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rainbowfic2013-08-05 10:34 pm
clare_dragonfly) wrote in rainbowfic2013-08-05 10:34 pm
The Dream of the Lake
Name: Clare
Story: Extranormal Crimes
Colors: Antique Brass 5, No, hey, hey, you know what? She's pretty scary. If we hadn't found something, she probably would have glared us to death.; Fire Opal 18, Hell or high water
Supplies and Materials: Graffiti (Midsummer Night's Dream prompt [NSFW]), acrylic
Word Count: 2,479
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Seductive faeries!
Notes: This would appear to be a fairly early Extranormal Crimes case, before the team members know each other or their powers all that well.
Maggie spluttered as another—yes, yet another—branch hit her in the face. At least this one didn’t have thorns. She pushed it away, blinked to clear the bits of leaf from her eyelashes, and called back to Lynn, “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to have the great natural sense of direction!” Lynn called back. “This is not my element. I am a computer geek.”
Lynn was so far behind Maggie that she wasn’t even sure she was looking in the right direction; that flash of white might have been her partner’s arm, or it might have been a torn plastic bag stuck in a tree. Though come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any litter of any kind for a while now. Maybe they were going in the right direction.
She held her arms out stiffly in front of her so she could push the branches out of her way. After a few moments and another scratch on the back of her hand, she made it into a relatively clear spot. She stopped for a breather and to look back for Lynn. “Can you see me?” she called.
“You’re hard to miss,” Lynn called back. She lifted an arm and waved—yes, that was definitely her, and not a piece of trash. “I’m catching up. Have you decided yet whether this is the right direction or not?”
“I think it is,” Maggie said. “But it might just be that we’re getting deeper into the woods. When you get to this clearing with me you should try your pendulum thingy.”
“Don’t know if it will work,” Lynn said. “Usually I’m in a quiet room with a nap…” There was a crashing sound. “Shit!”
“Do you need help?” Maggie called, squinting through the tangled trees for a glimpse of Lynn.
“I’m fine,” Lynn said, sounding a little out of breath. “I can get myself up. You scout or something. I can see the clearing and I’m going to aim for it.”
“Okay.” Maggie looked around, wondering whether she dared try climbing any of the trees here. There were plenty of handholds, but none of them looked like they were actually attached to the tree securely—at least, not securely enough to support 130 pounds of FBI agent. She decided to squeeze between two trees, making sure they were distinct enough that she could get back to the clearing, and look.
Damn. Her way was cut off by a body of water. Some kind of small lake, she thought, with a waterfall in the distance. “I don’t think this is right,” she called to Lynn, turning back with her hand still on the tree. “We should…”
Movement cut off her speech. She turned back to the lake. Birds landing on the water?
No, that was definitely not a bird.
“Never mind,” she said, but she didn’t think Lynn could hear her.
It was… well, woman would be the wrong term. Female, certainly. With those breasts and hips? Meant to suggest female, at least. To humans. But that unearthly glow, those delicate wings, that gossamer clothing: this was not a human being.
Maggie rather suspected that it was one of the Sídhe.
“Hello,” she said, but it came out rather strangled. She swallowed and tried again. “Greetings, great lady.” Her voice shook. She was annoyed with herself, distantly, for that, but the being she addressed was so beautiful… “How may I serve you?”
The faerie smiled. So she hadn’t offended her, at least. She nodded and waved her gossamer around a little bit, either trying to communicate something or trying to seduce Maggie.
Maggie took a step forward. If it was the latter, she was succeeding.
There was a crashing and the sound of branches snapping behind Maggie. She winced, hoping the breaking of vegetation in what was surely her domain wouldn’t offend the faerie. Her smile faded, but she didn’t seem too annoyed. At least, she wasn’t making any grandiose threats. But she wasn’t saying anything, yet.
“Maggie?” Lynn sounded nervous.
The spell almost broke. Maggie blinked and looked back, then stuck her hand back through the trees she’d come between. “Here. We were on the right track after all. I think I’ve found our—our goal.” She’d been about to say ‘quarry,’ but that wasn’t the case here, was it? She could not conceive of herself actually hunting this beautiful creature.
Lynn stumbled through the trees. Maggie glanced at her, interested in her reaction to the faerie. Her eyes widened. “Wow,” she said. “So, uh… now what? Do we ask it what it wants?”
“She’s not an it,” Maggie snapped, annoyed, and turned to look at the faerie again. This was a much better view. She found herself smiling despite her annoyance. “Please, great lady, tell us how we may serve you.” Her mind felt dazzled. But they were here to find out what she wanted, weren’t they?
The faerie smiled again and beckoned to them. At least Maggie thought it was a beckon and not more seductive waggling of her gossamer. She took a step forward and looked down at the mud her boot squelched in. “I’m not sure how much further we can go, milady. We can’t walk into the water.”
The faerie glided sideways. She was moving her legs, but they weren’t touching anything—it was more like she was a bubble floating on air, or a bit of dandelion fluff on the breeze, despite her Rubenesque form. Maggie took a step in her direction, stumbled over her own boots, and caught herself before falling in the mud. Now that would have been embarrassing.
The faerie continued to move slowly, and Maggie continued to follow her. Lynn brought up the rear. “Is this right?” she whispered. “I mean… I guess you’re getting results. Do you really need to speak to her that way?”
“What way?” Maggie asked.
“All respectful and sweet. I mean, I don’t know faeries that well. You probably know more than I do. But you don’t sound like you usually do.”
“I can’t think of any other way to speak to her,” Maggie said, glancing back at Lynn in puzzlement. “She just seems to command respect. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
Lynn brought her eyebrows together in puzzlement, but she didn’t say anything else. Maggie gave up on her partner and went back to following the faerie.
Finally, she stopped by the waterfall. Lynn took a step forward and licked her lips. “Please, uh, great lady, can you tell us what’s going on here? Why you’re throwing men out of the forest and flooding the parking lots? That is you, isn’t it? We were sent to investigate, you see.”
The faerie still didn’t say anything. She made her beckoning motion again, and when Maggie took a step forward, she held out her hand. Maggie reached for it, but couldn’t quite touch it. “I want to help,” Maggie said. It didn’t really matter what Lynn was telling her. She just knew she would do whatever this beautiful lady wanted. “But I think I need some help from you. I still can’t walk on the water, and if I go in it, my clothes will get wet and I might get sick.”
The faerie’s smile widened, and she shook her head. Then she beckoned again. Maggie swallowed, but took another step forward, her boots squelching in an inch of water. At least they were waterproof. Some part of her was vaguely aware that under normal circumstances all her instincts would be screaming at her not to go with the faerie, but these were not normal circumstances. She couldn’t ignore the summons if she wanted to.
The faerie took her hand. The press of her skin was like clouds made of silk, but reinforced by steel.
Especially when she dove.
Maggie would have been helpless to resist even if she had wanted to. The faerie’s grip was hard and unbreakable. But Maggie didn’t feel her face going into the water; she felt something clamp onto her leg, and then she was flying through the sweetest air. This, she thought, was probably what the Christian heaven felt like.
After far too short of a trip, they landed, and the faerie let go of Maggie’s hand. She hit the ground hard with her hands and knees, but she wasn’t in as bad shape as Lynn, who crumpled behind her, coughing and spluttering. When Maggie turned to look at her and pry her hand off her leg, she saw that Lynn was soaked, her clothes and hair plastered against her skin. “What happened?” Maggie asked in astonishment.
“We just got pulled through a lake!” Lynn pulled her long black hair over her shoulder and began to squeeze it out. “How are you still dry?”
Maggie looked back up at the faerie. “I guess it was because I was touching her.” She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the burn in her hands and knees where they had hit this—well, it looked like white marble for the ground, as well as the entire white, frothy palace. At least it was probably a palace. That or a village. A tiny village, with so many miniature peaks and spires…
“Why have you brought us here?” she asked at last, looking at the faerie, who was still patiently hovering near them. She lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Do you want us to find something that’s wrong?” Maggie guessed. The faerie smiled, and she felt warmth blossom in her heart. She was right.
Lynn’s shoes squeaked as she got to her feet. “Look, we’d like to help,” she said. “But there’s nothing we can do down here. We work for the human world, not for you. So if you could just take us back home, that would be great, especially if you didn’t get me wet all over again.”
The faerie looked at Lynn. Then she burst into black flame.
She was as terrifying as she had been beautiful a moment before. It was less as though she was on fire than that she was fire—fire and claws, and sharp teeth, and red eyes of anger. Maggie felt a moment of pure fear wash over her.
And as quickly as it had happened it was gone, and the faerie was back to her normal appearance. The peace of her beauty blotted out Maggie’s fear. Lynn, though, was gasping and nodding, her shoulders shaking slightly. “Yes, ma’am. I get it. Right away. We’ll… we’ll find whatever it is.”
Maggie was not sure that Lynn was ready to live up to her promise, so she grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the palace. The faerie didn’t follow. On closer inspection, it was definitely a palace; one big building, lots of rooms, lots of doors and windows. All white and icy and beautiful. Though Maggie had a feeling that maybe it wasn’t supposed to look like this…
There was a bridge. She walked along the bridge. At the other end of the bridge was… something that was definitely not supposed to be there.
She looked around for the faerie. She was not there. Lynn was still pale, but not shaking anymore, and she was staring at the portal with fixed determination. “Right,” she said. “The sooner we close this, the sooner she’ll let us out of here, right?”
“Right,” said Maggie, relieved that Lynn had a grasp on the situation. “How do you suggest we begin?”
“I don’t suppose you have your tools.”
Maggie grimaced. “Left them in the car. I should really carry them everywhere, shouldn’t I?”
“Well, we don’t know that they would have made it through the magical not-water,” said Lynn. “But we can do this some other way. Let me look at it for a minute.”
“Sure,” said Maggie, and stepped back. Lynn stepped up to the black, swirling portal, and immediately sat down and closed her eyes. Maggie thought that was a very odd way to look at something, but she wasn’t exactly one to judge.
After enough time that Maggie had begun to worry that the faerie was going to come find them and demand to know what was taking so long (notwithstanding the fact that she hadn’t yet spoken), Lynn abruptly opened her eyes, smiled, and looked back over her shoulder. “It wants to close,” she said. “It’s just stuck.”
“I didn’t know portals to hell had desires,” Maggie said doubtfully.
“Everything has desires if you listen hard enough.” Lynn stood. “You’re good with the elements, right? Why don’t you try pulling away the lines of ice? That seems to be what’s keeping it here.”
“That sounds like something I can manage.” Maggie stepped up to the portal despite her nerves. It hadn’t sucked Lynn in, after all. She carefully lowered the shields that protected her magical senses from the rest of the world and immediately saw what Lynn had been talking about. She would be able to do this better and quicker with her boline, but as long as the portal didn’t suck her in, she would manage.
She ran her hands along the lines of icy magic until she found the problem. They were tangled, and there didn’t seem to be proper ends to them. Concentrating on the evergreen smell of the magic, she tugged at the lines one by one until one came loose. That line slithered back, but the knot stayed in place, so she sought for the next one that would be loose. And again, and again, for what felt like hours, for all that the problem was engrossing. And then, somehow, she found the last one, and the knot sprang open, and the portal dwindled to nothing.
Maggie took a deep breath and turned back to the palace. It was rapidly losing its frosty white color; apparently the real palace was the deep blues and greens of the underwater world, hard and frozen like glass or ice. On the other side of where the portal had been was another, smaller building. The faerie came flying up through that building, out to the middle of the bridge where Maggie was standing. She took her by both hands and enthusiastically placed a kiss on her lips.
Before Maggie could get over that particular sensory overload, the faerie had taken both her and Lynn by the hands and taken them up through the waterless water. She deposited them dry on the shore and vanished without even a goodbye.
“Wow,” said Maggie.
“You can say that again,” said Lynn. She let out a long breath. “Well. Chalk another one up for the Extranormal Crimes Division!”
Maggie laughed and turned to high-five her partner. “Good work. Now we just have to figure out how to fill out the paperwork on this one.”
Story: Extranormal Crimes
Colors: Antique Brass 5, No, hey, hey, you know what? She's pretty scary. If we hadn't found something, she probably would have glared us to death.; Fire Opal 18, Hell or high water
Supplies and Materials: Graffiti (Midsummer Night's Dream prompt [NSFW]), acrylic
Word Count: 2,479
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Seductive faeries!
Notes: This would appear to be a fairly early Extranormal Crimes case, before the team members know each other or their powers all that well.
Maggie spluttered as another—yes, yet another—branch hit her in the face. At least this one didn’t have thorns. She pushed it away, blinked to clear the bits of leaf from her eyelashes, and called back to Lynn, “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to have the great natural sense of direction!” Lynn called back. “This is not my element. I am a computer geek.”
Lynn was so far behind Maggie that she wasn’t even sure she was looking in the right direction; that flash of white might have been her partner’s arm, or it might have been a torn plastic bag stuck in a tree. Though come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any litter of any kind for a while now. Maybe they were going in the right direction.
She held her arms out stiffly in front of her so she could push the branches out of her way. After a few moments and another scratch on the back of her hand, she made it into a relatively clear spot. She stopped for a breather and to look back for Lynn. “Can you see me?” she called.
“You’re hard to miss,” Lynn called back. She lifted an arm and waved—yes, that was definitely her, and not a piece of trash. “I’m catching up. Have you decided yet whether this is the right direction or not?”
“I think it is,” Maggie said. “But it might just be that we’re getting deeper into the woods. When you get to this clearing with me you should try your pendulum thingy.”
“Don’t know if it will work,” Lynn said. “Usually I’m in a quiet room with a nap…” There was a crashing sound. “Shit!”
“Do you need help?” Maggie called, squinting through the tangled trees for a glimpse of Lynn.
“I’m fine,” Lynn said, sounding a little out of breath. “I can get myself up. You scout or something. I can see the clearing and I’m going to aim for it.”
“Okay.” Maggie looked around, wondering whether she dared try climbing any of the trees here. There were plenty of handholds, but none of them looked like they were actually attached to the tree securely—at least, not securely enough to support 130 pounds of FBI agent. She decided to squeeze between two trees, making sure they were distinct enough that she could get back to the clearing, and look.
Damn. Her way was cut off by a body of water. Some kind of small lake, she thought, with a waterfall in the distance. “I don’t think this is right,” she called to Lynn, turning back with her hand still on the tree. “We should…”
Movement cut off her speech. She turned back to the lake. Birds landing on the water?
No, that was definitely not a bird.
“Never mind,” she said, but she didn’t think Lynn could hear her.
It was… well, woman would be the wrong term. Female, certainly. With those breasts and hips? Meant to suggest female, at least. To humans. But that unearthly glow, those delicate wings, that gossamer clothing: this was not a human being.
Maggie rather suspected that it was one of the Sídhe.
“Hello,” she said, but it came out rather strangled. She swallowed and tried again. “Greetings, great lady.” Her voice shook. She was annoyed with herself, distantly, for that, but the being she addressed was so beautiful… “How may I serve you?”
The faerie smiled. So she hadn’t offended her, at least. She nodded and waved her gossamer around a little bit, either trying to communicate something or trying to seduce Maggie.
Maggie took a step forward. If it was the latter, she was succeeding.
There was a crashing and the sound of branches snapping behind Maggie. She winced, hoping the breaking of vegetation in what was surely her domain wouldn’t offend the faerie. Her smile faded, but she didn’t seem too annoyed. At least, she wasn’t making any grandiose threats. But she wasn’t saying anything, yet.
“Maggie?” Lynn sounded nervous.
The spell almost broke. Maggie blinked and looked back, then stuck her hand back through the trees she’d come between. “Here. We were on the right track after all. I think I’ve found our—our goal.” She’d been about to say ‘quarry,’ but that wasn’t the case here, was it? She could not conceive of herself actually hunting this beautiful creature.
Lynn stumbled through the trees. Maggie glanced at her, interested in her reaction to the faerie. Her eyes widened. “Wow,” she said. “So, uh… now what? Do we ask it what it wants?”
“She’s not an it,” Maggie snapped, annoyed, and turned to look at the faerie again. This was a much better view. She found herself smiling despite her annoyance. “Please, great lady, tell us how we may serve you.” Her mind felt dazzled. But they were here to find out what she wanted, weren’t they?
The faerie smiled again and beckoned to them. At least Maggie thought it was a beckon and not more seductive waggling of her gossamer. She took a step forward and looked down at the mud her boot squelched in. “I’m not sure how much further we can go, milady. We can’t walk into the water.”
The faerie glided sideways. She was moving her legs, but they weren’t touching anything—it was more like she was a bubble floating on air, or a bit of dandelion fluff on the breeze, despite her Rubenesque form. Maggie took a step in her direction, stumbled over her own boots, and caught herself before falling in the mud. Now that would have been embarrassing.
The faerie continued to move slowly, and Maggie continued to follow her. Lynn brought up the rear. “Is this right?” she whispered. “I mean… I guess you’re getting results. Do you really need to speak to her that way?”
“What way?” Maggie asked.
“All respectful and sweet. I mean, I don’t know faeries that well. You probably know more than I do. But you don’t sound like you usually do.”
“I can’t think of any other way to speak to her,” Maggie said, glancing back at Lynn in puzzlement. “She just seems to command respect. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
Lynn brought her eyebrows together in puzzlement, but she didn’t say anything else. Maggie gave up on her partner and went back to following the faerie.
Finally, she stopped by the waterfall. Lynn took a step forward and licked her lips. “Please, uh, great lady, can you tell us what’s going on here? Why you’re throwing men out of the forest and flooding the parking lots? That is you, isn’t it? We were sent to investigate, you see.”
The faerie still didn’t say anything. She made her beckoning motion again, and when Maggie took a step forward, she held out her hand. Maggie reached for it, but couldn’t quite touch it. “I want to help,” Maggie said. It didn’t really matter what Lynn was telling her. She just knew she would do whatever this beautiful lady wanted. “But I think I need some help from you. I still can’t walk on the water, and if I go in it, my clothes will get wet and I might get sick.”
The faerie’s smile widened, and she shook her head. Then she beckoned again. Maggie swallowed, but took another step forward, her boots squelching in an inch of water. At least they were waterproof. Some part of her was vaguely aware that under normal circumstances all her instincts would be screaming at her not to go with the faerie, but these were not normal circumstances. She couldn’t ignore the summons if she wanted to.
The faerie took her hand. The press of her skin was like clouds made of silk, but reinforced by steel.
Especially when she dove.
Maggie would have been helpless to resist even if she had wanted to. The faerie’s grip was hard and unbreakable. But Maggie didn’t feel her face going into the water; she felt something clamp onto her leg, and then she was flying through the sweetest air. This, she thought, was probably what the Christian heaven felt like.
After far too short of a trip, they landed, and the faerie let go of Maggie’s hand. She hit the ground hard with her hands and knees, but she wasn’t in as bad shape as Lynn, who crumpled behind her, coughing and spluttering. When Maggie turned to look at her and pry her hand off her leg, she saw that Lynn was soaked, her clothes and hair plastered against her skin. “What happened?” Maggie asked in astonishment.
“We just got pulled through a lake!” Lynn pulled her long black hair over her shoulder and began to squeeze it out. “How are you still dry?”
Maggie looked back up at the faerie. “I guess it was because I was touching her.” She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the burn in her hands and knees where they had hit this—well, it looked like white marble for the ground, as well as the entire white, frothy palace. At least it was probably a palace. That or a village. A tiny village, with so many miniature peaks and spires…
“Why have you brought us here?” she asked at last, looking at the faerie, who was still patiently hovering near them. She lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Do you want us to find something that’s wrong?” Maggie guessed. The faerie smiled, and she felt warmth blossom in her heart. She was right.
Lynn’s shoes squeaked as she got to her feet. “Look, we’d like to help,” she said. “But there’s nothing we can do down here. We work for the human world, not for you. So if you could just take us back home, that would be great, especially if you didn’t get me wet all over again.”
The faerie looked at Lynn. Then she burst into black flame.
She was as terrifying as she had been beautiful a moment before. It was less as though she was on fire than that she was fire—fire and claws, and sharp teeth, and red eyes of anger. Maggie felt a moment of pure fear wash over her.
And as quickly as it had happened it was gone, and the faerie was back to her normal appearance. The peace of her beauty blotted out Maggie’s fear. Lynn, though, was gasping and nodding, her shoulders shaking slightly. “Yes, ma’am. I get it. Right away. We’ll… we’ll find whatever it is.”
Maggie was not sure that Lynn was ready to live up to her promise, so she grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the palace. The faerie didn’t follow. On closer inspection, it was definitely a palace; one big building, lots of rooms, lots of doors and windows. All white and icy and beautiful. Though Maggie had a feeling that maybe it wasn’t supposed to look like this…
There was a bridge. She walked along the bridge. At the other end of the bridge was… something that was definitely not supposed to be there.
She looked around for the faerie. She was not there. Lynn was still pale, but not shaking anymore, and she was staring at the portal with fixed determination. “Right,” she said. “The sooner we close this, the sooner she’ll let us out of here, right?”
“Right,” said Maggie, relieved that Lynn had a grasp on the situation. “How do you suggest we begin?”
“I don’t suppose you have your tools.”
Maggie grimaced. “Left them in the car. I should really carry them everywhere, shouldn’t I?”
“Well, we don’t know that they would have made it through the magical not-water,” said Lynn. “But we can do this some other way. Let me look at it for a minute.”
“Sure,” said Maggie, and stepped back. Lynn stepped up to the black, swirling portal, and immediately sat down and closed her eyes. Maggie thought that was a very odd way to look at something, but she wasn’t exactly one to judge.
After enough time that Maggie had begun to worry that the faerie was going to come find them and demand to know what was taking so long (notwithstanding the fact that she hadn’t yet spoken), Lynn abruptly opened her eyes, smiled, and looked back over her shoulder. “It wants to close,” she said. “It’s just stuck.”
“I didn’t know portals to hell had desires,” Maggie said doubtfully.
“Everything has desires if you listen hard enough.” Lynn stood. “You’re good with the elements, right? Why don’t you try pulling away the lines of ice? That seems to be what’s keeping it here.”
“That sounds like something I can manage.” Maggie stepped up to the portal despite her nerves. It hadn’t sucked Lynn in, after all. She carefully lowered the shields that protected her magical senses from the rest of the world and immediately saw what Lynn had been talking about. She would be able to do this better and quicker with her boline, but as long as the portal didn’t suck her in, she would manage.
She ran her hands along the lines of icy magic until she found the problem. They were tangled, and there didn’t seem to be proper ends to them. Concentrating on the evergreen smell of the magic, she tugged at the lines one by one until one came loose. That line slithered back, but the knot stayed in place, so she sought for the next one that would be loose. And again, and again, for what felt like hours, for all that the problem was engrossing. And then, somehow, she found the last one, and the knot sprang open, and the portal dwindled to nothing.
Maggie took a deep breath and turned back to the palace. It was rapidly losing its frosty white color; apparently the real palace was the deep blues and greens of the underwater world, hard and frozen like glass or ice. On the other side of where the portal had been was another, smaller building. The faerie came flying up through that building, out to the middle of the bridge where Maggie was standing. She took her by both hands and enthusiastically placed a kiss on her lips.
Before Maggie could get over that particular sensory overload, the faerie had taken both her and Lynn by the hands and taken them up through the waterless water. She deposited them dry on the shore and vanished without even a goodbye.
“Wow,” said Maggie.
“You can say that again,” said Lynn. She let out a long breath. “Well. Chalk another one up for the Extranormal Crimes Division!”
Maggie laughed and turned to high-five her partner. “Good work. Now we just have to figure out how to fill out the paperwork on this one.”