Grey Folk

Chapter 10

Dark smoke pooled around the foot of Emory's bed, pulling him into wakefulness with a familiar, creeping sense of dread.

The Raven Queen.

Finally.

Emory hastily felt around at the end of his bed, snatching up his hooded black bathrobe and tugging it over his shoulders, He tightened the belt around his waist just in time as the air shimmered like a heatwave at the foot of his bed, then split into a chasm of darkness with a crack of thunder.

Stepping from this tear in reality was the tall, shadowed figure that had become so familiar over the years. Rather than bringing with her the rustling of long, feathered blue-black robes and the click of unseen feet upon the stone, she draped a cloak of perfect silence upon the room.

The avatar's hair fell to her immutable shoulders in perfect, sleek locks, and they barely moved when she turned that white, expressionless mask of a face to Emory. He readied himself for the impact of her deep, black holes of eyes, but a tiny squeak of fear still escaped his throat before he managed to regain his decorum.

"M-my goddess. Hello..."

"What are you doing?"

Her voice was mellifluous, and though Emory had experienced it many times, it still shocked him that such a terrifying being could exude such a gentle sound. He glanced around the room, then down at his own rumpled sheets.

"I, er... was sleeping," he said, his voice cracking.

"What are you doing, Emory?" She asked the question again, never straying from her soft, accusatory tone.

"N-nothing... important. What are you doing?"

There was a long moment of silence, in which Emory imagined she was deciding whether or not he was worth the trouble. He cringed against the pillows, heart thumping in double-time.

"I have not felt the tug of your fate's thread in so very long, child of mine." The Raven Queen stepped forward again to loom over Emory, her feathered cloak shimmering and merging into the bed itself as the world made way for the goddess. "And yet here you sit, ignoring the pull, and burying your face in your books."

Emory sighed. He loved his goddess in some ways, hated her in others, feared her most of all, but when she spoke mysterious and vague like this, he just grew exasperated. "What would you have me do, my queen?"

"Take some initiative, for once," she suggested, the pale mask's lips never moving. "I cannot always hand your fate to you as I did this island."

She said that all the time. Emory scowled. He'd bought this island, damnit, with money he had saved over many human lifetimes. "I have been waiting for you. I thought you would have a task for me to complete. What took you so long?"

"Ah, yes. The little teleportation spell you used a few weeks ago." The Raven Queen straightened and Emory took a breath at the slight relief from her oppressive presence. "I was curious about that. I thought perhaps you had abandoned my gifts all together. But no, you simply waited until you found something that frightened you more than I do, and now you continue to hide away from it in your Gloomshadow. But you cannot hide from me."

"I'm not... scared of anything... what?" Emory's mind danced away from his last encounter with Midge, which he'd definitely fled from like a scared boy.

"Then why do you linger here? You no longer visit the village. The thread which ties you to the shifting sands of fate begins to tauten. If you do not take action soon, it will snap, and your island will suffer the consequences."