from the bowery to the brimstone I tried to find your heart

((RP MODE))

Word filtered down from the Queen to her Consort, and down through the Court--we had established a sithen in Valruna. I had not been since the last time, shuddering at the tainted odours of the air, the static hum across wires, the fitful flicker of too-bright lights, the metallic grinding sounds of the city. I crept in from the far reaches, moving with slitted eyes towards my goal--one of two places of green left from when the city changed, so drastically.



I shuddered anew once I'd reached it--the human bastards had paved more of the green! They must pay for this, I heard myself mutter, over and again. But true words I spoke--they were violators, destroyers of the land, five times five times over, and they must be made to pay the price of such violation.

After all, the fae know how to exact the cost. I still bear blood on my hands from the last time...



The hard, tacky substance spread out before me, smelling like broken dreams and tortured desperation, thick and oily on the night air. It was repellent. I could feel the small lives in the ground beneath pleading to see the moonlight. I started to twitch, panting slightly.



Dimly, beyond the blackened trail, I can see the waterfall. It yet remains, there is hope, faint and flickering though it is.



I follow the curve of the colored rocks, so like to Lumindor, around until I find the patch that speaks most of magic. I hope, in my blighted heart. I pray to gods I only dimly remember. I touch the rock and withdraw, waiting, my breath held fast.



I exhale slowly when the section of rock fades enough to allow my entry. There is refuge. There is a home. There is our new sithen.



It's on the small side...dripping with moss and grasses, but alight with the life of the small fae, and those forms of fungus that always grow around us, and trees that speak to us, not blunted and maddened and wracked by industrious ways. I begin to relax, my knotted soul uncurling, and stagger to the dark dais.



It's small, the new home, but ours. I can live here. I can breathe here, free of the toxins outside. I can exist here, a spate of refuge, desperately needed.



Yes. I can be here. I can rest at peace. It's good. It's time.

...Now, where the hell is my Raven?!?