Emlie flashed back to an adage bandied about with shaken heads by the hard-headed folk of Clear Crucible (frequently at her, when her fanciful suppositions occasioned to clash with their utterly commonsense world-view): “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, think horses, not zebras.” How she’d chafed at that in the past! (In fact, she’d picked out her zebra-bedecked bedroom dresser in smug repudiation of it.)

But now, gazing at the insanity-made-flesh of the faery-cart, Emlie’s customary sense of superiority once again evaporated; all she could do was shake her head and laugh incredulously at the bizarre reality of Feyside, a place that repeatedly exceeded her imaginings and cast her in the role of headshaker. Compared to what had come trotting around the bend at Foxglove’s summons, she had indeed for all intents and purposes been “thinking horses.”

He’d produced the conveyance only reluctantly, after all his attempts to cajole, bribe, or vaguely threaten her into keeping pace with him on foot had failed. But the strange events at the demi-Thinning had left her preternaturally exhausted, every step a burden, and the brisk trotting pace he’d set on the forest path had been simply beyond her ability to sustain: als

“DO keep up, child, or I shall have to consider finding myself a burden that is less, well, burdensome.”

“If… you’re so dratted insistent on speed, couldn’t you, I don’t know, just magick us to wherever it is we’re going?” she’d snapped.

“Power used frivolously is power wasted, Rose.” he’d intoned in a singsong deadpan. After another few gambols up ahead and leaden, grouchy waits for Emlie to close the gap, however, he’d suddenly tittered and snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Why don’t I simply magick us up the means to get you to our destination, eh?”

Then he’d pivoted to their rear, stuffed two fingers into his thin-lipped mouth, and blown a superhumanly piercing whistle. For an instant the air had shimmered with the glinting ripple that Emlie had come to regard as a telltale of faery magick. And then the path was clear, the keening ceased, and silence predominated… until it was disturbed by the gathering sound of hoofbeats from behind. As the sounds grew nearer, a wooden creaking joined the mix, causing Emlie to envision a horse-and-cart. And then the bizarre entity summoned by Foxglove had rounded the bend, and Emlie’s presupposition had been blown to smithereens.

“Wha… what is that?”

“Your carriage and team, milady… or the homegrown equivalent. One faery-cart, at your service if not your disposal, to take you wherever it is I desire!”

The nature of the faery-cart was all but impossible to pin down even insofar as the precise taxonomic kingdom to which it might belong. It had whinnied and neighed as Emlie tremulously approached it, impatiently stamping what might be decisively termed a foreleg, so that was an argument for “animal”. Oh, but the look of that leg! A sublimely delicate recurving thing, whose thickest, largest parts were sharply faceted and translucently pale like carven alabaster – counterpoint arguing for “mineral”? Yet those disjoint free-floating solid parts were not the whole of the leg. They were connected, supported, and inter-permeated by leafy strands of sap-green ivy, its verdure making a strong case for “vegetable.” The overall sweeps and shapes of the limb were equally evocative of a gloriously chiseled musculature, a gorgeously entwining Ficus branch, or a delicately wrought piece of High Lathsaw furniture.

Beyond the leg, the thing’s geometries neither lost much in exquisiteness nor gained much in clarity of purpose. The front half taken as a whole was characteristically equine, having two forelegs, a tapering barrel of a body, a long graceful neck and something that looked vaguely like a gaunt, bony head (albeit eyeless, ivy-maned, and framed by twin growths akin to antlers.) The body, however, flowed smoothly back into bizarre hindquarters that went a long way towars explaining the ‘cart’ nomenclature.

In contrast to the sleek front half, the back was oversize, vaguely rectangular, and unsettlingly hollow. Hindmost, a ridge of pelvic bone approximated a bench. From the rear of this, ivy erupted upwards in a broad, peacock-like fantail that arched forward over the seat forming a leafy canopy. The hindquarters did not sit atop a single set of hind legs, but instead rested on a free-spinning bone-axle sporting a pair of radially extended, hoof-tipped leg-clusters. Each star-shaped proliferation spun as the thing moved forward, planting hoof after hoof after hoof in the fashion of a many-spoked, rimless wheel.

Boosted up into the ‘cart by Foxglove (whose touch, she noted with dull surprise, she’d developed an odd aversion to since the earlier events), Emlie‘s impression was as much one of penetrating the viscera of something living as it was that of entering a coach. It was what she imagined being mothered by a pouched animal might be like… that, she thought with a shudder, or being swallowed alive. The impression was enhanced by the uncanny response of the “canopy”, which curved forward with a susurrating slither of rapid vine-growth to accommodate her slight height. Foxglove, for his part, hopped gamely up behind those alabaster bits analogous to withers. In place of a conventional equine back there was a broad flat “bone” there waiting to receive the faery’s dainty bottom, a veritable coachman’s seat.

The faery reached forward and seized a loop of ivy mane trailing from the “antlers”. Flicking these reins, he set the uncharacterizable conveyance into motion. Emlie again cringed at the uncanniness of the carriage’s, well, carriage – the numerous limbs comprising the “wheels” flexed and bent with each footfall, eliminating jouncing. The creaking and squeaking of manmade carriage hardware was nowhere to be heard; the faery-cart instead emitted only the softest of hoof-plops underscored by the soft slither of ivy tendons sliding over each other. The smooth silence effectively dissociated the experience of riding from the visual of the scenery ghosting by.

Emlie was more than a little unnerved, but Foxglove gave no sign of regarding this mode of transit as being anything but utterly natural and routine. In fact, he lounged indolently with his feet up and his hat-brim down, apparently oblivious to their progress and unresponsive to questioning.

Reluctantly taking her cue from him, Emlie attempted to recline, relax, recuperate, and let the journey happen.

That journey played out over the next two “days” (light-to-dark-to-light intervals, anyway, given their changeable duration and lack of familiar celestial landmarks) and spanned three further fey-gates. During that time, she ate and drank sparingly of her Sunside provisions and slept as best she could on the faery-cart’s bench. Her strength and energy slowly returned, like a cistern refilling with rainwater.

She vaguely registered any number of twistings, turnings and detours on the part of the cart, but focused inward rather than on marking their route. Further odd Feyside dreams haunted the back of her eyelids. Specifics eluded her always upon awaking, leaving her only general impressions – of being surveiled, of being followed, of anger and disappointment and bitterness pursuing her across the worlds. Recurrent motifs troubled her rest: relentless cold, so deep it must ultimately be succumbed to; ice, clinging and encasing and numbeningly burdensome.

The first fey-gate lifted them out of the monotonous procession of black-on-red trees and dropped them abruptly into a high noon expanse of reflecting pools that stretched to the horizon in all directions. A vast network of narrow strips of land bounded the near-circular pools, all of them covered in tall green grass. The pools perfectly reflected the high vault of the sky overhead – a sky whose deepest blue was crisscrossed by a striking web of high cirrus of a bright shade of green that precisely duplicated the coloring of the grass below. As a result, Emlie was hard-pressed to spot the horizon, and was left with the discomfiting impression that the faery-cart was picking its way skyward up an unending green-and-blue slope. She also wondered about Foxglove’s ability to safely guide the cart along the narrow grass-trails, but soon discovered that the magickal conveyance was both sure-footed and clever, and that it could pick its way amongst the pools with little intervention by its indolent driver. “Nimue’s Peace”, he mumblingly gave the name of the place as.

The next day and the next fey-gate brought them into a sullen and shadowy cantref of sharp black rock and swollen, ruddy skies. Foxglove might call it “Hephaestion’s Fury”, but it sure evoked the fissured rot-warmed immensity of the mythical great Refuse Heap to her. Above them towered a dark basaltic mountain chain of jagged smoking cones. Another similar chain walled off the valley on its fair side, separated from them by a deep, smoking chasm lit from its depths by a sullen scarlet glow. Fiery forks of lightning raked the valley slopes with nerve-fraying regularity as drifts of dirty gray snow –or rather ash, Emlie realized– fell constantly from the wheeling cloud-roof overhead. Omnipresent cracks, fissures and tiny fumeroles puffed volcanic gasses from between the ash drifts, giving rise to a pervasive furnace-breath reek of sulfur. The road hugged the cliffs, and Emlie hugged the spinal horn of the faery-cart as it clattered along the lip of the terrifying gulf.

Foxglove, of course, laughed off the hellscape and its dangers from beneath his canted hat-brim with a flippant “Oh, stop. You bid fair to outdo that old attention-whore Hephaestion himself for tedious theatricality!”

The place was so dreadful that when exhaustion brought sleep and a resumption of nightmares, it came almost as a relief… and when she awoke from them the ‘cart had left the volcanic realm behind. Instead it rolled through a stately forest, the path lined by the characteristically surreal trees of Feyside. Confused, Emlie groggily asked whether they’d returned to Idlewylde’s domain.

“That dreamy old crank? Rose, use your eyes! Does this look like her natty old forest?”

It was Emlie’s first cranky impulse to reply that yes, it certainly did. As she came fully awake, however, she found that closer inspection of this new wood did reveal differences. These trees were shaped differently, rather more like conical Sunside conifers than the earlier bulgy deciduous analogues. They were far taller, easily the equal in height of the tallest old growth Loglands forests she’d experienced. The color scheme differed as well, ivory-colored trunks and branches bound in spiraling bands of alternating red and black. The bands themselves contrasted with the solid tubes seen earlier in their composition. These were ropes of complex and detailed foliage, albeit with leaf-shapes that appeared quite alien to Emlie.

When she pointed the discrepancies out to Foxglove, he favored her with a condescending smile: “My, Rose, nothing gets by you, does it? Indeed, these stately and enduring trees are entirely distinct from the humble growths of Idlewylde’s trifling fancy. Rather, you have entered the Royal Wood, bulwark of Elfhame, eternal demesne of Her Radiant Glory the Seelie Queen and His Tenebrous Majesty the Unseelie King!”

“My words! So proper!” she breathed, surprised by the uncharacteristic formality and for once fascinated by a recitation of courtly styling. “But… the Queen comes before the King?”

Foxglove muttered sidewise through his leer, “She does if he knows what’s good for him.” Playing off her confused look, he heaved a long-suffering sigh: “Rose, Her Radiant Glory keeps a sharp eye and a close ear on all that transpires within her beloved wood. Her sp-err, her noble emissaries veritably fill the place. It behooves us to speak and act with all due deference, and then some.”

Though that exchange left Emlie alert and expectant, the next several monotonous hours passed incident-free. The trees grew even taller and darker, and the path more narrow and winding. They occasionally arrived at forest crossroads, the routes unmarked. Foxglove barreled straight through some, took a turning at others. They also came to forks… the indolent faery guided the cart one way or the other with a whimsical flick of the reins. It gradually dawned on Emlie that her guide wasn’t doing any guiding at all, but rather was capriciously choosing random tracks through the wood.

She’d long held her peace, not wishing to appear the fool again via ignorant blurting, but her indignation finally overrode her thin reserve: “…If you don’t know where you’re going, then just say so!”

Foxglove turned to lay a solitary eye at her from underneath the brim of his (suede-colored) hat. “Child, be assured that nobody entering this wood can know their way through it… If they could, then it wouldn’t be much of a bulwark, now would it?”

Though superficially snarky (snark, Emlie reflected, probably being as unavoidably essential to Foxglove’s conversation as air was to hers) the reply was nowhere near as caustic or pointed as she’d expected. Instead, the faery sounded guarded, preoccupied… nervous? Still, ire drove her to press on: “Be that as it may, how are ever to get where we are going? Indiscriminate turnings and stumblings until we chance upon it?”

“And would that truly be so bad?” He snapped back. Emlie recoiled slightly, surprised. Foxglove stared at her for a beat, then continued: “…but no Rose, you needn’t worry about having your patience taxed so. I believe I mentioned the inhabitants of this wood. They most assuredly keep the secret to its passage, and they will doubtless be along presently to impart it. No harm in letting the ‘cart stretch its legs in the meanwhile, eh?”

He was being evasive. “And there’s no better way to draw their attention than to meander through the woodland?”

“Rose…” this with definite reticence! What was troubling him? “There exists a small question of certain… traditions, formalities, and the… somewhat unorthodox nature of our little expedition here. Truthfully, I had been hoping for a little direct intervention from the Top, as it were, so as to avoid the whole dog-and-pony show with that overzealous lot.” He was speaking with uncommon straightforward seriousness now, and snarling as if sickened by the unaccustomed mode. ”Just remember: if we encounter the guardians, keep silent and still and let me do the talking. And if you are forced to engage directly with them, whatever you do, be exceedingly certain not to-”

“YOU CALLED?”

Emlie’s head snapped up at the high-pitched shout, just in time to catch a bizarre figure come bounding out of the left-side trees to land crouching in the road. It was lean and pliant of limb, with stringy fern-colored hair, webbed digits and leathery green skin. It wore a moss breechclout and what appeared to be a lilly-pad beret pulled low over its bulging heavy-lidded eyes.

The frog-man grinned at the ‘cart and spoke in a reedy, whistling voice: “Hola, Trickster, long time no smell! I-” Then his eyes found Emlie, and the lids snapped wide like unshuttering lanterns.

Foxglove vaulted off of the coachman’s bench and into the creature’s line of sight. “Hello and merrily met, Embreywort! It has been far too long! Listen, I would just love to stay and chat (and especially to pry from you whatever secret treatment has added such shine to your hair… is that a verdigris rinse?) but alas, I simply must be in attendance on Their Majesties - immediately, if not sooner! So, if you would be so kind as to point me in the right-”

“Surely you’re forgetting something, ol’ bucca?” Embreywort leaned sideways around Foxglove, gesturing extravagantly with his eyeballs as he did so.

Foxglove mirrored his lean, recentering himself in Embreywort’s vision. He favored the frog-man with his best fodder-eating expression. “Not offhand, no.”

“‘Not offha-?’ Oh my, the jewels on this guy! The twenty-four carat roughs!” He heaved a chortle that turned into a froggy croak: “You always were a kidder, Trickster.”

He abruptly sobered: “And believe me I like a good laugh as much as the next duskfae. But rules are rules, and ‘on pain of total unconjuring’ is more than inducement enough for the humble likes ‘o’ me. So…” He inhaled, his neck inflating like a bullfrog’s sac: “EH, YOU LOUTS, GET OUT HERE! The very Trickster himself’s blessed our little patch with a visit - in company, if you can bring yourself to believe it, of a human!”

A second faery appeared on the opposite side of the cart, shambling out of the wood onto the path. This one was tall, more manlike, but covered neck-to-knees in shaggy black-and-brown hair that began with a bristly mane and thick beard and simply never stopped. A pug snout capped with a black dog’s-nose dominated what little flesh was visible. A large dark spot surrounded one whiteless eye, reminding Emlie absurdly of Killer, the ironically-named hunting dog whose gentle spirit made him her dearest friend amongst Poppa’s hounds. His mannerisms underscored his doglike appearance, as evidenced when he clomped up to side of the ‘cart opposite Embreywart, squinted, sniffed, and let out a surprised guhg?

A splashing noise from straight ahead drew Emlie’s attention just in time for her to catch a faceful of mud splattered by the mound of amorphous lard that had plopped down smack into the center of the cart path. The blue-veined blubber-pile shivered, shook, made several horrible gassy noises, then rose on a stumpy pair of legs and half-waddled, half-swaggered forward, only its sagging drapes and folds preserving its… his modesty.

The three faeries converged upon the cart, circling counterclockwise in slow unison so that Foxglove could neither keep Embreywort in view without pivoting nor wholly obstruct their own view of Emlie. Foxglove’s grin was heroic in its intensity, but even that full unbanked smile could not charm the others into ignoring the spectacle of the human. Sweeping his arm in a spinning gesture, Embreywort continued to press the conversation: “Best we keep constrained by the formalities. You’re not looking to skimp on the formalities, are you?”

“Why, no, naturally not, yet I believe we already-”

“Was talkin’ to her, Trickster.”

“I assure you I can-”

The froglike faery let out an ear-splitting CROAK. In the silence that followed he pointed to the human girl.

Foxglove’s smile shrank into a lipless incision. “You muck-mired selkie. You’d impede an emissary of the King in the performance of his directly dictated duties?” he hissed in chill lacerating tones.

Embreywort put on a pensive expression. “Probably not.” Then he brightened. “But I’d happily take the piss from a high-handed sycophant of an upjumped hobgoblin whose inexplicable absence has lasted just about long enough to edge him out from those good graces he might once have sheltered so smugly under!”

He jabbed a webbed digit at Foxglove. “So don’t think you’ve got the clout to waltz out of the netherlands into the homeland on my very road and tell me how ta do my job in warding it. Eh, bucca?”

Foxglove opened his mouth to speak, but Embreywort repeated, “Formalities…” He cast a portentous look at his fellows, returned his stare to Foxglove, then gestured invitingly to the road off to one side. Emlie’s companion made a last throat-clearing noise and attempted a final ratcheting-up of his face-splitting smile, but it flickered and died on his smooth white face. Shrugging helplessly, glowering darkly, he exited the ring of faeries and stepped aside.

The faeries ceased their widdershins tromp with Embreywort front and center. The selkie smiled disarmingly up at Emlie (the warmth of the smile only slightly undercut by the prodigious growths of moss framing his honeydew-hued teeth) and dramatically cleared his throat. Then he rumbled unctuously, “Lady, please accept my apologies on your having to witness that unseemly matter of protocol. Now that we’ve addressed it, would you do my companions and I the honor of your alighted presence?”

He emphasized the request by crouching and forming a stirrup with his long, webbed fingers. Emlie hesitated, but all eyes were on her. Foxglove made a resigned come-hither gesture with his eyes and head. Utterly bemused by this strange mix of etiquette and tension, Emlie nevertheless stepped daintily down.

The faery lowered her turnshoe to the mud, accepting her weight without complaint. Once she was fully down, he wiped his hand on his garments, then sketched a deep bow. “Welcome to the Forest Primeval, milady…?”

“-Rose. My name is Rose.”

“Ahh. Rose of..?”

“Just Rose, if you please,” she replied, earning a barely perceptible nod from Foxglove.

Embreywort was undaunted. “And where do you make for, Just Rose? My cousins and I are caretakers of this sacred wood, and exercise considerable dominion here. Name your destination, and it would be our honor to conduct you there in a bare batting of your lovely lashes.”

Emlie considered the question and offer. It was superficially inviting –more faery magick!– but she was learning much and quickly concerning faery questions, faery offers, and unguessable faery law. She settled on an honest, inoffensive answer: “I follow after Master Foxglove.”

For an instant though, it appeared that Embreywort had taken offense… or was that simply a pang of froggy indigestion? In any case it passed quickly and was succeeded by further gallantry, as he flourished his hands to produce objects seemingly out of thin air: a palmtop crystal decanter and tiny glasses tipping the fingers of one hand like thimbles, a small glass plate holding an impossibly dainty slice of cake atop his other.

“How sad that we must relinquish the pleasure of your company then, and that you must continue to suffer his! Surely you will at least join us before parting in doing honor to the gods of the grape with a spot of light refreshment?” He proffered the cake and drink.

Emlie felt torn. She recalled the old faery-tale taboo against consuming the fruits of Faerie, but this fare did look lovely after three days of trail nibbles, the cake delectable and the wine a forbidden treat… what real harm could it do? Plenty, so best err on the side of caution asserted the hard-nosed part of her. And after all, hadn’t Foxglove warned her to not… something…? Well and good, then, she’d abstain… but wouldn’t declining this courtesy upset this Embreywort creature, who even now was waiting expectantly? The refreshments were after all a lovely gesture (also perhaps a baited hook), and she’d hate to give offense by spurning them. How to get out of this predicament without mistake or faux pas…?

What a burdensome contradiction! Oh, bother these faery traditions, formalities and rules! I- she realized what she’d just “said”: rules. Rules were rules, after all. –why, there’s no contradiction at all!

“Master Embreywort, did you say that that lovely decanter contains wine?”

“It does indeed, milady – the cask-aged dew lifted at first light from the Fields of…” he trailed off, noting the expression of dismay crossing the girl’s face. “Have I said something wrong?”

“Oh, no, good sir, far from! It’s simply a terrible shame – I’m afraid that, much as I would love to partake of your wine, the rule and tradition to which I am subject precludes it.” She frowned dolefully.

“It… it does?”

“Oh yes. You see, I am but fifteen years young… and my Lord Father’s dictate forbids his daughter tasting of the grape until she turns sixteen. Oh, ‘tis pity…!”

“Her ‘Lord Father’?” Embreywort looked uncertainly to Foxglove.

“Her Lord Father the mortal king.” From Embreywort’s reaction Foxglove’s helpfully supplied reply appeared to have great meaning, so Emlie forwent correcting his innocent misunderstanding.

“Ah, I, err—yes, that IS a shame.” Embreywort looked at his glassware-festooned hand, grimaced, and flicked it over his shoulder. Emlie heard delicate smashing sounds from the woods behind him. Then he noticed his other hand, and seized on it with gusto. “But the cake!” he declared. “There is this lovely cake to be had, and-”

“And it is simply SO kind of you to offer it to us!” She whisked the plate off the surprised faery’s hand and, stretching sideways, handed it straight to the equally surprised Foxglove! “Poor Foxglove here was only just now bemoaning how tragically famished he is, I’m sure he would love the chance to sample a-”

Gulp. With a flip of the plate and a snapping of his shark’s mouth, Foxglove swallowed the cake whole.

“Why, Foxglove, you glutton! Now there is none left for me…” The horrified Embreywort and the mock-horrified Emlie watched through the glass of the plate as Foxglove cleansed it of crumbs with a swipe of his serpentine tongue. He flashed a guilty grin. Emlie responded with a pout, but favored Embreywort with a bright smile. “Ah, well, regardless, it was supremely kind of you to offer, milord!”

Embreywort’s eyes bulged, and he wrung his hands before resuming his pleasantries. “A small thing, a small thing… But wait! I have been dreadfully ill-mannered otherwise, for I’ve failed completely to introduce you to my companions! You simply must have the pleasure…”

Emlie graciously beckoned for him to proceed.

The selkie impelled his triumvirate to renewed motion. When they again ceased circling, the shaggy being standing clockwise of Embreywort now stood before Emlie. The frog-man introduced him: “This spriggan be Woodwose, hard-barking, hard-living, hard of ear and dumb of tongue. Fun at revels, though!” The second faery grunted, or barked, and waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Hello Woodwose, it’s a pleasure to-”

The wildmanling interrupted Emlie’s pleasantry in shocking fashion – with a growling-turned-HOWL of daunting ferocity and eardrum-splitting volume. His eyes bulged and rolled, hidden whites emerging. His jaw gaped open like a cave mouth, uvula gonging madly within, and Emlie’s hair blew back with the wind of it while high-speed flecks of spittle slapped her cheeks.

The impulse to recoil was strong, but so was the memory of Killer. Steady. One must never balk at this kind of bad behavior, Emlie recollected, nor reward it; the best approach is always simply to make light of it. So she dauntlessly advanced on the canine faery, steps even and unrushed, leaning into the wind of his bellow. Once close enough she reached out, checking her hand when the creature tensed but not withdrawing it, until at last she was able to slide her hand into the mass of curly fur bearding one cheek, and scratch. Simultaneously, she intoned, “There there… silly fellow… there there…” in a low, soothing voice.

All at once the roar cut off. The faery’s eyes went wide enough to show whites; he made a curious qworking noise. Gradually his mouth drew shut and his lips curled up into a big, dopey grin. Clearly unafraid to wear newfound affection on his sleeve, Woodwose panted at Emlie and licked her hand. Emlie patted his head, grinning back.

Embreywort had been observing the exchange with a certain… expectancy. Now he blinked as if bemused by the outcome. Then, recollecting himself, he yanked Woodwose backwards into line and shooed the faery circle into motion again. When it stopped next, he introduced his final companion with what seemed like renewed, manic, even desperate avidity: “Ah, milady, you MUST meet my final brave companion! This Adonaian specimen of a ballybog is Milgerfortesque.”

Emlie turned wide eyes toward the grotesquely swollen faery. He winced theatrically before protesting, “Aww, that’s just the boring ol’ name I was conjured with (an’ as a straight-line emanation o’ noble Priapus at that!) My well-as-true name, used by all and sundry in the know, is ‘the Gorgon Organ!’” The doughy ballybog held up an upraised palm, which Embreywort promptly slapped. He slammed fist into palm, then made a circling gesture with both hands which he displayed to his audience. He leered at the girl amidst his comrades’ chortles, anticipating her reaction.

Emlie hmmmed innocently, giving the utterance all due consideration, then, “Sorry …come again now?” Her look continued to be one of polite, wide-eyed interest.

The faery’s leer slipped, his tongue all of a sudden dangling stupidly rather than lewdly. He turned to Woodwose seeking support, but the latter just shrugged scaly shoulders at him. Milgerfortesque turned back towards Emlie, his wide face drooping with confused dismay.

“It’s for… y’know, it’s on account of ‘cos I…” The blubber-faery was deflating as the others looked on.

Emlie tiled her head quizzically, made a slight shrugging gesture with her hands.

“Come on, fer the luvuvit! GORGON-” the faery stomping the stony ground, then wincing as his whole body juddered with the imact, “-ORGAN!” He unleashed a series of spastic pelvic thrusts that jiggled his belly fat grotesquely and left him gasping for air at his exertions’ conclusion.

Through his huffing he glanced up at Emlie, expectant, but the girl only blinked, shrugged again in embarrassed sympathy, then asked, “Not to pry, Master Organ, but do you have an itch? If so, I have a cream-” She rummaged in her pouch.

“GYAAAAAAAAHHHH. ….nevermind, you know? Just…. Never. Mind.”

Milgerfortesque the Gorgon Organ turned and slouched away in defeat. “Very sheltered.” apologized Foxglove in a mirthful stage whisper as he stomped by.

From several yards away, the obese faery threw a thumb back over his shoulder and muttered, “-exit’sthatway, ya cheapracetraitorintegrationistdog.” He farted mournfully as he departed.

Foxglove tipped his hat gallantly after the ballywog, then turned to raise a hairless eyebrow at the remaining contingent… and froze, his face going slack. Following his cue, Emlie felt her own jaw drop.

Embreywort was gone. In the faery’s place, he stood beside the ‘cart. Beidon. He faced her through an odd shimmer like a heat haze, boyish grin unfurled and arms outstretched expectantly. “Beid…” she whispered, drawing a nod of acknowledgement.

A complex tangle of emotions flooded through her: Joy, at this unexpected reunion. (She smiled broadly, fondly.) Relief. Desire to leap into her forge-boy’s arms. (She took a step toward him, half-raising her own arms.) Confusion at his improbable presence here beyond the Veil. (She stumbled, shaking her head as if to clear it of a fog.) Ire, transposed from the recent past into the present… ire at his dismissiveness, his small-mindedness. And finally anger… at the obvious impossibility, and hence the obvious deception. Beidon couldn’t be here. Beidon wouldn’t be here, seeking her. Beidon had made his feelings, his scorn and his disavowal, quite plain.

Emlie slapped “Beidon” right across his smiling face.

“Owwwwwch!”

The heat haze roiled, intensified, subsided, and all of a sudden it was Embreywort standing before her wiping blue blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

“Beidon-” she hissed “-has better things to do than to be here. Don’t you?”

She turned away from the whole scene, glowering out into the wood.

Foxglove tsked reprovingly.

“As glamours go, I’d have to say that one fell somewhat short …” he quipped. “Truly, it was a heady combination of the ad hoc amateur and the stunningly impolite. Impotrite?”

The bloodied faery scowled. “Desperation. Not like I had anything more to go on than fleeting surface thoughts.”

“Hers, or yours in carrying out this farce heedless of my will?”

Embreywort rounded on the other faery: “Trickster… ya know full well we’re now to bring all mortals to heel, by hook or by crook. We were heeding our edict and our natures.”

Foxglove scoffed. “Oh yes… champions and true-hewers all, you three! Paragons of fae fidelity and dutiful devotion, the two meeting with such sweet synergy… gave your fullest measures in defense of the realm, eh? Played your essential roles? Fulfilled your mandate? ‘Ring around the mortal and away we go! ‘To cajole or coerce, to enchant or ensnare’… to respect always the time-honored formalities … how unfortunate for you, to have rather pathetically botched ‘em.”

The selkie opened his green-lipped mouth to protest, but Foxglove cut him off in a pained voice, backhand-rubbing his forehead and shaking his head: “Come now, darling Embreywort… as seductions go, that sad display ranked right up there with the time the old thunderer tried to charm the knickers off a tree!

“Now, given your less-than-credible performance here today, I’d hope that we’d both agree with poor Milgerfortesque that it be in the best interests of all that you leave the disposition of the mortal girl to me.” He flashed a victor’s smirk. “Fear not, for I’ll see to it that she gets where ‘tis needful she should go.”

The selkie glared… tensed.. then: “Baah!” He stepped aside, hooking a thumb in the same direction Milgerfortesque had indicated. “Begone with ye then, and on yer head be it if ya waste any time in turning her over.” He grabbed Woodwose by the ruff and drew the spriggan off of the path with him.

Ungracious in his victory, Foxglove spared no further attention to the faeries. Emlie was more polite. She offered a respectful if frosty bow to Embreywort, followed by a last pat of adoring Woodwose’s head. Foxglove ahemed and, when she relented, assisted her back aboard the fairy-cart before jumping up himself. He flicked the reins, and the ‘cart resumed trotting, backtracking in the direction that the guardian faeries had indicated. Neither faery nor human dared take their eyes away from the stand of trees under which the faery contingent had vanished until a turning of the path hid it from view.

Foxglove huffed a sigh of relief. He put his feet up on the (literal) saddlehorn, leaned back, and settled down to watch the stark red-black tangle of the Royal Wood slip by. Emlie unwound considerably less blithely, only gradually settling down into the coach seat. By turns, however, her unease was wiped away by the hypnotically regular pattern of the scenery.

The faery still declined to gave firm direction to their ‘cart; but now, having been thumbed on by a guardian faery, he apparently did not have to. That granted benediction of the Wood was doing marvels for their course, . He felt immeasurably more at ease, his customary air of imperturbability restored. He began whistling to himself.

After a few moments of this, he slowly turned his head to steal a glance at Rose on the passenger bench. Fond anticipation of seeing the human girl still sporting that delightful, supremely fortuitous vacancy from moments earlier evoked an ever-so-delicate sneer across his pointed face.

Instead of the expected wide-eyed vacuity, the girl faced straight at him, wearing an appraising look of her own. Foxglove’s handsome leer actually slipped a notch (from Eight to Seven, perhaps) and he reached a delicate hand up to slightly expose his eyes from under his hat-brim. His gaze was calibrated to wilt, perhaps in the hope that this discomfiting newfound acuity would prove fleeting, but Emlie gamely matched him. Finally he acquiesced, quirking a ruby eye in an invitation to out-with-it.

“What was all that about, then?”

“An ancient rite, girl, but for all that no more than a crude test of perturbability and a low-faery farce on fey hospitality; an attempt, you could say, by the hodge-podge to dislodge.”

Dissatisfied by the elliptical answer, Emlie flailed an arm as if seeking to swat excess verbiage out of the air. “But... how could that have ended other than harmlessly? That lot didn’t do anything!”

The faery replied grudgingly – Emlie intuited that this wasn’t ground he was particularly anxious to cover with his human charge. But :

“Aye… but only because you threaded a needle’s eye, girl.”

He clapped his jaws shut, clearly intending to leave it at that. But his mouth crept open again as if of its own accord, mutterings slipping past the clenched teeth as if forced from him by some external constraint: “Oh, the irony… seems that rited obligation stretches all ‘round courtesy of the backsplash from that little to-do, eh?”

He frowned at the girl and gasped, “It would appear that you have entailed certain turnabout demands from me as well. I find myself literally compelled to offer a measure of candor. Don’t get used to it.”

He took a deep breath before resuming in a pained growl: “You spurned their advances without reviling their hospitality. Not consenting was obvious; doing it politely was canny. I’d call achieving it with such effortless grace a stroke of genius were I at all convinced you owed your victory to anything other than wild fortune and completely unfeigned obliviousness.

“You see Rose, faery etiquette is both all-important and very… rarified. (You mortals in your gauche crudity slander it as paradoxical.) It is at once our enabler and our constraint. Too sharp discomfit at their proposal-posturing would have been rude. Such a faux pas would have sealed your fate as readily as would acquiescence, recasting you as a contemptible creature unworthy of formal consideration and justifying the (how to say?) the commencement of festivities. As I suspect you are aware, a little fuzziness around issues of consent is, heh, a bit of a tradition amongst my kind.

“Now on the other hand, your honest anger was both timely and righteous. At the last, Embreywort himself violated the forms with a transgression designed to give offense. Had you not responded with appropriately gratifying ire, that show of weakness would itself have been a slight and a justification. You see?”

Foxglove flopped back, exhausted by the unaccustomed exercise of candid effusiveness. He looked expectantly at the girl… and got very little back. The faery couldn’t know that the blanching blankness that now washed over Emlie’s face stemmed from her flashing back to her days-ago first meeting with Foxglove himself, chill new light dawning over a complex subtext of which she’d been completely ignorant and what could have transpired by dint of it. To him it doubtless looked like the blankness of continuing incomprehension… and prompted a response that was equal parts gloating and (oddly) relieved:

“...you don’t. Ah, Rose, why do I bother with these little monologues? Suffice it to say, then, that as far as that rabble is concerned, if you had lost your head then they’d’ve been empowered to keep it. Thank your lucky stars that ‘tis such a blessedly empty, simple, retainable thing.”

Obligation discharged, Foxglove waved dismissively and turned away, resuming lounging on the driver’s perch with what now seemed an exaggerated casualness. Something was clearly gnawing at him though, a growing discomfit that manifested as ever-more-hyperbolic tics, twitches, tossings and flailings.

Finally, several moments of silent brooding cart-travel later, he spun suddenly back around, his cocksure composure slipping for the first time in Emlie’s experience:

“All right… what in all Anwyn was that? You played that, and them, like an icewater-veined sage, when by rights they should’ve had your outraged meat for their pleasure and made a ruin of all my work there on the spot!” He leaned in ominously. “Are you playing me, girl, or are you a blessed fool? Believe me, I’d fain to chalk it up to sheer luck and sheer lunk-headedness, and yet… were you truly as ignorant of the game as you seem, then why ignore them dully yet ask me shrewdly? Why?? Practically any other human would have faux pas’d their way right into my cousins’ eager clutches!”

Emlie stood firm beneath the looming faery’s shadow. She took her time in replying, savoring this rare reversal of the roles of instructor and ignoramus and the knowledge that she understood something that simply could not be shared. When she finally framed an answer, it came fully informed by the impossibility of explaining to the alien faery what it had meant to grow up a strange, abstracted child in a lofty social role, laughed at and condescended to yet unreachable, ultimately only able to persevere via deliberate withdrawal behind the shields of icy imperiousness, exaggerated graciousness, studied ignorance. These too were her weapons and tools, as natural and unfeigned as her wide-eyed acceptance of the faery realm.

But she’d not share all that with him even if she could have. Instead she simply intoned, “Sometimes the things that the common majority deem worth noticing are not, in fact, worth noticing at all.” She nodded primly at Foxglove. “And sometimes what is worth noticing is simply that which everyone else dismisses or disbelieves. Where exactly is the mystery in that?”

Foxglove considered her closely for a beat. He opened his mouth, seemingly on the verge of saying something. Instead he abruptly flashed his rogue’s smile, turning away and dismissing the whole conversation with an airy wave of his hand. He put his feet up on the saddlehorn, folded his hands behind his head against the ‘cart’s thoracic horn, and tipped his hat brim forward. Then he set the spiraling red-and-black boughs overhead to quivering with his chuckling whistle of appreciation.