Arc 2 Post 58: Weathering the Frost
Weathering the Frost
22st of July 2006 A.D.
Mab's presence is overpowering, unrelenting, drowning all before her... so you hold your breath. Behind walls of adamant you draw back and think. I don't want to fight, I do not need to fight. Winning is coming out of this without another enemy. As the inviolate temple of your mind draws closed its gates, your voice fills with subtle fire, dripping with a charming and poisonous grace.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 4/12
"Hail and well met Queen of Air and Darkness, we welcome your company and your wise council in this hour of upheaval." You nod, not quite a bow, but carefully balanced at the edge of it. "Those who would sunder the world upon the altar of their own hubris are no more and now time comes to judge how the pieces shall fall at the denouncement."
Her frozen gaze slides over you, over Lydia and Gard, right to Harry who had not spoken a word since you had b begun the ritual. "I sense that the one who I commanded you to find has been here yet he has fled by far off Ways. Those are not swiftly opened nor could even the blind mistake them for anything but what they are. So why then did you not summon me as we had agreed? From another mortal I might suspect a tongue frozen by fear, but that has never been your failing Dresden."
Harry draws himself up and looks around over the broken displays and overturned pedestals. "It's a public place isn't it? There's FBI agents in the building too. I was going to wait until I was alone and could catch my breath and then I would've called you so you could pick up the trail, you're better at following someone in the Nevernever than me."
The silent look Mab gives him seems like it could wither a stand of oak trees at a hundred yards. "I see no mortals here, none against which the veil of the world should be drawn, though for some perhaps it should be drawn that they be less tempted into folly."
Anger coils in the pit of your stomach like a snake waiting to bite, but you hold it fast knowing that before you stands a skilled snake charmer indeed. Anger makes you predictable. "You sought the Mantle of the Ankou, behold the mantle now burns before you, its bearer ready to deal with you absent the animosity his predecessor felt." You motion to Matthews. "Majesty pardons for my presumption, but I do not for a moment think that you would put the desire for vengeance before utility as though you were Zeus in the tale of Prometheus damming the son of Iapetus for giving onto man the same fire that they then used to glory his name and burn sacrifices."
Now she looks at you, not that you can read upon her pale face anything but unshakable confidence or in her gaze see anything but piercing light. So might a glacier look upon the world if it had eyes, so it might speak it if had voice: "You are very bold of tongue for someone asking for pardons child, though perhaps you have more to ask them of than presuming to know my mind."
Does she mean the escape from Arctis Tor with the power you now bear or the... whatever you had done with the ritual? you wonder. You decide to go with the latter. "I offered my help so that everyone could come out ahead. The world doesn't have to be a zero sum game you know."
"Have you considered that you simply do not see the cost, having read but the first page in a repository of knowledge vaster than all the libraries of men?" Her tone actually softens, which has the gift of being scarier than if she had kept up the ice queen persona.
"What..." you cut yourself off. What do you know? What can you tell me? It would practically be inviting a fey debt, but would that be so bad. You are starting to get why dealing with the fey is so hard.
"I know more of that which has laid in my halls for ages of the world than you do, more than you could learn for years and decades to come, though all the keys are in your hand."
"No." The word comes out as a gasp forced past your lips, like you had been running all out and for just a moment you see a flicker of surprise upon those pale perfect features. "If you want to make a deal with me I'll listen after we settle things here. I am not going to leave Harry in a lurch here because I'm chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."
The Queen of Air and Darkness does not answer directly, instead she turns to Matthews. "I assume you are prepared to serve in exchange for the protection of Winter."
"For myself and by family," the old man replies. "Those of summer have reason already to bear me ill will." Something more passes between them unspoken like a shimmer in the air. Whatever feud Matthews has with the fey he does not want to share it with you Harry or Lydia, but you can respect that.
It is Mab once again who breaks the silence, this time speaking to Harry again. "Those who agree to do me a service and then seek to undermine my will come to a poor end Dresden, but I am not in the habit of punishing initiative in the face of changing circumstances which is among the most valued qualities of mortals. That is what you did is it not wizard?"
"Yes." He sounds like he is looking for a trap and you are too, every word out of Mab's mouth seems barbed, not to inflict pain necessarily, but to hook and hold fast.
"Good, then you will show as much diligence in your remaining task." It is not a question.
Still Harry answers. "What no capeesh?"
Mab does not seem to get the joke. She also does not seem to expect to either.
You can't help yourself, you giggle as much at the sheer absurdity of making jokes at a time like this as at the joke itself. "He is implying you are acting like a mob boss, which is ultimately like a feudal lady so he's really calling a spade a spade." you explain.
And that is how you can now add quizzically exasperated to the list of expressions you had seen on Queen Mab's face.
"As the wizard has pointed out that this is not the best place to have a conversation in, can I count upon you to call upon me so that you may listen to my proposal soon?"
What do you reply?
[] Yes, you will call on Mab and listen to what she has to say
[] No, let her make her pitch here, she is as dangerous in this arena as that submarine had been in battle, might as well force her to fire her salvo when you have allies to hand
[] Write in
OOC: Well you just survived an incarna level being taking you on in social combat, not bad for a E2 Exalt, not bad at all.
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