Faerie Conspiracies - for @fifthofthecovenant

[musicdied]

The tavern might be in a shallowing, closer to the mortal world than the wilds of Faerie, but the geometries of it are enough to maze anyone who hasn't spent considerable time in those deeper waters. The angles of the space are impossible, directing light and sound so that every table is nothing but a splintered kaleidoscope of colour when viewed from any other table, and from most points on the floor. They can, presumably, be seen from the bar itself - or if not seen, then at least sensed by the many-eyed proprietor and its staff of porcelain-and-silver mannikins. Even finding the table one wants is more a matter of will and certainty than of normal sense of direction.

The little grey cat slips through the maze of enchantment like it's a wide city street, until she finds the table that had been imprinted in the sending-stone at one of her drop points. She hops up onto a chair, and only then flows into a woman's shape, dressed in grey leathers, hair severely bound. Even small and lean, she seems too solid for the space, blood and bone and mortality clear - fae-touched she may be, and gifted, but she's a true changeling child.

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[fifthofthecovenant]

The changeling she's here to meet isn't there. They don't show up in the first few minutes of her wait, either, but that's not uncommon. Waiting to be sure she wasn't followed, or is who she claimed to be. Having to sit in the relatively open space for a little while is just the price of doing business.

And then someone slides into the seat next to her who is definitely not the changling she's here to meet. The moment she catches sight of him-- which is far too late to get up and move away from him-- it's clear he's one of the true fae, of a high family, warped by magic and millennia of inbreeding. For one thing, he's got four eyes instead of two or even the more traditional three, all pitch black with no whites or irises, and for another, there's cobwebs full of spiders clinging to every part of him, melded with his clothes.

"Oh good," he says lightly as he drops onto the seat. "You made it."

[musicdied]

High fae, and here she is with no iron, only salt and silver and rowan, damaging, but unlikely to be lethal to anything that steeped in the deeper magics. She leans back in her seat and crosses her arms, gaze tracing the movement of those spiders, and not for even a second meeting any of those four eyes. Her master's yoke, invisible but always felt, grants her protection from being mesmerized by his rivals, but that only goes so far.

"I take it my contact is permanently indisposed," she says. She'd vetted the contract carefully, as she always does; it had been legitimate. Whether the goblin is dead or merely spending the next half a millennium as a tree, she's out the commission now.

[fifthofthecovenant]

"Indisposed for long enough that she won't be bothering you or me until we're both long gone," the fae shrugs. At least that suggests that he didn't kill said goblin. "I need to have a chat with an infamous assassin, and you were the best one I could scrounge up on short notice."

It's hard to tell on his inhuman face, but he's definitely stretching the truth there. She's the one he wanted, and he had plenty of time to pick and choose.

[musicdied]

Her eyes narrow slightly, little more than a brief flicker of her lashes. "I charge for my time," she warns. "Steeply."

Which he would've learned already, if he's researched her enough to know how to find her. There's been more than one fae who's not been heard from again after wasting her time - some by her own volition, others by her master's.

[fifthofthecovenant]

The faerie leans over just a little, not quite enough to be really in her space, but like he's almost there. "What price would you put on freedom?" he whispers.

[musicdied]

Her lips thin, and one of the small muscles in her jaw jumps as she clenches her teeth. "You must think I'm a particularly stupid mortal," she says, but her voice is tight in a way that betrays the fact that some part of her does still yearn for freedom, not yet as resigned as so many faerie slaves are by the end.

[fifthofthecovenant]

"No, I think you're a mortal who I know the master of, and I know how to get rid of him," the faerie counters. He might be in a somewhat disgraced house, but the disgraced houses have access to thinks some of the more powerful families don't, including the ability to do what he wants and not have major consequences for it.

Still, he needs help, for both his means to free her and the favor he wants in return. So he continues, "And I think you're one who still wants it, so it's a good bargaining chip."