Private Finished When Courtly Loyalties Come A-Knocking

It was afternoon, and Fenn wasn’t out of his pajamas yet.

This was actually a pretty normal occurrence for him. If he didn’t have anything planned for the day, and he didn’t have anything he wanted to go out and do, it was just easiest to stay inside. Sitting with his feet up over the back of his couch and his wings draped over the floor, Fenn (with gloved hands and a reeling brain) struggled through a thick tome he’d obtained at Dogeared Books. Floating dust motes shone white in the afternoon sun filtering through his one open window. It gave him light to read by, and it fed the thick plethora of greening things gathered in containers repurposed from trash like ramen cups and milkjugs.

The fae couldn’t say that he liked the cramped apartment, with its peeling plaster, and creaky floors, and one-room-plus-a-bathroom construction, but he was settling in alright. At least it had a roof.

Sometimes, if he closed his eyes, he found himself back in the Underground again. It was clear as ice in his mind’s eye. Sparkling skyscrapers, drippy alleys, streetlights that outshone the stars, concrete rooftops one could flutter up to and survey the world below from… Things made sense there. If you could trust anything, it was the untrustworthy, because at least you’d be prepared for the ugliness of dealing with it ahead of time.

Seven hefty, deliberate knocks shook the door.

Fenn startled, cursing as he dropped his book and slid off the couch. He lay on the carpet a moment, ears pricked up. The knock repeated. Louder, this time, and more impatient.

Hmm. That was… odd. His general feeling of eventual oblivion was replaced with one of immediate danger. A hundred thoughts ran through the fae’s head, and not a one of them were pleasant. Since he’d moved in to this apartment, Fenn hadn’t had a single visitor over. Had someone snitched on him? Was this the police? Had he done something to catch his landlord’s ire?

Whatever it was, he had to deal with it, he supposed. It might come knocking again if ignored. Reluctantly and cautiously fluttering up off the floor, Fenn approached his door.

Before opening up to greet his mystery visitor, Fennik had the good sense to take a gander at the peephole to prepare himself.

It was an visage that made his heart plummet in his chest. Pressing his eye to the glass bubble, Fenn was greeted by the image of a well muscled fae in a plain t-shirt. There was an irritated gleam in his ice-lake glower. The turn of his sharp ears was set at a similar display displeasure. Gleaming in the ugly yellowish lighting of the hall outside, poking out of a tuft of chest hair, was an amulet in the shape of a snowflake.

Fenn knew this visitor’s face, and he knew this visitor’s name. Not his true name. Just his public one. Snowflake. His old Court’s ruler. He, of all people, had been caught and hauled off to this wet rock of an island?

Briefly, the Fenn considered calling the police. Briefly.

Instead, the fae whipped up a hasty Glamour with a flick of his hand. Icy winds twirled around him. By the time he unlocked and opened up the door, he’d taken on the guise of a reedy, red-haired human, covered in freckles. It was just the first thing that’d come to mind. “Hello there! Not expecting visitors today; maybe you have wrong door, good sir?” he announced cheerfully, holding back a nervous quaver.

It wasn't good enough.

“Cut it out, Glenwey, I know it’s you,” the Courtfather demanded boredly, not missing a beat as he ran a hand through his thick silver hair, showing off the myriad of iron rings over his gloves. His glower was still something fierce. “You can’t pull off a Russian accent worth a damn. Now invite me in.”

Fenn sighed and descended to the floor, feeling his heart sink deeper down inside him, into his gut. The Glamour around him broke apart in a brittle film of frost. “Do I gotta?” he said, his voice small.

“Do you? Unless you wanna real roughing-up next time you set foot outside, you certainly do.”

“Okay. Merry meet, Courtfather. Come in.” There wasn’t a lick of enthusiasm in the tiny fae’s posture as he stepped aside, allowing Snowflake to pass. This was not going to be a fun little visit.

A nervous sweat froze to the back of Fenn’s neck as the Courtfather strode into his apart. The mothish fae was made aware of the dishes left on his cramped counter, the dry plant-dirt dappling the floor, the laundry he hadn’t bothered to pick up. Having another person walking around made the whole place feel smaller than usual. Didn’t help that this visitor was nearly twice his height.

A chuckle rose from the Courtfather as he paced the narrow space. “Crap place you got here. That because this’s cheap, or just ‘cause you’re a slob?”

The moth pasted a blank look on his face in turn, and kept quiet. His chest felt tight. Like someone had fitted rubber bands across his ribs. It was easiest to say nothing, easiest to let Snowflake ramble on as he pleased.

“Guess it ain’t my business, since I ain’t the one living in the sty.” Snowflake kicked aside the book abandoned on the floor with one careless swipe of his boot, causing Fenn to wince. “Though, I guess you’re not doing half-bad, for being all on your lonesome. Surprised you ain’t sunk, ain’t without any cruddy place at all. Take it you’re coasting off of hand-outs?”

The fae didn’t dare dignify the question with any answer except for question. “Why are you here?”

“You mean on the island? Tchk, it took so fucking long to get all that promises and paperwork in order, all agreeing to go straight and the like. They shipped me over about a week ago. What? Not pleased to see me? Thought we were friends…” The Courtfather trailed off, gloved hands brushing against a particularly tall foxglove, watching the pale pink-white bells sway.

“Meant here here.” Fenn gritted his teeth together and sighed. He felt a headache coming on — the ordinary, garden-variety stress-induced kind. He wanted an aspirin. “You’re here for money.”

“Smart, Glenwey. Must’ve got as many brains as you do procrastinated chores.”

Wordlessly, Fenn flopped back down on his couch, unconsciously taking one of the side-pillows and squeezing it in his arms. He didn’t offer the Courtfather a seat. “Wasn’t worth you time to come here. I got so little, a pigeon mugging me for a pound of birdseed would come away disappointed.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. Guess that means you’d better go looking for someone else to bother right now. No reason to stick around if I got not money, right?”

Fenn’s heart hitched as Snowflake’s gaze alighted upon a Salvia divinorum perched innocently by the windowsill. His large, gloved hands plucked off one of the broad leaves with the most casual of ease. “Oh, but you’re gonna make more later,” he said, smiling as he crumpled the leaf between two fingers. “Don’t mistake me for stupid. I recognize some of the plants you had back in the Underground, and I know what they’re here for. You wouldn’t have these just for the sentimental value of it. You ain’t so weak as to let something so intangible as memories hold you hostage, right Glenwey?”

“Well…” the fae trailed off, flustered.

As it always did when he thought he was about to get his way, Snowflake’s thin lips took up a smile both sharp and sly. “You’re still in the business.”

“So? It ain’t your business!” Fenn found himself hissing through his teeth, standing up on his couch. “I don’t owe you nothing, kay?”

“You forget your loyalties that quick?”

“What loyalties? Things got changed when we came here,” the mothish fae said, feeling his wings and fluff flaring out. Some instinctive part of him said that he needed to look bigger, to be bigger. His frustration (and fear) were too much for his tiny body. An icy wind began to twist through the room, carrying an unnatural snow with it. “Didn’t see no-one from the Frostbiters busting me out when the Feds got me. Everything that happened before? Supposed to be voided, now. I ain’t part of a Court now — not even your Court — and I don’t got any more debts to pay. Don’t care what trouble you start elsewhere on this wet rock, but there’s no reason for you to be here. Just leave me alone!”

The Courtfather’s look darkened. His rings clinked together has his knuckled cracked. “You always were the uppity sort, Glenwey.”

The world blurred as Fenn found himself slammed against the wall. There were thick hands around his neck, holding him above the ground. He squirmed under the grasp, coughing, not helped by his heart leaping and hammering against his throat.

“You need me to remind you why you heed me?” Snowflake spat, breath coalescing into a white smog.

Both of them were absolutely radiating cold energies. Fenn’s concern briefly went to his plants. Briefly; it vanished in a harsh gasp as the grip on his throat tightened.

“N-no reason to. I ain’t scared of you,” Fenn whispered back in the exact sort of wet, weepy voice that meant he was very afraid indeed. That horrid and expected place — the entirety of his inner forehead — began to burn, as if someone’s taken an iron brand to the inside of his skull. Fenn gritted his teeth against a whimper.

“Glenwey, Glenwey, Glenwey. You’re just the worst liar, ain’t you? Didn’t we have us a talk about deception?”

Fenn knew exactly what was coming next. The fae closed his eyes and stood stock still as three iron-ringed knuckles lightly brushed against his cheek. Underneath his baggy pajama pants, his toes scratched at the frost and paint of the wall behind him. It took all of his willpower not to flinch and twist away from the hot flash of pain. He had bandages, he reminded himself desperately, biting down on his tongue. And some aloe. He could patch up the burns after Snowflake left.

“That’s for mouthing off,” his Courtfather seethed, relaxing his grip, “trying to worm your way out of your loyalties, and acting bigger than you are.”

Fenn coughed as he slid to the floor. Rubbing his smarting cheek, he pressed back from Snowflake, the whole of his self shivering. It wasn’t from the cold. He tried to say something — anything — but nothing came out but a nervous squeak. Damnit. Damn! This wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t the lack of all this supposed to be the one good thing about being relocated here?

“Next time I visit, you’d better have something saved up.” The Courtfather shook out his hand, not breaking eye contact. “You got dues to pay, Glenwey. Don’t you forget that.”

As the sound of Snowflake’s boots faded down the hall, Fenn shakily got to his feet and went to lock the door. The wall he’d been plastered to sparkled grittily with ice. He expected that someone was going to file a noise complaint later. The Courtfather hadn’t exactly been quiet about his feelings, and the walls here weren’t all that thick.

The fae took a deep breath, and touched his cheek. His three, streaky burns were still warm to the touch. That was pretty worrisome when one’s normal temperature setting was “ice cube”.

But even that was less concerning in the face of Snowflake’s promise to return.

“I’m fucked,” Fenn realized quietly.