OTA

[pippa_flynn]

And so she had become the Forgotten Queen of the Trooping Fae. Her grandfather's passing had come at a price and now she was some sort of royalty she didn't quite understand and Fin had gone blind again. It was nearly too much to take but Pippa was carrying on. What else could she do? The facts were the facts and no amount of fuss would change it. And she'd tried. She had power coursing through her now, all the time she felt it, and she'd tried to restore Fin's sight. It didn't work. Of course not. Why would it?

And then the dumb twit had gone back to stay with his stupid boyfriend. Pippa was outraged about that and she'd told Fin so. And that didn't work, either. Of course not. And so on that front she bit her tongue. Fin knew how she felt. It had little to do with keeping him close and everything to do with keeping him out of the treacherous prince's arms.

Pippa sighed softly and looked at her mobile that had just chirped. He newest client wanting a progress report. She needed something more concrete and so she sat down at the cafe on one of the dwindling nice days of the London summer, and she texted her client back.

It was striking, just how much she looked like Fin. And, of course, she'd been all over the papers thanks to the paps hounding Fin about his drug use and his blindness. The gentleman at the next table actually had a copy of the daily rag and she smiled at the photo on the cover.

If only life could be as dramatic as the paper made it seem. If only being queen meant something...

Comments

[akatawitch]

Sunny shrugged. "I'm all right. Y'know, avoiding the looming start of the semester around the corner beyond what my conscience won't let me ignore. Every day of August has the jumpy quality of a Sunday night."

Her final year of university. She really didn't want to think about it. She still really didn't know what she planned to do when she finished; she'd never really thought she'd have so much life here to leave.

[pippa_flynn]

"It's been so long since I went to school, but I remember just what you mean," she said. "How much longer do you have before they make you get a job?"

[akatawitch]

"This is my last year," Sunny admitted, folding her arms on the table. "Not a clue what I'm doing when I finish."

[pippa_flynn]

"Probably get a job barely related to what you've studied," she said, simply being realistic. My major was art and I went to work at the home office. Not where I imagined myself, but a fantastic job."

[akatawitch]

Sunny laughed. That she'd known about her degree from the start. Bless Aunt Chinwe for having that talk with her. While her mother had long ago given up on the idea that Sunny would go to medical school or law school someday and follow in her or her husband's footsteps, she didn't know how to have the 'study whatever the hell you want, you'll be fine' discussion. "Oh yeah, that part I know. I just... don't know where. I could go back to Nigeria, I could go to the states, I have citizenship in both places. Staying here would be more work, but not impossible."

And of course there was the nagging notion--Dad's going to be disappointed. But Ezekiel NWazue was always disappointed in his daughter, and nothing she accomplished would ever change that.

"I did consider journalism at one point, but that idea's gone pretty sour the last couple of years."

[pippa_flynn]

"Why's that? Because there's not enough ethical journalism in the world anymore?" she asked with a small, derisive snort.

[akatawitch]

"That's about the size of it," Sunny agreed with a little shrug. "That and I've seen my friends get harassed one too many times." It wasn't just Fin, either, though he certainly got it worst and most frequently. Alcuin. Felix. She knew that reporters did more than harass people, but given that was what sold these days...

[pippa_flynn]

"All the more reason to give it a go," Pippa offered. "But I'm sure whatever you do it'll be something you enjoy. You've still got a year, there's no pressure."

[akatawitch]

"I guess," Sunny answered noncommittally, not really wanting to think about it right now. "Anyway, how are you doing?"

[pippa_flynn]

"I'm doing well," she said, smiling brightly. The light of it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I mean...considering. Big changes all around, I guess. Our grandfather passed and we've been coming to terms with all that."

She waved vaguely and looked to the ceiling.

"I thought I'd be prepared for this. I really did. But it's all...a lot."

[akatawitch]

Yeah. Sunny had smiled like that more than a few times in her life. "Fin told me about that," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

Implied also that she knew about what had happened with Fin's eyes.

[pippa_flynn]

Pippa nodded and her smile became a bit less bright, though more genuine.

"Did he tell you everything?" she asked. "Because our whole lives have been turned upside down and it's a bit hard to find our feet."

[akatawitch]

"That depends," Sunny began, mentally sorting to see what she did know. "If everything includes the new titles, the what and why of his eyes, and the fact that he's going back to that shitheel he calls a boyfriend, then yes."

[pippa_flynn]

Pippa sighed heavily.

"Willy," she said derisively. If it wasn't absolutely low class to spit on the floor she would have. "If I could do anything about that I would. Maybe I can, eventually. When I get a better handle on what I can do. But, then again, I don't want Fin to resent me. I just want him to be free to choose and not have the threat of actual death hanging over him."

[akatawitch]

Sunny only had a second to be glad that at least she wasn't alone in thinking Fin taking Willy back was a terrible, terrible idea. Instead, her face went blank. This, apparently, was not part of the everything she was aware of. "What?"

[pippa_flynn]

"They're bound. Apart, they both wilt. It'll kill Willy, and if he dies, so does Fin because of their bond. So I don't see how that can be love when it's a matter of survival. I know if it was me I'd resent the hell out of that fae. I don't understand what Fin loves about him. At all," she replied.

[akatawitch]

"Oh God in hell," Sunny whispered, horrified. All of a sudden, things clicked into place. Fin had held back from telling her because he didn't want to scare her. One of these days, she'd give him a good piece of her mind about that, though she knew it had come from a place of kindness.

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "I just got so upset so fast that it shot right back around to numb. That goddamn fucking cunt nigger fairy." It was, actually, completely disconnected from Willy's current borrowed skin color. That was just the best Sunny could do to express her utter loathing in words utterable by human tongue.

[pippa_flynn]

Pippa couldn't disagree, though she wouldn't use those words herself. or maybe she would have if they'd come to mind. Her thoughts gravitated toward 'monster' and 'despicable' and the like.

"Yes. And so, you see, I'm upset. But it does no good to nag Fin because despite it all I can see he does love that twat. Since he's been seeing him again he's a bit more robust, if not happier exactly."

She sighed.

"There's just so much happening all at once."

[akatawitch]

"I tried, too," Sunny mumbled. At the time, Fin had told her that she might think differently when she fell in love and had to face leaving someone or making up. "He didn't tell me he didn't have much of a choice."

She had not been in love, true, but that didn't mean there were not people she loved like blood of her blood. If any of her Oha coven were to do such monstrous things to her, or she to them, she would rather the both of them died tomorrow.

But there were years of history behind that, too.

"If there's anything I can do," she said, "I want to help." Though she had no idea how to undo that kind of bond, nor even if she could ever look Fin in the eye if he actually freely chose Willy.

[pippa_flynn]

"If I think of anything I'll let you know. But I'm new to all of this and there's rules and bonds and pacts and deals and so many things I don't understand. And no one's going to come along and give me a primer, I'm sure," she replied. "It's nice to know I have someone on my side in all this."

[akatawitch]

Learning the ins and outs of fairy politics was not something that Sunny envied her. "Fin's my friend," Sunny answered quietly. "He deserves better than this. There's few people who don't deserve better than this."

[pippa_flynn]

"Fin needs friends. And maybe a gentle reminder every single day that he's worth more than some shit fae prince hiding from his mother," she said. Then she sighed again. Dwelling on this wasn't going to change anything other than her complexion.

[akatawitch]

Sunny had never really thought of Willy that way. It would never do for her to forget he was dangerous... but it also wouldn't do to overestimate him, either.

All the same, she didn't want to humanize him, either. Finding out from Phouka that he was the baby sibling, like she was, had started her on that mistake.

"Anything I can do to help your sanity in the meantime?"

[pippa_flynn]

"I don't know," Pippa said with a rolling shrug of her shoulder. "Honestly I'm just trying to find out all I can about Trooping fae and what it even means to be the queen of a bunch of nomads and refugees. It seems, to me, to be a powerless position. But I'm probably wrong because why else would grandfather broker such a deal?"

[akatawitch]

"I don't know if there's such a thing as a powerless position with fairies," Sunny mused. She had no idea in this case, of course, but that just wasn't her experience of magic. "Could be it's like chess. The king seems like the most powerless piece, but the game's over when he has no more ways out."