dreams that she knew would come. It was a place an oneiromancer would've had an easier time navigating, but not a place anyone but Autumn should go.

It was boxes tonight. Trapped in them. Flashes of light, slivers of metal, pain. She soothed the last away with words and bandages of dream, held his hand, unlocked the boxes, coaxed him out of entrapment, again and again and again. It was never a different message. Always the same. "You are not alone." "I will help you. I am not one of them."

She knew it wasn't enough.

But it was all she could do. Tonight for Dog. Maybe later for Dasia. She liked the other woman immensely, the chill in her, the distance recognizable in the deeper recesses of herself. She did not think Dasia was conciously unkind. But she was winter and winter was sometimes bitter and unfeeling just as autumn was sometimes the end of cycle and terror. There was a grace, a loss, a sorrow in Dasia that drew Edria to her just as it drew her to the rest of the freehold in need.

But tonight there was Dog and boxes that she unlocked, over and over and over.

When morning broke and Dog's sleep steadied into something quieter she dragged herself back to her own rooms and let Drago tuck the covers around her chin and slept. She was not surprised when she found a few boxes of her own.

There was no shaking it. Even in summer in wilting heat, or in the revels of spring, or the bite of winter that was not really winter in this state - there was no shaking the grip of autumn and the weight of the crown or the visions.

All of that presupposed that she wanted to shake it, which she did not. As such, she endured as she always did when they ignored her words, when she spoke truth and it fell on deaf ears, or they scoffed. In the end one of two things would happen - she would be wrong and in those moments she was not prideful enough for change and wrong to sting; it was the way of the world. Or she would be right and they would never acknowledge what she had said or done.

Both of these things she was used to. She was, however, more often right than not.

It was why, when the spriggen knocked on the door and the message was read she turned and kissed Drago's cheek and rode out on Shade alone into the hedge. This was not a place for him, the man she loved, the one devoted to her, the one who's eyes and actions filled with passion and loyalty and fierce protectiveness, but who also knew one thing that not many did.

There were times when her court would grip and hold and shake her like a rabbit in the jaws of the wolf and those times were both thrilling and hard and while he could always catch her and comfort her in the end, she must traverse them alone. It was the division of priestess and woman, seer and counselor, queen and commoner. Drago understood these things when he slid the ring onto her finger and asked what she had always wanted to be properly asked. And as such he understood that there was the woman and then sometimes there was only the courtier and while they were more often than not the one and same, sometimes they were not.

Tonight was one of those nights. She had not been called as Edria Meredith. She had been called as all her other roles and in them she went. It would have been a lie to say she was not afraid and nervous and she did not lie so she did not deny these things. It would have been a lie to say that she also did not intend to use this upon others and she did not lie and so she traversed the hedge knowing full well that she could use this lesson, if properly played, to teach her hold when others often lacked a starting point.

They wouldn't understand. She knew that already.

But at, she hoped, it might help them.

"I'll be back soon," she murmured and Drago's hands tightened momentarily on her arm, lips grazing neck and ear and a murmured I love you before he let her go to be who she was required to be.

I don't want to be here telling him this. I am more afraid of the look in his eyes than I am of Sable and Aster. I am more afraid of destroying this man than I am of what he might think of me. It sounds conceited, to think that his life hinges on my decision but he has said as much and that is the reason I am here. He sings for me, summing his feelings up in a song.

"But it's too soon," he mutters, trying to push off my need to talk about where this is going.

Even if I loved Theodore like he wanted - but I don't.
Even if it was because he wasn't Gaius - but it isn't.
Even if it was because it was too soon - but it isn't.
Even if it was because I can feel myself bending and curling my heart around Drago's unspoken offer - but that isn't it either.

The fear in the room is intoxicating, thick. I can't help it. I stay silent and let it build in me and in him. There isn't another path for one of Autumn and I let the scalpel fall and strike until I can hear that his breath and mine are at the same taught, frightened pitch.

The moment has come. I look up to him and I don't want to because I know what this will do.

It will be worse to lie to him though, to spend months and years assuaging his passion and his obsession and his love while I wither and die inside because he is my friend - and not my lover or my love. I love him more than I have words for, like I love Kei, but its not what he wants. He sees that as pitiful, some shadow of a friendship that isn't what he wants, not strong enough to withstand what we've been through and what he has paid and done for me.

He's done so much.

Still if I lie it would only be worse.

So when I look up at him and his eyes are pleading and the realization strikes, I don't think he knows how much it hurts me or how much i am terrified of how he'll react. I am afraid he will hurt me, but I am more afraid he will try and hurt himself. I am afraid he will go after Drago, but I am more afraid that it will destroy him.

"You need to live for you," I plead with him. I know the obsession of living for someone and how it leaves you hollow and empty and nothing left. I see it in him and I want him to live. To really live. Not to shadow me and live for me. Not to live hollow and empty like I see in Kalen right now. Not to be this person who isn't a full person.

Because I don't want to admit that I may have somehow, inadverantly, unexpectedly, done this to him. Done what my keeper did without any intent to do so.

But he can't bear to let me touch him and I shrink back into myself and he leaves me there. It is all I can do to call Kalen to have her come get me as I sink to the floor crying, terrified he'll go into the hedge and never come back, terrified he'll do something awful, hurt himself, hurt someone I care about, but terrified that I have wrought something that I cannot stop and cannot save.

It is only later when Drago tucks the covers up to my chin and sits with me, waiting, waiting, that I'm able to breathe again and let the intoxicating fear go.

Because fear and I are old friends, good friends. I wield it. I understand it. Here I feel safe though, and in that small studio sitting on the floor while Ugati stared at me in horror, I knew fear and I knew he felt it. But fear is an old friend, and not a lover and so I have closed that door and now only pray that there may be some forgiveness for it.

"No I think I like the book because she's..." Edria trailed off, listening to the door slam, the momentary beep in her phone that registered from Sweep, and the sight of the same man standing bewildered in the driveway and Bandabras trying to drag him off. She glanced at Drago, interrupting her ramble on why she'd liked The Thirteenth Tale.

"I'll be right back," she sighed. 'This has gone on long enough."

Somewhere between the bed she was flopped on and the door, she gained the carriage of Priestess and feather-footed her way down the stairs, taking in a huffing and growling Kalen in the living room.

"What in the nine hells?"

"Jonah is outside, I shut the door in his face, Bandabras is talking to him so I don't eat his face off" Kalen growled in response to edria's question.

"Why would you eat his face? He asked if you wanted to go have coffee
as a friend and you said yes." Edria looked at her confused. She'd been standing three feet away and Kalen had clearly said yes after the situation and timing had been settled a bit.

"That's the point. He's NOT my friend. I just met the man... and He has CERTIANLY earned no confidences. I don't care if he wasn't asking me on a date- the MEMORIAL is no time to try and FORCE that confidence...and I don't apreciate being made to feel as if I HAVE to let him poke his nose into my life, Just because he thinks he knows me SO WELL that he can help."

Edria rolled her eyes. Leave it to Kalen to interpret everything as a blessed intrusion on her little bubble of pain. Edria'd had enough of it. She knew her aunt was hurting as bad if not worse than herself. She knew it because there wasn't a moment she drew breath that she didn't feel that stabbing. She'd been watching the world carefully though and despite the pain, the sun still rose and set, the birds still sang, spring still came, people still lived.

"Oh get over yourself." She struggled to but she kept her voice calm and level.

"You told him sure. No it wasn't the best time. Yes you're hurting.
But you keep snarling at all the people trying to help you the most or
prickling and backing away. You're acting more like a wolverine than a
human and I'd be remiss if I didn't point that out at this point. I
would remind you - again - that he didn't force you to do a damned
thing. He asked you for coffee. You said yes. You. Not him. He didn't
use any crazy wonky powers on you. He didn't come over and wave a gun
in your face. He didn't even play on your grief though he did have
rather piss-poor timing."

"The world doesn't stop for our grief, Kalen. No matter how much we
wish it did. You can either wallow around in it like a pig in the mud
or choose to ocassionally try living again with the people who wish to
help you - whether they be old friends like Bandabras or new ones who
wish to help. You don't have to stop feeling pain. You don't have to
pretend it's not there. You don't have to stop grieving. But you do
have to keep -living- because like it or not you are alive and you
aren't as alone as you'd like to think you are.

"You're down here acting like a brand new summer courtier incapable of
controlling her anger and aiming it all at anyone who even attempts to
reach out to you and in the process you've forgotten to let your anger
keep you human"

She points at the door.

"Now if you don't want to go -fine- that is entirely your choice but
go out there and civilly tell the man that you are not in the mood for
coffee this evening as all this snarling bristling thing is currently
not even befitting my -aunt- nevermind the general of the Praesidium.
Unless of course you're declaring that the gentry have won and have
made you nothing more than this snarling she-beast that's been
stalking the house for weeks? Because I think perhaps Gaius saw quite
a bit more in you or he wouldn't have loved you so and he certainly
wouldn't want that part of you to die because of him."

"I am speaking with plenty of people, and I am driving no-one away." Kalen growled low and dangerously "And I only said I would have coffee with him because everyone, including you, were looking at me as if I was overreacting and I had no right to not want to indulge the man"

Because you were, Edria thought tiredly. Kalen seemed to find the motive in everything lately but Edria didn't point that out, letting her aunt's anger buffet her with summer heat. She didn't flinch back or move, just watched.

Kalen huffed "And If I thought for one second he would take 'no' for an answer without hounding me to death I would go out there and say so- But I have enough understanding of my own temper to know that If he presses the issue with me right now I would be neither kind nor calm, and it is far better for Bandabras to tell his mortal that now is not a good time and give him pointers... because so far he's done nothing but rub my fur the wrong way"

You don't have fur, Edria thought. That's exactly what I mean. You're digressing into this. You're not a wolverine. You're a person.

Kalen headed towards the kitchen and back door "Now if you will excuse me, This 'snarling she-beast' is going to go meditate."

"Good," edria replied calmly. "Maybe you'll find some more of yourself while you do that."

She took the same measured steps back upstairs and flopped back on the bed and sighed softly, picking up her book again.

"That's going to hurt later," she murmured and then glanced to Drago where he perched in the chair in the corner "Where were we?"

Someone gave me a gift. A touch when I did not want to be touched. Held when I was alone in the deepest part of myself.

I clung to it. Wrongly but then my faith leaves no room for sin like that and so in desperation this I think will be forgiven. It made my heart beat again because there was no feeling behind the touch. Just touch. Skin. to skin.


Someone else was close to me once. But I watched dreams and while the possibility is still there, I do not know if I should take it. He makes me feel safe and protected and he understands my love of the strangeness in life. But I think in that he is oftimes more friend than lover and I think he has finally found his self-sufficiancy. He does not need me like he did and love is part need and part partnership. For that I rejoice for him but I am no longer his impossible quest and I do not have room in my heart for my own impossible quest any longer. Too many things were impossible and I no longer want impossibility. The question becomes whether or not he will understand and what I may lose or gain in that conversation. I have been avoiding. I need time, I say.

I lie to myself with that.

I need him but I do not know if he wants to be needed and if he does not, then I can accept that now. Time to stop fearing that talk and slay that terror.

Someone else hovers in my living room downstairs. I hear the pacing of footsteps. I hear the worry in his tread and the gentle touch on my hand that is feather light and then gone again. Patience. But there's a hope in his eyes that reminds me of something else. We settle on dinner and a start and my plea that I need time to sort through the rest of my tangled net of relationships.

And among all that guilt that I think of these things while he lies cold in the yard. Regret that he is not here. Fear that I will hurt these men and bewilderment for I never asked for this madness.

The spring court be damned. Fear is so much easier.

She had not been lieing to the Autumn when they asked what she feared and she told them everything, and yet the scene before her could only have been more insidiously vile to her if it had been Kei standing opposite Gaius.

Nwabudikae and Gaius to hedge duel over Ryver's death. If Gaius won, Nwabudikae would be forced to admit his involvement in the recent deaths and attacks, if there was one. If Gaius lost, he would owe a favor and that favor... Edria shuddered at the thought of what that could mean. It was in the end a way to hopefully settle the tensions between two Freeholds before they became Miami and Gainesville, however.

But no, Kei was not involved. Kei stood near. Her fingers reached for his, brushing, seeking the comfort that she always found in his companionship. There was no response. He stared ahead as if he were made of sand without soul and terror of a new sort seized her.

Does he hate me now for what I've said? That I've pushed his monarch? His hold? Does he hate me for saying that I wouldn't come without Gaius? Did he even think to ask who the -other- person was I would say such a thing for? He is my motley mate! My friend... one of my only friends ... I know how he feels. Does he even understand how hard this is to balance? The way I care for him with what I feel for Gaius? Arthur and Lancelot indeed. Impossible quests. Maybe this was the last straw - the only straw.

Her throat closed but her expression did not change.

The priestess. She must be the priestess. The Lady of Echos. Nothing else. She must uphold her duty right now and be-damned her personal idiocy.

But with each strike against Gaius, with each of Nwabudikae's whispered words, she knew the damage she would have to fix.

Goddess make him strong. Let him have the clarity of vision to see what I know is truth. That we are all the potential to be what took us. It is the -choice- to not be that makes us who we are - and makes some of us fall so. She could see in Nwabudikae's eyes that he had become what had hurt him. She was not sure if that hurt was mortal past or gentrified durance, but it hardly matter. The fear of becoming what had harmed him was strong in him but utterly useless. He had embraced it regardless at some point and the creature that was left feared something that he had already grasped. She wondered if he knew that the snake he wrestled with had already eaten him. She wondered if it might one day disgorge him again.

Each strike made her breath catch and her spirit shake. It was all she could do to remember that this was only to incapacitation but it was a hard fought battle for justice indeed and the images that railed and raised before their collected eyes were hard ones for any Lost. She knew Gaius well enough to know that Nwabudikae was playing well off his own fears and deep terrors.

He would have made a good Autumn courtier, she mused for a moment, but then discarded the idea. Like some of the members of her court, he had forgotten to let his fear humanize him.

Dragon strike. Fire. Dark Shadow. Each retaliation noted with absolute clarity of detail and absolute and utter fear that made her breath catch and her pulse quicken until at last, Nwabudikae fell.

She tended him first, instinct and duty carrying what personal desire would not. She did not look at Kei again after the initial look of panic. Only when the loser of the duel was stable did she turn her attention to her husband.

Sometimes characterized by a loss of circulation in the arm, tightness of breath, paleness and general area chest pain...Goddess no!

For a moment he looked his age and she feared death nearing for him. Not today. Certainly not today. For the first time though she could imagine a life without him and she bit her lip hard, moving over and kissing his forehead and lifting the burden from him. She felt the vague distant ache in her own chest but she would carry it for now and she gave Cage a look of thanks as he lead his general off to rest.

Physically he would be fine and she had no fears to carry his life in her hands tonight.

Mentally?

She knew that haunted look in his eyes and whatever she wanted to do as a motley mate or wife tonight was subsumed by the duties of her role. She had not cried for Ryver yet. She had not mourned her lost friend, had not loved her husband, had not loved her friend. There was only peace and duty and work in the coming days.

Maiden, mother, crone, lend me strength tonight I beg you. There is too much I must do to see this right for me to give in to my own needs right now,</i. And silently, regretfully, she put those needs aside and the priestess turned to await the will of monarchs.

Rose Rose Rose Red
Will I ever see thee wed
I wil marry at thy will sire
At thy will

The week was a daze, some visitors, some kind words, but mostly silence and numbness and the quiet and tentative touches of Gaius and Kalen. She went to the gathering not because she wanted to, but because she was supposed to. She sent those who were good at that area off to deal with problems. She sat wrapped in a blanket, freezing and tired. She had not slept much and it showed in the circles beneath her eye and the flower wilted and dropping from her hair. In a few weeks the burden of the crown would be gone but it wasn't the crown that was the burden. She still thought about the poison but did not go until the stillroom unless Gaius hovered near to avoid worrying him.

The emptiness inside her still remained unfilled. Where did the path lead? Where was her faith? What was the point?

It was the hoofbeats that roused her. Horses in the hedge? That many?

"SUMMER COURT TO THE WALLS!" Kalen's voice rang out through the freehold and Edria looked up. "sable and aster," someone whispered.

Now it's time.

A thousand years gone by
Too late to wonder why
I'm here alone
And in my darkest hour
He rose that fell a flower
I should have known

She went out to the ramparts with the knowledge that the plan she had thought of six month past in the waning of spring to summer was about to come to fruition. The thought that roused her while she was in Tampa to get rid of Sable and Aster from her life and her hold, had found the right time to be implemented. It was a suicidal plan at best, stupidity at its finest. She knew that walking out onto the ramparts and she did not care.

The only thing she would lose in this was her life and safety. She might however gain everything and either option was a change from this. Victory or hell in the return. They edged away from her and the dullness in her eyes. She had not told them of her idea. They wouldn't let her if she had. They didn't know that she wanted release from this even if that meant death. It was the only thing, that feeling, that allowed her to stand out there and stare at her deepest nightmare without running far and fast.

She would have to be exceptionally careful - she had cast truth and lies earlier and could not lie now.

Rose Rose Rose Red
Will I ever see thee wed
Only if you can capture me

He was as stunning as she remembered, and as alien.

"My lord wants to parlay," the goblin called out. She gave her assent, looking at the inert form of the Frenchman over one horse and the elemental criminal he'd been chasing draped over the other. Arioch had caused this by riding too deep into the Brim but it had given her the chance She had been waiting for all these months.

"Granted."

"A tent or inside the hollow?"

"A tent will suffice."

The freehold stirred behind her, grumbled, shifted, shoved.

"Not without an honor guard," Kalen said.

"Two. Only two." If they mispoke, she would die and so would they. Her life did not matter and that was all that allowed her to do this. There's did. Ryver and Kalen went with her. She ordered their silence and not to look at the gentry that waited below.

Tell me no more stories
And I'll tell you no lies
No one wants to hurt me
But everybody tries


Surprisingly they listened and by miracle alone they resisted the siren call of Sable and Aster's voice. Her gut clenched, longing to run to him and throw herself at his feet but she held against it. Hold... hold on. She took the dangerous step that she needed to take.

And played his game.

She sparked the contracts that turned her hair to firey tangles of auburn and earth brown, made the black eyes limpid and endless and mysterious, heightened the planes of face and softened away all those human imperfections. She watched the anger and intrigue in his inhuman eyes.

He wove a chair from hedge thorns and reclined in it with a casual sensuality that made her dig her heels into the dirt, her body inherently abhoorant when her mind was numb.

She wove the vines up from the earth and seated herself regally. A flicker of a frown crossed his face.

Playing his game now. Was she better at it than a gentry? Did she -want- to be better at it than a gentry?

"Your terms?" Voice like fur on skin, purring, liquid. She knew that in Arcadia it sounded even better. No... no... don't go.

"A challenge." She felt Kalen stiffen. Ryver's quetioning glance slid over her back. "If I win, I get Arioch and the other. You leave here. You leave the people of this freehold, it's allies, and their families alone. No mental games. No attacks. No stealing of them or their property." She wove the terms, judging each word that she had woven into tapestry of speech that would keep them all safe months ago. Her memory held even though fear chipped away at resolve. Only the numbnes, the not caring for her own life, actually allowed her to speak calmly.

Run, run run... no... not this time. Die here today if you will.

"Those are steep terms. What do I get if I win?"

"Me."

"Not enough"

"I still have things I can teach you."

I did not expect that. I can't offer any of them! Take me...I can teach you of heartbreak and love. If you accept this I will teach you that those things outweigh everything you know. Take my bait! She froze in panic and he smiled laciviously. She felt her hold on sanity and numbness slipping. He tried to call Ugati but the sounds of the scuffle behind them meant the freehold held him. No, not Ugati.

"Your husband?"

"I cannot offer their lives. They are not mine to give."


Someday these walls will speak
The floor beneath you creek
To call my name
Here in my web of dreams
My whispers turn to screams
And place the blame

"I'll go with you," Kalen whispered.

"Are you sure?" she replied in Welsh without thinking. Sable smiled.

"I'll take her," he added.

"I won't let you do this alone."

This is not supposed to be how this works. It's just supposed to be me, not her too!

And now the numbness started to recede and the fear that it covered inched forward inide her like a creeping, stalking thing, waiting to seize her like Sable's clawed hands as they tapped upon the table. The numbness was gone and with it the comfort. She knew now two things.

Terror. But like any Autumn courtier, she used it like a weapon.

And that she was not her Keeper. She was not as good at this game and playing at it was folly - but in that was relief because if she was not as good, than she was not him and never would be him. Playing his game this time would only work if ... if after the feeling returned. She let the insane madness of fear track her mind and reveled in it. That fear made her human.

"What is your challenge?" He asked.

"One of emotion. Of manipulation."

Emotion you cannot understand. Manipulation...this is all manipulation. I'm not good enough But she pressed on because there was no other choice.

Rose Rose Rose Red
Will I ever see thee wed
Only if you discover me

Tell me no more stories
And I'll tell you no lies
No one wants to hurt me
But everybody tries
And if you think that I've been waiting
For my planets to align
It's time you go on
Get your things, get up, get out
I'm doing fine

She could see his hesitation now. The price was too steep. She was in trouble. "Surely," she said as evenly as she could manage - oh goddess don't rush or he'll know - "you can easily outdo the likes of me in a challenge." For a moment she saw the rage and the affront.

"Done. What is your challenge?" He had taken the bait. She quelled the joy that flared up like fire in a cold pit within her. She fought to keep her voice level, to stay, to sit, to not run. Stay. See it through, courtier of Autumn. She felt the wyrd bind his word to his agreeement and wanted to sing. She blinked black eyes hard, fixing the memory in her mind like chisel to stone.

"To make someone feel emotion."

"The target?" He looked so smug.

"Kalen."

Kalen stiffened again. What was she doing? But she knew Kalen well enough to know what to say and ask and she could not contain the triumph in her voice when she turned and she knew her people watched and her voice rose so they could hear her.

"Feel love. True love, the deepest and truest love that your soul can feel."

Understanding dawned in Kalen's eyes and she smiled as she bent to kiss her neices cheek.

"I could love no one more than my niece and my queen," she replied.

Tell me no more stories
And I'll tell you no lies
No one wants to hurt me
But everybody tries
And if you think that I've been waiting
For my planets to align
It's time you go on
Get your things, get up, get out
I'm doing fine

"She loved another before!" Sable growled. The sky, previously idyllic, darkened with his anger.

"Before the challenge," Edria replied calmly but when she turned to look at him again - this time fully because his word had bound him and he could not affect her now without destroying himself "You have lost," her voice cracked.

For this freedom
I have given all I had

He stepped back one step and the earth trembled. She felt him try to kill them all but he could not. The binding words held and the mask on him snapped. She swallowed the scream at the sight of that inhuman face.

For this darkness
I gave my light

"You cannot know love. You can't cause it. And here is love like you will -never- know. I told you I had things I could still teach you - and I told you that this was a game of manipulation"

The fear swam over her vision, making the tears sting her eyes. Oh Goddess, run run run... but she held, held strong for the satisfaction of this victory and the fear touched her, held her, comfortered her and made her real and alive and human and not gentry, not like him at all.

For this wisdom
I have lost my innocence
Take my petals
And cover me with the night

"NOW GET OUT OF MY LANDS!"

The emotion tore at her throat and he turned and prowled off, all the rage and defeat stripping the human like mask off of him and the hedge recoiled around him. But he left because he had given word and there was no choice. There were other threats out there, other gentry. If she ever slipped too far and was taken by another Gentry, he would hunt her down and torture and kill her in that beautiful insanity that he was. But now - bound by her trick - he walked away alien and furious.

She heard the silence, and then the cheering and deafening applause from the ramparts. Right before she fainted, smiling, into Kalen's waiting arms as the terror finally seized her and the numbness dissapeared and her faith - knowing each step had lead to this point and that the loss of faith had kept her safe for faith to return and save her freehold - was returned. This time she had saved herself.

Tell me no more stories
And I'll tell you no lies
No one wants to hurt me
But everybody tries
And if you think that I've been waiting
For my planets to align
It's time you go on
Get your things, get up, get out
I'm doing fine

I can't take it anymore. The not listening, the disrespect. Everyone thinking they need to be in charge and in control all the time. It's Gaius' yell that sets it off but it's not him, just the action of someone else desperately trying to calm down a situation.

I snap. JayJay's words are still in my head but he eats people...
They are so self-concerned. So terrified of trusting that they choose to brush off what they cannot understand or see. And so much of what I do is never seen and understood. That is the price of autumn, the price of fear. It is the one emotion they find no solace or release in. There is not the power of wrath or the lure of desire or the release of sorrow. They see only weakness where my court sees wisdom and strength.

I snap and the mantle flairs and the vainglory descends on me and makes me terrifying and they drive backwards to walls. Gasping. The Autumn courtiers stand proud and tall and they smile.

What I give for you, I kill in myself. I am not this person but this seems to be what they need. I will remind them of terror. I will remind them of fear. I will be the dread queen.

But I wish they would not make me. I wish they would listen to the talking. The laws. I wish they would respect their monarchs.

Three banishments in as many weeks.

And only a few understand, wipe the tears away, hold my hand as I take the step of assuming a persona that is not me, of living like my durance again in masks and smiles and the terror of my court because it is what my freehold requires - a living reminder that they must -always- stick together not only when they believe it to be convenient. They may hate me for this. They may kill me for it. They don't understand that this shreds my soul and my sanity because it reminds me so much of keeper and durance. They don't understand that at all. They were too used to my uncertainty before. They were too used to spring's softness and summers laziness. But it is Autumn now and it will be cold and hard and fierce to temper them for the trials ahead.

If I must scare the faith into you, so be it. but Goddess how I wish they would not make me the monster that they can see.

The nausea that rolled through her at the accusation was enough that she had to close her eyes, roll away from the desk, forehead to hot glass buffeted by June heat, breathe in, breathe out.

She had thought that perhaps introducing a set of laws that could provide some consistency for the people of the Freehold when the monarchs changed - give some sort of standard to the positions and what they did other than the monarch - would provide much needed stability.

Instead Victor had screamed that it undermined the monarch and if chosen he would do away with all the positions entirely.

The troubles stirred, melted, mellowed, and nothing from the Queen of Spring. She wasn't sure Lily was even getting the messages.

But then Caleb had spoken. Told her that she was undermining the monarchy - again this accusation despite the fact that the only thing that undermined the monarchies of the House of Cards were the monarchs themselves, up to and including Edria. The positions of aces and lords and ladies faltered, stirred, did not know what they were to do and the monarchs were never sure if they were to side with the aces or with their own judgements.

That was simple politics. The stickiness of the situation.

The second accusation was the one that made it hard to breathe, made the panic sink in.

Edria is a loyalist. Edria is a loyalist. Edria is a loyalist.

It ran around and around in her head, chasing nose to tail. She remembered the hard look in his eyes, the way he'd so casually unholstered his gun that day, the way he'd flicked a finger and sent the hunters after mop-head. If the Highwayman had said it, it may have been brushed off. If someone they didn't like. But it was Caleb... Grandfather... no... he was not Grandfather to her anymore.

Don't do that again. I am tired of holding them when they cry

I can't promise that. It is my place and duty as autumn court.

Her teeth rattled, chattering. She'd seen the autumn hunts. Seen what Lost did to those who were loyalist - and she knew how many had died not out of actually being loyalist, but because someone had simply said they were. It was a ravening, maddening thought in all the paranoia of everyday Lost life. With the gentry plaguing the freehold - her gentry - she knew what they would start to think when she was not around.

When she had arrived, the cowboy had returned.

When she had arrived, Biggs was taken.

When she had arrived, Jennings had died.

When she had arrived, Tyler had gone missing.

When she had arrived, her keeper had come with her.

When she had arrived, the slavers returned.

When she had arrived, Ugati had been taken.

It would take days for the fever to catch if she were lucky. Hours if she were not. And only a miracle would salvage her now if that rumor but took hold in one mind beyond Caleb's. All her pushing at them would be taken for hostility. All her warnings would be taken for bait. All the meager respect would turn to fear and suspicion. If Gaius could arrange an audience to work the matter out... but it was a large if and it was not the sort of rumor that most Lost came back from.

For a long several minutes she sat, panting for control and air and trying to push past the agonized scream that wanted to escape her throat. Alone. Alone. So alone, always, even now. There were few that would stand with her and to do so in the wrong circumstances would destroy everything they tried to build. She let one half-sob slip through, banged her fist on the window glass once and then righted herself. She shoved two days worth of clothes in the bag, sent a note to Blue that she loved her and to watch the horses, did not bother to tidy her room as she normally would because the memory of icey eyes haunted her and dogged her footsteps.

She lingered only to kiss Gaius, slowly, savoring the taste of his lips and the feel of stubbled cheek beneath her fingers and then she was out the door...running.. hiding...

She told only one person where she went - because she was too afraid he would haunt their dreams, too afraid he would haunt hers.

And in three turns of word and phrasing the life she thought she had slid away into chaos and confusion and pain and as the plane roared to life beneath her, she didn't have the strength to hold back the broken tears any longer. The flight attendant wisely left her alone.

There was a dream. Prophecy. It came deep in night and stirred my memories. There were children in it, playing. I taught the blonde boy to play a simple duet and he laughed and kissed my cheek and ran off to play. Toi's children? Mine? The ache is so deep at that thought that tears wet my pillow. He leaves and I touch the piano softly, playing a song from Casablanca. I am crying. Why am I crying? And I think it may be Gaius I lost or someone else I have loved and when I wake I curl close to his strong back and hold tight.

It was a frustrating day full of petty misunderstandings and annoyances and me forgetting that being a priestess means listening to them more and interjecting less. I am still human. I still have my flaws and today I can't seem to remember that their mental well being and my listening to them is my paramount purpose outside of reminding them of their fears.

but all of that is wiped away and driven home in a moment.

"Do you smell that?" Ugati has stopped me as I try to leave the room. His hand is on my arm. His gaze dilates. Poor Ugati. The youth he had lost to age and the way he looks at me with that sadness in his eyes... I am missing something.

"No..." I inhale deeply. I catch it a moment later.

Lilies and lilacs.

The scream bubbles in my throat and Im already running and he's already pulling when I hear silken voice and silent footstep that none of them can hear but I know the sound of so well. Leather buttersoft boots on wood and marble. The next step will be clawed fingernails on the back of my neck, carressing, holding, taking my will. He's so calm, so beautiful when he walks in and I see Sophia half-faint in terror as Ugati pulls me.

"Edria..." I never wanted to hear Sable and Aster's voice again and it's rining in the room and my terror leaves no sense or sound other than my Keeper and my blind running and Ugati shoving wood in front of the room doors. He cobbles together a defense, makes a passage through the mirror and we stop and we stare at eachother.

"Edria I would like you to come back now." The pull. I feel it. My fingers wind into the wooden screen behind me and the splinters keep me focused long enough to remember Gaius' hand and the look in Ugati's eyes right now.

"You don't remember do you?" he asks quietly.

I shake my head.

"I won't leave you."

"You have to. He hated me more than he wanted you." And for a moment we stand there and we stare as the keeper's fists pummel into the door. The only thing keeping him out is the game. We both know it.

I rush forward and I kiss him, soundly, full on the mouth. I cannot give him anything else. I don't have anything else to give. I don't remember anything but this strange feeling of kinship. I tumble through the mirror after that, turning in just enough time to see Ugati unsheathe the cold iron daggers and they stab deep into Sable's side. There is a roar of pain and fury. Then the image is gone.

The room is dark, silent. The portal fades and I huddle in the corner. There are tools here. There is a piano and it is the piano from my dream and I know the song was not for Gaius.

How many times does someone need to look at you to know they love you?
How many times does a hand touch mean friendship or does it mean they will give their life and more to keep you safe?
Why can't words be spoken before it's too late?

I'm in shock. I can barely hear Gaius and Kalen as they rush in and surround me. My answers are slow and distant.

"Stay with me," he whispers.

"I'm trying." And I am but it's so far, so frightening, so cold. I keep seeing the loss in Ugati's eyes and I see Sable's beautiful face contorted in rage.

It takes a long time to roll this ball of fear inside me into something I can use and by then I've done so many readings that the cards have fallen again and again and there is truth and truth and truth spread around me in the small pictures.

The last I draw is the Fisher King. The slave to his own destiny and choice and though I do not show them, I weep inside.

"He used to watch you through the trap door," Holly tells me. The dream is gentle, old. He gave it to me through our keeper of stories and tales and hopes and dreams and I remember only distantly the creak of the door and the quiet eyes, much younger then, peering through to watch me as I brushed my hair. A measure of peace for both of us. Why didn't he tell me?

But then I look at gaius and I know the answer was that he wished me happy and thought perhaps he couldn't offer that. But this... my life is not worth any of their freedom.

I weep inside and I rage and I fear that he will be back and that Ugati who loved me is gone to the worst hell I can imagine. I weep inside and I rage because the freehold will brush this aside as well and we will spy on slavers that I've no doubt attracted my Keeper here - or vice versa. I weep inside and I rage because there is no safety.

Gaius' hand finds mine as we drive south, to Johnny and Velios and some measure of distance and escape for a day or two so that my mind may find itself again.

And this time at least his hand anchors me here to myself and my promises.

I will listen better now.

Watching their faces as I sing is torture. They don't know it. I don't think they can imagine it, what it feels like to know like I'm being him for just a few minutes.

I pray the terror in their eyes is balanced by the knowledge they'll gain from this and the hopeful safety that the knowledge will bring. If they know what it feels like to be controlled they may be able to fight it, to anchor themselves here.

It's after that's the hardest. I can't stop shaking, can barely breathe. Caleb backs me into a hallway. "Why did you do that?"

"They needed to understand. Fear and caution is part of what I do."

"You cannot do that again."

"It is what my court does." And now I feel my mantle around me, cool and biting with frost. Nothing like his ice, but all my own, all as it should be.

"I am tired of holding them while they cry." And I look at him and I want to scream but you are winter court! that is what you are meant to do! But in his eyes I see only threat and hardness where there was once a sort of grandfatherly love.

We are on different sides of some unknown fence now.

"You should not do that again," he repeats. There is only clock-work affection to his voice but it makes me shiver. I remember his casual regard toward Emily, the dismissal, the words to simply go kill her when he thought he wasn't bound by the stricture of the oath.

"I pray I never have to. But I cannot promise that." It is my duty to Autumn and I would be remiss to not share what knowledge I have with them when it is needed. He walks away without another word and I feel like I have made an enemy. It bothers me how often he talks to Toi, how the events from parties seem to be misconstrued, how he's managed to get the Spring courtiers to believe that Autumn - not winter - is the court of secrets.

And I wonder, with some of them believing that, how much easier it is for him to keep whatever secrets he has. I hope Toi will trust me still. I hope she'll trust Gaius.

I hope, as I sit trembling in the corner of the freehold, that I have not lost the friends I"m not even sure I had.

I click send on the message and know one of two things. They will hate me. Or they will band together and do something. It may be some combination of the two of them. But I am too tired and worn to care, to fed up with excuses and platitudes from those that people should look to for strength, too tired of them hiding their shining beneath whining and mewling and petulant stares.

So I click send.

If I must be the morgaine you can reach and villefy in place of the Laurel you cannot, I will be. But Goddess give me strength for my path seems to be only harshness and woe and I crave fire and love.


( Read more... )

It's a good party, despite the usual irritations of any freehold gathering. They're more idiosyncracies and beloved quirks than irritations anyway. The noise, the bustle, the dodging of moving bodies and everyone thinking quiet means afraid when quiet means watching and absorption.

Sophia is back; I don't know who held her. I don't know why she lost two weeks of time but thank Goddess she is back and safe.

Everything is going well and the crown hovers bright and spring like over Lily's head full of flowers and spring heat. It makes me look forward to the Beltane fires and my wedding and I smile at Gaius' wink from behind the bar.

"Flowers for Lily!" The whole freehold tenses. Anonymous flowers are usually such a bad sign for us, a gift from uncalled for places and I turn from conversation with Ty to check the card and the plants for any signs of poison or alteration. Just flowers, lilacs, which they always artificially scent to keep their smell, white and black.

White and black. Black and white.

The card is gold script, heavy card stock, expensive, on a black card. Three white flowers lay in a neat row on the bottom.

Three white flowers on a black field.

The heraldry snaps in the breeze outside the keep's door, three white cinquefoil flowers on a black field. sable, three flowers blanc. I can repeat all the blazons he has taught me and I know each set of vicious eyes behind each one. When we go to the gladiator rings, the masquerades, the halls of the other Gentry, my husband drills me in the knowledge of these flags as a game and if I forget them there is hell and heaven to pay after.

Three white flowers on a black field.

I am running then. No thought. Nothing but ragged breath and terror so stark and deep I can't find myself beneath it. So long since I've felt it this strong, overwhelming all the careful barriers I've set over the years. I'm running against the arms that hold me, that catch me. Ox. Sophia. Holly. Toi. Others. I don't see all the faces, I'm only sobbing and flailing. Nothing but terror. No thought. Terror. Run. Flee. Get out of there, get away from that note.

Oh goddess I touched it, I touched it.

They're calling for Gaius. I feel his hand around mine.

"I'm here. I'm here...what is it."

"Three white asters on a field of black." I won't say his name. I won't say it. I can't.

"Get her out of here, he barks. It's Sable!"

And I"m lifted and carried and tucked against Ox's strong chest as I sob. I can't go back I can't go back I can't go back I can't go back.

---------

"You have the summer court with you." Viktor reassures me in that lilting accent. The heat of all their presence is warm and needed. Falcon, Jay jay, the others. They're all here in this tiny room. The Wise Woman carries the burden of my life for reasons I can't fathom. Holly holds one hand, trying to channel calm to me. Sophia sits curled at my back trembling.

We had the same keeper. She was his wife too. She knows why Viktor's words are so funny.

I sit quietly, rolling the terror into a knot inside me that I can use. it's harder this time, far harder. I have to remain silent and breathe to do it.

"You have the summer court with you," he reassures again.

"You should hear this because you need to know," I whisper. "You can't hit him. You won't want to. He'll take all the emotions you think you have and change them to things you don't want to feel - but you'll want to feel them then. It's how he works. Hitting him won't...won't..." But they aren't listening. They aren't listening at all.

Rustle. Scatter. Scatter. Ox drops a handful of the M&M's and I make a dive for them. Sophia catches me, her voice tight when she whispers "You don't have to do that anymore." My fingers twitch, hurt, ache, to get them. But I don't because Sophia holds me there.

---------

The room is quiet, door closed, everyone left us alone but the presence of guards around me increased, outside the door, waiting hovering. We all pray it is the cowboy's tricks. We all know better than to assume.

"I won't let him take you," Gaius promises and I cling to him. He lifts me. Kiss on fire. Beltane heat. Hands on my skin. Body covering mine. I twist, arch, move to meet, hands grasping holding.

Make me love you more. Make me feel this fire. Because if I love you more than I ever loved him, maybe he can't have my heart again.

The memory of Ox's face as he tells his story, dumps the extra easter eggs into my bag on the hunt, makes me laugh, sweeps Toi into his arms for a kiss. Holly's hand. Sophia's presence at my back. Viktor's confident gaze. Falcon's worry. Toi's hugs.

Make these friendships stronger. Because if you stand with me and I am not alone as I was with him, maybe he can't have my soul again.

The memory of Kalen's growl in my ear, of my slim, scaled sister lifting me in a protective hug and our hearts beating together.

Make my family strong and around me, because if they are with me and near, it cannot be Arcadia and he cannot control me as much as he once did.

And after in the dim light of the room, wrapped in arms and full of the embers of Beltane fire I know three things.

They will kill me if I am recaptured and I will never go back there. This promise I extract.

That if they are truely with me, it is the only weapon I will have to fight him and what he will do to my mind and the struggle it will be to maintain my clarity in this.

That I know now what I will do with the fear inside me and how I will make them understand the battle that they will face.

Gaius kisses the top of my head, soft sigh, arms tight like he's afraid I'll slip away.

I know a fourth thing as well. I love you. More than I ever loved him. I love you because I choose to love you, not because you make me. And that may yet save me in this madness. Goddess please let it. Please let it.

Edria




Gaius

Please realize that this PC is not happy go lucky or okay with her life.

Please realize that it's been just about one month of play with her and to expect her to be totally welcoming, trusting, and okay with everything and everyone is totally unreasonable.

Actually, please realize that for her to be okay with _anyone_ outside of the few people she has very specific background ties to, is totally unreasonable.

Please further realize I am all right with your PC's being bewildered, sometimes hurt, aggravated, and alltogether confused by this behavior.

Please note that I do not anticipate this PC warming up fully to people for another few months, and much longer in some cases. Also realize that when she does she may in fact piss your PC off more as the trepidation she feels at the moment will no longer be stopping her tongue.

I'm sorry if this sounds ranty but everytime I post an LJ post of her feeling lonely or hurt, I get backlash in my e-mail. I as a player am well aware that your PC's are not trying to offend or dick over my PC. I as a player am also aware that her perspective on things is VASTLY skewed in favor of the twistiness of her history and the fear and survival instinct that result. I am not rushing a story that is integrally based into the background of the PC - her consistent betrayal and mental abuse from her keeper and the abandonment of her parents and separation from her family - in two weeks just so she can go be buddy buddy in a corner and have drinks with people.

I realize that cuts me out from some RP - I don't particularly enjoy that but I realize it's part of the PC's story and that in time it will begin to work out as she has the time to see that the people trying to befriend her are in fact being honest.

I recommend patience with the character as continually pushing at her does nothing except aggravate me because she doesn't need "fixing" or "to be more social." She needs time.

I will further remind folks she had to make a freaking clarity pull to move to Orlando what with the major life changes and did in fact make that pull, however she feels the need to restabilize her existence. Not go bar-hopping.

Pleaes for all that is holy, stop emphasizing that wasn't what you meant and that you were trying. I know you were and I know what you meant. Edria, however, has a far different read on things than her player does and the posts are made in an effort to try and elucidate some of that for both myself and others who may, over time, be able to pick out behavior patterns.