These days, Fenn liked it better when falling asleep meant oblivion rather than dreaming. There was a growing list of nightmares that clawed at his eyes when they closed for the day.

But, this dream wasn’t so bad.

Leafy green hills stretched out before him, swaddled in a blanket of trees and flowers. Above were clear blue skies. He knew this place; its earthy smell, littered acorns, and delicate mushrooms. This was how he remembered Concordia’s forest.

Fenn absently squished his toes in the grass and took a deep breath of the clear air. Why... was he here? He wasn’t certain. Maybe it was just because it was nice here. Yes, that was a good reason. The boy had a faint impression of what had happened before he fell asleep. A whirling ball, awful creatures whom he was (kind of) one of, and a lost feeling. It didn't bother him much though. In fact, it made him more at ease -- sweet relief was all he felt. Fenn flopped over into the grass and grinned blissfully. Coronian winds whistled through the branches above, sending speckles of sunlight dancing over his eyelids.

“You, my child, are a handful,” two simultaneous matronly voices stated. “Do you have any idea how long it took me figure out where you’d gone?”

This intruder snapped Fenn out of his reverie and into lucidity. The events of the ball came back to him full-force. Fuck! Cracking open an eyelid, Fenn glanced up nervously. Ceannaire Banrion loomed over him in all her glory, one face smiling wryly, the other furrowed in concern.

“A quaint place you’ve taken us, very green,” Banrion noted quietly, turning her heads this way and that to take in the view. “Is this how your homeland looks?”

Stretching up into a sitting position, Fenn deigned to answer her question with a limp nod. He supposed that, if he were to call any continent his “home”, it would have to be Corone. Snow was lacking, so the forests were its most becoming feature.

“This is a dream, you know. Reality is malleable here. Just as you have summoned these green hills, you can summon yourself a voice and speak if you will it to be so,” said Banrion as she stepped closer to him.

Fenn shook his head uncertainly. Making words with his mouth felt foreign, and flapping his lips felt foolish. When he was younger, Fenn had tried very hard to do so, but the memories of his attempts were fuzzy. A better way of communicating sprang to mind. <A friend of mine introduced me to the idea of telepathy a while back! So, I could just kind of think at you, I guess?>

A pair of measured smiles stretched across the Chancellor’s faces, and she nodded. “If you would like to do it that way.”

Relaxed silence filled the air. Fenn squished his feet in the grass again and stared into the sun. He felt a little detached, a little out-of-it, but Banrion seemed content to wait for him to say something else.

<So where am I now? In Sidhe, I mean. Since you found me.> Fenn rested his head in one hand, thinking. <And, if you're here in my dream, does that mean you're asleep too?>

“Your physical form is safe. I took us to a secure area while you slept. And no, I am not quite asleep; but, neither am I quite conscious. I entered a trance in order to glimpse your dream. Here, we can speak a bit more freely than in the physical realm. Since we have a bit of time to ourselves, why don't we talk?,” the elder fae suggested. “One can practically see the questions dancing over your face. Ask anything that comes to mind.”

<Anything?>

“Within reason.”

Fenn puffed out his cheeks. <I saw humans at the revel. They were singing. Why were they there?>

“Those? What a pitiful first question,” Banrion mused. “Morrighna considers the lower realm a waste and a hazard, but when we do venture down, we take vassals every so often. Some offered themselves willingly. Others, we found talented or endearing, and spirited them away lest their loveliness be squandered by their fellow mortals.”

<What if they didn't want to be here?> Fenn protested. <Stealing people isn't very nice.> He knew, certainly, that he was tired of being stolen himself.

Banrion shrugged, indifference seeping into her tone. “Fennik, is it much different than your poor control over the wanderings of your hands over other’s belongings? Do not think I missed your roving fingers at the gift table.”

<Belongings don't miss their home, or their freedom,> he retorted.

“That’s alright,” she assured him. Fenn crossed his arms together tightly as the Chancellor moved to take a seat in the grass beside him. Her demeanor remained unruffled by his pinched expression. “Our vassels quickly come to see the splendor that Sidhe has to offer them. And if not, we have ways of showing them. You may become used to our ways... eventually. Now, what is your next question?”

<Ways of showing them?> he asked.

“Ahh. You are a aware that stronger fae such as myself can dreamwalk. Some of us have other talents, such as -- well, we call it bewitchment. They can, for lack of a better word, enthrall a weaker mind in a spell of complacency. Sciathan has such a talent. Pity, his will is so flaccid. I doubt he would be capable of using his talent on another fae. Mmm… Chulainn and Morrighna have prophetic dreams at times. The days where the Regent screams in her sleep are very disconcerting,” the Chancellor said with a grimace.

There was something else that had been nagging at him. Fenn flopped back over into the grassy, staring blankly at the sky. <Morrighna. Why does she hate me?>

“Agh. Ask me why the little fribble does anything. Whim, likely.” A disgusted shudder ran through the elder fae, from the tips of her snouts right down to her tail. “Though she may be a scarce century older than I, I would consider Morrighna as much a child as you are. She never quite grew out of her youngness, and it shows. All the same, Morrighna is cunning when she bothers to put the effort in. Our Regent before her loved the little not-child. She doted miserably on the ‘precious’ dear.”

Though he protested that nagging, persistent idea of him being a ‘child’, Fenn’s ears flicked up in traitorous interest. <She did?>

Banrion laughed, a sound as bitter as oak gall. “Only until the Regent mysteriously fell to her death from a high cliff.”

<Oh.> He winced.

“You see, when a Regent falls, their title goes to the eldest Chancellor,” Banrion explained. “Morrighna was the first in line at the time, after Chulainn that is, whom is… intentionally detached from our game of politics. He had, and will never have, any interest in the crown. I was the youngest at the time.”

<So Morrighna killed the old Regent. How did she do it?>

Dainty azure claws plucked and picked at the grass. The action seemed a little odd for a figure as regal as the Chancellor. Fenn wondered if she was upset by this line of conversation. If so, she was hiding it fairly well. “How? Too easily. Only Morrighna’s servant Knarl was witness to the -- ahh, what did he call it? -- accident. Morrighna herself was not present. One needs definitive proof to convict one for something so serious as regicide, and we had none.”

Fenn sat up and shook his head, grind his teeth in frustration. <No, I mean, how could anyone let her get away with it? She walks like she could kill with her pinky finger, but… wouldn't people get mad about the old Regent’s death?>

“Oh, pigwidgeon. You really don't understand us, do you?” There was a newfound tightness to the Chancellor’s voice that ill-matched her words. “There are more slavering hounds hidden in our decadent court than you could imagine. We shed few tears for dead monarchs. If they fell to the sword of man or the passage of time, then they died fulfilled. But to be silenced by a dagger to the back..? Then we deem them unfit. She... should not have let infatuation cloud her sight.” A cloud of gloom passed over Banrion, only for her to shake her heads and continue. Her eyes stared off into space. “Just as well, you have heard Morrighna speak. Her tongue is as silver as the dual moons on the heaviest crest of their cycle.”

<I dunno. She didn’t seem that convincing to me. Maybe that’s just because she wanted to kill me though.>

The two looked up as a thick cloud passed overhead, casting a dark shadow upon them.

“Pidgewidgeon.”

<Yes?>

“I do not really have to keep an eye on you after you leave Sidhe. But, I would like to. There are plans I would like to set into motion, and… they would go far smoother with an outside hand. Could I convince you to serve under me?” she asked, intently brushing grass clippings off of her robes.

<I already have a guy I take orders from. Vincent Cain.> Not that Fenn had contacted him for a few months. There was a reason for that. <Heard of him?>

“No,” she told him simply, holding her heads high. “I cannot be expected to. Unlike you, I rarely meddle with mortal affairs.” Seeing Fenn’s dour stare, she cleared her throat and clarified. “Not because they have no importance, but moreso because my reach simply does not extend from Sidhe into Althanas. Not yet. And that, little one, is a good reason as to why I saved you.”

Fenn straightened up, his mouth open curiously.

“On rare days, I leave Faerie to see how the mortals are doing-”

<But you’re a reptile! Won’t people look at you funny?> he burst out.

Amused, Banrion held a hand to one of her mouths, as if holding back a laugh. “Dear child, I have the same magics as you, and daresay a little more. You do know you can shroud your appearance in glamour, don’t you?”

Oh. Right, that. Fenn brushed a leaf out of his hair, feeling sheepish. <I forget sometimes.>

“You should try to not forget that,” the Chancellor said seriously. “Forgetting your Glamour could get you killed. Now, where was I before you called me a reptile… Ahh. I leave Faerie from time to time, but the trek is not easy, and Morrighna takes it upon herself to dip her claws into all sorts of trouble when I leave. I dare not consider what our Court might descend into if there were none to hold back her hedonistic urges. So, would you serve under me?”

<I’ve been given that offer before,> Fenn told her. The dream’s sun was starting to set. <The dragon, um, Nip? She tried to make me her servant, her ‘eyes in the world’. Why should I accept that from you?>

Banrion snorted. “How about this? You’ve had little greater than yourself to fight for. You seek material goods, but do naught with them. You protect the wellbeing of you and your mount when it is needed, and you seek to prevent further harm to yourself, but that is all. You are without direction.”

Fenn stiffened. <You shouldn't be able to know stuff like that.>

“Little one, I have been watching you carefully today. I have much practice in reading people,” she explained.

A moment of tight silence passed over them like a stiff breeze.

<...if I did join you,> Fenn said, <what would I get out of it?>

“I could give you guidance and advice, perhaps even purpose, should you need it.” There was a span of time stretching between her words as she waited for some reply, but all Fenn could think to do was stare at the dirt. He didn’t have an answer for her -- yet. ”If you have worries that I will fashion you into a personal slave, or that what I will ask of you might conflict with those you already serve, I reassure you that I will try to remain unobtrusive. And if you dislike what I ask of you, what stops you from refusing?” she suggested gently. “I have no method to force your hand from afar. In a world this dangerous, one needs all the allies they can gather.” Her hands closed in on themselves, as if she were cupping a baby bird. “I understand if you do not accept my offer.”

He was painfully aware of how out of his element he was. But, he was finding himself drawn in. So far, the Chancellor had been the only fae to treat him with anything above dismissal or disgust. And if she did turn out to be an Amari or and Aengus later… he could drop her. <What if I did accept your offer? What would you ask of me?>

Her eyes lit up hopefully. “Later? Many things. Now? Naught but a simple pledge. Pledge your loyalty to me. Pledge it, as a binding contract, and I will gift you with what you crave most; purpose.”

...

<Alright,> Fenn said thoughtfully. The words came out haltingly; he still felt a little lost. <I swear my loyalty to you, so long as you prove yourself to be worthy of following. Does that work?>

She scrunched her noses at his phrasing, amused. Perhaps, at his phrasing. “Yes, and I will hold you to your word. You may consider yourself my herald.” Fenn ducked as Banrion bestowed two dry, motherly kisses to his forehead. “Wake, child. Go forth into the lands of Althanas, of lower creatures, and carry out my will. I promise that great things will come of our alliance.”