It was a miserably grey day in Sacrameno. There was a chill wind in the air. For many in California it was the gloomy realisation that summer was slowly coming to an end. For the Dread Lord of Sacramento, however, it was a wlecome herald of the change of the season approaching.
My season. MINE.
The height of Autumn's power, and in this city that meant him. Not Meg. Not Ann. Him. Rhodes. And like hell was he going to let anyone else take the Leaden Crown now it was his...
A sharp pain lanced his chest and he gasped, clutching at where the spear would was still bandaged. The Flowering took a few slow, deep breaths to steady himself. Meg's bastard minions. He wouldn't be healed for the Coronation, that would be sure, and Anatole was far worse. He focused, taking a hip flask from his pocket and taking a small drink.
Sacramento's Autumn is mine, and Ann can try and pry it form my cold, dead hands.
Oh, little flower. You've come so far. First an Ideal, then a person, now a seaon... I'm so proud of you...
Against his will, Rhodes smiled. It was his, by right. All his. Not Ophelia, not Ann, nobody could take it from him.
He checked his watch for the time.
Sera knew where he was, as was usual. The telephone call requesting a meeting had been brief, and after the success of last time the Director sought out a place where they could talk a little more freely.
He, however, looked as out of place as he ever did. An immacuale black suite, red silk shirt and tie. A hedgespun coat of menacing thunderclouds covered the ensemble.
Only those touched by Arcadia could see the flourishing laurel of leaves that encircled his head, growing straight from the scalp and from his wrists and ankles, just visible below the hem of the hleg of his pants. Scarlet flowers bloomed vividly at his wrists and temples. Eyes at least twice the size of a usual human's, and impossibly green, peered from a pale-skinned face with pointed elven ears. In places, the pale skin was breached by woody roots as if just emerging from the surface of soil. Around him, autumn leaves swirled in brown, red, orange, and gold twisting in a bitter wind no normal human would notice.
Sitting on the bench inside the entrance to Funderland, he awaited his guest.