The Wizard of Elsewhere

1.18 - The Darkest Day (Part 1)

... And it's important you say it like that. If you try to go after HER claim, she might just say no, and then you're in a puddle.

But if its YOUR claim, and she doesn't outright reject it, then she's implicitly agreeing you have one.

AND, Barnibus, Taking the children then would be rude.

Guest rights. Host rights. The Fae are crazy about them. One of the only things everyone agrees about on the subject of the Fae. Bind and catch.

— Wizard Barnibus Jefferson Montgomery Barnwinkle's Hat

* * *

"Thine own claim, Hatted One?" The Forerunner asked cooly.

She hadn't frozen per say, but it felt like she'd slowed somehow.

She gazed at Barnibus with cold, white-grey eyes, as etherial and unapproachable as the loneliest mountain peak mid-winter, and her mouth was set in... something.

It wasn't stretched into a delighted grin, or in a cruel smirk. It was not frowning or pursed or even pouting. It was just closed, and small and almost... sad.

"Dost thee have a claim?"

Barnibus had seen many faces from The Forerunner this night. He had seen her enthusiastic and merry. He'd seen her cruel. He'd seen her punitive and petulant and curious and frustrated. He had seen her glorious. He had seen her Terrifying.

He had not seen her sad, and it held his tongue... for a moment.

But only for a moment.

"Mine guests they be. I can not let thee take them from me" He said, and despite himself, despite knowing that the figure in front of him was cruel and capricious and that she had come to take the children for her own indecipherable ends, Barnibus realized that he was regretful.

The Forerunner was Beautiful.

Beautiful, from the very frozen tips of her snow-white, flowing hair curling just so over her shoulder-blades, to her lips like the reddest cherry or spilt blood on white satin. Beautiful from her moonlit eyes to her perfect pale skin. Beautiful in how she moved and walked and laughed.

Even her ire was beautiful.

She was Beautiful. And Beautiful in an Other way. More than man — More than human. Much More.

The Forerunner was Beautiful the way the moonrise and the sunset were Beautiful. The way a hurricane and an earthquake and lightning and a tsunami were Beautiful.

And if you could but stop them you would, but before that, you could watch, and glimpse Enormity watching.

The Forerunner was like that, Barnibus thought, as his mouth moved. And they had spun each other in their wiles this night.

Games and Games, Grand and Beautiful. They'd fought and laughed and played as time stretched to breaking and the moon glowed and stars sprinkled their timeless rays upon the glade.

The Forerunner looked at him with glowing moonlit eyes and Barnibus thought they looked sad.

Sad, Barnibus thought.

Then she said "Nay, Wizardly One." And Barnibus rocked back with the force of those words. "Thee make an' meddle, but thou knowest not what fate thee peddle."