Leaden Consultation

[Rhodes]

The Dread Lord Rhodes sat at the heavy oak table in Edna's, a fire burning merrily in the hearth even as stray autumn leaves dusted the bare wooden floors. Even Sacramento grew cold as the winter took hold, and it was very much past Autumn now. His usual suit was immaculate, and he was adding to notes on his work. A memoir, if so grand a title could apply to a diary, of his years in the Freehold.

In my third year of holding the Leaden throne I reintroduced the Ash Run to the Freehold, pitting all comers against the Fetch I had finally traced down. Simply confronting it seemed so... typical, when my season was around the corner. He occupied several cafes downtown, though I am certain he has never broached Garden Grounds, for which I thank the Wyrd. From the discussions I have had, it seems several had narrowed it's operating to the area I took the photographs, although shortly after it appeared to go to ground again and by all accounts has not been seen there in weeks. A disappointing result, but who knows? I doubt it will leave the city proper just yet. I just wish I knew what spooked it.

Our investigations onto the under tunnels and into Ann continue. The expedition to the orchard will set out soon and I hope that will grant more answers. If anyone else is investigating, they have not yet yeilded their fruit to me. I should converse with Cassandra, the Onyx Thane, again. Our focus should be there now, and my Paladin seems less studious than one might hope. With winter turning, Autumn's power wanes, and Spring is the ideal time to attack any highly attuned in the Leaden Mirror.

He looked over the page and sipped his tea. It was not everything, but should someone need to take over the archive at least he was leaving more detail on the present than had been left. Looking at the clock, he set the leather-bound journal aside.
Gerrit would be there soon.

[Gerrit]

Just like he had implied back when he talked with Rhodes at Rosie's, Gerrit was more than willing to take some lessons in the occult from the Dread Lord. Maybe he might have to strike up a Pledge as a payment, but considering the intel he reported to the Director of the Freehold he maybe had a freebie left.

The Ogre had always been curious about the nature of the Kiths, the Wyrd and the Courts. Some of the most informative discussions of his time in Sacramento were with Autumn Courtiers and they were almost pretty philosophical in nature (at least in his oppinion). Maybe this could be one of those discussions, but Gerrit would also be fine with mostly listening.

Dressed in his windbreaker, sturdy but unremarkable jeans and a black sweatshirt he arrived at Edna's. "Hello?" His voice was rumbly and a bit unsteady. Not knowing what exactly he was walking into put him a bit on edge, but if he was good at anything it was bearing uncomfortable situations. And who knew - maybe his safety or the safety of his friends would rely on the morsels of knowledge he picked up today some time.

[Rhodes]

"Ah, Gerrit. Come in, come in," the voice calls our melodiously from the main room. Rhodes is sat at the head of the table in the huge oaken throne. He closes the book before him and sets down an expensive-looking pen on top on it and gestures to a chair next to him. "Please, sit." The huge eyes of the Flowering watched closely as the Ogre approached. Leaves rustled near the Dread Lord, the chill of the Mantle cutting through the otherwise warm room. It sounded as if there was a whisper of the Ogre's name, almost mocking Rhodes' voice.

For several seconds, he said nothing, just watching, smiling. "So!" he announced suddenly. "I hope your season is passing well? I have always found something pleasing about the long nights of Winter. All the better for moving unseen." Being mildly unnerving was somewhat expected of a Dread Lord - it came with the territory. "Still, I have learned few seek me out without reason. What can I do for you?" If he was affected by the mild self-depreciation, there was no sign - indeed, Rhodes took it as a mark of pride that people had a healthy wariness of him. It kept inane problems from his door.

[Gerrit]

Gerrit carefully made his way to the main room. Even with Autumn gone he was a little on edge with the place. The Dread Lord's appearance and Mantle only added to this - although that was probably at least partly intentional. Rhodes was a Fairest, after all.

Gerrit sat down as he was asked, leaving his windbreaker on for now. He bore the silence with composure and waited until Rhodes took the word. "I am well, as is the Season so far. Thank you. I hope Autumn has found you and your plans bountiful as well." Announcing the hunt for his own Fetch had been quite the surprise at the Autumn Coronation, so it couldn't hurt to give an opening to talk about that.

A slight grunt escaped the Ogre's throat when he was asked about the reason for seeking out the King of Fear. "I wanted to get back to your offer of teaching me some basics about, uh, the occult. I know there are things we instinctively do and know, but using electricity and understanding it are two completely different things." He paused for a moment. "You once offered to teach me when we talked at Rosie's."

[Rhodes]

"A mite disappointing," Rhodes admitted, a shadow passing over his face. "It appears my Fetch went to ground shortly after I announced the Hunt, and I have been unable to tell if it was from less than careful observers, a trick of the Wyrd, or unrelated bad fortune. Regardless, I now have to review my plans for him and see if he has left the city altogether or simply hiding once again."

Gerrit gets to business, and the Dread Lord nods. "I did, and I stand by it. The occult, however, is wide and varied. I have studied it for years and have many to go. If you have a specific field of interest, that would narrow things down drastically and I could start from an introduction to that topic."

The winds of his mantle rustled the dry leave son the table.

[Gerrit]

"I'm sorry to hear that." Gerrit's expression remained mostly neutral - maybe sending the Freehold's loudest Lost after Rhodes' Fetch hadn't been the most brilliant idea after all, but it wasn't the Winter's place to judge that. Still, he would pass on the information that there might be a Fetch aware of its hunters.. maybe it'll decide to turn the tables and preemptively strike one day, so being prepared for that sounded reasonable.

When Rhodes asked what topic the Winter was interested in he took a moment to deliberate. Yes, he had prepared for this question but second guessing this couldn't hurt - maybe the Dread Lord's offering went only so far, maybe only the first teaser was free. Irrational worries for sure, but Rhodes' Mantle suggested that every small fear had its merit.
"I figured I wanted to learn more about the Wyrd - how much we are bound by it, and in to an extend how we are bound by and able to use Contracts. And," Gerrit balled his hands into lose fists and looked down for a moment, "I also wanted to talk about the things we have become. The Seemings and if there is a possibility that we're changing what we are - consciously or without being able to stop it." There were some things he was noticing.. not concrete enough to put his finger on them, but still something he wanted to get an opinion on.

[Rhodes]

There was a small sigh. "Can't be helped, can't be helped. It was as much as about reviving an old tradition as it was the success. Who knows, someone may get lucky and point me in the right direction." If the Fairest was unhappy with the outcome, he didn't show it.

A smile returns to Rhodes' lips as the Ogre explains his thoughts. "Well then. In that case, do you actually know the etymology of Wyrd itself?" He pauses, giving the Ogre opportunity to answer before continuing. "It is old Norse, a language older than English. Loosely translated it means 'fate', but a person's Wyrd was so much more. It was who you are, what you had been, where you were going. The entire path one travels through their whole life. Not nearly as rail-roaded as a destiny, nor only concerned with the future. It was where one's nature had come from alongside the decisions and choices made through their life." He watches Gerrit, thinking. "The Wyrd in Fae sense is commonly used to refer to the strength of an individual's ties to the Hedge and Arcadia, but can also refer to similar connections elsewhere - from a Fetch to it's original, for instance, is often considered to use the Wyrd as an understandable medium, as are the connections of Pledges and Contracts. It is this connection to the Fae realms that makes us changelings - enables us to form pledges, make contracts, conduct Oneiromancy.... everything that makes us what we are. But to tell you definitively what it is? That is far harder, more because we don't know, as such. The more one studies, it becomes more a thing we just have to accept. More than a connection, less tangible than a Pledge or Contract.... feeling it is more intuitive as one needs to rely on senses borne of our nature."

He turns, looking into the fire. "As for what we are, what we might become... The more one strengthens one's connection to Arcadia, the more our seeming changes us. Doing so makes us less human, more Fae in appearance. There is debate as to how much this also changes us mentally. And we can stop it, by never fostering and tending that connection. It... can be reduced, but forsaking all of the powers and abilities we gain, flushing the magic from one's system and never harvesting glamour. I have to say, I hear the experience is traumatising - like a particularly additive drug detox."

[Gerrit]

Gerrit listened to Rhodes with mixed feelings. The introduction to the topic was mostly what they had already talked about at Rosie's. It was somewhat comforting that the Dread Lord's knowledge appeared to be finite and even more comforting that Gerrit had actually managed to remember most of what Rhodes had told him that evening. Still, he listened politely and soon enough he was rewarded with new information. And while he was listening he was already thinking about follow up questions - he came here to learn, after all.
"So whenever we use Contracts, is there a chance that we might anger whatever we're dealing with? Is Smoke or Darkness truly bound or are they capable of forging their own destiny, gain a sense of autonomy?" It might have sounded like a stupid question, but the Ogre wanted to get a more fundamental understanding of the finer details and in his opinion that required to ask things that might seem natural. "And if Contracts and Pledges are just tools, where does our abilities end? Can we expect every Lost to move within those established boundaries of ancient Contracts or are there infinite ways of forging a path through this fate?"

The Ogre considered for a moment. If the former was true, then the amount of potential and abilities one could learn about were not endless - unless one believed the tales about Lost growing so strongly connected to the Wyrd that they transcended into True Fae themselves. The latter meant that one could never be sure about what a friend or foe was capable of.. and that one could venture into realms uncharted.

Rhodes was touching upon the relationship between one's personality and the changes suffered in Arcadia again and Gerrit was thankful for the repeated reassurance in that matter. He had something else in mind, though. "But are we able to influence this change? Say, am I able to become part Flowering - for instance - if I surrounded myself with flowers all the time, even if that is nowhere near what.. It had in mind for me? Are we able to steer what is happening to us in a certain connection or is this something that either happens.. or doesn't?" A hand went up as if to answer unspoken protest. "Mind you, this is just an example. A thought experiment, if you will."

[Rhodes]

"Possible, possible," Rhodes replies. "I have seen contracts turn on the user who invokes them poorly. Contract Magic is old, very old, older than history. The Fae drew up the original contracts between concepts of Nature in the mortal world and Arcadia. So, there is a Smoke and a Darkness out there, very old, very powerful. They exist. Think of it as.... say.... the Plato's Ideal Form. All darkness in the world is a facet, a reflection of the True Darkness, the very essence of darkness. It is this essence, this power, that the Fae were able to interact with as a part of their learning to manipulate and cross into the mortal realm. When we invoke the power of a contract, we are calling upon our right, as members of the Fae Realm, to use the powers granted by the contract. It is also why Catches exist - loopholes where we can use powers in exchange for nothing." He looks at Gerrit. "As to what these things are in the real world... I cannot say. Certainly I have never encountered one, and I hope to never do so either. The True Fae built the contracts by interacting with the world as they understood it. It is my understanding that since their understanding of time is also different, they act in the way they world has been understood the longest - the Aristotlean elements, medieval and ancient in their direction. This, I concluded backwards from the contracts that exist and their commonalities."

The Dread Lord smiles darkly. "Ah, that is the question, isn't it? Can new contracts be made? Certainly no new contracts have emerged in the last century or so, as far as I can tell. We are entering complete conjecture, but I still believe the answer to be yes. The true hurdle is that to do so there would have to be something so far removed from Fae understanding that a new contract would become necessary. And while they do not understand humanity and hunger after it, so much of what is new is an extention of what came before. A gun is still a weapon, power tools still tools - electricity, say, falls under that which already exists - the elemental of lightning and storms. Rockets are still fire, harnessed and thrust at the heavens. If you could find something so new and still within the thematic of what a Fairy is widely understood to be, there is no reason someone could not forge a new contract for it." Gerrit was asking thoughtful questions. Prodding the deep areas of the nature of Fae magic. It had taken Rhodes weeks to piece together the theory, even with his mentor's help. One truly had to buy into the story - the very nature of the Fae - and that usually did the trick.

There was a long pause, during which Rhode slooked into the fire. Does he seek to be something other than an Ogre? Thought experiment or no, is a rare thought that has no motive behind it. Slowly, he rose his eyes to the ceiling. "Yes... but not in the way you think. The change is not based on outside factors, but from within. Your 'it' lacks specificity, but if you are referring to your former Keeper, then yes, the former. One can control the change one undergoes, pointing themself to a specific kith. I have never seen it myself - this is based on other records and accounts, as so much in the occult is - but I consider it to be a similar power to that which our Keepers use to shape us initially. The more removed the Kith you seek to become, the more time and effort it takes. It would be a much simpler matter to take on a second kith of a like Seeming - Fairest for myself, Ogre for yourself, et cetera, et cetera. I should say, however, just as the original sculpting among us was rarely painless and an increasing Fae conection the same, it is highly likely that so too would be an extention of the tranformation process." An eyebrow twitches. "Hypothetically, of course."

[Gerrit]

The longer Rhodes explained, the more Gerrit's appreciation for the Ashen Court grew. There was apparently a lot of things only vaguely understood by the Lost. Thinking about the implications was also, not surprisingly, a bit frightening. "Did you ever hear of a case where one of us lost the ability to use certain contracts all together? Can Darkness revoke the right to use their Contracts?" Maybe the discussion became a bit too philosophical in nature, but it felt like those basic questions could lay the foundation of understanding in the Ogre's mind.

He listened to Rhodes' theory on new Contracts and the application of old concepts applied to the modern world. It was a lot to wrap his head around. He wasn't sure if he got the full extend of it - he most likely would ponder over this conversation for quite some time after this - but one question imposed itself. "So there needs to be a new.. uh, concept, something the Fae don't know yet? So one would have to find this - what did you call it - Ideal Form and strike a Contract?" He thought again for a moment, trying to phrase the next part as sensical as he could. "Would a counterpart of this ideal Form also be able to exist over there? And does that mean that there could be new things to be wary of already because one of Them already found out about it?" Gerrit stopped and frowned, ripping a scab on his right cheek open and sending a small bead of blood down his face. Maybe his knowledge of Greek philosophy was lacking, but he couldn't grasp the idea of 'the True Darkness' - did it manifest somewhere or was it omnipresent? Did a new concept have to be created through acknowledgement or does it come into existence by itself?
He didn't ask those questions. The flood of information and follow-up questions in his head prevented him from following this train of thought with enough understanding to make use of it.

Gerrit watched Rhodes as the Flowering stoked the fire. The Ogre wasn't cold at all - was Rhodes just sensitive or was the fire just there to create atmosphere? Or maybe it was Winter's influence on the Stonebones? Then the Fairest finally talked. The Onyx Courtier's face remained neutral while listening. "Uh, yes I meant my Keeper. They.. do something to change us and I was just wondering if we now have some kind of DNA within us that dictates the ways we further change as we strengthen our connection to the Wyrd. But I guess you've answered that question." Well, it wasn't completely answered but he couldn't blame Rhodes for that. Dread Lord or no, he wasn't all-knowing. "So, you have heard of Lost seeking out a certain change? Do you know how they went on with it?"