The Tangle and the Gossamer Isles

[Hibou]

Mmm, I see where the Brotherhood of the Wolf comes in - and anything based off that is destined to be great. I'm also reminded a little of Sleepy Hollow when it comes to that picture of the guy with the rifle before the woody trail.

[Nomadic]

Your stuff is absolutely brilliant. If I had the money I would totally hire you to write the fluff for Karros. I mean I am not totally inept with writing, but I am not up to your level. Not by a long shot.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Wow, thanks Nomadic!  Its good to know I'm good at writing stuff other than English essays.  Obviously I've been writing fiction for awhile but I haven't shown it around too widely.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ic=The Trowe]The Trowe?  Don't fuck with 'em.  Most of the time they leave mortals alone '" uninterested, like.  But rile them up, an' they're worse than the bleeding Nyx.  Most faerie will let you be after awhile if you keep a low enough profile '" they're fickle, get bored, ya know?  Not the Trowe.  They know how to hold a grudge.  Bloody single-minded, an' impossible to kill.  Even if you cut down their damn soul-trees they just get banished to the Otherworld for a spell, an' then they'll come back really pissed off.  Your best bet is to try an' barter your way out with whatever you can, offer '˜em restitution, cause trying to fight the fucking things is only going to end one way.

-          Sebastian Murgatroyd, Faerie-Slayer[/ic]

[ic=A Bargain]The creature manifested out of the verdurous gloom, congealing from the undergrowth, a sudden assertion of order on previously random elements.  Thorny boughs and vines abruptly became lithe, elegant limbs, branches twisted into fingers, and a gnarled, red-eyed face formed itself from bark and earth while the air hummed and warbled with glamer.  Branches knit together, solidifying into rough green-brown flesh, a taut, vegetative body; strands of thick moss formed matted locks of hair.

The faerie detached itself from the dense green darkness and crept towards him.  When it moved it shed little accretions of forest-matter, stray leaves and twigs and clumps of loam.

Charles Casmyre pushed his sweaty spectacles back up his long, scholar's nose, tightened his already white-knuckled grip on his blunderbuss.  Even with his greatcoat and hat to ward against the night chill he shivered.  His mouth felt like sandpaper; his singed tongue still stung from the crackling, acrid potency of the incantation whose echo hung in the air, shimmering in its dissipation.  As the faerie approached its fetid rankness filled the magician's nostrils, a pungency half decay, half cloying fecundity.  Charles coughed.

'Why do you tremble?'  Though the faerie's voice was little more than a whisper it resounded throughout the forest clearing, full of terrible wisdom and ancient, mocking cruelty.  'Surely with your mighty spells and your iron bullets you do not fear one such as me?  Is it my semblance that unnerves you?  Allow me to put you at your ease.'  The creature's face split into a jagged grin, and it passed a clawed hand across its visage.  Where the hand moved its face changed, and then its body also; where once an eerie woodland spirit had crouched now stood a beautiful, androgynous figure with glossy, viridian hair and tight-fitting garb of gray-green satin.  Only the crimson eyes remained unchanged, haunting and mesmeric.

'You have the remedy?'  Charles tried to keep his voice steady.  The horseshoe round his neck was cold against his skin.  'The elixir?  That will restore her to health '" remove the curse, the sickness?'

'Distilled from a virgin's laugh and a melancholic's tears, with a tincture of a  madman's daydreams and the crushed petals of a purple orchid.'  The faerie withdrew a bottle from its garment, a vial of fuchsia liquid.  'Simply add a drop of your beloved's blood and a hair from her head and have her drink the potion down.  And now'¦ do you have the skull of Osheran?'

'Yes, though the deeds I committed in its getting would make a cutthroat balk.'  Charles felt a surge of anger and shame welling up to replace his fear.  He clenched his teeth and withdrew the skull from his satchel '" old and yellowing, carved with mystic spirals, its eyes set with carnelian gems.  The faerie pursed its lips and walked forward; Charles thrust out the skull before snatching the offered vial from the thing's slim, manicured fingers.

'Ah, my old foe,' the creature crooned, stroking the skull as if caressing a lover.  'How I raged when I found that you had taken your own life!  To deny me the pleasure of your death, the throb of your veins under my fingertips, the quake of your terrified flesh'¦ but now you are mine, Osheran, and I have had centuries to plan new torments for your soul.'

'Then our bargain is complete.'  Charles kept his weapon carefully aimed at the slender figure as he backed away into the Tangle's depths.

'Hmm?  Ah, yes.  You have done well, magician.'  The faerie had withdrawn to the shadows; only the soft red glow of its eyes betrayed its presence.  'You have proven yourself a capable agent.  Perhaps I will make use of you in the future.'

'Never again,' Charles muttered as the Trowe melted back into the night.  He clutched the vial the faerie had given him to his breast as he trod the silver moonpaths of the fair folk's forest, back to his manse in the Edge where, unbeknownst to him, his lover now lay lifeless.[/ic]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Continuing the multi-media tradition of this thread, here are  two video-clips that inspired the Trowe and somewhat capture the feel of the faerie more generally.[/ooc]

[Nomadic]

I like it, and those two videos even more helped solidify for me the feeling of this setting.