Dead Leaves and Wet Earth

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Mhairi was trying for professional. Wearing black, blue and silver, she didn't know how much she succeeded. But her star-filled locks were done up and held into a bun by her twin skeletal hand hair clips.

The Wisp makes her was from the office to near Edna's. Watching two very different lines move through the two entrances of the once-Boarding House, the front porch was full of kids and their parents waiting for the Haunted House, while the back door was opened every hour or so for the teens and adults waiting for the Escape Rooms.

It was...weird (a good weird) but still weird, to see the place where she'd lived, a place that housed more of Sacramento's Lost then she had memories or records for as something...other. An other that she set into motion. The focus of the Freehold had shifted and she didn't want to lose Edna's with it.

Did she make the right call by making Edna's an attraction in the Park? Should she have left it as a Boarding House - a Hotel just outside of Funderland? Having beds for the Lost that sought them...or should that be left for Spring?

Mhairi shakes her head, she didn't know. She wouldn't know, not until it was far too late to change anything, or maybe she'd never know the answer to her questions. She's made the call, and she'd live with it. The shake turns into a nod as she smiles at the kids squealing as they fled the House in terror that quickly dissolved into delighted giggles.

At least the guests could enjoy Edna's without all this baggage weighing them down.

Turning away from the Haunted House, Mhairi sets to finish her (short) journey. Walking along the path that would lead to an old overgrown, and uncared for maintenance shed. There is where she'd asked Thomas Land to meet her. Autumn had withered. Nathan left without as much as a by your leave, and Morgan left to hunt down Green. It her once-Paladin had waited to speak to Mhairi, the wisp would have given the Raccoon her blessing, but she'd left int he middle of the night, leaving nothing but a note and spright shredded books.

Now it was just her, her and the mole-man.

[Thomas Land]

"Oh, um, yes, pardon me--excuse me. Oh--sorry, excuse me," Thomas repeats, like a litany, this string of apologies as he makes his way through the Funderland crowds. He can't seem to avoid colliding with the patrons, who don't notice the little man until it's too late. As he makes his way, another litany unfurls in his thoughts: Idiot, cow, sub-human, dunce, dullard... Each encounter, while managed in his inept but polite fashion externally, spawns its own spiteful rejoinder in his mind.

This is decidedly not the Mole-Man's element.

Pushing his way through the lines outside the haunted house and onto to the path leading to the shed, Thomas stops to straighten his attire with a small, put-upon sigh: brown tweed suit jacket over a dark blue sweater, grey slacks. It's too warm for the weather, like he's still dressing for Buffalo, and a sheen of sweat stands out on his brow. He mops at his forehead with a handkerchief produced from his jacket pocket. Glasses are polished. And then he continues on, trying to prepare himself for his meeting with Mhairi. Knowing that, despite his best efforts, he will likely bungle this whole affair.

If the Autumn Queen waits for him outside the shed, Thomas will stop at a polite distance to offer his greeting: "Oh--hello! Yes, it's very good, quite good, to see you again." If no one is visible outside, the Mole-Man will knock, meekly, on the shed's door.

[Mhairi Ankaa]

"Hello Mister Land." Mhairi greets once the shy mole-man comes close enough to hear her voice, after the man had already offered his own greeting, to which she nods happily "Thank you for meeting me here. I know we'd prefer to be able to speak freely. Which is why we're here."

The overgrown and rusted shed didn't look like much at all, but as Mhairi places her hand on the knob, jiggling it a little before turning it she opens the door to not the expected drab interior, but a small room, that really wasn't a room, but an enclosed clearing. Thick trees reaching higher then mortal thought, with nary a fresh leaf in sight. The barren branches reach their skeletal hands and nearly blot out the sun.

Though their is a pair of branches, acting like arms and cradling tomes and scrolls, though only a few of them. Sadly all that remains on the great archive of autumn.

Flitting around the edges where small sprights. Cackling among themselves, as they pranked each other and watched, waiting with a manic glee for an intruder to appear so they could prank them! Those sprights eyes turned to the mole-man, but each and ever one of them frowns - comically - when Mhairi just shook her head at them.

"Welcome to the Autumn Commons Mister Land." Mhairi moves farther in, making sure the door's shut firmly behind them. It would be bad if someone else ended up in the Hollow. "It's not much, but my Paladin's left to hunt her motley and her wyrd's faded from this place." Mhairi grabs a pair of folding chairs and sets them out, "Sorry it's not more, but...." Mhairi trails of with a shrug. "So, how've you been? Settling in okay?"

[Thomas Land]

"Oh yes, certainly. It's my pleasure," Thomas replies.

But then door to the shed swings open and they step through, into the hollow. A very peculiar sound escapes the Mole-Man as his beady eyes take in their surroundings; a low, moaning "Ooooohhhhhhhh." It is a sound of delight, of wonder. No matter how many times he witnesses a place like this, or one of the miracles of their oft-benighted nature, Thomas has the same reaction: awe.

Rather than joining the Autumn Queen in her proffered seat, Thomas begins bustling about the clearing, peering up at the leafless tree branches, the scrolls and tomes suspended there. He stoops to examine the ground, the earth of the clearing. Completely absorbed in taking in these enchanted surroundings.

Finally, Thomas spies the sprites and makes another sound, this time something closer to a squeak. He approaches the nearest one, both cautious and impelled by an insatiable curiosity. At first, they're darting around too much for him to figure out what these things are, but he does not seem dissuaded. Instead, he keeps stalking them around the edges of the clearing, before turning back toward Mhairi, a shocked--and pleased--expression on his Mole's face.

"Why yes--are these Sprites?" Finally, he approaches the Autumn Queen, joining her where she sits. "However do you keep them here?" If he's heard her opening pleasantries, the Mole-Man is ignoring them, much more fascinated by the Hollow and its occult inhabitants.

Rolls: Identify Sprites!

  4 suxx

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-05-30 15:01:45		Thomas Land rolls 6 to Identify Sprights Intel4 + Occult3 - 1 (repeated attempt) (10 Again)		10, 3, 9, 8, 5, 10, 3, 7		4 successes

  failure

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-05-30 15:01:18		Thomas Land rolls 7 to Identify Sprights Intel4 + Occult3 (10 Again)		4, 7, 1, 3, 3, 7, 4		failure

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Mhairi can't help but to grin at Thomas' reaction to the - their - hollow.

Mhairi watches the man as he bustles around the clearing, different then what it used to be, now only supported by Mhairi and her connection to Autumn and the wyrd. The Beast-kin peers at the nooks and crannies, emoting more then he had during that chance meeting under the Ferris Wheel several nights ago. But Mhairi guessed that was only to be expected. A new face surrounded by a crowd of strangers, verses a safe place where only Autumn could gather without reprisal...combine that with something strange and new...yeah, Mhairi would be ooohing and awing. Bustling and peering around too.

Mhairi sits in her folding chair watching Thomas explore with a smile on her face.

"They are Sprights." she tells the mole-man with a nod and a smile. "And it wasn't me who initially got them here, but they are here now and they enjoy the opportunity to rain down hell upon our enemies!" Mhairi laughs, "Morgan Bellanar, my old Paladin incited the Sprights at first then made sure they stayed around when she left." Watching them dance about and smack each other over the head with dead leaves and small twigs, "They're used more as an alarm system then anything...." looking at them she didn't want to work them up, who knows what mischief they'd get into as payback.

"So!" Mhairi claps, quicksilver flicking off with the motion, to distract from the hanging end of her sentience. "Tell me about yourself, if you want. No pressure."

[Thomas Land]

The grin on the Mole-Man's face is comical, and a bit feral, when Mhairi confirms his suspicions about the Sprights. Beady eyes follow their progress at the edge of the clearing with clear interest as the Autumn Queen explains their presence in the Hollow.

"Incited them, you say? Yes. Very--very interesting. And then she managed to make them stay? Fascinating indeed..." A clawed hand scratches the underside of his jaw as he processes this information. Finally, his watery eyes meet Mhairi's own, "But you say this Ms. Bellanar has left, yes? It's unfortunate, too bad really. I would love to discuss her...Well, yes: her methods."

Those beady eyes go wide again when Mhairi mentions the use of these Sprights: "But...an alarm system? Whatever do you mean?" It's all just so intriguing.

All of the excitement seems to leave his furred face when she asks to hear about him however. It's clear he's much more interested in talking about matters of the occult than his own background. Still, Thomas knows this is necessary. If he is to make a home here, in Sacramento, he will need to make of himself a known and trusted quantity. "Hm-hmmmm, well, me? Where do I start--'To begin my life with the beginning of my life'--uh--'I record that I was born'..." The joking reference to David Copperfield falls typically flat, recited as it is with little gusto. "Hm, so sorry--I mean: I was in Buffalo before this. That's where I came back. It was...well, it was serviceable. The town, the Freehold. I worked there, as I do here, in a university library. And I was able to amass my little, well, collection..." He trails off, seeming a little reluctant to continue with his tale.

"But what about you, Your...Your Highness?" he pronounces her title with an audible question mark at the end, unsure as to how she might want to be addressed. "Are...Yes, well: did you grow up here? Or..."

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Mhairi sees nothing wrong with Thomas' grin. The Elemental can't see the wild lines to it and the feral heat to his beady eyes.

Nodding at the Beast's words, she missed the Raccoon a great deal, and it really was a shame she'd left. Mhairi understood why, but she still wished Morgan was around.

"Mostly with pizza, actually." Mhairi points to a open pizza box strings of cheese draping from it, and pieces of pineapple tossed around the cardboard and onto the dead grass, and colorful, but equally dead leaves that littered the ground. "Some Hollow have Ward lines to alert the residents of an intruder, the Sprights do the same, only....really loudly. They tend to want to help defend the hollow too..." which is why some of the cardboard is used as a sling shot or a make-shift catapult.

"I do still want to take a peak at your collection." Mhairi says pleasantly, "But why did you leave Buffalo?"

An awkward smile. "Mhairi's fine." it was getting easier to deal with 'Queen Mhairi' but 'your Highness.' Weird! "Unless we're at a formal something or other, or in the Hedge, at a Market." thinking back tot he Hobs and her Bearing. Best make them think her a Queen from the first instead of letting them have a chance to see past it and to the vulnerable Lost wrapped within it. "I'm from all over actually. Family was pretty nomadic. It was a few states over that I came Back though. I came to Sacramento at the end of Autumn. Two Winters ago. Swore in that Winter, and Swore again last Winter...but we don't have the Oath anymore, but I've been here for a year and half, I think." Which was weird to think about, she was here, for so long, and so short and she was Autumn's Queen, and the Directer of the whole 'hold.

[Thomas Land]

"...Pizza?" Thomas's voice carries with it a mixture of confusion and delight. His beady eyes follow Mhairi's to the box with its mangled contents, the small make-shift trebuchet made from the cardboard. Will wonders never cease? "How interesting..." The Mole-Man decides then and there that he simply must observe these creatures further. But now is not the time. Instead, he turns his attention back to Mhairi.

"Certainly--yes, certainly. It would be my pleasure to show you," he answers, as solemnly as his timid nature allows. "I have them stored in a small hollow of my own. It's not much--no--not nearly as grand as this," he indicates their surroundings with a clawed hand, "but it will permit you to look over the materials at--ah--your leisure."

The Autumn Queen's question about Buffalo causes the Mole-Man to squirm in a show of discomfort. For a long moment he stays silent. His glasses come off, his handkerchief comes out. Lenses are polished. Spectacles and handkerchief replaced, he finally responds: "Well, there were some troubles, yes, troubles with my fetch..." Discomfort becomes a look of frustration, which on his Moles face becomes a bit of a snarl. "Hm-hmmm, legal troubles, as it were. I had, certainly, taken a new name by that time. A whole new life, yes, as we often do. But--uh hum--it was too great a risk to myself and the Freehold for me to stay after what that thing had tried to do..." The whole affair gets the Mole-Man's hackles up, even after all this time. Still starts an inner monologue of invective to flowing: That no good bag of sticks, bastard creation of vile Monsters, all Fae spit and lies...

Thankfully, Mhairi interrupts his obsessive, and hateful, thoughts with a bit of kindness, granting him the right to address her familiarly. "Oh--yes, certainly. Mhairi, very good." The Mole-Man gives his queen a genuine smile of thanks. It's not often that he is treated with such ease.

"Nomadic, you say?" Beady eyes glitter with barely suppressed curiosity. "A--um--child of the military, then? Or..." He won't presume to know her background, but he can't help probing a little more. For the first time, he seems to really look at the elemental before him, noting her moonshine skin, the star-spangled hair, flaming eyes. The gentrified bearing. How very lovely... And then, as if he's afraid she can read his thoughts, his gaze bounces around the Hollow again.

"Oh, uh, yes--I see. Two years. It seems you've witnessed a lot in that time..." That the Freehold has been undergoing a transformation of late is apparent to him, but the details of its travails have yet to be revealed to the little man.

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Mhairi nods, then sweeps her fell-flames over to the flitting sprights, before returning them to Thomas, leaning in to whisper, "But don't give them anything with a lot of s u g a r. It just get's...messy if you do."

"Great! It's a date." Mhairi chirps out, "This place is nice," a nod, "Not a nice that others would find nice. Since it's the seat of Autumn spooky, with dead and dying leaves and the scent of the earth and the lovenly embraced knowledge....it's nice...just...not as nice as it used to be. I had to drag in a few things - the folding chairs - in from outside. It used to be better when there was more Autumns flexing their wyrd into the Commons. The Archive used to be amazing. It's a shame that the Sprights...tore up the notes Morgan left of her Archive contributions...her wyrd's long faded and only my efforts remain. Since the move, the remnants left by the others have fizzled...." Mhairi trails off shaking her head. "Sorry. That was just me babbling."

Mhairi frowns, everyone had troubles with their fetch, it's not the the discomfort on his face, but the loud snarl that has Mhairi thinking that it was a little more then the normal trouble. "The Fetchmaker made it wrong?" Mhairi'd heard stories of psychotic fetches...the ones who didn't live the lives they'd been gifted with but destroyed everything and everyone around them. "I'm not going to ask you what it did. Since that's probably not a great conversation topic, that would make you and probably me feel a lot of bad things. So. Uh. Yeah."

"Yes nomadic. And no to military. The opposite of law abiding or enforcing." Her face etches with memories, much to fast for another Elemental to determine, but maybe a cleareyes would have better luck. Fondness, love, hope, hate, misery, regret. "Roma." she says trusting that the learned mole would understand what that meant.

Thomas looks at her and Mhairi smiles. Looking a little awkward, she was used to people looking at her. A pretty goth chick, sure, but from the other Lost there could be a whole lot more hidden within those looks. She was a tiny bit fairest - her twined kith giving her beauty, instead of solely the searing heat, she was a Queen, first of a Season and again of the whole Freehold.

If she was anything but an Elemental she might know what those looks meant without a lot of thought and effort, but she is, and there was no changing it. At least not without a whole lot of hard work.

Mhairi nods, moving her mind away from wondering what was behind those watery eyes.

"It's a paradox. It's a long chunk of time, but then again it's only two years, or nearly so. I've seen all the Seasonal Sovereigns leave, and I've seen the Dragon - fought him in a mortal's Dreams. Seen every Court baring Winter, gain and loose a sovereign each after the other four left. And now with the Dragon's death....we've moved on. Move the 'hold from a scattered thing to a centralized location. It used to a hotel The Four Seasons, long before I came here. But the Dragon razed it to the ground. That's why we were scattered. Harder to hit that way. But now there's so few of us...banding together now seems smart." Mhairi blinks, "Oh, sorry. Babbling again."

[Thomas Land]

Sugar as well? The dietary habits of these Sprights are so intriguing to Thomas. Do they really subsist off caloric intake, as mortals do? Or is it the expectations of those around them that they consume--reacting in tune with those expectations? In the case of sugar, it is not so much the substance itself as the expected sugar-high, with all its connotations of youthful foolishness and uncontrollable enthusiasm, which the little beings would both take as sustenance and reflect. I need more data...

"Oh no--indeed not--not babbling. It is useful to know the state of this place. Sad, surely, but useful." Tore up valuable notes? Thomas shoots an accusatory glance at the Sprights now. Perhaps a better system of control might be found for these things. "But, certainly, we can do something to regain its lost glory. It will take time, but nothing--nothing--is impossible." He's trying to sound confident, but it comes off as annoyingly earnest. "The Wyrd, it is a mystery, yes, to all of us. Even and especially those of us sensitive to its movements. But, perhaps, that's why I've arrived at this moment..." It's hard to believe that Thomas is a tool of fate, but the Wyrd has delivered stranger gifts.

Did the Fetchmaker make some error? The Mole-Man suspects not. It wasn't the Fetch that was flawed, but the life that the Fetch adopted. It seems that even a magically animated doll can be afflicted by the sheer loneliness of the existence Thomas had built for himself. Indeed, part of his anger stems from this fact: the Fetch had revealed just how unlivable Thomas's old life had actually been. "No--not the Fetchmaker, I'm afraid." That bastard. "The causes were much more, hm, mundane I'm afraid: loneliness, lack of direction, alienation." All things Thomas himself is quite familiar with. "At the, um, risk of sounding sympathetic--which I most certainly am not--it all seems to have been too much for the thing." His fleshly pink nose twitches with indignation at the thought. After all, Thomas had survived those same things--and worse, much worse.

He's happy when the conversation shifts to Mhairi's own background and it shows on his furred face: "Roma? Very interesting...What--if you don't mind me asking--was that like?" He's truly curious. His own upbringing had been sedentary. Bland. The life of the Roma seems thrilling in comparison. Of course, he never stops to consider that such an existence might carry its own burden of pain and regret.

"Oh--please don't--don't apologize. Like I said: information. Always useful." He offers her a weak smile. "This--this dragon? What was it like? How--how was it defeated?" Such a thing: a draconic entity, he can't help but ask after it.