Chapter 3
"And that's it for our session today, John."
"Thank you, doctor. I always feel better after our sessions."
"Please, that's literally my job description, it's what I'm supposed to do." chuckled Doctor Marron. "Remember to work on those thought exercises whenever you feel stressed, okay? And I'll see you next week, oh, here, let me show you out."
The psychologist's office was… ordinary. Carpet floors, a sturdy desk, a comfortable couch. It was stereotypical in its mundane decoration. No one suspected that Doctor Steven Marron was a changeling, and that was the point; to be indistinguishable from ordinary people while he used his profession as a cover to sup on the stress and anxiety of his patients. It was a cunning idea, symbiotic and simple; the broken and beaten would come to him, he would siphon off their pain and frustrations, empowering himself, relieving his patients, whom would then go off and spread their recommendation of his services to others, expanding his clientele. It was low risk and perpetually rewarding, a constant stream of income and energy. That was the kind of person Steven was; economical, efficient, effective. It was what made him one of the more powerful and dignified Changelings in Cresselia's court; Lord Lannister.
Just as he sat back down at his desk to review his next patient's case, his phone rang, "Doctor Marron, sir? There's someone here that doesn't have an appointment but is insisting that she meet with you. She says her name is… Super Glitter Bomb Baby? She says it's not really important, but she's… bored. And if you don't meet with her she'll cause a scene…. Sir, should I call security?"
He sighed, "No Marie, let her in. She's a… friend that's pulling a prank."
A couple minutes later and the door to his office burst open. "Lanny! Baby! What's happening? Oh god, this office is boring as faaark, you really should spice it up a bit, what's the point in having money if you don't flaunt it."
Lady Jewel was another of the more powerful Changelings in Cresselia's Court, though a sharp contrast to himself. He didn't hate her though, he understood, there were those that escaped Faerie and just wanted to return to their normal lives, and there're others that relish and savour life and freedom in a way they've never done so before. Jewel dealt with her trauma by appreciating the pleasures of the material plane to the extreme. Not exactly healthy, but she wasn't one of his patients, and so not his problem.
"I like it this way," he said defending on his choice of decoration, "and isn't that what Life is about? Doing what we like?"
Jewel groaned, "Yes, but you like the wrong things!" She beamed, he chuckled.
"What can I do for you?" he said, interrupting the small talk and moving the conversation along, "As whimsical as you are, I doubt you've come here for a social visit, girls like you don't play in places like this."
"True, true, I wanted to know if you heard the rumour, and if so, I wanted your take on it."
"What rumour?"
Her eyes widened, her grin flashed mischievously, "Apparently! One of Cresselia's knights found a stray."
"Another one?"
"Another one!"
He closed his eyes and contemplated the implications. There've been several Changelings springing out of the Hedge lately, broken, beaten, half-starved and half mad. They come to this world, the material plane, without a Mask in all their faerie glory, terrifying to locals and causing mayhem in their wake. Some of them can be saved, tamed, and taught to live within the Masquerade. Others had to be put down before they hurt anyone.
"I suppose I'll be called in to train this new fledgling?" He exhaled. Breaking in a new changeling was never a pleasant task.
"No." Jewel chimed, smiling smugly, the airs of someone that knows something that no one else did. Anyone else and they might've been baited into being impatient, but not Lannister. Jewel wasn't nearly as stupid and shallow as she pretended to be, and beyond her taunting smile, her eyes were sharp, inquisitive, she was watching him for his reactions, body movement, micro expressions that betrayed his intentions. She was about to reveal something and she wanted him off balance and honest. "This one is different. The Knight didn't find him fresh from the hedge, but in the Bohemian Grove of all places, just flaunting his magic. A wanderer apparently. No one knows for sure where he came from, where he was going to go were he not caught, but he's due to swear fealty to Cresselia any day now…"
If he wasn't already preparing to be still, he may have been shocked or surprised, not over the sudden revelation (he'd already heard the same rumours), but that this was why Jewel came to his office, that this was the topic she wanted to discuss. As it were, he pretended to contemplate what was supposed to be a shocking turn of events. The boy wasn't particularly significant, at least that's what he'd judged from his initial assessment, could he have been wrong? Unlikely, but why else would Jewel of all changelings take an interest?
The silence must've lingered too long because Jewel became impatient, "well? What do you think?"
His response was weighed and measured, "He could be anything; he could be an agent of his Keeper, he could be a wanderer that just stumbled into our demesne unknowingly. But the whole point of the Oath to Cresselia is that it handicaps those with ill intentions, and cripples those that act on it. I don't think it matters where he came from."
"He?" said Jewel with an ominous smile, "I never told you that the stray was a man…"
There was a moment of shock. Did he really just fall for the oldest trick in the book? His mind raced at all the possibilities and potential damage control he would have to do before he froze, and calmly said, "You used his pronoun when you informed me of where the Knight found him. I continued using the same pronoun, was it really that big a deal?"
It was. He knew it, she knew it, if he revealed prior knowledge of this rumour, then he revealed his sources, his spies, and that he obviously had designs on the stray, that was just the kind of person he was, he knew it. She knew it.
Jewel cocked her head to the side, sizing up his reaction, his choice of words, "ohh… perhaps you're right. Silly me, making a mountain of a molehill…"
There was a moment of tense silence. Both parties weighing and judging what the other knew, how much they knew, all the while preparing the next back and forth of dialogue to glean more information and guard their own knowledge. This was the unspoken Game of courtly intrigue played at Cresselia's Court, with rules so vague that they're all but invisible to all but the most skilled Players.
"Enough of the past then, as you say, the Oath makes it almost irrelevant. What of the future? Do you have any plans for our wandering child?" Jewel spoke, her eyes hungry, were they for information that he possessed, or were they reflecting upon her own designs for the boy?
"That would largely depend on what kind of changeling he was then, wouldn't it?" feinting that he didn't already know.
"He's one of us, an Elf. Not untalented either from what I gathered, surprisingly self-sufficient, if a little raw, if a little aimless. He could use a strong, guiding hand in his life, for his own benefit if nothing else…"
Was that an invitation to claim him for his own… or bait? At the very least it was an offensive move, meant to trigger a reaction. There really was only one appropriate response.
"We'll see. He may not be worth the time and effort." A non-committal answer, a vague reply.
"Best decide quickly less I add him to my collection." She grinned. On the surface, it seemed like she was being aggressive, forcing him to either stake or withdraw a claim, but he knew better. There weren't any rules saying that an asset couldn't be turned at a later day, so even if he let this chance slip by, he could make a move to claim this piece in the future, or perhaps just neutralize him if he becomes too interfering.
"If you want him, take him." Truth be told, he was getting tired. This conversation had him at a disadvantage to begin with; it was Jewel whom barged in, seizing the initiative in declaring the topic, and then setting the pace of the conversation. It was…not optimal playing defence like this. Better to just forfeit this round and plot his moves meticulously at his own pace, rather than react and improvise on the spot, there was no point playing in a style Jewel excelled at.
"I might. If I do, I'll put him through a few trials, just to see if he's worthy of being added to my deck. I'd feel terribly guilty however if by doing so, he's no longer….ah functional, I would simply hate to disrupt any designs you might've had. Best to let me know now so we can avoid such unfortunate circumstances."
Clever. There wouldn't be a point to him poaching her piece if she crippled him in her trial. If he wanted the stray he would have to speak up now, but doing so would tip her to some of the projects he had in play. "It's sweet of you to show me such consideration, but I would hate for you to halt your plans due to my indecisiveness. And truth be told I'm too busy these days to train a fledgling to level of competence I'm satisfied with, if he fails your trail you'd have saved me a lot of time."
Jewel smiled sceptically for a moment, and when he wouldn't elaborate she rolled her eyes and pressed the issue. "And you'd be okay with that?"
"You do remember that we're on the same side, right? All we do, we do in service of Baroness Celestia and the freehold." He said politely, deflecting the accusation with the shield of patriotism.
"That is not what I wanted to hear, Lannister!" She retorted, "Dull. Too dull! Here's what I'm going to do; I'm going to toy with this stray, I'm going to pump him full of glamour, and then I'm going to let him loose in the Freehold."
"Why would you do that?"
"Curiosity." She grinned, "I want to see where our fellow compatriots run to, whom they run to. I want to see what they cling to so protectively when they think they're about to lose everything. I think that's a far more exciting game to play."
"Why?" He was beginning to feel the same dread he felt when some of his patients confessed to destructive fantasies. There was something building in Jewel's voice, something manic and potentially self-destructive.
"Because Life should be lived, Lannister. We did not escape Faerie to live this meek, docile, complacent lifestyle. And I tire of this freehold of ours, the Masquerade is oppressive and stifling thing. It's about time something happened to liven things up a bit."
"Jewel… Let's not do this. Let's have a seat, and we can talk about it."
"No, I'm done talking. I've a party to plan." She swivelled and made her way out of the office. "Thanks for your time, Lannister. We should do this again some time."
The minute Jewel left the office, Lannister made a phone call. Jewel had always had an erratic and unpredictable sense of humour, but this was excessive. How long had she had this intention? Was this stray the last piece she needed, or could any hapless changeling be a suitable substitute? If it was the former, he needed to act now. "Assemble the Group. There's a new fledgling in town, a stray, make the approach, I want to know how malleable he is."
...
Lannister was not nearly as clever as he thought himself to be. He was just the smartest of his kind, those whom backstabbed and traded in favours to rise above the bodies they put down.
Bonnie Jewel entered the car waiting for her outside the psychologist's office. "Where to, ma'am?"
"The office. Now silence, I need to make a call."
Players like Lannister were predictable. They needed peace and quiet for their plots and schemes, they worked in shadows and made secret deals to get ahead in Celestia's Court. Leave them alone, and their influence would grow like mold, like mushrooms. If the Freehold was a pond, then Lannister's kind were the algae that'd form due to stagnation, they were the dust that appeared when things were too still for too long. There was no chance he didn't know about the stray, and whether he admitted it or not no longer mattered. She would use him to shake things up, have the whole lot of them scrambling to maintain the status quo rather than prioritizing whatever plans they had.
"Are you still watching him? Good. Keep observing, and when you get the opportunity, make contact. See to it that he's shown a good time."
