A Tale of Lights Part Five
The High Court: The hill was there before Highgarden was raised and wild roses bloomed upon it by the tears of summer betrayed. So it was prophesied of old that should all hope fail and the darkness in the North should consume all life, then the last flowers would abide here in defiance against the end. Such was the prophecy given to the mortal Garth long ago, Garth Greenhand, Garth Fey Friend. He dwelt beside the Fair Folk and his heirs after him for such a time that even the deathless fey grew accustomed to it and to them. There in the heart of the Reach lies the Heart of the Stars, alone of all the things known to the bright courts to have endured the shifting tides of the Feywild since those days of yore.
Cold and shadowed were the gardens when the queen returned, filled with sighs and lostling things for the line of Garth had failed and by fire burned, but He was Garth of the Green and saw further than most mortal men, and so where the first branch might wither a thousand others sprang forth, high and low, proud and humble mortals beyond even the eyes of the Gold claimed the blood of Garth and his heritage. The roses grew again into a maze that framed the sky and spilled into the waking world; a maze, a ward, a weapon? None but the queen now knows, but on those paths shadowed and bright the fate of realms and the plots of the Eldest are measured one against the other.
Guards there are, each in their own manner and by their own court summoned, and princes in runed panoplies, gifts of older times, but the true strength of the court lies not in its walls of thorns nor gleaming spears and graceful bows. Here stands the monarch to stand in judgement and by it all oathsworn are bound. Here on each mid-winter, when her power ebbs almost to naught, stands the monarch to be judged and the court to ponder her dealings with mortal men, with gods disdained and with the land itself.
Without the crown, the bond is less than it might once have been, but those who stand here yet abide by ancient pacts and hopes older still. Men say the fey do not look back and disdain to recall what was unless bound by oaths of vengeance or of friendship, but some wounds bleed too deep to be forgotten and so they will the stars to set aright from towers of true silver, from humble rose seeds.
Relationships Between the Factions:
Gold and Violet move together with reluctant grace, those who see the world for what it is and those who can weave veils before the eyes of others that they might be lead upon the path the queen wishes. Azure and Green stand in fellowship sometimes, and rivalry at others, for both see darkness and peril in the world and seek the means by which they might thwart it, but where they diverge is in what they see as the greater peril to the world. The Key holds that the interloper, fiend, elemental, or darker things is the greater peril where those who follow the Green banner would sooner look upon the tyrant, the bandit, and other who work evils upon their own kind, for are not fey born and nurtured of mortal tales? What might they become in this darker realm?
The lords of the Orange keep their own own counsel, though the nearness of Far Realm horrors to the heart of its power drives them to take a more active role in the defense of the court than is common or entirely comfortable for them.
Last, though certainly not least, the Indigo Mask keeps his own counsel and alone of all the powers begins making tentative overtures to the Shadow Fey, though not yet the Orphne. Whether they seek to spy or to bargain is uncertain, though given the claims old and new that are about to clash on Westerosi soil, the point might be moot.
What next?
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OOC: Finally done, including rolling background actions for all the factions and other important players. Not yet edited.