#batteredoptimist

@batteredoptimist​ . 𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐈 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑

Fish often spent many days alone when her father left to find sacrifices. He thought her too young to come along for now. Fish did not agree, but she knew arguing would lead nowhere. She just had to bid her time, and prove to her father she was old enough to accompany him.

So, she was always very careful to take good care of their little cabin when he was gone. She would clean it, cut wood for the hearth, and go foraging for food. Today was no exception, and she left the comfort and warmth of the fireplace to venture into the woods.

She did not fear the woods, nor did she fear the wild animals that sometimes roamed there. In fact, she worried more about the humans, the hunters and the like. She carried a knife because of them. A part of her did hope she would cross path with a hunter, so she could bring him to her father. This would surely prove her worth! 

After a few hours, her basket was quite full with mushrooms, wild berries and plants, and she decided to go rest under a willow tree before returning home. At first, she did not even notice the silhouette standing near, too busy rummaging through her basket to find a few berries to eat. When finally she saw there was someone there, she jolted.

“Oh,” stammered Fish, “sorry. I thought I was alone.” 

Head tilted, she observed the other. At first, she had thought he was human, but he was not. First of all, he was naked, which was usually frowned upon in human communities. But most importantly, he had wings. 

@batteredoptimist​ liked a starter call

When her dad had asked if she’d like to go with him to London for a few weeks, Riley had jumped on the opportunity. He’d cautioned her that, for him, it was a business trip, that she’d most likely be on her own for a large amount of the time, but that was alright. She didn’t mind being alone.

Today was one of those days. Her dad would be stuck in meetings until after dinnertime, so Riley had gone out to sketch and enjoy the weather. It was a bit cloudy out, but the temperature was nice, and there was only the slightest of breezes—enough to ruffle the pages of her sketch pad, but not so much that she’d lose her spot if she lifted her hand.

She’d decided to practice drawing live subjects while she people-watched, sketching businessmen on their lunches, an elderly couple chatting on a bench, really anyone who’d stuck around for long enough. Her latest subject looked like he was a bit older than herself, longish hair, handsome. She’d been working on trying to get his jawline just right when a shadow fell over her work. Blinking a few times at the legs now in front of her, as if they would disappear if she blinked hard enough, Riley slowly looked up—and up and up and Jesus, he was tall!—to find the subject of her sketch looking down at her. Immediately, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Caught. She wished she had an excuse handy, that she could lie and say she’d been drawing someone else, but it was pretty obviously him. Shit.

Any explanation the Doctor had prepared ahead of time vanished the second James stepped around the corner and came into view. Brows furrowed over sea-glass blue eyes, and the Time Lord exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“James,” he murmured, voice trembling just the slightest. Half of him wanted to leap over the counter and pull the other into his arms, but the other half refused to allow him use of his legs. “James... I’m--”

What? Sorry? Did he really think an apology would make things right? Call it an occupational hazard if you like, but vanishing for a year without a word was not something most people took lightly.

“I... I shouldn’t have come,” he realized belatedly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-- it doesn’t make it right, but I wanted to see you, and I-- James, I never meant to leave. It was a mistake, all of it. I’m so sorry and I understand if you never want to see me again, but I wanted...”

They were a pair this time.

The person wanted two towns over for robbing a post office and killing a mailman -- it was actually two people. Brothers, as Damian would learn, looking for any posted items of value that they could sell. They needed to do it in order to survive, or so they’d told Damian when he caught them. He had tracked them down to their home, though, and seen that their lives were well above survival level. They were by no means rich men -- because rich men were never on wanted posters -- but they were comfortable enough not to have needed to kill for money.

Need wasn’t the only excuse they tried, of course. There have been many attempts at manipulating Damian while he transported them to the castle. And after that, many pleas and begs while he locked them up and drank their blood for sustenance. At first, they thought he was only a sick man. But now, they knew he was no man, but a monster. They also knew they would die here.

And so, they had given up begging to be released. Now, when Damian went down into the castle dungeon for a drink every other evening, they were quiet with dread and exhaustion. He fed them daily, sure, but how could food keep alive someone without blood?

Tonight, going down was different. The criminals weren’t robbed of hope and into silence: They were yelling. Asking to be let out, sounding more alive than they had been all week. Damian thought they may have finally lost their minds, for they were giving instructions as if to a third party. The key! they shouted. It’s next to the door! Get the key!

They had been cruel people, but keeping them here like this... Perhaps Damian aught to finally kill them.

When he opened the door, though, he realised they had not gone insane from captivity.

There really was another person in the room. A small man, standing in the middle of the space, facing the door as if he were about to head towards the keys.

𝐇𝐞’𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞 aft spending one of the numerous nights at James’ home whence the mail comes in.

‘Tis a personal letter on a piece of shaven bark, engraved with moss-tinted words the time, date, and location of the goodly groups of lichen, mushrooms, and tree-scented Beings to come at once to their once-a-century event for The Curiosity of Mortal Affairs And How They Affect The Natural Era. The bit of bark is large and nearly the size of Roland’s forearm, and the engraved lettering is blocky but elegant in its barbarism as if burnt onto the wood by the alighted tip of an inhuman finger.

An odd, prickling sense of unease drew Ithadel’s attention to a small pond a short way off the road he’d decided to explore. Frowning, he took a few steps off the road towards it—and was abruptly struck with a spike of absolute dread. He froze and looked around for a threat, but couldn’t find anything out of place—until something painfully cold brushed against his shoulder and his mind went blank. He tore away from the touch as quickly as he could.

Things became a bit… blurry, after that. Eventually, a vague sense of safety broke through the haze; he came back to himself crouched in someone’s front yard, his knees aching from a clumsy landing, his wings burning with the aftermath of rapid flight. He fumbled to reactivate his human guise—he didn’t even remember breaking it, what had happened?—and took a look around.

This was… his neighbor’s house, Ithadel realized. At least as much as anyone could have a neighbor, living in the countryside. James… Pollard, perhaps? Ithadel was grateful for the late hour, and hoped James hadn’t been looking out the window when he arrived. He stayed hunched on the path for a long minute, catching his breath and trying to banish the clinging remnants of terror. 

Ithadel found himself eyeing the front door with no small amount of longing. (There was a faint hint of neglect and pain around the edges of James’s home, but at its core it felt hopeful—and it was a home, with a threshold fundamentally representing some level of safety.) He gave his head a sharp shake. It was late. He was thinking clearly again, even if his hands were still shaking and he felt cold down to his bones and his chest hurt. He should return to his own house.

(…his house that he’d just moved to, its threshold a fragile, gossamer thing. His house that fair rang with the recent passing of its previous owner; the hollow, sour-soft feeling of someone who’d died naturally but alone.)

…was he really selfish enough to do this?

Ithadel contemplated stepping away from the safety of James’s home; imagined traveling the next mile or so in the cold dying light of the rapidly setting autumn sun, imagined spending a long sleepless night in an empty house… and for a moment, he could hardly breathe for the tightness in his throat.

Yes. Apparently he was.

Normally James couldn't access those spaces in between that his brethren resided. The multiple presents and intermingling lives which the Fey lived were too far a separation of entity from body, but sometimes the rules of the world would bend just a little for him and he would step into someplace fantastical. The Fey's mind was on an ever-seeking quest of curiosity, and his feet were perpetually following suit. Those Wanderings had eventually taken him to a place too vast and alien from the forest for him to properly fathom- and it sang with such a magic as he'd been struck breathless by it.

A flower was what he'd given the little Miss when he'd encountered her. Grown between thumb and pointer finger out of thin air, he'd breathed it to life with petals that mimicked her delicate shimmering wings. He'd met the Lady of the Palace shortly after and had done his best not to be too outwardly intimidated. The force of her was something to behold.

Head tilting at her words, James looked down in fascination at his mortal-seeming hands with their mortal-seeming veins and wiggled his fingers. They would continue to look the same for hundreds of years to come- had been the same for hundreds of years. A smile pulled at his lips as he wondered, "Do you really believe so...? I've always felt a little jealous of the other Fey being able to change their shape."

SHE REGARDED HIM COOLY FOR A MOMENT, knowing what he meant but still too much herself not to disapprove of being second-guessed. “What will you give me for a yes or no?” she asked, but didn’t wait for him to answer. After a short pause, Ruby nodded at the nearest window and the life blooming beyond. “Your shape will change in time.”

Jane, clear in view, delighted over the flower James had given her. She had lined up a few of her wooden knights, and was now presenting it to them with glee. Leaves fell here and there from the trees, and a bird plucked up a field mouse. “It will take months, or years, but it will happen. One day your bones will be laid bare, your flesh a memory traced in mycelia.” Though she spoke somberly, Ruby meant it when she’d called it beautiful. She was too old and too monstrous to be a stranger to death. And though Jane had long forgotten about the pet she’d had once, its grave had sprouted the brightest, most beautiful flowers in the field.

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