CADENCE: A TALE OF MODERN FAERY
chapter three: i have become so helpless
Kaye knew something was wrong the moment she arrived at the Unseelie Court. Her Roiben was nowhere to be found. She saw only a glimpse of a faery rushing around a corner, but they paid no heed to her calls and quickly vanished. Everything was too dark and silent, too still….
Sure, it was a cave full of evil monsters under a cemetery, but it wasn't that kind of dark.
"Roiben?" She wondered aloud, her voice echoing back to her in a way that nearly made her jump. Never before had she found the entire main chamber so eerily empty like this. Kaye dropped the final traces of the glamour she had used to make her way here unnoticed, and the smell of old blood flooded her faery senses. She warily moved into a side hall, heading towards Roiben's chambers. Explanations danced through her mind, though her current state of mind led to the most reasonable reason being that it was National Faery History and Appreciation Day Throughout the Western Hemisphere, or Hanukkah, or something that had all the fey out partying.
"Roiben?" Kaye asked again; despite her voice being no more than a cracked whisper, it seemed far too loud as it reverberated over and over again. The echo magnified his name a thousand times over, turning it into a cruel sneer, mocking her. No answer came to her plea. It didn't matter—she wouldn't have been able to hear it over her pounding heart. She swallowed hard, unable to keep from running the rest of the way down the hall, skidding to a stop at his door. Kaye struggled to calm herself. Don't be so immature, she admonished, he'll just tease you for it, and call you a silly girl, because everything will be fine, and you'll feel bad, but then he'll kiss you and everything will be better because everything is "FINE!". The last word in her wildly careening train of thought burst out of her mouth in a yelp, and once again she flinched at her own voice.
Giggling nervously, her nails digging into her palms, she took a second to relax, before unclenching her fists. She began to push the thick door open a crack at a time.
"Oh, Kaye…."
With a joyous shout, Kaye flung the door open the rest of the way. That was her Roiben!
It wouldn't be until far later that she remembered how anguished he had sounded, the cloaked sorrow in his horse voice. By then it wouldn't help her.
Now, all she could think of was seeing him again. As she dashed into the room, she saw the gorgeous features and silver hair of her lover, but she also saw the armed fey surrounding him.
"Oh, Kaye," he whispered, "You shouldn't have come, love."
Before Kaye could react, she had been thrown to the floor, and shackles were clamped onto her wrists. She tasted blood in her mouth as her head smacked against the stone floor. In an instant she was fully tied up, on her knees by the chair Roiben was strapped to. A blond faery stepped out from behind a screen, smirking. His sharp features were handsomely cold and calculating as they studied Kaye.
"My, my, it looks as if we've caught ourselves a tricky little pixie."
"Talathian," Kaye spat.
"Give the girl a prize. So you remember me, my dear. That is a bit useless, all things considered, but at least it saves me from having to monologue." He chuckled at his own joke, pacing in front of the fallen leader and consort.
"You bastard! What the fuck is going on here?"
"Oh my. Your mother didn't teach you those words, did she?" Talathian chuckled again, shaking his head. "Of course, you'll never see the stupid human you claim as a parent again. What a shame."
Kaye snarled, fighting the bonds glamoured to hold her no matter what. "Shut up! What – I don't –" Her voice was cut off as a dirty piece of cloth was stuffed into her mouth to gag her.
Goddamn, she thought viciously, I should have known the fey didn't celebrate Faery Appreciation Day.
On the front stoop of a New York apartment, a teenaged girl in a gaudy coat finally pulled away from a kiss with another young woman, waving a goodbye as the other began to make her way home. The girl made her way upstairs, fumbling with a ring of keys for a second before letting herself in. She heard snores from the futon, and carefully made her way around it. Narrowly avoiding stepping on the girl on the mattress on the ground, she collapsed onto the other mattress, not bothering to undress. A muttered complaint rose from beside her, but she ignored it, grabbing a handful of blankets and yanking them over her.
"Did I wake you up?" she asked, poking the body beside her with a foot.
"Shuddafukup," the would-be sleeper growled, trying to whack her best friend with a pillow. "Dunseewhyyewhaftobeoutscrewin'tilltwointh'mornin'."
She snickered and pulled a pillow over her head. "Shush. Some people are trying to sleep."
The four young people in the apartment slumbered until a pleasantly late morning, all positive that Kaye and Roiben were in a bed together at that exact second.
That wasn't quite the case.
Author's Note: Don't eat me. I'm back. I've been...busy, with life and relationships and idiots. But I think I'm maybe back to normal. The last chapter sucked, so here's something a bit better. Enjoy, and I'll try and update soon. Read, review. Thanks for sticking with me.