OTA - Winter or Yves

[yves]

The fair haired sprite had been staring at him for nearly an hour now as Yves had made his way around the little shops. For all the creature had somehow enchanted itself to be of mortal height, there was no denying it was a pixie. Those pointy ears and sweet and spicy scent could be confused for nothing else.

Yves had ignored it at first, wandering through the early morning market and pretending not to notice the way it followed. Even allowing it to get close a few times before turning and staring directly into its pale blue eyes. Strange looking thing, all pale flesh and bone. Clearly underfed in its youth. Likely brittle boned, and unaware of it's poor immune system. Yves would have felt bad for it- If he was in the habit of feeling for lesser beings.

It had skittered off for a bit after that, but he'd spotted it once more when he'd stopped near the end of the market in a quieter area. They were practically alone, some grannies on a bench nearby so busy chatting that they hadn't even noticed they had company. The only people who might see them were those passing down the parallel street on the other side of the road- Though there view would be slightly obscured by the stalls and carts.

"The Unseelie Butcher," The pixie gasped, blue eyes going wide as they confirmed what he'd suspected all morning.

"Dreadful nickname, slanderous as well," Yves replied, sneering a little and removing the creature's charm with a wave of his hand.

Winter was so good at measuring and controlling his potion doses now that he rarely carried any with him, and the moment Yves waved his hand, the fair haired pixie knew he'd made a mistake. ...Perhaps several, if he was honest. Shrunk down to his normal size, Winter darted around in a panic, desperate not to be seen- Only to be snatched out of the air by Yves.

"Go home, pixie, and do not speak any of my names ever again," Yves warned, waiting until Winter nodded before letting him go and watching him zoom off as fast as his shimmering wings would take him.

(OTA- Tag Yves or Winter, only one or the other please! Catch Winter hiding and trying to make his way home, or Yves skulking off back home to his lab.)

Comments

[yves]

"I assure you, mine's quite good. Please, tell me," Yves prompted.

[wispofathing]

Curnen smiled. All right. "Smoky Mountains. Eastern Tennessee."

[yves]

Yves nodded, aware of where she meant, even though he'd never been.

"Quite a long way to travel. Are you here to visit, or live?"

[wispofathing]

"Visit," she said easily. Regardless of the time scale they were talking about, it would always be a visit. Curnen had to return to Cloud County sooner or later. The night winds would punish her otherwise. That was why Bronwyn Hyatt got all shot up in Iraq. That was why Rockhouse got caught for what he... did to Curnen. Anyone aware of their blood who tried to leave forever met misfortune. "And yeah, it's a long way, but if you spent your whole life in a town of three hundred people, you'd wanna get the hell out for a while, too." There was a wider Tufa community, but Needsville proper was about that big.

[yves]

"I understand that sentiment quite well," Yves assured her, scowling to himself at his memories of life at the castle. Living tucked away from the rest of the realm and surrounded by idiots and war fixated fools.

"And you're enjoying London?" he asked.

[wispofathing]

"Lot more than I enjoyed New York, that's for sure," Curnen answered with a soft huff of a laugh. "They're about the same amount of flash and noise, but... London's rooted." On a human scale, as far as cities went, it was fucking old.

[yves]

"More like connected," Yves said. New York had its own doors and links to places on the other side, but not directly to the Wyldwoods, as far as he was aware. He'd done enough research to confidently say, nowhere on the other side was as dense and filled with magic as the Wyldwoods. Not even the courts and their castles.

[wispofathing]

Curnen shook her head. She meant something different, and she had picked the word she wanted. "No. Rooted. London knows what it is. Most American cities just kinda shout what they are and ask you to take 'em seriously. Like pissy teenagers."

[yves]

Yves didn't fully understand the idea she was presenting, and it showed. Though he'd never been very good with metaphors and the like really, no matter how often he toyed with them.

[wispofathing]

To Curnen it made total sense. Tufa were very attached to their valley in particular, and the mountains were part of them. As a race, they had memories of the Appalachian range back when it stretched high and jagged into the sky just like the Rockies did.

Few man-made things were rooted in the same way, had an identity all their own, but some came close by the time-scale of people.

She only shrugged though. "Don't mind me. Anyway, how long you been in London?"

[yves]

"Forever, it feels like," Yves admitted. "I remember the bombs, the fire, the black death... Before that it gets a bit muddled to be honest."

[wispofathing]

"Huh. I thought all of us in the old world didn't keep to this side," Curnen observed. Of course she'd met other fae in London, but they, like herself, were all exceptions to their people's ways.

[yves]

"I'm the only member of my family to linger here," Yves admitted. "The Unseelie court don't tend to mingle with mortals."

Steal, harm, trick, sure, but never mingle.

[wispofathing]

The divide of Seelie and Unseelie did not mean the same thing to the Tufa. Strictly speaking they were Seelie, or they had been at one time before the queen had banished them. Under Rockhouse, though, they'd split into two tribes that were very like, though not exactly, the Seelie under a series of women from Radella to Mandalay and the Unseelie under Rockhouse. It was not as strict a divide, though. The two sides didn't war. Not anymore. In fact, there were many intermarriages and romances over the years, the most disastrous of which had been Jefferson Powell and Bo-Kate Wisby. Curnen herself was very much a Seelie/Unseelie swirl.

But it was a divide that had yet to really be healed. If that could be done at all.

"Then what made you?"

[yves]

"My interest in the mortal ideas of healing. From the absurd to the genius, They lack magic, yet they craft potions, perform rituals, dabble in their own blends of dark arts and medicinal magics. I'm interested in blending their magic with ours," Yves admitted.

[wispofathing]

"Oh yeah?" That was actually a concept that sounded familiar to Curnen. "My sister thinks about stuff like that. She's an EMT."

[yves]

Yves had a feeling her sister possibly didn't go about it the way he did, though perhaps he was wrong.

"Oh? I'm a doctor myself," he said, remaining pleasant and attempting to be more warm than he generally was.

[wispofathing]

"No shit? You really committed." Curnen was impressed, despite her word choice. She'd heard enough from Bliss to know something of the kind of pain in the ass medical training was. While it was nothing on a fae timescale, it was a lot of work and required being able to pass even when exhausted and stressed, which she didn't think any of the other fae she'd met here could do.