REPOST FIC: Dance of Light : Interludes (Frost, Barinthus)
Title: Interludes
Series: Dance of Light
Author: houses
Email: mihanmckenna@hotmail.com
Rating: PG to NC-17; each interlude is labeled separately
Universe: Xover Merry Gentry / Angel
Spoilers: AtS:3-11 (Birthday), MG:2 (Caress of Twilight), my stories Through a Glass Darkly and Lifting the Veil
Disclaimer: Cordy and AI belong to Joss and David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy Productions. The sidhe and Co. belong to Laurel K. Hamilton.
Summary: The Interludes are a series of one shot ficlets that fit with the Dance of Light main series about Cordelia. As that is essentially Cordy’s perspective on things, the readers don’t often know all of what’s going on- or they find out when Cordy does. Since every story has more than one side, I’ve decided to add the Interludes.
Each interlude will have a header letting the reader know where it falls in the series. These can be considered spoilers for everything up until that point- so the reader has been warned. The ratings will range from PG to NC-17, and this will house all smutlets as well. Some may be POV, others third person- it all depends on how the muse strikes me.
In short, a grab bag for all things that I think should be told but don’t have a place in the original linear tale.
Enjoy.
Episode: Frost’s Interlude
Rating: PG
Notes: This is a POV interlude for Frost, falling immediately after Chapter Two- Friendly Ghosts for Lifting the Veil. It gives a bit of perspective for those not familiar with Frost and Merry’s situation when Cordelia pops into their lives.
~~~~
Frost.
It’s so much more than a name.
It’s what happens to your soul after millennia of starvation from the simplest warming contact. It’s what you become when your life is subsumed into nothing but your duty. It’s what your heart turns into after so much pain.
I was always frost, hoarfrost, but it was different. There was joy in the creation of intricate icy art, the beauty of dancing my way across the tips of grasses and edges of leaves. I delighted in being nothing more than I was, the thought made tangible, the whim of the gods working their majesty on chilled mornings. To the gods, my name was just a name, nothing more.
And once I was no longer thought, taking the full flesh of a sidhe form, I was a still their beloved child, my hair the color of spun platinum, shiny and metallic, with eyes like stormy skies of roiling grey. Frost made living creature- etched in warm tissue, the breath of life flowing into the crystalline creations that leapt from my fingertips.
How could they know I’d become the Killing Frost, second in command of the queen’s guard, nothing more than an efficient murderer who delights in his job, for those are the only delights left. I don’t know when I became so frozen from the inside out. Maybe it was when I finally realized I would never beat Doyle, her majesty’s Darkness. I would always be second best, trapped in the Ravens like so many others, forbidden even the barest release. Not even that by my own hand was permitted. Yes, it was probably then.
How long ago was that? I don’t remember. Time seems to blur together now, the monotony of staying sane, what a chore that was. It would have been so much easier to go slowly mad, finding relief in retreating to my own mind, but I wouldn’t let it go. So unusual in the sidhe, having hope. Hope implies a connection to the world that most Fey do not acknowledge. But maybe I’m not like most Fey.
For certainly she is not. The reason the ice started to crack. All it took was one kiss, awkward and hungry in the back of the Coach, and I fell apart. Not that it was obvious then, but she had my heart. Princess Meredith. The not quite sidhe who holds the hopes and fears and fates of us all. For if she is to become pregnant then she is to become queen.
And there is the painful blade of hope. If, if, if. It is always if. How desperately we want it to be when. How desperately I want it to be me. For once, I have that chance, a real chance, to be first. To be king.
And it is all because of her. Not that the others know the depths of our feelings, not really. Doyle sees the love we share, and it makes him unhappy. Not that he wishes either of us ill, but he knows what will happen if one of the other guards is the father. Himself, he could stand, though perhaps Merry could not. The others have not the strength to rule, though they would not admit it. If, if, if. He knows and it makes him unhappy.
The new princess as well, Cordelia. She watches us across the table, spinning impossible tales of her life, and she smiles. What a strange creature to come into our lives now and it makes me wonder if Meredith’s promise to protect us all has been answered. Regardless of why she’s here, she knows, this perceptive new princess, how close I came to losing not only my life, but my hope and my love.
Maybe it is her nature, to be sidhe and not, that makes Meredith so precious. Made up of human, brownie and sidhe. A mortal with powers designed to last for eternity. Maybe it is the blood red flames of her hair that wove through me and melted my defenses. The true red of the Unseelie court brands her before everyone, announcing to the world that she is of the darkling throng. Maybe it is finally my time, ever hoped for, ever despaired for.
So I hope and praise the Lord and Lady that this strange new sidhe princess had the vision that saved us both, whatever the reason. And I wonder, what happens if the ifs come true. If the child will be mine and I am king, what will be my name then? For it surely cannot be Frost any longer. That Frost will have melted away and I will stand forth a shining new thing.
That day, I shall ask Meredith for a new name, a name fit for a king, and I will love it as I love her.
~~~End Frost’s Interlude~~~
Episode: Barinthus’ Interlude
Rating: PG
Notes: This is a POV interlude for Barinthus, falling immediately after Chapter Four- Making an Entrance for Lifting the Veil. It gives a bit of perspective for those not familiar with the character of Barinthus, the sea god, and his role in Meredith’s life. While he’s not physically present yet in Cordelia’s story, he becomes integral at a later point. I chose to place his interlude now to help clue in readers unfamiliar with the Merry Gentry series as to other players in Meredith’s life besides her rotating bed partners at Maeve’s mansion.
~~~Barinthus’ Interlude~~~
They think I want to be king. They, the faceless masses of the Unseelie court. They plot and connive and fear for the day I sweep in and take the consort’s throne for my own. They don’t understand, though. Who would want to be a king when you used to be a god? What worth is the dominion over mere sidhe, fey, when you used to have the worship of the masses at your fingertips? I could command the seas to my bidding, wrap the very lifeblood of the world around my whim. What is the command over petty, restless immortals compared to that?
No, I don’t want to be king.
For I wouldn’t be king on my own merit, merely the sidhe that supplied the desperately wanted seed for Meredith’s salvation. I would be relegated to a secondary position, once again, stripped of what little dignity I have left. I am no longer Manannan mac Lir, but the shadow of him remains, haunting me for the rest of my eternity, struggling to understand his diminished place in the world.
This doesn’t mean I don’t support the princess, I do, but I wouldn’t become a contender for her consort if I could help it. She doesn’t need me, not like that. I will do whatever she needs to survive in the Unseelie court, honor my friendship with her father, my friendship with her, but not that, not now. The queen would force me if she knew the ring liked me as well, not just the men she has at her call in LA. But that is our secret, Merry’s and mine. Our reasons for keeping that secret aren’t the same, of course, but reasons none the less. So I respect that and try to make her world a little friendlier when she returns. I know she worries for my life, as well she should, but I will survive. I always do. One does not last thousands of years without learning a trick or two, with or without magic.
I may not be able to summon a fog or a mystical army to protect my lands but I can still protect what needs to be protected. She is precious, a vessel for all our hope, but she is still vulnerable. Too many wish her ill, both Cel’s supporters and other sidhe. She has the strength of the goblin army at her back, but only temporarily. King Kurag will drive entirely too hard a bargain to keep their support, one I am not sure Meredith should accept. Queen Niceven’s demi-fey spy for my princess, but the same information goes to Queen Andais, as well as my queen’s ability to pluck words and phrases from the very night air. Andais has set this all in motion, but there is no guarantee she won’t strike against Meredith should her ever-changing moods dictate that Andais seek Meredith’s blood. So I sit and I plot and I evade the assassination attempts all with an eye for the future and an ear to the whispers.
Barinthus Queenmaker they call me, the one behind the throne. I negotiate court politics day after day, maneuver the strings of intrigue so that Meredith has a chance of success. She could be the savior of us all, but if she was to become pregnant and the time was not right, or the path not set, then all would come to naught.
It is not only the court I hear, the soft hiss of conspiracy: the waters whisper to me as they have done since the beginning of my time. The gentle babble of a brook, the roar of the surf, the soft still sigh of a lake. Within the voice of the water that murmurs in the back of my mind are the words of careless beings, spoken too close to fluid surfaces. Language over choppy ocean waves is too distorted for much information to come my way, not of any real use, but what is said in the still places…yes, what is said there reverberates through the strains of magic still binding me to this world and I listen.
There is new magic awake in this world, borne by a strange fey princess, a creature from another land. She speaks of fantastical things, twisting her life story to Meredith and her guards, and still I listen, words washed in minute waves from the reflecting dish in the sitting room of Merry’s new abode. Fantastical, true, but a new breath of hope we all need. The proof that the Lord and Lady have not abandoned us all to a withering fate; that they look over us as children gone astray. They removed their gifts from us long ago, even before we diminished ourselves. But they no longer wish us ill, and that gives these old bones hope.
Meredith isn’t as alone as I feared, for now a new companion has shown up on her door. Even though my gifts have waned, some remain to me. Other fey forget this, choosing to see the shadow I have become rather than the glory I was, and so they turn a deaf ear. But some know, some like the Darkness, so I do not believe that I come by this information in error.
She is intriguing, this Princess Cordelia. A study in contrast, wit and gravity, a young woman who can both fight and laugh. She finds amusement in Merry’s situation, a breath of fresh air to be sure, and I believe that the two shall be good for each other. Though under Cordelia’s light banter, there is a wound, something taken from her never to be regained. I hope, for her sake, that she finds a measure of peace her amongst us, the unlooked for brethren.
Merry needs someone to keep her in touch with the reality outside of the courts, now that her job is suspended. Maeve Reed, the Seelie sidhe whose home they have as sanctuary, is too much like her former self, a fertility deity, the embodiment of springtime regeneration: a woman used to adoration, for Meredith to find a kindred soul. Maeve has lost herself, and that makes her dangerous, whether she wounds from fear or insecurity.
But that is of no matter. The court spins its webs regardless of the flow out the human world. All too soon Cel will be released from his prison, and Meredith will face more dangerous enemies than a sidhe in mourning for a lost love. Meredith is yet with child, and our time grows short. Whether Cordelia’s presence tips the balance remains to be seen, but with the Lord and Lady’s intervention, Meredith cannot help but survive.
~~~End Barinthus’ Interlude~~~
Series: Dance of Light
Author: houses
Email: mihanmckenna@hotmail.com
Rating: PG to NC-17; each interlude is labeled separately
Universe: Xover Merry Gentry / Angel
Spoilers: AtS:3-11 (Birthday), MG:2 (Caress of Twilight), my stories Through a Glass Darkly and Lifting the Veil
Disclaimer: Cordy and AI belong to Joss and David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy Productions. The sidhe and Co. belong to Laurel K. Hamilton.
Summary: The Interludes are a series of one shot ficlets that fit with the Dance of Light main series about Cordelia. As that is essentially Cordy’s perspective on things, the readers don’t often know all of what’s going on- or they find out when Cordy does. Since every story has more than one side, I’ve decided to add the Interludes.
Each interlude will have a header letting the reader know where it falls in the series. These can be considered spoilers for everything up until that point- so the reader has been warned. The ratings will range from PG to NC-17, and this will house all smutlets as well. Some may be POV, others third person- it all depends on how the muse strikes me.
In short, a grab bag for all things that I think should be told but don’t have a place in the original linear tale.
Enjoy.
Episode: Frost’s Interlude
Rating: PG
Notes: This is a POV interlude for Frost, falling immediately after Chapter Two- Friendly Ghosts for Lifting the Veil. It gives a bit of perspective for those not familiar with Frost and Merry’s situation when Cordelia pops into their lives.
~~~~
Frost.
It’s so much more than a name.
It’s what happens to your soul after millennia of starvation from the simplest warming contact. It’s what you become when your life is subsumed into nothing but your duty. It’s what your heart turns into after so much pain.
I was always frost, hoarfrost, but it was different. There was joy in the creation of intricate icy art, the beauty of dancing my way across the tips of grasses and edges of leaves. I delighted in being nothing more than I was, the thought made tangible, the whim of the gods working their majesty on chilled mornings. To the gods, my name was just a name, nothing more.
And once I was no longer thought, taking the full flesh of a sidhe form, I was a still their beloved child, my hair the color of spun platinum, shiny and metallic, with eyes like stormy skies of roiling grey. Frost made living creature- etched in warm tissue, the breath of life flowing into the crystalline creations that leapt from my fingertips.
How could they know I’d become the Killing Frost, second in command of the queen’s guard, nothing more than an efficient murderer who delights in his job, for those are the only delights left. I don’t know when I became so frozen from the inside out. Maybe it was when I finally realized I would never beat Doyle, her majesty’s Darkness. I would always be second best, trapped in the Ravens like so many others, forbidden even the barest release. Not even that by my own hand was permitted. Yes, it was probably then.
How long ago was that? I don’t remember. Time seems to blur together now, the monotony of staying sane, what a chore that was. It would have been so much easier to go slowly mad, finding relief in retreating to my own mind, but I wouldn’t let it go. So unusual in the sidhe, having hope. Hope implies a connection to the world that most Fey do not acknowledge. But maybe I’m not like most Fey.
For certainly she is not. The reason the ice started to crack. All it took was one kiss, awkward and hungry in the back of the Coach, and I fell apart. Not that it was obvious then, but she had my heart. Princess Meredith. The not quite sidhe who holds the hopes and fears and fates of us all. For if she is to become pregnant then she is to become queen.
And there is the painful blade of hope. If, if, if. It is always if. How desperately we want it to be when. How desperately I want it to be me. For once, I have that chance, a real chance, to be first. To be king.
And it is all because of her. Not that the others know the depths of our feelings, not really. Doyle sees the love we share, and it makes him unhappy. Not that he wishes either of us ill, but he knows what will happen if one of the other guards is the father. Himself, he could stand, though perhaps Merry could not. The others have not the strength to rule, though they would not admit it. If, if, if. He knows and it makes him unhappy.
The new princess as well, Cordelia. She watches us across the table, spinning impossible tales of her life, and she smiles. What a strange creature to come into our lives now and it makes me wonder if Meredith’s promise to protect us all has been answered. Regardless of why she’s here, she knows, this perceptive new princess, how close I came to losing not only my life, but my hope and my love.
Maybe it is her nature, to be sidhe and not, that makes Meredith so precious. Made up of human, brownie and sidhe. A mortal with powers designed to last for eternity. Maybe it is the blood red flames of her hair that wove through me and melted my defenses. The true red of the Unseelie court brands her before everyone, announcing to the world that she is of the darkling throng. Maybe it is finally my time, ever hoped for, ever despaired for.
So I hope and praise the Lord and Lady that this strange new sidhe princess had the vision that saved us both, whatever the reason. And I wonder, what happens if the ifs come true. If the child will be mine and I am king, what will be my name then? For it surely cannot be Frost any longer. That Frost will have melted away and I will stand forth a shining new thing.
That day, I shall ask Meredith for a new name, a name fit for a king, and I will love it as I love her.
~~~End Frost’s Interlude~~~
Episode: Barinthus’ Interlude
Rating: PG
Notes: This is a POV interlude for Barinthus, falling immediately after Chapter Four- Making an Entrance for Lifting the Veil. It gives a bit of perspective for those not familiar with the character of Barinthus, the sea god, and his role in Meredith’s life. While he’s not physically present yet in Cordelia’s story, he becomes integral at a later point. I chose to place his interlude now to help clue in readers unfamiliar with the Merry Gentry series as to other players in Meredith’s life besides her rotating bed partners at Maeve’s mansion.
~~~Barinthus’ Interlude~~~
They think I want to be king. They, the faceless masses of the Unseelie court. They plot and connive and fear for the day I sweep in and take the consort’s throne for my own. They don’t understand, though. Who would want to be a king when you used to be a god? What worth is the dominion over mere sidhe, fey, when you used to have the worship of the masses at your fingertips? I could command the seas to my bidding, wrap the very lifeblood of the world around my whim. What is the command over petty, restless immortals compared to that?
No, I don’t want to be king.
For I wouldn’t be king on my own merit, merely the sidhe that supplied the desperately wanted seed for Meredith’s salvation. I would be relegated to a secondary position, once again, stripped of what little dignity I have left. I am no longer Manannan mac Lir, but the shadow of him remains, haunting me for the rest of my eternity, struggling to understand his diminished place in the world.
This doesn’t mean I don’t support the princess, I do, but I wouldn’t become a contender for her consort if I could help it. She doesn’t need me, not like that. I will do whatever she needs to survive in the Unseelie court, honor my friendship with her father, my friendship with her, but not that, not now. The queen would force me if she knew the ring liked me as well, not just the men she has at her call in LA. But that is our secret, Merry’s and mine. Our reasons for keeping that secret aren’t the same, of course, but reasons none the less. So I respect that and try to make her world a little friendlier when she returns. I know she worries for my life, as well she should, but I will survive. I always do. One does not last thousands of years without learning a trick or two, with or without magic.
I may not be able to summon a fog or a mystical army to protect my lands but I can still protect what needs to be protected. She is precious, a vessel for all our hope, but she is still vulnerable. Too many wish her ill, both Cel’s supporters and other sidhe. She has the strength of the goblin army at her back, but only temporarily. King Kurag will drive entirely too hard a bargain to keep their support, one I am not sure Meredith should accept. Queen Niceven’s demi-fey spy for my princess, but the same information goes to Queen Andais, as well as my queen’s ability to pluck words and phrases from the very night air. Andais has set this all in motion, but there is no guarantee she won’t strike against Meredith should her ever-changing moods dictate that Andais seek Meredith’s blood. So I sit and I plot and I evade the assassination attempts all with an eye for the future and an ear to the whispers.
Barinthus Queenmaker they call me, the one behind the throne. I negotiate court politics day after day, maneuver the strings of intrigue so that Meredith has a chance of success. She could be the savior of us all, but if she was to become pregnant and the time was not right, or the path not set, then all would come to naught.
It is not only the court I hear, the soft hiss of conspiracy: the waters whisper to me as they have done since the beginning of my time. The gentle babble of a brook, the roar of the surf, the soft still sigh of a lake. Within the voice of the water that murmurs in the back of my mind are the words of careless beings, spoken too close to fluid surfaces. Language over choppy ocean waves is too distorted for much information to come my way, not of any real use, but what is said in the still places…yes, what is said there reverberates through the strains of magic still binding me to this world and I listen.
There is new magic awake in this world, borne by a strange fey princess, a creature from another land. She speaks of fantastical things, twisting her life story to Meredith and her guards, and still I listen, words washed in minute waves from the reflecting dish in the sitting room of Merry’s new abode. Fantastical, true, but a new breath of hope we all need. The proof that the Lord and Lady have not abandoned us all to a withering fate; that they look over us as children gone astray. They removed their gifts from us long ago, even before we diminished ourselves. But they no longer wish us ill, and that gives these old bones hope.
Meredith isn’t as alone as I feared, for now a new companion has shown up on her door. Even though my gifts have waned, some remain to me. Other fey forget this, choosing to see the shadow I have become rather than the glory I was, and so they turn a deaf ear. But some know, some like the Darkness, so I do not believe that I come by this information in error.
She is intriguing, this Princess Cordelia. A study in contrast, wit and gravity, a young woman who can both fight and laugh. She finds amusement in Merry’s situation, a breath of fresh air to be sure, and I believe that the two shall be good for each other. Though under Cordelia’s light banter, there is a wound, something taken from her never to be regained. I hope, for her sake, that she finds a measure of peace her amongst us, the unlooked for brethren.
Merry needs someone to keep her in touch with the reality outside of the courts, now that her job is suspended. Maeve Reed, the Seelie sidhe whose home they have as sanctuary, is too much like her former self, a fertility deity, the embodiment of springtime regeneration: a woman used to adoration, for Meredith to find a kindred soul. Maeve has lost herself, and that makes her dangerous, whether she wounds from fear or insecurity.
But that is of no matter. The court spins its webs regardless of the flow out the human world. All too soon Cel will be released from his prison, and Meredith will face more dangerous enemies than a sidhe in mourning for a lost love. Meredith is yet with child, and our time grows short. Whether Cordelia’s presence tips the balance remains to be seen, but with the Lord and Lady’s intervention, Meredith cannot help but survive.
~~~End Barinthus’ Interlude~~~