- For the lady Hannah -
As Hunt-Lord Prime for more than half his life, and First Tracker to the Palaces' convoluted inner circle of convecting power blocks – few could compete, or would indeed contest his knowledge of amassed experience, not when it came to things his senses knew, or could interpret from the nuances he saw, within that which he picked up on.
Since even before the Sidhe Knight-Lords had battered their way up into the higher circles by force of arms, close to nine thousand cycles ago – moving from powerful roving clan, to become the entrenched dominators of Faery through strength of arms, a position furthered by marriage or treachery – he had met no living equal.
The former were of course greatly responsible for the latter – the Sidhe being only truly afraid of accomplished magic users, their own skills were too immature to contest the level reached by more refined practitioners.
So to keep his family lands and its castle safe from their fickle avariciousness, he had chosen to pander to their need for rough sport and games of combat skills, by making himself subtly indispensable as Master of the Noble Hunt – finding for them the sort of quarry that they could respect – and if that quarry tended to reduce their numbers on occasion during the hunt, then it was all for the better he felt.
Yet in time the Sidhe lords had begun to learn better graces, developing
in situ
as they were slowly absorbed by the more practised Clans in the greater circle of hierarchies that held immortal sway over the massed Fey – or at least those that deigned still to remain as a part of that greater whole.
Lately however, there were less of them in evidence on the many tracks and pathways of the interwoven worlds – and this apparent trend had begun to disturb him – fearing somehow that the Sidhe were reverting to their old ways, without his knowledge. Since this discovery, he had taken to tracking the lost ones quietly, whenever he could, and it had been while stalking carefully through a long-forgotten valley of steep, forest-choked ways through to the other places, that he caught the sorrow-scent – faint and tenuous on the upper breezes.
It halted him rigid, even if the apparent spoor was not one amongst the many he sought, therefore not from a member of the races he needed to speak with – its pattern was certainly old, and longer forgotten than those of these more recent truant players.
Standing there, letting his senses and skills tease at the pattern of information flowing bright through his mind – unravelling the separate skeins revealed – he traced the one he needed until he had a direction for its source. Location plotted in his mind, he began walking again – though slowly. The place had dangerous eddies of malignant emotion swirling and cruising through its air, so he kept clear of the shadows and took care with his every step – becoming absorbed in the tracking, and using that focus to bind any stray thoughts to him – loosing all sense of self, in case their signature rendered him visible to whatever lurked.
As expected, no physical being could be seen at the place where his senses took him – but a minor wound in the fabric between world-layers, acted as link between this place and that.
Human – his memory told him –
a daughter of Eve, as they would call her – or less prosaically, a female of the species
. Judging the scent further, he considered his next steps with care. There had been almost no contact with Humankind for over a thousand cycles – ever since it had become plain they were possessed of, and driven by a dangerous spirit, one lead by a mind-rationale that would win them no willing neighbours for some time.
Pack minds, flowing noisy with emotion, following the strongest for every turn of the way – yet this signature is of a lone and pained id, one in torment with its kind and itself.
This gave him further pause for thought, and he stood there a while longer, considering the point of resumed contact between their species, even at an individual level – the whole while, feeling his close fitting hunting-robes being bathed by the same faint and tricksome breeze that caught the scent of angst, spreading it in scattering across the small glade, then up through the tight-woven maze of branches grown close-by overhead.
Whether he should have chosen to stand clear of its influence, or not, was hardly an issue, as curiosity won the silent debate in the end. Reaching mentally for the link, he widened its aperture until he could step through – he needed to understand this apparent change, for himself.
The chamber was dark and under drapes against the night he felt pressing against the glass from outside. In its dimensions, he sensed a comfortably large space, yet comfortingly sparse in its number of furnishings and other objects – just a mirror-crowned table, two cunningly secreted cabinets, and a large bed with two occupants. It was from the human that the sorrow-stream predictably was coming – the cat just looked up and blinked sleepily at him.
Moving closer, with care, he let his senses find what was to be found from the female's unshielded thoughts, confident that he would glean his answers without resorting to the need for conversation. At the same time, he idly stroked the cat under its chin, keeping its contentment central in its mind.
The woman's life although full in many of its aspects, contained no mirror of the soul with which to share her days or moments of discovery, pain and pleasure with – it was a partner she craved, and from her mind's open broadcasting, he caught a confused image of what that partner should/must represent.
There was a bitterness of futility about her, even in sleep, and he looked down upon her with something like the pain a parent feels for seeing a sibling struggle for mastery with something it does not yet understand. Yet along with the sorrow, he felt something close to wonder, that these former savage beast-forms had developed to a point which may brook and warrant a re-opening of contact between their two places.
Turning his attention outwards, he overcame the sudden vertigo of realisation that he was currently some considerable distance above the ground, and stood in a tower of many such apartments, each mirroring its neighbour in design. Putting that disturbing discovery out of his mind, he cast his seeing-sense further afield, and began to absorb the underlying psyche-currents moving through the city and its environs.
He came back to himself, disappointed at what he'd learned –
So far, and yet so similar to what they had been like in the older days.
His sorrow for the lone sleeper, still oblivious of his presence, deepened – that she and a number of her kin, should be so surrounded by this mesa of insensitivity suspended over their heads made the sorrow emanating from her, more understandable.
If allowed to blossom, what a flower she would be…
Then he straightened slowly with a smile, unconcerned as the cat trilled a quiet query as to why he had stopped stroking her. Opening his mind, and careful not to connect with the rift, he opened another link over the bed, expanding its dimensions to include himself, and guided it over them.
Emerging in the mellow light of a forested, late afternoon near one of his favourite meditation spots in one of the least frequented levels, he relaxed the link and let it close.
Seating himself in a dry bed of leaves, comfortably within view of the woman when she would wake, he settled and waited, accepting the cat into his lap with calm – it having decided that getting attention was better than not getting attention, and so had chosen to join him, although grudgingly of course.
As expected, the air and light-level change conspired to stir her early from sleep – he hoped she was at least rested enough.
