I Heart Polls
Number two! Hoo hoo hah haah! Blame saiena for this one. She went that way.
Poll You're Nicked, Chum!
Just a brief little 'meet the fae' sort of thing, and a bit extra about Cochalyon since I've said so little so far. Stefran works with some delightful people, really. ^_-
Stefran showed his sleeve of passes to the officers outside the medical bay, watching them eyeing all the red stamps of 'provisional access only', 'restricted permissions only'.
"You don't look hurt to me," said one of them. "You need pills for fae fever, new blood?"
'Fae fever' was the soldiers' jolly term for coming over sick or frightened after meeting the fae. Stefran was used to this sort of hazing - there'd been plenty of it even in just a few days, and there'd no doubt be plenty more for a while yet. "I've been sent here to talk to an Officer Leddon."
"Ah, right. First bed as you go in. Mind your Ps and Qs." The officer winked at him - malicious or good-natured, it was hard to tell - and opened up the door.
The medical bay was one of the larger rooms on the second floor, removed from the main complex below. The walls were dull steel rather than the lightly rusty 'flat iron' that dominated the securer areas of the Iron Hold. Two low-slung beds lined the longer walls and a token examination table stood up the far end, but in reality the medical bay was for minor accidents or initial emergency management only; anything else entailed a trip topside to the hospital only a few blocks away from the Hold.
There were only three in the medical bay now, all of them Army men, with the doctor bustling around some of his shelves down the end, oblivious or indifferent to Stefran's arrival. The closest bed on Stefran's left was occupied by a thin, almost gaunt man with steely grey hair and dark, deep-set eyes.
"Officer Leddon?" Stefran asked him.
"Yeah," the man replied, looking Stefran up and down.
"I'm Stefran Ixion. I'm new at this facility. I've been told that you have a bit of free time to tell me a bit more about the fae."
"No-one has 'free time' at the Hold," said Officer Leddon darkly. "Not even when they're in the sick bay, apparently. No, it's fine, just take a seat there or something. I'm going out of my mind with boredom anyway."
Stefran sat. The man had 'ballbreaker' written all over him. "Mind me asking what put you here?"
"A frigging door," snapped the soldier. "And the bloody idiot who shut it on my bloody fingers. Meanwhile I'm still waiting for the plaster."
"It's coming, you old bastard," the doctor's voice returned in the background. "How about I give you a tranquilliser instead?"
Officer Leddon grunted, still eyeing Stefran. "Got nothing for you to do, have they?"
"No," replied Stefran candidly. "Particularly not since the other day."
"Ah, yeah. Bloody Arathalian." He seemed very fond of that word. "All right. What'll I tell you?"
"A bit more about the fae and working with them would be useful. I've only met one."
"Ilinme? Ascalain?"
"Ilinme."
"Pain in the arse."
"I thought they all were."
"Varying degrees. Varying degrees." Leddon scowled down at his hand for a moment - two of the fingers were horribly swollen - then launched into a fairly ascerbic overview. "Ilinme's a pain for us ... the soldiers, I'm talking, not you researchers ... for lots of reasons. One, more people have clearance to see her and Fiannas than the rest of the fae, so we're constantly opening and closing the door. Two, we've got to search the bloody cell every time we open her door to make sure she hasn't slipped out. Three, she's an irritating little trollop."
"I gathered that impression," admitted Stefran. "What about the others?"
Leddon scratched at his squared jaw. "Well, Fiannas ... she's fairly quiet. Especially when she's a rock." He laughed scratchily. "A bit timid. They caught her when she was young, I understand, so she doesn't know as much as the other fae, but she enchants those 'charge' things for artefacts storage and she's usually fairly cooperative. She likes paintings. Researchers give her pictures when they want to get her on side.
"Ascalain's another quiet one. His monthly cell inspections are a pain, though, because his cell's huge and he fills it with all kinds of junk. Go down to see him around evening tide when you get a chance - he's quite a sight."
"Oh, yes?"
"Yeah, he's the sea fae. Grows to be about thirty metres tall. Has to lie down in the cell." Leddon chuckled. "If you join Historiography you'll probably see quite a lot of him, but if you go for Artefacts there's no point. He doesn't like that bunch much."
"I haven't decided which department I'd like to join yet."
"Historiography's boring and safe. The rest are boring and dangerous. That's how I see it." His tone implied that this therefore made it true.
Stefran smiled slightly. "Special Issue's interesting and dangerous, is it?"
"Hell, no. It's worst of the lot - on the boring scale -and- the dangerous scale. Pays well, though, and you've got good, steady heads around you. Not like researchers. No offence."
"Sure. Until I'm off probation."
"Fair enough. Heh." Leddon chuckled again in that sharp, time-efficient rasp of his, eyeing Stefran with a bit more appreciation. "You'll get used to the Us Versus You mindset down here. It's mostly friendly, even when you researchers go and do something bloody stupid, like the other day in Arathalian's cell."
Stefran, who knew what had -actually- happened the other day, didn't comment. "Arathalian - how about him? I can't work out what use he is to anyone if he's trying to break necks all the time."
"The other day wasn't the norm. That researcher just managed to royally piss him off somehow, which is never a good idea." The steely-haired old soldier gave a shrug. "He's most useful to the Artefacts Research department, as I understand it. He hates our guts, sure enough, but he doesn't usually give us much actual trouble ... though we always have extra-sharp inspections for visitors. Even Culundar's twice as bad, and Nebeshanin's twice as bad again."
It seemed difficult to picture after all Stefran had seen and heard the other day, but there was no doubting that this dour warhorse knew what he was talking about. "Culundar and Nebeshanin are the beast fae, aren't they?"
"They are. The shapeshifting's part of what makes them a pain. Culundar is a jolly one - he sings, he chats to us through the door, he makes jokes - but he's the slipperiest son-of-a-bitch of the Seven. He's the only one who's come anywhere close to getting out into Talton. I daresay he's the most entertaining of the lot to have Query with, but don't let him chat you into letting your guard down. Can't count how many times he's snuck into the antechamber outside his cell ... we never want him to get further than that.
"He's still better than Nebeshanin. Nebeshanin is a murdering, cold-hearted whore and I can't wait for the day they decide she's no good to the Iron Hold any more. She answers plenty of questions, but whenever she gets the guilts about something she oughtn't have told us, she hurts someone. Badly. Either that or she just kills them. She kills more often than any of the fae, even Cochalyon - and you must've seen the security we have for him."
"Seen the security and heard the stories," replied Stefran dryly. "Just yesterday I learned how he occasionally eats researchers."
"That's not just hazing the new guy," Leddon warned. "He doesn't 'eat researchers', but when he kills someone, he's definitely been known to drink their blood. Spring through autumn, he's completely insane."
Stefran blinked. "Um ... seasonally insane?"
"Seasonally everything. You've never seen anything like it. Probably never will."
That hint of familiarity was even more surprising. "And you have?"
"Yes," Leddon replied. "I've manned his second antechamber for twenty years. He's a hell of a piece of work. And 'hell's a good word, let me tell you."
"I suppose it's classified."
"Classified?" The officer looked amused. "'Course it's not 'classified'. Cell layout is, yes, guard numbers are, yes, but not Cochalyon himself. You can get a bloody book about him out from a library."
"I can't see head office giving me time off for that."
Leddon gave that dry chuckle. "Yeah, I'm the streamlined government option, apparently. All right. Cochalyon." He gave a bit of an ambiguous shrug. It might have meant 'where to begin?', or it might have meant 'what's the point of telling you?'. "Cochalyon is a seasonal fae - he changes year-round. In spring, he has very dark green hair and green eyes. He's also a shrieking, screaming mess. There's nothing worse than standing outside his door on a spring day - especially not in wing-pulling season."
"In what?"
"Wing-pulling season. Every spring he sprouts a big pair of thick, green wings. He spends the first two weeks of the season ripping them off his back, piece by piece, breaking all kinds of bones and screeching bloody murder. No idea why. There probably -is- no idea. He's raving mad the whole season. The boffins in the Fae Linguistics Department love that time of year, though, because he rants in the fae language quite a lot. It's valuable - apparently - because none of the other fae ever teach researchers anything about their language. Me, it just gives me a bloody headache."
"They must be pretty tough stuff in the Linguistics Department," observed Stefran warily.
"Tough?" Leddon looked blank for a moment, then snorted. "Iron in hell, boy, they don't go into the cell! They just listen at the door and take their notes. They could probably even listen from down the bloody hall. Just you wait for spring and you'll hear what I mean."
Stefran hadn't been called 'boy' for a long time - even before his hair had started showing streaks of silver. "I see."
"We don't let anyone into the cell in spring. We wouldn't have any hope of controlling him without killing him. He's completely bloody immune to pain. Well, he feels it - you'll hear, like I said - but it doesn't slow him down at all. I've seen him dig bullets out of his body with his own fingers.
"Summer's the first month we start letting researchers in, though I personally think it should be out of bounds as well. If someone's going to be killed in Cochalyon's cell, there's a seventy percent chance of it being a summer visit." He snorted again. "He looks like he's got no energy in summer - he certainly doesn't move around much - but he's still got plenty of magic and he's unstable as hell, even for him. One minute he can be lying on the floor, groaning or crying and telling whoever's asking him questions to go away, and the next minute he'll fly into this mad rage and go for whatever's closest."
Leddon paused to give the doctor an evil eye as the man dragged up a small trestle on wheels. "Then there's autumn. Find one of those books I mentioned if you can, because he's an interesting sight even in pictures - you're not going to see the real thing for yourself, I'm afraid. His hair and eyes change to oranges and reds and yellows - a lot like those foreign maple trees, actually.
"He's quiet in autumn. Blessedly quiet. He does very little but sit in the one spot. Not much use to most researchers in autumn, though. He starts having a few more of his lucid moments - definitely as compared to spring or summer - but he's just as likely to start talking about something completely irrelevant or go completely mum. Historiography loves him in autumn; the other departments don't."
"You just about ready for that plaster, you withering old dog?" asked the doctor, placing a bowl of warm water on the trestle with the rest of the medical mysteries Stefran could see there.
"Yeah, just a minute," Leddon growled. "You kept me waiting - you can bloody well wait a moment yourself."
"No, I'll come back later -" began Stefran.
"I said he could bloody well wait," the old soldier cut in brusquely. "And he can. Sit down, new blood."
Stefran eyed the doctor with some uncertainty, but the doctor's expression was vaguely amused. These two were just abusive friends, apparently. Special Issue always had their own weird take on camaraderie.
"Winter," pronounced Leddon, "is the best month for all of us, researchers and guards. Cochalyon is completely lucid the whole way through. It's probably because his hair goes white. Everyone starts to talk sense when their hair goes white." He nodded at Stefran's salt-and-pepper sprinkling. "You're getting there, slowly."
"Thanks."
"In winter you can ask him questions and he'll answer you, even if only to tell you to go screw yourself. He makes lots of demands - best time for the researchers to bribe him for a bit of help. He can reason and be reasoned with. If he kills you in winter, you've done something absolutely bloody stupid to piss him off - at length, probably."
"I don't envy you, Officer Leddon." Stefran smiled slightly again. "I was starting to think that being a researcher was dangerous. You've properly chastened me, I think."
"Yeah, well, I won't cross my fingers for any -sensible- researchers," the grey-haired warhorse groused. "I can't. This bloody idiot hasn't fixed them up yet."
"I'm going to put a plaster cast on your bloody head in a minute," warned the doctor.
Stefran stood up and let the doctor move in, gathering up his passes again. "Thanks a lot for your time, Officer Leddon."
"Yeah, all right," Leddon growled. "Keep your ears open, new blood. And if any of your bunch try to contradict something I've said, ignore them. Special Issue know the fae a lot better than they do."
"Sure." Stefran turned to leave.
"Good luck, new blood," he heard the man call. "Be careful out there. - Agh, you bloody mongrel! Fix the break, don't break them off!"
Poll You're Nicked, Chum!
Just a brief little 'meet the fae' sort of thing, and a bit extra about Cochalyon since I've said so little so far. Stefran works with some delightful people, really. ^_-
Stefran showed his sleeve of passes to the officers outside the medical bay, watching them eyeing all the red stamps of 'provisional access only', 'restricted permissions only'.
"You don't look hurt to me," said one of them. "You need pills for fae fever, new blood?"
'Fae fever' was the soldiers' jolly term for coming over sick or frightened after meeting the fae. Stefran was used to this sort of hazing - there'd been plenty of it even in just a few days, and there'd no doubt be plenty more for a while yet. "I've been sent here to talk to an Officer Leddon."
"Ah, right. First bed as you go in. Mind your Ps and Qs." The officer winked at him - malicious or good-natured, it was hard to tell - and opened up the door.
The medical bay was one of the larger rooms on the second floor, removed from the main complex below. The walls were dull steel rather than the lightly rusty 'flat iron' that dominated the securer areas of the Iron Hold. Two low-slung beds lined the longer walls and a token examination table stood up the far end, but in reality the medical bay was for minor accidents or initial emergency management only; anything else entailed a trip topside to the hospital only a few blocks away from the Hold.
There were only three in the medical bay now, all of them Army men, with the doctor bustling around some of his shelves down the end, oblivious or indifferent to Stefran's arrival. The closest bed on Stefran's left was occupied by a thin, almost gaunt man with steely grey hair and dark, deep-set eyes.
"Officer Leddon?" Stefran asked him.
"Yeah," the man replied, looking Stefran up and down.
"I'm Stefran Ixion. I'm new at this facility. I've been told that you have a bit of free time to tell me a bit more about the fae."
"No-one has 'free time' at the Hold," said Officer Leddon darkly. "Not even when they're in the sick bay, apparently. No, it's fine, just take a seat there or something. I'm going out of my mind with boredom anyway."
Stefran sat. The man had 'ballbreaker' written all over him. "Mind me asking what put you here?"
"A frigging door," snapped the soldier. "And the bloody idiot who shut it on my bloody fingers. Meanwhile I'm still waiting for the plaster."
"It's coming, you old bastard," the doctor's voice returned in the background. "How about I give you a tranquilliser instead?"
Officer Leddon grunted, still eyeing Stefran. "Got nothing for you to do, have they?"
"No," replied Stefran candidly. "Particularly not since the other day."
"Ah, yeah. Bloody Arathalian." He seemed very fond of that word. "All right. What'll I tell you?"
"A bit more about the fae and working with them would be useful. I've only met one."
"Ilinme? Ascalain?"
"Ilinme."
"Pain in the arse."
"I thought they all were."
"Varying degrees. Varying degrees." Leddon scowled down at his hand for a moment - two of the fingers were horribly swollen - then launched into a fairly ascerbic overview. "Ilinme's a pain for us ... the soldiers, I'm talking, not you researchers ... for lots of reasons. One, more people have clearance to see her and Fiannas than the rest of the fae, so we're constantly opening and closing the door. Two, we've got to search the bloody cell every time we open her door to make sure she hasn't slipped out. Three, she's an irritating little trollop."
"I gathered that impression," admitted Stefran. "What about the others?"
Leddon scratched at his squared jaw. "Well, Fiannas ... she's fairly quiet. Especially when she's a rock." He laughed scratchily. "A bit timid. They caught her when she was young, I understand, so she doesn't know as much as the other fae, but she enchants those 'charge' things for artefacts storage and she's usually fairly cooperative. She likes paintings. Researchers give her pictures when they want to get her on side.
"Ascalain's another quiet one. His monthly cell inspections are a pain, though, because his cell's huge and he fills it with all kinds of junk. Go down to see him around evening tide when you get a chance - he's quite a sight."
"Oh, yes?"
"Yeah, he's the sea fae. Grows to be about thirty metres tall. Has to lie down in the cell." Leddon chuckled. "If you join Historiography you'll probably see quite a lot of him, but if you go for Artefacts there's no point. He doesn't like that bunch much."
"I haven't decided which department I'd like to join yet."
"Historiography's boring and safe. The rest are boring and dangerous. That's how I see it." His tone implied that this therefore made it true.
Stefran smiled slightly. "Special Issue's interesting and dangerous, is it?"
"Hell, no. It's worst of the lot - on the boring scale -and- the dangerous scale. Pays well, though, and you've got good, steady heads around you. Not like researchers. No offence."
"Sure. Until I'm off probation."
"Fair enough. Heh." Leddon chuckled again in that sharp, time-efficient rasp of his, eyeing Stefran with a bit more appreciation. "You'll get used to the Us Versus You mindset down here. It's mostly friendly, even when you researchers go and do something bloody stupid, like the other day in Arathalian's cell."
Stefran, who knew what had -actually- happened the other day, didn't comment. "Arathalian - how about him? I can't work out what use he is to anyone if he's trying to break necks all the time."
"The other day wasn't the norm. That researcher just managed to royally piss him off somehow, which is never a good idea." The steely-haired old soldier gave a shrug. "He's most useful to the Artefacts Research department, as I understand it. He hates our guts, sure enough, but he doesn't usually give us much actual trouble ... though we always have extra-sharp inspections for visitors. Even Culundar's twice as bad, and Nebeshanin's twice as bad again."
It seemed difficult to picture after all Stefran had seen and heard the other day, but there was no doubting that this dour warhorse knew what he was talking about. "Culundar and Nebeshanin are the beast fae, aren't they?"
"They are. The shapeshifting's part of what makes them a pain. Culundar is a jolly one - he sings, he chats to us through the door, he makes jokes - but he's the slipperiest son-of-a-bitch of the Seven. He's the only one who's come anywhere close to getting out into Talton. I daresay he's the most entertaining of the lot to have Query with, but don't let him chat you into letting your guard down. Can't count how many times he's snuck into the antechamber outside his cell ... we never want him to get further than that.
"He's still better than Nebeshanin. Nebeshanin is a murdering, cold-hearted whore and I can't wait for the day they decide she's no good to the Iron Hold any more. She answers plenty of questions, but whenever she gets the guilts about something she oughtn't have told us, she hurts someone. Badly. Either that or she just kills them. She kills more often than any of the fae, even Cochalyon - and you must've seen the security we have for him."
"Seen the security and heard the stories," replied Stefran dryly. "Just yesterday I learned how he occasionally eats researchers."
"That's not just hazing the new guy," Leddon warned. "He doesn't 'eat researchers', but when he kills someone, he's definitely been known to drink their blood. Spring through autumn, he's completely insane."
Stefran blinked. "Um ... seasonally insane?"
"Seasonally everything. You've never seen anything like it. Probably never will."
That hint of familiarity was even more surprising. "And you have?"
"Yes," Leddon replied. "I've manned his second antechamber for twenty years. He's a hell of a piece of work. And 'hell's a good word, let me tell you."
"I suppose it's classified."
"Classified?" The officer looked amused. "'Course it's not 'classified'. Cell layout is, yes, guard numbers are, yes, but not Cochalyon himself. You can get a bloody book about him out from a library."
"I can't see head office giving me time off for that."
Leddon gave that dry chuckle. "Yeah, I'm the streamlined government option, apparently. All right. Cochalyon." He gave a bit of an ambiguous shrug. It might have meant 'where to begin?', or it might have meant 'what's the point of telling you?'. "Cochalyon is a seasonal fae - he changes year-round. In spring, he has very dark green hair and green eyes. He's also a shrieking, screaming mess. There's nothing worse than standing outside his door on a spring day - especially not in wing-pulling season."
"In what?"
"Wing-pulling season. Every spring he sprouts a big pair of thick, green wings. He spends the first two weeks of the season ripping them off his back, piece by piece, breaking all kinds of bones and screeching bloody murder. No idea why. There probably -is- no idea. He's raving mad the whole season. The boffins in the Fae Linguistics Department love that time of year, though, because he rants in the fae language quite a lot. It's valuable - apparently - because none of the other fae ever teach researchers anything about their language. Me, it just gives me a bloody headache."
"They must be pretty tough stuff in the Linguistics Department," observed Stefran warily.
"Tough?" Leddon looked blank for a moment, then snorted. "Iron in hell, boy, they don't go into the cell! They just listen at the door and take their notes. They could probably even listen from down the bloody hall. Just you wait for spring and you'll hear what I mean."
Stefran hadn't been called 'boy' for a long time - even before his hair had started showing streaks of silver. "I see."
"We don't let anyone into the cell in spring. We wouldn't have any hope of controlling him without killing him. He's completely bloody immune to pain. Well, he feels it - you'll hear, like I said - but it doesn't slow him down at all. I've seen him dig bullets out of his body with his own fingers.
"Summer's the first month we start letting researchers in, though I personally think it should be out of bounds as well. If someone's going to be killed in Cochalyon's cell, there's a seventy percent chance of it being a summer visit." He snorted again. "He looks like he's got no energy in summer - he certainly doesn't move around much - but he's still got plenty of magic and he's unstable as hell, even for him. One minute he can be lying on the floor, groaning or crying and telling whoever's asking him questions to go away, and the next minute he'll fly into this mad rage and go for whatever's closest."
Leddon paused to give the doctor an evil eye as the man dragged up a small trestle on wheels. "Then there's autumn. Find one of those books I mentioned if you can, because he's an interesting sight even in pictures - you're not going to see the real thing for yourself, I'm afraid. His hair and eyes change to oranges and reds and yellows - a lot like those foreign maple trees, actually.
"He's quiet in autumn. Blessedly quiet. He does very little but sit in the one spot. Not much use to most researchers in autumn, though. He starts having a few more of his lucid moments - definitely as compared to spring or summer - but he's just as likely to start talking about something completely irrelevant or go completely mum. Historiography loves him in autumn; the other departments don't."
"You just about ready for that plaster, you withering old dog?" asked the doctor, placing a bowl of warm water on the trestle with the rest of the medical mysteries Stefran could see there.
"Yeah, just a minute," Leddon growled. "You kept me waiting - you can bloody well wait a moment yourself."
"No, I'll come back later -" began Stefran.
"I said he could bloody well wait," the old soldier cut in brusquely. "And he can. Sit down, new blood."
Stefran eyed the doctor with some uncertainty, but the doctor's expression was vaguely amused. These two were just abusive friends, apparently. Special Issue always had their own weird take on camaraderie.
"Winter," pronounced Leddon, "is the best month for all of us, researchers and guards. Cochalyon is completely lucid the whole way through. It's probably because his hair goes white. Everyone starts to talk sense when their hair goes white." He nodded at Stefran's salt-and-pepper sprinkling. "You're getting there, slowly."
"Thanks."
"In winter you can ask him questions and he'll answer you, even if only to tell you to go screw yourself. He makes lots of demands - best time for the researchers to bribe him for a bit of help. He can reason and be reasoned with. If he kills you in winter, you've done something absolutely bloody stupid to piss him off - at length, probably."
"I don't envy you, Officer Leddon." Stefran smiled slightly again. "I was starting to think that being a researcher was dangerous. You've properly chastened me, I think."
"Yeah, well, I won't cross my fingers for any -sensible- researchers," the grey-haired warhorse groused. "I can't. This bloody idiot hasn't fixed them up yet."
"I'm going to put a plaster cast on your bloody head in a minute," warned the doctor.
Stefran stood up and let the doctor move in, gathering up his passes again. "Thanks a lot for your time, Officer Leddon."
"Yeah, all right," Leddon growled. "Keep your ears open, new blood. And if any of your bunch try to contradict something I've said, ignore them. Special Issue know the fae a lot better than they do."
"Sure." Stefran turned to leave.
"Good luck, new blood," he heard the man call. "Be careful out there. - Agh, you bloody mongrel! Fix the break, don't break them off!"