k e e n

[valeriandairine]

time:: june 29th, midmorning location:: darlington estate tagging:: @hyacinth-s​

Dublin was home but only in the abstract way that you usually wanted to have an answer when someone asked where you were from. And even then, often enough Dáiríne would give some other answer depending on where she was, who she was with, what she wanted. But the answer she held in her mind, her self-formed identity, was Dublin. Still, it was always a little odd to be back. Until this pass, Dáiríne had never really stopped by for longer than a month at a time.

Here and there, for certain celebrations, the birth of another of her sister’s children. Now, though, with the lure of a mystery, of something unknowable hunting fae… It was too good to pass up. It was promising far more diversion than any of her other courts and harems. 

Not that Dáiríne was looking to join in with any of the others, scurrying around the long-since forgotten estate. They all had such purpose in their steps, such noble certainty – but none of the grunts interested Dáiríne. She was in the market for one particular fae.

It wasn’t long before Dáiríne spotted the bright hair of her longtime friend. Almost immediately a flush of joy spilled through her – Ailis was special. Ailis was different. And Dáiríne had met kings and queens, sultanas and ministers, celebrities and socialites. Smiling broadly, Dáiríne lifted her chin and made her way across to where Ailis stood, speaking to some fae with easy confidence. Once the other darted off, Dáiríne offered a rare form of smile to her friend – one that was soft and careful and spoke of an earlier form of herself. 

“I would have thought our paths would cross sooner than this, but alas. I’m made to seek you out.” There’s a clear undercurrent of tease in all that Dáiríne says as she takes in the sight of Ailis. “You’re in demand, it seems?” And then, after a look pause and with her head dipped close, conspiratorial and fierce and affectionate, “I’ve missed you, my friend.”

[hyacinth-s]

She had spent most of the morning helping to organize—the people moving in to their various rooms, her team of hunters and scouts all off to their various assignments, the general chaos left by a large group of varied people, from both courts and from neither, all trying to coordinate some kind of collective action. It had left her a strange mix of weary from the constant work and movement, and overly energized, adrenaline moving through her and leaving her utterly restless. 

She’d been pacing around the dining room ever since, the make-shift sort of war room she had claimed for herself when Brín first opened the house up, her and Zion and Keiran and Iona and the other first few members of her hunting party, those she had been working side by side with already. A place to organize, a place from which she could figure out who was available, who could go where, who had what for her. That’s where she was, when Dáiríne found her, standing over the table but staring out at the yard through the open window, trying to gather her thoughts.

     ‘Dáiríne,’ she replied, a bare smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ‘Have you come to make yourself useful, or just to mock me for ending up back at court like I always swore I wouldn’t?’

She stepped away from the window finally, moving to meet Dáiríne halfway, letting herself smile a little more fully. She and Dáiríne had come across one another more often outside of court than they had known each other in it, and though they didn’t always see eye to eye it was always good to see an old friend well and in good health at a time like this. 

     ‘It’s good to see you.’

[hyacinth-s]

hiddenfiadh‌:

She’s found a quiet place. On the outskirts, peaceful in its own way. Still, she misses her own home like a constant ache. Her land, her trees, the birds who would sing her from her slumber. She can feel that her delicate peace will be broken, the approach of another something she is well attuned to here, never quite at ease enough to fully lose herself. 

Fiadh doesn’t look up until Ailis speaks, though she feels her near before it. She’s telegraphing the movements, offering fare warning so that Fiadh will know she comes. The question itself is a funny thing, as if Fiadh can avoid the truth or the need to be around others in this time. She’s been waiting for this, after all, knew the time would come where she would have to give a more through explanation. When she does look up, she offers a delicate smile. Something gentle, unassuming. “Not at all.” She says, slow, setting her work aside to offer Ailis her attention. 

It sounds almost dry when it comes out, a small joke for herself, and an indication that she’s welcome. “In fact, I think I’ve been expecting you for quite some time. Sit, if you like. I’ll do my very best to give you what you seek.” In her mind, she tries to put herself to rights. To organise her sometimes jumbled thoughts into something straight and narrow, an arrow that will land true on memory and answer and explanation. 

It feels strange to ask; it feels like she shouldn’t need to. Fiadh knows why she’s here, and there’s only one thing for any of them to be talking about, right now, especially her. And yet, a part of her feels the need to—what, make small talk? Exchange pleasantries? Pretend that her visit isn’t purely utilitarian. It won’t be an easy question, to answer, she is sure, won’t be easy for Fiadh to relive whatever scared her badly enough that it chased her all the way to court after a long, long life alone.

Ailis herself knew she wouldn’t want to share the reason she had come back. 

But there was work to be done, and forewarned was forearmed. If Fiadh had anything that could be useful, she needed it herself, so they could plan accordingly, follow whatever leads there were and shore up whatever protections they needed. So she sits down, next to her, and looks over at her.

     ‘I’m sorry to make you do this,’ she starts. ‘But I need to know what happened.’

[hyacinth-s]

    time. june 27, late evening     place. an alley not far from Temple Bar          ( @ziondepaor​ )

She had come herself, as soon as word had made it’s way to court that another body had been found, same as all the others. Another changeling—not someone she knew herself, but surely someone who was known, someone who was loved, someone not different at all to the friends she had already lost. A part of her knew it was a bad idea, to come herself, to see it for herself, but another part of her knew that she needed all the information she could get, and this was a better opportunity than any other to understand what had happened, to find any hint of who had been there left behind.

She’d asked Zion to meet her there, but she got there first, and stood a few meters away. The body gone but everything else left untouched. She needed to be quick, to get everything she needed before the Detective she’d been hearing about turned up and took it all away; she and Zion both needed to be gone before he came and found them there and assumed the worst, that they had some connection to it. 

But she found herself paralyzed, for a moment, looking at it all. Taking it in. Ash’s crime scene had hurt, to look at, but it had been cleaner than this, looked over and cleaned up by other eyes before her own. She had been spared the worst sights of Ash’s final moments. This, though... it was fresh, in a way that gave her pause, that made her freeze, made her feel like she might shake apart if she kept looking for too long. 

[hyacinth-s]

     time. june 30, early morning      place. a quiet, secluded clearing, near the center of the seelie court            ( @hiddenfiadh​ )

She has spent more of her time delegating and less of it acting than she ordinarily liked, more time consulting with Brín by his throne than going out herself to deal with each individual problem as it arises—because there are just too many problems, too many leads for just her to follow up on herself. She tries to remind herself that that’s why she’s been building her coalition, pulling supporters from both courts, from the unaligned changelings, from the seers Zion knows and trusts. But she is restless, for something to do, especially after the stomach-churning crime scene where another yet changeling was killed.

So she decides to take the day to take one of the tasks upon herself, leave Brín about his business, Zion off on his own mission, and she finally, after days of waiting for someone she trusts to be free to take care of it, goes herself to talk to the solitary Fiadh. Sequestered away in one of the quietest places where she can still be protected by the watchful gaze of the court.

It’s strange, to see her there, braiding flowers on her own: she looks as if she ought to be sitting by a stream somewhere far, far away from here, from the faraway look in her eye that Ailis has only seen solitary fae get. But she’s grateful for Fiadh’s presence, and for the information she’ll hopefully be able to provide: Ailis, more than many, knows how hard a decision it can be to come to a court where you feel you have no home.

     ‘Am I interruping?’ she asks, quietly, from the tree line, as she approaches, knowing Fiadh will hear her, knowing she has heard her silent approach, but wanting to give the other woman a chance to say no if she’d rather be alone. 

[hyacinth-s]

maehvc‌:

Maeve felt something unfamiliar flutter in her chest at Ailis’ words. Her eyes blinked, her body stilling, yet her heart was hammered loudly in her chest, filled with a multitude of different emotions. Was her tone…disapproving? Disappointed? Angry?

Maeve suddenly felt flushed, indignation warring with her need to please, to endear herself. She did not want to think that nothing connected she and Ailis but blood, she could not stand it. She refused to admit to herself that the person who stood before her was a stranger, someone who rejected her out of hand, eyes distant and manner cold. So desperate was Maeve for a connection to her, that each time Ailis drew away it felt like she was drowning, choking, lungs screaming for air. 

“You make me laugh, sister! Today is a time of celebration, to feast and to glorify the changing of the seasons.” Bright eyes, delicate hands, a flutter of her diaphanous skirts as she danced closer to Ailis, manner sweet and beseeching. “Let us join them, our brethren, in their revelry.” She reaches out for her hands, to grasp them in hers. 

“Please.” 

She lets Maeve take her hands, but she doesn’t move her feet from where they are, heels dug into the ground. There’s too much to be done, today, to waste with dancing. It has been so long since she wanted to dance. There is grief, like an iron chain, wrapped around her heart. She doesn’t know how Maeve doesn’t feel it, how naive her sister must be to be able to celebrate anything, when so many of their kind have been killed and there is no end in sight to the death.

But even Maeve’s information is information. Ailis is not in a position to speak to the Unseelie Queen herself, not after her brief and almost ruinous beseech to unite the courts in the effort to find and stop the killer. She can’t and won’t press her luck, when everything is riding on the Queen forgetting that she was coerced into agreeing to help.

     ‘Sit with me, instead, Maeve,’ she answers, trying her best to sound lighter than she feels. A compromise, that she hopes will suit them boht. ‘You can dance later.’

[hyacinth-s]

ziondepaor‌:

A noise of agreement escaped his lips. Maybe that was part of the reason it had been so easy for him to slip into this familiarity with her in the first place. She didn’t see the world like most of the other fae he had encountered in the courts before her. She saw more benefit in the concrete, in action, than in tricks and games. He appreciated it for what it was worth––he wouldn’t have given up so much in the human world, wouldn’t be here doing everything he could to look out for all of them if he didn’t––but that didn’t mean it was his natural state. An outsider’s perspective, he and Ailis had that in common, even if very different ways.

That was the hard part of all of this, to build the army she envisioned up to something strong enough to take on whatever untold enemy they were facing, they had to take part in those games. If they didn’t, they’d be no more likely to manage it than anyone else. As if reading his mind, she went on, and he looked back at her, giving a small nod.

He wasn’t really sure why, but something about the moment made him reach into his bag, and pull out the cloth bundle, unwrapping it slightly, only then looking down at it, as if he was surprised to find his banana bread in his hands. But it was instinct. She’d offered him something he was all but certain she rarely offered even herself, the nearly idealistic words of encouragement. The sort of thing he might’ve scoffed at if they were coming from any other lips, the sort of thing he would  shrug off any other time. But they meant something from her, made him feel a little more certain, when he hadn’t even let himself realize there were worries in the back of his mind.

“I, uh…” Zion started haltingly, trying not to let himself dwell on the gesture of it all, not to let himself get embarrassed by the instinct. “Well, I made some bread, if you’d like some…”

She was surprised, when he pulled his own food out of bag, even more surprised when he admitted to having made it; Zion didn’t exactly strike her as the home baker type. But it made sense, that he would be cautious with what he ate, made sense that he would have come with something he could offer if he needed to. And as he unwrapped it, she could smell it, sweet and earthy, and she found herself smiling.

      ‘I didn’t know you baked,’ she answered. This many weeks of working so closely with Zion, spending at least some small part of nearly every day with him—it was strange, that he could still surprise her, that she didn’t somehow know everything there was to know about his little life. But then again, that was a part of why she had left the court, a part of why she had spent so much time among humans and changelings instead of her own kind. They contained such magnitudes in their brief existences. 

     ‘Thank you,’ she added, and then settled into silence by his side.

[thronescastdaily]

“As a little child I wanted to be a film actress. My big regret is that I can’t do Harry Potter as the series has finished, but I am a British actress being seen on both sides of the pond so I hope that will help. I really don’t want to be typecast, it’s important to me to be seen as diverse in my work as possible.”

[hyacinth-s]

ziondepaor‌:

He made a little noise in his throat, agreement without any sort of ego. It was just a fact, after all. This was what he did, it had been what he did for years before any of this even started. Others who heard of his self-appointed position as protector either laughed at the idea of him being able to protect immortal beings, or seemed to think that he was looking for some kind of prize for doing so. The latter bothered him much more than the former. None of it had ever been about being patted on the back for a job well done. No, it was about doing exactly what he said he was, protecting other people he cared about.

Sometimes he wondered what might’ve happened if his path had crossed with hers before the killings happened, if things had been different and she had been at court when he was first figuring out his place. The thought makes him glad it had happened now, with certainty squaring his shoulders, age and experience tempering him. The stillness she brought him probably would’ve scared him away back then. But now, it was welcomed.

“Most seem to be content to play pretend. Every now and then, you see a few heads huddled together, whisperin’, but they could be talkin’ about runnin’ off to have a shag in the woods as much as they could about something more helpful,” he shrugs, with a breathe of a laugh. 

“Too much plotting going on. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but the talkin’ part isn’t my strong suit.”

     ‘Mine either,’ she replied. It should have been, would have been once upon a time. That’s what the courts were about, talking and plotting, charm and dishonesty. She had been raised to be the kind of fae who let foolish humans let down their guard because of her pretty face so that she could trick them into giving her what she wanted; the kind who sat in court and courted attention and favor; who used events like this to try to be the most impressive, the center of attention, and who expertly pushed aside anyone who got in her way with a simple word or two to the right person. 

Maeve, it seemed, was well on her way to becoming that, in her place. But she was more comfortable here—on the outside, standing with Zion as he frowned at the entire affair, able to come and go as she pleased. She would have stayed much farther away, if fate had given her a choice. 

But there was a certain amount of plotting that needed to be done when you had to gather an army to help fight your war. The kind of plotting that should have been reserved for Kings and Queens. The kind, she knew, and Declan had reminded her when she returned, that Brín didn’t always have the stomach for. If making nice with the Unseelie Queen, flattering words and pretend allegiance, could help her get revenge on whoever had killed Ash, she would do all the plotting she had to.

     ‘It’ll be worth it,’ she added, after a moment, but before she could think better of it. She didn’t often need little encouragements like that to push through, certainly didn’t ordinarily give them voice. But maybe he needed to hear it too. 

[maehvc]

TIME: 21st of June, midsummer’s eve PLACE: at the edges of the stone circle @hyacinth-s​

Their honeyed wine was foreign, tangy; a darker, richer flavour on her tongue. The Unseelie Queen had offered it to her, and who was she to refuse such a gift. Drops of red clung to her lips, dripped down her chin, flung through the air as she threw back her head and laughed, freely. 

The bonfire roared, its heat sweltering, casting fantastic shadows of impossible creatures on the hard-packed earth. She moved among them, music like a spark tingling across her nerves, her body swaying, whirling, twisting - arms cast open, hair wild and eyes gleaming. 

Her gaze registered her before her mind could, a solitary figure at the periphery. In her eagerness, she nearly crushed a human underfoot in her haste to get to her side, her immortal strength at odds with her youth. 

“Ailis, sister.” Maeve spoke breathlessly, laughing, looping an arm through hers and tugging. 

“Come, dance with me!” 

[hyacinth-s]

Several weeks at court had not made Ailis as accustomed to her younger sister’s overeager presence as Maeve might have wanted. Looking at her still felt like looking at a stranger—or, stranger still, like looking in a funhouse mirror, the younger fae a twisted version of who Ailis might have become if their parents had had their way. Giggling and giddy, breath sweet with wine. She had been catching Ailis’ eye all day, flitting here and there. A perfect little complement to Brín, in some way, the very appearance of carefree and thoughtless that Brín used to disarm others into underestimating him, though she feared that perhaps with Maeve it wasn’t as much a facade as it was the depths beneath it.

     ‘Maeve,’ she answered, her heels rooting themselves into the ground to stop her sister from tugging her off her feet and into the awaiting crowd of dancers and revelers. It was a day of celebration, of course, for so many, but she didn’t come here to dance, or to drink, or to forget, like so many of the others. None of them could afford to be careless, right now—too much hung in the balance. Not only their lives, but this tenuous alliance she had begun the process of brokering between the courts. 

Maeve, wild and careless and drunk on unseelie wine, had been speaking with the Unseelie Queen herself, not long ago, one of the many times she had caught Ailis’ wary eyes.

     ‘Haven’t you done enough dancing?’

[hyacinth-s]

ziondepaor‌:

He had noticed, more and more lately, that whenever he found himself around Ailis, which was slowing becoming more often than not over the past few weeks, something in him relaxed. It was impossible for him to ever completely let his guard down, he’d been raised to be suspicious, after all, to think that around every corner lurked a powerful enemy that would take your power from you the moment you let yourself relax. That paranoia suspicion had proven true for his father, and with every new death, it proved true for him, too, enough so that Zion was even more acutely aware of when he wasn’t on edge than when he was.

And Ailis dulled that edge a little bit. Not in a bad way, though, but one that made him feel… human in a way he couldn’t really remember letting himself feel since before he’d left behind his family. Maybe it should have scared him more than it did, but somehow it was nearly comforting, to be reminded he wasn’t just an idea. 

Glancing over at her, only briefly looking away from the party, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was something she might feel, too. Either way, though, it was welcome, some of the tension easing, even as his eyes swept back over the tree-line for any hidden terrors.

“I know,” he agreed, voice lowering to match hers. “There’ll be those who’re getting pissed, dancin’, and singin’ right up until the bitter end. It’s easier for some to ignore reality. Too painful otherwise.”

She didn’t know, really, how Zion had come to this, had become a self-appointed protector for a species he was not and could never be a part of. How he had come to take that duty so seriously. Surely, once, he was a child too, free and full of joy and dreaming of a future that didn’t involve becoming a soldier in someone else’s war. She was just a chapter break, thirty-some years into his story, and though it might seem like such an insignificant span of time to most of her kind, she had lived with and loved enough humans to know how long it was to them. How much he had lived, in his short, short life, how much had brought him to the path that had led him here today. 

Still, he seemed to still somehow, like whatever raced inside his chest that made him feel that this was what he needed to do had slowed enough to let him breathe. Still alert, still at the ready, still with his armor up, but falling into rhythm with the rest of the world around the two  of them. 

     ‘Well,’ she said, folding her arms over the chest and joining him in looking out over the tree line. ‘At least they’ve got someone keeping an eye out for them. Have you seen anything of note, since this morning?’

[hyacinth-s]

ziondepaor‌:

Parties weren’t necessarily Zion’s thing, even before death had landed on their metaphorical doorstep, but they were even less so now, if that was possible. 

It was impossible not to be on edge, with this many of the fairfolk all gathered together, and in Unseelie territory, too. He had no real allegiance to either court, of course, a seer was a seer, and that was that. His self-proclaimed mission to protect the fairer race extended to all of them, even the ones who would’ve been glad to see someone like him never set foot in the otherworld again. But that didn’t mean he felt particularly comfortable in unfamiliar waters, especially when what he wanted was to make certain nothing went awry today.

Over the past few weeks, they’d come by little concrete progress on their hunt for whatever was responsible for the killings, but they were doing well in other regards. And maybe that was part of why it felt more imperative than ever to keep his guard up at a celebration like this, lest all the work they’d done be undone in one afternoon with Seelie and Unseelie in such close quarters.

So he’d taken up residence on the outskirts of the festivities watching over, arms folded across his chest, frown creasing his forehead, but a familiar voice manages to smooth the lines, the hint of a smile crossing his lips.

“Loads and loads of fun,” he shrugged, turning to Ailis. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased up, with her presence. Not a surprise, that was just how it was lately. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye out while everyone’s makin’ merry.”

She could see the little wrinkle across his forehead, the one that was always there when he was thinking, when he was troubled. So, more often than not. Painted across his skin, a little deeper ever time as his face took shape around it, a slow and steady sign of his body aging, the lasting impressions he left on it. For a moment, a part of her long buried emerged and she wanted to reach out and smooth it over, laugh the way she’d once laughed with Brín as a child and tell him to stop fretting and come celebrate. 

But that was no more her, these days, than it was him. A lightness lost to childhood, lost with the passing of a loved one, the loss of too much to let the goal slip from her sight. She had chosen Zion to be her right hand man because of how seriously he took his self-imposed duty to protect her kind; it that meant he spent the entire day standing at the edges wrinkling his forehead, she wouldn’t be the one to stop him.

She came to stillness just beside him, settling by his side and looking at over the crowd to see what he’d been seeing. Dancing, drinking, making merry. She didn’t have the stomach for it, either, as much as everyone seemed eager to pretend that this was somehow normal, that anything at all was okay. She hadn’t come to dance, or to drink: she’d come to touch base with those who were on her side, and to see if she could seek out anyone else who might want to help. 

     ‘I don’t know how everyone acts as if they feel so safe,’ she admitted, after a moment, voice low enough for just him to hear. 

[hyacinth-s]

     time: mid afternoon, june 21      place: near the stone circle           ( @ziondepaor​ )

In the weeks leading up to the midsummer celebration, Ailis had gotten more and more used to venturing into Unseelie territory. The alliances she was forming, the coalition she’d been building, Keiran and the others, all the support she had been building and then her own petition to the Unseelie Queen herself... it was starting to feel like there was no difference, for her, anymore, between seelie territory and unseelie territory. She’d always been a fluid thing, slipping easily between fae worlds and human ones, but this was altogether new. 

The familiarity helped, too, of all the faces around her: everywhere she looked, another of the people who had stepped forward, however willingly, to join her cause, to join the hunt and help her find whoever was behind this. And while they hadn’t made much progress, yet, hadn’t yet broken open the mystery of so many deaths, those she hunted beside, those she scouted alongside, had become as familiar to her as friends, despite their own allegiances.

None, of course, moreso than the first she had asked: Zion, who Declan had told her to track down when she first mentioned that she was looking for others to help her hunt. Zion, who had spent endless nights working towards an answer at her side. Zion, who historically was not the brightest cheery face at a party, and yet—who she was relieved to see, at the celebration, nonetheless.

     ‘Having fun?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow in his direction when she finally came across him late into the afternoon, the party wild and raucous around them. 

[blondiepoison]

Sophie Turner by Daniel Jackson | Vogue China (July 2019)

[hyacinth-s]

dahliamordred‌:

He waited for her reaction, trying to hide some of the fear over the admittance, even to someone he trusted and loved so wholly. There was no doubt in his mind that half of the fae he had come to care about deeply would have found his love for an Unseelie a betrayal of sorts, but he hoped that Ailis would not be one of them. She herself was not one who cared so much about the court life, after all, but there was always the danger, and perhaps part of it was paranoia, thanks to the worry he had of losing the love he had found. 

But she took his hand, thumb worrying over his skin, gentle, accepting, and relief flooded him so greatly for a moment he was worried that he may shed tears again. Mordred looked back up at her, a soft smile on his lips, a thank you.

“I’ll talk to him, ask him to meet with you, choose a spot that he won’t say no to,” he nodded, some of the weight taken off his shoulders, if only for a moment. The idea of Ailis and Keiran working together to bring justice, bring peace made his heart full.

“Keiran. That’s his name. He’s a hunter, the best of them. And…I care about him deeply. If anyone can help you put an end to this, I know it’s him.”

A breeze ran through the graveyard, as they stood there, speaking quietly, as if the mention of his name had stirred something up in the world around them, as if nature was just as unsettled by what was happening as either of them was. There was another fae, in court, one she’d known when she was young, who used to say that someday the fae would be unable to split themselves apart any longer. That their numbers would dwindle and they’d need to acknowledge that there was no difference between the Seelie and Unseelie.

Working together, like she was planning to do... was this the beginning of that? 

     “Thank you, Mordred,” she said, her voice soft and quiet. There was a reverence in his voice, as he said the name: Keiran. She tried to honor it with her own. To offer up the person he loved so much, knowing that they’d be fighting a war they might very well lose. She couldn’t imagine it, especially not with the feeling of loss and grief so fresh in her chest. But she would meet with this Keiran, and if he was as good as Mordred seemed to believe, maybe it wouldn’t be as dangerous or reckless as she thought.

Not that it mattered either way. She was going to do what needed to be done regardless. 

[hyacinth-s]

maehvc‌:

Maeve’s expression twisted, for a heartbeat, hearing the familiarity in Ailis’ tone, her use of Brín’s name so easy, unceremonious. She knew, from her mother, that Ailis and Brín were once playfellows in their youth, that Ailis was once favoured by the Queen herself. Brín had never spoken of her, not directly, but she knew within her heart that no matter how many years Ailis spent away from Court, their bond was not something that wore with time and distance. 

The brave Prince she swore to devote her life to. The long-lost sister whose love she desperately hoped to win. Maeve carried this feeling often in her chest that she identified it easily. Envy. Of whom, she wasn’t entirely certain. 

“He is-” Maeve’s hands fluttered, her voice caught in her throat, just for a moment, before her expression smoothed out, a perfect picture of good-naturedness. “He is kind to me, and devoted to his people.” She purposely misunderstood her question, not wanting to reveal the truth that weighed heavily on her, crushed her lungs until she could barely breathe with the pain of it. 

That Brín, for all his fondness for her, never once confided in her, trusted her enough to bear the burden of his worries. 

“I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to learn of your return, just as I am.” Maeve prayed her words didn’t sound as hollow to her sister’s ears as it did to hers. “We have all missed you dearly.” 

It was hard to tell -- impossible to say, really -- if Maeve sounded hollow because there was sincerity lacking in her words, or if Maeve sounded hollow because that was how Maeve sounded. Ailis didn’t know her well enough to tell. Several hundred years, and she could count on both hands the number of times she’d actually met her younger sister, the number of hours they’d spent in conversation. The tone certainly matched her porcelain-doll demeanor, the perfection of setting up a picnic for your wayward sister’s return when your sister had returned to attend a funeral.

Maybe that was just the person their mother had made her. Maybe that was all she allowed herself to be.

How can you miss me? she wanted to say. You don’t know me. 

She wouldn’t, of course. There were rules she was willing to break, but she wasn’t here to fight. At least, not to fight with the likes of Maeve. There were larger battles to be won, bigger struggles to focus on.

     “Yes, it’s-- good to be back. I only wish it were for better reasons. Happier ones. I should have come sooner, I suppose.”

[hyacinth-s]

ziondepaor‌:

Just ask around. “Right. Of course,” he said with a curt nod, as if he had realized it was ridiculous to suggest anything but just that. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d ever gotten something like a mobile number out of a fae. No, it’d always been more like, they’d find you if they wanted to, and if you wanted to find them, well, you better have hoped they were entertained enough by you to feel the same or else you’d never see them again until they were.

There was a part of him that was hoping she might want to search for him before he had to ask around the fae to find her with the information he was planning on getting for the cause. Talking to her was…invigorating, in a time when too much felt useless. 

“And I’ll, ya know, leave the window open, just in case ya need to find me before I come huntin’ for ya,” Zion added, already planning to do it anyway. She might as well know that she was welcome whenever she wanted to come, information or not.

He gave her a nod, a smile, before heading back to his desk, to start to plan how to go about the task.

“Goodnight, Ailis. I’ll see ya soon.”

[hyacinth-s]

africosullivan‌:

A curious nature is something Afric has always had. A desperation to know things, to have all the information, so that nothing can take her by surprise. 

She’d liked Mr. Armitage, was the thing. She’d liked him more than most people did. He was a crazy old man, and he said awful things to her, but he seemed to respect her in some small way. And he never sold her anything cursed, which must mean that he liked her somehow. She brought him cups of tea and pastries from the bakery down the road, little gifts to keep his favour while they gossiped together.

She’d liked Mr. Armitage, and she likes Jessica and Sarah too. The O’Neills have been nothing but kind to her, nothing but motherly. They’re what’s good about this crazy world they live in, and now they’re distraught and strung out and so exhausted, so scared. 

Breaking into a crime scene is one of the worst decisions she might make, but she feels like she has to see it, she feels like she has to know. So she gets to the door, finds the key he always hid in a crack in the brick, and lets herself inside. It isn’t technically breaking and entering if you use a key, right?

With calming breaths she starts to look around, eyes adjusting to the dim light. If she needs to, she’ll pull out her phone to use the torch, but she’d rather avoid anything that might draw attention to her. After a few minutes, a sound makes her freeze in her tracks, someone moving. Her chest goes tight with fear, a shaky breath escaping her. She thinks: oh god, i’m going to die here. And then whatever it is grabs her. 

But it isn’t a monster. It’s a person. The smell of something otherworldly, a voice with power. Its a fae, and she lets out another breath. “Hey, hey. Easy now.” She gets out, tugging lightly at the grip. “I’m friendly, I swear.”

She keeps her grip, even if she loosens it a little bit at the voice. Human, but that didn’t mean she was friendly-- human meant she could lie, maybe even more dangerous than if she’d been fae. There hadn’t been any word of a killer coming back to the scene after any of the other deaths, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. And if didn’t mean this girl wasn’t some other kind of dangerous.

Maybe she was just sneaking around, looking for information the same way Ailis was. But it was just as likely she was here for some other reason, and Ailis intended to be prepared for either one of those to be true. She pulls the girl close, shifts into the dim beam from the streetlamp outside so that she can see her, look her in the eye and tell if she’s going to lie to her. 

     “What are you doing here?” she demands, voice even and quiet and firm.

But the girl hasn’t even talked yet before she has her answer: it’s easy to tell, looking at her. She looks grief-stricken and scared, in the dark, and Ailis can feel her pulse racing through the thin skin at her wrist. Just another seer caught up in this mess and trying to figure out what to do.