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So fun story: Ari asks for Mearcstapa to meet them at a particular location, and waits for him outside. They're dressed in a style that's known in the PNW as 'Portland Formal' - a clean button-up flannel with only the top button undone, and jeans. Idly, they fiddle with their phone -- their massive hands dwarf the tiny device.
Mearcstapa shows up dressed in his grey cargo pants and a polo shirt, usual bag over one shoulder. His hair is pinned out of his face with a bobby pin on each side, and he seems, you know, about as nervous as any low-ranking member of the Freehold oughta be when meeting with a reigning Monarch. His freckles are distinctly tilted toward the red when he arrives.
"Mearcstapa. I hope you are well." It's a genuine thing, but a businesslike one all the same. "This is a declared neutral place for the people we'll be meeting with tonight," Ari begins, tucking away their phone and reaching out a hand toward the Autumn to shake. "No aggressive or intrusive options of any kind, not even investigatory. What you know of your own understanding, yes. But ... " A vague gesture with one hand, and once the handshake has taken place, they open the door, holding it for him.
"I'm good, and hope you are as well--if busy, most likely." He nods as he takes their hand. "I understand and will comply. Not that I had had any plans to get nosier tonight than I already have, regarding Alex."
A soft chuckle from the Spring Monarch, and as they turn toward the Elysium, the Spring Crown manifests itself on their brow. A circlet of local wildflowers: Queen Anne's lace, orange day lilies, young daisies, black-eyed susans, first-blossom asters, and ivy which trails down over their shoulders, clothing the Monarch in a flowing gown of blossoms and greens. "Thank you," Ari agrees, and as they head inside, a slim figure waits to greet them.
She's short, slender, and dressed in an impeccably-tailored white skirt-suit, her sleek black hair falling around a high-cheekboned face, wide almond-shaped brown eyes fixed on the incoming pair. She hasn't bothered to make herself look any more human tonight -- why would she, among her own, while the others are guests? -- and so looks like nothing so much as the most exquisite corpse. "Monarch Ari," she greets, her Japanese accent recognizable even in that pair of words, her hands folded together in front of her belly as she bows in greeting. "There is a message waiting for you, after your meeting."
The gesture is returned by the Monarch, a bow in precisely the same depth. "Keeper Sora Kan. I am grateful to you for your hospitality. I appreciate you escorting myself and Mearcstapa of the Autumn Court to our meeting." A beat, and their stone lips press together briefly. "I will pick it up later. Thank you, Keeper."
Mearc follows Ari's lead and also bows, trying to ensure it's of the same depth, but he very much lets Ari do the talking for the moment. It seems the wiser decision at the moment, instead of inserting himself into the center of an arrangement that already exists.
Sora Kan leads the pair to one of the meeting rooms, a small smile tracing its way across her face. "Of course, Monarch, I did not mean to bother you with... trivialities... in this important time."
A little cut aside of their gaze to the Keeper, and Ari just ... grunts. "You know better," they answer, but then choose one of the overstuffed chairs and settle themself into it. "Thank you again, Keeper." Their hands settle onto their lap, and the Keeper bows once more before turning to leave the room.
A grandfather clock on the far end of the room ticks, the pendulum swinging: left, plumb, center, plumb...
Mearc finds a chair for himself as well and sets his messenger bag down on the floor. The silence is not necessarily awkward, but it's a thing that's there for the moment, at Mearc's freckles shift greener, indicating that he's processing instead of feeling, for the moment.
A few moments after the Changelings enter the room Alex arrives, stepping through the doors with her head high while trying her best not to look like she's nervous beyond words. She gives Mearcstapa a brief look, seems to find a bit of comfort or reassurance in his presence, and then turns to address Ari. She doesn't move to find a seat, but does move to stand beside one. "It's good to see you again, Monarch," she says more than a touch formally. She has no idea how this is really going to go. "I hope you've been well?"
When Alex comes into the room, Ari rises to their feet, slowly at first, but gaining speed. It's a little like watching an avalanche start, and the slowness at the beginning is only matched by the speed at the end. Jot this down: Ari can be real fucking fast if they want to. They go from sitting still to at Alex's side in six seconds flat, at which point the Spring Monarch wraps her up in both their giant stony arms and a trailing robe of Spring flowers that she sadly cannot see. In a very real way, the Court of Spring completely envelops her as the little vampire is lifted off the ground and near-crushed in the Gristlegrinder's rather comprehensive embrace.
A small, thin set of words from where Ari's face is hidden by blossoms and Alex's hair. "We thought you were dead."
Mearc doesn't bother to try to hide his smile at that reaction, though he remains seated for the moment. He got that hug already.
Alex makes a soft sound somewhere between a surprised yelp and the first gasp of a sob of relief as Ari pulls her into their arms and lifts her off the ground. She tries her best to put her arms around the giant of an Elemental as she answers, quietly, "I am dead, Ari."
"Not in any way that matters," the Spring Monarch rebuts gently, rocking her back and forth and just holding her aloft. "You're here, I'm hugging you, you're talking to me. You were cautious enough and proper enough to follow all the rules that you were taught." And then they set her down on the ground, very gently, and bend to kiss the top of her head, greeting and benediction all at once. "You are the toughest Spring I've ever known, and you prove it once again." They take her hands in their massive ones. "You must tell me everything you want to tell."
"She's absolutely amazing." Mearc finally pipes up, giving Alex his own reassuring smile. "Always has been, still very much is."
As she's put down on the ground again Alex carefully dabs an eye and says, "stop, you're going to make me cry. I've been doing too much of that lately." She no longer looks nearly so uncertain, though. "I imagine that when I disappeared in 2016 you imagined I got taken again?" Her gaze shifts to Mearcstapa. "That's what everyone else thought," she says. "Should we all sit down?"
They continue to hold on to her hands for a moment, and then gently let go of them, returning to their seat. "These are the things that you need to hear, I imagine. You were part of my Court and so you remain. You worked for that. You won it. No one can take it from you." The robe that Alex can't see spreads across their seat. "When Buidhe and I felt your Oaths break -- we thought you had been either Taken or killed."
Mearcstapa goes back to being quiet and watching, but from how his freckles redden, he's quite moved by this reunion.
Alex sits, settles herself, and looks comfortable, now that she has a better idea how her presence is going to be received. She does give Mearc another brief look, along with an embarrassed smile, before explaining to Ari. "One of the vampires found out what I was, somehow. I don't know, and probably never will. He decided he..." she stops and gathers herself to forge onward. "He took me, and caged me, and ran experiments on me. Eventually he embraced me, to test what it would do to one of the Avowed. I'm still not sure how he got caught, but he did, and the Sakima executed him. That's the quick summary."
The silence that follows is a heavy silence, and Mearcstapa gets a look aside from Ari before they say anything. "The words 'I'm sorry' are pale and weak things in the face of what you have been through, Alex." The Spring Monarch folds their hands on their lap, shaking their head. "How are you handling your new life, now that you are once more free?" The similarity between a Durance and what Alex has been through is not, surely, lost on them.
Mearc nods solemnly, as he catches that look. He, too, has long since caught that similarity, and accepted it.
"One day... one night at a time," Alex answers with a long sigh. She's running the Blush of Life because she didn't know what to expect, not for sure, and wanted to stack things in her own favor as much as she could, so the sigh comes easily. "I struggled for a while. There's a reason I took so long to reach out. You must have picked up on my rather Autumny vibes, and the changes in my appearance, and ordinary people react strongly to it. Things have been a struggle. Mearcstapa being in town ended up being a serious bit of good fortune, since he was the first of the Lost I reached out to. I thought he was still living in Chicago." She gives Mearc a bright smile at that. "We've known each other for years. It was through work, but we were definitely friends."
They listen, their onyx-black eyes fixed on her, hands folded neatly in their lap. "I have, yes," Ari answers, slowly nodding their head and listening. She's not the first person to have a Genuine Creep Factor that they've ever hung out with, after all. And then Ari gives Mearc a little smile aside, thankful for his presence, clearly. "You deserve a little good fortune, I think. And friends who can look after you." A pause. "Your Oath shattered when you died, but the resources of Shackamaxon remain open to you with -- some restrictions." A tiny wince, there. "Some places are no longer safe for you."
"Friends looking out for her, she'll continue to have, that's certain. I've introduced her to my partners, and all three of us plan on hanging out with her more. I think Lux will be ecstatic to have a dance partner who actively seeks out opportunities to go and dance, for one." He chuckles.
Alex nods, and spends a moment patting her hair to make sure it's not too lopsided after that giant hug, or being smooshed for kissing her head, but she does the check with a smile. "I've been finding friends not so hard to come by. Trouble, too. Mearcstapa and his polycule," she looks at him when she speaks, "you've been really good for me. Hanging out with you all last week made me feel like just a person with actual friends in a way I haven't in..." she shrugs. "Four years or so." She addresses Ari next. "I wondered about my Oath. I have no way of telling. I did want to be sure that if it had broken, you heard I was around town from me before you heard it from someone else and thought I was an oathbreaker." In some ways the Fae-Touched are even more touchy about broken oaths than the Lost. They are the Avowed, after all. Which is why she winces when she says, "I suppose I am, but not by any option of my own. Does it count?"
"Your partners?" Ari's eyebrow rises slightly, and their attention turns to Mearcstapa for a moment. "An interesting update," they offer aside. Listen, they get lots and lots of gossip from various sources. That little smile stays on their lips. "Oaths end on the death of one of the parties," the Spring Monarch explains, after they sit silent during the bit where Alex talks to Mearcstapa. "I appreciate that. But you are not an Oathbreaker, no. The oath is ended. It is a sort of ... metaphysical no-fault divorce."
Mearc coughs quietly. "We...haven't exactly been open about it in public, but. More because it's not really everyone's business, but yes, partners. That's a thing that's happening in my life now." Both Alex and Ari see Mearc turn red, but in slightly different manners. Freckles shifting versus a true blush, the kind that freckly almost-redheads do so well.
Alex can't help it, and has to laugh at the cough and the blush. "They're all very cute together," she tells Ari. Did Mearc even know that Alex was Spring once upon a time, in as much as a Fae-Touched mortal can be? It's probably not a hard guess, if she was associated with a Court at all, that it would be that one. "That's a serious relief, Ari," she moves on to. "Do you want me to renew it?"
A little nod of their head. "You're right. It's absolutely no one's business except the people whose business you make it," the Spring Monarch agrees. "I am quite happy for you, if you are happy, and your freckles seem to admit that you are." They slowly bring their gaze back to Alex, and there, they wince again, their head bowing slightly. "I am afraid that you cannot, Alex. The Wyrd does not recognize you as one of ours anymore, as much as I might. I can Seal your words, if you wish for me to do so, but -- I can never again hold your Oath."
Mearc looks thoughtful. "Ari, there's still something of the Wyrd connected to her. In a manner similar to another vampire I've met, Esme Chevrette, she holds the capacity to pierce the Mask still, with an act of will. I don't know if this means anything with regard to Oaths, but she's not completely...there's some..." A pause as he gathers his words. "The Wyrd still has a part to play within her existence, even if she is not Fae Touched as she was before."
Alex looks mildly surprised by Mearc putting forth all that information, but not upset. She nods and tells Ari, "do you know Esme, perhaps? She took me under her wing when she found out I had been Avowed, because she was once too. What she told me is that we're what are called Bloodthorns, or at least that's what she calls us. That we can still be part of an Oath, among some other things. Including being burned by iron, unfortunately. But I asked because I wanted to know if you felt as though I should. Even if I didn't swear an Oath, I could speak the words and you could Seal them. The real question for me, Ari, is if you think you're obligated to take that step to protect your people." They get a warm smile from the Nosferatu. "Since you offered me an easy out, I assume the answer is no."
Silence spreads as they sit with this news for a while. "I do know Esme," they begin. "She has had ties to Shackamaxon for quite a long time." And then there's more silence as they think that through, and their onyx eyes turn from Mearcstapa to Alex and back again. "My feelings are irrelevant," they begin, "as recent events have shown me... a Crown can be mistaken in their trust, to the potential detriment of many. So no matter my personal trust, I should have your Oath again."
Mearcstapa inclines his head slightly at Alex, as a 'well, there you go', with a soft smile.
Alex glances between Ari and Mearc and asks, "recent events?" Then she stops and holds a hand up like she's stopping any answer before it comes. Off the top of her head she simply states, "first things first. Before I agree to uphold the laws, have they changed?"
A little shake of Ari's head seems to cover both whether the laws have changed, and recent events. Nope, not gonna talk about that, and no, the laws have not changed.
Mearc, for what it's worth, doesn't seem to be unwilling to talk about it, as much as unaware of what recent events Ari means.
"Okay then." Alex takes a deep breath and then just starts, "I will uphold the laws of Shackamaxon Freehold as long as I reside within its boundaries; this Oath will hold no weight against me a month after I no longer reside there. If I return, it will immediately hold weight with me again. As long as I faithfully uphold the laws, I share in the bounty of our fellowship. If I forsake my duties, let the Words I know turn against me."
Of course she remembers the Freehold oath off the top of her head.
The thing about Mantles is that they exist in such a way that those who can't see past the Mask can still perceive them, if more subtly so. The scent of flowers spreads out: the sweet, crisp scent of daisies, the warmth of the Spring sun, the subtle undercurrent of petrichor. "I receive you as a member of the Shackamaxon Freehold, Alex Shaw. I hope the necessary dual loyalties between your peoples will not prove too burdensome to you." Their dark eyes glitter as if crystalline features within the onyx have been caught by the light.
Mearcstapa grins at Alex. "Welcome to the Freehold...again."
Alex lifts her chin a little bit, almost in defiance of Ari's words, and says, "the laws of Shackamaxon are mostly things I would hold myself to even if I hadn't made an Oath. The Right to Breathe Free? The Right of Freedom? The Right to Dream Free? Those are all compacts I hold with myself already, Ari. I'll live by them or die my final death. The Right to Continuity is little further burden, and not likely to put me at adds with the Sakima." Then she resume a more casual posture and smile at Mearc. "Thanks," she says. "That feels pretty good. This does raise the question of what strictures I should put on my association," back to Ari. "I don't even want to try going into a Hollow, for instance."
A deep breath in from Ari. "I would not try it. It is not -- I don't know how a Hollow would react to you," the Spring Monarch admits. "We will feel our way through the strictures as they come up, certainly. You are already -- good at sorting your way through the various ways that you are different from other Freehold members. So I have confidence that you'll discuss with us any concerns you have. And you certainly have a good group of friends to support you." Their large marbled-granite hand gestures toward Mearcstapa.
"We'll do our best with her." He gives Alex a mildly rakish wink. "Movie nights or something. Going out dancing. Trying to convince Jack to take up the saxophone again--though I doubt he'll ever perform in public. And talks, too. Long, deep, hard talks, anytime you want them, Lex."
"Not without careful experimentation, controlled circumstances, and plenty of supervision for darned sure," Alex answers, because at heart she's an answer-seeker. In some respects she probably could have been a fine Autumn, too. "I'll navigate the rest with as much finesse as I can manage." She gives Mearc a nice big smile. "That sounds wonderful. And a little bit like a Motley. Be careful." Then it's back to Ari. "Thank you, Ari. I've been more nervous about this than I could even say."
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