Future Harvests

[Mhairi Ankaa]

After a long and...sticky day at the motel, all Mhairi wanted to do was die for a while and just sleep. But she still needed to speak with Ava. Rolling her shoulders, Mhairi slipped out of the cloths she wore to and from work so she didn't have to live in her maid's uniform, and put on a loose orange-y colored tunic style top with black leggings. She really hopped that Ava didn't want her, and Nathan to stand on ceremony for this meeting. She doubted that she could even if she wanted to. but hey Halloween colors couldn't be remiss.

Mhairi frowned as she walked from her room in Edna's around the back, passed the garden, to the Autumn Hollow. Spring was most definitely here, and it would quickly turn to Summer. Despite the fire and starlight flowing through her, she hated the heat. Sure there were some elementals that found they enjoyed putting themselves near whatever it was that now made up who and what they were, but Mhairi was not one of those elementals.

Shaking away those thoughts, she doubted they would be relevant, and walked into the Autumn Hollow. The first thing that Ava would have noticed is that Mhairi's mantle had grown. Where once, her simple, if brisk Autumn breeze surrounded her, now it had changed to the truly sharp and slightly menacing winds that dwelt in Autumn.

"Ava? Oh right! Ms Campbell?" Mhairi sighs, "Can I-ah still call you Ava when it's just us? 'cause this is-ah kinda weird. Not to say that it wouldn't be weird for you...but-uh-Hi!" trust her babbling tendencies. "Nathan not hear yet?" she asks rhetorically, her fell-flames looks around the Hollow for the Hunterheart.

"So-ah hi." she says again remembering just what this conversation was supposed to be about. Ooh boy. Mhairi didn't feel up to it. Tittles and responsibility. It wasn't that she was afraid-we yes, she was terrified of the thought of a tittle, and a role within Autumn other then being a Courtier of Autumn, but it was that scary feeling of something new and unknown. And exciting.

[Mhairi Ankaa]

"Thanks, Ava!" relief that she hadn't offended the new Queen made her shoulders lower from their anxiety ridden place by her ears. "I-ah know that you-ah are Queen-like and Important, but I still kinda want you to be 'Ava' ya know? I liked talkin' to you and I really want that to-ah still be a thing!" the elemental babbled out as she caught sight of Ava's newly shadowed eyes and wondered if that was from her becoming the new Dread Lady, or if it was from something else.

Mhairi took the offered seat, "Thanks." pleased that Ava wanted to begin without Nathan. It would get pretty awkward if they were just siting here staring at each other until the Hunterheart joined them. "I've-ah had a good time so far. No one's been mean or-uh anything. There's-ah few that-ah I'm not-too uh keen on-but that's uh-personal-not-mixyness." Her fell-flames look down in shame. then they darted up, looking into the newly shadowed ones of the Nix, "I-ah don't know if you-ah met him. but there's a Blightbent in town..." she let her words trail off. He felt like a oil slick and looked like a bloated corpse. And he was a Summer. The heat from his mantle just made her itch. Blowing a stray piece of hair out of her face, the child of flame and starlight continued. "But-that's-ah personal not-mixy-thing. Or a changeling not-mixy-thing." Mhairi shrugs, twisting her fingers as they sat on her lap. "But-ah that's probably not-ah want you wanted to-to talk about..."

She took another breath, held it before blowing it out to answer her other question about the Boarding House. "Yup." then she frowns, known that more words were needed here and less for earlier. "It's great. A place to bed down that I know is-ah safe. And Near our Hollow...I do feel much better knowing that Edna's is on Autumn soil...since-uh that time with Keith and Art and Peps...and uh-me and you-I-ah took some time to-ah think. About me and Autumn and no being a Winter cause that's not-ah what I wanted." Smiling as her used-to-be-gentle-breeze-and-now-is-an-awesomer-sharper-one, mingled with her black as night hair. "I don't want to hide. I want to take what they know. And what they did to us, and understand it, and use it to help people. Us." She says, even as she hopes that one of those people she is able to help is her mother. She knows she wont be able to venture into the depths of Faerie, to save her mother. She's not a Summer, and doesn't want to be, but she saved herself, and her Uncle saved himself too. And they were back, safe and sound. Ish. She just wanted to know why her mom wasn't Back, and maybe understanding more Fae magics will help her find out why. And maybe help her mom help herself.

"Uh-sorry about that verbal spillage. Maybe-I-ah need to vent a bit." She offers the Nix a still crooked half smile.

[Nathan Griffin]

He didn't even realize he was getting late to a meeting again. Honest.

This time his clothes seemed to have been wet not all that long ago and he smelled of detergent. Now did he hope those looks would please Her Majesty. Probably. Granted, he didn't know her all that well, but she had never seemed the pomp and ceremony type. When he walked in, the wind made him reconsider. It put his puny breeze to shame... something that would have to be fixed. Not about what I want, but what I need. He repeated that in his head with almost vicious defiance.

"Ms. Campbell," he nodded his head respectfully before giving the young girl (he couldn't even remember her name) a sideways smirk. "Sorry, am I late?" He didn't look contrite.

[Mhairi Ankaa]

"Woot." Mhairi giggles, smiling a silly grin, pleased that just because Ava was Queen she still wanted to have their only-really-talked-two-times-but-it-was-totally-a-thing thing to still happen.

"Sure." Mhairi nods still smiling, "Since this-ah isn't-um what today is-ah for. That's what are-ah talking-thing is-ah for."

"That's-ah good. Great." Mhairi's smile weakens, as her brows furrow in thought. "Uh-starting that would be good." Mhairi ducks her head, "And-uh-yeah. I-ah don't know where to start. Going about doing the thing. I-ah really wasn't the greatest uh-student. School-err high school. Never got a chance to finish it Before..." the elemental shakes her head, trying to clear it of thoughts of Before. "But-ah I'm-ah more physical." a smirk crosses her face, and unspoken laughter in her voice. "Even though it-ah looks like-ah strong breeze could-ah blow me over."

Then just like that, their missing Hunterheart appeared. Mhairi's nose wrinkled as she caught the detergent-y smell of his cloths, and like Ava, the elemental was glad that the man wasn't hungover for this meeting either.

"Hi! Uh-Nathan! Hello." Mhairi waves, the quicksilver off her fingernails, flicking this way and that, before they burned into glamour, fading into nothing.

Her fell-flames turn back to Ava, and wondered if they were going to continue along with what they'd started, or if a new topic was due, now that they were all here.

[Nathan Griffin]

He hadn't heard much of the conversation that had been going on, but it didn't seem like he had missed anything important. "My pleasure," he smiled and walked closer to them, although keeping a certain distance from Ava out of deference. He didn't even look for a seat — hubris was smothered out early in boot camp. Pride found other outlets.

"Not sure how we're supposed to start this. I'd have brought my resume, but that hasn't been what I'd call current ever since I died," the casualness in his tone was downright morbid. He put both hands in his pockets and threw another sideways glance at the Elemental in a gesture that was shy-but-not-really, almost-but-not-quite flirtatious. "But I did get here last. Guess age should let beauty go first in this instance."

[Mhairi Ankaa]

The elemental look more akin to a deer caught in the headlights then the child of fire and stars that she is, when confronted with Nathan's no quite shyness, and his not quite flirtation.

She flushes, blinks, and shakes her head. Deciding that if he wanted to flirt he could later. And if he didn't...well then.

Mhairi takes a moment to center herself.

"I want to be useful." Mhairi says, her voice firm, and her usual stammer strangely absent. Mhairi looks down at her clasped hands. "I-ah. Want to be in-ah a place in-ah Autumn where I'll-ah do the-ah most good. For me. For us-Autumn and the-ah 'Hold." Mhairi looks up, her fell-flames tracing the lines of her Queen's angelfish teeth.

"Mentorship might be-ah-be best. It's-ah how I've learned all my-ah life really." Mhairi's thoughts drift, backwards when she was young and her mother was chiding her when she couldn't slip in and out of another's pocket quick enough, or subtly enough, still making the bells ring.

"I know-ah where I'd want to be in-ah few years. But-ah that's not now." The elemental wonders if she'll be asked what title she covets. "What-ah does Autumn need?" Mhairi asks, she knows her own strengths, and her own goals, but she doesn't want to be selfish, "What do you think would-ah be best for me? If it's something that-ah I can't live with-I-ah can still-ah veto right?"