st_onecoldfox | Corbie - careful what you wish for

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Corbie - careful what you wish for

The Goblin Market reminded Mildmay of some parts of the Lower City. 'Cept how it was full up with fairies, and everything he'd heard about 'em felt like Keeper's first and strongest lessons 'bout what to do when you saw a fuckin' Cabaline wandering around: don't even try to start nothing, just fucking run, and warn anybody you came across. So's he was already all kindsa wary before he even saw her. Long, loose waves of hair, black as obsidian, against skin paler than Mildmay's but with the glint and shimmer of opalescence. But that was wrong, 'cause those were softer stones, and there wasn't nothing soft about the fairy lady who'd caught his eye as she passed through the market square. Something about her said she was harder than diamond and more dangerous than any snake. Just the thought of letting her maybe get behind him set Mildmay's teeth on edge.

He mighta been one redheaded human with a limp in a sea of fairies, but Mildmay melted into the market crowds like he'd never even been there as he followed after her. It was maybe a septad-minute when she stopped, giving a viper's smile to a fairy with wild spikes of long blond hair, mismatched eyes – and no, that didn't stab at all – in a sparkly black frock coat and enough ruffles for Felix's wardrobe.

"Another, Jareth?" Mildmay her her tsk as he slipped closer. "You really should stick to mortals. It's so much sweeter that way."

The other, Jareth or whatever, sang his response, and Mildmay couldn'ta told you what he said. He was too busy trying to shake off whatever magic was in the music, that had everybody nearby leaning in.

He missed part of what she said too, only catching then end, "-f you must." She gave a wave of her fingers and kissed the air between them. "Enjoy your prize. But don't say I never warned you."

Then the two fairies parted, and Mildmay was torn on who to keep in sight. Maybe it was the magic. Or maybe the instincts that'd kept him alive if not whole. Or maybe Kethe nudging him along. But Mildmay was shadowing the fairy lord before he made up his mind to do it. Which was when he saw the kid – fairy, yeah, but still just a kid – trailing along after him, eyes like saucers of awe and want.

Shoulda known he'd wind up in a fuckin' fairy labyrinth. 'Cause that was just his life. Even without Felix, it turned out. But fairy magic or no fairy magic – and there was plenty of it, but that was a story for another time – Mildmay never got lost. And he didn't here.

It was hours, at least, before he made it through the heart of the labyrinth and out the other side, carrying a wailing fairy kid, leaning heavy on Jashuki as he dragged his bum leg behind him, and gritting his teeth against the pain. A too tall fairy, skinny, seeming almost all arms and legs they were, like the rest of him? her? all stretched out too far, rushed up to them and pulled the kid from Mildmay's arms, wrapping the kid in a tight hug.

Mildmay could hear the kid talking, all rapid-fire rambling the way little kids did when they were over-excited, but powers and saints, Mildmay was just trying to keep from falling over, and he didn't hear a word that was said.

Until the tall fairy fucking bowed. To Mildmay. "You have saved my son."

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There was a passage in Jane Eyre where after entirely glossing over the rest of her childhood at school her favorite teacher left and Jane tired of her life at Lowood in a single afternoon. That stood out particularly to Corbie right now. Her life had gone through three considerable upheavals--first when Gran had died, second when Felix had taken her to Esmer, third when she'd arrived at the inn--but she had never felt that instant being done with everything like she had when she woke up and understood all over again that Jackson was gone.

There was no planning, only the going. Only the dread snapping at her heels that she had to get the hell out of the Madonna Inn before she died there.

She did not have a flawless sense of direction. She did not think to spend the time making a deal. She cast a charm with the Knight of Pentacles and the Nine of Wands and she followed it to Mildmay.

Which was how she managed to have the timing to run to him when he emerged from the labyrinth with a child. But she didn't pay the child any mind. All she saw was Mildmay and his weariness and she ran to him.

Even in her state, wild-eyed and nearly panicked, she did not call his name. She was not so foolish as that. "Lean on me," she told him instead, sliding herself under his arm.

Then Corbie was just there, slotting herself against him to take some of his weight whether Mildmay meant to lean on her or not, and Kethe he musta been tired not to have seen her coming.

"What's wrong?" was coming out his mouth just as quick, seeing fear and flight in her eyes, never mind what was going on with him or what the fairy was saying, and having to help if he could.

The fairy parent looked eerily at the human girl, and the two of them together, and whatever they'd been about to say next, they held back. There was a debt to be repaid, but acknowledging it further could wait a moment, they supposed. In the meanwhile, they reassured themself their child was, in fact, unharmed by their misadventure and rescue.

Even feeling the force of the staring fairy, Corbie for once didn't consciously notice or acknowledge another's presence. That question and trying not to lose her shit all over again consumed her. She made herself smile. A wobbly, weak smile that didn't intend to fool him or herself, but merely to trick herself into not dissolving into sobs. "Jackson's gone," she said simply. "He made a deal and he went home and I can't..." her voice cracked, "I can't go back to the inn, I can't."

Edited 2019-07-02 23:02 (UTC)

Seeing Corbie like that, trying to brave face her way through the tears, Mildmay could feel the cold, calculating side of himself coming forward. And since he couldn't wring the captain's neck – much as part of him wanted to, he wouldn'ta, even if the man had been standing right in front of him – it took another tack, other lessons learned at Keeper's knee that had kept him alive and fed after he'd left her.

His arm tightened around Corbie, tucking her against his side, as he turned to look at the fairy. "I saved your son." His voice was always flat, thanks to the scar, but this was stating cold, unquestionable fact, as he remembered the lessons the Penitent had given when he'd first gotten to the fairy world. "You owe me."

Felix'd be better at this, knowing just how to put the words to get the better end of any deal they made. But Felix weren't here. So Mildmay was gonna take his time, think it through. You owe me was enough for a start.

It was only then that Corbie really noticed the fairy, staring up at... him? Her? Them, she supposed (she still wasn't used to that, but she was learning). She dipped her head in combination of greeting and apology, not wanting to unbalance Mildmay by curtsying. There was nothing to be done about looking a mess, but she could at least manage not to look frightened.

The debt already acknowledged, as they saw it, the fairy merely waited for Mildmay to say what he wished in return. Perhaps they would have to negotiate. Perhaps the mortal's wish would be a simple enough thing. They could be patient and deal with the offer when it came.

Jackson had made a deal and gone home. Okay. So going home was a possibility. But fairies were at least as tricky as any hocus. Kethe, why couldn't Felix do the talking here?

"We, both of us, want to be where Felix Harrowgate is. With all of us alive and well and not in any immediate danger. And..." he trailed off, looking at Corbie. "Anything else I'm leaving out?"

Another time, in other circumstances, Corbie probably would have considered that carefully, turning the wish over to examine it from multiple angles for any holes just as Mildmay was doing. But she was too shaken, so she shook her head and said, "You're doing good. I'm more worried 'bout your leg right now. I'm sorry."

The "m'alright," was mushy enough wasn't nobody didn't know how to listen to Mildmay would understand him, but Corbie might, not that she'd believe him, but she'd probably be able to make out the words. And she'd be right not to believe him, since his leg was fucked to shit right then. But it would be okay, he kept telling himself.

The fairy certainly didn't know what the last thing Mildmay said had been, but it hadn't been directed at them anyway. Their head was tilting to the side as they considered his request instead. Yes, that should be achievable, they decided. It would take a great deal of their energies, but he had saved their child. That was not a debt cheaply repaid, and magical energies would be regained over time.

"Your offer is acceptable. You and your companion will be delivered to Felix Harrowgate, all alive and well and not in any immediate danger, in repayment for the rescue of my child."

She didn't believe him, but she kissed his cheek all the same.

Corbie bit her lip to keep herself from saying 'thank you.' It felt incredibly rude not to say it, but if fair value had been offered the words were more insult than anything. Instead she bowed her head, trying not to start sobbing all over again, this time relief instead of sorrow. She missed her teacher so much it was like an ache that had settled deep into her bones.

She couldn't begin to guess how much Mildmay missed him.

A little reluctantly, the fairy set their child down and tucked behind them, then cupped their hands together. A shimmering, silvery light pooled there, and as they blew gently over their hands, the light spun, slowly at first, then faster, creating a vortex that grew and grew, until they had to spread their hands out from their body to contain it.

The hair on Mildmay's arms and the back of his neck stood on end as the energy grew, and he grit his teeth against the impulse to scarper, dragging Corbie with him. Be serious, Milly-Fox, it'd more be her dragging you, with your leg like this.

Just as the energy became almost too much to bear, the fairy clapped their hands together, the world shifted and slipped in a blinding flash of the same silver light, and when it faded again, Mildmay and Corbie were standing outside a stark and shiny building in the middle of a city that reminded him of their time in "Europe".

"Fuck. Me. Sideways."

Sometimes you didn't get out of your own head and problems until things were so beyond fucked that you had no choice but to sit up and pay attention, and finding herself on that street was that dousing in cold water for Corbie. She couldn't rely on Mildmay to fix this by himself; it wouldn't be fair.

Once her mind started to move, it only took her a moment to understand. "He's here. Not our Felix. The other one." The one in the photos Sunny had given them. She had no other explanation.

He heard her. There was a part of Mildmay that never stopped paying attention to everything going on around him; the part that had kept him alive this long.

But thinking about what it was Corbie said was something that would happen in a moment. Maybe later. Right then, Mildmay was too busy realizing he didn't hurt. At all.

Where Corbie'd been taking some – okay, a lot – of his weight, he shifted, until he was standing only on his own two legs, and then, having to know, kept both feet on the ground, but moved all his weight to the fucked up leg.

... That wasn't fucked up no more.

What. The. F...

"Mildmay!" Alarmed, Corbie almost reached out for him again, but he seemed to have control of the situation so she only watched as he shifted his weight onto his right leg. Her eyes went huge. "Mildmay...?" she held her breath, waiting for it to be a mistake, or a trick, or... she didn't even know. She'd only ever known him lame.

"Where Felix Harrowgate is. With all of us alive and well and not in any immediate danger," he said after a moment, remembering the exact words he'd used, 'cause he'd thought 'em through ahead of time. "And you were worried about my leg."

So now his leg was fixed.

It was everything else that was fucked.

Later. They could fall apart later. First they had to figure out what they were going to do, and to that end Corbie tentatively reached out to hug him.

To steady herself or to steady him, she really wasn't sure which needed more doing.

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Corbie - careful what you wish for

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