Northstar Vale you've made a pig's ear

@Andraste, but other courtfall people feel free to join

the foot of a mountain: where people come to disappear. where teenagers come to hang their shoes and parents leave their bundled up babies. limp, the bodies of mice hang from the bare branches. the flies and the butcher birds, locked in an arms race. 

astynome, the urchin. with her fingerless gloves and faux crocodile skin everything. a chill breeze sweeps through her and she's denied the chance to sleep. into the whistling mouth of an airplane terminal. tumbleweeds and pine needles and newspapers. 

she yawns, her face crinkling up like tissue paper. it smelled strange here. it smelled like something resembling civilization. 

one eye bleary, the other eye blearier, she howls.

How-ever the eve had been spent in the company of Tundra, the fée had, at some point or another, eventually flit from what the two had shared in the dark, delicate hours of womenstalk ... and yet, could not bring herself to return to the woad arms of her warmongering-lord-er, nor their bed;
and she so terribly felt her errant time be better spent hobbling 'bout the vale; busying herself with eyeballing the caches and the hollows and the dried meats and the medicinal stores and allowing her hour-by-hour, slumber-not sanity hang as worm does from robinsbeak as dawn arrived at snail's pace. Birdsong; wolfsong; prays, winterworn, that it is not him!;
and the godless seelie could have kissed the rings of a thousand gods at the corpreal vision that shivered upon her very premises; frigid ivory, as cold wax; bloodlet eyes, not amethystine glim, not—!
“You ... yes. You stand before ze realm of Courtfall,”  fairylight wisps, perhaps with a smidgen of sleepless slur; enough in that she may very well be mistaken as anyone other than its ... illustrious Undómiel. Made nonetheless evident by the cresecenting of shorn, insomnolent halfsights, a lapse, and some half-guilted quip of:  “...Good ..mnorning.”

in a forest in northstar vale the current centre of the universe. astynome and a terribly beautiful stranger. just looking at andraste made her want to cry. her expression went through stages (squinting, mouth slightly opening, closing, hoping she won't notice your strange right eye). all that clicking and whirring underneath everyone's face. 
a glance back up. second thing she noticed: the scars. a map of an urban sprawl.

jump to where she is now, unable to look her in the eye. how sensitive. what a pincushion for a heart. "courtfall?" stuttering as if she's some emasculated talk show host. is this what we aspire to be? "i'm sorry. i'm very lost." 

stick her through a polygraph and watch the graphs go wild. she'd always been horrible at lying— felt so terribly out of place, like trying to eat a credit card. you're not lost if you don't even have a final destination, astynome. the waif.

The nod of an engrossed investor; fatigue an eight-pronged thing weighing upon rubied crown with tines pressing aches into the more quilted fragments of her mind; perhaps, in time, broke-winged worries might ask to only join the sewing circle in the chamber’d breast of this wanderess, share a word, spare three, but for now for now for now:
the girlish, gullible eyes  (widened and worn by some far too wakeful edge)  blink through the severance of her soul, far too limned with fog to take note of all manner of flaws that pockmark the vagrant’s features, voice. Her own, a foreign, despondent Romantic drawl, would have been melodic  —  if not for the stumbling syllables of nonrepose:  “Lost? There is no reasons to be sorry, lost,”  marred brow writ with perplexity. The fée might not have so gladly agreed to such falsity; might have seen through such thin veils and, yet, she did not wish to see;
she did not wish to think, or believe, and had pitched herself adamant into the hours of dawn, all in the hopes that it would whittle her away into something dreamless and delightful to the chasm within her contused heart.

That this waif might hew into her with fang; chitter past and pillage one of those very caches; all possibility and pretense of such ever occurring went thus unheeded by tipsy-tired starlit. She, who only raised snowshoe paw, as if to step nearer ... but wobbled, thought better of it, and withdrew all meaning-to. Instead  (insistent with a perhaps-we-can-help tone):  “What is it that you are ... lookings for?”

this may just be a cameo post, i think. i don't want to hold this up. just tag me if i'm needed to reply/melkor is directly addressed. ♥

andraste had been missing from their bed for quite a bit of time. always vigilant even in the lull of slumber as any master warrior should be, melkor was stirred blearily awake by her initial departure. not unnerved by it he let sleep lull him back into it's embrace only to awake when the cold seeps in, bone chilling as he feels it through the plush of his tundrian pelage. this time he awakes in full. it is concern for his fey queen lover — wife! in due time — that sparks the frostborne warlord to follow her trail; unhurriedly. 

until the howl slices thru the serenity of night that cloaks the vale; rousing the birds sleepily from their roosting. his path diverges then, seeking to intercept. scents mingle in the air; a stranger and andraste's own. content to see for himself that the fey queen is alright he shrugs thru the foliage all the same; intending to be a silent sentry. glacial gaze looks past the fey queen as he steps to her side ( perhaps overstepping boundries as he is not her equal in rank or even close to it ); instead focuses his gaze upon the stranger: pale furred and red-orange eyed that reminds him of his father's own fiery gaze of twin setting suns. though unlike his father, this woman bears marred flesh 'round her right eye that suggests someone tried to claw it out.

her response, which was just as soft and vague as the rest of her, it hurt more than the expected kick in the teeth. so kind but so scarred. she didn't feel real. not even a facial muscle twitch of skepticism. a large part of her wants to say you're terrible, you're so perfect, you're terrible. a killer whale that's just eaten its own trainer. a nuclear warhead small enough to be held like a football. that's what you remind me of.

god had said: let this woman be implausible.

astynome sees her starting to walk closer. there's another voice in her head, something along the lines of please come closer, she's one more thought away from dissolving away to fridge buzz. bristling with nerves, the inside of her skull pounds with nonsense mantras.
astynome sees a man stepping to her side. a city that's been eaten up by kudzu where the bears have made their homes in the aisles of convenience stores. that's what you remind me of. 

"looking for somewhere to stay—please let me stay here just a few days. it'll be like i'm hardly even there," her eyes, red eyes, shake. should i add another please? would that be pathetic? 

what astynome was really looking for, was an interaction that didn't involve her being shoved outside all over the doormat.

“We are sanctsuaries and stormhold,”  (stronghold)  wisps the lulled fairylight. It does not occur to her that she might be followed, herself; just as it does not occur to her that others may very well have refused this wanderess; does not realize the tundrian by her until she promptly turns  —  enacting, pathetically, her gesture of invitation for letting whomever walk with her  —  and shanty-shambles right into that woad shoulder of his with a wrung little whine of
“@Melkor,”
halfsights hold the make of the tundrian in a manner which  (were she not so sleeplessly sleepy)  might have been a valiant effort to be contemptuous; chiding of his very existence at her side:  You’re everywhere. Where do you end?  Stumbling steps, several more blustering ladybug steps into shoulder and ribs, hips and bum and it was enough! He was enough to have her voice warbling wretched from worn throat, distractedly, dazedly, dotingly:  “my mate.”

Someone ought to know, should they not?
— it was the forget-me-not reasoning that she gives herself, ever as the impending gloam of slumber issued it more as forget-by-morning. No matter, this, surely! For she has conquered her blundering circumference of him; and now beckons the plighter, the pleader kneeling at the steps of their Court to follow her own off-kilter driftings. Chords a pitched, strained, rubbing-at-eyes quality:  "Everyone has name, and I am to takes it that– you have a name? Names?"  Names!  Her words rise into a beguiled burble; an unfocused, nigh unhinged look of lethargic gaiety stone-thrown her lover’s way. Who was to say that this red-eyed rogue would wish for a new one, herself?

an introduction is given, his name to the fiery eyed waif at courtfall's borders by the fey queen herself and the following claimant of mate. though not expressly true for neither of them had made it official — unless this half slumbering slur of the queen was official; regardless, melkor does not correct her. does not offer any words against it. truthfully, doesn't mind it. andraste goes about to ask the woman's name and melkor wonders if she heard the fiery eyed woman's plight at all.

a name, yes; but there was more here that the master warrior desired to know ...for state of security and because andraste appeared to be in quite a sleepy state. ❝you say you only want to stay a few days ...who, what are you running from?❞ melkor asks her, jumping to the first conclusion his mind could conjure up. what pack allows loners to stay a few days within the safety of their pack, eat food from their caches and then allow them to meander on their way?

❝we're not a charity,❞ the warlord states flatly ( though it is perhaps not his place to do so ). ❝if you seek entrance in courtfall's lands you will join our ranks. if that does not work for you then you will seek your few days of shelter elsewhere.❞ the season of estrus was upon them. they needed to start thinking about courtfall's future and the future generations not allowing strangers to flit in and out of their claim and use them as they saw fit.

an image straight out of nuclear winter. the nuclear couple. leyendecker would've killed to paint them. she switches from admiration to envy and back a noise like a lighter going on and off in the brain. "astynome," she says. the spotlight is on her now. she's sweating in the eye of the misty xenon bulb.

the man asks a question straight out of a gangster film. if you close your eyes, his voice is the guy's who grinds his cigarette prematurely into the dust just for show. 

this was the real world coming to meet her out of the shell. "the same people who took my eye out. nearly." unable to look anyone in the eye. "they probably don't care about me anymore, but—" just in case. astynome and her chronic case of failure to finish sentences syndrome. you see, they're out for my parents, but the elaboration is all in her head. talking too much was to be avoided at all costs.

"i'll work for courtfall," she still stutters, a suspicious record player, but manages to look upwards. "i will never be a burden," and if i happen to become one, please kick me out. 

meshing and unmeshing her fingers together. a young businessman in what might be the job interview that makes him.

Valitúrë spoke, bovine, inelegant and oh, bother! The fairylight flits o’er, foolishly, flippantly leaving behind the gnarled, woven oak that had so benevolently allowed her to rest her weary head. Were she not so blundering, so bleary-eyed, she might have commended the tundrian's efforts on using the brawn of his beliefs to do away with any other sniveling vagrant. But! this Astynome, she liked;
and so it was that the faerie queene came to sidle 'round to the warlord's front.  “Must you be so terrible, my rook? I like her.”  Rubied brow writ with something petulant, appeasing,  “She is good.”

His trademark hum settling within her own throat  (he's cursed her!)  ... and she liked this looming look of her lover even more.

“I’ll be good for you,”
— even gussied up in a shawl of insomnolence, those talks with Tundra made now a weak parting of lips, tongue curled between teeth; breathy, breathless. Spoiled and pouting fatale wending plush mink ‘round the shoulders of a mobster’s son; not a care who-ever heard her sullying words:  “Let you drown in me,”  all low lashes and licking the ashes from his crass lips; getting off on her own words of whimsy. Quivering, tucked away in the little dark corner of their moment, their mess  –  hitch in her lungs, hitch in her skirts. Preying, praying; sleepy eyes, sultry eyes sidling o'er shoulder ... and not one bit affronted at this audience of theirs. Burlesque, vaudeville; that skinny showgirl, prancing down from stage by proffered, ask-no-more shoulders. The one from Romania that reignites the flame of the boy she's been warned about and pampers herself with the first drag:

“You will be good, will you nots, little gnome?”
Lambthing, nearly on her knees, almost purring, almost pleading; the nicotine breath of Melkor at velveteen ear her unraveling; smothering.

astynome.

a strange name, thinks melkor whose had several beneath his belt these days. ❝you barely know her, tonttu.❞ the warlord — her rook — points out. he's not exactly enthusiastic about potential attackers tracking her all the way here ( in this he is very much arturo ) but it was likely a long way to travel and it wasn't as if courtfall was in any sort of vulnerable state. their numbers were steady and full with adults. ❝if you live with us you work with us, not for us,❞ because the wording the fiery eyed waif gives him a feeling of teaghlaigh with a punch of nostalgia right to his gut. or perhaps it is andraste's teasings.

already having the fey queen's approval trumps melkor's reluctance; she is the sovereign around here. not him; and yet his fairylight lover seemed much more preoccupied with him. it's the season, he thinks. or a lack of sleep. or both. ❝no doubt,❞ rumbles melkor to andraste. ❝but now is not the time nor place.❞ later, he wordless promises.

to astynome, his gaze returns. ❝do you have any skills you can offer courtfall?❞ useful things he might remind andraste of after a good night's sleep when she inquires about this later, for he assumes it will come up when she is more cohesive and not in such a half-slumbered state.

no other word for it than being starstruck. if this was what it felt to be liked, she'd bottle the feeling up in an iv bag and have it fed into her forever. never mind the health risks. suddenly the cat's got her tongue. 

astynome's cheeks turn bright glowing red looking at andraste. she turns away like someone getting caught looking at your shadow through the shower curtain, someone red-handed in your underwear drawer. the man offers her words— he's all senior businessman now. all tailored suit and all polished loafers.

a few moments pass before she processes his question. she forces herself to look at his steel toed feet. "i know healing. i know—" she catches herself. heartbeat noise fills up every crevice in her. like being dragged off your feet. "i know how to fix colds and scratches and to help with childbirth..." she's slipping back into the job interview.
there go your eyes, looking at the patterns in the drywall. and there goes your tongue.

Dismissal!

She was the bold-browed artiste with sunken kohl eyes and petulant pout; had bartered her flapper’s pleats for latticework of pearls; shoved sequins into drawers brimming with underthings, other things; eyes, the silvered bullets of that pocket pistol, tucked away in her garter. Feverishly, foolishly, she wants to make him her Arórëlen  –  look at him! look at him! She’s clutching at those pearls, putting her knee the cherrywood of his desk; taking his thumb, rouging it along glossred mouth, printing, claiming him in her own way—
her breast is bursting with cottony things  (never falsies! ... though rumor and measuring tape certainly beg for it)  and she wants to get her hands on that ridiculous belt; wants to mark herself down as the only name that should be known there; wonders what the burn of it ‘round her wrists would feel like.

And she wants the stupid things.

Bubble baths and Piaf; Kashmir shawls and tabu incense; a white-picket fence. A little greenhouse, for a littler cottage where the littlest hearth in their antiqued-out living room is the main attraction. An engagement; an unnecessary, unbelievable, unfathomable elopement for the obvious. Children that she hasn’t jumped a train from, headed an entire world away with a brand-spankin’ new passport and pledge that helps her sleep at night. She’s wanted them for so long that the khol’s been smudged, stubborn to too-red cheek. She looks at this gangster’s son and remembers why her heart still beats. He’s air tight. He’s a blue serge. He knows her even when she’s dolled up for diplomacy.

Oh.

She wants to tweak his tie into place come morning rush; wants to tug him back through that damn door and kiss him goodbye another time, another, another, with hands cut up with striped kitten scratches and waffle-syrup gooey. She doesn't think he would mind it too terribly.

Oh, no.

She’s gone. She’s starstruck. She’s that far, faraway land and, hell with it: he’s her starkindler. Her magick-maker. Her breath comes soft, butterfly-fluttery—
childbirth, says the gnome; spellbroke. Tonttu doesn’t know if she would kiss the nisse out of stumbly relief, or kill to be mesmerized for melitse again, again. Always;
I should call him that each morning. I want him to smile.  Blinking, in a dumb way, a dazed way, a dazzled way; her eyes wobble to the scandalized and shying Astynome. Her voice is doe-eyed, fawn-thin; cloven-clumsy first steps:

“Is that so?”
Marvelous answer, really. Mama would be proud.

i'm gonna say last post from me.

healing. tend to colds, scratches. assist with childbirth.

useful skills all and every one of them; and though melkor is not a man easily swayed he does not see the harm in giving her a chance. ❝those are skills that courtfall could use.❞ melkor tells astynome, though in truth he hasn't been around long enough to discern that for true. for all he knows they could be overrun with medics. irregardless, he doesn't think adding another ( if that were true ) would hurt anything.

the tundrian spares a look to his fey lover, knowing that she has already approved the woman before any information was even given. a risky venture but ...nothing ventured, nothing gained. ❝andraste has already approved you so i won't interrogate you any further.❞ for now, the master warrior is contented. ❝when you are ready, i'll give you a tour.❞ he tells the newest courtfallian. to andraste he says, ❝you should return to bed and get some sleep.❞

archiving!

For a heartbeat, his eyes are on her  –  but it's enough to have her stretching up for him, a woozy sunflower in wintertime. His words, though more commanding than chiding, are what steadies her, and sends her on her bleary stroll for the sake of finally, finally seeking slumber. To return to Cuivénen will be an adventure on its own, in her state; but for now somnolent, sentimental Andraste is content in her own right to do that which she has been charged with, and wonders  (giggling stupidly, of course)  at how that tour-something-or-other will go.