OTA

[willysilver]

It was a lovely night by all accounts. The weather was just cool enough for a jacket, the breeze making the leaves flutter and twitch. The moon hung bright in the sky, nearly full, and in the park there were people enjoying the night.

Willy was out busking tonight, though he had no heart for it. No joy, no enchantment. Tonight, as for the past nights, he sat on the edge of a fountain and he played sorrowful songs of lost love. He understood them now. He had never truly understood love, that much he had come to realise since Fin had departed. He knew desire and passion, he knew friendship, he knew possession, but he had never understood partnership or equality or even the necessity of respect. He knew now, though.

It was a hard learned lesson. His music wasn't the only thing lacking enchantment. His own visage was ashy grey, his luxurious hair drooped flat, the curls dull and limp. There was no light in his green eyes, they were flat and dull and dark.

His fingers strummed the strings mournfully.

I've stolen all the stars to make a wish we can fly
Away, away up high to that old place in time
Where our pictures never fade and our hearts don't lie
Won't you stay a while and watch our world go by
I'll keep holding on to you and your Saturday smile

Has our Autumn died
Help me find you again

I think it's love
I think it's love
That gets us through
All our goodbyes
So when we die
Think of love
I'll think of love
And thoughts of you
To lay me down
I think it's love
That keeps us new

If only it could be the very first time
Kiss me like it means something inside
I don't want to leave and I'm afraid to find
Our fate die in a dream and let me know you're not mine
Lie a little longer, my Saturday smile

Has our Autumn died
Help me find you again

I think it's love
I think it's love
That gets us through
All our goodbyes
So when we die
Think of love
I'll think of love
And thoughts of you
To lay me down
I think it's love
That keeps us new

The people who passed nearby were struck by the power of the fae's melancholy. He mourned not only his lost love, but the fact that he couldn't find him. He had visited the hotel many times but now the Phouka and Winter had gone off to make a home of their own and Fin did not come or go from the hotel anymore. And the longer he was gone the harder it became to feel him with any specificity in the city of millions. He knew he needed to find Fin to speak to him, do make what repairs he could, but he could hardly find the energy to even strum the stings tonight.

Comments

[wispofathing]

Curnen had been on her way home--or, well, maybe it wasn't home yet, but roommates and whatnot and she liked them okay--when she heard the playing. It wasn't the song that had caught her attention at first. It was...

Well. The way the Tufa expressed it was hearing the hum or feeling the shiver. A metaphor for their magic and how in touch with it they were. And this music was full of the shiver. An absence of magic that left it cold.

And that was when she stopped to listen. She had her own guitar case in hand, she had just wrapped up somewhere else, and she squeezed the handle a little tighter when she made out what the song was about.

Jesus Christ, she didn't want to go dragging up the memory of her husband right now.

[willysilver]

Willy felt the familiar pull of magic, but it was a power unknown. Naturally he assumed it was one of his kind come to dispatch him. Easier now that He and Fin were apart, but there was no less danger for them, separate or alone.

He looked at the little thing, hardly a threat...though looks could be deceiving with their kind.

"Well met," he said, opting for manners above all.

[wispofathing]

When he turned his attention to her, Curnen felt the full magnitude of the difference between him and the others she'd already met. Winter was pixie, Phouka was phouka, but this one? This one was Sidhe. In really shitty condition like somebody'd just sung his dying dirge, but even that couldn't hide it.

She made a gesture of respect with her left hand. This was not her territory, not her people's territory anymore, and she had to be polite. Bliss would probably tan her hide if she didn't. Her extra finger made it look a little strange, maybe, but it was ingrained enough of a habit that it was a quick and graceful motion nonetheless.

Her choice of words, though, was more casual, one musician to another. "Don't stop on my account."

[willysilver]

Willy managed a weak smile at that, a proclamation that she was no threat, and he began to pick out a high and lonesome bluegrass tune.

"You are American," he said, rather than sing. "I have been to America."

[wispofathing]

The song caught Curnen unexpectedly in the chest and she gave a start of surprise. The words were almost superfluous. Bluegrass was such an inherently American form of music that the notes said for him, 'I know where you are from.'

"Big country," she said. "But I reckon you been down south."

[alcuin]

When Alcuin walked by, he somehow knew what the song was about even before he heard the words. It must have been the depth of emotion with which the unfamiliar musician played, but Alcuin had to actually stop walking, so overwhelmed was he suddenly with the melancholy it provoked. He felt a wave of grief for his own lost love, taken back for a moment to Anafiel's lifeless body on the floor beside him.

The emotion he felt suddenly was so strong that he didn't even know what to do: run away, or give the singer all the money in his wallet?

[willysilver]

Willy saw him and reached out with his magic to touch the dilute fae blood in the pale young man. It was a bit cruel, but he wanted someone else to truly understand the depth of his grief and so with a small push of power he laid that on Alcuin.

[alcuin]

And suddenly, Alcuin felt like weeping.

He didn't know what had come over him, but it was bad enough that he had to drop onto the bench he was standing near and drop his head into his hands.

[willysilver]

Willy could see the effect of what he had done and felt some small measure of guilt at it. When he finished his song he left the fountain's edge and went to Alcuin to sit beside him on the bench.

"Do not weep," he said softly.

[alcuin]

Alcuin looked up at the unfamiliar man - the musician, the one who had been playing the mournful song. "Oh god I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me." He wasn't crying but his eyes were a little damp so he wiped them anyway. "It was kind of you to stop. Your playing is beautiful. I suppose it just reminded me of something, somehow."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin had felt Will before he heard him, the fae's music catching hold of him, and wrapping tightly around him. Common sense told him to keep walking. Everyone kept telling him he needed to end things with Will after what he'd done. ...And yet he couldn't. What others couldn't understand was the way it felt to be apart. How it hurt to fight that bond he'd committed to.

A small crowd had gathered, and Fin wove through it to the front, his arms wrapped around himself as he watched.

He was so angry still, but he found that all he wanted was to be closer to the fae. To wrap his arms around him. To fix him. It was those feelings rather than the music that left his eyes damp.

[willysilver]

Fin's heart called to him and he didn't dare hope to think he might be there in the listeners. But as the song finished he felt the other man so strongly that he did look up. Sorrow clung to him like a mist but when his eyes finally landed on Fin he had a swell of hope he had not felt in so very long. Hope so strong it made him ache inside.

"Evermore," he whispered.

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin drew away from that word, looking almost unnerved by it.

"Will," he said quietly.

[willysilver]

"You have found me when I have lost you so completely. Where have you been? I have tried to find you to no avail..." he said, pleading for an answer.

[prince_of_nymphs]

A few people in the crowd were watching them, and Fin looked uncomfortable as he wrapped his arms around himself again.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere less public?" he suggested, even though part of him wasn't sure he should be alone with Will right now.

[harrowgate]

Felix wouldn't have recognized Willy Silver when he passed by if it hadn't been for the familiarity of his magic. The power of a Fae Prince felt like nothing else in this world or the Other. It didn't matter that Will's appearance was vastly different or that looks were drained and dry. No one else caused that kind of electric shiver of the mind that Felix felt when he made his way near the sorrowful singer.

He paused with others who were listening, not really paying attention but taking the moment to half-close his eyes and weave a small ward around himself, protecting himself from the fae's power. Felix had learned a lesson or two with Yves -- and really, Will was just as dangerous, if in a completely different way.

Only when the song had finished did Felix step closer, frowning at the stranger who sat before him. "... Will?"

[willysilver]

The prince looked at him for a long moment and searched the depths of his memory. He was terrible with names, though he knew faces. It took him a moment to put one with the other.

"Felix," he said, managing a weak smile.

[harrowgate]

Felix had half expected Will wouldn't remember him at all, they'd met so few times and under a completely different face. He felt oddly pleased that the Prince did recall him, even in his clearly troubled state. Felix sat beside him on the edge of the fountain. "You don't look so well," he observed frankly. "Are you ill?"

[willysilver]

"I am fading," he replied. "I did a selfish, stupid, cruel thing and have driven Finlay away. Without him...I will fade completely."

[harrowgate]

Fae were inexplicable creatures of strange passions and stranger rules, and Felix knew very little of them. If Will said it was so, it wasn't his place to argue. "Well," said Felix as slowly and gently as he knew how, "why did you do that, then?"

[akatawitch]

As a rule, Sunny couldn't afford to give much to buskers, but when someone was genuinely good, she liked to show her appreciation in at least some small way. So she found herself reaching in her pocket to scoop out some spare change as she approached.

She didn't recognize him at first. Even when she recognized his presence, it took her eyes time to catch up, taking in the graying skin and limp hair and dull eyes. Willy was wilting, like a cut flower.

Good.

Her face twisted with the full force of her contempt. If looks could kill, he would have been a pile of ash.

But they couldn't. And she couldn't. And even if she could do it to him, she couldn't do that to Fin.

Instead, Sunny picked the smallest coin she had out of her pocket and deliberately flicked it past him and into the fountain before she turned to go.

[willysilver]

Willy continued to strum but the lyrics stopped. He looked at Sunny, then nodded to the coin in the fountain.

"A wish?" he asked.

[akatawitch]

Sunny laughed bitterly. "Around you? Fuck no." Two of those words expressed what the gesture actually was, though they were not exactly in order.

[willysilver]

"I thought not," he said, his fingers pressing the strings to silence them.

He then only had one question.

"Have you seen Finlay of late?" he asked sadly.

[akatawitch]

Huh. No mocking or overblown reactions to being slighted. That probably more than the question was what made Sunny turn back around to look at him, arms crossed over her chest.

"I have," she said, answering the question only without offering more than what he'd asked. But if she'd meant to refuse entirely on the conversing with him front, she could have just left.