Corporate Magic and Fairy Dust

Never mind their bickering, what Tracy was really interested in was the situation surrounding them. A lock down, magical restrictions, Unseelie in the area… it was all a bit much. It made him a bit dizzy just to think about, which wasn’t truly that difficult considering his headache still hadn’t quite subsided yet. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. Right, of course. Glamours, understood. But - last time I checked, mates, the Citadel had its own defenses. The Queen doesn’t allow glamours inside the walls, the whole place is enchanted up to its ears by the staff, innit? What could possibly have her so spooked that she’s got her gardeners locking the exits?” 

Tracy knew, of course: any threat of the Unseelie came with the Unseelie Queen following close behind. But something, some improbability itched away at the back of his mind. 

“Um, hi,” said the purplewing. “Constant vigilance? Even if She’s gone-”

“And she’s not saying She is-” cut in Aloe, anxiously.

Tracy gave them both a nod, and turned on his heel, ding his very best not to look back at them. Look back and everything would fall to bits. He wasn’t sure why he thought that, but there it was. 

Tracy took a few steps, shoving his hands in his pants pockets and stopped dead, a flash of something unusual catching his eye in the greenery. 

“Oh, come off your high unicorn, you’d have been about your precious schedules for hours, and the doors wouldn’t have been locked at all if you’d had any say in it. I wrote to the Council,” said the purplewing, turning indignantly to Tracy, “I told them that none of us have clearance for this sort of defensive spellwork, you can’t just enforce these things and then not even provide proper training!”

She folded her arms, crossly.

Never mind their bickering, what Tracy was really interested in was the situation surrounding them. A lock down, magical restrictions, Unseelie in the area... it was all a bit much. It made him a bit dizzy just to think about, which wasn’t truly that difficult considering his headache still hadn’t quite subsided yet. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. Right, of course. Glamours, understood. But - last time I checked, mates, the Citadel had its own defenses. The Queen doesn’t allow glamours inside the walls, the whole place is enchanted up to its ears by the staff, innit? What could possibly have her so spooked that she’s got her gardeners locking the exits?” 

Tracy knew, of course: any threat of the Unseelie came with the Unseelie Queen following close behind. But something, some improbability itched away at the back of his mind. 

They looked at each other.

“So it is a drill,” said the purplewing. She let out a heavy sigh. “Figures.”

“Honestly,” said the other, snappishly. “I don’t know how they expect us to get anything done down here from one day to the next. It feels like every five minutes it’s another drill, or a test, or-“

“Shut up, Aloe,” the purplewing hissed, giving him a sharp prod in the hip with the handle of her wand. “He might be testing us right now.”

“I’m just saying-“

“Sealed and accounted for?” he asked, stiffly, tearing his attention from the looming, active threat these two were apparently here to patrol against. “Against what, a toddler? Bloody locks came undone with no problems, whatsoever! Simple second tier reversal spell. And no enchantments, from what I could tell. Nothing stopping anyone from... apparating right in here!”

Tracy didn’t like the fact that they had mistaken him for authority on the lock down, but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to understand what in Mab’s name was going on. So long as they thought he was here to check on them, there wouldn’t be a problem. 

“Right. So, you lot. Aloe, and... you. Exactly what kind of Unseelie threat are we faced with in an Onyx Special Alert?” 

The Unseelie were a dark and dangerous threat, and if the Queen was taking this kind of precautions against them, they must have come into the borders, dragged themselves up out of the dark lands below, and for some Fairy-forsaken reason, were trying to infiltrate the Citadel. 

“The Gardens are closed,” said one, smoothing her ruffled cilia. The tone of her voice added a silent postscript; to you.

“Haven’t you heard about the lockdown?” The other straightened, giving Tracy a look at once snotty and officious. Parking his rake in the gravel like a spear, he waved irritably towards the distant towers of the Citadel, the spires rising through the sunset clouds beyond the walls.

Although to be fair, this wasn’t exactly a shining moment for him, either. He hated to admit to these two that he didn’t exactly know why he was here. But he was here on official business, and that was enough a reason for him to be there - at least, in his head it was. They might take a little convincing. 

“Ah - believe me, mates, that’s what I said! But--” he flashed the shimmering seal of the Royal Court that was printed on the card. “Her Majesty seems to have other ideas. Straight from the Cabbots themselves! No higher authority. Certainly not compared to a pair of groundskeepers.” he said smartly.

“How long since anyone was up here?” She reached out and parted the branches, fought their interlocked bristles apart, coarse as horsehair under her hands.

Here was the sky that had dyed the rotunda such a deep rich rose, an evening sky burning with brilliant colors. Fern gazed, bewildered, out over a sculpted expanse of ornamental gardens, lawns, hedges clipped into intricate shapes, sundials, high rose-strung walls. The side of her head stabbed at her, and she blinked a few times, hard.

“Where am-”

The voices again, sudden and almost immediately below. She ducked, dropping the branches back into place. Part of her upbraided the rest for being so silly- wasn’t she lost? Shouldn’t she go down there, ask for help?- but an unknown queasy panic held her fast, and instead she crouched with her wings flattened against her back, listening. 

“-who knows, but we’ve secured the gates.” The first voice was male, deep and a little jittery. “Just keep your eyes peeled. Anyone here who shouldn’t be.”

A second voice, female, irate. “Oh, yeah? And what are we supposed to do if it’s her? Citizen’s arrest? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m only authorized for Level Two horticultural enchantments and I don’t think that’d stop her, do you?”

Anyone here who shouldn’t be? 

This put him at a disadvantage. He didn’t know what the Queen wanted from him. How was he supposed to find her, with no one about in the Gardens to clue him in? The card hadn’t been too terribly useful; as far as he could tell, he was on his own now, and that was never something that ended well around him, it seemed. 

He froze, half turned around one of the big braided trunks that stretched up into the canopy; he could hear a voice.

“I don’t know, can’t you... enchant a vine, or something? If creepers from Tia Dorche can hold a plain old Faerie...” 

Maybe not as abandoned as Tracy had thought. 

His hands trembled a bit as he pulled the card from his vest pocket again; whoever they were, they sounded very official with all their talk of secured gates and arrests. He didn’t want to be caught on the wrong end of a misunderstanding when they found a Caseworker Faerie in the Queen’s gardens.

“Do you really thing any plain old creepers would hold a Faerie from Tia Dorche?” 

“I suppose not...”

“Hullo!” 

The high ceiling was deep in shadow, turning the golden plaster a deep shimmery black. Reaching the far end of the hall, Fern met with her first problem. The door, heavier and taller than the one she’d come from, was locked. She turned, biting her lip. There had been no other doors out of the rotunda…

A high gallery ran the length of the hall, perhaps twenty feet above the floor. The parapet was sturdy stone, the columns widely-spaced and strong. Fern judged the distance, glanced back at the rosy door, then hopped into the air and flitted up to the balcony. 

He’d gotten lost along the way. It wasn’t very often that he visited the gardens - he wasn’t the sort meant to be down here.The path had him all turned around, and it took him longer than he would have liked to admit to find the gardens at all. 

The card had been tucked away inside his vest, burning against his chest. The Queen in the Garden. It had been the last line of the card, and by far the most confusing. It hadn’t made sense, at first; but what else could he do but head to the Gardens? It was the closest thing he had resembling a plan of action, after all. 

He came to a stop outside the great doors leading to the garden, feeling the warmth just behind. It wasn’t a great wonder that they kept this locked. By all rights, it was the Queen’s garden. Folk like him weren’t strictly allowed inside, but he figured this was an exception if nothing else. He plucked his wand from his hip, running it along the length of the door, just between the two great golden handles. 

Last time I checked, yes! Was I gone long? Sorry luv, been busy like you wouldn’t believe up here in Fairyland! 

arent u like. almost 400 years old. im 19, not even 5% of ur age, my dude

but ya i know what you mean, i dont. feel like a college student?? even tho ive been here for almost 2 months now. i go home every weekend n im sure thats not really helping my transition into ~*~adulthood~*~ but yknow.

do they not have like. fairy college?? idk what it’d be called lmao

ANYWAYS uh. it’s a lot of sitting in class and listening to the teacher talk and taking notes? but a lot of it is stuff i already know, n it’s rly boring

Now listen here, luv, you’re absolutely fine. None of that “acting like a REAL adult” nonsense. You’re doing perfectly fine. Adulthood is a lot more than just being on your own, you know. Plus, home’s important! No sense abandoning it completely, just to be “an adult.” 

Posh, listen to me going on! You’re doing brilliantly, luv, that’s what I’m trying to say! What are you going to college for, anyway? Sounds a bit like that high school thing you did way back when. 

Last time I checked, yes! Was I gone long? Sorry luv, been busy like you wouldn’t believe up here in Fairyland! 

( i thought that would be funny but honestly idk what that’s supposed to mean, sorry )

ANYWAyS uh did u know im old???? im in college???? im old™

But Mab alive, if you’re old then that makes me positively ancient! College, eh? Goodness, seems like yesterday you were a wee thing, just barely old enough to fly. 

Well.

Metaphorically, I mean.

The surface against her cheek was wonderfully cold. She felt it, blindly, found a hard, sleek curve and a falling-away. She could hear the sound of water, close by.

She sat up, slowly,  easing her crumpled wings and pressing a small hand into her left eye. Risking a squint through the other, she made out a dazzling glitter of glass and light, the softer shadows of leaves. The marble beneath her was pale and beautifully carved, stained here and there with spots of red that looked ruby-pink in the light around her- the trembling, stained-glass light. There was more red smeared on her palm when she took it from her eye. She explored upwards with shaky fingers, into the tangled curls of her hair, and found a place that felt slippery and crusted at the edges. Just one touch sent a bolt of pain backwards into her skull. She made a small noise of pain, and put her hands down, looking dizzily about her.

“What… happened?”

She seemed to be in a small conservatory-garden, a rotunda beneath a ceiling of glass. Water ran between the pillars in two clear streams to a shallow pool, feeding banks of plants and moss piled against the frescoed walls. She stared at the forms and figures without comprehension, then looked up at the structure above her. From the cupped marble palms that held her, graceful arms and regal, gently inclined face, the statue of a woman in simple robes stooped to the water, her wings folded behind her.

A small trail of debris, for want of a better word, lay scattered in the bowl of the carved hands around her and over the marble floor. A pink highlighter, a hagstone, a mess of wrappers and bits of string, a conker on a tangled thong, scraps of plastic and paper. Her pockets- her pockets?- seemed to have exploded, turned themselves inside out across the room.

Fern slid painfully from the polished palms and found her feet, wobbling a bit as she followed the trail, scooping up the mess as she went and piling it back into the pockets of her dress. At the water’s edge, with the edge of her sleeve and a very careful touch, she dabbled the blood from her face and explored the edges of the wound on her temple. Her reflection, freckled and pale and very worried-looking, swam in and out of focus as she disturbed the water.

The statue bothered her the most. It looked like someone very important. You’d have to be, to have a statue made of you, especially one as big as that, one big enough to catch a small Fae in its cupped palms. 

He took a deep breath.

This was nothing to worry about, he tried to convince himself as he slowly felt his calculating and calm demeanor slipping. The gilded halls of the Citadel were spacious, but suddenly felt remarkably claustrophobic in that moment. Fae buzzed about, paying him no mind as they went about their duties around the brilliant and ancient stronghold. He was caught in a sea of pastel pinks and blues and butter yellows, and it almost made his head spin as he tried to keep his train of thought.

It was the Age of Gold in Arcadia; golden reign, golden peace, gilded white marble walls stretching further than the eye could see as the twisting, winding interior of the Citadel glittered. Halls upon halls, all bustling with life. Fae of all walks of life, winged and wingless, shone like a rainbow inside the pristine stronghold. And at the helm of it all was the Queen.

She was a poise and regal Faerie if there ever were one. She was a Faerie of her years, with an air befitting a queen; but for all her grace, Tracy couldn’t help but feel like she was making one monstrous mistake. He’d read the card over and over again, but could barely make sense of the words. He understood it well enough, of course, but it was so far removed from reason that it may as well have been gibberish to him. 

He’d not gotten the chance to ask the Cabbots anything regarding the hand he’d been dealt, but he knew that he was terribly unequipped for the task that she had assigned him. It was an impossible task - his colleagues knew it, and his superiors knew it, and that’s why, ultimately, the responsibility had fallen on his shoulders. There was no way - it was too vast, too impossible, too out of his reach. 

The Queen, in all her well-meaning, had placed the fate of Faekind directly into Tracy’s hands, worn with a thousand tiny white scars from a thousand tiny papercuts born of a lifetime of filing papers. Certainly, he was the last person qualified for work of this nature.

Somewhere beyond the white marble walls of the great stronghold lurked a threat to the Seelie Queendom of Arcadia, to the very nature of Faekind itself, and The Quen had, in no uncertain terms, painted a very grim picture of what would happen were he to fail.

With a steadying breath that only made his head rush, Tracy stepped out of the great doors of the Citadel, into the ethereal sunlight that bathed Arcadia in a warm golden glow through the lingering clouds.

There was a cool, pleasant breeze, but Tracy couldn’t help but shiver, unable to keep but from feeling like the very world they resided in could feel that a great unrest had taken place, and that something was very, very wrong.