Kindred Folk - Velvet Wings

[FennWenn]

Fenn was in a dream, and knew he was in a dream. He wasn’t sure how he knew. He just… did.

The environment around him was a tasteless tangle of grey webbing. It stuck to his feet as he wandered, aimless, making ugly sucking sounds each time he lifted up his foot. Gobs of guck were strung up beneath the high ceiling and the floor, pulsing slightly. There was no real light. No real darkness. Just the empty, endless stretch of dirty grey and the schlorp of his feet. At the least, he mused mutedly as he hugged his arms around himself, there was no slime here. Probably, his mind had drawn this from whatever anxieties his cocoon-swaddled wakeup had stirred within him.

But hey, what did he know about dreams?

Maybe a lot, even with his short-circuiting memory. He just wasn’t sure where it all came from. What he was sure about, was that the prickling of the hairs the back of his neck meant that someone else was here. Here and behind him.

With an uneasy downturn to his ears, the fae turned over his shoulder. Standing radiant among the gloom and webbing was a feminine figure he instantly identified as a fellow fae. Why, he wasn’t sure — but certainly, she was no human. Azure scales coated her from head to toe, and her two long necks were crowned with serpentine heads and a mane of black feathers that fell to her knees. Most concerning were her eyes. Her carmine gaze was aglow with pure, unbridled rage. “FENNIK GLENWEY,” the being boomed in two matronly voices that echoed in upon themselves (and caused him to reel back in fear), “IF YOU DARE SHROUD YOURSELF FROM ME FOR MONTHS WITHOUT EXPLANATION EVER AGAIN, SO HELP ME, I WILL CRAM A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY SO FAR DOWN YOUR THROAT THAT YOU WILL BE TASTING THE UPWASH OF UNPAID TAVERN TABS FOR WEEKS.”

After that outburst, she glared with a full weight of righteous anger, and a shocking silence. The being gathered herself up with an adjustment of her wooden breastplate and wine-dark robes. She seemed to expect him to have something to say.

<Sorry,> he replied when he finally gathered up his voice, voice thin and shaking. <Not sure what you’re talking about.>

All off the puffery and glowering whooshed out of the snakish fae with a perplexed drop of her jaws. Something uneasy showing in how she tugged at her sleeves. “Pigwidgeon, you promised you would visit me… and you did not. Oath-breaking is a grave offense to me; you know this. Yet, you have not even spoken to me for months. Why?”

<I… I don’t know?>

“Curious. Let me check on your physical form, then.” The fae closed her eyes a moment, a look of concentration on her (surprisingly expressive) faces. Her manes went limp with shock as her lids lifted again. “Oh, by the love of Mab, you’ve had an early metamorphosis. Of course.” A sharp and impenetrable glance was thrown his way. “And by the guise of it, you went and fuddled about with your mind while you were at it. I understand the temptation — many creatures are burdened by worries of imperfection — but it is a most dangerous thing to do.”

Fuddled about his brain? Dangerous? Groaning, he plopped down on the sticky threads floored beneath him. <Don’t remember muddling with it,> he admitted quietly.

“From the confusion etched into your features, you don’t appear to recall much of anything, my Pigwidgeon. Which means that you did something to your memories. Perhaps accidentally. Perhaps, with the weight of intention,” the lady said, politely taking a seat after him. It was odd, seeing someone that formal cross-legged on dingy webbing.

<Do you think I meant to?>

She nodded, though one of her shoulders lifted up in a way that was almost a shrug. Her gaze suddenly did not meet his. “From what little I know of you, I would say it was intentional.” Nonetheless, she heaved a deep breath, as if relieved. Relieved, and yet, not particularly surprised. Excited, even, the way her eyes lit up on flicking back up to him. “Regardless, let me iterate how worried I have been. It’s been months since I’ve last been able to contact you. I’ve felt the thread of your life spasm through the last few weeks.” She shuddered, dragging her hands through her matted manes in relief. “But no. It was neither death, nor snub. It was a chance to start anew. To think, I was so fussed about why I was unable to contact you for so long! About why you never showed up in Sidhe. Let me reintroduce myself to you; I am Banrion, Regent of the Icepeak Court.”

<Fennik Glenwey,> he mentally murmured back. A hand was offered to the elder fae. She clasped it in a grip that was delicate, but necessarily so, for there was a terrifying strength behind it. The icy quality of her scales reassured him somehow. He wondered what she thought of his own small grip.

“Welcome back, little herald.”