londoncallingrpg

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OTA

The first day of Spring had come and gone. The prince had left to the Seelie lands, but only for battle preparations. He was back with the full moon. Phouka had remained behind to see after Winter and Fin, though for them the days were much the same. In truth, Phouka was a bit bored. He longed for court intrigues and gossip. As a guard he'd never been a part of things, always on the outside, but he'd heard and he'd seen. Now he got his entertainment from the telly. He found it to be so contrived. It lacked fire. Passion.

And so with the prince back he had been given leave for the day. He immediately set out to find intrigues. He wandered the park, found a market, sat outside in the chilly air to sip a coffee and watch. Watch and see. Everywhere he looked he saw people with lovers, with friends. He didn't know their lives so some of the drama was lost. But at the cafe he found hope. On one side of him sat two women chatting incessantly about the one's disasterous love life. The friend concurred with the righteous anger over many, many men. On the other side sat a couple who, at first, were the picture of romance. But then he checked a text and the woman...well, she became a bit mad. Angry, yes, but Phouka thought she was absolutely nutters as she questioned him on who he was talking to, grilling him with such jealous fury the Phouka kept waiting for the man to leave. Watching them he saw what others might not see. The man was positively eating up her jealous outburst. It stroked his ego, clearly.

"Hmm." Just that. One small sound. And he sipped his coffee.

[Find him at the cafe or in the park, market, or on the street, wherever works best!]

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"Willy," Vanessa surmised, watching him with her usual sharp gaze. "Are you in his service?" He certainly sounded like it.

"I am, yes. I am the prince's chosen servant, selected from all my kind to protect his evermore and his brother," the Phouka replied with a note of pride. Weary as he was of this world it was a great honor to be the chosen Phouka.

"I know so little of your world and your customs," Vanessa allowed, after a beat. "Will you tell me more?" She had done research, of course, since first meeting Winter Wisp, but she did not trust human lore on the Fae.

"Of course. Shall I tell you of the Phouka?" he asked. Without her answer he pressed on. "We are made of mud by the Queen herself and she breathes life into us. We all look the same and we are made to be guards for the Queen and her princes and princesses. It is a great honour to be taken out of the palace. As Phouka we have limited magic. Shapeshifting, mainly. I am young but I have learned to be a dog and a horse and a raven. One day I hope to be many more creatures. We are ferocious when a threat is near, but we love a good laugh. Often we will come across mortals and become the horse and let them ride us. Then we gallop toward water and throw them in to the Glaistig and the Selkies," he chuckled.

Much as Vanessa was dying to ask questions and find out more about these different species - the Phouka, the Glaistig, the Selkies, and all the others - she forced herself to keep them general for now. "Are there truly two courts, or is that just in our lore?"

"There are three. There are the Seelie, as I and my kin are. And the Unseelie...evil, wicked, twisted fae who serve the Queen of Air and Darkness. And then..."

His voice dropped to a hushed whisper.

"...There is the Iron court and they are the most frightening of all. We do not speak of them."

Of course, it was the last that most piqued Vanessa's curiosity, but she knew better than to push. She would, however, do some more research, especially since most lore only told of two courts.

"All right," she acknowledged. There were plenty more questions to ask, anyway. "So if the Queen of the Unseelie is of Air and Darkness, is yours the Queen of Earth and Light?"

"She is the queen of Air and Light," he replied. "We go to war every year in the summer and winter to see who will control the air, you see. When the Unseelie win we have brutal winters or mild summers. When we win the summers are glorious and the winter in mild."

"Twice yearly wars," Vanessa stated quietly. "That must be exhausting."

"It is as it always has been," he replied, being quite sensible about the whole thing. "For those battles the Seelie and Unseelie live in relative peace for the rest of the year."

Vanessa nodded, her gaze thoughtful. "So climate change is more to do with battles between the Fae than anything else?"

"Hardly," he chuckled. "That is blood on your hands. The fae only have so much power. No, that destruction is entirely mortal."

The Fae only had so much power. Vanessa thought that some of it was to do with how much power they were given by others, like a lot of power dynamics. "The world as I've always known it, subject to the foolishness of men," she noted with a small smile. "Would you live here, if it weren't for Willy?"

"No, miss," he said more quietly, as if he was confessing something filthy and rotten. "I long for home. I miss my kind. We all look the same, you know. All the Phouka. And I miss the intrigues, and the warmth of the throne room..."

Vanessa was intimately familiar with what longing for something one could not have was like. She smiled sadly at him, leaning on the table to cover his hand with hers and squeeze it. "I'm sorry, Phouka. Hopefully your circumstances will change soon."

"I am grateful for your words, petal, but I do not believe my circumstances will change at all. My service is to the prince and until he releases me I am bound to both him and those who are my charges. Winter and Finlay. And I do not believe that the prince will let me go home. I am needed."

How selfish of Willy, was Vanessa's initial thought, as she straightened up, pulling her hand back from the Phouka's. But she did not know their world, their customs, or their set of morals. How could she possibly judge something like this?

She was not in a position to judge anyone, anyway.

"I am sorry," she repeated her words, eyes as expressive as ever. "Tell me more about your kind - unless it would make it worse."

"Oh, no, petal, it will not make it worse. We all, all the Phouka, look alike. When we die in battle or the Queen chooses to unmake us, She simply makes more. We are created from the dirt in the Wyldwoods. And then I do not know the magic she uses, but she forms us and gives us life and minds to think with. And then the older Phouka train us to be ferocious warriors. We are the Queen's guard. It is a position we are all proud to have. But now...now I have none of my kind and I am here with the prince, whom I adore. And I guard Winter and Finlay. My job has not changed. It has simply moved to the mortal world," the creature explained patiently.

From the formality of 'miss' to the familiarity of 'petal', and Vanessa spent a few seconds exploring how she felt about the shift before she set that aside to focus on his words. What a different life they led than anything the human mind could truly comprehend. "And you are called Phouka, and nothing else?"

He thought on that for a moment.

"As I am the only one here I am the Phouka. But my kind are all called Phouka. We have no need for names as others have them," he said. He was really quite happy to answer her questions. No one took any interest in him like this.

"Is that because you don't feel the same individuality we do?" Vanessa asked, wanting to understand how that might be. The Phouka seemed to be his own person, and she did not know how to reconcile that with the lack of desire for one's own name, especially given the importance of names in the Fae world, from the lore she had looked into.

"I feel quite individual. Now. When I was at home we were, hmm, how should I say? We were as bees. All together, all as one. Whe know ourselves by the inflections of our names. I am Phouka. My bedmate was Phouka. Though the Queen never bothered with inflection. She compelled us and in that way we knew our place," he said, leaning forward eagerly for the next question.

"Compelled you?" Vanessa echoed with a slight frown.

He nodded, his eyes soft and bright, no trace of pain or conflict.

"Yes. That is the way of things. Was. Now that I am here I find myself floundering. I have far too much freedom."

Something about his easy acceptance of the overriding of his free will put her ill at ease, but she pushed past her discomfort. "This freedom you say you have too much of - without it, you might never have had leave to befriend Winter?"

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