#feywildstart

September first. Not technically a holiday, but Hazel almost felt like it should be for kids who’d grown up with the Harry Potter stories the way she had. So she celebrated with a hufflepuff t-shirt, owl earrings, and a deathly hallows necklace, announcing her nerdiness to anyone who knew enough to notice.  

She’d always felt connected to the stories. No, she hadn’t gotten a Hogwarts letter, but she had gotten a letter when she was ten years old, inviting her to Camp Forosnai where she learned she was different. That magic was real. Yer a Fey, Hazel. Didn’t have quite the same ring to it, but fiction was almost always better than reality. She’d hoped to find friends like Ron and Hermione but she’d been...different. The only Seelie. At least her adoptive family hadn’t been anything like the Dursleys. 

Tugging her phone from her pocket, she sent a text to her brother Heath Please tell me you’re available tonight for a Harry Potter marathon? She should have been paying more attention to where she was walking instead of her phone because no sooner had she hit send than she ran right into someone. 

“Oh, god...sorry, I wasn’t looking. Hi, uh... You okay?” 

Although Kaitlin was a girl made for summer, bare-footed adventures and days without end, she had to admit, there was a certain fondness in her heart for fall, in seeing the cyclic nature of the world come to a close. It was a reminder that the world was a living, breathing entity - and that they were all alive within it. Central Park wasn’t beautiful like the Seelie realm, but it held a charm of its own...a certain mystic romance about it. After all, there had to be a reason so many romantic comedies had set themselves here. A magic without being magic? No, she thought sadly, there is only one magic - and it is beyond my touch. 

Wrapping her hands a little tighter around her coffee cup (pumpkin spiced latte, of course), she stared out to the boats, bobbing tourist couples, breathing wistfully. “I know it’s sort of cliche. And very overpriced. But I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Yvette applauded vigorously for the young storyteller, charmed by the story. There had been a time in Yvette’s life where she would have bounded up to the microphone right after, encouraged and enthusiastic, ready to share something herself ... but now she was unsure, and besides that, she had nothing of interested prepared.

“I ...” she turned to the person beside her, murmuring as the others were. “So--um--do you have ... I mean, who do you think is meant to go next?”

There was something kind of powerful about leaning into the cliche. It was summer in New York and they were taking pictures in Central Park. The people, the heat, the way it shimmered over blacktop paths, all of it... For a moment, Quinn remembered that human life on its own, in this world, could be beautiful too. In its own way. The glamour of fey, of the Seelie, was gorgeous but it was its own kind and, after all, it was a trick. A trap. Vision through a prism. This all, for what it was, was real. Checking the last shots she had taken, Quinn smiled and then lowered their camera. Looked out over the span of humanity and smiled wider.

Forest hadn’t been down to the pier in at least a year, probably more. He used to like going out on the water with his friends back in high school, renting a few kayaks, packing a bag full of food, and sitting out on the water all afternoon. It didn’t feel quite the same anymore - though, granted, not much of New York felt quite the same anymore. Things used to be a lot less...complicated back then. 

He slowed down to a walk as he reached the edge of the water, using the neck of his shirt to wipe sweat from his face as music blared in his earbuds. He thumbed the rope band on his finger, a habit he’d picked up ever since it had been placed there, a constant reminder, as he continued along the pier, somewhat lost in thought.

Maybe it wasn’t...all bad?

Bumping shoulders with a passerby was the only thing that got his attention brought back to reality and he cleared his throat, pulling out an earbud and glancing back in the direction of the person he’d run into, “Hey -- sorry.” 

The Courts have been calm for going on 30-some years now and Lacha revels in the stability. She thanks Danu that, all her life, Camellia has only know peace. Maybe it can stay that way. Lacha doesn’t actually believe that; even if she did, peace didn’t make a good leader. No, Lacha had learned to be the Queen she is today from both her father’s peace and gentleness and the toil and strife her mother caused. But it is peaceful now and that’s enough. 

That night, Camellia is with her grandfather and so Lacha invited Gale over. The father of her child, to think it’s coming up on twenty years that they’ve been doing this -- she hesitates to call them together. After all, the nature of their relationship defies definition. But, those twenty years and a daughter later, and there’s still a deep space in Lacha’s heart for the demifey.

Moving from the kitchen into the sitting room, Lacha brings with her two glasses and a bottle of wine. “Our daughter will be fourteen years old soon,” she comments, settling herself on the couch and passing the wine to him to deal with. That’s more or less nothing to a fey but it’s still something as a mother, as parents. “Can you believe it? And she looks more and more like you everyday. You’ll have to be careful not to stand too close to her.” Lacha says it as a tease, but it’s also a concern.

“I was so hoping her hair would change,” she murmurs in a fond sort of joke. Reaching forward, she toys with a few strands of his hair, the same blond as their daughters. 

If he was being honest with himself, the Rookery wasn't necessarily the sort of place Tyler and his friends would usually frequent. It was a speakeasy, and it was it was cool but it seemed a bit, well. Almost gimmicky. Almost, though, because it also seemed incredibly classy, in it's own way. Chandeliers hanging overhead, stairs leading to a seating area with a fireplace. But then there was the drink served in a teacup. He didn't really know what it was trying to be.

He didn't really mind any of that now, though, because the drinks were good, and him and his friends had had to start their night somewhere. Of course, his friends were late, specifically, later than usual. Part of him wondered if they'd gotten lost, but he hadn't gotten any texts, so there really was nothing to do but wait. As he finished his drink, his second drink, in fact, he turned to the person next to him.  “What’s that you’re drinking?” He asked, not the best conversation starter, but it was one, at least. And talking to people was better than pulling out a book - He would die before he got caught reading at a bar, even a strangely elegant one like this.

Aster sometimes wished that he liked blending in less, that he was more at ease around other fey. There was just something about that world to him that always made him feel like he was speaking a foreign language, one he knew should come easy to him. But here, it didn't matter. Here, he could just be Aster, bartender, something that required the same skills whether or not you were serving fey or humans. 

Even off the clock, he sometimes preferred to stay, nursing a drink, and people watching. Usually he only had one, which didn’t do much - The drink was more to give him something to do than to get drunk. Usually. Tonight, however, he had kind of lost count, and he was more than starting to feel it. Someone had sat down next to him awhile ago, but he hadn't noticed until just now, and he smiled, giving them a half glance. “You look like you need a drink.” He said, not bothering to see if they already had one. “I’ll buy?”