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“Who are you to speak that name?"

The words were spoken like the lash of a whip, all of the warmth drained from his voice as he rounded on her, lips curling back in outrage, fingers clenching into very-real talons of anger. He advanced on her in stabbing, jerky steps of his too-long legs, intercepted subtly but with authority by Gram — who merely moved a step between he and his beloved, saber quietly tapping his tasset as before.

“Who are you, that you know it?" He spat, standing a respectful distance from Gram but his eyes and face were still irate, no… they were hurt.

“Do ye remember Jean?" she asked in a small voice, her eyes wide and staring as more and more she saw him in the creature and the horror of it all mounted.

The sound of the name struck him like a physical blow. His features softened, and nearly all of the alien poise left the sidhe hunter's face. He stared at her with wide eyes, gleaming green and slitted as a sidhe — but carrying an all-too-human hurt in them. His body went almost slack, his fingers loosened and he pressed forwards anew — but this time he was supplicating… small, in a way.

“H-how do you know that name? Is… is he well? I…" he blinked and looked down at his hands and he shook his head. No words came out, he just stared at his hands. Stared as if he was seeing them for the first time. Colin, however deeply buried, shone through for just a moment.

“Aye… Aye he's well, still laughin', throwin' barbs an' tellin' stories."

“Still?" He laughed, and for a moment he looked up and Dagonet was there again, grinning, straight-backed, and proud, “You jest as if he would stop, Jean is broad as a bear and twice as bold!"

“… Aye… he was, at one point. Ye can still see it when he grins," Lidia said, her own shocked gaze not growing much more confident as the sidhe hunter turned his incredulous expression on her like a child hearing a particularly long word.

“What do you mean?" His voice was innocent.

“Colin… Jean's an old man, nearin' th' oldest I've seen wit' me own eyes," Lidia said gently, and the scales fell from Colin's eyes again, and his face fell with them, Lidia stepped forward slightly, putting her hand on the sidhe's arm as he fell back a step, seemingly confused. Lost.

“I… I cannot remember how long it has been… surely, it was only the other day I left him? A few year's sabbatical is all!"

“Colin… it's been decades."

The sidhe hunter rocked back at that, and he slumped to a nearby bench — the strange, supple stone visibly deforming beneath his weight as he stared into the middle distance, stared through the six-fingered spread of his hands. Lidia glanced up to Gram, a small nod was all that passed between them as he turned his gaze to the small crowd of passersby — the landing a clear thoroughfare for the inhuman inhabitants of Brigadoon. Lidia sat next to the lost sidhe man on the bench.

“Decades…" he murmured, Lidia nodded, drawing her knees to her chest as she sat next to him, Gram standing sentinel over them both.

“Aye… tae hear tell o' it, ye came here before I was even born, before my Papa met mum even," she said, and he turned his too-human gaze on her with mild alarm, looking over her more carefully.

“You… are young. Young as I was then."

Lidia nodded. Colin pursed his lips in silence. The little changeling let him have it a moment.

“He's a churchman now, Th' Abbot o' Blackreach." She offered after a span, and the sidhe looked up, grasping onto the words like a drowning man a lifeline.

“That old place? As is proper, he about haunted it like a ghost already, always plying the old abbot with leaf and stories for leads on new adventures…" he smiled, and it was different, not the broad, performative smile before… intimate, a bit crooked… human.

“D'ye remember what ye said tae him last?" Lidia questioned in a small voice, Colin's face turned from hers slowly, slightly, simply avoiding her gaze as he looked out past the impossible horizon. He nodded.

“He wanted ye tae know… he found what he was lookin' for, too."

Colin's head lifted at that, and he turned to her with a wide-eyed look, she gave a little shrug, “He's happy. Content in all but what happened tae his best friend."

“Do you consider yourself Jean's friend?" he asked, his voice was low and dangerous. How she answered clearly would color the rest of this interaction. Gram's head turned slightly to that, his saber gleaming dangerously. Lidia swallowed.

“I think so, he was kind tae me an'… he dinnae 'ave tae be. Kind tae people important tae me."

“He cared for my mother when she was broken, that is enough that I would die for the man," Gram interjected, his face did not turn from his task, saber still at hand, a monolith of steel and poise. Colin's face took that in with almost surprise, as if no emotion could hide from his expression, seeing every feeling in real time as he experienced them. His visage warped from wonder, to pride, to wistfulness and back down to a curious resolve in the span of moments.

“That is Jean to a tooth. Brash as a boar and loud as a town crier, but for the bluster and cheek he would go hungry to feed the needy, and frequently found himself without coin for sake of someone less fortunate," He grinned fiercely at that, his mandibles twitching behind his teeth unnervingly, “Come calling without a penny to his name, 'Oh Colin you know I'm good for it'." he chuckled again, his eyes were sad. “He was. Always."

He blinked a few times, staring down at his hands before closing them resolutely into fists.

“If Jean calls you friend, then I do as well. To the bleeding." It was stated with absolute conviction, his face sober, hard. Eyes like agates despite their verdant, sidhe gleam. Lidia was surprised by that, but he offered his hand — six fingers, hard carapace and all — but it was offered as a warrior would, and that surprised her further still. He wasn't human anymore, he was sidhe. He could not lie.

She grasped his arm, and he hers, dark carapace stark against her pale flesh. He grinned wide and bright, his eyes and face full of that valorous warmth once more.

“Come, let me show you the wonders of this place, the splendors of Brigadoon!" Dagonet crowed, shaking out his leonine mane and coming to his feet in all of the flamboyant glory they'd met him in, extending his hand to her once more — this time, as one would invitation to dance. Gram raised an eyebrow at the sudden shift — but so seemed the way of the Seelie.

“Jean would have liked it." The sidhe added softly, Colin's gentle presence showing through once more. Lidia grasped that hand, letting him haul her to her feet.

“I'll make sure tae tell 'em er'ry detail."

Dagonet grinned gamely.

~ ~ ~

Their guide lead them on with gusto, striding ahead in that graceful sidhe gait as he swept his arms out at the sprawling, multifarious splendor of the place.

Of that she couldn't disagree. It was a hell of a view.

They strode up a massive stairway, each landing its own sprawling attraction. The eternal spring air pleasantly warm, blowing through their hair as they continued to ascend towards the primary… thread, of the structure for lack of anything better to call it. To their sides, irregular smaller platforms budded off the main stairway like errant flowers, upon them lounged beings of countless variation. Big and small, tall and short, there wasn't even a standard for number of limbs or their arrangement. In many ways symmetry was optional, a curious creature with a rainbow shell and nine eyes in asymmetrical trios turned to regard her, stroking its chin with the long, chitinous fingers at the end of two of its three arms — the two mounted on the same shoulder.

“What's goin' on wit' these… things…" Lidia hissed up at Dagonet, who twisted to regard her, then fell back a few steps so he matched her stride, draping an arm across her shoulder in ever-so-slight-unwelcome camaraderie. Gram's eyebrow raised at that but he said nothing as the sidhe leaned close, his voice intimate as he spread his fingers at the myriad of figures.

“We are Sidhe, one and all. Each of us a lord and vassal both, a nation unto ourselves in a confederation of thousands," he purred, pressing his cheek to hers and drawing them towards a crowd of milling fae forms.

“The flesh is clay, stone and mortar, and we are all lords — and a lord is one with a mighty castle, so to each of us a nation and a keep of flesh and bone unto which we heap our treasure and authority, and through which we express ourselves, in which we indulge!" He narrated close to her ear as he guided them through the crowd. The the fae host turned and regarded them in turn as they passed, to some a minor curiosity briefly glimpsed, and just as quickly forgotten. Others stared with a variety of flavors to their interest — Lust, hatred, hunger, and a dozen other unreadable, alien emotions played across faces, fangs and mandibles. She began to realize what he meant as they passed one brilliant green creature — Lidia at first was relieved to see a stretch of normalcy, for he seemed a simple armored figure, arrayed in glistening emerald plate armor not unlike that worn by Gram or Bart… but the being turned to regard them, its visored face simply peeling open to reveal rows of gnashing teeth and a cavernous throat. The plates then she realized, were part of it. Beneath them was not mail nor gambeson but sinewy, wet flesh. Sculpted, molded… styled even, into the shapes of a slim-waisted, tall, armored form, fluted and exaggerated in proportion like a figure from a woodcut.

“Lady's Teats 'tis bloody fashion."

“In a sense. It is an exploration, immortal flesh, strengthened by the Amber Dew ah… wait, just you wait!" He cooed to her as they broke free of the throng and ascended a new set of steps, “The Amber Terraces await, such wonders great and terrible to see!"

Lidia fell back a few steps, coming to a stop as he chortled and skipped ahead, Dagonet to the teeth once more in the revelry of the place. Gram's had caught her shoulder, gently pulling her along.

“We should keep moving, Little Redcap," he urged softly, and Lidia fell into step but gave him a quizzical expression.

“What's th' rush? Barely a whit o' 'em seem tae even notice me," she protested, and Gram nodded, setting his teeth in mild frustration.

“Quite. They are in fact, not looking at you at all."

She furrowed her brow, but looked around a bit more carefully. She had been right, there were few gazes that lingered on her or Dagonet as they passed… but the gazes lingered nearby nevertheless. Many of them. Intently. Intensely.

On Gram.

“Oh, shite." She breathed, and Gram nodded.

“I am beginning to feel mildly unpopular with the locals," the Cavalier added dryly. She couldn't blame him, the gazes were hard to read, but none of them were friendly — the closest thing could be described as bemused, one eyeless being with gnarled horns curling up from where its gaze should stare tracked them nonetheless, her jet-black lips peeling back in a mocking little grin and laugh as they passed.

“Consider your attire, Capitán," Dagonet offered, seeming to have somehow gotten behind them, he leaned over Gram cautiously, gesturing to his armor. Lidia and Gram's eyes both went wide.

“Th' steel." Lidia murmured.

“I may as well be covered in flaming pitch to their eyes," Gram grated under his breath.

“You may never understand truly how unwelcome the Bane is, consider your footsteps, Capitán!" he said, and Gram paused a moment and checked his stride.

There were faint depressions wherever he stepped, the lightest possible erosion, almost unnoticeable until pointed out. Gram narrowed his eyes, and turned his boot up.

“The hobnails," he said with a snort. He had not worn his riding boots on this trek, exchanging them for a pair of simple soldier's boots like Bart favored — complete with hobnailed soles for traction. Lidia's shoes were all soft leather and stitching… and Dagonet's feet weren't really feet.

“Are they… eatin' it?"

“As time and acid does yes, fear not falling through the floor or any such foibles, but even the very stones of Seelie recoil at the touch of Iron. Anathema to all." Dagonet explained, Gram resuming his pace with them.

“So they do not touch me, they do not get burned. Simple enough." Gram answered, and Dagonet waved a finger at him with a tsk.

“If only it were so simple Capitán, it does not merely burn is, it destroys."

Gram shot an eyebrow into his hairline at that. Dagonet grinned and continued, leaning in close between them, his voice only for their ears.

“For Jean's sake, I tell you this. The Bane does not merely cut and bite, burn and sting — it destroys. Utterly." He said, eyes serious. “To die by Iron's Kiss is to be unmade, it devours us, our essence. Undoes it, unravels it. Here, we die and are reborn. We are Sidhe. We are Seelie." He paused and shook his head, “Iron takes that from us. Completely."

His face was dire as he regarded Gram anew, “You wear upon you a shroud of death woven from threads of genocide."

“Fantastic." The cool man muttered crisply.

“We gotta move," Lidia agreed urgently, the eyes and stares were growing in number — there were even a few following figures, observing them, trailing them. Stalking them.

The trio increased their pace, the two mortals pumping their legs up the lengthy staircase with gusto, and the sidhe simply lengthening his stride, taking the stairs three at a time. The thread of masonry they walked on, as comical as it was to call the immense structure such, was truly a thread as they came to where it joined to the massive vaulting span in the distance. Lidia and Gram came to an abrupt halt as the stairs simply… stopped, hitting a sheer wall with no seams, doors, nothing — nothing but a massive, embossed black stone effigy of a three-faced Sidhe Woman. Each face shared one eye and cheek, the three visages blending together across a linear divide. Each wore a different expression — the far left contorted in furious rage, baring jagged, triangular fangs and a tongue coiled so lifelike there was spittle depicted in flight. The far right was mature, comely, and had an expression of welcoming lust.

The center-most struck Lidia across the face like a backhand. It was a perfectly symmetrical face of sharp angles and smooth curves, the features arranged into a confident, almost smug smile with just a hint of teeth behind lips so pillowy even the faintest curve of her mouth was caught in the ebon mineral. She knew that mouth.

It had smiled at her at the start of this whole ordeal.

“Mum," Lidia whispered as Dagonet's loping stride brought him alongside the other two.

“The Three Faces of the Morrigan, Queens of Seelie. Badab, Macha and-"

“Morgana," Lidia finished, getting a raise of the brows from the sidhe hunter. She smiled, “I think I recognize me own mother."

“A trick in and of itself," Gram said as he looked at the wall and raised a hand quizzically, “Same as this, what manner of sidhe mystery is this?" he said, frowning sternly. Dagonet looked at him curiously.

“It is but the path." He stated as simply as if it should be glaringly obvious, Gram gave him an exasperated expression, teeth clenching as he turned to their rear — spying more of the lurking curiosities. They had doubled in number again, a veritable gang of insectile sidhe horrors stalking them.

“There is no path, just a wall!" Gram hissed, and Dagonet laughed at him, dismissing the cavalier with a casual wave of his hand. He simply walked straight at the wall with a casual stride, never slowing.

Save for when he raised his leg in a particularly large step — and walked straight up the sheer wall.

“It is but the path!" He crowed, turning a near pirouette on the completely horizontal surface with a cackle of glee, skipping up the wall as he went — his clothing did not even hang or fall. Lidia and Gram exchanged another incredulous look. Tirrah chittered in an amused fashion from her spot on Lidia's shoulder.

“Absolutely not." Gram said, his features were getting more and more haggard the higher they went, she touched his arm, taking his hand.

“Ye got any other ideas?" She asked, and looked up at the sheer wall. There had to be a trick to it, didn't there? Gram shook his head, pacing irritably as he looked for another way around, the approaching gang of nefarious sidhe were growing bolder. Tirrah leapt out of her spot in Lidia's hood, running with a clatter down her arm, and then sprang away towards the wall with a little trill. She landed on the wall easily, all four limbs tap-tap-tapping along as she extended her arms and gave an encouraging trill. Lidia set her teeth.

“Tae hell wit' it."

She walked straight at the wall, it had worked for Dagonet and Tirrah both, she didn't slow her pace and simply raised her foot in a long step onto the sheer, subtly swaying wall.

Her foot stuck.

She blinked at that, and pulled it away again, standing on both feet she hopped on the balls of them gamely for a moment, Gram's eyes wild as he watched her over bristling mustaches. She screwed up her courage and gave a little sprint dead at the wall, with a little yell she leapt into the air — same as she would if she was hurling herself at a city wall to clamber atop it, escaping the city watch like the old days.

She landed hard, all four limbs bracing her as she fell onto the sheer barricade, the full weight of her body pressing… down? She made a strangled little cry of pain and surprise, and forced herself to her feet, wiping her face…

… and turning to look down straight into Gram's upturned face.

“Lady's Teats!" She gasped, and he blew out a breath through his nose at that.

“Language." He chided her and bounced his saber on his knee, looking back at the approaching press gang of impossible things. He set his teeth as she turned in place, unable to restrain the grin as she spun around… it was like 'down' just changed to suit the structure itself, even her clothing, hair and dropped items fell towards the wall — which she tested by flicking a loose coin from her purse forward, watching it soar lazily, and rebound once, twice and thrice off the wall, landing crown-up. Tirrah skittered over and grasped the little gold coin and raised it above her head with a helpful chitter. Lidia scooped it up and rounded back on Gram with renewed confidence.

“C'mon, loverboy. It's just like walkin' off a tall step!" She encouraged him, and he eyed her with a pale face, tuning back to the idling posse of sidhe watching him with predatory intensity. He set his teeth visibly, sheathing his saber and walking to the wall.

“I won't leave ye," she said resolutely reached out her hand to him, and after a moment's trepidation he all but hurled himself at the wall, lashing his hand up to catch hers and she hauled with all her might. It was a strange sensation of tugging back and forth before he suddenly was not being pulled up, but rather falling down towards her. She scrambled back out of the way as he landed with a crash of plates, staying down on all fours with a clattering din as he breathed heavily.

“See? Ain't but steppin' up!" She said, pulling herself to her feet as Tirrah trilled gaily and skittered back up her leg, pausing at her belt to chirp encouragingly at the Cavalier. Gram didn't stand.

“C'mon loverboy, those ugly cusses ain't gonna hang back fer long," Lidia said.

Gram still did not rise. She knelt down to him.

“Loverboy, what is it?" She laid a hand on him, the clattering had not stopped.

He was trembling.

“High." He said tersely, gritting his teeth as he clenched his eyes shut. “Too high."

“I've seen ye walk th' walls o' fort ivory in the dead o' night, yer room is in a tower!" She said incredulously, coaxing him with a gentle tug, and he shook his head, trembling harder.

“It was never quite so far to fall." He hissed miserably, and she felt her heart rending in two.

“Loverboy…" she began, and he slammed his gauntlet-clad fists into the fleshy stone, leaving dent in its alien surface.

“Don't." He growled, dragging his fists back beneath him, curling into a sort of ball, his head against the stones as he breathed heavily, sweat poured down his face and his body shook with absolute, irrational fear. She looked down over his back, below them the curious sidhe had begun to talk among themselves… and she saw the drop below.

It wasn't so much a drop as eternity.

She swallowed herself, feeling uneasy as she stared off the edge of the wall into an infinite plummet into distances so extreme that the trunks of the great trees seemed to vanish into points at their extremes, if there was ground there — it was so far as to be invisible. She laid a hand on her beloved's shoulder.

“Hold me hand, loverboy." She whispered, leaning down and brushing her lips across his cheek. “I'll nae let ye go." She closed her eyes and lowered her voice, feeling the words that must be said.

“I need ye, I cannae do this alone."

His body clenched beneath her touch. His hand shook as he snapped it up to grasp hers, his grip tight with anxiety. Still shaking, he drove himself to his feet one step at a time, a stifled sob swallowed as he straightened, looking around with wild, intense eyes. She smiled at him and clasped his hand in both of hers tightly.

“Nae let ye go, promise."

He managed a tight smile through the tears and sweat.

Dagonet came back to the edge, peeking over like a curious rabbit, “Are you two quite done? There is so much to see!" he crooned, and Gram grit his teeth and let out a sigh. Lidia gave him a little tug, and they carefully took their first steps.

The massive span itself was apparently the focus of whatever nascent well of power pulled them down to it. As they strode up its length, Dagonet and other sidhe visibly walked around the full circumference of the vaulting span, each side of it covered in decorations, monuments, and strange grooves and runnels that from outside looked decorative. Yet at closer examination — she realized they were tracks, thoroughfares, paths to follow. Gram squeezed her hand tightly the whole time as they followed their spindle-legged guide and his gleeful gait.

“This way, Capitán!" He crowed, waving them to another path. The pair followed him down one of those grooves into another stairwell — this one twisted down the middle as they walked, causing Gram's body to go rigid as he put his feet on the impossible geometry. Lidia wasn't doing much better as they were once more rotated by the strange pull of the structure, walking out quite plainly looking up — or rather down — at the interior of the arching span.

“Blood of God." Gram hissed as the small stairway opened up to the interior of the span.

The interior of the span was hollow, a great irregular conduit of alien stone and structure, the same impossible laws that let them walk across its exterior were in play within as well — and sidhe walked the full interior surface without concern as it looped above and below them infinitely, going on far to the distance. Throughout it were more irregular, seemingly random islands and rest stops, all with sidhe beings of some sort lounging and waiting for them, and through the center moved a great… Lidia frankly, did not have words for what she saw.

The center of the span's hollow interior was filled with what she could only describe as wind, yet she could see it, vague iridescence swirling and carrying itself as if a slick of oil was dropped onto the air, shimmering and shining with a scintillating rainbow of hues.

Upon that shimmering updraft, floated vessels. Ferries of a sort — bowl-shaped with a tall, umbrella-like fan made from shimmering, leaf-thin silvery alloy above them that rode that scintillating current like pollen drifting on the winds. The various waiting sidhe stepped upon them, and they took off with considerable speed.

“We will take a gondola, it will speed a lengthy journey!" Dagonet crowed, drawing them along as they walked along the massive inner ring. The inside of it seemed to breathe as the stranger, flexible stone swayed surreptitiously in the exterior breeze. There was a veritable city they walked through, the inside of the span lined with a myriad of structures, all built in service of that massive, central current and its gondolas.

Lidia leaned in close to Gram, the walls and buildings — all strangely angular dwellings and lounges of sorts — were doing much it seemed to calm his nerves, though he was pointedly not looking up… or in this case, would it be down? Lidia shook her head and wrapped her arms around Gram's bicep a bit tighter. Dagonet's guidance was silent, but he seemed to have some notoriety among the other fae, a few would wave to him casually, and many gave them all a respectful distance, perhaps being a Dewkeeper was a place of honor? It all felt… oddly wrong, like a parody of what a city street should be. There were no shops to speak of, no stalls nor hawkers, simply sidhe, living as sidhe. Tirrah tucked herself deeper into Lidia's hood, an anxious chitter leaving her as she became little but a glistening pair of eyes in its shadows.

“Many dwell here, for a time. Maybe an afternoon, maybe a decade, who knows?" The coffee-haired hunter crowed, still practically giddy as they went. A sentiment shared by many of the sidhe they passed, all seemingly in various states of contentment, joy, and ecstasy. He lead them through the pathway, ahead of them through the buildings a long, spiraling platform stood out — indeed there were many like it dotted through the span in the distance — platforms to wait for the drifting gondolas.

“Why do they not strike us?" Gram asked him icily, eyes flicking to and fro, “They can smell the steel on me, the hatred is palpable, and yet they simply… watch."

“Those greater than I can smell the queen upon your consort same as I, Capitán, that deters many of them. Even if they could easily snuff you out like an errant gnat, the potential of the Queen's displeasure is too great for them to risk." Dagonet explained.

“And the others, who stalk us even now?" He said, his eyes looking back to see far in the distance, that same gathering gang of sidhe eyeballing them, moving at an exceedingly safe distance.

“Curious and opportunistic!" He said without hesitation, eyes shining, “The Queen has extended you an invitation, but those who bring you to her may be given a boon, or those who deny you may extract leverage from your well-being." H_e said, and then casually added, _“Some simply want to kill you because they hate you for existing, as is the way."

“Of course." Gram answered bitterly, his hand squeezed Lidia's more tightly.

They made the base of the tower, attracting more eyes — and things that stood in for eyes — as they did, there was something to the Hunter's words, many times they would take notice and there would be a fleeting moment of some extreme emotion — usually rage — and then they seemed to be struck by something, a 'scent' as he described it but it felt like more. They all as a piece seemed to change their demeanor at that whiff of whatever she put off, wariness and curiosity often the replacement for their fury.

She didn't particularly like that much more than simply being jumped.

They made the tower without incident, it's swirling structure lined with four separate stairs set like cardinals on a compass, each spiraling up the sides of it, lacking anything resembling a handrail. Gram pointedly kept his eyes on the stairs as they went, Lidia walking ahead of him, hand still linked.

They arrived at the platform's peak to find it occupied by a pair of lounging sidhe — one with a beautiful azure shell and long, grasshopper-like limbs crossed at what passed for ankles, and a pair of long antennae peeked from a face that could be either a helmet or a skull, the curious insectile features terminating in all-too-humanoid eyes and a curiously flat face that shifted and contorted its chitinous plates in the way of a raised eyebrow.

The other was a sunny yellow of a similar arrangement, and obviously female or the closest thing these things had to that, with a bright white ruff around her neck and a wide grin on her slender, insectile face, exposing sharp teeth and chattering mandibles behind her soft lips, she was also two heads taller than Gram at the least.

“Curious new arrivals." Blue said.

“They are colorful, the Bane is in poor taste however." Yellow returned.

“It is gauche, but they are Queensmarked."

“Ah, is that what that is?"

“Quite."

The pair fell into silence again, both not bothering to stand or even move, simply staring at the trio like they were the most interesting thing in the world. Lidia felt a bit naked under those slit-eyed gazes, and casually shifted Gram's steely bulk further between them.

The next gondola drifted close, like a seedpod on a breeze, and slowly floated to a stop at the platform. The colorful pair of sidhe nodded politely to Dagonet as he walked to the edge… Lidia blinked. The gondola was sideways, its silvery leaf-sails pointed to Lidia's left, the bowl-shaped bottom half to her left.

“More fae nonsense?" Gram lamented as Dagonet simply hopped across the interstitial space, rapidly righting himself as he grabbed the central mast of the vessel, his feet being pulled down snug tot he bottom. He was sideways himself as he beamed at them.

“Seems like it, loverboy," Lidia said, and Tirrah chittered out a soft series of chips. Was she laughing at them? Cheeky little thing. The little changeling squeezed Gram's hand, and sized up the hop, it wasn't really much, the gondola was flush to the platform, seemingly waiting for them. Lidia gave a long step off the edge of the platform, feeling the shift in the direction of the pull drawing her down rather firmly, she simply rotated mid-step and landed with a heavy THUNK of her weight settling awkward on her heels as she stumbled a few times, turning to smile encouragingly at her betrothed.

“Way easier than th' bloody wall, trust me loverboy."

Gram rubbed his jawline a bit, the two sidhe behind him chuckled softly.

“Its afraid of heights."

“Adorable."

“The Queen always finds such charming mortals."

Gram grit his teeth visibly at that, his jaw bulging as the muscles tensed, and he gave his own short hop, trying to mimic Dagonet's graceful twist as best he could. He managed fairly well, but the fact he had bones and armor where Dagonet did not fouled the motion somewhat, and he landed in a heap of clattering armor once more, Lidia cautiously stepping back as he grunted, banging his fist into the floor before slowly righting himself with a muttered oath, grasping the central mast for support, eyes pinpoints of anxiety. Tirrah gave him a reassuring chirp as Lidia took his hand.

“Yer doin' great, loverboy." She purred to him, leaning up to turn his head down to hers, meeting his eyes, “Nae bit o' shame in it, proud o' ye."

She leaned up and kissed him then, as Dagonet set the gondola in motion with a curious touch. It shuddered into motion as the little changeling leaned up on her toes to give her beloved a proper kiss, her tongue slipping into his mouth and her hands cupping his face. She felt the tension melt away in his jaw as he leaned back against the mast and kissed her back, the mind-boggling world melting away for a few scant moments in their embrace.

They opened their eyes to wonders.

The gondola moved indeed, but now as they stood upon it, their perceptions skewed anew — to all aboard, they were rising upwards on a draft, the winds from below stirring hair and clothing softly, and all around them the hollow span passed at a rapid pace, showing them the milling population of fae and faeries sped by on all sides, the span's internal cityscape spinning around them with the gentle rotation of the gondola as they continued their meteoric rise. Even Gram's trepidation seemed to ebb as they watched the magnificent, impossible city pass them by in each other's arms.

“It's beautiful…" Lidia breathed to him, and truly it was. The strange stone made it all breathe and sway like reeds, and the colors, sharp, glossy black and soft matte white were the perfect canvas for the madcap splash of colors of its inhabitants — each walking and prancing as they would like smears of pigment on a grand, impossible canvas.

“A wonder for every horror, such is the life you gave me." Gram murmured, his voice hoarse but even. Lidia pressed closer to him.

“I'll try tae slant that towards th' wonder more. Promise."

Gram finally managed a smile.

Their upward travel went along at a rapid pace, the wind whisked by them, stirring hair and clothing as they began to gather speed, pushing them down into the base of the gondola with the building momentum. Gram set his feet and shoulders, his armor rattling as he put his arm around Lidia, who herself was finding it difficult to stand as the span around them began to blur under the speed.

“We're out of control!" Gram shouted at Dagonet, who simply laughed — the vessel plowing ahead like a runaway dumbwaiter. Tirrah shrieked as an errant gale caught her, whipping her momentarily into the air, anchored only by her tiny talons in Lidia's hood. Lidia cried out and snatched at her as the brief flight rapidly began to turn into a ripping current of air, dragging the tiny fae away. She screeched in fear as she flailed for Lidia's hand, her tiny limbs and inconsequential weight doing nothing to save her from the sudden channels of air whipping past and through.

“Hold on!" Lidia cried, reaching up to grasp at her, the pressure of the ascent making it hard to move, driving her down with the weight of her own body. Gram braced himself hard, wrapping his arm around her middle as the air screamed around them, the leaf-like fins creating an envelope of pressure that ripped at them from the edges, the big Darrowmite's weight and armor lending him substance in the buffeting climb. Tirrah screamed again and Lidia all but climbed Gram as the little fae slipped, and fell — torn away by the gales and catching herself only by the trailing tails of her hood, whipping and flailing about wildly like a pennant on a lance.

“Tirrah!" Lidia screamed, trying to reach up to grasp her as the gondola only seemed to pour on greater speed. Gram's screams joined their ears, his jaw muscles standing out as he strained to remain standing beneath the impossible crush of the travel. They were not shouts full of terror, but rage and defiance. He bellowed like a man possessed, digging his hobnailed boots in and wrapping one arm around the mast in total, locking his arms like a hound with a bone. Hauling at Lidia with main strength, he pulled her up, giving her a bit more reach as the tiny fomori's grip began to wane, her trilling shrieks growing more terrified.

Lidia's hood tore. The tiny talons began to slip and cut their way free. She screamed. The hood gave way. Lidia lunged against the crush of weight and momentum, extending her fingers for the airborne fomori girl with a cry.

They closed around nothing.

Tirrah was sucked out of the gondola in a din of high pitched shrieks. Lidia screamed in wordless loss as she tried to lunge further, driven down by the buffeting momentum back into Gram's bracing arm as the indomitable soldier managed to keep himself upright against the shredding force.

A graceful shape passed them both like an arrow in flight.

Dagonet seemed unaffected by the press, moving with a stately grace he lunged beyond the gondola's confines, his long legs hooking the railing as he effortlessly snatched the fomori from the air, swinging himself back into the vessel with a crowing laugh, hair flying about his joyous face as he pulled himself back down to where the two mortals clutched one another for safety. Opening his hand, he gently placed Tirrah in Lidia's arms, smiling at them.

“No way to lose so brave a vassal!" He beamed at them, Tirrah clung to Lidia and chittered anxiously, with a fit of pique, she opened her mandibles and spat two wads of the strange webbing onto her hands, adhering them to the straps of Lidia's satchel, giving her a little determined nod. Lidia gave him a shocked look, but the speed and buffeting of the wind swallowed any chance she might have to question him as the lift suddenly rocketed even faster. The area around them was a blurred smear of raucous colors and scintillating light, and Gram's straining muscles started to give as he let out another roar of defiance and agony the same, she clung tightly to him, she could feel the plates of his armor straining against the momentum, and feared if it were not for his might she'd have joined Tirrah, whipped out into the void.

Dagonet seemed nonplussed about the whole ordeal. He simply stared upwards with a knowing grin, the gales whipping his hair about him as if the crushing forces simply did not exist to him. Perhaps they didn't.

The light suddenly winked out, the tunnel narrowed. Dagonet's laughter peaked.

Everything just… stopped.

The Gondola didn't slow as much as it just ceased movement, Gram and Lidia weren't jarred by the lack of forces in any way other than their efforts to strain against the screaming momentum were suddenly straining against nothing but a spring breeze. Gram let out an audible gasp, his shoulders slackening as he leaned against the mast, panting and visibly fatigued from the effort, Lidia similarly holding tight to his arm still, legs a bit jellied by the strain of trying to hold upright.

“What… was that madness?" Gram panted, turning a murderous gaze on their Sidhe guide. Dagonet grinned at them both.

“Apologies mine, I had imagined anyone who could best mine hunters in single combat could manage, and manage you did!"

Gram didn't respond. There were not words for his gentle tongue to match the sheer venom in his eyes. Lidia didn't slight him for that one bit.

They hadn't so much stopped as their motion had slowed, Lidia realized, the gondola had passed into an area of near-darkness, the span narrowing rapidly in the final moments of the struggle, and now just a winding, featureless tunnel. Between the sails of the rising vessel, light peeked through. A point that was rapidly growing in size. Dagonet's face spread in a wide grin.

“Dear guests, welcome…" he began, walking ahead of them in the gloom and spreading his arms.

The lift rose to its apex, and light nearly blinded them as the gondola rose up from the narrowing corridor into a feast of light. In defiance to reason and direction, they had indeed risen, and before them in all directions, stretched impossible wonder.

“… To the Amber Terraces, the heart of Seelie, The heart of The Morrigan."

Lidia expected to see golden boughs, glittering brass, many such things… what she did not expect, was red, red, red.

A massive structure sprawled before them, tall, impossibly so. Leagues high, rivaling the Ossuary of Man, and the gruesome spires of the Empty Queen's hellish netherworld in scale — stretching up from the depths of the infinite cosmic plane from beyond the vanishing point. White like freshly-cleaned bones, it gleamed its impossible majesty wetly in the vast, sourceless light of this endless spring, forever and eternal.

Yet it was but the central mast of a far greater arrangement of impossibility — beginning where they had emerged, and sprawling out wide were innumerable platforms, each of them a dense, multi-tiered edifice of salons, gazebos, and sprawling open-air amphitheaters filled even at this distance with languorous sidhe. They swayed along with the structures, everything including the austere central spire was carved and cobbled of that strange flesh-like sandy stone, making the entire place subtly, gradually breathe like a living thing. There was no rhyme nor reason to their arrangement nor layout, and the platforms themselves defined ordering — the buildings jutted and stuck out at insane, impossible angles as they had in the span's interior, Sidhe and their vassals walked and lounged in every possible orientation, some even having conversations with others from the ceilings or walls of their adjacent structure.

They were arranged in tiers, each higher than the last, snaking in a spiraling, chaotic pattern up the central tower's immaculate length — each linked to each other and back to the tower with large, rib-like flying buttresses, they themselves pathways and pavilions, alive with locales. They narrowed and grew more opulent as they went, spiraling higher and higher until he greatest tiers were palatial yet exclusive, growing smaller and smaller until at the very top there was naught but the single, gleaming top of the tower — a sprawling lattice of obscuring crimson blanketing the highest, most exclusive tier from sight.

Oh yes, the red. Scarlet like fresh blood, like flayed skin lay across it all like silk spilling over ivory bone. Red, red, red, it covered all in a great series of velarium that hung and strung between them in interlocking lattices, a single, continuous sheet of gleaming scarlet satin that wound around the whole of the affair, tinging the light bloody beneath them as it diffused through their gossamer folds, like ribbons the size wheat fields wrapped around a maddening puzzlebox at fortress scale.

“Lady's Teats." Lidia breathed, and Gram, wide-eyed — did not bother to correct her.

The gondola arched up, the bottom-most tier of the terraces lined with said same tunnels as the one they'd emerged from, assorted gondolas popping up like corks from the various tunnel exists — the endpoints of the other distant spans they'd seen. Gram held himself firmly against the mast as their flight carried them higher still.

“Where are we goin'?" Lidia asked as she pressed herself to her beloved's chest, Tirrah similarly clambering back to her spot in the girl's hood, eyes wide and anxious. Dagonet grinned.

“You are invited! It carries us to the highest terrace, a place I know well, where the greatest of us sup on Dew and delights alike, and the greatest wonders of Seelie are wrought!"

Lidia's gaze turned to that scarlet-cocooned tower, drawn there inexorably, a pull in her belly like a lodestone in her guts.

“Me Mum's in there." She said as she stared, eyes fixed on the peak of the tower, “That's where she'll be, I can feel it."

“Then we have our heading." Gram said in a firm tone. She could still feel him trembling through his armor, she had never known. She stole a look at his face, his eyes now fixated like a hound on the enshrouded tower. He was pale still, and his eyes were red and haggard, streaks of tears having dried into the dust and grit of the road and battle. With his visor raised, it conjured an image nearly too perfect, his body staunch and erect, but his face within that armored shell was vulnerable. She had never known, he was her hero, her stalwart champion, her knight in shining armor — she had honestly thought him fearless, the ice in his veins only warmed for her. She cursed herself again, as yet again she had brought such woe to this… wonderful, terrible, intractable man she had fallen in love with. He braved it all, despite the terror she felt through his flesh. He soldiered on for her alone_._

No one had done that before. Not since Papa.

She dug her fingers into the seam of his gorget, pulling him down suddenly, he turned his eyes to her at the last possible moment as she thrust herself up onto her toes and took his mouth in hers, driving her body close to him and devouring him. She kissed him like she was dying, like his lips were the only cool water in a desert of misery. She kissed him like he deserved.

“I'll make it worth it," she mouthed hotly against his lips, both of them trembling after the sudden kiss, “I'll make it all worth it, loverboy." She took him again and his body trembled in a different light as she bit down on his lower lip a moment, letting her fangs prick at it… letting that bit of her nature out just a tad. Feeling that bit of him still inside of her calling to the rest of him. She slid her tongue into his mouth and her arms around his neck, and she made him whole again for a while.

She kissed him, and any time he opened his mouth to protest, she slid her tongue into it again until their positions had almost reversed, he leaning down over her in nigh-supplication as she doted on him for a long while, before she drew her mouth back from his, leaving his lips flushed and his eyes afire. He was no longer trembling.

“It was always worth it." He said at last, reaching down to cup her cheek in his gauntlet-clad hand. “Every moment."

“Hark, our destination approaches!" Dagonet said, alarmingly close. Lidia leaned back from Gram's face languidly, turning to meet the sidhe's gaze from where he'd apparently been watching from the other side of the mast. She glanced to the still-faraway terrace, then back at the sidhe man. The hunter smiled innocently as she raised an eyebrow.

“Turn around, Colin. I'm busy."

“Oh."

Tirrah leapt free of Lidia's shoulder as well, landing on the Dewkeeper's arm and skittering up to hang from his bicep like a tiny sailor, giving him a chiding little chirp as Lidia turned back and took Gram's face in her hands again, her mouth meetings his.

“_ Oh."_

The fomori chattered sardonically and he nodded agreeably.

“It would serve to simply stand sentry,"

Tirrah chirped her approval, hopping onto his shoulder as he turned to regard the approaching landing, as Lidia continued to ply favors upon her champion — for a few minutes more at least.

~ ~ ~

The gondola slowly descended, the sky had been alive with them as the obtuse arc of the launch had sent them spiraling down, tracing a whirling, wheeling path around the structure before finally lofting to the highest tier. Like twirling seedpods they'd descended in a swarm, the companions glimpsing more sidhe forms of varying and increasingly nightmarish arrangements aboard them as they closed distance.

Lidia smoothed out her hood with a smug little smile as Gram stood nearby behind her, his arms draped loosely around her. He was no longer trembling. His eyes were sharp and gleaming once more, even if his lips were perhaps a bit flushed and reddened from the effort. Lidia traced her tongue across one of her fangs as she stole one more glance at her loverboy's face as the gondola settled with a faint clatter of its strange hull against the platform. She cast him a wink, and his eyes smoldered but she felt more than saw the steel come to his spine. She didn't want to suggest something as bawdy as the idea she might have simply kissed the anxiety out of him, yet the evidence abounded to the contrary.

Mum would be proud.

The disembarked with perhaps a bit more haste on Gram's part than was needed, the tall Darrowmite clearly pleased to be on something more-resembling solid ground, Dagonet loping ahead of them again as the crowd of nearby similarly leaving filtered around them, a bow wave of inhumanity suddenly filling the air with a raucous rampage of color, texture and motion. Lidia stopped short, her spine rigid with alarm, but a familiar clatter at her back centered her. Gram stood over her, hand on his saber, the other on her shoulder.

The crowd broke around them like a stone in a stream, all without so much as a passing glance as they did — but all giving them wide berth, unconsciously even. Lidia hung back, staying Gram with her presence as the host of sidhe… simply passed them by. There was talk, and touch and oddly-exaggerated gaiety, as if even here they were in some way play-acting at emotions. Lidia and Gram exchanged silent, wild-eyed looks as the swell of creatures thinned out, all without seemingly acknowledging them at all, save for a single Seelie woman at the end — sleek, slender, and completely naked save for what appeared to be a thick coat of bright, bloody-red fluid that glistened and hugged the creature's almost androgynous slender frame curve for curve from the base of her skull to the ends of her taloned limbs — thick enough it only barely obscured her nudity by a softening of outlines, seeming to seethe and roil about her body like a living thing.

Dagonet smiled at the painted sidhe, spreading his arms to her to which she did the same as she swayed closer. She had no extraneous limbs, the proper amount of eyes and ears — truly, restrained by the standards of the previous mob — save that her lithe legs ended in a pair of three-taloned, digitigrade feet in place of anything human. She swept forwards into his arms, cupping his cheeks in her taloned, six-fingered hands — the motion was sensual and familiar, a lover's touch. The Dewkeeper pressed into her touch with the same casual intimacy, taking her hand and kissing the inside of her wrist with fervor as she draped herself over him, the ink-like pigment roiling and rippling where it touched his bare carapace, seeking, clinging, caressing. Her face was milk white but for but her cat-like eyes — Sidhe eyes, the same crimson as the living paint she was adorned in, and they pouted at him gamely.

“Dagonet! Too long have you been gone, the salon grows stagnant without your tales of the mortal realms!" She purred to him at an intimate distance, rolling her body up against his in an overtly sexual manner, her bloody gaze dilating with predatory intent as he smiled back at her, sliding his fingers through her glossy, long black hair. Long enough to drag behind her like a train of black silk.

“Alas! My Lady tasks me greatly, and today is no different, I am an escort of highest honor — behold, a scion come home!"

The painted woman blinked then, turning her gaze to Dagonet's gesturing hand — as if she simply had not seen Lidia and Gram standing not two paces away.

“Oh!" She breathed, her burning red gaze turning on Lidia, her petite nostrils flaring. “You speak truly, she has the scent of the Court upon her!"

“I said the same to mine subordinates!" The sidhe hunter agreed, loosing the painted sidhe from his embrace as she flowed over to Lidia and knelt down to peer closer at her face, tilting her head in a far-too-familiar way as she did.

“You have scars. In your eyes and your flesh." The painted sidhe said in a sonorous voice, wonder and curiosity balanced on her tongue. Her crimson eyes dilated again, like a cat observing a mouse as she tilted her head slowly 'round again.

“What new experience do you bring, to make scars so deep?"

Lidia had no answer but a haunted look, the painted sidhe smiled razors back at her, eyes following up the protective arm to Gram with a growing intensity, her lips pulling back perhaps a bit too far from her teeth as she did, the stoic Darrowmite's face an impassive mask as the red-smeared woman chortled softly.

“What a tableaux, and with The Bane even to give it true spice ," she purred and laid her long fingered hands on her cheeks in adoration most at odds with the glistening fangs in her smile; “The Hind and the Hound, what delightful irony," she purred and wheeled bonelessly around the pair, her hair animating along with her interest, Lidia realized as she stepped around them it was not dragging behind her like a train, but held low and liquid-smooth like the tail of a serpent. It coiled around them in a flowing, inky mass that seemed to cut fractal patterns in the air as she drew her fingers within hairsbreadths of the steel of Gram's cuirass, the Darrowmite stiffening as she seemed to materialize behind him, her hands raised up beneath him in a miming of the familiar way Lidia held him, her flesh a breath away from the gnashing iron hungry for her blood. Her rouged lips were wet as they parted near his ear.

“It is tantalizing, to be so close to death is it not?" She breathed to him, her voice shuddering with a flagrantly sexual tremor on the final words. “One misplaced breath, one errant heartbeat and this thing you covet could flense you asunder."

That word again, spoken by one voice this time, echoed by a chorus of gnashing fangs in her mind. Asunder. Gram's body was rigid as a plank as she seemed to wait for his response a moment, so close as to dare him to lash out, to strike, to break the fragile neutrality first.

“As love should always be, Madam," Gram answered with a working of his throat, his eyes dead ahead — but Lidia felt him tighten his fingers in her clothing subtly, “Let my love define me utterly, if I am not strong enough to bear it — let it be that which destroys me."

The sidhe woman's eyes flashed and the sinuous patterns of her hair flared around her along with her widening smile, “A good answer." she purred in response, as she seemed once more for a fleeting moment, tempted to touch his steely armor.

“Come away now Dearg, his blood is not yours to sample and you know it." Dagonet's voice chided her pleasantly, and his hand dipped in, taking hers and seeming to practically unspool her from around the couple effortlessly, she laughed as he spun her in a graceful twirl around the two smaller mortals until she whirled around into his arms, winding her sinuous train of hair around him like black ribbons, binding her limbs to her chest — and her to his form as a whole. She looked up at him with open desire, her eyes alight with interest, once again seeming to simply forget the pair as the tall Dewkeeper caressed her bared throat, drawing a mewl of lustful delight from her.

Lidia touched Gram's arm then, her eyes drawing his attention to the pair… Dagonet looked at her with devotion, absolute and complete. The cavalier's eyebrows raised as he keyed to what she did — for the Sidhe woman, in whatever capacity, returned that gaze to him. The pair hopelessly, impossibly in love with one another. It clicked together, as an old man's words rang back to her.

Come away with me, and I will care for you.

The pair looked back at them as Lidia cleared her throat, the contact so intimate as to be the next best thing to lovemaking as the pair smiled at them, Lidia raised her eyebrows.

“Iffin' ye dinnae mind, Lady, yer man was about guidin' us about th' place, we're a touch pressed fer time…" she hedged, and the red-eyed woman smiled at her warmly.

“Of course, a Scion means an audience at the throne, I was lost in my fascination…" her eyes dilated visibly once more, her voice taking on an obsessive tone as they lingered on Gram once more. “Your blood has such sweet suffering in its scent… what experiences you must have had, things you have seen, pains you have felt…" she shivered and Dagonet stroked her cheek soothingly.

“Come, they are correct my love — I have a duty to perform, and the quicker and more diligently I discharge it is all the quicker I can take you into my arms."

“A persuasive argument, …" the woman breathed lustily, her teeth chattering hungrily, and Lidia felt a chill of unease as she saw the woman's legs writhing together, and her lips actively salivating. Tirrah chittered with mild distaste from her hood. 'Dearg' as it were turned to them, twirling herself free of the binding strands of living hair, giving it a dramatic, sensual toss with her forearms before bending at the waist before the two mortals.

“No better guide in all of Seelie, come little Hind and dour Hound, come and cavort with us for a while, on way to the appointed place!"

Lidia and Gram exchanged a look, Dagonet extended a hand to her dramatically, and she took it twirling her way along as he took a step towards the distant terraces, the spire looming above them patiently. Lidia took Gram's hand, her thumb rubbing along the steel of the gauntlet, he visibly drew himself up — strengthened by her contact — their linked fingers binding them as they followed the immortal lovers, a study in contrasts and contradictions alike.

One did crazy things for love.

~ ~ ~

The terraces sprawled ahead of them, Dagonet and Dearg leading the pair hand in hand, 'cavorting' being an accurate description of how they roamed from point to point, utterly intoxicated with one another's presence — they flowed across the spaces, never more than a breath away from one another, moving almost more like one being than two. Lidia and Gram were much more reserved as they followed their prancing guides, and again the impossibilities were many and multifarious, the pair's eyes wide as the sheer density of the stimulus threatened to overwhelm their mortal senses.

Past the landing, the Amber Terraces were an assault on the senses — sights, sounds, and scents warred from every angle, above them sidhe embraced and laughed at angles that defied gravity, traipsing across sheer surfaces, lounging on ceilings and walls, the pull of forces seeming to follow any flat plane without question, the buildings themselves constructed in mad logic with that so that every wall was a floor and every floor a ceiling. All of them, filled to the brim with debaucherous sidhe.

Oh the debauchery. Lidia's eyes were wide as dinner plates as they walked continually upwards, moving tier to tier along large railed staircases and ramps — and occasionally to Gram's dismay, sheer walls. The perversions and pleasures blurred the lines of the sane, and it was then she saw why the pale palace had its name.

The Dew. The Amber Dew. It flowed like wine here. Enclosures of terrified fomori hung and perched like decorative platters, large pitchers of the gleaming, golden fluid lay alongside gruesome displays of the murdered, crushed, and discarded fae bodies from which it was harvested, the terrified creatures treated like a brace of fruits to be pressed. The Dew's powers were the entire crux around which this place spun, and Lidia felt her blood run cold at the perversions. Sidhe sipped and guzzled the stuff, laughing and chortling in their decadent consumption, lips and faces stained with the thick, golden-hued fluid. The girl clapped her mouth over a scream as they walked beneath a pair of lovers in time to watch the more feminine of the two pour a draught of the harvested ichor down the throat of her consort, and then unfurled a hideous, insectoid talon from a misshapen, mantis-like limb — using it to lay the masculine sidhe's torso open from belly to throat, showering the mortal passers by in a gush of his azure blood as he screamed — not in agony, but ecstasy. He bowed backwards, pouring more of his falling blood like cerulean rain, his organs pulsing and throbbing as his lover leaned in to kiss his still-beating heart, the Dew rapidly healing and numbing him to the shock, his writhing not pained but pleasured.

Lidia lurched to the side, leaning heavily on the railing as she retched over the edge, her stomach was long-empty of anything but bile and water, but she purged it all the same, the taste of sidhe blood on her lips as she wiped blue-tinged ichor from her face in a sudden, formless panic. Gram's strong hand squeezed her shoulder and she grasped onto it desperately, squeezing tight to the steely anchor of his presence.

Similar horrors played out as she recovered, eyes alighting on a million such perversions, lusts were the most basic, public lovemaking in pairs, groups or entire orgies of Amber dew and azure blood. Any kind of excess you could imagine occupied some niche of the terraces, and it only grew denser and more elaborate the higher they ascended, a performance made by a flayed creature, using its own flesh as veils in an elaborate dance, flensing new veils actively as the dance proceeded with its own knife-like talons. Another instance of an impossible creature — creatures, plural — seeming to enmesh themselves together in a pile of writhing attentions, until that seeming stack of flesh and creatures rose and strode away on long, slender limbs — an amalgamated being, wearing the smaller ones like parasitic clothing. Lidia's head spun, and Gram's eyes were hard and dilated to pinpoints as the miasma of blood, lust, and the sickly-sweet scent of dew rode on the breeze.

“Hell should not be so beautiful." Gram grated, and the little changeling could offer naught but a shuddering nod.

They wound around the terrace, Lidia and Gram having both scooped a pair of damp cloths from a passing table, wherein' they were chortled and cooed at by its androgynous inhabitants, one offering to take Gram away and bathe him properly with six besotted eyes and a lashing tongue that ended in a sting-filled barb.

They had politely, but pointedly declined, much to the good-natured chagrin of the locals.

“I dinnae know where tae look," Lidia complained as she wiped her face and arms, much of the spattered blue gore having dried upon her, ruining her clothing and causing her to make a face at it. Gram's armor had turned out to be rather horrifically self-cleaning — as the ichor that fell upon its steel surface boiled and hissed, cooking off to steam. Gram had opted to speed it along with the washcloth, the smell was horrendous.

“It is a tapestry of horrors," Gram agreed as he worked, neither of them losing pace as they set foot upon another set of stairs, now heading straight towards the central spire and the tight cluster of buildings at its base, “Every nightmare ever told about the Sidhe rings true somewhere I look, I expect to turn a corner and find an oven full of baked children."

“Nay, not here." Dearg purred at him, sliding her arm around Dagonet's waist and looking back at the armored soldier with wide, intense eyes, “Cookery is done at the bottom levels."

“Fantastic." Gram responded dryly, wiping a dangling cord of ichor from his mustaches.

The route was alarmingly quiet, this deep into Seelie it seemed that the nobility had little interest in being distracted from their amusements — but they drew no less attention, every salon and open-air parlor was full of slitted, sidhe eyes watching them as they passed, peering past the veils of glossy red swaying in the eternal spring air.

The strange banners were a constant. Every curve, every building, every salon and sitting room had a twisting, writhing coil of the glistening fabric somewhere, the all-encompassing tapestry of strange crimson cloth hung between the buildings like draping flesh, bridging sinew swinging and swaying artfully, a vivid splash of red among the pale white masonry. It nagged at Lidia's mind, the details, the motion familiar — like she should know it, like she had seen it somewhere before.

It was not until they rounded to the central steps that it became clear.

The highest tier was seemingly locked to access by all but this most grand of staircases, a massive perron of steps and towering arches with heavy, skeletal-looking balustrades and inter-crossed by massive faux-gates at the landings and flying buttresses that trailed overhead, all swaying with that weird soft stone, like the open, breathing rib cage of a still-living animal. Adding to this was the banners, who were not absent in this grand concourse, but hung across the center in the great velarium that was glimpsed from their entry, shading the entire length of the steps in the gauzy red cloth and its scarlet-filtered light. This close, Lidia was able to reach out. To touch and see. To know.

She recoiled.

“Lady's Teats!" She hissed. It was warm. It was fleshy. It moved and writhed not solely with the wind, but with a hideous, vascular, sinuous stretching and contraction of living meat. Veins and capillaries were visible this close, and it pulsed with purple streaks shot through the seemingly crimson cloth, revealed to be a hideous, wet, fleshy membrane, draping everything, part of everything.

“It's alive…" she hissed, and Dagonet laughed gaily.

“Of course it is, it is Seelie."

The little changeling looked a bit sick at that, eyes flicking about furtively, her her scanning gaze she caught sight of Tirrah, clutching at her red hood in wide-eyed anxiety. The little fomori was not so much terrified as agitated, her eyes tracking to every form around her, every stack of wrung-dry bodies of her kin. Lidia felt suddenly quite sick for different reasons.

“Hey, hey little one dinnae worry," She said, reaching a hand over and gently nudging her with a finger, getting a look of alarm from the tiny fae, “I'll keep ye safe, I promise."

Dearg's eyes locked onto the little fae, and she instinctively bared those saw-edged, triangular teeth — which had the expected affect on the little fae, who retreated deeper and gnashed her own mandibles back, going as far as to bare her stinger as well.

“A little warrior! An escapee perhaps?" She cooed and fell back a step with a sinuous twist of her hips that didn't at all seem natural, her whole body rotating and bending to accommodate her head's unbroken, unmoving gaze.

“No love, a Vassal." Dagonet purred as the predatory sidhe leered down, peering far, far too close for comfort of either the fomori nor the changeling she was riding — a point that Gram made quite clear, shifting his stride to place himself squarely between the sinuous faerie and his betrothed, steely in both attire and gaze.

“A vassal, of a fomori?" She asked with a look of incredulity practically welded to the bones of her skull, unable to hide her inhuman, shark-like teeth and the chittering mandibles further back… Lidia shuddered at the grisly facade falling away. Dagonet's response was glib, shrugging with a smile of genuine enjoyment.

“Isn't it queer? Offered such a fine tithe and she vassalizes it like a real knight!" He crowed, the bloody woman tittering at his story as she turned back to regard Tirrah with a different light in her eyes, the hunger replaced in some part with an amused sort of respect.

“I dinnae know why that's so funny tae ye," Lidia groused, Tirrah raising her chin in a proud little chatter of defiance at the painted sidhe woman, which was answered with more peals of delighted laughter.

“Of course you don't, you are not Sidhe." The painted woman echoed Dagonet's earlier proclamations, of which he as well fell back to his lover to reinforce, taking up a stride opposite, keeping a friendly distance as he leaned over, taking the steps three at a time.

“You really don't understand do you?" He asked, gesturing at the dusky black faerie perched on her shoulder, “Such is a grand play in the game for such a thing as a fomori, you have granted it a title in our courts."

“How d'ye figure?" Lidia asked, and Gram cleared his throat.

“Arguably, little Redcap, you are the scion of the queen. Even if the position is not hereditary she herself said her power reflected unto you."

“Mighty, bold, and wise, perhaps there is merit to this one's collections." Dearg cooed, sidling closer to Gram again, “If she grows tired of you I will take you in, Dagonet does sing best with a partner…" she offered in a coy, seductive tone, a long tongue sliding out playfully between her saw-edged teeth. Gram smiled, but his eyes did not.

“A fine offer but I fear by the time the Little Redcap grows tired of me I will be well in the grave," he deflected, and she chattered her teeth hungrily at him in response.

“A pity." She mused a moment, catching Lidia's eyes, “The Hound is astute however, you have in this action, granted it station," she explained and grinned at Tirrah with genuine amusement. “The littlest Knight of Seelie, what an intoxicating absurdity." she tittered and Tirrah chattered back irritably, and to the wee changeling's shock Dearg bowed her head to the rebuke.

“Well-played little one, such an unexpected thing, the scion brings bounty."

Lidia's eyes raised at that, and she opened her mouth to question the fae woman and her meaning, but she had ghosted away again, seemingly as distractable as a magpie — and precariously preoccupied with their guide. There she was, gliding alongside him in boneless grace until she hung about him like a solicitous serpent, palms flat to chest and abdomen, flesh touching flesh as broadly and often as possible. The eternal now possessed her, and she followed every errant sensation and desire without heed.

She and Gram fell back into silence, her hand finding his, eyes finding eyes as fingers twined together. There was comfort to be found there for them both, the end was near.

The grand stair seemed to go on forever, as they approached the organic trusses and struts of the tower unfolded before them into the grandest tier of all of the Amber Terraces. It was greater, denser and more complex than the others had been, more organic. The shapes here were far more visceral, more of flesh and bone than brick and mortar, the strange soft stone yielded to gravity and its own weight in ways that took the already dark mirror of Darrowmite architecture and passed it through a filter of stitched skin and flayed skeletons. The buildings were the same structures, same layout, but the subtle textures were more organic — everywhere the great, fleshy velarium was in greater abundance, and beneath its red filtered light all was painted in the canvas of biology. Pillars flowed into one another without seams, balustrades emerged from the stone like teeth erupting from gums, the seeming rib-like struts of flying buttresses now bore the shape and angles of the skeletal structures. The whole of the edifice, top to bottom, seemed to be focused around this great peak, the colorful, pollen-filled core of the flower that was Seelie.

The Heart of it. Where her mother lived.

They cleared the great stair into another warren of tightly-packed buildings and overhanging balconies, all arranged around the central thoroughfare that lead to the great, towering amphitheater rising up in the core of this final level — tall, rib-like spires rising up like peacock feathers around that final spire, wrapped tightly in that red fleshy banner. The glistening veils were all around them in this place — the velarium hung like errant cloth, coiling and piling here and there, draping like fleshy tapestries in some places, hanging between buildings like creeper vines in others. The smell was heady, dense with the sickly-sweet perfume of Amber Dew and the coppery aroma of blood, carried on the warm eternal spring breeze like the scent of a corpse mixing with a flowering field.

All around them eyes stared. Slitted eyes. Sidhe eyes.

They stared and gathered as they walked, not unlike the mob had before. This far up, they were bereft of distractions or delights to pull their eyes from this most curious tableaux — the mortals themselves equally robbed of distance and luck to shield them as it had before. They were alone now with the monsters, deep in their demesne. Beyond that more than a few inhuman eyes widened in recognition of their escort more than the mortals themselves, and Dagonet's gaze flicked wildly as the air began to grow thick with tension as they made their way down the avenue, the creatures coming to the edges of railings, windows and door frames to cast their cat-eyed gazes at this passing fascination.

The avenue ended abruptly at a massive, arching span that roiled up out of the spongy stone like a lolling tongue in piled folds and layers of stone, ascending to that central spire, blocked off at the far end by an impressive, imposing facade of stone and sculpture. A huge trio of statues stood sentinel, seeming to grow organically out of the very surface — here they were more as was everything else. Their skin seemed to glisten with sweat and their attire seemed to ripple as the strange mineral bent and flexed, like the eidolons crowning from the stony mass were they themselves grown from it rather than carved. They were as before, the Three Faces of the Morrigan, Badab to the left, Macha to the right, both standing arms outstretched — but at the center, carved into the very center was that of Morgana, her hands folded across her chest, head bowed, eyes slitted in keen observation of all before her. Beneath her folded hands, the way forward ended, the span terminating just below where they lay over the statue's heart, forcing all who follow it to walk directly beneath her judging gaze.

“There it is, the queen's court, deep within lies her seat in the Shrouded Throne." Dagonet breathed, and Lidia and the others came to a halt behind him, Gram's eyes glittered like a hound having spied its quarry.

“We have a heading then, let us make haste." He almost growled, making to move — the unspoken I tire of this place loud in her mind, but she felt it, and shared it. Whatever part of her insides Seelie appealed to, it was quieted well enough by her human nature. Dagonet halted him, his face apologetic.

“Alas… we cannot just, walk into the Queen's Court." He hedged, and Gram fixed him with a stern gaze.

“We are invited."

“Which itself is quite the curiosity."

Gram fixed the man with a sterner gaze yet, mustaches bristling as his eyebrow vanished beneath his coif in askance and the Dewkeeper opened his mouth to speak.

“Yes, tell him Queen's Pet, where is she?"

A voice, harsh and haggard interrupted him. Lidia blinked as she and Gram turned to find the curious crowd of Sidhe had converged upon them, surrounding them, hemming them in totally. The speaker ranged forward, a tall, brutish thing that walked on massive, digitigrade legs and its torso was wrapped in a long shawl that hung artfully over muscle and carapace that seemed to flow into one another, armored flesh and surging sinew giving him an almost doll-like appearance as he leaned his face down to them — a bifurcated jaw clattered as he sneered from beneath long, leonine mane.

“Where is the Queen now? None have seen her, none have spoken to her, but you come and go as you please, Queen's Favored."

“Seelie is stagnant, even now the air grows more still with each passing day, where is she?" Another spoke, a feminine thing with six eyes arranged in pairs of three and vividly painted flesh, her voice was agonized. Lidia turned her gaze to Dagonet and furrowed her brow.

“What d'they mean? I saw me mother naught hours ago, at th' edge o' th' woods."

The chattering fell silent, all the slit-eyed gazes turned upon her, a dozen-dozen gazes of impossible combination locked on. Attentive. Predatory.

“Mortals? Here?"

“She has the scent of the Court upon her,"

“The scent of the Pale Lady as well, she is rank with the odor of Men of Iron"

“She brings one with her, wrapped in Anathema"

“Bold."

“Stupid."

“Look at her eyes."

There was a communal creak of carapace and rustle of cloth as the host as one peered closer, Lidia's eyes were not hard to see. They were wide with terror.

“Green eyes."

“The Queen's Favor."

“A Scion."

“A Scion."

“Colin, A'hm scared what d'they mean?" Lidia breathed, panic setting in as she felt the weight of their gazes upon her. She was trapped with the monsters again, and she had nowhere to run. Dagonet's lips twitched and he gave a shrug.

“The Queen of Seelie has not been seen in… a number of years. I believe you when you say you saw her Seeming — but she herself, has been locked away for some time." He explained to a new chorus of jeers and muttering.

“She has not left the Shrouded Throne, she does not do her duty, Seelie withers and stagnates as she hides!" Split-Jaw snarled and Dagonet puffed out his chest boldly at the larger Sidhe, standing off as Lidia interrupted.

“How long is 'a number o' years'?" she pressed and Dagonet fluttered his eyelids, making it clear he was trying to remember.

“Twenty-seven summers, give or take, since she and I last enjoyed your beautiful voice together," Dearg offered, sidling up behind her besotted lover and peering threateningly at Split-Jaw, who seemed less enthused to stand against the crimson-painted woman than the Dewkeeper. Lidia's eyes went wide.

Lidia had always been good with numbers.

“Oh God," She breathed. All eyes upon her again.

“… That's… that's when I was born."

Gram's eyes went wide, Dagonet's eyebrows raised, and the rest of the host seemed to take a collective breath.

“A Green-eyed Scion."

“Unprecedented."

“She brings a bounty with her."

“A bounty for who brings her to The Queen."

“A bounty!"

There was a sudden break in the tension, the air shattering in a raucous din as the milling sidhe exploded at them all at once in a sudden, inhuman rush.

Lidia had just enough time to scream.