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

[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.

[willysilver]

"You only fear me. And now you revile me. You are wiser than any mortal I have ever met," he said. The wind had died and so the wisps of smoke that rose from him hung in the air like ghosts.

[akatawitch]

Sunny had to raise an eyebrow at that. "I'm a twenty-two-year-old woman." And there may have been the slightest hitch on that like she'd almost said girl before correcting herself. "I can't possibly be the only human you've met who thought that making deals with the goddamn Sidhe was a terrible, terrible idea."

[willysilver]

"You would be amazed," he said. "Mortals are often foolish."

[akatawitch]

"Well. That's not depressing at all," Sunny said flatly.

But then, how different was it really from Chichi and Sasha messing around with Udide's Book of Shadows?

She sighed through her nose, wiped away the tear tracks on her cheeks with the back of her hand. "So what happens to the idiot you wrangled into your service if Fin doesn't forgive you in time?"

[willysilver]

"He is bound to me for a year and a day. If I fade then he will still be tied to me. However, instead of being my mortal soul he will become an agent of omen. He will bend to my keening and deliver death upon mortals in my stead," he said. That, too, concerned him because that was not the deal Hex had agreed to.

[akatawitch]

All right, that sounded awesome. Horrifying, especially given Hex's livelihood was working with people in precarious situations with regards to staying alive... but awesome.

Sunny tried to feel sorry for him, and found that she couldn't. She hadn't had many lessons from her father that weren't lessons in 'shut up and deal with it,' but 'read the fine print' was definitely on that short list. People treated dealings with fairies like clicking the 'I agree with these terms and conditions' box for new software without thinking for a second that it was indentured servitude, and that either fallen out of practice or been downright outlawed for a reason.

"What did you need him for anyway?"

[willysilver]

"For his mortal soul. With battle looming against the enemies that would kill Fin and I I needed to be able to have the power to kill them first, completely. It is difficult to kill a fae. Souls...help," he explained.

[akatawitch]

Difficult, but not impossible, she knew.

"So this is love," Sunny mused. "Giving into witchy stereotype and dying alone with cats sounds like a better and better option all the time."

[willysilver]

That brought out a small, tired laugh.

"You should not be alone, Sunny. You have a light inside you and you should have love and share it. I believe this to be true."

[akatawitch]

That, somehow, was even more uncomfortable than watching a fading Sidhe prince get struck by lightning. "I didn't know you cared," Sunny answered with an arched eyebrow.

[willysilver]

That made him look at her curiously and tilt his head in wonder.

"Of course I care about you. You may not be kin but you are as family to us."

[akatawitch]

That, that was definitely more uncomfortable. Sunny had said it in sass, but no, she really hadn't known. She tried to pull a face, but her cheeks flamed red. "You can see why, I'm sure, that isn't exactly a comforting thought."

[willysilver]

"Perhaps. Perhaps especially now. I am hardly fit to be called family by anyone. But let it be known I am quite fond of you, Sunny, and I appreciate your kindness toward those I love," Willy replied.

[akatawitch]

The idea that a fae prince she couldn't stand cared about her more than her own father possibly was uncomfortable beyond words and had Sunny red from her neck to her hair. Though she didn't know if it was embarrassment, anger, or something else entirely. "I love them, too," she said quietly. "Very much. And I think the only reason I'm not enjoying this is because losing you would still hurt them."

[willysilver]

"I am thankful for that small mercy. I know I have no place in your heart, Sunny. That you do not wish for my end is...quite comforting, actually," he replied softly.

[akatawitch]

"I hate you," was all Sunny had to say to that. But she didn't deny it either, because she couldn't. If he died tomorrow, she wouldn't mind. Still that didn't mean she wished for it. It would hurt Fin and Winter and Phouka, and for that, she couldn't wish for it.

She was going to get riled up again, she could feel it coming. And since all of the innocent bystanders had fled by then, she used the rare opportunity and folded her magic around herself, vanishing into thin air.

Or maybe it was just one more middle finger in Willy's direction about that whole fading business.

She wasn't going to stick around to say.