Presence
Mantle - Chilling breeze, summoning tiny leaves
The Library of the Autumn Court – such as it was named in Rhodes’ head - was growing. What had begun as a bolt-hole – bed, desk, and his arcane collection – has been undergoing an expansion, to be presentable in the manner he desired.
Everyone had their own way of crafting a nook between the Hedge proper and mortal world. It was a wholly unique experience, shaping almost nothingness into the desired form, or bending the existing image and adding protection, or size.
The Fairest opened the second door out into the hedge. The remnants of the last Autumn Hollow – a glade into naked, haunting trees, but now overgrown and forlorn – elements of a stately home scattered between towering grasses. Enormous thorns were starting to broach the clearing, reclaiming the forgotten Hollow.
A guiding hand touches his cheek, turning his face away from the Thorns at the edges of the Garden. A face - deathly pale but of unparalleled beauty – meets his, with scarlet hair and a soothing voice and eyes… eyes like voids. Hungry, yet… warm? Impossibly inviting, yet chillingly inhuman…
“Come back, my little Rhodedendron. It isn’t safe out in the Thorns. Here in the Garden, Ophelia can protect you, keep you safe. You are mine - always.”
MINE!
Rhodes jerks out of the memory, and shook himself. No. Lord of Fear or not, he would not stand, shaking like a leaf, in front of the rest of the Freehold. Out in the darkness, a pair of red eyes peered vehemently form the shadows.
Or should he? Showing that he lived in and among his Fear, as all Autumn did, standing tall but never forgetting? Was this why Mhari made the wooded glade, so open, so exposed? Fairest pride and courtly devotion waged a war in his mind.
Perhaps these are the choices. The ones that show true devotion, and exposure to what truly matters to us. That the emotions of our Court are at the very heart of us. For Autumns, that we envelop ourselves in our Fears. Never hide from them. Acknowledge them, but never grant them a hold.
Slowly, he reached up and plucked a leaf from the huge, low-bough sycamore that dominated the centre of the room, it’s branches reaching out into the three upright walls and stopping short of the eerie glade in the twisted woods. A small bending of the Wyrd and a twist of the brown-yellow leaves and the leaf took flight, gathering tens, then scores, then hundreds of the leaves, tearing through the air like a maelstrom of the season, all the leaves flapping like a huge multi-hued murmuration. Eventually, the leaves roost back on the tree, like thousands of butterflies. But now there is a tingle of magic in the air, and the unerving sense that many unseen eyes are watching. The leaves, though in reds, golds, yellows and browns, seem strangely plies, shuffling lightly in an unseen breeze.
All credit to Penance, the leaves were a fantastic idea. And now the Wards are in place. We will need to hunt for the bounties of the season, soon enough.
The Dread Lord continues working on the Hollow. It would be ready for the Coronation for sure.
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