Welcome to Gaia! ::

This ORP is just for fun — it has nothing to do with the meta and I don't have any epic surprises planned. You're welcome to join in, but please don't use more than one character or character/animal pair at a time, and I'd be extremely grateful if you tried to keep your posts short (unlike my intro, which got out of hand).

The morning had dawned gray and drizzling, and as the day wore on the weather exhibited no signs of improving. The lawn stretching between the forest and the Oldcastle ruins, which now had a great iron skeleton rearing up from it against the bleak sky, only partway covered with stone, as if molting, was being abandoned by the handful of picnickers and ladies who had turned out despite the wet and cold to pass the time while their men hunted. Soon only a handful of people remained. One of these was Llyr, who sat reading on the remains of a low stone wall.

He had not emerged from the carriages the day before, when the queen had arrived in town to observe the construction's progress, but had rather stepped out of the Wardwood to greet her. (This was largely regarded as a stunt; his fine waistcoat and jacket did not have the look of items exposed for any length of time to the elements.) A number of bystanders had then seen him going in and out of the iron framework with the queen and several of her engineers as if testing it. At one point he had swooned, and a guardsman had had to carry him out. He had either produced the desired result or sickened too badly to continue, for he hadn't entered the building again since.

Before long a group of hunters rode down the lawn toward the forest, their horses' breaths sending up plumes of steam. One horse peeled off and pulled up close to Llyr, and the gentleman riding it, a robust fellow with a gray mustache, called out: "Hallo! Care to join us for the hunt? We have a spare horse in town and an extra musket."

"No, thank you," Llyr replied, looking up from his book.

"It's a damn poor day to be sitting about," the hunter said convivially. "I swear by a good ride to get my blood moving."

"What do you imagine I would do with a musket?" Llyr inquired, with every indication of courteous interest.

"Why, help flush out a fox—or shoot a boar or a deer, if you're able. It might improve the men's opinion of you if you were to turn out and give a show."

Llyr watched the man steadily with his queer amethyst eyes until the silence grew uncomfortable and the horse began to dance uneasily to the side, its bridle jingling. This was not the first time someone had made a veiled suggestion that he do something to prove he was a spirit.

"I would be happy to," he said finally, "but I must decline your kind offer of a horse and musket. A spirit hunts on foot and takes his quarry by opening its throat with his teeth, or sometimes strangling it to death; and then customarily eats the meat raw."

While Llyr spoke the hunter's florid complexion went very pale. Now he cleared his throat to make a reply, but then thought better of it, or perhaps his horse did, because before he had a chance to say anything else his mount shuddered about the withers and lurched away as if someone had smacked it on the bottom. His figure receded across the lawn.

Llyr returned his attention to his book. Several droplets of rain stained its pages, and presently several more joined them. With the first sign of irritation he had shown thus far Llyr frowned, shut the book, tucked it into the breast of his jacket, and gazed out into the wood.

"Yes," Llyr said, looking down at her with one hand still tucked beneath his coat. "We usually drink the blood as well, but I didn't want to disturb him unduly."

Well. That made sense. None of it sounded like it would taste good, of course, but if you're going to have any of it, you may as well have all of it. As for the other...

Livy thought that that was a silly question. But then, adults often asked silly questions. "For food, of course." Really. Why should anyone hunt except to eat?

Livy hopped up onto the wall that she might sit near Llyr. She swung her legs as her earlier thoughts returned to her. "Uncooked food doesn't sound good to me," she mused. "Does that mean you don't like cooked food?"

Darcy had been sitting near the wall, quietly watching the men and women milling about near the construction sight, but had, for the most part, kept to herself. She had made the trip especially for Samhain, one she has made every year these last three, and the amount of chosen and guardians she's seen, so far, has put her in an unusually withdrawn mood.

Mostly, she's been watching Llyr.

The hedgewitch hadn't been at the ball last year, but the tales of what happened were hard to miss, and she knew it's account, in some form or other, quite well. His manner is interesting, she thinks, and he wonders what goes on, really, behind that calculated mask of tense politeness. She smirks faintly, amused in a sort of morbid way by him and thinks that he must enjoy making people uncomfortable when he can.

But, for now, she keeps her peace as she watches the women milling around him suddenly, as if him putting away his book were some invitation to break his peace.

With a small twitch that betrayed her surprise at being directly addressed, Rose blinked twice before she was able to think of anything silly to say.
"As please you, sir," she said with a slight curtsey. "I've heard that Spirits have an affinity for flowers, is that true?"

"If you ever furnish me with a pudding," Llyr said to Livy, "I will deliver it to Gwyn myself."

He took a moment longer to consider Rose's question. "That depends on what you mean by 'affinity,'" he replied finally and with unusual hesitation, though his expression, neutral and politely attentive, did not waver. "I gather that much of your human artwork and stories depicts us as wearing flower garlands and frolicking in blooming meadows, which I can assure you is rarely the case, except perhaps sometimes with spirits of the Houses of spring and summer. However, our blood does produce moss and flowers when it is spilled."

He rested the fingers of his right hand on the back of his other wrist as he spoke, seemingly unconsciously, where the edge of a cruel white scar emerged from his sleeve.

Llyr looked up with a birdlike twitch of the head and unblinkingly studied Soibhan's face.

"We have spoken before," he determined finally. "Briefly, at the masquerade. Did you not see the creation of the tree in the courtyard?"