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rainbowfic2021-02-10 09:00 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2021-02-10 09:00 pm
Ecru #14, Snow White #8
Name: Can I Get There By Candlelight?
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Ecru #14 (claim); Snow White #8 (fairy godmother)
Supplies and Styles: Eraser
Word Count: 1989
Rating: PG
Warnings: None, really.
Notes: Urban Fantasy AU, from the giant list of AUs. Edward Iveson/Julia Graves. (also originally wrote this for the October Graffitii, but, er... I got there in the end?)
Summary: You never know what you’ll find when you venture into the fairy realm.
***
Gaining entrance to the faerie court was not hard. Getting out again was the problem. Julia walked along Waterloo Road in search of the entrance to the netherworld that hid under the South Bank. Even if she hadn’t heard talk of the disused tube station, the elf outside in a battered leather coat smoking a cigarette would have given it away. He glanced up at her without interest and waved her in with a languid hand.
Julia entered into a tiled underground station with tattered war time advertisements left plastered on the walls – Careless Talk Costs Lives – and hurried down the long staircase, not giving herself time to change her mind. At the bottom, she stepped forwards into darkness. The air around her shifted and she blinked to find herself instead in a cavern lit by a myriad of candles that neither dripped wax nor got any lower. It was full of otherworld beings, chiefly elves and fae, talking in groups or dancing to music played by one lone elf on a guitar, who was dressed in the dirty gear of an underground busker.
None of them looked at Julia. She felt as if perhaps she didn’t quite exist for a moment and her legs trembled under her. She quashed the instinct to turn and run, steeling herself to go on. She had planned for this for too long time to give up now. She scanned the mismatched groups in the cavern until she spotted a gold-chained official nearby. She raised her head and marched over – and, loud and clear, made her demand to be shown into the Queen’s circle.
Now they all looked at her.
Julia waited in a plush ante-chamber, sitting on a pink velvet couch, poking at the impossibly thick cream carpet with the toes of her shoes. When she raised her gaze to study the mural opposite, she was almost sure several of the figures moved, but no matter how hard she stared she couldn’t quite catch them at it.
“The Prince of Southwark will see you now.”
Julia started and jumped up out of her seat, not having seen the man approach. She had expected a noble’s messenger would be as richly dressed as this waiting room, but the newcomer wasn’t fae. He was only a tall, thin man wearing an ordinary grey suit, which looked entirely out of place underground. He wouldn’t fit in with the faux-ragged group outside, nor the lush décor of the royal circle. Julia bit her lip, realising only slowly that he was a human who’d been foolish enough to come here for reasons of his own, and who was now trapped. A cold shower of fear dampened her optimism. That might be her fate, if she wasn’t careful.
“Who shall I say is here?” the man asked.
Rule one: never give your name. Julia stared up at the man and caught him giving her an infinitesimal shake of his head. She might not need the warning – didn’t all Londoners know that? – but she appreciated having someone who seemed to be on her side.
“A humble petitioner,” Julia said, and then couldn’t restrain her curiosity. She caught at his sleeve before he could walk away. “I’m sorry. How did you – what happened – that is to say –” She faltered, suddenly wondering if asking might be breaking some other rule. Instead, she said the first alternative thing that came into her mind as she stared at him. “You know, you look oddly familiar somehow.”
He glanced around, shoulders tensing. “What is your petition?”
“I’m here to find my brother,” she said. “Christy.”
“Christy,” he murmured and then added, “You know my mother. I’m Edward Iveson.”
“Names,” hissed Julia.
Edward shrugged. “Much too late for me.”
“What did you do?”
He drew in his breath. After a pause, he said, “If you must know, I came down here to refuse the Queen planning permission for a further extension to her court.”
“Planning permission?”
“I work for London County Council. We have a complicated agreement with the fairy court, and the Queen usually honours our by-laws over things that are held to be in the overworld’s proper jurisdiction. The proposal would have rendered a block of service flats unsafe, so I had to come down to negotiate.”
“So what went wrong?”
Edward shrugged.
“Tell me.” Julia had almost forgotten her own mission. She did recognise his name, at least vaguely. He was the son of Mrs Taylor, an old friend of her mother’s, who was growing frail these days and whom Julia still visited on occasion.
He put a hand to his head. “It was unfortunately impossible to carry out my errand without confirming my authority to do so – and handing over my papers.”
With his name on, of course. Julia frowned. “That seems pretty careless of the LCC.”
“Her majesty was in a vindictive mood,” he said, weariness settling over him and flattening his tone. “One mortal request too many. It doesn’t matter any more. I wish you better luck.”
When he opened the door to the inner chambers for her, Julia put her hand to his arm and squeezed it gently. If he’d been down here a while, he must be exhausted. Fae didn’t understand that humans needed to rest as well as work, and fairy food was not the same as that of mortals. Humans trapped down in their world as servants rarely lasted long. She cast a glance backwards as the door closed behind her and shivered. It wasn’t a fate she’d wish on anyone.
Julia stepped into an even more lavish room. This one glittered at the edges, the carpet deep as grass, the furniture gilded and lined with emerald green velvet. The Prince of Southwark was sitting on a golden chair at a golden table, cards laid out in front of him, and gestured for her to sit opposite.
“You have a request,” he said, and when she looked at him, she could make out long dark hair and gold and green clothes but every time she turned away again, the details of his face eluded her memory. “Play for it. Win, and I shall grant you your wish. Lose and pay the penalty I ask.”
Julia nodded and reached for the cards with a steady hand. She raised her gaze to meet that unfathomable face. “Yes. Let’s.”
Rule 2: since the fae always cheat, play by your own rules.
They played a game much like Beggar My Neighbour and Julia calmly collected card after card, and laid them face down before her into piles, until she had enough to turn them up one by one, her heart beating. It wasn’t a sensible plan and it depended on the last cards in the Prince’s hand, but at least she had a hope. Don’t show weakness, she reminded herself. She ignored the laughter around her and the Prince’s disparaging gaze and calmly played her own game.
“You lose,” he said, when she took the last card.
Julia shook her head, putting it down in its rightful place. “Oh, no. I win.”
“Explain.”
She smiled. “I was playing Patience all along.”
They said the Fae appreciated that sort of logic. Julia, waiting for a response, the faerie’s features still unclear to her, hoped that was true. It was all very well to say that kind of thing in safety, above ground, but another to chance everything on it in the court of the Queen. Her stomach turned over slowly and she held her breath.
“Nonsense,” said the Prince, and for a moment, Julia thought she saw a sharp face with green eyes looking back at her, before light glinted on the golden buttons of his suit and she lost focus again. “But amusing nonsense. Very well. Since you pleased me, I concede your victory. One boon is yours. Choose wisely.”
Julia clenched her hands in her lap and felt sick, as if she’d eaten too many sweets, despite the fact that she had taken no food since she’d arrived. She had been thinking about this all through the game. She’d come here because she was desperate not to lose her brother Christy as well as everyone else. He’d gone to America over a year ago and now her letters were being returned unanswered and nobody could tell her where he was. She could open her mouth now and ask for his location, but she hesitated. Was it wise? Asking for something you truly desired was a way of giving them part of yourself, almost as bad as a name, wasn’t it? And Christy was like a cat that always fell on his feet. She might risk everything for him and then feel as foolish as if she’d called out the fire brigade to rescue a cat perfectly capable of getting down from a tree itself. Christy was either dead and it was too late, or he was alive and he’d find his way back to her.
“I’d like Edward Iveson freed and restored to the mortal realm,” she said, her voice not quite steady.
The whole room seemed to blur and all she could hear was the laughter of the indistinct watchers. The Prince opposite smiled.
“Is that all? There’s not much of him left. What is he to you?”
Julia’s heart thudded a loud, steady beat. “Nothing, my lord. But I know his mother and don’t want her to lose him.”
“Done,” the Prince said, and the room vanished into darkness, although she heard his voice echoing in her ears as he added, “Wisely indeed – if he doesn’t go to dust in your world.”
The world span around her and Julia would have fallen, save for someone who put a hand to her arm to steady her.
“What have you done?” said Edward.
Julia opened her eyes slowly and found herself at the foot of the stairs back up to the surface. Edward Iveson was standing beside her, holding onto her. Above them, at the stairs’ end, and behind them, was only yawning darkness, large enough to swallow the whole tube station.
“Only one way to find out,” Julia said.
Maybe it was the odd grey light, or maybe reality was already beginning to catch up with him, but he looked far paler than before, his face lined with exhaustion and his suit was worn shiny.
They walked upwards, Julia gripping Edward by the wrist and half dragging him on, his weariness increasing with each step. His sleeve under her hold was threadbare, his arm too thin and when they finally reached the top and stepped into faint daylight of the underground entrance, he stumbled and she couldn’t look for a moment in case he was dead, or maybe even crumbled into dust and bone already.
“Why did you do it?” he said, his voice hoarse.
Julia turned her head and bent down to help him up again. He was alive. She’d make sure he stayed that way. “Nobody should be lost down there. And I think maybe it saved me and my brother from something even worse.”
“I’m not sure –”
She stopped him, gripping his arm tightly and shaking her head. “Come on.”
He leant against her more and more heavily as they reached outside and Julia nearly let him fall again. But as they stepped out into grimy old, real London, it started to rain – fat cold drops tinged with coal dust – and he blinked and gasped, reviving at its touch, drinking it in. Julia felt it too: the mortal world reasserting its power and claim on them.
“Wait here,” said Julia, to Edward. She wasn’t sure he heard her. He was sliding slowly down the wall of the station to the ground as the rain ran down his face and dampened his clothes. She put her hand to her shoulder, and waited till he looked up. “I’ll find a taxi. We’re going home.”
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Ecru #14 (claim); Snow White #8 (fairy godmother)
Supplies and Styles: Eraser
Word Count: 1989
Rating: PG
Warnings: None, really.
Notes: Urban Fantasy AU, from the giant list of AUs. Edward Iveson/Julia Graves. (also originally wrote this for the October Graffitii, but, er... I got there in the end?)
Summary: You never know what you’ll find when you venture into the fairy realm.
***
Gaining entrance to the faerie court was not hard. Getting out again was the problem. Julia walked along Waterloo Road in search of the entrance to the netherworld that hid under the South Bank. Even if she hadn’t heard talk of the disused tube station, the elf outside in a battered leather coat smoking a cigarette would have given it away. He glanced up at her without interest and waved her in with a languid hand.
Julia entered into a tiled underground station with tattered war time advertisements left plastered on the walls – Careless Talk Costs Lives – and hurried down the long staircase, not giving herself time to change her mind. At the bottom, she stepped forwards into darkness. The air around her shifted and she blinked to find herself instead in a cavern lit by a myriad of candles that neither dripped wax nor got any lower. It was full of otherworld beings, chiefly elves and fae, talking in groups or dancing to music played by one lone elf on a guitar, who was dressed in the dirty gear of an underground busker.
None of them looked at Julia. She felt as if perhaps she didn’t quite exist for a moment and her legs trembled under her. She quashed the instinct to turn and run, steeling herself to go on. She had planned for this for too long time to give up now. She scanned the mismatched groups in the cavern until she spotted a gold-chained official nearby. She raised her head and marched over – and, loud and clear, made her demand to be shown into the Queen’s circle.
Now they all looked at her.
Julia waited in a plush ante-chamber, sitting on a pink velvet couch, poking at the impossibly thick cream carpet with the toes of her shoes. When she raised her gaze to study the mural opposite, she was almost sure several of the figures moved, but no matter how hard she stared she couldn’t quite catch them at it.
“The Prince of Southwark will see you now.”
Julia started and jumped up out of her seat, not having seen the man approach. She had expected a noble’s messenger would be as richly dressed as this waiting room, but the newcomer wasn’t fae. He was only a tall, thin man wearing an ordinary grey suit, which looked entirely out of place underground. He wouldn’t fit in with the faux-ragged group outside, nor the lush décor of the royal circle. Julia bit her lip, realising only slowly that he was a human who’d been foolish enough to come here for reasons of his own, and who was now trapped. A cold shower of fear dampened her optimism. That might be her fate, if she wasn’t careful.
“Who shall I say is here?” the man asked.
Rule one: never give your name. Julia stared up at the man and caught him giving her an infinitesimal shake of his head. She might not need the warning – didn’t all Londoners know that? – but she appreciated having someone who seemed to be on her side.
“A humble petitioner,” Julia said, and then couldn’t restrain her curiosity. She caught at his sleeve before he could walk away. “I’m sorry. How did you – what happened – that is to say –” She faltered, suddenly wondering if asking might be breaking some other rule. Instead, she said the first alternative thing that came into her mind as she stared at him. “You know, you look oddly familiar somehow.”
He glanced around, shoulders tensing. “What is your petition?”
“I’m here to find my brother,” she said. “Christy.”
“Christy,” he murmured and then added, “You know my mother. I’m Edward Iveson.”
“Names,” hissed Julia.
Edward shrugged. “Much too late for me.”
“What did you do?”
He drew in his breath. After a pause, he said, “If you must know, I came down here to refuse the Queen planning permission for a further extension to her court.”
“Planning permission?”
“I work for London County Council. We have a complicated agreement with the fairy court, and the Queen usually honours our by-laws over things that are held to be in the overworld’s proper jurisdiction. The proposal would have rendered a block of service flats unsafe, so I had to come down to negotiate.”
“So what went wrong?”
Edward shrugged.
“Tell me.” Julia had almost forgotten her own mission. She did recognise his name, at least vaguely. He was the son of Mrs Taylor, an old friend of her mother’s, who was growing frail these days and whom Julia still visited on occasion.
He put a hand to his head. “It was unfortunately impossible to carry out my errand without confirming my authority to do so – and handing over my papers.”
With his name on, of course. Julia frowned. “That seems pretty careless of the LCC.”
“Her majesty was in a vindictive mood,” he said, weariness settling over him and flattening his tone. “One mortal request too many. It doesn’t matter any more. I wish you better luck.”
When he opened the door to the inner chambers for her, Julia put her hand to his arm and squeezed it gently. If he’d been down here a while, he must be exhausted. Fae didn’t understand that humans needed to rest as well as work, and fairy food was not the same as that of mortals. Humans trapped down in their world as servants rarely lasted long. She cast a glance backwards as the door closed behind her and shivered. It wasn’t a fate she’d wish on anyone.
Julia stepped into an even more lavish room. This one glittered at the edges, the carpet deep as grass, the furniture gilded and lined with emerald green velvet. The Prince of Southwark was sitting on a golden chair at a golden table, cards laid out in front of him, and gestured for her to sit opposite.
“You have a request,” he said, and when she looked at him, she could make out long dark hair and gold and green clothes but every time she turned away again, the details of his face eluded her memory. “Play for it. Win, and I shall grant you your wish. Lose and pay the penalty I ask.”
Julia nodded and reached for the cards with a steady hand. She raised her gaze to meet that unfathomable face. “Yes. Let’s.”
Rule 2: since the fae always cheat, play by your own rules.
They played a game much like Beggar My Neighbour and Julia calmly collected card after card, and laid them face down before her into piles, until she had enough to turn them up one by one, her heart beating. It wasn’t a sensible plan and it depended on the last cards in the Prince’s hand, but at least she had a hope. Don’t show weakness, she reminded herself. She ignored the laughter around her and the Prince’s disparaging gaze and calmly played her own game.
“You lose,” he said, when she took the last card.
Julia shook her head, putting it down in its rightful place. “Oh, no. I win.”
“Explain.”
She smiled. “I was playing Patience all along.”
They said the Fae appreciated that sort of logic. Julia, waiting for a response, the faerie’s features still unclear to her, hoped that was true. It was all very well to say that kind of thing in safety, above ground, but another to chance everything on it in the court of the Queen. Her stomach turned over slowly and she held her breath.
“Nonsense,” said the Prince, and for a moment, Julia thought she saw a sharp face with green eyes looking back at her, before light glinted on the golden buttons of his suit and she lost focus again. “But amusing nonsense. Very well. Since you pleased me, I concede your victory. One boon is yours. Choose wisely.”
Julia clenched her hands in her lap and felt sick, as if she’d eaten too many sweets, despite the fact that she had taken no food since she’d arrived. She had been thinking about this all through the game. She’d come here because she was desperate not to lose her brother Christy as well as everyone else. He’d gone to America over a year ago and now her letters were being returned unanswered and nobody could tell her where he was. She could open her mouth now and ask for his location, but she hesitated. Was it wise? Asking for something you truly desired was a way of giving them part of yourself, almost as bad as a name, wasn’t it? And Christy was like a cat that always fell on his feet. She might risk everything for him and then feel as foolish as if she’d called out the fire brigade to rescue a cat perfectly capable of getting down from a tree itself. Christy was either dead and it was too late, or he was alive and he’d find his way back to her.
“I’d like Edward Iveson freed and restored to the mortal realm,” she said, her voice not quite steady.
The whole room seemed to blur and all she could hear was the laughter of the indistinct watchers. The Prince opposite smiled.
“Is that all? There’s not much of him left. What is he to you?”
Julia’s heart thudded a loud, steady beat. “Nothing, my lord. But I know his mother and don’t want her to lose him.”
“Done,” the Prince said, and the room vanished into darkness, although she heard his voice echoing in her ears as he added, “Wisely indeed – if he doesn’t go to dust in your world.”
The world span around her and Julia would have fallen, save for someone who put a hand to her arm to steady her.
“What have you done?” said Edward.
Julia opened her eyes slowly and found herself at the foot of the stairs back up to the surface. Edward Iveson was standing beside her, holding onto her. Above them, at the stairs’ end, and behind them, was only yawning darkness, large enough to swallow the whole tube station.
“Only one way to find out,” Julia said.
Maybe it was the odd grey light, or maybe reality was already beginning to catch up with him, but he looked far paler than before, his face lined with exhaustion and his suit was worn shiny.
They walked upwards, Julia gripping Edward by the wrist and half dragging him on, his weariness increasing with each step. His sleeve under her hold was threadbare, his arm too thin and when they finally reached the top and stepped into faint daylight of the underground entrance, he stumbled and she couldn’t look for a moment in case he was dead, or maybe even crumbled into dust and bone already.
“Why did you do it?” he said, his voice hoarse.
Julia turned her head and bent down to help him up again. He was alive. She’d make sure he stayed that way. “Nobody should be lost down there. And I think maybe it saved me and my brother from something even worse.”
“I’m not sure –”
She stopped him, gripping his arm tightly and shaking her head. “Come on.”
He leant against her more and more heavily as they reached outside and Julia nearly let him fall again. But as they stepped out into grimy old, real London, it started to rain – fat cold drops tinged with coal dust – and he blinked and gasped, reviving at its touch, drinking it in. Julia felt it too: the mortal world reasserting its power and claim on them.
“Wait here,” said Julia, to Edward. She wasn’t sure he heard her. He was sliding slowly down the wall of the station to the ground as the rain ran down his face and dampened his clothes. She put her hand to her shoulder, and waited till he looked up. “I’ll find a taxi. We’re going home.”
***
no subject
She felt as if perhaps she didn’t quite exist for a moment <--this is so clever!
Also I'm fucking screaming about an elf queen asking for planning permission from the London Council. That is such a fantastic detail!
no subject