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

[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.

[willysilver]

"Is he well?" his voice cracked as he asked. He feared the worst, knowing how he himself was feeling.

[akatawitch]

"Physically," she said, her tone sharpening as she restrained her urge to scream at him. "Not so much otherwise."

[willysilver]

A wave of sorrow rolled off of him with the force of the ocean and he closed his eyes against the power of it.

"I cannot find him. I cannot feel him."

[akatawitch]

Sunny grit her teeth and set her jaw against it, flatly refusing to feel bad for Willy no matter what he said or did. But just because she refused to feel sympathy didn't mean he didn't affect her. The wave knocked her off balance, made it even harder to maintain her composure. Angry tears stung the corners of her eyes. "Good."

[willysilver]

"Your rage is well placed, I feel," Willy said. He took a deep breath and sighed softly then looked up at the moon.

"It will not be long before I trouble you no more, little one."

[akatawitch]

"Is that right?" Sunny growled. "And why would that be?"

[willysilver]

"I am fading, Sunny, dear. Soon I will become one of the Bean Sidhe and will haunt the nights," he explained.

[akatawitch]

Part of Sunny actually thought that sounded kind of cool, and in another mood she might have just said so. Another part of her wanted to say that she thought it was for the best, as she wasn't sure Fin would ever be over him enough to not take him back eventually.

She said neither. The first because she was too pissed, the second because she wasn't about to give him any hope. "Huh. You broke your own heart. Talented. Imagine how he must feel."

[willysilver]

"I weep for Fin's pain. That I am the cause makes me...regret."

Regret was not a trait the fae possessed, as a rule. It felt awful.

[akatawitch]

"And Winter's. Probably Phouka's too, though I haven't seen him to know for sure." Sunny would put money on it all the same. Phouka had been loyal for a long time, had spoken to her only of Willy's kindness--sprinkled with caprice, sure, but he'd always called Willy kind to her face--and he was too simple a creature to be anything other than completely sincere.

[willysilver]

"Yes. My brother," he said, another wave of sorrow rolling off of him. He was a powerful being but he had lost control and his emotions ran wild as brambles. What he felt, others felt as well and he was unable to control himself in the slightest.

"...And the Phouka. Both gone. All my family gone with one thoughtless act. A price not high enough for what I have done, I fear."

[akatawitch]

"Thoughtless?" The word came out choked, thick with rage. Her tears had started falling, but she paid them no mind. "Thoughtless?" It was a whisper full of poison now. "You. Raped. Him. I don't care that it wasn't your dick. Hell, it's probably worse because of that."

[willysilver]

"I know what I have done. It is so much worse than that," he said flatly.

The wind began to blow harder and clouds obscured the bright moon.

[akatawitch]

The wind whipped higher and so did Sunny's fury, to the point that she thought she would fly apart. When the words came it was more to keep herself from exploding than because she'd ever meant to tell him this. Any of it. Her hands lowered to her sides and balled into fists, like she was bracing for a fight.

"I'd nearly accepted you, you know. Reluctantly, sure, but I hate my father, I have for years, it's not like I'm not used to having family I wouldn't exactly mind if they died in a fire." You're all like my brothers, she'd told Winter and Fin. "But you made Fin so happy and Winter and Phouka loved you and you went for that new look and it was really hot and that was weird and you made it so easy to forget what you were, that the first thing you ever did was fuck with my name as a moment's idle amusement. And just when I was stupid enough to start coming around to you, you do exactly the fucking awful thing I've been waiting for since I met you!"

She was out of breath and shaking so hard that when she finally drew in air it sounded almost like a sob.

[willysilver]

The rage hit him, every word pelting his skin like silver dust. His skin paled, grey as stone, and fumes began to rise where he was bare. Where his black jacket hung on his shoulders it grew and began to billow as silk rather than leather. The wind whipped his hair up and up, straighter and long. It flowed as silk itself.

Willy's eyes grew black and shiny, pupils gone, or perhaps entire.

"Sssunnyyyy..." he said, but that was the only word that made sense. The other sounds that came from him were pure caoine - ominous keening - that sent shivers through the nearby mortals. Everyone rushed away from the pair. A fair thing, too, as the wind cycloned around them and the clouds thickened and began to boil.

He wanted to fight it. To control himself. But the change was underway and soon he would be little more than a wailing spectre, a chill of the blood as mortals passed him. He would come for they dying to strike fear into those soon to die and those who loved them.

And then thunder boomed and lightning struck Willy himself, his magic bringing the charge straight to him.

[akatawitch]

To Sunny's credit, she didn't run. That perhaps had something to do with the fact that she had no idea what the hell was happening really. She made herself watch this.

But she didn't relish it.

Through tears and hate and animal instinct that told her to get away from lightning, she watched.

[willysilver]

The discharge of power left Willy smoking and crumpled. His guitar burned beside him at the edge of the fountain.

Slowly, he raised his head and his eyes remained black.

"You are a powerful witch," he rasped. "Your fury is righteous and I find no fault with your truth."

Then he sank to the ground and bowed his head in defeat. He had assumed he would be brought low by another Fae come for him to stop his union with Fin. He had never thought that he may need to fear one who delighted him. But such was the case - all he felt tenderness for were set against him and he had been his own undoing.

[akatawitch]

"That looked painful," was all Sunny found to say in turn, voice back at a normal volume. She still hated him, but the fire had died down to embers for the moment and would take some stoking to get back to 'stupid enough to yell at a goddamn Sidhe.'

[willysilver]

He managed a soft, pained laugh.

"It did not feel good," he agreed. "But I think your honesty hurt worse."

[akatawitch]

"Pretty sure you'd have smote me for saying half of that a few weeks ago," she observed, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that. Well. Probably not the 'if you weren't you I'd have tried to get in your pants' part, but the rest of it, sure.

But implied in that also was, and that's why you never heard it before now.