Fable - Ask The Futures of Fae [Winter Court]

[Mab]

Asemir was very sweet and much more relaxed than he had been at their first meeting. He was smiling and it was infectious. Ruosin was utterly pleased with herself, taking her seat triumphantly with the airs of a queen herself. She watched both of them and subtly copied their gestures in settling, mostly copying the way her mother smoothed her dress and settled the fabric nearly around her.

Mab was not so liberal with her eye contact. She met Asemir's soft gaze briefly, her smile flickering with a moment of ease and warmth. Not too long, however. She nodded to the servants standing by the door and they bowed.

As Asemir spoke to Ruosin, a simple spread was brought in. There were no courses, no lengthy hours of tantalizing the palate and denying the stomach. It was a warm, hearty meal like those served in common houses. Behind closed doors, Mab ate the same fare as everyone else in the city. And since she had a guest, some of the Winter dishes that Asemir had once favored had been included.

Ruosin wasn't paying attention to anything. She was looking at Asemir with wide eyes like nothing else existed.

"You have gardens?" she asked. As if every noble and courtier didn't have gardens. "I like my mama's garden. And I like my koi. They are really pretty. You wanna see my koi?" She put her hands on the table and prepared to stand as if to go that instant, but Mab cleared her throat.

“Perhaps we should save any more introductions until after we’ve had our dinner,” she suggested as she reached over steaming dishes to ladled out a small bowl of soup for Ruosin and to pick up her daughter’s plate. Ruosin smiled and nodded eagerly, righting herself in her seat once again.

“Do you like fish?” she asked. Any traces of her initial apprehension were gone. She barely looked at her soup as she filled up the spoon and haphazardly blew on it. Mab sighed.

With Ruosin settled for the time being, Mab piled a generous helping of food onto Ruosin’s plate for her. She was eating from the same dishes as Mab and Asemir, gleaming with bright sauce and flecks of ruby and orange -- all promising heat and flavor. She set it back down ffo her before beginning to fill her own plates and bowls from the items offered. Dumplings, rice, noodles, pickled and sautéed vegetables, stewed meats, soup. There was more food than they could eat and all of it (without a doubt) was utterly delicious, but nothing extravagant. Mab sipped from her soup bowl, content to let the pair get acquainted over gardens and fish.

 

[Asemir]

While koi were not of any particular exception to him, Asemir chuckled at the Princess' enthusiasm and gave her mother the silence she needed to keep her daughter in check. It was second nature to let the ladies serve themselves first. May his table manners outlast his strength - they'd already outlasted his good looks.

"For a long time I did not like fish," he admitted, "but I do now. Dusk Court's Ahoma Cove sits far out at sea on a chain of islands. There is a city there beneath the waves, a castle deep in the water where fish swim in and out of windows and doorways like birds. Some as small as dragonflies and others as big as trees. The fae there keep dolphin and orca steeds and the kelpies hold races through the coral."

He wondered if little Ru could imagine such a thing. Had she ever left this palace? Had she even seen a body of water larger than the koi pond in her mother's garden?

"Perhaps one day you can visit. Lady Neliinne would love to show you her wonderful home."

 

[Mab]

Ruosin gasped softly when he initially stated that he had not previously liked fish, as if such a thing was worthy of shock. She was, however, quickly appeased by his admission of liking them now. One could all but see the images she was crafting in her mind through her wide emerald eyes as he told her about Ahoma Cove, glittering with wonder. Her mouth was fixed agape in a small o of awe.

She turned on her mother in an instant at the proposed invitation. Mab, expecting as much, was calmly selecting items from the spread before them to fill her dinner plate.

“Mama, can we go? Pleeeaaase!”

Mab smiled to herself but did not look up. “If you can eat your dinner, I will consider it.”

Ruosin gasped in excitement, wiggled in her seat, and immediately picked up her utensils to dig into her dinner. Amused, Mab chuckled and (wth far more grace than the small child sitting opposite of her) did the same. Profiting from the quiet, she glanced in Asemir’s direction. Ease and comfort had taken the rigidity from her posture and tone.

“Do you travel much these days, Lord Kor Aren?” Mab continued to refrain from the use of his name, maintaining the same polite distance as before.

She had been to callous with him, she chastised herself. If he was really here to start over and just be friends again, she could make herself amiable to that. Couldn’t she? The way he looked at Ruosin made it hard to be mad at him for the past. She'd missed him, and not just because she'd loved him. Her friends had all gone away and she'd missed the simple company of someone who knew her. Really knew her. This could be a new start for all of them, a break from going through life in their own strange ways trying to stymie the pain they’d caused each other.

 

[Asemir]

There was a physical effort expended to withhold the cringe of hearing the words Lord Kor Aren spill from Mab's lips. Asemir did well to cover up any evidence by taking his first bite of the meal and following it with a sip of wine. A smile, too, at Ruosin's exceptional appetite that seemed to have blossomed out of nowhere after a perceived promise of adventure under the sea. How easily the words of adults could sway the young.

How readily the young heard what they wanted. 'Considered' most certainly had been received as yes, dearest, absolutely, we'll go as soon as you're done eating.

"Mostly my travel stays within the territories of the Dusk Groves, but I make my usual rounds between the Courts as necessary," he replied, "just last week I had the exceptional pleasure of delivering the futures to the Night Court Princes," a hard line formed along his brow at that, "the Eretejva tundra is as welcoming as it has ever been and the Aisles of Sheketh are as dreary as a graveyard. The Winter Court was a welcome next stop."

 

[Mab]

“The Night Court,” Mab echoed, this time not bothering to veil her emotions. Her lip curled back in a sneer of disgust. “I am more grateful with every passing year that I swore to never leave the Winter Court. My condolences. If there’s anything you need to relax, please let the staff know; you’ve earned it.”

She laughed to herself and ate delicately, then dabbed at her lips with her napkin before speaking again.

“And how does the Night Court fare these days? I’m still hoping your brother will reconsider and finally send those Hounds of his after them. Some new rumor circulates every few years about this or that. Is it as horrid as they say?”

Now he had her curiosity. Mab sipped from her wine and placed it back beside her plate to await his response, eyes fixed and as attentive as Ruosin’s had been not too long ago.

 

[Asemir]

Mab need not keep those opinions of the Night Court to herself. They were nearly universal among the Courts. Except for perhaps Dawn... who seemed to admire the absolute unhinged state of things in the Night Court factions much in the same way one admires out of control magic or a volcano eruption ... from a distance. Asemir gave Mab a silent nod of thanks to her offer of comforts but declined to inform her he doubted the Staff could provide anything else he might presently desire. Extra booze notwithstanding.

"The rumors are not far from the truth, or so the Omnia and my short time among the factions have lead me to believe. As it stands, the two factions of Night are poised for all-out war with one another. Keep an eye on your incoming delegates - I suspect they will both be reaching out to the other Courts in an attempt to build alliances and gain an upper hand over one another. It would be wise for the Courts to maintain their distance and shore up borders. When war happens between the Night factions it will be brutal, it will be fast, and it will not remain contained to the north." It was his own way of offering Mab sound advice off the official record. Dusk could not afford to take sides or appear to be leaning off neutrality, but he didn't think it wise for any of the Courts to deviate from their current stances on the Night Court affairs, either.

 

[Mab]

She sighed deeply over her wine and shook her head. "Children," she muttered. "I will keep your wisdom in mind." And that (in a rare show of restraint) was all she said on the matter.

His response more or less confirmed her personal intel. It had been a very long time since Mab had been approached about any kind of protocol move against another Court, much less a call to arms. If the Night Court prince's were desperate or stupid enough to ask her to join them, they were very stupid indeed.

If any western Court thought that meant she would remain neutral to their using her Court lands as a resting point on their way to the isles, they were also very stupid.

Mab shook her head and took a long drink, her gaze momentarily far away.

"Let us have a more pleasant topic," she said with an abrupt return of her smile as if the previous topic had never soured it. "How do you like Kor Aren? I told you earlier that I didn't want to hear about it, but I'll admit that I lied a little. I only know what Aster has shared with me about your Groves. Intel is bad, always rumors and lies. Your people are far more loyal than mine." Mab grinned, a shameless curl of mischief and a glance that said, No, I can't help myself.

She wanted to say any number of things. How quiet it had been at the Scarlet Palace when he had left. How keenly she had felt his absence. And, frustratingly, how important it was that he was happy now. Strange, that she could hold someone's happiness in higher regard than her own even after his departure had caused her so much grief.

Things she didn't say. Things she couldn't say after all this time. It was too late for that.

"I might inquire after its comforts in the hope that you are happy there, but I imagine as its lord you can afford whatever comforts you like." She laughed a little at that.

 

[Asemir]

Asemir offered an rumbling mmm in agreement to the change of topic. Night Court politics always managed to sour conversation for him. Probably because he couldn't afford to air his opinion on the feuding brothers and their factions of backwards savagery. Either way, Kor Aren was a welcome shift.

Especially when Mab admitted to lying and that her little gossip birds couldn't get an ear in edge-wise to the goings-on at Dusk. Good. The man offered a wane smile that did not readily show the smugness he felt on that particular subject.

"Kor Aren is the home I never knew I wanted. Remote, quiet, exceptionally well-maintained," his gaze shifted from Mab to little Ru, softening as he watched her continue to work toward clearing her plate while also listening, "but I'm afraid it's not as exciting as Ahoma Cove or Mirlorne Forest. No fish, very little in the way of gardens. Lots of stone and birds, though. We keep a rookery of corvids. I'm not even sure why, it's not as if we use them as messengers..."

Not when they had magick at their fingertips.

"Mostly Kor Aren is known within Dusk for its artisans. We have great architects and sculptures, painters, weavers, jewelers, writers, blacksmiths and armorers. It's also where I train our Guardians. Lady Neliinne refers to Kor Aren as our Retirement Grove," Ase smiled and chuckled to himself, "I suppose she's not entirely wrong, there are very few younglings there. But it is comfortable."

 

[Mab]

Kor Aren is the home I never knew I wanted.

A chord was plucked in her chest, thrumming like a zither until her entire person vibrated with it. Mab was relieved that at least he was watching Ruosin as he described Kor Aren. She heard very little of it, only words here or there as the weight of what he had said sank in.

A home. Not just a life that made him happy or an occupation that finally fulfilled some deep-seated need. He had made a home. It wasn't fair for her to be as upset by that as she was, but then again she had hardly lived a life dictated by what was fair and what was not.

Mab returned to the conversation to smile and laugh half-heartedly.

"We are at that age," she remarked. Not an entirely innocuous subject; Mab had been hinting for years that she would, sooner than later, be stepping away from her position. "Perhaps when I am no longer a security risk, I could pursue retirement homes. I can finally do the world an overdue favor and disappear into irrelevance." She snickered.

"I'm teasing. Kor Aren is your home, and I've no wish to bring my trouble into your Court. It is good that you are happy there. I'm… I'm glad you've finally found your place. Gods know you've earned it."

She flashed him a passing grin. She meant that. Or meant it enough. He might have extended this offering of friendship, but she didn't think it would be a good idea for her to hang too close to him -- for his sanity and as much for the sake of her fragile heart. Trouble dogged her like a fox on a rabbit.

"Besides, I've a Lady of House Irai to bring up." Mab smiled proudly at Ruosin. The girl in question straightened up with a mouthful. "Yes, I mean you, dove."

 

[Asemir]

If there was a response he'd been hoping for Asemir wasn't sure what it was. Perhaps for her to be mad or upset. To say that under no circumstances was anywhere but Winter his home. To fit and carry on like her emotions were the wind beneath her wings, keeping her aloft over himself and everyone else.

Instead he found a Mab that was grounded, sympathetic, and ...happy for him. At least, that's what her words were saying. The thrumming of emotions he could feel within her but not recognize for their distance from fear or courage - sitting somewhere between the two - told him it was complicated beyond what he'd dare try to understand. The man shifted in his seat slightly, having slowed in his meal for the failing of his appetite. Brows knit over the bridge of his nose in thought, Asemir looked aside at the Winter Queen with a warm and grateful smile, "I would welcome your trouble."

And your company. You and Ruosin, both.

Come away with me and we'll all disappear into irrelevance, seeking out the place and peace we all deserve together.

He had his place, perhaps, but he'd not yet realized the peace he was after. No, the inner peace was his greatest struggle. The foundation he had to build upon was presently made of regret, longing, and a myriad other things that sucked down every attempt to rise above like quicksand.

 

[Mab]

Asemir had a look about him that she had seen before. The creased brow was never good for him or anyone else. Mab wanted to know what was on his mind, to pry until she got a taste of his dreams. She'd known them once and had been afraid of the weight of them, but now? Now she was afraid to look. She was afraid to know for certain that she was no longer at their center, just like she was afraid of many things he made her feel and doubt.

His response made her heart stumble and Mab quickly looked down at her dinner. No, she told herself. You are over this and he just wants to be friends. Do not start this.

This was not a notion she could afford to entertain. Kor Aren was struck from her list of places to go when she finally departed from Underhill. Queen Mab was many things, but she might not be strong enough to be just friends with this man. She drew a long, steadying breath before smiling back.

"How is your family?" she asked, borrowing from years of excellence at pretending to be aloof from her emotions. “And has anyone in Kor Aren managed to tie you down yet?”

Mab wasn’t looking at Asemir. That the spoon didn’t tremble as she raised it to her lips was a wonder and a blessing. When she did finally look up, her eyes were absent of the fear he would no doubt feel -- the stupid, reluctant flutter of her traitorous heart. It was a question she didn’t want an answer to, yet had posed nonetheless. Another mean thing she did to herself to satisfy her endless quest to be her own worst enemy.

 

[Asemir]

Seemed they'd reached an impasse of words on the subject. Perhaps he'd stepped out of line. Had that been too forward? Was it even forward? By the moons, he'd gotten rusty at these things after so many years of shutting any opportunity of forming attachments out of his life. Romance wasn't something he entertained anymore - brief dalliances simply to sate a need had become normal for him again and he couldn't help but feel that he'd regressed in that way.

If there was anything he didn't want to be, it was the man he'd been before he woke up to the way things really were.

"My family," the word struck a sour note, fully stamping out his appetite to the point that he placed his fork on the plate and wiped at his mouth with his napkin.

"I cannot speak to what's left in Summer - whether or not I've actually been banished from there I couldn't say. I've never been back since I departed. But Eske reports that Tati is as lovely as I am youthful. My mother," his furrowed brow maintained, tightening over the bridge of his nose, "recently returned from a long sojourn into the mortal realm and decided that the Kor Aren guest grove was where her next extended vacation would be."

Mab knew the woman well enough to know what that meant.

"I am not tied down, much to her lament, and she has seen fit to change that if it is the last thing she does in her long and blessed life." Ase wanted to throw the napkin at his plate, but given the rapt attention of the little one he opted to fold it with great care and smooth it back onto the table instead.

 

[Mab]

Mab was a glutton for punishment. She was well beyond the petty hope that he’d be miserable on his own, and knowing that no one had managed to wrangle him into commitment didn’t bring her any relief or satisfaction. Rather, she felt a note of disappointment. Whether that was because she really wanted him to be happy (even if it wasn’t with her) or because it raised the final hurdle of getting over him, even Mab couldn’t have said for certain.

But she smiled over her glass at his misery. A nosy mother was not something she’d ever been burdened with.

It could be worse, she thought to herself. Dowager Queen Lirienn must have choked on that righteous seelie pride during the four thousand years Asemir had spent warming Mab’s bed. She could imagine his mother’s relief that he had moved on. A thought she managed to keep to herself, but one that cut her nonetheless.

He was not escaping the topic without some teasing, however. He was too miserable for Mab to let it slide.

“How bad could it be?” She had a wicked grin as she picked at her food. When she looked up, her silver eyes glinted playfully. “Maybe some of those Summer ladies have reconsidered. Titania’s being such a child, it’ll be a miracle if she ever has any children. Your claim to the House of the Phoenix might have a chance at reinstatement.”

She cast a covert glance at the child sitting across from her, who had returned to her meal and being oblivious as the conversation strayed away from her. “Child” was not the word Mab wanted to use for Titania, but it certainly started with the same letter.

 

[Asemir]

Asemir shot the Winter Queen a scathing glare at the words how bad could it be. She had no idea how bad Lirienn could be - not in this way. It was one thing for the pair of them to wage war or be at odds, quite another for a mother to take every step she could to put a wedge between himself and Mab now that they had made amends.

Seemed it was the year for making amends.

"A claim I have exactly negative desire to act on," Asemir responded shortly, a furrowed brow arching at Mab as he caught her wicked smirk. Teasing, always teasing. Gods he'd missed it. No one teased him like she did.

"I would rather see my mother back on that throne. Summer needs a swift kick in the proverbial a-" Ase clapped his mouth shut and shot Ru a short glance, "mm- rear, proverbial rear, and she's the only one I would entrust to do it without restraint and succeed."

No one, but no one, said no to Queen Lirienn. He had to wonder why she hadn't unseated her grand-cretin already. Likely because she felt the same way about the throne as he did. His furrowed brow leavened somewhat as he settled back into his seat, abandoning his plate for the food for thought the evening was providing. A gaze of quiet storm clouds shifted back to Mab, taking in her mischief and the way she picked at her food. She was waltzing around words in the way that only she could, keeping her hands busy so she could keep her emotions clear of her face.

"I missed this," the words were quiet, but his eyes were saying what his mouth would not. I missed you. He desperately wanted to reach out to her and touch her again, pull her close and drift into the ephemeral influence of her mere presence.

"This place, the food, agonizing over my family with you. Nothing ever quite compares. My brother won't say a cross word about Summer and it infuriates me to no end."

 

[Mab]

Mab laughed. It wasn't the fake one she dressed up for Court and its many affairs, but an honest one -- a stupid laugh that was more snort than laugh, really. Ruosin looked up and laughed because her mother was laughing, and Mab turned her face away to school her expression behind her hand.

An’Ruen’s mercy, she’d missed this. She’d missed his surly face, his scowl, the way he tried very hard to look upset instead of smiling back at her. Mab shook her head, glad to fall into silence. Lirienn was an ambiguous idea in her mind, never a real person she’d had the opportunity to meet -- or the misfortune, if Asemir was to be believed. Accounts of her were often irregular, but they always got one thing right: That her son was very much like her.

She fell into the easy quiet as she twirled noodles she had no intention of eating. Mab wore a look of contentment and nostalgia. It was like none of the bad things had ever happened. She might have believed it if he hadn’t spoken.

Yet he did speak. The Queen’s smile was swept away like loose snow pushed in a great wind. Her eyes, wide and as clear as silver, met his and there was a moment she imagined more than was there. His words rang in her mind like the reverberations of a bell.

How she supposed to forget this feeling? How was she supposed to let go of thousands of years of yearning, of the fire in the pit of her stomach that had never been quenched by even the strongest floods of resentment and anger?

Mab looked away first. When she laughed again, it was a weak guise. She dropped her utensils, picked up her wine, and did not look at Asemir when she replied.

“Your brother has less and less opinions on everything, and yet he’s more opinionated than I recall him ever being,” she murmured. Then, with a weary sigh, she took a long drink and reclined back against her chair.

“Don’t compliment me too much, Lord Kor Aren. You know it will go right to my head and you’ll never have a moment of peace again.” She smirked, unable to keep the tell from her lips a beat before she gave up the game and said the bad thing she shouldn’t. “If we start to get all chummy again, people will talk. And what will your mother think?”

Mab sighed dramatically and, sagging back in the chair, draped a weary hand over her brow in dramatic agony. She put on the tone she’d used to imitate Lirienn as she imagined her based on some of his own imitations.

“My precious boy! Back in the clutches of that witch! Is this the ruination of our noble House? Are we to sully ourselves beneath the Lover’s Gate again?”

Ruosin giggled, utterly oblivious to their conversation. “Mama is funny.”

“Mama,” Mab said as she straightened up and plucked up her wine once more, “is very funny.” She cast Asemir a final grin. “Don’t worry. I won’t spoil your mother’s fun playing prospects with you. If we are to be friends again, I will gladly root for your happiness. Who knows? Maybe she’ll pick someone you like for a change. Stranger things have happened.”

 

[Asemir]

That was a laugh he didn't know he'd been so desperate to hear over their long years apart. How it hit his ears like water drenched a throat parched from unrelenting famine and heat. He could have listened to it for 500 years straight and it would not have been enough to make up for lost time. Ruosin's joining chorus of little giggles made his heart ache and sting in ways he did not know were possible.

Hurt and wonder were not two emotions he ever recalled going together.

He could not find words for Mab as she rebuffed his own, then proceeded to tease and mime and act. Moments of play he knew very few others ever witnessed that he could have decorated the tallest evergreen in the forest with countless baubles of each and every memory captured within. Brought back to light by the sound of her voice. Damnit, Asemir clenched his fist on his thigh, blinking long and hard to steel his pounding heart, this was not supposed to be so hard.

Especially with her taunting the very idea. Together again.

Suddenly he felt all the warmth drain from his face, brow furrowing over the prospect of Mab suggesting anyone, anyone at all, over her own self as being anything close to perfectly ideal for him.

"Indeed," he replied, his gaze now on his plate and his coiled fist reaching for his wine glass again of which he quickly drained. Frowning, the look of distaste plastered into his expression, Asemir carefully cleared his throat, "Let us speak of other things. The subject of my mother's machinations sours my mood. Ruosin, are you attending lessons? Which one is your favorite?"

 

[Mab]

Mab could see the crease between his brows deepening. She could have read anyone else, but he was one of few whose minds never worked as she expected it to. What was he thinking behind those cool eyes? Why did it look like the man who feared nothing blanched at her words before reaching for his glass?

More questions she couldn't answer and didn't ask. She let the topic go, and gladly. She had had her fun at his expense and to press further risked cracking what was already strained between them. They had burnt the bridge and only a few delicate timbers remained, blackened and treacherous.

Ruosin perked up at her name, happy to be included once again. She nodded vigorously, bounced in her seat, and clapped a hand over her mouth to shield an excited giggle so as not to show their guest a mouth full of food.

"I play mama's zither! I really like that!" She rose up on her knees on her cushion and planted her hands on the table in her excitement. "I'm gonna play as good as mama," Ruosin declared confidently. Mab didn't bother holding back her grin.

"Only if you practice, little dove." She turned to Asemir. "Master Vidal has been giving her lessons. I thought it would be better than me trying to teach her myself. Something about getting children that act just like you, or however that warning goes," she laughed.

"Can I play a song for Lord Kor Aren?" the girl piped up.

"Have you finished your dinner?" Ruosin answered that by quickly poking in two mouthfuls in quick succession, filling her cheeks and struggling to chew. Mab sighed, but there was no point in chastising her now. "And perhaps you should ask the Lord if he would like a show."

Ruosin couldn't chew and swallow fast enough. She was all but vibrating with excitement, once more covering her mouth with both hands.

"Do you want a song?" She pinned Asemir with eyes as round and sparkling as a pair of emeralds. Mab knew that look all too well. The girl's dark brows curved in a plaintive knot and her little mouth drew up in a tender wobble. She had yet to meet the person who could withstand that look and say no.

 

[Asemir]

Children that act just like you...

He thought he'd be ready for the calm, casual way in which Mab talked about motherhood, but it stung so much more deeply and painfully than he could have prepared for. How long had he plied her for even an interest in a family? How long had she known that starting a family had been one of his dreams? Beyond fame and war, notoriety and achieving his goals, finding love with a woman who had proven herself his equal in every way, and better in many more, making himself a home ...

Family was the only thing he'd deeply desired but been denied.

Asemir smiled at the girl, expression tight with remorse for chances lost and the pain of the greatest slight, "Yes of course, that would be a perfect end for the evening."

 

[Mab]

A perfect end for the evening.

Mab could see the tightness in his expression, the strain to smile pleasantly. It was a farce she had seen him put on before. It was not one he had often worn for her benefit, but definitely one she had inspired before. She looked down at her hands.

I did this. Mab smiled just as thinly. I cannot be upset that the glass I broke cuts me.

Ruosin was brimming with joy. She sprang to her feet and took off for the door, which opened for her. A servant stepped in and looked to Mab.

"We will be concluding our evening in the music room," she instructed him sweetly. He bowed and retreated back into the hall. Mab rose, wine in hand, and gestured to the open door for Asemir to follow.

She led the way to a room that should have been quite familiar. It was one Mab visited often to play the very same zither, as she had done for thousands of years. Only a few doors down, the room they sought was already bright with warm, soft light from a few small globes of faerie lights. The doors to an interior garden were open, a whole wall opening up into a deep, dark swathe of green as thick as a rainforest. Ruosin was already standing on the other side of the zither placed in the center of the room. The lights illuminated her pretty face and clothes and she glowed in front of the damp, lush foliage. The girl was smiling as confidently as a master musician as Mab and Asemir sat on a pair of plump cushions.

Ruosin bowed and recited a simple poem about a butterfly in the garden that sounded charming in her tiny child's voice. Then, taking a seat, she plucked the zither to play the accompanying piece. The instrument was a brown so dark that it was almost black and polished to a flawless shine, and inlaid channels of pearl meandered down its length, wisps of clouds rushing toward a crescent moon.

The girl was no master yet, but she had worked very hard to learn to play well. Her skill was a testament to her stubborn determination more than to any natural skill with the instrument.

Mab sat attentively upon her cushion, the wine in her hand forgotten. She smiled encouragement and nodded her head in time with her daughter's strums, only looking away to steal a single look at Asemir.

When she finished, Ruosin stood and bowed again. Mab applauded her generously.

"Bravo, my dove!"

But her mother might as well have been an ornamental plant in the corner. Ruosin was looking eagerly at Asemir, whose opinion clearly mattered more.

"Did you like it, Lord Kor Aren?" she asked brightly.

 

[Asemir]

The amount of effort being summoned to reinflate his positive mood was almost painful. Asemir had taken a large, hard swallow of reality just moments ago and found it wedged fitfully in his chest. It needled his lungs, making the act of breathing alone a labor, and it burned at his heart where he'd stashed the remnants of hope for some kind of future here, filling his mind with the haze and smog of doubt. He barely registered the area in which Mab lead him, and though he schooled his expression into something of neutral anticipation, he found he could not feign the warmth or wonder he should have been feeling.

The Dusk Court Triumvir took his seat next to the Winter Queen, giving his outward attention to the girl while inwardly he felt the tattered edges of his resolve continue to fray. A faint smile flashed for Ruosin's enthusiasm, and though he watched and listened Asemir did not really hear her performance. Something he would likely later come to regret.

He just couldn't recollect the pieces. They were too small and too many, running as sand through his mental grasp.

"Did you like it, Lord Kor Aren?"

That faint smile was back, one he pushed purposefully to seem far more cheered than he felt, "How could I not? How do you fit so much talent into such a little fae, I wonder... well done, little Ruosin. Certainly the Gods are cheered by you."

But his smile faltered and he found himself exhausted. Asemir gently cleared his throat and pushed himself back to his feet, "As I expected, a wonderful close to the evening. Thank you so much for inviting me to share your dinner," he met Mab's gaze with great difficulty, "and for introducing me to your wonderful daughter. I hope I have not been a bore, the day has been very long and I am overtired."

 

[Mab]

Dreams weren't just in sleeping. That was a part of her gift she had no control over, but she could sometimes sense them nonetheless -- like clouds, a moving body of many parts that were changing with the slightest shift. Though she could not see them clearly, she got a sense of them, a sample of a rare delight she could only taste in the right moment.

Asemir was sitting close enough for her to feel that cloud twisting, scratching like clothing with a burr. A bad dream. This was like a nightmare in real life. Which part was the nightmare? What part of being here was so bitter that it darkened the dreams he had once had when he had held her so close that it had frightened her?

Ruosin was delighted by his reply. The girl was absolutely glowing, effervescent in Asemir's praise. Mab smiled and stood when Asemir stood.

His goodbye pricked something tender. She met his gaze and she felt the same helplessness that had drained all the warmth from her body when she had known. She had done something wrong and it was too much. Her foot descended on the broken pieces of what they were without even knowing what they crushed on the path to what she thought was happiness.

Mab's lips parted and she drew a shallow breath to say something -- anything that would make him reconsider. She didn't want him to go. Being friends wasn't enough, but she could make peace with it. But he could not go with that look on his face. He couldn't think she didn't know what she had broken.

"Aww! Do you have to go?" Ruosin whined, bouncing closer and cutting off whatever Mab had been about to say forever. "We can go see my fish, or--"

"I think," Mab said gently, stepping closer to drape her hands over Ruosin's shoulders, "that it would be terribly rude if we keep Lord Kor Aren any longer than he wished to stay." Ruosin looked up, leafy green eyes wide and shimmering, but she nodded in understanding. "We have had a fine evening. Say goodnight and you can go get ready for bed with Ania. I will come read to you after I have seen our guest to his rooms."

Her daughter nodded again, some of her cheer restored. She stepped up to Asemir once more with a smile.

"Goodbye, Lord Kor Aren! I will see you again soon to see your fish!"

She tipped forward in a very sloppy, very hurried bow, and bolted from the room. The door opened, a soft voice said her name, and the girl went squealing away with her nurse. Mab watched her exit and laughed, a note of exasperation sharpening the sound.

"I'm sorry, she is very changeable." She smiled up at Asemir, but their earlier camaraderie was damaged. Mab let her earlier thoughts slide away. "Do you know where the blue room is? If you'd prefer, the staff can show you the way." -- Instead of me.

 

[Asemir]

"Goodbye, dear Princess," Asemir smiled down at her with a thin, wilting expression, "and goodnight. Next time cannot come soon enough."

He meant it, despite the fact that the words were painful to say. Shards of glass tearing through old, faded, tattered dreams. Perhaps it was hasty to allow them to do so, but he hadn't the strength to hold it all intact. For the moments he watched the little imp take her leave, doubt crept inwards on his mind.

Should he have come? Would it have been better to live away, apart, having never met Ruosin and never attempted to mend this broken and weathered bridge? He couldn't be sure, it wasn't his way to know these things and Eske would never reveal them.

Asemir's gaze snapped to meet Mab's when she spoke and for a moment all he wanted to do was yell at her, and hold her so tightly her breath caught in her lungs. He wasn't a man of revenge and he would never wish his pain back upon her, he merely wished that she could understand.

"Yes I know where it is, don't-" he waved a gentle, dismissive hand, "don't trouble them. I can find my way there..." alone. He wasn't running, but he needed time alone ... not in the palace. He wouldn't be sleeping in the Blue Room tonight.

"Thank you again for having me, I deeply appreciate the opportunity and I hope-" Asemir's brow furrowed slightly as he sought out the appropriate words that weren't overly forward, "it will not be the last. Seeing you again is ..." crushing me? Filling me with such intense emotion that it hurts? Confusing me? Making me think of retiring early and disappearing from all knowledge?

"I'll be departing late afternoon tomorrow. If it's not too offensive to your schedule and whims, perhaps we could meet again? Something a bit more ..." he gestured vaguely around them with a wane half smile, "not-fancy?"

 

[Mab]

No. Of course not. He always was fiercely independent. It was one of the many things she had liked about him. Still did. The man knew himself in a way she greatly admired.

Or he usually did. He looked uncertain right now. Both of them were walking on eggshells, afraid to take the next step lest they snap the olive branch set tentatively between them.

"Of course," she replied to his thanks. It was quite literally the least she could do. He had been treated to the plans she had made with Aster. But as he continued, she looked up.

She couldn't answer that right away. Mab's lips parted and she drew a breath before the zing of lies burned her mouth. Yes. No. Both were right and both were wrong. She wanted to see him again -- desperately, the same way a man crawled to the water across a desert for a single drink. Her stupid heart leapt at the idea that he wanted to see her again, too. Offensive? Gods, she might have begged for the simple pleasure of seeing him tomorrow.

But the thought of having to repeat all of this, to feel the devastation of the last 7,000 years again, was exhausting. She didn't want to look at him or his fucking half-smile. Mab didn't want to endure the feeling of him slipping out of her fingers and finally letting him go back to the world. She wanted to still be angry at him -- to rave and throw things and tell him she hated him and to mean it again.

Mab, the Queen who always knew herself, hesitated. She did not know which words would form truth across her tongue as she spoke.

"Yes. I would normally see Aster off as well, so I can, of course, do the same for you." Can. She hated that connotation as soon as she said it. "Name the place and the time that would please you, and I shall make it yours."

She didn't put on a fake smile, didn't adopt her elegant airs. Such guises were beyond them at this point in this late hours. Standing at the edge of a long sleepless night, she felt his dreams and hers meeting, clashing, breaking.

 

[Asemir]

Couldn't look to deep into that response. The words chosen. The tone. The look on her face.

It hadn't been a no, and that's all that mattered.

Asemir nodded, "The Market. I haven't been since..." well, he trailed off on that one, too. They both knew he hadn't stepped a foot back in Winter since he left - not until today. "By the central fountain, an hour after breakfast." That would give her time to tidy up herself and Ruosin, and him time to return from wherever his feet decided to take him tonight.

He waited a few moments for confirmation and gave her a second nod, "Until tomorrow, Your Splendor."

But this time he did not wait to be dismissed. His broad shoulders swiveled and he strode off, intent to fill the night with all his thoughts of doubt and regret and uncertainty.

 

[Mab]

He had that pinched tone in his voice, like being there was painful. It was. She nodded, understanding what he meant and why he hadn't been back. They both knew.

"I look forward to it." There! See? You still have feelings. Idiot. Mab didn't bother pressing a smile, just like he didn't wait for a farewell before running away. "Good night," she called after him.

She didn't give chase. In her heart, however, she ran after him and begged him to stay -- to apologize for the nasty things she had said, for lying, for using him. She took it all back. In reality, Mab simply watched Asemir disappear down the hall.

Seasons changed and things came to an end. If their love had once been a blossoming true in spring, then the summer they had loved one another had long ago turned to autumn. They had borne no fruit and their branches had withered and died when winter came. As spring brought new life to the forest around their tree, those branches were brittle and barren. This had come to an end.

When the palace grew silent, his steps finally fading to nothingness, she sighed and turned toward Ruosin's rooms. If she was going to get any sleep tonight, she was going to need a little help from her daughter.

---

Titania never walked anywhere. It was a truth widely known throughout the Courts. She was carried in her gilded palanquin, rode on her white prancing stallion, or was drawn in her ostentatious carriage. She did not set foot in the common parts of her city, for her head was anointed with oil and Shaevwa's Chosen did not soil her feet with the grime and muck. It was not safe for her.

All the more reason for the Queens of Winter to walk. Mab, like every other before her, delighted in walking the markets. For practicality, she had taken her carriage to the edge of the Midnight Market, but walked from its first red lanterns toward its center.

Of course, fame was a burden she gladly bore, but it was not as uncommon to see the Queen and her singular Red Guard parading through the Market. She often came to eat or to buy books or to attend ceremonies. Mab had long ago become a familiar face. Still, she made sure she had the time to give attention to those that stopped her. She had always been a Queen of the people; they had chosen her, and it was humbling to remember that.

It took a while, but she reached the fountain early. She had a rainbow of flowers and ribbons in her hair, gifts from her walk, and her escort carried a parcel of fruit cakes for Ruosin. She took a seat on the edge of the fountain, her black and orange skirts draping to reveal slips of peach and cream layers beneath.

"Can you go to the Lunar Tiger and fetch me a cup of the Black Briar's gooseberry tisane? Honey, no sugar, no cream. Oh! And get one of the strawberry cakes, if Wei-Cai has any left from breakfast?" It was a crime that a shop that was open at all hours of the day still kept yo the traditional hours of meals for their menu. Why stop serving breakfast? Who was Wu Wei-Cai to dictate when she ate noodles and when she ate cake?

The guard bowed and hastily went on his way. It left Mab alone to enjoy the fountain and solitude.

She wasn't nervous. That was a lie she could tell herself; it was one she was clinging to. Twirling a sprig of faux paper forsythia between her fingers, Mab watched the rippling reflections of the lanterns on the water's surface.