On Wings of Ice and Thunder
31th of October 2006 A.D.
"Deal," you snap back after what feels like a long to you but can't have been more than twenty seconds. "What are we going to...?"
"Follow," she motions. How Mab manages to head towards the door at a pace that is almost a run without seeming hurried you are not sure, but something tells you she isn't even using magic for it. Still you have the time to call out thanks to Mac and grab a lemon Popsicle from the bar. "Thanks, keep the change bye."
As you slide in one back door of Mab's new ride she steps in on the other side. A Sidhe in a suit and a very non-faerie-tale standard buzz cut takes the driver's seat, seeming very familiar with the ins and outs of an automatic gear box, though even so you are surprised to hear the queen of Winter call out a perfectly mundane address: "3843 N California Avenue."
As it turns out you are not going to California by car, fascinating as a thirty hour drive in Mab's company might be. According to Clippy that is the address of the McFetridge Sports Center, home of tennis courts, dance recitals and showcases and the Chicago Parks District's only indoor ice rink.
One would think ice fairies would be a bit more subtle about their presence. One would apparently be
wrong.
Down wide roads and narrow, under the shade of trees grown in bounded squares of concrete the car that should not be real sped at the beck of Winter's mistress. What sounds like half a dozen dogs take to barking at your passage, their ears and noses sharper to the peril that drawn near than most.
The Snow Queen, the Snow Queen in her sled drawn near, you think with oddly timed whimsy,
though in this hour she is not concerned with any children save her own. As the streetlamps turn on one by one, the gloom between them only grows as clouds above them devour the light of stars and moon.
"Those clouds don't look very friendly," you hazard to the queen in question. "That's you right?"
A short sharp nod is her answer, before seeming to catch herself and add a moment later: "As you have surmised subtlety is not a cloak I wear easily, but sometimes the roar of thunder can hide one's steps as easily as silence may."
Obviously she means the actual roar of thunder.
Why wouldn't she? Thundersnows are of course perfectly normal in October, you think sarcastically. Grumbling only a little you call dad to tell him you are OK and you'll be done in an hour and a half. While you would not go so far as to say he sounds reassured he also does not sound like he is about to armor up and come after you.
"I shall be laying a glamor on you, work no magic and do not act out of character and the power of the storm should hide yours," Mab says as you look up from the phone.
"What's my character?" you ask, putting the Clippy away.
"Harried handmaiden who would much rather be almost anywhere else than trying to keep up with me in a rage." Mab's voice crackles like breaking ice as she says so, causing you to throw a look to the electronics without meaning to. They are fine of course, her power is still wholly aligned with her purpose to matter the aesthetics.
"Got it." At the very least there won't be any shape-shifters short of Broken Seeker himself flying in this, you think looking up at the curtain of white that had started to fall lit from within by lightning crawling blue and green, not that you expect it to attack but the fewer eyes on this to start with the better.
"Turn on the windscreen wipers, you don't look very human driving around in this without them," you point out to the driver, biting back nervousness, just in time for the car to slide to a stop and the doors to snap open.
Seeing as Mab parts the blizzard as a ship parts the waves with her bow scurrying behind her is not difficult feat. The cold sharpens the mind and water whispers secrets a thousand miles distant. It's easier than it has any right to be to balance the arrogance of the Sidhe with the nervousness of being a frozen leaf on gale's wings.
The doors to the sports center snap open at Mab's approach to reveal a scene that is half frat party half old time feast, not that you have ever been to a frat party... that you will admit to your mother about but there are a bewildering number of plastic beer bongs being used to scarf down golden mead. Still better to think about those than what all the silvery, you guess titanium, chains and cuffs are being used for.
Perhaps the party has not gotten fully on the way yet, the satyrs' song was slow and rising still when when it cuts off abruptly, the spikes of ice half built under the hand of naiads, beautiful in spite of the drowned pallor of their skin, the caps that give the redcap their name are dull as all the company of Winter in this place looks towards the... throne at the center of the ice rink.
According to the laws of physics that thing that thing really should not be standing up, its eight slender uneven legs like a demented ice spider joining into a jagged mass that still flows in curves which fit smugly to the figure upon it. Pale as ice is Maeve and yet more alive than vibrant mortal woman could be, hers is a beauty less abstract than her mother's, a planet racing across the heavens to Mab's distant star.
Unnoticed among the sudden fervor you catch the precise moment in which Maeve, or the thing that had claimed her at least could have acted had it understood its peril, the spat of fleeting seconds before Mab usurped the power rising from the ice and all she said was: "Why Your Majesty, if you wanted to join us you had only to ask..."
A path well trod no doubt but one to which Mab's only answer is reaching out with the power of the blizzard at her back. Between one moment and the next Maeve's throne had become her prison, a pillar of ice that rises from ice covered floor to ceiling, in ways that are probably not good for the concrete.
"A pity you shall not be able to taunt the foe as you cast it out Majesty," Usum notes which should probably sound more insane than it does right now.
"Do you wish for solitude in weaving the spell?" Mab's creaking ice voice is in your ears and
only in your ears.
As you open your mouth to say it does not matter you realize she's not asking about the particularities of the ritual but if you want an audience of winter fey to demonstrate your power to. Nemesis will know your name, anyone with arcane senses and a decent sense for what has been going on in the city so it might not be the worst idea to make it common knowledge. In Usum's words it will keep 'the chaff from getting above itself'... but then again Usum also thinks taunting a living madness from beyond the Gates is effective psychological warfare.
What do you reply?
[] Let them stay
[] Bid them go
OOC: So far so frosty. To be clear Mab herself is sticking around no matter what you choose to guard you, this is just a question of what happens to the other Winter Fey. 
