Light & Dark 14(1)
Aug. 12th, 2004 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessSplit in two parts because of length and it's still not done.
Actually, this is beginning to annoy me, I write pages on Light & Dark with little happening. Methinks my penchant for rambling is coming through. There's a limit to character building, right?
Trouble is, this is when they're new together, which means I'm getting lots of angst, anger and misunderstanding.
The streets were crowded and expensive. Mortals wearing vast wealth in suits moving from one towering structure to the next. The sensitive eyes of the Sidhe were nearly dazzled by the mountains of steel and glass, and the presence of so much iron, even iron tamed and worked into steel, set their nerves raw. Almost as bad were the minds of the humans that passed them on all sides. It wasn't the aggression, because the courts of faerie had aggression in plentiful supply. Nor was it ambition - no Sidhe in the world would ever be scared by something so familiar as ambition. It wasn’t even the confidence and paranoia, both long friends to the Sidhe. Even the focus, the deadly, intense focus of all these people bent towards the same thing, wasn’t truly the source of the discomfort. Fae could be focused, it was rare, but it could happen. No, it was the submission, the subjugation. All these people, with their ambition and confidence had all confined their dreams to such a narrow front. Their dreams never strayed outside the lines their stifling society had drawn, their ambitions never reached higher than the limits they themselves had set. Not even the Seelie in all their love of order would ever call for this restraint of hope and dreams to such narrow limits. Not even the Unseelie, with all their passion and drive, would ever push all they had towards one thing, no matter how desired, and certainly not because society demands that they should want this.
“All these people... they hunger so much yet none seem even to know what they hunger for!” Ilatheril gasped eyes darting from person to person, gaze pushing through to their desperate dreams.
“Or even seem to realise that they already have what they strive so fiercely to attain,” Sitharensor’s gaze followed an almost obscenely expensive car as it hurried into a car park.
“All they have is hunger... they don’t actually dream or wish. There’s no fancy here, no whimsy, no fulfilment or joy. They don't hope for happiness, or peace, or safety, or love, or joy, or pleasure or anything worth having. They just have a constant hunger for ‘more’ without even knowing what that more is or what it entails. They want so much that they can’t even appreciate the wonders they already hold.” The Seelie turned to watch the crowds pass the fountain in the middle of the square. It was actually a rather impressive display of woven metal, greenery and water - all seeming melded together rather wonderfully. He remembered Melouria, of the Undines, playing muse for the human who made this. It was wonderful, a true font of glamour in this desolate place.... and the humans walked past this monument of wonder without even flicking their gaze towards it, almost without even seeing it. Were they so inured against dreaming that they were blind to even its most mundane manifestations?
But it was near the fountain where this fae must lurk, this one oasis of glamour would be enough to preserve what little sanity it had left.
“There’s some definite Unseelie magic over there if it helps, some kind of hiding spell.” Ilatheril’s voice broke the Seelie’s reverie, his hand pointing to the lowest of the sky scrapers.
“I sense nothing...”
“That’s why it’s a hiding spell, Sith. Emphasis on the hiding?”
“Yet you can? I thought you were still mastering the art of seeing what is in front of you?”
“Ha ha, someone give the Sidhe a prize. It’s Unseelie magic, that’s why I can sense it. Besides, you’re too busy with other important things. Like rocking back and forth in the foetal position moaning about all the metal?”
“Yet you are used to all this metal? Well, I bow to your greater experience, though I must speak to our healers on whether prolonged exposure to... the metal normally causes such a mental degeneration. It would explain a lot.”
“Passes?” The two Sidhe turned in surprise to the human security man stood stiffly in front of a pair of glass doors. There was a key pad and a slot for a key card next to the clearly locked doors, not to mention the security man’s three friends.
Ilatheril started patting his pockets, a little theatrically. “I seem to have...”
“What is in this place, that it needs such protection?” Sitharensor stared up at the building suspiciously.
Ilatheril glared at the Seelie, “and you complain that I’m not subtle enough!”
“You aren’t, you blunder about in court like a drunken Red Cap, and manage to lack even their social graces.”
“Yes, well, I may not be a master at finding out exactly what wine to serve with the latest expensive mush, or even what spoon to eat said mush with, but I don’t decide to case a joint by asking suspicious questions of the security guards!”
“’Case a joint’? Sounds positively obscene. There really ought to be laws against what you do to an unsuspecting language.”
“I’m Unseelie. I’d ignore them.” Ilatheril grinned as Sitharensor rolled his eyes.
“Excuse me?” The two Sidhe blinked and returned their gazes to the confused mortals.
Sitharensor sighed. “Ilatheril, if you would?”
There was a blur of darkness, Ilatheril’s body seemed to melt into shadow as he reached the guards. Sitharensor felt the Unseelie’s magic flow across him, so alien, yet so familiar. The magic boosted Ilatheril’s speed far beyond anything his body should be capable of - an instinctive magic that most Sidhe learned automatically. But there was something more, it wasn’t an optical illusion., his body had melted into shadow - a figure of pure darkness. He touched each guard, just touched them, and they fell.
Actually, this is beginning to annoy me, I write pages on Light & Dark with little happening. Methinks my penchant for rambling is coming through. There's a limit to character building, right?
Trouble is, this is when they're new together, which means I'm getting lots of angst, anger and misunderstanding.
The streets were crowded and expensive. Mortals wearing vast wealth in suits moving from one towering structure to the next. The sensitive eyes of the Sidhe were nearly dazzled by the mountains of steel and glass, and the presence of so much iron, even iron tamed and worked into steel, set their nerves raw. Almost as bad were the minds of the humans that passed them on all sides. It wasn't the aggression, because the courts of faerie had aggression in plentiful supply. Nor was it ambition - no Sidhe in the world would ever be scared by something so familiar as ambition. It wasn’t even the confidence and paranoia, both long friends to the Sidhe. Even the focus, the deadly, intense focus of all these people bent towards the same thing, wasn’t truly the source of the discomfort. Fae could be focused, it was rare, but it could happen. No, it was the submission, the subjugation. All these people, with their ambition and confidence had all confined their dreams to such a narrow front. Their dreams never strayed outside the lines their stifling society had drawn, their ambitions never reached higher than the limits they themselves had set. Not even the Seelie in all their love of order would ever call for this restraint of hope and dreams to such narrow limits. Not even the Unseelie, with all their passion and drive, would ever push all they had towards one thing, no matter how desired, and certainly not because society demands that they should want this.
“All these people... they hunger so much yet none seem even to know what they hunger for!” Ilatheril gasped eyes darting from person to person, gaze pushing through to their desperate dreams.
“Or even seem to realise that they already have what they strive so fiercely to attain,” Sitharensor’s gaze followed an almost obscenely expensive car as it hurried into a car park.
“All they have is hunger... they don’t actually dream or wish. There’s no fancy here, no whimsy, no fulfilment or joy. They don't hope for happiness, or peace, or safety, or love, or joy, or pleasure or anything worth having. They just have a constant hunger for ‘more’ without even knowing what that more is or what it entails. They want so much that they can’t even appreciate the wonders they already hold.” The Seelie turned to watch the crowds pass the fountain in the middle of the square. It was actually a rather impressive display of woven metal, greenery and water - all seeming melded together rather wonderfully. He remembered Melouria, of the Undines, playing muse for the human who made this. It was wonderful, a true font of glamour in this desolate place.... and the humans walked past this monument of wonder without even flicking their gaze towards it, almost without even seeing it. Were they so inured against dreaming that they were blind to even its most mundane manifestations?
But it was near the fountain where this fae must lurk, this one oasis of glamour would be enough to preserve what little sanity it had left.
“There’s some definite Unseelie magic over there if it helps, some kind of hiding spell.” Ilatheril’s voice broke the Seelie’s reverie, his hand pointing to the lowest of the sky scrapers.
“I sense nothing...”
“That’s why it’s a hiding spell, Sith. Emphasis on the hiding?”
“Yet you can? I thought you were still mastering the art of seeing what is in front of you?”
“Ha ha, someone give the Sidhe a prize. It’s Unseelie magic, that’s why I can sense it. Besides, you’re too busy with other important things. Like rocking back and forth in the foetal position moaning about all the metal?”
“Yet you are used to all this metal? Well, I bow to your greater experience, though I must speak to our healers on whether prolonged exposure to... the metal normally causes such a mental degeneration. It would explain a lot.”
“Passes?” The two Sidhe turned in surprise to the human security man stood stiffly in front of a pair of glass doors. There was a key pad and a slot for a key card next to the clearly locked doors, not to mention the security man’s three friends.
Ilatheril started patting his pockets, a little theatrically. “I seem to have...”
“What is in this place, that it needs such protection?” Sitharensor stared up at the building suspiciously.
Ilatheril glared at the Seelie, “and you complain that I’m not subtle enough!”
“You aren’t, you blunder about in court like a drunken Red Cap, and manage to lack even their social graces.”
“Yes, well, I may not be a master at finding out exactly what wine to serve with the latest expensive mush, or even what spoon to eat said mush with, but I don’t decide to case a joint by asking suspicious questions of the security guards!”
“’Case a joint’? Sounds positively obscene. There really ought to be laws against what you do to an unsuspecting language.”
“I’m Unseelie. I’d ignore them.” Ilatheril grinned as Sitharensor rolled his eyes.
“Excuse me?” The two Sidhe blinked and returned their gazes to the confused mortals.
Sitharensor sighed. “Ilatheril, if you would?”
There was a blur of darkness, Ilatheril’s body seemed to melt into shadow as he reached the guards. Sitharensor felt the Unseelie’s magic flow across him, so alien, yet so familiar. The magic boosted Ilatheril’s speed far beyond anything his body should be capable of - an instinctive magic that most Sidhe learned automatically. But there was something more, it wasn’t an optical illusion., his body had melted into shadow - a figure of pure darkness. He touched each guard, just touched them, and they fell.