This story will take place in the future after Skin game. It is written in first person whit Dresden as narrator. All characters belong to Jim Butcher I am only temporarily hijacking them.
As English is not my first language, it is bound to be both spelling and grammar issues. I want to apologize for them in advance. I would love to hear your oppinion. Happy reading!
The portal ripped close behind me with a final sound. I watch the mostly barrel landscape as I sit down heavily on the damp grassy ground, trying to catch my breath. This time it had been close. Closer than ever, and that was not to say little.
I hadn't thought I had to use this place ever. It was meant as a backup on the backup plan. A last resort in all its definitive splendor. As the adrenaline let go, my whole body starts to shake and ache. Familiar, I ignore it as so many times before. With a heavy sight I drag my tired body to a clearing in the middle of the slowly sloping hill.
As heavy as my body and mind feel, I can still not help to look around, and for the first time have the opporturnity to really admire my work. This place has many similarities with Demonreach for the look of it. But that is not so strange. I have earlier spent a year on the island on a self chosen imprisonment, along with every horror imaginable. This place is built for the same purpose. To keep the ones I care about safe from me, and from everyone that want to use me. A prison.
An urgent need to know my surroundings better, make me struggle to my feet and start to walk, (alright, it is more like a zombies stagger) around in my handmade pocket of Nevernever. It is not big, but doesn't feel cramped, not yet. Mostly foggy trees and shrub silhouettes make up the outer perimeter of my prison, heavily clouded in thick fog that go all the way up to the sky in the shape of a dome. It looks different here from the inside than I had thought it would, when I spent all those months creating it from the outside. It is by far my most advanced magic achievement.
It is strong magic in the barrier. I keep a good distance away from it, not wanting to try it out by mistake. It would be time for that sometime in the future, when the boredom will get the better of me. Right now I have pain enough for a while. And as I will never get out of here it is best to prepare my mind for it already.
The tiredness drags me down toward sleep, and I want nothing more than to accept the invitation, but nontheless, I fight it as much as possibly, knowing sleep will only bring horrendous nightmares upon me. Nowadays sleeps usually do, and as nightmarish as my last days have been while awake, I am sure I do not have a chance for a sound sleep in front of me for quite some time... maybe ever.
After another eternity of pain and worries, I will never get the answers to. I finally give in and drift between sleep and wake for a long time as my body tries to heal some of the wounds. The fever that breaks out do not make it any easier for me to differentiate between dream and reality. So when Mab shakes me hard, I am shure it is just another fever dream and just try to turn away from her.
She answers that with a hard punch in the face that makes me see stars. Dreams don't usually do that my darker self points out. If nothing else, that wake me up, and I quickly back away on all four from the queen of ice and fire. Sputtering something that is meant to be, how can you be here?!. It sounds more like hooanyoeheee.
A moment later I manage to collect myself enough to ask again, still breathing hard and ready to strike. My back against a tree both for support and protection. Mab only gives me a eye glance and ask if I am is still asleep. I don't answer her.
In my head the thoughts spin fast, too fast for my battered mind to keep up. The most prominent: I am sure I did not build in any winter in here! I say it out loud. Apparently the confusion is clear on my face because Mab says coldly.
Well child, you could not, not build it in. You are full of winter no matter if you like it or not. Are you to invite me?
I chew on my lip, it tastes blood, and thinks over the possibilities. Trying to shake out the last of my dream horrors of my head at the same time. They are plentiful. This is my home, (sort of) and Mab is a Shee. Obvious she can walk in with or without that invitation, despite my best efforts to try and stop her. But if I don't invite her as a guest she doesn't have to behave like one either.
I am no match against her right now so the only reasonable thing to do is to follow the protocol. But it hurts me to get to that conclusion. The old me would have said fuck logic and went with my feelings. Probably walked right into knee deep shit. I miss old me sometimes. I just want to throw her out and get back to a blissful emtiness. Apparently no such luck today.
Sourly I invite her and she courtly accepts.
I am no longer your knight! What errand do you have here? I ask with a cracked, hoarse voice. As I slide down on a log nearby. She just smiles at my direct question.
Can a queen not visit one of her newest Shee in her realm? She asks back. Of course it is not an answer. It never is.
And what do that has to do with me? This is a prison. I built it so no mortal can get out once entered. And no Shee or other creatures was to be able to enter. I give her a pointed look that she ignore. I continue;
I am no threat here. I can't do you any favours. I say the words heavy. Speaking them out aloud makes it all that much more real. I am trapped.
So crafty she murmurs, without answering my question. As always. And so naive, my fun finds no boundaries. She purrs
I only now realise she is dressed in the same white outfit she had so many years ago the first time we meet in my office in another reality. I try to figure out what she means by it. Is it to install some sort of nostalgia or to claim a connection?
I just don't know. Mab is a Shee, and a queen no less. I would never understand all the schemes that go around in her mind. An irritating little thought left from my time as the winter knight whispers that I am a part of the royal house too! I was chosen as her knight and I would stand by her side no matter the reason! I shake my head lightly in an attempt to drive the annoying impulse away. Careful to not shake too hard or it feels like my head might fall off, or maybe just explode.
Please say what you came to say or leave me be. I am in no mood to play your games. I am not your piece to move around as you please! I hiss with a tight voice. I have already lost everything you have nothing more to take from me.
Mab just giggle like a little girl, the sound make goosebumps run down my back.
Don't you see? She says, you has made just the right move every time! You are splendid in that way.
Explain! I demand even when I know it's no good. A lump is starting to form in my stomach even as I have no idea what Mab is talking about, but when she is happy like this it's never good.
What's the difference between a mortal and a Shee she asks with laughter still in her voice.
It is clear that the queen greatly enjoys tormenting me. And I start to form a poisonous answer, but before I have even opened my mouth. Mabs eyes changes from happy to serious, and now have a dangerous glint in them, that speaks of the torments I can too well imagine, after the time spent in her company. Her mood is like a spring storm and the point that I am trapped in here while she can come and go as she like start to frighten me.
I weight my pride and the urge to give her a sassy answer against the harm it can do to answer her question seriously and to my own surprise I decide now is not the right time to fight her.
So instead I swallow, take a deep breath and give her a stare that clearly states she has not won over me. I start to point out the differences she asked about in the hope to make her happy so she will leave. I need time to make up a plan to keep her out. Right now I will probably kill myself trying, no doubt in a very slow and painful way.
First, there is the most prominent, mortals die. The Shee is almost immortals. Shee can't touch iron, and reside here in the Nevernever, although they can walk in reality too. Mortals have a free will where Shee has a protocol to follow. Shee can't speak false, they can use magic much like wizards, but without the technology backlash.
Well, all is good definitions Mab says when I stops talking and give her a questioning eye. But what defines a Shee? Our very core. Her eyes and voice are intense. Like a cat on a hunt.
That question have me think for a while. I have still no idea where this will lead, but obviusly it is important to Mab but she would or could not say it herself. And as I have no way of knowing what happens outside my prison. This could relate to anything. I decide that this can't hurt anyone I care about and continue.
A Shee has a role, a purpose, like the queens mantels. Whoever fills it then takes on the role that is needed. As the human society change you take on new roles, but the core is still the same. You get your power partly of all the humans that believe in you, talk about you and know about you. Too be forgotten completely is the only way I know too kill a shee;s roll completely.
Very good. Mab says, sounding disturbingly much like a grade school teacher praising her favorite student. She continues in the same tone: So to sumarize it, a shee is someone that is bound to the Nevernever, Has a core of beliefs that define them, and exist in symbios with the humans that rely on them.
Suddenly I get what Mab is trying to say. I start to laugh tiredly.
No, not a chance! I am no Shee, I am a mortal. Have you hit your head?
Are you only? Mab asks
Yes of course! I demand
Or are you in between and the only thing keeping you there the belief that you are trapped? She says with certainty.
No! I say steadily, I have even gotten myself killed and it was not on Halloween. See very mortal!
Well, so funny you took it up, a human lives and dies. What comes after is something else? Isn't it? She says. Her voice is so low now I can barely hear it.
The cold lump in my stomach spreads out to my limbs and take a firm grip around my heart.
But I can lie! So either I am infected by the outsiders or, much more likely a human.
I know I sound desperate, but I don't care. What she suggests are simply impossible. I won't accept it!
Can you? She purrs.
I open my mouth to utter a blatant lie in her face only to have the words stuck in my throat. After a series of coughs I say.
You must have done that!
She looks terrifying in her knowing confidient expression.
What if I say I did nothing to prevent you from speaking and will not do so in this conversation. Please try again if you insist.
I want your word on it. No "what if" no loopholes. I say, challenging her. She gives it strait away. It scares me more than anything thus far in our conversation. A shee don't just give you their word. Mab definitely don't!
I feel icy cold in my whole body by now, and look away from the queen of ice and fire to gather some courage to try again. To my amazement the barriers to my prison is transparent as flowing water instead of the thick fog I made them out to be. I move my eyes back to Mab. The dawning of acceptance clear in them now.
How? I ask with a hollow voice.
Well, just like you stated, we has all our reason to exist and that existence is powered by those that believe in us. So far you see the connection clearly I assume. Then you bound the fairies to your service, creating a court. Nifty I must say. Lastly, we had your clever trick of dying. Brilliant! The pieces were all in order. And when you started building your own kingdom here in Nevernever I was ecstatic. The only piece missing then was that you stepped in and took control of your realm and thru it, your followers. Outside of here is a small hord that is eager to pledge you their service, you have certainly been keeping busy.
As she speaks, I feel the truth in it, like if I had said it myself. I also feel something else, a pressure like a scale evening out. I say with conviction to Mab.
You just evened out a debt by telling me this and put the last piece in place. To make me realize it... The choice I have now is if I will manage to stay free. Otherwise, I will be bound to you... again.
Mab smiles a fierce smile and say as she disappears.
I look forward to it!
Hells bells! The new wildfae whispers as the last part of the barrier around him dissolves.
The end