The Dread Lord leaned back into the high-backed Throne at the head of the heavy oaken table that dominated the main room in Edna’s, and surveyed his domain. Nine months ago the Leaden Mirror had gathered here, bickering and snarking. Lucifer had sat, so presumptuously, in this very chair. Wolfgang had slung his insults, feeling he had known so much better than Rhodes, when obviously he hadn’t. Time had shown that. Nana had been reasonable, watching the Fairest trade barbs and the Wizened accuse. And so these squabbling courtiers pledged to focus on Autumn, to sort their affairs among themselves.
And one man had pledged, cajoled, and negotiated his way into the chair. A “walking shrubbery,” he believed was the initial insult Lucifer had opened with when her oh-so-precious ego was needled, manifested the twisting crown of Autumn brambles in front of all of them.

Fun times.

He missed them, in an annoying kind of way. They had kept things interesting. Kept him from ever being complacent.

The last Autumn of Sacramento sighed heavily. Enda’s felt so empty – like his Court. Maybe Sera was right. Maybe it was time to renovate, and place his stamp on the old house. Didn’t help that it was called Edna’s, for a start. A standing memory of a long-gone Queen. It needed a new name, and a new look.

His name, and His look.

Lazy winds twisted around the room, gently forming leaves in the air.

Something in reds and oranges. And a chocolate Autumn motif. Sycamore and Willow leaves. And firewood….

Cogs began stirring.

In his mind’s eye, the Autumn King began to see the redecoration of the neglected Boarding House.

Moving slowly through the rooms, his imagination overlaid the drab, paling walls. Haunted house or not, it was time to make this something more than a caricatured Court feature.
Moving upstairs, he opened a door into what one might call his room, the master bedroom. It looked oddly sparse – no books, few items, personal or otherwise. Opening the door to the closet revealed why.

A warm, sunlit one-roomed cabin, wall covered in books. His Archive. A warm four-poster bed, and a desk, writing books and quills. A half-empty bottle of really good scotch. His Hollow, a space away from the world. It also needed more time dedicating to it.

He was established.

Now he needed places worthy of being established in.