All works belong to their respective owners.

Author's Note: I'm really not so good at alternative universes – or fantasy. And this is an amalgamation of both. Oh help.

You may recognize the world from the one-shot 'Of Weirdlings and Other Folk' but I have rebuilt it; I had the technology, I had the capability to build my first fantasy au. Better than it was before. Better, more detailed, higher word count.

Well, wish me luck and enjoy the ride!

Slow-burn USUK.

Warnings: Fantastic racism, and cultural discussions…?

Notes: Raw acorns are poisonous to humans so please don't try and eat them! Alfred and Arthur can both eat them because his body can process tannic acid much better than regular people. Despite being able to process that acid, it does make eating too many of them irritating to the body, and the raw accorns have a very sharp flavour.

If you really want to eat acorns you can rinse shelled acorns constantly for a number of weeks, or boil shelled accorns repeatedly before roasting them. I would advise a good trip to google before attempting this!

Ozymandias.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear -

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Percy Bysshe Shelle

Alfred had also been expecting notification of his assignment to Mao for some time now; he was a talented, upcoming linekeeper and it would be ideal for him to be sent to the conference on aetheritic shenkaiku for his specialization in cross-species bloodlines. So yes, he had been expecting notification any day now, but what he had not anticipated was the method of delivery:

A lithe – almost scrawny – weirdling, cloak trailing on the floor stood at his record's room door, fine whiskers twitching as he sniffed the air.

"Hello?" Alfred set down his fountain pen and got up slowly from his work station. "Can I help you?"

"Probably not," The Wiccan replied smoothly, twisting to glance around the room with the nervousness of an animal. As he turned, Alfred caught sight of the light feathering on the tapered ears, and outright stared. When the Wiccan turned back to face him, green eyes bright, slightly reflective and very demanding, Alfred tore his gaze away from the strange creamy fur at the nape of the Wiccan's blond hair. He smiled curiously at the Wiccan as he continued to attempt not to looking at the pale charcoal rosettes at the man's throat; the blurry marks hiding near the collar of his cloak. "Alfred of Bernadette?"

"Speaking." Alfred answered, following the unease in the Wiccan's body with his eyes, before once more trying to refocus on the weirder's face. His eyes caught on the thick, down like eyebrows, sensitive whiskers shifting as the Wiccan's brow furrowed. He seemed to be sizing Alfred up and - more than that - finding him lacking.

"My name is Arthur; I'm to accompany you to Mao for the Shenkai Conference." The Wiccan finally replied, nose screwing up ever so slightly.

"Oh," Alfred frowned. "I wasn't expecting-"

"A travelling partner?" Arthur finished with poisonous boredom.

"Well," Alfred ran a hand through his hair, combing the blond out of his eyes. "Frankly, yes."

"There have been attacks, and it was decided travelling groups would be better." Arthur bared his teeth. "We are meeting more of the party at Highgate and Shen."

"Huh, four days walk." Alfred considered the distance.

"Six," Arthur corrected. "I am Wiccan." He said the last as though admitting Folk could step for step walk further, faster, and quicker than a weirder was a little too shameful for the conversation.

"Slo- -oh." Alfred laughed awkwardly. "Not that it's an issue, of course."

"Of course," Arthur's teeth flashed once more. "When will you be ready to go?"

"Huh?" Alfred scratched his chin and glanced back at his work. He was loathe to leave it, but frankly, tracing the spread of second class strength enhancers through the minor families was significantly less important than the Mao conference. "Any time – I've been waiting for a hawk for weeks."

"Mm," Arthur's teeth were hidden from view again. "Now?"

"You're ready to go?"

"All my possessions are in this bag," Arthur gestured at the over shoulder bag bumping at his thigh. It jangled suspiciously. "I've journeyed here from Lamiae."

"Oh, you're from Harvest?" Alfred asked without thinking. Arthur looked at him queerly, and Alfred slapped himself on the forehead. "Right, right, stupid question. Lamiae is the Wicca city connected to Harvest. Stupid question."

"No trouble," The Wiccan gave a shrug. "I expect plenty more." Arthur added curtly, nose wrinkling as he turned to stalk out of the room, leaving Alfred feeling more than a little put-out at the prospect of six days alone with the weirder. Nevertheless Alfred shoved his papers into a leather binder, and looking regretfully at the desk mess, hurriedly scrawled a note about the side branch he was looking at and clipped it to the binder: that would honestly have to do.

Hefting the pack already set aside for just this moment, Alfred hurried after the Wiccan. Arthur was waiting for him, pacing in a tight little circle, and looking each way nervously. Once Alfred appeared, he immediately began to head for the edge of town.

"Who else have we got in the party? At Highgate I mean?" Alfred asked as the weirdling hop-skipped, twitched and jolted through Bernadette. People were staring, and it was having the most amusing affect on the Wiccan. All that cat-blood in them made them jittery things.

"Two Aelves, a Selkie golem, a Selkie and another Folk." Arthur responded, outright jumping as a small dog barked at them as they passed.

"How on earth is a Selkie going to walk from Highgate to Salisbury without a golem? It's on land." Alfred snorted as he imagined carting around a barrel of water with one of those fish people in it.

"He is apparently part-folk and fully capable of land travel." Arthur replied.

"Oh, interesting," Alfred's mind whirred through the lines trying to guess at who the Selkie-hybrid might be. "Is it Tteo? He's the only hybrid I can think of who's studying pharmacology."

"I wouldn't know." Arthur answered irritably as they came to the edge of Bernadette. Alfred gave a sunny wave back to his town, as Arthur's gait became less and less edgy as he stalked out without a backwards glance.

"So, what do you do?" Alfred continued amicably.

"Hm?"

"Y'know, like I'm a linekeeper."

"I have no idea what that is."

"Oh, well it's like a junior specialist for drafting breeding lines." Alfred explained cheerily, trying to make the best of conversation. "I'm working on cross-species, mainly on breeding out selkie visual issues without removing any reaction enhancement. It's pretty interesting."

"Uhuh." Arthur seemed to be fairly uninterested.

"Um," Alfred frowned awkwardly. "My drafting looks like I can take it out in a generation or two with the right stock."

"Mh-hm."

Alfred's frown deepened. "You know, a single generation maybe."

"That's very impressive." Arthur droned reassuringly.

"Yeah," Alfred sighed. "I know."

"Fascinating," Arthur added, clearly not listening, as he began gazing off towards the horizon, and sniffing the air. "That sounds like it must take a lot of work."

"Yeah, and then," Alfred rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'll… go to the moon," Arthur nodded, humming in encouragement. "And become a florist…"

"That sounds nice.

"Yep." Alfred agreed sarcastically before stopping suddenly. "Wait, are we going in there?"

"Fascinating." Arthur murmured, not realizing the change in discussion, and Alfred promptly stomped on the Wiccan's cloak. Arthur yelped as he was yanked back. "What was that about?!" He demanded, pulling his cloak from under Alfred's boot.

"Are we going into the forest?"

"Are we going into the- of course we're going into the forest," Arthur scowled. "You've already griped about the journey time and it's faster."

"Through the forest?" Alfred repeated uncertainly. "Aren't there…" He stared dumbly at Arthur, realizing that his argument was going to be incredibly offensive. "Uh, Weirders… in… there."

"It's a bloody path," Arthur snapped. "Maybe the occasional traveler but no, actually, thanks for the good faith. Weirder huh? Glad to know I'm stuck with a racist-"

"Hey, if your lot would stop burning down our houses then maybe I wouldn't be so paranoid-"

"My lot? What about you folk? Chopping down trees. Which are our trees by the way."

"At the edge of the forests, not your homes."

"Oh and then next year when you cut further in how long will-"

"So the trees we plant along your borders are what? Invisible? Oh wait, you guys pull them up by the roots."

"The dryads in those are goddamn hostile towards the local trees, which you'd know if you knew anything at all."

"Yeah?" Alfred glared. "Okay, what do I do for a living?"

"Roll around in the mud maybe?" Arthur shrugged. "I don't know – what do you trogs spend your time doing?"

"Now who's racist?" Alfred smirked, and Arthur glowered back at him, but held his tongue, baring his teeth slightly.

Shifting from foot to foot, Arthur finally found sentence that was apparently inoffensive enough to share: "It will be two more days if we go by plain rather than wood, so we're going through the woods and I am not spending two extra days with you."

"Fine by me." Alfred followed Arthur huffily into the forest. "For the record, I'm a linekeeper. I draft breeding patterns and maintain bloodline records and cure genetic diseases. Oh, and I simply love rolling in mud and dirt and sh-"

"Ssh." Arthur murmured, touching a hand to a tree.

"You want me to shut up? Okay, I'll shut up. Boy I wonder how long this trip is going to take, I sure wish it would be over because I simply cannot stand-"

"Shut up!" Arthur roared, wrenching his hand away from the tree. "I am trying to ask for directions you troglodyte!"

Alfred snorted, but crossed his arms and kept quiet as Arthur hummed lightly, stroking the tree bark briefly. Finally, Arthur pulled away and kicked the tree moodily. "No luck?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Arthur snapped, managing both to stomp away from the tree, whilst being utterly silent in the crisp leafy bracken.

"And, again, I'm a linekeeper, I cure congenital sight problems."

Arthur, finally seemed to register this statement, looking at Alfred with wary curiousity. "In animals?" He said with reluctant interest.

"No, in Folk mostly."

Puzzled, the Wiccan glanced back at Alfred. "How?"

"Breeding lines, of course." Alfred replied, equally puzzled. One of Arthur's feathery eyebrows quirked, but the Wiccan had nothing to add. "I'm trying to separate Selkie eyesight from reaction speed so we can keep the enhancement without needing, well," Alfred tapped his glasses and clicked his tongue in demonstration. "I reckon I can do it in a generation with the right stock, but I'll need a linedrawer – they're senior specialists – to look it over."

"Right… stock…" Arthur mumbled to himself. "Wait, do you breed your own kind like domestic animals?" The Wiccan's scowled. "Sorry, that's offensive of me."

"No worries," Alfred laughed. "For the record, of course not; Clans accept the breeding patterns and then the relevant stock gets married; it's entirely consensual."

"So some people choose to get married according to a pattern?" Arthur asked, now definitely curious. "So that it's consensual?"

"Oh, no the families accept the pattern as a whole and anybody involved gets married according to it."

It was Arthur's turn to stop in his tracks and Alfred ran right into the smaller man. Arthur gaped at Alfred openly. "What? So you're all breeding stock?"

"Well, we're all aspects of the blo-"

"So wait, wait," Arthur rubbed his forehead. "Okay, so you guys mate to only one mate and you don't even get to pick? Is that what you're saying? And then you have to have offspring? No choice?"

"Well, we can remarry," Alfred mused. "If a better pattern is drawn up but we really prefer not to mix too much because then we could lose genetic variance and it gets tricky to avoid reinforcing bloodline problems." Alfred tipped his head, Arthur looked frankly horrified.

"Is that going to happen to you?" Arthur bit his lip, whiskers quivering.

"Bloodline problems?"

"No, no, an arranged mate. A breeding pattern, or whatever?"

"Well, probably," Alfred ran a hand through his hair in thought. "I've got excellent enhancements and I know I'm in a couple of drafts: I'm even in my own draft."

"If your draft gets - accepted - then, you'll marry someone you want to?"

"Never even met the girl." Alfred giggled to himself. "But she's got a fantastic Selkie branch without the visual issues and is significantly removed from my bloodline."

"Oh," Arthur mumbled. "Sorry."

"Why?" Alfred cracked an instinctual smile of reassurance.

"No reason, I guess?" Arthur looked at Alfred with sympathy. "Wiccans are polyamorous like Aelves."

"Must be hard to keep track of your lines." Alfred commented.

"It's not something we do actually."

"Woah," Alfred now looked a little horrified. "You can marry your own sister? And not know it? That's crazy."

"I'd recognize the ether of someone so closely related to me," Arthur answered irritably. "And we don't mate permanently. Marry. Whatever."

"That's interesting, but doesn't that make it even harder to keep track of?" Alfred said, deep in thought.

"Contrary to what you think, we don't need to memorize fifteen generations to avoid inbreeding."

"I guess you're right," Alfred grinned. "But I guess, if I wanted to bring Wiccan blood into a line, I wouldn't really know what I'd get then? Like the old Selk lines?"

"I struggle to imagine any Wiccan choosing the situation you posit."

"It's just a thought."

"I guess so then." Arthur stopped by another tree. This time, however, he glanced at Alfred. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out."

"Pardon?"

"Go ahead." Arthur pressed a hand against the tree, parts of his mind unwinding, slipping quietly through the leaves, announcing himself with veins of thought. There was a sudden snapping sound, and the dryad fled deep into the recesses of its leafy defenses, the psychic foliage obscuring the bony, wiry creature from Arthur's mind.

Arthur turned around to see Alfred calmly picking acorns from the tree, and Arthur snarled at him. Confused, Alfred squinted at Arthur. "What's the matter?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Uh, we'll need to eat lunch?"

"I could have asked! You didn't need to rip that off! You startled the dryad that lived there!"

"Uh, sorry," Alfred glanced at the tree. "Mister tree?" He looked at Arthur as though to say this was a stupid, idiotic moment.

"Ugh," Arthur looked up at the tree, "Dryads are hermaphroditic, but it doesn't matter anyway," He scowled and then stalked away, cloak whirling about him. "Come on." Alfred's footsteps pounded after the Wiccan, even as Arthur slid over the leaves, causing barely a whisper as he did so.

"Where'd you learn to magic?" Alfred asked into the uncomfortable silence.

"Magic is the slang term, can you at least speak Common correctly?" Arthur snapped when the palm of Alfred's hand pressed against his shoulder, and he frantically brushed it off.

"Alright, no need to be so horrible. Where'd you learn to weird?"

"That's just an insulting aspersion now." Arthur sighed. "You shouldn't use a foul word like that, not without washing your mouth out." Arthur adjusted the bag strap, stopping short, Alfred crashing into his back, and quickly jumped back when Arthur caught him in a fierce glance tossed over the shoulder. Arthur rooted through his bag, looking for something.

"What would you call it then?"

"Hm?" Arthur glanced back at Alfred.

"What would you call it." Alfred repeated, smiling brightly, and Arthur gave him an odd look, before shrugging, and continuing to search his bag.

"Seithr, at least that was the branch I was using then."

"Seithr?" Alfred inquisitively smiled at Arthur, who pulled out a jangling necklace of pieces of shell, and glass. "What on earth is that?"

"Seidrn branch magic, since I want directions and you scare away anyone I can ask." Arthur shook the necklace in the air, the glass catching on the barred light and glinting. "I'm consulting a borial." Alfred's blank expression was exasperating, and Arthur stopped waving the piece of etheric equipment around fruitlessly. "A borial is a magical map kinda…" Athur trailed off whilst mumbling something that sounded like: not really.

"Oh, alright then." Alfred snapped his fingers, and then paused "Don't you need to shut your eyes, or something? You know." Arthur stared at him. "For the magic to work correctly?" Arthur's stared wider. "I just thought…"

"Ether." Arthur corrected. "It's called Ether, not magic. Technically. And no, that's just silly." Arthur tossed the necklace into the air and it flew high into the streaming light, then tumbled down at their feet. Alfred blinked. "Right, this way." Arthur scooped up the borial and trod off into the undergrowth.

"Wait, wait, I didn't see anything!" Alfred yelled haplessly.

"Figures. You need to be more mindful of things." Arthur shoved the borial into his satchel again.

"I'm plenty mindful," Alfred defended. "You think I can recall a list of selkie-folk hybrids off the top of my head without being mindful?"

"I wouldn't know if that needed mindfulness, but if you're so mindful, what sort of tree did you attack?" Arthur looked rather unimpressed.

"Uh," Alfred grinned uneasily. "A… leafy one?"

"Right. Even without ether you should be able to recognize an oak tree; it was a Northern Oak." Arthur hummed for a second. "Or it sounded northern."

"Sounded?"

"Tasted." Arthur amended.

"Tasted?" Alfred stared at his companion.

"…Felt?" The two of them both stared at each other for a few moments. "It's difficult to explain; the dryad's etheric…" Arthur cast about for the correct word.

"Magical aura." Alfred supplied helpfully.

"Etheric Presence." Arthur rolled his eyes. "Had a northern… dialect to its Seithr." Arthur shrugged and continued on his way. "Regardless, this will be the right route."

Alfred looked down the 'route' Arthur intended to take, the branches of the trees curled like defiant fists, and the leaves flared like the tail of a hawk. "To the town, right?" Arthur looked back at him.

"Why would we be going to a town?"

"Easingwold – I thought we were going to Easingwold." Alfred asserted, crossing his arms defiantly. "I don't want to be in the woods overnight."

Arthur laughed. "Well, I suppose we might be passing Easingwold, but it'll take longer to go via a town. Besides, it's safer in the woods."

"And supplies?" Alfred's mouth set in an angry and surprised line.

Arthur pointed at the ground. "This wood is friendly enough – it won't begrudge us some vittles." Alfred reached out, and seized Arthur by the tail of his cloak. "Oi, get off, trollbreath."

"We are so not staying the night in this place – it's creepy, weirdling."

Arthur jerked his cloak back with a pull. "Don't call me that." He spat it out harshly. "Wicca, if you must. Magician, if you insist on being wrong." Arthur fussed with his cloak, eying Alfred menacingly. "Which you do, bloody hell."

"We are not staying in this forest overnight," Alfred insisted, and stepped forward, preparing to pluck Arthur up in his arms. "And that's final." Arthur promptly darted to the side, almost as though he hadn't moved. Barely a flitter of green cloak, and then he was gone. A single leafy movement; spindly and thin.

"Scared?" Arthur inquired, licking his lips. "Big damn hero not so big when he's lost in the woods, then?" Arthur stepped forward, eying the taller man, smirking a wolf smile, full of bared teeth and dilated pupils. "Are you frightened of this place, then?"

Alfred stepped back a pace, eyes widening. "Of course." Alfred stared up into the canopy. "I'm brave enough to admit this place is unnatural."

Arthur glanced round the forest, and listened to the scuttling sounds of sprites, of merquil darting deep into its crevices and craning secrets. "It's not unnatural – it's the most natural thing in the world." Arthur had expected fear, but not that. "Is that what you all," Arthur gestured back towards Bernadette. "All of you folk think? You think we are… unnatural? When you use your own as stud?"

Alfred nodded tersely. "Just plain uncanny what weirdlings do. At least bloodlines are part of the world, that each creature practices when they breed." He shivered. "Magic? That's not natural at all."

"Not natural?" Arthur continued to stare at him, genuinely shocked.

"Not natural." Alfred repeated.

"Is… is this because you cannot see it?" Arthur inquired uncomfortably.

"Who knows?" Alfred considered. "Maybe if I understood what you see, I'd say it was as natural at breathing, but it just seems so strange, to change the world at its root." He shook his head, "I half-think this plague has been sent to punish you all for your sin of playing like gods. We know if you stop using your magic, then you don't become infected; what else could that mean?"

"That's a ridiculous assertion," Arthur replied. "The Plague is an etheric malady; it makes sense that when something affects the ether of a person, it spreads the same way, just as a cough both spreads and causes the cough." Arthur almost laughed. "Correlation does not naturally mean causation – surely you must know that to treat diseases of the blood?"

Alfred rolled a shoulder limply. "If blue-eyes and weak cardiac function occur multiple times in the same line, it stands to reason they're connected." He thought about it and then added: "And I'd breed them both out if I had to."

"Connected, yes but maybe not in the way you think." Arthur's whiskers gave an uncertain twitch. "Such as your eyesight matter – you're trying to separate the visual and the reaction speed, and they're both linked, but you do not need to surrender the benefit of the reaction speed to remove the problem with the eyes."

"I am not so sure I would fight to keep magic at the potential cost of us all." Alfred smiled sadly. "Wouldn't it be better to give up your magic to save your life?"

"See this is about perspective again!" Arthur genuinely smiled here. "If you've never used ether you'd never understand that to surrender it is to lobotomize yourself."

"But see," Alfred's smile grew sadder. "That's exactly what the Shenkai does: it purges memories, wipes minds clean, turns men to beasts, relinquishes your reason."

Arthur's smile faded.

"Oh," Alfred's smile transformed into a forced grin. "But I guess that's why we're having to put up with each other, right? So we can get to the conference and see if we can't have our enhancement without our detriment, right?"

Arthur smiled weakly back: "Quite." He laced his fingers together uneasily.

"This is a bit of a heavy topic huh." Alfred mumbled.

"We can camp outside the forest if we can be next to it."

"And when we reach Easingwold?"

"I suppose," Arthur said quietly. "Maybe."

To watch a Wiccan make camp was strange. Where Alfred had eagerly hopped out into the fading light of the plain, stoked a fire to life and settled his equipment about the camp, Arthur had instead paced at the edge of the forest. Chewing on the acorns from earlier, Alfred watched Arthur circle a few times before hunching down at the very edge of the treeline, pulling his cloak around him.

"Not gonna come by the fire?" Alfred called out, crunching an acorn tasting the slightly acidic flavour between his teeth.

"Someone will need to stand guard." Arthur commented quietly and Alfred almost pointed out that Arthur was watching the plains and not the forest, but of course he was.

"Okay, wake me up when it's my turn then..." Alfred chewed the last acorn speculatively, before settling. He glanced back at the Wiccan - followed the fine rosettes that clung to Arthur's throat like a rows of sooty teeth. "Night, then..." Arthur gave a light, almost purr of a growl in acknowledgement and Alfred rolled over, wrapping his arms about him.

May your quills be ever sharp.