I MET NEVIN BEFORE THIS
Fenn, for lack of a better word, “woke up” into this dream. A scent floral and spicy-sweet permeated the air. Lying on a cool surface, he stared up at forest-green skies, smooth and silky barring the two moons overhead.

When he sat up, he found himself on a balcony of ice. Silver flowers curled up the railing.

The serpent-headed Chancellor hunched over the balcony railing, her back to him, mane swaying in the breeze. Moths flittered around her and the flowers like snippets of brown cloth. This place could have been something out of his mind, it could have been something out of her memories. Fenn didn’t ask.

<Banri?>

“Pigwidgeon,” she returned with a glance backward and despondent nods.

Tentatively, Fenn walked over to stand beside her. <Are you still mad at me?>

“Frustrated perhaps. But, let us consider our argument behind us for now. If you wish to deal with such matters on your own, so be it.” She sighed. “Now then. Is it merely my personal perception, or is that still a distinctly guilty frown you wear?”

He stretched, stood up, and shuffled over to lean on the railing next to her. <Sorry. Chulainn visited me in my dreams yesterday.>

Her necks drew back in surprise. “What?”

<You left your…> Lost for the exact term, Fenn pointed to the green stone pendant slung around her wrist on a silver chain. Banrion grimaced and clasped it tightly to her breast. <Your swan-gooey dream-bracelet thing unattended. He talked to me, stuff like how you were just another loop in some cycle or something.> Fenn paused and tapped his chin, attempting to recall the rest of the conversation. <Can I ask about Saroe? Who she is.>

The elder fae’s faces creased with grief as soon as he spoke the name. She turned away with her hands clawed around the railing, unsuccessful in hiding a furious snarl. “Was. I told you of her before. Our previous Regent. Before Morrighna. The one Morrighna offed so damn cleverly,” she explained. Her figure, typically regal and composed, stood as stiffly as a bale of straw.

<You knew her.>

“Of course I knew her,” Banrion said through a starlit snap of her teeth. Fenn started and took a step back. “And it was not his business to discuss her with you! Regent Saroe worked with me very closely when I was still the youngest Chancellor, much as I must work with Morrighna these days. Except, unlike Morrighna…”

Fenn hovered thoughtfully a moment, and then, leaned back in. He felt a bit sorry to press the issue, but his curiosity was burning a hole in him. <Except..?>

Her hands tightened around the rail. A cold fire danced behind her eyes. “I might as well give you the rest of the story. Lest, you seek it from mouths that know it less truly. Saroe, I loved. More than I’ll ever love again. When she died, it was as if a fog had descended over me. Things which once brought me joy made me feel nothing. I echoed within, hollow, empty, as if something inside me had perished alongside her. At times, I wondered whether -- nay, hoped -- the heartache alone would strike me dead too. Captive was I then. Captive still to memory…”

<Oh,> Fenn said quietly. His face fell as he reached all the way up to pat her on the arm.

The Chancellor’s expression softened at his touch. “My apologies, again, for yelling at you the other day,” she rasped. “You felt similarly when your human paternal figure died, I would wager?”

Fenn nodded, staunchly ignoring the slight angry flutter of his heart. <Sorry too. Do you have nightmares about..?>

She shook her head. “Her death? The grief? No. I don’t have nightmares these days, pigwidgeon. Soon enough, nightmares will have me,” she said dryly, clasping her hands together. “On their own, one gets over these feelings eventually, but, only so much. Fenn... there is another matter I need to speak to you of.” Double murmurs of satisfaction escaped the reptilian Fae, and she stared out at the silver landscape thoughtfully. “You are adequately enough versed in the plantlife of Althanas, or else you have the resources to come up with what I require regardless. I know that much from observing your travels. I require a task of you, a boon.”

<What task?>

“It has to do with these plans of mine that you want to know more of so badly. What are the most potent Althanian poisons you know of?” she asked, lips settling into peaceful grins. “Ones that shall work against a fae?”

That wasn’t quite the turn of conversation Fenn had been expecting. He gawped, a slight sputtering squeak escaping him. <Poisons?>

Banrion nodded, both faces still half smiling at him. “You heard me correctly. Our fair Regent is in dire need of a... how to put this? A humbling. I know you have a reliable knowledge of the plants of your native land; a foreign poison would be incredibly difficult for our physicians to detect, which would make the task far easier to get away with. My regrets if this goes too far beyond your personal sensibilities,” she murmured, right head in her hands, the left staring at him with that clamped fire dancing in her eyes.

Fenn paused, staring out across the balcony. <Um, well, sure. It’s fine. I know an alchemist,> he thought, his inner voice timid, yet sure. <He might have something.>

“Thank you.” Banrion tilted her heads awkwardly. “I… did not expect you to go along with this plan so willingly.”

<Aside from that time she tried to execute me, she made you hurt, and she killed a person you loved,> he ticked off on his fingers. <That makes her worse that Kelpie that hurt Daugi. I think.>

“You are aware that Morrighna is more sapient than a Kelpie?” the Chancellor noted reluctantly.

He frowned. <Makes her all the more an ass, doesn’t it?>

A moth fluttered down to land on the railing between the two. They stopped to watch it. The creature waggled its antennae and skittered past the Chancellor. She let out her breath. “If that is how you must rationalize this, so be it. I am glad you have taken my side with this. Gather a potent, well-disguised poison,” Banrion mused, plans already taking shape in her mind, “and we will discuss this further...”