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[prince_of_nymphs]

He wasn't terribly musical, if he was honest. He could sing, and he'd written lyrics for Will in the past, but when it came to instruments, he knew little. His piano was poor, his attempts at drumming when he was younger had been a failure, but he could play a bit on the guitar. It was a skill he was attempting to improve as he sat beneath a tree in the park, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he strummed to himself.

Dark sunglasses hid his eyes, and Keats lay nearby, keeping watch as much as he was keeping Fin company. A few stray chords settled into a familiar song, and Fin hummed a bit before removing the cigarette from his lips and starting to sing.

"The door slammed loud and rose up a cloud of dust on us. Footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound, torn up... And you will go to Mykonos, with a vision of a gentle coast, and a sun to maybe dissipate. Shadows of the mess you made..."

He fumbled a bit, swearing under his breath as he strummed a bit more, jumping ahead in the song.

"I remember how they took you down, as the winter turned the meadow brown. You go, wherever you go today..."

He made it through the rest of the verse before fumbling again and starting over, pausing to stub out his cigarette and give it a proper try this time.

Comments

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Or like it has instincts of it's own," Fin replied. "Sometimes it feels like a separate part of me."

[wispofathing]

That made her smile. Curnen had seen a number of people come home to Cloud County, some of them realizing who and what they were and some of them not so much. "Yeah, that's normal for people starting at a place of, 'Yep, I was pretty sure none of this shit was real a relatively insignificant fraction of my life ago.'"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Oh, well, I knew about it before I realized I was one," Fin admitted. "Will came first, the magic came later."

[wispofathing]

Up went one of Curnen's eyebrows. "Uh huh. But how long ago was that?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"I don't know, two years? Three? I forget, honestly. I'm dreadful with dates, but- I know it doesn't seem so long, but it's long enough. ...And I think part of me always suspected there was something strange about myself. About my family."

[wispofathing]

Curnen shrugged. "I'm only saying, that's a lot of identity forming to edit in a pretty big way. Even with the worldview shift."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"I suppose I can't argue with that," Fin nodded, shrugging one lean shoulder and finally letting go of her hand.

[wispofathing]

"You should go home, if you can," Curnen urged, but gently.

[prince_of_nymphs]

"To Will, you mean?" Fin asked.

[wispofathing]

"To your people," she said, remembering the conversation she'd had with Felix. "You should find them. Though, y'know, Will too I guess, I ain't gonna tell you to stop surviving."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"No, no, I don't- I don't want anything to do with them," Fin replied, shaking his head. "Not the trooping, not the seelie, not the unseelie... No. No thank you. I've seen more than enough."

[wispofathing]

The vehemence surprised her. Curnen blinked, but she recovered. "Your magic's prolly gonna sit weird until you do."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin shrugged, wrapping his arms around himself. "I can live with that."

[wispofathing]

In other circumstances, Curnen might have said that that was really the only way. He wasn't going to learn anything substantial about what his magic really was from people, or even from other courts. It was part of who fae were, as individuals and as a species.

Instead she brushed back his hair and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. He'd been wounded, and very badly. Didn't she know what that was like.

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin looked surprised, but he didn't balk at the show of affection at all. That sort of thing felt so natural to him now that he barely batted a lash.

He simply smiled, then thanked her quietly, trying to keep his magic in check when it curiously reached out for her.

[wispofathing]

Curnen only hummed a little, letting her magic reach out to his. In other words, it was okay.

She was quiet a long moment before she answered the question he hadn't quite asked, but she knew had been there. "He sent me away," she whispered. "He told me that... his misfortune was my fault. I was a wild animal, he said, and shouldn't be around people. Or talk to them. Or sing, even to myself. So he took them away from me and cursed me to fade away. That was fifty years ago."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Your partner?" Fin asked softly, wishing he felt more shocked by that- And hating that in the world of their kind, such cruelty didn't feel that strange. He'd done enough reading, and listened to enough of Will, Winter, and Phouka's stories to know that this sort of thing seemed to just be accepted.

"That's awful," he said after a moment, because it didn't matter how normal it had become, it was still wrong. It was still vile behaviour.

[wispofathing]

Curnen shook her head vigorously. "Not my husband. He killed my husband. But he's... someone who should have protected me."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin nodded a little in understanding, still frowning.

[wispofathing]

"He ain't got that power no more," she whispered, knife sharp. "There was a way out for me. There's a way out for you."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Her words were sharp, and for a moment his magic focused on her, offering a clearer view.

"Maybe," Fin allowed, even though he still wasn't sure he believed that. "In the meantime though... I just have to keep going, I guess."

[wispofathing]

He wasn't going to make it very long if he didn't believe it, though. "Yes. You got the kind of blood in you where if you don't wanna die, there's almost nothing that can kill you. You got all the time you want. And time's got a way of changin' things."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Then I really wish time would stop," Fin replied, slipping his glasses back on to hide his eyes as he started to strum again. His fingers found the right chords, and after a moment of absently toying around, he started to play 'To know Him Is To Love Him', humming at first, then starting to sing.

[wispofathing]

This was not a song Curnen knew, and as such she didn't try for any of the words. But it didn't take her long to pick up on chords, and from there it was easy enough to hum in harmony, her voice winding around his but never trying to overpower. She could. Easily. But that wasn't the point.

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin's magic reached out to her, and just before he neared the end of the song, he found he had to stop. Not because of Curnen, not because of the way his magic was drawn to her, but just because everything suddenly felt like too much.

He looked weakened, and he closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring how damp they felt, and how his head was starting to ache.

"It's easier to just not think about it," he said quietly. "Sometimes I think I could just close my eyes and put it all behind me. Let life go right back to how it was."