MONSTER

“I think if a stuffed bird could bring me luck I’d have a lot more of them.” He said, but he knew he wouldn’t get rid of it. It was, at the very least, a funny story, getting it from Rowan. And he knew he wasn’t likely to get anything like this from her again, either, so even if it didn’t necessarily bring luck, it was still special. He noticed his grip on the bird tightening a little unintentionally, and he allowed it to loosen, hoping that she hadn’t noticed. It was stupid, to actually look like you gave a shit about things like that, he thought, especially in front of someone who was so cool. Or intimidating. Or both. “Right, well, I’ve got this, and that’s good enough, I think.” He nodded at the bird. “Who needs more than one of these anyway?” He looked around, and shook his head. “I’m pretty shit at all of them, really. I like the rides better.”

“Well, if you’ve never had a stuffed bird before, how would you know?” Rowan asked, the corner of her mouth hitching up in an amused smirk. “This might be the start of a whole new thing for you, you know. Are you ready? Are you prepared? Can you handle the bird?” she continued playfully taunting him. It’s true, it would be a funny story to say that the death fairy gave you an Angry Bird as a gift, especially if the details were left out. Rowan was pleased with the amusement it conjured in her head. She noticed that he tightened his grip on the bird—ever so slightly—but didn’t give him shit for it. It was, actually, a little endearing. She didn’t mention that, either. “The One True Angry Bird,” Ro nodded sagely. “Too bad, I would have taught you how to cheat one. Any ride you haven’t been on yet that you want to?”

He glanced down at her, not answering what he assumed was a rhetorical question. If Rowan wanted to keep a woman, she could…she’d done it before. It wasn’t exactly her fault that the relationship ended. Part of him was surprised by how deeply loyal his partner still was to their queen after how all of that played out, but they didn’t really talk about it. It was as taboo a topic as his family. They both knew what had happened, it didn’t need to be discussed further. 

Do you ever feel old? Why do you stay a shadow? They were very different questions but had similar answers. He’d grown up too fast, lost too much too young. He didn’t know how to do anything else. “Yeah…I feel old. But blowing shit up helps me recapture my youth,” he teased. It wasn’t the real reason he stayed a shadow, but it was a perk. “What else am I gonna do? I’ve got a specific skill set and I’m good at it. Not as good as you, maybe, but I don’t see anyone else lining up to take our places. Even if I wanted to retire, which I don’t, I wouldn’t leave the court vulnerable. I’ve got your back, Ro. Always. Just like I know you have mine. I’m gonna trade that in for…what?” 

He sighed, wondering if Rowan was considering retirement now that the magic seemed to have abandoned them. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do the job alone, but he didn’t really want to. He’d never really admit it to anyone, even the woman beside him, but he didn’t want to lose the connection they had. It wasn’t his job to fix the magic, he had no idea how to do it, but suddenly it felt as though he had to find a way to do just that if he wanted to keep his life the way he liked it. 

“Fuck. This is a goddamned mess, isn’t it? Quit hogging the whiskey.”

“Here’s to blowing shit up,” Ro replied, lifting the whiskey and taking the first swig herself just to fuck with him. He was the explosives expert, not her, but the sentiment remained wholly. There was something in what they did that, for all its horror, was just a product of necessity. And so it was normal. And their skills did still remain, even when the magic was gone. She wasn’t able to hear that earlier, but there was a small solace in it. He could still blow shit up. She could still dissect a man while he was still alive. There were small things. It wasn’t enough, but it was something. Which was better than nothing the fuck at all.

Very little about the Shadow didn’t evoke the image of a knife. Even her hand seemed to split the air like flesh. Nickel had adopted the feyry habit of waiting just within someone’s reach, anticipating the moment when they chose to close the distance, to step into the snare that was the world of the fey. To touch a creature like him was to tempt fate, to court disaster or possible death. This was the truth of the world they lived in.

Whatever he was, he was sure that Rowan would be at least one or two thousand times worse. Having her fix his hair was a deeply humbling experience. It took him a blink to make sure that blood wasn’t about to rush down into his eyes, and he got the distinct impression that this was kinda shit she liked to do and the reaction she liked to get. He’d make her as happy as he could, because he was actively opposing everything she stood for and coming to that realization was a trip.

If Lacha found out about the rebellion, he did not know that the hold she had on the Senator through his placement would necessarily save him from whatever might happen to him. If he hadn’t already been fairly sober, he would be now. 

“I don’t know about them. If you touch them, it’s like … it’s a good high, bad come down. You don’t lose anything, it’s not like the grass. I got weird tired.” Nickel shrugged. He couldn’t think of a thing to do with his hands. His thumb and forefinger rubbed together, remembering the specific warm buzz of feeling, shooting straight to the heart better than the exhaustion that came after throwing the thing away. “But it wasn’t anything thirty-two couldn’t fix, so … ” 

Rowan did like the effect she had on him; it was one of her few joys in an otherwise cruel world. But she made the best of it. There were muscles on his face that belied how he and a rabbit could be the same. She knew how to trap rabbits. How to bleed and skin them and what vegetables to add to make a nice stew. This was a very feyry thing to know, at least for those of them that made their own way as children. She knew he’d been made a changeling, whether he willed it or no; but growing up human was... a very much tamer experience.

If she had learned about the rebellion, she would report it without question. To go against what Lacha was doing was to wish for ruination for the Court again, which was something Rowan could not and would not abide. With her last breath she would fight to make the Court strong; those who would be against that were against themselves. Of course someone spoiled by such an upbringing would be so tempted. It was, if she’d known, disgusting. She would enjoy taking whatever actions she desired on any traitor. Even if it was the boychild before her.

Lacha stepped to the door at the knock and let Rowan in. “Thank you for coming,” she said on a sigh, closing the door behind them. “Especially after you’ve had a full night.” Rowan and Raven had dealt with the body and the scene as best they could. This was why Lacha worked as hard as she did to have adept people at her hands. So when something went wrong, things could move, more or less, fairly smoothly.

Leading the Shadow into the spacious sitting room, Lacha gestured for Rowan to take a seat. She herself settled at the end of the large sectional and leaned against the arm rest. “Now, though, we need to decide what we do next. I’m going to meet with Adare tomorrow, as long as he’s amenable. I don’t want us working…against one another, when it comes to this.” Yes, the truce between Courts was shaky at best, but this was quite the extenuating circumstance. 

Lacha sighed, then, and looked to Rowan. “I’d like for you and Raven to do the investigating, of course. I imagine that’s where you’ll be most useful. Hyacinth, too, might come in handy.” Leveling her chin, Lacha took a moment to just watch Rowan, to just see her. This woman that would have been her daughter. “Is there anything else I need to know? Anything you noticed about tonight?” It wasn’t often that Lacha let someone speak so freely and openly but Rowan was different. She was wholly loyal, that much Lacha was sure of, and something closer to family than Court, anyway.

Ro accepted the Queen’s cordiality but couldn’t yet relax, so she stepped inside and nodded her thanks to Lacha as the door was closed. Ro leaned against a wall, her usual sort of stance because she didn’t know of any fey who could teleport through stone yet and she preferred to have her back protected, especially when her attention would be wholly on the Queen and her safety. “It’s my pleasure,” Ro said simply, because her life was to serve the Court and this Queen who had put it all back together from the rubble and blood of their history.

When the Queen gestured for Ro to take a seat, she hesitated, weighing the options of danger. While tonight might seem a night more prone to danger than any other, given the loss of the other fey, each moment was its own coin-toss. One attack might be a distraction. Or it could be the completion. It mattered little either way; she had to choose. Denying her Queen was the worse option of the two in that moment, and Ro knew two of the Sentry were posted outside the door regardless, and Ro had many ways to fight. So she took a seat.

Rowan didn’t comment on meeting with Adare. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, and she could throw a body half across a room. Yet, she knew Lacha didn’t trust him fully either, so voicing the matter was moot. “I’m more the stab stab sort, Raven might be your best bet, but I’m happy to assist him in any way he needs. Once we’ve a culprit though—dibs.” A cruel smile flickered over her mouth and she didn’t bother to remove it. “Lark identified the body and she’s a fair bit shaken up. You might want to check in on her, if you feel so moved.” Might, if. Rowan would never command her Queen.

          “I knew them.” Or rather that she knew of them. Death was hanging around, getting ever closer as it crept around and would strike out once more as she felt her entire being shake with no end in sight. It wasn’t her fingers. Or her skin. It wasn’t the itch that couldn’t be scratched when it came to feeding her own demons, but new ones that were swiftly arising to replace them as the fear was palpable from those who were still around to the ones that had already left.

Lark shook her head then. She hadn’t seen anything, not when her head was in the clouds and not seeing a single thing that wasn’t in the haze of a mixture of elixirs to enjoy the night with. A cocktail of sorts, but it left her frigid and lonely as the hallowed out feeling in her chest was aching to know how to protect herself from it. Rowan had offered her a way out of the despair as she gazed at the other, eyes avoiding to meet one on one as the panic was widespread. “I need to know how to fight it. The fear. The pain…. all of it. I need you to teach me how to have a fighting chance.” Rather than be defeated by it.

“Oh yeah?” Rowan asked, not yet fully understanding the gravitas it might have held for Lark; she was still in officer-mode, in gruff-work mode, and didn’t have the wherewithal as of yet to switch modes. Lark looked ready to crawl out of her skin, but it was the sort of look that many people had on around them: people tended to get on about that when they saw a dead body with a less than favourable arrangement of iron in their skin. Reminded everyone of their inevitable mortality and one of the few threats to their beings. “Who are they?”

Lark shook her head, indicating she hadn’t seen what had happened. That would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? Ro mused; no such thing as a simple day’s work. Luckily, most of this would fall to Raven, since the body was well and dead already and therefore there was no need for torture until a culprit could be appropriately pinned. Then it was time for some fun. When Lark spoke again, it made Rowan look at her more acutely: there was panic in her voice. Something was up. “You’re not evading me, are you? You don’t know anything about this death?”

I ache with hope, Rowan. Camellia replied, though only in her mind. The words that she spoke aloud had to be with far greater care - because complaining about hope was both childish and far too Seelie, no matter how much Camellia believed in it. She could believe in it silently, if she wanted. Just as she needed. “I should never wish to be a liar.” Yet wasn’t she, at least in part? Keeping her knowledge of the rebellion a secret from her mother - and from the woman in front of her - the woman who’d been everything and more to her sister? “I will not allow harm to come to the Court - at least not if I can do anything about it.” 

She scrunched her nose, then. “I cannot say I would ever picture myself as a knight, but I understand your point.” Why can I not have both snow and hope? Hope for a new life, hope for our Court? There was so much left unspoken as Camellia did her best to focus on being direct - something not entirely in her nature, but worth an attempt at least. If she wanted Rowan’s help, she had to help her as well. Do as she wanted. “Curbing, as through the Tithe?” Her breath caught for a half-second, and she found herself wishing that she could cough, but her breath returned before that was necessary.  “My mother is a valued teacher - and I hope that perhaps you can be, too. A Queen, be she future or current, needs advisors, after all.”

Her own thoughts plagued her mind again at Rowan’s comments. I need to make them love me. Fear is not my way, ought there to be a way to rule a Court without it? “I am acutely aware of a range of emotions,” my fingertips can literally give me the entire spectrum, should I choose to use them, “I promise.”

She sucked in her lower lip as Rowan began to speak about her grandmother. Love and emotions. The words sounded more than a bit too familiar. She watched Rowan’s expression change just slightly at the mention of Camellia’s grandfather. She did not speak with Tierney too often, but she enjoyed the moments she had spent with him, and understood how important he was to her mother. Was Ceila as soft as I am? How were we different? “I promise I will be a good Queen when the time comes. I am only glad I am not alone.” She brushed strands of her hair from her face, the wind having blown them back. Please tell me about Caora now. “I like to hope that I have guidance through all of those who came before me, even if they are unable to be here to advise me.” 

I will not allow harm to come to the Court, she said. Rowan couldn’t help it: she laughed out loud. It was curt and it was callous, but someone had to help this once and future Queen, should she live to claim her birthright. Oh, Caora, if only you could see me now: teaching your little sister all the backbone you had along with your graces, Rowan thought, making fun of herself in her head. She was far from the best person to be doing this. The downtrodden look that eventually would claim Camellia’s face—whether that be now, or later—when talking to Rowan would eventually emerge. She was a series of difficulties; that’s what she was. “Sweetheart, you’d best learn more than one definition of harm,” Rowan said after her bark of laughter. “There is a difference between good intentions and right actions.”

Rowan raised a brow when Camellia mentioned the Tithe. “No, that’s not what I’d been thinking, but that, too. You will have to decide which of us dies. What makes us worthy of a death to the Horde. You cannot not do that. Just as you can’t not enforce rules. The rules keep all of us safe—all of us—even if it is at the expense of a few who chafe against them.” Rowan exhaled sharply and tried to think of a way to phrase it better. “Okay, you fear for your life, as your sister did. There is no way you have not. But—that’s a lesson itself, a lesson all royals have to learn because it is part of your blood. It is who you are. You are a sacral princess. A—conduit, like me. All power, in order to not be corrupted, requires responsibility, death, and sacrifice. You have to learn your own death, your own risk, to ever understand the mantle of power.” She searched Camellia’s face for understanding.

Was that the switch? Ro wondered, having never entertained it before. Is that what made an heir worthy of receiving their ruling Hand: their understanding of this concept? She didn’t know. She only knew that it was true: that to rule justly, you had to know you could die. That your very survival to the crown was a risk with a reward, not a promise, not an entitlement. That in order to pass such judgements, choose such deaths, in others required that you understand the gravity of the gift of your own life. “I trust your mother with my life; I am sure she will teach you well. As for me, I’m an advisor you inherit whether I will it or no, should I live to see your reign.” Beyond that, Rowan couldn’t promise much at this point. This slip of a girl who’d barely seen the world wanting to assume an iron crown already almost missed the mark: Rowan ached for the days she never saw, where she could be free to enjoy, before her mantle.

It only took him a second to notice the plush bird in her arms, and he had to stifle a laugh. It was funny, but also, Rowan didn’t seem like the kind of person to be laughed at. Instead, he tooked the stuffed animal, not arguing (she also didn’t seem like the kind of person who you wanted to argue with), although he really had no idea what he was going to end up doing with it. “Uh, you sure you wanna give up your hard earned prize?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I mean, at this point, I don’t even bother trying - It’s all rigged, and I apparently I can just get you to win prizes for me.”

Aster relieved her of the overstuffed nonsense in her arms and for that she was thankful enough; otherwise she would have had to look kind or considerate pawning it off on some passing child. “For fuckin’ sure I want to relieve myself of it. It’s better if you have it, I think; perhaps it will bring you luck.” Or perhaps it would collect dust, but magic was odd like that: belief could travel you decently far alone. “Careful, I don’t do much of anything for anyone without a price. Getting me to do something can prove quite tricky.” Despite that being true, she was joking with him, though there was nothing in the deadpan to give her away. “There’s way to work around the rigging, in time, like most aspects of life. What’s your favourite fairway game?”

Mystery was half of what his Runners sold. Mystery and satisfaction–the knowledge that one’s problems will be fixed, but not the specifics behind how. That was what his customers needed: answers without raising more questions. Ro’s service to the Queen earned her at least one favor from him, but answering questions wasn’t part of that favor.

“Always a rhyme but never a reason,” came his idle non-answer, accepting her refill of his wine glass while mulling over the situation she’d presented him with. “As much as I love a new project, playing neuroscientist on a Seelie has its repercussions.” From Lacha and Adare both. “Who is behind this? We both know you aren’t requesting this from the bottom of your bleeding heart.” She knew how to tempt him well enough–a Seelie lure as his test subject, an opportunity to test his powers on literal brain damage. But Malachite had learned his lesson. He couldn’t break his oath to Lacha, even for Ro’s sake.

“Fair enough,” she replied; they were friends, the two of them, so she thought she’d earned more of an answer than that—but in truth, she understood not getting into the details of one’s magic and could respect that. It didn’t serve Ro to pry further, so she didn’t; the elixirs were amusements to her more than anything and she appreciated his ability to make something from nothing. “One of their Archfey sought me out on our territory,” Ro replied, which was all truth. “Didn’t ask why it was important; didn’t need to, for me. If it goes sour, it’s on her for even daring to tread here.” Ro winked as she drank some of the wine; fixing a Seelie problem was all that was being done. It would work, or it wouldn’t. The repercussions weren’t theirs to own. She kept the bottle-gift Ollie had given her, so far left undrunk, as proof.