Sarissa (ladyofsummer) wrote in welcomethreads, @ 2013-08-29 20:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | fix, sarissa |
WHO: Fix and Sarissa
WHERE: The woods
WHEN: Backdated to Aug 16
WHAT: Sarissa finds out about another aspect of being the Summer Lady
RATING: G
STATUS: log; complete.
She was being followed. Sarissa had spent enough time in the mean streets of Chicago and the deadly Court of Winter to when that she was being watched and followed. Out here, in the woods, there weren't many people around, but there were plenty of hiding places. Sarissa cast a quick, furtive look around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She quickened her pace, heading for a particularly rough patch of brambles that parted just enough for her passage but wouldn't let another person not of Summer through, and still she felt that presence behind her. Finally she whirled around... ...only to stare into the beady black eyes of a little woodland squirrel. That was when the little finch landed on her shoulder and started chirping merrily at her. A rabbit hopped up, looking cute and rabbity. Sarissa looked at them in dismay. "Shoo," she said, making similar motions with her hands. They didn't move. She started walking again. They followed. Great. She was turning into Snow White. *** Fix had seen Sarissa leave, and had also followed her, a few moments behind.. Close enough that he could be there if something went wrong, but also not close enough to bother her. Maybe it was true that he was a little paranoid - but he hadn’t done so well with keeping Lily safe, and he wasn’t going to fail again. He wasn’t. So he’d kept his distance, letting her have her time alone, but trailing behind her just enough to assuage his conscience and to calm his nerves. He grinned at her reaction to the animals. They had, of course, done the same thing to Lily, but Lily had been the type you would expect to be followed by friendly woodland creatures. She hadn’t spent all of her life training for Winter. Lily had been a free spirit, a summer rain, a flower. And Fix had loved her. But she was gone now, and she was never coming back. Even if that could happen here, he wasn’t going to allow himself to believe it. It would hurt too much when it didn’t come true. He walked behind her, as silent as any of the fae, but knowing that sooner or later, she would hear him. That was okay with him, it would probably be good for her to know that someone cared enough to watch out for her. Winter didn’t always work that way. *** Two chipmunks and a woodpecker had joined the little congregation by now, and Sarissa had no more luck shooing them away than she did the others. "Oh come on," she said with a sigh. "How am I supposed to be a nurse in a sceptic environment when I have animals following me around?" Maybe it was time to switch professions again, though. She'd been a nurse for...what, five years now? She'd been a mathematician for longer, but five years was a good run. Maybe she should look into a job that wouldn't be affected by cute little animals. Or maybe she should just get out of the forest, and hope that none of the animals followed her out. "I'm going to leave now," she informed her little gaggle of followers. "Don't follow me, because I don't want any of you to become road kill." She headed back in the direction of town, but felt yet another presence tracking her. She stopped, gaze peering into the foliage, and finally spotted the man in the dappled shadows. "Fix?" *** Fix blushed a little when he was spotted, but raised his hand in a wave, anyway. He hadn’t really expected that she wouldn’t see him, but hoped that she wouldn’t be angry, nonetheless. “Hi,” he smiled. “I saw you going out, and I thought I’d just make sure that you were, you know, okay. You can never be too careful.” If you were, things like what happened to Lily tended to happen. He indicated the animals with a smile. “It happened to Lily all the time too, you know. She loved dancing through the forest feeling like Snow White. We never got much chance to feel special, when we were younger.” *** It was the first time she'd seen him smile, and to her it felt like the morning most of a crisp autumn day. He still seemed sad and quiet, but it was definitely a nice improvement from the weary sadness he carried the last time they'd met. "That's nice of you to keep an eye on me," she said, because she didn't have the heart to tell him she didn't need his protection. Fix obviously took his duties as Knight seriously, and as long as it didn't interfere with her own plans she was okay with that. "I'm not used to having an entourage," she added, gesturing to her collection of animals. Clearly, she was already doing the Summer Lady thing all wrong already, since she had no desire to dance around in the woods. "Being followed usually isn't a good thing, where I came from." *** “Well, I don’t think it ever is,” he agreed. “But these are just animals. They’re not people, or wyldfae, so I don’t think you really have to worry about them. They just...like you. Because you’re the Summer Lady. If it helps, they’d alert you if someone really bad came around. If...if that makes you feel any better.” He sighed, and shrugged a little before leaning against the nearest tree. “Summer isn’t bad. It really isn’t. I mean, there’s danger in it, sure. Wherever someone has a lot of power, there’s danger. But Summer is...it’s home. It’s the only home I’ve had for a long time. The only home I can really remember. Meryl took care of us, but...but it wasn’t the same...” He trailed off, a bit pensive, but then looked back at her and forced his face to brighten once again into a smile. “Are you...doing okay with everything? Can I help you?” *** Summer might be his home, but Winter was hers. And now she could never return. Even her counterpart couldn't stand her presence. She was well and truly cut off now, even if she weren't in a different realm than her own. None of that was Fix's fault, though, and it was clear he just wanted to help. "I'm fine," she said quietly. "I have an interview at the hospital, and I'm petitioning to switch apartments. How about you? Are you settling in?" *** “You’re switching apartments?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, sudden concern in his eyes. “Where are you planning to move to?” Had she been planning to tell him about this? Or was she trying to escape him bothering her? Was he bothering her? He shifted his weight a bit uneasily. “I am...” he trailed off, then finally shrugged. “I’m as good here as I’d be back home.” How to tell her how much he’d been questioning himself lately, on his worth and his abilities? And that was never a good thing - your feelings and emotions affected your abilities as much as anything else. He wondered if he could even call up Summer Fire anymore. He hadn’t since Demonreach. *** Back at home, though, he 'd probably have the support of the Summer Court. They seemed to be a more tightly knit bunch than Winter. Here, though, all he had was a Lady nobody wanted. She'd do the best she could for him, though. It was the least she could do. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask," she told him. "As for me, they'd put me in the same apartment as the Winter Lady. We agreed it was best that I lived elsewhere." *** Fix raised an eyebrow, immediately agreeing that that sounded like a good idea. He couldn’t imagine what would have happened if they’d roomed him with Harry - and he liked Harry. Or, rather, he liked who Harry had been before he’d taken on the Mantle of Winter. Now he had to keep a close eye on him, always on the lookout for changes which could make him into a monster. A monster with a great deal of magic. If Harry wanted to be, he could be ten times the danger Lloyd Slate had ever thought of being. “Did you find a place? A roommate?” He wanted her to be happy here, to find her peace, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to see that happen. *** "They're looking," Sarissa said. "They'll probably get something sorted soon." She gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm sure it'll be fine." She was generally pretty low key. Aside from the people from the Winter Court, she could probably get along with anyone. *** “I’d say you could stay with me, but I have a roommate already.” He frowned, pensively. “But maybe he wouldn’t mind if you stayed with me for a few days, anyway.” He liked the idea of that, in a strictly platonic sense. He could keep her close enough that she was safe, close enough that he could make sure nothing would hurt her for now, anyway. It would ease his nerves. “Or maybe we could both find a new place, together.” *** "Oh, that won't be necessary," Sarissa told him quickly. She had nothing against sharing a living space with him, and she didn't think he would take it anywhere inappropriate, but he was protective enough of her already. If they were living together, that was only going to get more intense. Sarissa liked her independence, but more importantly, she wanted him to have his as well. He couldn't if he were shadowing her all the time. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm sure I'll be fine." *** Fix frowned, trying not to be hurt at yet another rejection from her. He looked down at his feet, kicking at something in the dirt, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “This is...strange for me,” he finally admitted. “Ladies don’t change that often, and Lily and I were...well, really close. I...” He looked up at her, his eyes pained, and confused. “I don’t really know how to act with you. I don’t want to offend you, but it’s...it’s different than with Lily, of course.” *** Sarissa understood. Of course it would be different with Lily. They'd been childhood friends, and they'd learned to navigate the Court together. She had none of that history or understanding with him. "You don't offend me," Sarissa said gently. "It just seems to me that you've spent the last ten years tending to the needs of someone else and not your own. Maybe you wanted it that way, because it was Lily, but I'm not Lily. I can never take her place with you. So maybe you can just take this opportunity to figure out what you want to do." *** “What I want to do?” Fix looked at her in confusion. Did it matter? He was the Summer Knight, he’d become so voluntarily, and the duties he had in that respect were a full time job. His full-time job. And he took that seriously, wherever he was. Even here. “Look...” he said softly. “I know what I want to do. I want to be your Knight. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ll always do. But I’m not sure how to do that the way you want me to.” *** "It probably doesn't help that I have no idea what I want you to do either," Sarissa said with a sigh. She gave him a wry smile. "What a pair we make, huh?" She thought for a moment, absently brushing away a pair of birds that were trying to braid her hair. "How about we start with you telling me about Summer and what kind of powers I have? Everything I know about Summer I learned from Winter, so I probably have a skewed view of it. And I know I have some sort of Summery power in me, but I don't know what they are or how to activate them." *** “Well, first of all, maybe you should tell me what you learned from Winter, and we can go from there?” He didn’t know how to explain Summer in a few words, when it had been all of his life for nearly a decade now. “I can tell you, simply, that Summer’s about life, and that Winter’s about death. That’s something.” *** Sarissa immediately shook her head. Summer, it seemed, was just as misinformed about Winter. "Winter is about change," she corrected. "Winter is about keeping the Outsiders at bay, no matter what the cost. Summer, I'm told, is the force that tries to stop us - them - because they think Winter was to destroy everything." *** “Outsiders?” Fix raised an eyebrow. He’d heard stories in the night about outsiders, but he still wasn’t quite sure what they actually were. Other than absolutely bad. “Our job is to keep Winter from going too far. To heal what they break. To soften their hardness. To feel love where they feel nothing.” He shrugged. “The Winter Knight’s job is to kill the people Mab tells him to. My job is to stop him. It’s like that.” *** “Winter feels,” Sarissa corrected him again. She thought of her mother and her sister, and the twisted emotions that had brought them to this point. “Sometimes too much.” She took a moment to take a step back and think about what he was actually saying, rather than simply jumping to Winter’s defense. “So you mean Summer’s existence is solely to balance Winter? Do we have no agency of our own?” *** “But they don’t show it. They’re very cold. Obviously.” He looked up at her sharply at her words. “No, of course not. And of course we have agency of our own. We’re light and warmth, and love, and creation. It’s a creation/destruction dichotomy, as well.” *** And when left unchecked, could destroy the world as well. Sarissa didn’t mention that, though. In general she didn’t like to argue, and tried to stay away from conflict unless pushed into it. In this case, she’d rather not argue the merits of Summer versus Winter. “So what do we do when there are no Winter shenanigans to balance out? *** “The lady holds Court, often Titania does as well. There’s usually something lovely going on at Midsummer. We feast. Have balls and dances. In the way of the fae, of course, but they’re lovely times.” He shrugged. When there weren’t problems, he wasn’t there as often, spending a good deal of his time in the mortal world, or with Lily. *** “And now there’s no Court here,” Sarissa said softly. The only one to hold up the Court’s traditions was an inexperienced Lady and a mortal Knight who was grieving for the last one. What a pair they made. “I suppose we just...do the best we can in this world,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Watch that Winter doesn’t overstep its bounds, and such. If I’m to be of any use, though, I have to learn to use my powers. What do you suggest for that?” *** “Um, I could show you a little,” he said, feeling a bit helpless. He knew some of what the Ladies could do, of course. But his power was only a fraction of hers, and it was a bit ridiculous to think that he could actually help her learn her powers. She needed Titania for that. “I can tell you what I’ve seen, anyway.” *** Given that Titania wasn't here, however, Fix was Sarissa's best bet. He might not be as powerful as her, but he'd been a close friend - maybe more - of the precious Summer Lady for ten years. Whatever he knew, it was much more than Sarissa did. "I'd appreciate it," she said, and gave him a wry smile. "Maybe we can start with making these little critters go away. They're cute, but I can't have them following me everywhere." *** Fix couldn’t help but grin a little at that, and with a wave of his hand a few stern words, sent the little creatures on their way. “I guess Winter doesn’t have that problem, huh? Creatures probably run from them.” Fix’s knowledge of Winter wasn’t particularly good. In fact, most of what he knew of Winter was how cruel it was, and how important it was for them to be able to defeat it. *** It was true: Winter was more feared than loved. Sarissa, not being a formal part of Winter Court, had been one of those who’d feared them. But she’d loved them - well, their Queen and Lady - as well. “You have to be in Winter to love Winter,” she said, glancing back at Fix with a small, sad smile. “It’s not easily understood by anyone outside.” But that wasn’t her Court now, and she ought to remember it. *** Fix shrugged a little. Whether or not Winter could be loved wasn’t his problem. What was his problem was making sure that it didn’t get out of hand, that he acted as a balance, as a foil to the danger it presented. “Perhaps as summer I understand it as well as possible,” he said. For after all, wasn’t it easier to understand your exact opposite? “But I can’t say I completely approve of what I understand.” *** "No, I don't imagine many would." Again that small, bittersweet smile. Sarissa didn't approve much of what Winter did either, most times, but it had been home. Had been. Now it was the enemy. She didn't want to dwell on that, though. She already spent too much time mourning what she'd lost. Instead, she gave him a faint, teasing smile. "I was going to take a walk. Would you like to walk with me, or would you prefer to lurk in the bushes." *** “Of course I can walk with you,” Fix answered with a bit of a smile. He had been hoping to follow her without being noticed, but in all truth he could protect her better this way. “How are you settling in here?” He knew she had a job, but not what she did at it, beyond the obvious. Or whether she was happy. *** "As well as can be, I suppose," Sarissa replied as they started to make their way further into the woods. Where she walked, the flowers and moss in her path seemed to perk up and brighten in colour. "Did you hear there are people who got sent back?" she asked, turning to look at him. Here, in Summer's element, he looked much more at ease and at peace than anywhere else. She could feel it too, the way the birdsong and the whisper of the trees seemed to infuse her very soul. *** “Sent back?” He raised an eyebrow curiously at that. He hadn’t heard it, but he hadn’t been paying very close attention to the network, either. “How did they manage that?” If it was a voluntary thing he would have to think long and hard about how that would work. He, of course, wouldn’t go unless Sarissa did, but perhaps he could convince her. Even though she’d shown herself to be more difficult to convince than Lily, perhaps he could get her to understand how important it was that they return home. *** "I don't know," Sarissa admitted. "It just seems like one day they were there and the next they weren't. No one seems to know how it happened." She gave him a rueful smile. "It's too bad you can't just will it to happen, isn't it?" Even if she didn't want her position and she was half-convinced Tatiana would find some way to get her killed, she knew her duty. She was the Summer Lady now, and that meant fulfilling her position the best she could, no matter what came from it." *** “I just hope that they return home, safely,” he said with a shrug. He didn’t know everyone here well yet, but he wished none of them any ill-will. They all had a connection of sorts, being here together, torn from their homes. “Would you return, if you could, Lady?” *** "I would," Sarissa replied without hesitation. She didn't even remind him to call her by her given name, because her answer was tied up in her title; her duty. "I know I am not the Lady anyone would wish for, and it would cause me trouble in the Court, but I know my duty. If there were a chance to return and serve Summer, I would." *** Fix was glad to hear it, and it put his mind at ease. He had been a bit cautious of the Summer Lady, raised as she was in Winter, but if her loyalty remained with Summer then all was well. “I don’t think it will cause you problems, lady. After all, you wear the mantle, and if your loyalties are in the right place, people will accept you as you are. Lily thought much the same, following Aurora, but she found her place too, soon enough.” *** Sarissa turned to give him a wry look. “Lily was not the daughter of the enemy. Think of your sentiments towards Winter - you’ve only been battling those of its Court for ten years. What of those who’ve been battling them longer? Who’ve lost loved ones to it? What of Queen Titania herself? I am to be her heir. Will she believe that I have no plans to depose her and take the throne for my mother? How long do you think she will allow me to live if she even suspected I meant any treachery. I’m not a fool; I know she must have Changelings on hand who could take on the role of Summer Lady and give her much more peace of mind than I do.” *** “I don’t think she will think that. You’re under the control - or at least the influence - of the Summer Mantle now, and you’ll find yourself becoming more and more Summer every day. And Titania knows that. And how would it be harder for you than it was for Lily, following the death of Titania’s own daughter?” He shrugged, running a hand through his pale blonde hair. “And I am here, to help if you need it.” *** But the more Summer she became, the further she would be from her mother. Sarissa had known this as soon as she’d taken on the Mantle of Summer Lady, but it was the little reminders, such as this, that hurt. He did have a point, however. Lily was well-loved, but she couldn’t have had an easy time stepping into the role once held by Titania’s own daughter. Perhaps Sarissa might be able to survive in the Summer Court after all. “Thank you,” she said softly, genuinely, and she gave him a smile that already held the warmth and light of Summer. “I do appreciate it, Sir Knight.” |