#compasswithhat

Some say this is because the Gentry are afraid of him, afraid of human arrogance and wit put to a single task, but this is false. Some say they know what he wants and are doing their best to keep it from him, this is more true, but also false. In whispers and silent tales, in the corners of libraries and haze of weed smoke, they say he’s been here before. In ‘87, in '45, when before the University was opened and before even that. They say it’s a story, a trap, a loop, a curse. A man stuck fighting for what he wants, unable to ever get it. That’s why they say he knows the tales, the lore, the legend. They say because he lived it.

I don’t know the truth, but when I was eating lunch, he saddled up to my table with a knife smile that reached his eyes. “Gotta story to tell you, lass” he said, “If you’ll listen of course.” I knew the Rules and so shied away, but he pressed on. “Stories are powerful things, the Damned Fey know that of course, that’s why they took my sister. She beat them once, turned emotion into music and beat the Queen at her own game. Smoke and Ash and Darkness are nothing compared to love and life and joy.” He never dropped the knife smile, showing more teeth than happiness, “They have a name for her. It’s written in the stories and in the songs, etched into the world as her last act. I chase those stories and those songs, bringing them together so she may find her way home.”

He stood up, stole my brownie and walked into the University Green we shouldn’t look at. He walked right up to the statue of the fiddler in the middle, all celtic gown and joyful eye’d, and placed it at her feet as an offering.

“To tell you the truth,” he calls out, Fey Things and Cats scattering at the sudden noise, “Almost forgot what she looked like till you came along. Good luck on your studies, Granddaughter, I hear Music Theory is a pain.”

Roaring music and harsh lyrics of rage, violence and rebellion sung out with force, will and passion rousing every soul to scream and causing the blood to rush through one’s veins, the false fictions the Gentry declare themselves as cannot truly understand.

Changelings, called between two worlds and pulled between the moral and the very much not find solace in the company of these rockers and knights of sound and fury. Many a time a Changeling has picked their side to the sound of We’re Not Gonna Take It, Bad Reputation, and Uprising.

Many have asked why this is. Perhaps it is the psychological matter and magic of the refusal of the powers that be. Perhaps it is the words inside and the iron woven into the very name of the genre. Perhaps it is merely because Rockerboys, Metalheads and Punks enjoy spitting in the eye of the powerful and laughing as they are beaten down, hands outstretched and single digits raised. Perhaps it is simply because the Courtly Ones are beings of stagnation and rules and the new songs of riot and rage came after they have formed.

All that is known is thus, if you are trapped by bargains and deals, backed into a corner at a party without silver and iron, fearing for your Name and Humanity, sing loud and proud, embrace which makes us Mortal, put on some AC/DC, the Dead Kennedys or Rammerstein and rock the fuck out!