"Are you always this pleasant?"

"No." She smiled thinly. "I put on my happy face for you tonight."

He dipped a chip in the red salsa with a flat huff. Funny that for a chilled dip, it could be so hot. "Well, if this is you on a 'nice' day, I'd hate to see you pissed off."

Gilraen shrugged. That was pretty much every day. Right now, she was just sitting across the booth from the beautiful boy waiting for the purpose of being here at all to emerge. It was a good thing she didn't use boredom as an motivator to do things. If she had, she suspected she'd have her butt in a lot more grass fires because she was bored a LOT.

"Must be nice, all that money." She scooped up some pico de gallo aloofly. That was probably bitchy.

He glared across the table, "It doesn't buy off the Others. It can't protect me from them." Grabbing his glass he swallowed some water. "Money isn't everything, you know."

She knew.

"So what do you remember..." having decided their meals he stacked their menus. "...about being there, Arcadia?"

Her eyebrows rose above her yellow glasses. "I don't drink." That hadn't answered his question, they both knew, but he rolled with it pretty well; stayed patient. "But I got drunk once. At least I think I must have. Out in the woods, after a show. All by myself because liquor is a truth serum. Not because it makes anyone start proclaiming their inner truths abound, but because it makes you not care about the consequences of doing what you already wanted to do. It is called liquid courage for a reason, and that is because when you're drunk, you are ten feet tall, bullet-proof, willing to fight the world if that's what it takes just to be a little bit normal, just to share conversation with kindred spirits."

"What happened?"

"I woke up with a hang-over." She laughed once. "The point is, I'm not drunk enough to tell you about what I remember."

***
The chambord and vodka went down quite nicely. He was totally fucking this game of pool. "Don't do it."

He looked up. "What do you mean."

"I mean...you'll never make that shot. All you'll do is bounce the thirteen off the bumper of the side pocket and it won't go in." She nodded up across the table. "Put the ten in corner."

He circled the table and bent down to line up the shot and she frowned. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how to line up a shot??" Coming around the table she moved him where he ought to have been, used his cue to give him a short lesson in geometry and then backed off.

Whether or not that had been the right decision was arguable. In short order, he evened up the game until they were down to that soulless little black ball. He missed his shot though; she didn't. In fact, her aim was so perfect, she scratched the cue ball too.

"Oops." Pushing her stick back into the rack she smirked. "You win."

Looking at his lone ball on the table he frowned. "Doesn't really feel like winning though, does it?"

"No." she didn't turn around. "It's more like just...not losing."

***
Now she was drunk enough, not smashed just buzzed in the right way. He was too, so that made it more tolerable. He spoke in honey-mead tones that made her want to drink up every word of his memories. Listening was a cool moonlight spilt on a rippling pond.

"Consider yourself lucky." she finally managed, when he paused in the telling of his story.

"Why?"

"At least you have the satisfaction of knowing you escaped." her eyes bore holes through the windshield into some other time.

"Aren't you here with me?"

"I am." She nodded. "But not because I escaped. I was thrown out." she didn't elaborate on why, though.

"Does it really matter how it happened? At least you got out, right?"

The turn of her head followed her blazing eyes, "But I don't get the satisfaction of saying I won, only the knowledge that I just 'didn't lose'."

Tags: gilraen, pies and pints
Current Location: Pies & Pints
Current Mood: cynical

The evening began with the thunderdome. Desert Wind put the ball in the middle and some guy name Axel picked it up, challenging him for the crown. He didn't win. The ball went back into center of the circle and some mercenary guy named Marrow with a red bandanna took it this time. He didn't win either. Everyone else was content to let the ball lie after that. Everyone else being Marrow's girlfriend Damia, some not-so-fairest named Elias and Jackie the "beaver believer" standing next to her.

Desert Wind remained the King of Summer and their court joined the rest of the gathering. Gilraen had a year and a day of this, technically it started a month ago or so but ceremony made things easier to remember. Rhys shuffled her off in one direction or another and then all the Kings disappeared into a little meeting.

She mingled until it was time to swear the Freehold Oath which everyone did together; everyone except Marrow and Unicorn Girl. This did not make either Desert Wind, or most of the Summer Court very thrilled, especially since Marrow was bested fair and square in not one, but TWO fights with him. The second of those being specifically for the position of King. Who the hell tries for a crown but won't swear their own Freehold Oath?..And openly announces themselves as a merc to boot.

Gilraen herself was new to the group herself but those implications weren't beyond her. DW had a lot of ideas on what to do, most of them were less lenient than the opinions proffered at his request. For herself, she felt that if you let one person have excuses, you had to let everyone have excuses. In the end, DW and Marrow had a long talk that resulted in him swearing the oath, begrudgingly; that didn't lend to trusting the dude.

One down, one to go.

Marrow might have been a jerk-wad about the whole oath thing, but Unicorn Girl was the one that really irked her. They had busted Marrow's balls for not swearing, but Unicorn Girl cried 'newbie' (we can't afford to be innocent) so she was given a couple weeks. This rankled her as unfair but it wasn't really her call to make. In the meantime though, maybe the man with hell's own horizon on his eyes might be interested in motivational-type activities.

She rubbed at her palm, brow wrinkling together in the middle. Though she had purposefully avoided them, there were a couple people that had struck her different than the rest - that was actually why she'd steered clear. She'd watch them until maybe she understood, until maybe the cluttered puzzle of her memories dropped a few more pieces into place.

Tags: gilraen, seven hills
Current Location: Seven Hills
Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: In Life; Ian McShane

So it started out for god knows where, I guess I'll know when I get there
Learning to fly, but I ain't got wings. Coming down is the hardest thing.

Though she remained still as a marble statue there, he found her nonetheless. Strong arms grabbed her by the shoulders and hoisted her off her bed of fir branches and fern.

"I got he – arrrgh!" Debris struck his eyes as she was pulled to her feet but the ploy was only half-successful. Letting go of one hand, the broad man sputtered and wiped the pine-needles and underbrush from his face, never relinquishing his full grip.

Whoever he was, she could tell from the sound of his voice that he wasn't the Huntsman and so she didn't struggle to get away just yet. Whether it was cynicism or pride, Gilraen didn't feel very threatened by some jerk in the woods – though his countenance was impressive.

"Well?"” another figure emerged from the shadowy tree line around her small encampment. He was shorter but most definitely the cleaner cut of the two. Who wears a suit into the woods, she wondered sarcastically.

Stepping over some branches so as not to scuff those nice dress shoes, he drew up alongside the linebacker who had her in his grip.

"She threw dirt in my eyes." he took off his ball-cap and shook out his hair. "Fiesty one."

"I see." intoned the gentleman, shooting a sharp glance at the brute before turning his cool gaze to give her a once over. "Harrison Rhys, pleased to make your acquaintance." he extended a pale hand holding it forward until she shook it. His skin was cold as a snow-drift. "And you are?"

"Tired of being man-handled." Her lips curled disdainfully. "I don't suppose you could have your jock here put me down."

"That's COACH Jock to you, pip-squeak." And let go, which felt more like being pushed off, his grasp had been so tight.

"Whatever." she muttered. She studied them closely in the waning firelight. The obvious muscle of the two must have stood about six foot three or four with a mop of blondish hair kept in check by the hat he wore. Despite his lack of manners, something about him resonated with her. "Do you always stalk women in the dark like some creepy Green River tag-team?"

"Only trouble-makin' ones out to attract the attention of the Lodgemaster."

She snorted. "Whoever that is, Coach Jock." And focused her attention aloofly on brushing herself off.

"Clark, actually." Mr. Rhys corrected with an irritable tone more toward his companion than her. "Coach Clark. And the Lodgemaster is the Gentry around here." Mention of the Others caused her to flinch. "You seem to be familiar."

Apparently she wasn't going to have to go looking for others like herself at all. They had found her. It was still a mystery as to what they'd been doing out here in the first place. Neither looked the sort to come see a fire-dance.

Dogs howled in the distance. The trio snapped their heads in unison at the familiar sound of savagery.

"He's coming." Gilraen's eyes were red alarms as though in answer to Rhys' comment. "We need to get out of here." Without waiting for a response, she doused the fire with a bucket of water and snatched her coat off the ground – just a little too late.

Erupting from the woods with a cannon-crack a black, vile beast landed four-paws square in the center of the fire pit splattering them all with ashy mud.

Whoever these guys were though, they weren't wasting anytime engaging. Chilled wind whipped around the pinstriped snowskin and sent a sheet of ice crackling up the legs of the mutt, freezing its legs in place and crawling ever upward.

In confrontation ain't no conversation, any hesitation'll get you killed.

The group seized the opportunity and dove for the park trail that led out of this clearing. Plunging into the darkness Gilraen slammed headlong into what felt like the jaws of raptor. Bear-trap teeth snapped around her arm painfully as the massive hound dragged her back into the open clearing, looking for a route forward.

The feral creature growled at the two men, baring yellow teeth. "Niiiiice puppy..." Coach tamped his hands, backing up slowly.

Struggling beneath the advancing canine, Gilraen tried to reach the knife in her boot with her free hand. Every movement was fueled by the adrenaline of pain as teeth ground excruciatingly further into her bicep.

Without warning the hound launched itself into the air with Gilraen locked between its jaws. Just as she rammed her blade between bone, there was blinding flash of light as it soared over the heads of the men followed by the cry of a wounded animal.

A beam tore through the hound's gullet as it passed over the coach and together blood, entrails, fairest and dead puppy all came crashing down on top of him. That spectacular display hadn't been her doing.

Hoisting the dog over with a disgusted grunt, Gilraen pulled herself up, dripping guts and innards. "You really know how to charm a girl." she winced, inspecting her arm.

"Heh. Yeah. I know." Coach seemed more pleased with his kill than anything and the fire-dancer rolled her eyes.

"Anyway." She gritted her teeth begrudgingly. "I owe you for that. Incidentally, my name's Gilraen."

Cool eyes slid over at her, the only indication that she'd been heard. "Where the hounds are, the Lodgemaster isn't far behind." Rhys reminded them. "Let's get to the Lighthouse."

Kicking the dead mutt one last time for good measure, "Good call." Coach agreed.

This time when the trio set out, the path was clear.

Tags: desert wind, gilraen, harrison rhys
Current Location: Randle, WA
Current Mood: annoyed

"Never again to let my strengths become abused once more."

Gilraen perched on a grey rock that had been cushioned by an overgrowth of thick moss in moist contrast to the sparks spiraling upward on tongues of flame against a moonless swathe of black. It soothed her to imagine that it was a fiery mane of some predatory feline pacing round its territory.

She stoked the bonfire with a branch and it flared upward as though burning the velvet glove of night which tried to tame and possess it. If she smiled at this thought, it was reflected only in the firelight that danced across her red eyes.

Wood crackled and her senses perked. Or was that a snapping branch? Against the flickering shadows cast by the firelight, it was the steady darkness that would betray the Huntsman.

She watched for this in her peripheral vision, not wanting to let on that she'd heard anything. The preternaturally still shadow rose from the static like a magic-eye image from a poster.

How many times had they played this game of fox and hare? She couldn't be more accurate than to think on countless chases. He always came for her, like a prized pet that was released simply for the sadistic amusement of recapturing. The thought made her heart pound furiously.

Not tonight though, she thought to herself. The muscle in her jaw tensed. Never again.

Slipping down from the rock, her leather shoes landed silently on the soft woodland floor. Tossing the stick in the fire, she positioned herself opposite of the invisible hunter she knew was on the other side of the fire. With purposefully casual motions she loosed a flask from her belt, taking a long pull.

Deep down, she knew his eyes were glistening like dark pools with the thrill of the hunt, at the show she was staging. She knew because her own eyes gleamed, fueled by a luminous hatred for he who was the backdrop against the raging flame inside her. Just then the vision struck across her mind like flint and was gone in an instant.

The campfire crackled cheerfully alongside merry voices and boisterous laughter. In the half-light, she could see dancing hooves and elongated ears bent near in conversation. Jade skin flashed against moonlight as a bow was drawn over a fiddle.

She sat alone on a wooden bench, smiling quietly at the revelers around the bonfire. Dew had begun collecting on the grass and she rubbed her arms in the cooling night air.

"You’re cold..."

Glancing aside, the dark young man appointed to keep an eye on her unhinged his cloak with a flourish, wrapping her beneath warm, black wool. Such was their size difference that it would all but obscure her from the world.

With a sudden trumpeting of her hand, she breathed across her palm and into the fire pit as churning flame erupted across the circle. There was a sudden motion in the opposing darkness and with a cloaking flourish she fell to the ground and disappeared in utter stillness.

Like a rock she blended into the bracken and had only to stay awake until the morning when the rest of the troupe came to rouse her. Then she would find others like herself. They must be out there, after all, she had managed to crawl and scrape through the tangle. Hopefully then she could even up the odds a bit in the Huntsman's horrible game.

It was going to be a long, cold night.

"Never again to let another tell me where to stand.
I swore that all when I left Neverland."

Tags: gilraen
Current Location: Randle, WA
Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: From Neverland; Alexander James Adams

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation - if you can dream it, you can do it.

The label around the rim said "Flower Market" and it smelled like Monet's garden which conjured visions of abundant green foliage adorned with a painter's palette of blooms. For this reason she liked it. The night was fresh, like swishing in a cool pond of spring air.

Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world – to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.

They used to say that banality affected the Sidhe worse than any other. Now, after the destruction of all kingoms, the fall of all structure she remembered a world that seemed very much like a dream. If there were other survivors of that dream, she had not yet found them but this didn't worry her because they would come around drawn together again by an infallable spirit.

And how she felt she had died. A spirit utterly crushed in to breathlessness. What happened in the end, she didn't know because she hadn't been there. The seering blaze of the inferno had been so hot that she had had to turn her face away.

Yet a dream is like an idea, and even as others pass on from it and dismiss it, as others leave the story, the dream itself does not die. I Kaimel Coa. The Dream Lives.

Life, in a world of luxury; cold cash money mentality. Life, in a perfect system; take the stand and fight for freedom. You gotta keep the faith and run away - its time to break free.

Looking out over the Seattle skyline glittering in the distance, the mirrored windows of skyscrapers reflecting streetlights, she missed them but did not lament them - the way one recalls fond memories of summertime adventures.

For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

She didn't feel like she was a part of them anymore though because one has to let go of those that will not embark with you. It is hard to fly when they try clip your wings, but wings regrow. Some say life will beat you down, break your heart, steal your crown...but I'm learning to fly...

The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past.

Fight for the value of your person.
Fight for the virtue of your pride.
Fight for the essence.
Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

The only true law is that which leads to freedom. There is no other.

I'm learning to fly, round the clouds; what goes up, might not come down.

Current Location: My Apartment
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Learning to Fly; Tom Petty

Lolly removed the giant crystal diamond from its golden stand and placed back into the small brown box that Billy had given her at Pennons. She'd padded it with some velvet and it just happened to be a perfect storing place for her favourite seeing stone.

Unfortunately, what she was seeing today only made her feel worse. Things had definately gone...way off into left field like a foul ball yesterday.

Right now, she didn't really have much of an opinion on the fact that Poppy Renot somehow had the soul of a Fiona Sidhe in a box, and had given it to Billy. What upset her was that before she had been able to find out what exactly was going on with it - Billy had thrown on the necklace and WHAM, fell unconscious on her floor as the Sidhe held within had awoken inside of him - before she could stop him, before he knew the consequences of that action.

And that's where it all went downhill like a mudslide. Billy - William now - wasn't very happy when he more or less discovered that he was going to go to sleep as the fae soul within claimed its place, that he would be subdued. When she'd tried to speak to him it was like talking to two people at the same time, in one body - she hadn't known how to respond to that - it ended in him running away after she'd fallen asleep watching him. Lolly really couldn't blame him.

She couldn't leave him out there either.

In the course of a few days, he'd found an abandoned house. An 8 year old boy had outgrown his kids clothes into those of a 15 year old teenager (and for that both she and Davika were rather unhappy with Poppy's decision to 'help' Billy along), and he was toughing it out in the basement of some building.

Although she'd been watching him every day, Lolly thought to give him some space before going after him. It was amazingly hard to wait.

He was such a gentle soul and it broke her heart to see him in pain - hurt in a way that she couldn't do anything to fix. She hated that.

Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Transformation: Beauty and the Beast

Still waiting on more from Straehle and Tim, but here are mine and some of Brians.

http://public.fotki.com/ahague/pennons_2005/

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Sons of Somerled

Pennons was the holiday by which Lolly counted her birthdays. It was the event where she'd made her first entrance into the courts of kithain, where she'd sworn Clasped Hands with her brother, made a treaty with the garou, and become engaged herself. It was her favourite of celebrations.

The first night it had been herself and only the residents of her Duchy, and in her mind the best of nights. Only the presence of Tyler would have improved upon it. Together they had all pitched camp and then presented her with well, a surprising amount of gifts. Killian gave her a pendant he'd crafted from petrified wood and bracelets with agate baubles. Davika gave her a handful of sparkly costume jewelry dross which Lolly stowed away like a treasure in the box with the golden figurine that Billy gave her. Gatorboy even sent a beautiful pink rose that had been preserved in glass, from his blooming garden. She loved them all and though none of them had seen it, when she retired each night she unwrapped them all again to admire them.

When evening began to fall, Heroi stoked up a fire and Davika cooked a family dinner. She insisted on clearing the table, setting it properly and then the five of them sat down to eat roast meat with cubed apples but not before Billy had them all say "GRACE", literally.

It was close-knit and pleasant. After the meal they started a bonfire in the pit and Billy brought out the original Brothers Grimm and they began storytime. As each of them read a story, Lolly had gone to them one by one and washed their feet then massaged them with the essential oil of their choice, Heather, Lavender and Eucalyptus. Everyone had looked at her like she was insane until Killian piped up that he wasn't about to refuse a foot massage from a Princess.

When each of them had read, and the book was closed, Lolly brought out a slender bottle of Apricot Honey Mead that she had been waiting to share with each of them and together (even Billy had a little) they all shared the sweet drink and shortly retired to their tents.

This first day, these acts, had been the most significant to her; two Redcaps, a Pooka a Kinain and a Sidhe. It was a rare occassion that she was able to really show how much she liked and appreciated them all.

The rest of the weekend went by with lazy good vibes, she'd thought. The games were crazy and fun like they always were, and they'd even had a couple new games, both of which she'd liked and both she thought could be improved upon for next year being the Insult Contest and the Flourbomb war.

She had taunted Billy ceaselessly about girls being better than boys (since he insisted girls couldn't be pirates) and when the Flourbomb War had been won, he definately got his lick in when he gathered up the remaining flourbombs and smash-tackled her with them. It all errupted into a huge dogpile wrestle with him and Heroi and herself in the middle of the field until they were laughing too hard to breathe, covered in flour.

The Bardic that night was pretty good she'd though. Revel told a story from the lore of her kith, Tyler told of his chrysalis, Killian sung a jig, Finneous played his flute (which Lolly had really thought was something considering he was a battle-hardened Troll) and she'd sung the Foggy Dew.

As with all such gatherings though, there were some downers. It didn't escape the attention of her citizens that their would-be king Dillon blatantly ignored all of them, thus proving even further his distaste for 'commoners'. Killian had been especially irked by having the Marco ap Scathach tell him that Redcaps were essentially, freeloaders who were unwilling to work for anything in their lives and that commoners always complained about the Sidhe even though it was always the Sidhe who saved their butts.

Such attitudes were very dismaying to her people and they didn't instill *any* kind of confidence in Dillon or his so called advisors. They only served to make everyone depressed over the fact that he thought himself deserving of the crown. Tyler himself had even said, "At what point does Dillon think that he has done *anything* to earn the Kingship, that's what I'd like to know."

Such sentiment weighed heavy on Lolly, because she couldn't disagree with any of them. She'd hoped so much that Silver would come around but he hadn't. He hadn't progressed, he'd done nothing for Lilac Fields or its residents except attack their freeholds, demand the fealty of some, try to steal their dross and then present them with nothing but a condescending attitude of superiority. He was not the stuff that Kings were made of, worse, he was only a shallow reflection of what his father had been.

Her residents had come to meet the "new and improved" boy-king, and all they had been given was blatant snubbery. All he had done was ignore the very people he expected to bend knee and become his citizens.

What was she supposed to say to them after that?

Perhaps nothing - for whether with words or without, the to-be king had spoken for himself.

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: None.

( Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming around )

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: Rhythm is a Dancer; Snap!

Lolly had picked a multi-colored dress from Bebe that flowed around her gently. Stylish, tiny little heels with a jeweled dragonfly in between the toes. Her hair was tossed up in a perfectly bespeckled 'mess', topped as always with a little tiara. And when she walked, every head on the sidewalk turned, boys stopped mid-sentence, girls errupted into jealous titterings.

The day was gorgeous and sunny, probably would reach 90 degrees. Inside though, it was not so sunny - no. In fact, it was a storm of rage. She had the boy carry her package for her, down to her car, got in and drove off.

********

Here, her dressed flowed in yards of soft silk that beckoned to be touched, caressed, brought up into your arms. And the beautiful vase of blown glass, it was at least three feet tall sat in the middle of the stark room. Colours swirled together in a playful menagerie, as her footfall circled it, eyes drinking in the many different flavours of the pretty patterns.

In her hand, was a hammer.

Such a brutal weapon, that was. One strike of its weighted steel, was enough to break clean through a mans skull in a sickening crunch, leaving a little hole she imagined. An axe would just take your head clean off, a war-hammer would mash you beyond any conceivable recognition. But a builder's hammer, how ironic.

Her knuckles were white, clenching it. It was so pretty, she'd wanted it for awhile in all its audacious brightness. She resisted, stalking it in circles, and she knew what he would say if he could see her, hell. Maybe he could.

He would tell her that she could do whatever she felt like. Did she want to? Go ahead.

In one savage flurry of motion she crushed it; slamming the hammer into the work of an artist, destroying it. Over and over, fracturing and splinttering all the glass shards. She hated them, each and every one. When there was nothing left, she fell to her knees and continued smashing it up until there was only fiberglass dust.

Until her face was streaked with angry, hateful tears - but was it so wrong to be so mad at all the hurtful, betraying things they'd done? Was it really hate, or was it just the only protection that could be mustered for a wounded heart? She didn't know.

She kept hitting the ground with the hammer until she could neither see, nor had the energy to do so anymore. Maybe she didn't stop. Maybe his hand gently grabbed her wrist before she could strike down again as if to say 'it is enough'.

Because his voice certainly echoed in her ears, sat there amidst her tatters of destruction.

"Chaos exists to be ordered."

Current Mood: Hurt