(no subject)

"I don't really understand what you want from me Neph." Andria murmured into her ale. She never drank the wine Neph offered and he never took offense. After all, a Bard was only as good as her voice.

"I thought it was rather simple. Zeke is a fascinating if simple minded sort of fellow, he leaves a lot out of his reports. A second set of eyes would give a better view of the situations he gets himself into." Neph rolled his shoulder in a shrug. It set his braids to rippling gently, scattering little hints of light through the ebony tresses.

"You want me to keep an eye on your pet lightening rod and sing you songs of his humiliation?" She blinked. Zeke was an interesting boy. For all that he was eight and twenty springs he was still just a boy when it came to the important bits of things. Like women, politics, and death. Mostly the women and politics though. Andria liked Zeke, in as much as she liked anyone that claimed to be a wizard and walked around with a wand half permanently wedged up their backside. She liked Decimate quite a bit more than Zeke. She'd been under the impression Neph was fond of the pair.

Neph's smile was indulgent, but the dark glitter in his eyes was sharp as honed flint. "Not quite my dearest songstress, I want to hear their epic adventures, their virtuous deeds, the little things Zeke often forgets when he's busy complaining about illiteracy, the weather, the state of roads, and book sellers who for some reason take one fleeting look at his familiar and bolt for the nearest magistrate or group of Knights."

She took a long moment to consider that, swallowing the warm ale slowly. Zeke, for all that he was a fully acknowledged Wizard with his Colors, was not an intimidating figure. The average farmer or shepherd took one look at Zeke; short, skinny and easily distracted, and imagined they could smear him across a tavern floor with one fist.

Then they looked at Decimate. Imagining was not a common reaction to Decimate's presence. Gut churning, blood chilling terror and blind panic were the popular responses, accompanied by screams, wails, running away and sometimes foolish individuals tried violence.

Decimate was a gentle kitten. Until someone tried to hurt Zeke.

"I'll see what I can do. there's got to be *something* that rhymes with 'oblivious'."

Andria hid her grimace behind her glass as much as Neph hid his smile.

(no subject)

Neph's hair was his vanity, and his treasure. Running a hand backwards through the myriad of braids near his left shoulder, he cast his memory back to the early days.

It was common knowledge that Neph was born and raised in the Whispering Widow, the most discrete and expensive brothel in Germadeas. The Widow catered to all manner of clientele, Wizard and Beard alike. If a person had a taste for a certain pleasure, and the coin to cover the cost, the Widow provided. With the greatest secrecy and privacy one could ever hope to attain. Rumors abounded of the perversity and atrocities that could be found in the Widows private basements and bedrooms, but none of them were as gruesome or ghastly as the truth. None could ever be as sad.

Neph's mother was beautiful, as all the Widow's women and no few of her men, unless specified otherwise. Few of the Widow's workers would ever dare to carry a 'burden' to full term, much less try and raise it in the hollowed walls of Her house. Neph's father, however, was a very respected client, as well as a Colored Wizard, who willingly put down the coin for the midwife once he learned of his favorite 'sport's condition. Gold, and the promise of exclusivity bought Neph's first five years of life, at the cost of his mother's forbearance. Afterwards, the Wizard's interest ran out, as well as his gold, but Neph's mother was smart and ruthless and the law of Germadeas forbid the killing of any child with innate magic.

For silence and secrecy, Neph's father paid a small fortune not to be associated with Neph's life, and eventual enrollment in the Akademy. Even now, in his nine and thirtieth spring Neph felt the gease that prevented his lips from speaking his father's name.

He felt it as heavily as the weight of his hair. Locks as black as raven's feathers rubbed in pitch at midnight cascaded from crown to firmament, even bound in braids and looped upon his shoulders. A color so common as to be unremarkable, his mother loved his hair. She'd spent hours brushing, combing and oiling it, playing with styles, coaxing him to see the language of knots and binds with nothing but the thinnest strands.

Few men would ever dare to grow out their hair past fashion. Fewer still took pride in the feat. None, Neph knew, would ever understand the power his mane of unorthodoxy held, and that was just another secret he kept tucked in the ebony waterfall.

(no subject)

Zeke carefully set his thimble to the needle and pushed. His fingers were already aching. The needle slid slowly through the paired leather pieces, supple soft sued refusing to easily join. For all that leather was beautiful, strong and weather worthy it was an utter trial for the inexperienced and untrained to fashion. Each time Zeke worked with it he swore to leave it to the tanners next time and each time he somehow got it in his head to do the work himself to save a few coins.

Once through, the waxed cord slid easily. An awl would have made things much simpler, he never seemed to remember to buy one however. The satchel wasn't required to be aesthetically pleasing, thankfully. It's job was to hold his trinkets, bits and bobs, random flotsam, quill feathers, important papers and sometimes cheese.

A Wizard without a satchel didn't bear thinking about, honestly. How would he get anything done?

Setting the needle he tried to keep the stitches small, put his thimble firmly to the end and pushed again. Whoever said that 'rending flesh' was an easy task never applied to be a tanner.





Zeke pushed a hand through Decimate's fur, feeling for the heat of infection or strain. The wounds had knit themselves together overnight, but his familiar was still sluggish. The fur remained warm under his hands, not hot. Decimate's heat was comparable to a man's most days, perhaps his blood was cooler but with all the hair and feathers to insulate him.




"Why don't you just buy a new bag?" Andria asked, watching the fearsome magus swear as he slowly patched his satchel again.

"Do you also ascribe to the notion that Wizards are universally wealthy?" The man griped. His words got longer the more frustrated he got. Andria found it a charming quirk.

"All Wizards? Of course not, but *you* have coin to spare." Though it wasn't obvious by looking at him. Zeke's hair was thick and beautiful, black ringlets he mindlessly tied back and treated like a mop atop his scalp. His clothes were rough-spun layered over padded wool knit by unsure hands, patched agaain with the same leather as his satchel. Tunics and trousers hung baggy and loose, smelling of man, dirt and faintly animal musk. A thick hemp rope served for a belt. Even his cloak, his badge of office and rank, was oil-skin dyed before hemming and painted in Colored pitch rather than the more typical layered linens and silks.

The only thing Zeke had that looked remotely expensive were his boots.

"I'm sure I have no idea why you would assume such, but my finances are not your concern." Zeke muttered, a fair bit of warning in his tone. Andria blithely ignored it. Rankling Zeke was the only fun she got out of his company.

"You forget I'm a Bard, we know things. Such as your family name and where it stands in the ranks."

A Wizard had no family once he had his Colors. For all intents and purposes a Wizard of that caliber was a free agent, bound only by the laws of magic and whatever Lord of the Land they served under. That was the way things were *supposed* to work anyway. Everyone who knew real Wizards knew that family and nepotism were as prevalent political forces as they were with Bearded folks.

"You don't know near enough then, Bard."

This time the warning was dark, angry, and edged. Zeke's eyes remained on his task, but the low huff and distinct shift of *weight* in the air said more than any ugly look.

For a moment Andria tried to imagine what it felt like to be the younger sibling, the unfortunate spare heir. She thought about years of walking in another's shadow, constantly falling short of expectations, always a disappointment, only to one day be thrust into the light and scrutinized because the figure casting that unasked-for darkness was violently removed from the scene.

Had the cloak of silent torment become an air of heated anger? Had his parents finally *seen* him?

He had strong, well-tended boots. The soles were thick and cut to clomp, stitched on by a cobbler who knew his trade. The cobbler probably knew that specific pair of boots as well as old friends who often don't get along. Those boots knew their business, they had seen and stomped over miles with miles yet to claim.

No, she decided, for once keeping her observations and wit to herself. Parents who discovered the revelation that their children were *people*, would never condone boots that let those children wander so very far from home.

(no subject)

Winter winds swept down from the icy peaks of the Troll Frosts to chill the poor townsfolk beneath. Hardy people of few means, they met the wind with whatever layers of coverings they had, sound walls of hewn logs chalked in clay, and large mugs of piping hot cider.

ApplePress the township was named, if one could conceive a single tavern and thirty odd farm shares as a town. The local Lord of the Land, a 'Duke' by name of Forshire, rode through once a year with his tax man to collect half the years pressed cider in lieu of actual coin. Coin was not common enough commodity to be worth the effort of collecting from ApplePress, but the cider was exceptional, once taken back to the Duke's estate, mulled well and aged for about fifty years. By then it developed character and smoothness enough to be palatable, and profitable to sell to people for whom coin *was* common.

For the people of ApplePress, and the poor Wizard bought by said coin to service their wards and wellsprings, the cider was a necessary evil.

The origins of the hoodie

1947. He liked the number, it wasn't quite one thing, not quite another, sort of a transitory space like Fall and Spring. Oh, sure, he knew Fall and Spring were solid enough to have their own holidays and big furry mean kangaroos, but they didn't *feel* solid. Winter, Summer, those had a density. 1945, 1950, those rang as stepping stones, even if nothing monumental really happened. Those numbers had solidity. 1947 was just passing through, like the Wind, like him.

The kids were already tucked away in their homes where he was, somewhere on the Eastern seaboard of America. He was constantly amazed by the cities, a hop and a jump took him from slate tile to tar paper, frost ferns scrawling over rough brick and smooth marble. Why was this street so poor, when two streets over was rich? He couldn't wrap his head around it.

The stars in cities looked so odd, to, so much more distant. He liked how the Moon was almost always hidden by clouds. Clouds liked cities, and Jack... Jack didn't really like the Moon.

Wandering across rooftops he marveled at the changes he'd seen, the new toys kids played with, the way his frost designs looked on metal pipes and iron bars. That is, he marveled until he heard something that took all his quiet joy and wonder and left him angry and cold inside.

"Please stop! Stop.... Daddy..."

She was tiny, maybe eight or nine, and dressed in what he knew were called 'active wear', which meant cheap but warm. The pants were too big, and the jacket kept sliding off her narrow shoulders, letting the cold night air inside. Thrown into a yellowish brown snow bank half ice, the cheap material was soaking in moisture, which would negate *any* heat she could generate rather quickly.

Jack knew all too well how cheap clothes led to dead children in the snow.

"Get out! Eating my food, stealing my money, go get a job!"

"Daddy!"

Jack tried not to hate adults. He did. After all, children had to come from somewhere, and they had to go somewhere. Children were nothing more than transitions themselves. Adults were where they became solid. Real. Children didn't have any substance, just like him. He loved them, but they weren't very real. Adults....

"Daddy please let me in! I'm cold!"

The man was drunk, his 'active wear' stained and the apartment looked like something Jack wouldn't let animals inhabit. No mother in sight. No other fairies. Not even the moon. Jack's happy snowballs didn't work on drunk assholes, he'd tried plenty of times.

Well.

Another year on the naughty list then.

While the drunk asshole ranted and swore, his little girl crying in the snow, the city was moving around them, ignoring human drama it saw every day. People never saw Jack. They walked right through him. He, saw them however, and sometimes he walked into them. Sometimes he stayed in them, just for a while. Just long enough for the blood to go cold and the heart to shudder and the brain to shut down. It never took too long. He was Winter.

"Daddy! Daddy wake up! Daddy please wake up!"

He tried not to hate the adults. He really did.

Black Prophesy

Sydney didn't sleep, which perhaps was why he hadn't noticed things were going so very *wrong* lately. He hadn't seen the Nightmares and how they'd... changed.

For the most part he'd been reading when it happened. When being, as it turned out, the destruction of the world and most others around, a violent shifting of power among the cosmos and new life blossoming and thriving elsewhere.

He had an extensive library, and finally the time to catch up on things, he wasn't surprised he'd missed a few small events.

Still, it was rather annoying to look up from a collection of Xanian poetry to find a Nightmare comprised of black sand nibbling his grimoires. Nightmares were made of Fear, and Fear had no place in the Dark. Alongside, perfectly acceptable. Inside was just a mess waiting to be cleaned up.

"Now who do you belong to?" He murmured, casting off the kind warmth of remembered flesh for the chilling reality of honed Silver. The creature had enough survival instinct to run, but it was made of Dark sand. There was no where he couldn't find it.

The world it led him to was nothing like he remembered his own once being. The magic was... subtler. Bound up in veils and illusions, working just out of sight of creatures too fragile to survive it. The world itself was more... orderly. Life constructed on tighter *rules*, fashioned and *designed*.

"Now what a mess we have here. Really. Does no one ever understand that when you *build* you have already set a time for it to *break*?" With a tsk of the tongue he cast the single moon an amused look. "You can't make anything *new*, so you'll borrow and perfect? You'll never be your father *that* way."

The Dark chuckled and sang, welcoming as ever those that had *finally* arrived.

Fear was a strength, but a fragile one, like flint it could slice wounds deeper and cleaner than any other, but it could also shatter and splinter all out of shape. Sydney walked through the world a shadow on black, tasting the Fear that burrowed and shrank before him. It was... twisted. *Feeding* on the Dark to keep itself going and weakening with it's consummation.

"Who are you?! What are you doing in my domain?!"

Sydney paused, bringing back his wandering focus. Yes, this one was doing the pulling, like a child at its mother's dress. He felt.... older. Far too old to be this stupid. "Sydney Losstarot. Who is the idiot who summoned me?"

Corpse flesh pallor was never a good undertone for a blush, much less a bluster-flush. To his credit it only lasted a split second. Another second was filled with confusion. The third finally gave way to disdain and Sydney wondered idly if those seconds had birthed any new books. Or rather any new good ones.

"I, am the"

"Nightmare King, yes I know *what* you are I asked who, it's a much simpler question and doesn't require a great taxing of the brain to answer, provided your ears function which I am beginning to doubt." Sydney waved the pompous title bearing away with a fan of claws.

Two seconds this time, but the sneering disdain retained a hint of rage. Perhaps he really was young, as these things went.

"*What* are you to make demands of me, Mr. Losttarot, as I am supposedly the one to summon *you*. A demon? No, but no spirit either."

Sydney smiled. Around them both the shadows rippled and writhed, the Nightmares whinnied and screamed in Fear. This world was a machine of magic, its springs and cogs interwoven threads of Belief and Life. Sydney loved such delicate balances, they were so easily broken. "I am the Dark. Now, Guardian of Fear, show me your soul. Let's see if you are worth repairing, or more easily replaced."