He had never intended to be a general, politician, or hero. He had not arisen one fine morn and made up his mind to play the most merciless game of wits, where the stakes were lives and the pieces wore faces he had watched grow from rosy-cheeked children to valiantly admirable adults. If anyone deserved to be called hero, it was not the man who arrayed the pieces in shining marble rows, fearless and utterly unprepared for the true, viciously ignoble, nature of war.
Politics, too, had crept up on him unawares. Spit upon the hated tyrant, but what's the worth of your integrity before political gridlock? Hold your nose, for you too will be pulled to the muck. Clink of coin or whispered words, secrets stolen and ransomed back, for a chance to do real good? Shield your face, O revolutionary, for the people now spit on you. All power corrupts, but there is no filth more deplorable than is found in the hallowed halls of government.
Hero, perhaps, he could yet take some pride in. But would he still be remembered so fondly if not for the cleansing wash of time? If they knew that, even at the end, he had balanced on the knife's edge between striking Gellert down and joining him?
Each face he wore brought its own weariness, and he was not the young man he once was. Mistakes were inevitable, and they compounded until a slight misstep became an unstoppable avalanche. Fifteen years ago, he had stamped his approval on a cold, politically neutral form that waived the trial of a man caught literally awash in the blood of innocents, who made not a word to his defense. Now, it had laid the seeds for an ever widening division between him and the Ministry, condemned an innocent man to suffer, and perhaps even befouled any positive relationship he might have had with the person who was their best chance to end Tom Riddle's evil for good.
Ah, yes. His latest blunder.
For shame, he should have known better. Too accustomed to effortlessly thinking circles around whomever he was talking to, conversations reduced to nothing more than a puzzle. It was his own brand of arrogance, couched in it's-for-your-own-goods, and I-know-betters. What he said had been flippant, unthinking, and by the time he had realized his mistake, it had been too late. Complacency, that was it.
The plan had been simple—call her out for her spying on the Order, and then, when she apologized, forgive her and reveal as much information as he could without endangering her or the Order, and she'd trust him all the more for it. In retrospect, it felt vaguely contemptible—comparing her to Peter Pettigrew, even indirectly, had been a mistake he immediately regretted. It hadn't even worked. She'd called his bluff, and now William Weasley was reporting that two masked figures had unceremoniously forced their way past him into the Department of Mysteries, the Unspeakables weren't talking to anyone, and Minerva was currently stalking up his staircase in visible agitation.
Dumbledore sighed. Fawkes chirped and sang, nuzzling his colorful head into Dumbledore's wiry beard. A buzzing in the back of his skull alerted him that Minerva was about to knock on his door, and not without a bit of reluctance, he opened it with a small gesture of his hand.
Minerva's lips were thin and white. If he hadn't known her for so long, he might have mistaken it for anger. It wasn't. It was worry.
"Good news was too much to hope for, I suppose?" he said and immediately regretted it when his weak attempt at humor made Minerva's lips press tighter still.
"She's gone, Albus."
"I see," Dumbledore said. Fawkes sang brighter.
"What could possibly have happened?" Minerva asked, sinking into a conveniently placed armchair by his office's fireplace. "You know something. You wouldn't have asked me to check on the Gryffindor dorm if you didn't."
Dumbledore rubbed his brow in a weary gesture. A dozen deflections, distractions, and outright untruths sprang to mind, but he dismissed them. He may be doomed to repeat his own mistakes, but he'd be damned if he did it on the same day.
"I have… reason to believe she may have gone in pursuit of the prophecy pertaining to her and Lord Voldemort."
"What?" Minerva exclaimed, the latter half of the word breaking into a shrill pitch. Dumbledore winced.
"Why now? Why alone?" Her eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"
Dumbledore looked up at the ceiling. He doubted pointing out that Sirius had likely accompanied her would assuage Minerva. "I may have spoken without thinking. I believe she may be attempting to make a point."
If she was, it could not be missed. By the sound of William's report, she had defeated one of the best duelists in the Order essentially single-handedly and in mere seconds. The message was clear: Get with the times, old man, or be left behind.
Minerva slumped. "Oh, Merlin."
The fireplace suddenly flared green, making Minerva jump and scoot her chair away from it. A hooded head appeared in the flames, the face improbably obscured given the light of the fire.
"Dumbledore," the hood said, a rattling, empty symphony of voices. "I haven't much time."
Dumbledore immediately rose to alertness. He flicked his wand, and a heavy weight seemed to press down on the room. The window blacked out, and the ever-present low whistling of wind through the castle's stone halls vanished completely. He nodded.
"Can she hear this?" the Unspeakable asked, nodding toward Minerva, who sniffed indignantly. Dumbledore hushed her with a quick gesture.
"Indeed. Proceed."
The Unspeakable drew an echoing breath. "It's all a royal disaster. The Aurors are demanding to fully search the Department, which they are not going to get. If they try, it'll be open warfare in the Ministry. You know some of the things we have down there, and the intruders stumbled upon what might be the very worst on their way out."
Minerva inhaled sharply but didn't interrupt.
"But they escaped apprehension?" Dumbledore asked. That was a relief, at least. Even he might have been challenged to extract Violet from the hands of the Unspeakables if she had been captured.
The Unspeakable laughed. It was a haunting, desolate sound. "If you want to call it that, yes."
Dumbledore tented his fingers, waiting for the figure to elaborate.
"I wasn't on the team, and I don't have high enough clearance to even guess what what they did in there. But everyone knows the Cold Room had the highest fatality rate of any active project before the Head shut it down. Intruders go in, I'm guessing they won't come out. The way I understand it, no one's worked up the courage to follow them, either."
Dumbledore released a long breath. Frankly, he considered many of the Unspeakables' experiments to be reckless at best and despicable at worst. He definitely did not like the idea of Violet being caught up in what he knew the Unspeakables to be capable of.
"And you have no idea at all?" he asked. "Even rumors, perhaps?"
The hooded figure smirked. Their pearly teeth shone through the black of their hood's shadow, a white stroke in the night. "Well, I've never been good with accepting I can't know something. So I had a drink with someone who used to work on it, and she couldn't tell me much of anything. I mean honest-to-god Unbreakable Vow couldn't. That's not standard practice even here. But she did tell me one thing that stuck."
The figure leaned forward, oddly rotating their seemingly disembodied head as it came through the Floo. "You know how some kids like to roast bugs with a magnifying glass or a practice wand or something? Not because they really hate them so much as because they can? Well, she said that the Cold Room is a bit like that. Only, we're not the ones holding the magnifying glass."
Well, that sounded… alarming. Dumbledore was tempted to ask who exactly thought whatever went on in that room had been a good idea to study in the first place, but he wasn't in the mood for a lecture on the intrinsic sanctity of knowledge. Besides, finding a sympathetic Unspeakable willing to leak information to him had been like pulling teeth, and that had been back at the height of his reputation. Alienating them just wasn't worth it.
He'd have to try to dig up more knowledge on this "Cold Room" if it could be the key to finding Violet and Sirius. He had a bad feeling, though, that it would be futile if the Unspeakables were taking it seriously enough to warrant Unbreakable Vows.
Moving on, he asked, "Do you know what they were looking for?"
"Can't say," the Unspeakable said. "But I don't think they found it. Our security force caught them in the Hall of Prophecy, but there's nothing there worth breaking into the Department for. Place got smashed. Security team too, and they're the real deal. Killers, all. One's dead, and the rest threw around enough dark magic to make the Dark Lord blush and still got their their arses handed to them. Another reason we can't have the Aurors poking around."
"An Unspeakable was killed?" Dumbledore asked sharply. It sounded like the Unspeakables hadn't hesitated to use lethal force, but the thought that either Sirius or Violet had killed, even in self defense, was an uneasy one.
"Oh, yeah," the Unspeakable said. "Iced, he was."
~#~
It was warm.
That was the first thing Violet noticed, having landed face-first in grass as soft as a pillow. She rolled over and was greeted with boughs of colorful leaves, vibrant even in the moonlight, and the warbling music of nocturnal birds, too clear and perfect to have evolved naturally. Sweet scents of wildflowers and honey drifted in the air along a gentle breeze.
Ah, fuck.
The memory of the tapestries outside the Black library depicting their ancestors cavorting with Summer fae came to mind. She should have realized that the bloodline might still share some connection with the Summer court. Or maybe the Unspeakables' makeshift artificial arch was just defective. She wouldn't be surprised. Without access to an aligned court, they wouldn't be able to leave the Wyld, and she definitely wasn't going to find that in Summer. Well, theoretically Sirius could leave through a Summer court if he struck a deal with a Lord or Lady, but the price would be high indeed. It wasn't an option worth considering.
The more pressing matter was Sirius. He looked gaunt, and his eyes were wide and anxious, reflecting the light of the full moon.
"Where—what—"
"Hush now," Violet murmured. "I've got you."
She ran a finger down his robes, the cloth parting with its progress. His chest was wet with blood, but there didn't seem to be enough of it to explain his ashen state. Violet conjured a splash of cold water that made him flinch as it washed the blood away in pink rivulets.
"What are—fuck," Sirius said, looking down at his bare chest. A scattering of black darts were driven into his flesh. They were made of an inky black material that seemed to absorb the light and they wobbled slightly, like they weren't quite stable. Long, curving barbs curled away from them, holding them in place and poking back out his skin in places. Blood beaded from the wounds, but not quickly enough to be dangerous on its own.
"Maleficus Revelio," Violet cast, circling her wand over the darts, and a soft light spread over his chest that caused them to glow a sickly green.
"I think they're poisoning you," Violet said. "Or enervating you somehow. How do you feel?"
"Tired," Sirius breathed, then coughed weakly.
"I think we have to get them out."
"Can you… vanish…?"
"I'll try."
She cast a Vanishing Charm, but as she expected, it had no effect. The darts didn't seem to be physical projectiles so much as coalesced magic.
"No dice."
"Heh," Sirius said. "This isn't going to be… fun." He sounded like he was trying for bravado but ended up somewhere around apprehensive. "Don't suppose you know some sort of painkilling charm?"
Violet tilted her head thoughtfully. "I could probably manage something, but I don't think you'd like how I did it."
"Think I'd like it less than you pulling those things out without it?"
Violet shrugged. "Guess we'll find out."
Then she leaned over and kissed him.
Sirius jerked, but she held him in place. She exhaled into his mouth, feeling a cool rush of energy flowing with it. She pulled away, Sirius spluttering indignantly she did.
"What the—whoa."
His eyes glazed and he relaxed, sagging into the soft grass. Violet gave one of the darts an experimental prod and he didn't so much as flinch. As he drifted on the edge of consciousness, she started working her knife around the hooked darts, trying to get them free with a minimum of damage to the surrounding tissue.
"Rest easy now," she crooned as her fingers grew slick and her knife flicked in swift, precise strokes. "It'll all be better in the morning…"
~#~
The sun rose, indecently bright and warm. Violet opened her eyes, closed them, and opened them again. Alas, they were still in Summer. Glorious.
She rolled to her feet from where she had claimed a few hours of sleep, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Last night had been warm, but now it was hot. She almost called upon Winter's power to wreath her in a soothing shroud of cold, but reluctantly refrained. Instead, she shed her robes, leaving her in a light undershirt and trousers, which managed to make the temperature just bearable. In the daylight, she could see that they had appeared in a small grove of trees, surrounded on all sides by rolling plains and tall grass dotted with splotches of colorful flowers. The steady, unwavering wind continued to blow, but now its scent was that of life and ripe fruit and faintest smoke.
Sirius was still fast asleep, so she set about having a look around the general area. She only wandered a kilometer or so, but as far as she could tell, it was nothing but grassland for as far as the eye could see. On the way, she did manage to find and kill what appeared to be some sort of winged rabbit. By the time it had been skinned, gutted, and spitted to roast over a fire that only added to the insufferable heat, Sirius was beginning to stir.
He blinked blearily against the bright sun and patted the white cloth wrapped around his chest. "Am I still alive?"
"Barely," Violet said. "You're lucky I'm, well, me. Few could hope to purge a curse like that from your veins before death took you."
"Ah," Sirius said. He still looked a bit ill, but at least the previous night's deathly pallor had passed. "Thanks. Uh—one thing, though—my memory's a bit fuzzy, but did you really…"
Violet raised one eyebrow. "Do you really want me to answer that question?"
Sirius coughed and changed the subject. "That smells good."
"Summer's finest," Violet muttered as she split the rabbit-thing along its spine with a spray of grease and bone splinters and handed the less pink and only moderately blackened half to Sirius. Her greatest strength, cooking was not.
"So," Sirius said as he picked apart the animals needle-thin bones, "I can't help but notice we're not in Britain anymore."
"You can tell?"
"Give me a little credit. I can't remember the last time it was this hot in mid-September. Besides…" He trailed off. "I'm not the most sensitive to this sort of thing, but this place… feels very far from home."
"You're not wrong."
"So where are we, then?" Sirius asked. "Australia, maybe? Kind of has the geographical feel, doesn't it?"
Violet shook her head. Sirius frowned and pulled out his wand. "Point Me London."
His wand spun, and spun, and spun, and didn't stop. His frown deepened.
"Point Me Paris. Point Me New York City. Point Me Hogwarts. Point Me!"
Finally, his wand snapped to a stop, pointing due north, or whatever passed for north in the Wyld. There weren't exactly magnetic fields to define it. Sirius's face seemed to crumple a little and his hand shook as he put away his wand.
Violet slowly chewed and swallowed the last of her meal, then cast aside the bones. She spoke.
"When you were a child, did your mother tell you stories?"
"What?" Sirius asked, looking baffled. "She wasn't the type. But B—one of my cousins used to read to me when I was little. Why?"
"And some of those stories, maybe, were about creatures that looked human but weren't? Fables, proverbs, warnings, perhaps, of the fair, strange folk who rise from the seas and descend from the hills and moors to beguile fools and steal away unruly children in the darkling eve?"
Sirius frowned. "You mean, faeries and such? Not like pixies and things, but faeries? Yeah, I suppose there were some stories about them. Mostly, I remember a lot of unhappy endings. My family was always fond of the classics."
Violet kicked dirt upon the smoldering coals of her fire, stirring a cloud of dust and smoke and swirling sparks as it was extinguished.
"Old stories have more to say than most would think." She spread an arm in a wide gesture. "Behold, the magnificent splendor of Summer's dominion."
"Summer?"
"Lesser of the courts, but fair all the same," Violet said. "Congratulations. Few mortals can claim to have seen such a thing."
Sirius scratched at his head and squinted. "I'm not really sure where you're going, to be honest."
Violet sighed. "Olumnus. Mab, though she's with her brother now. Things in the places away from the light. Magic rings, cold iron, and revelry long into the starry night. We're not just not in Britain, Sirius. We're not on Earth."
"Where are we, then? Fucking Mars?"
"The Other Side. A Land Apart. The Great Dream. The Wyld. The place lost people go."
Sirius's face looked like it was molded from wax. "What are you talking about?How would you even know?"
"We're in the land of the fae, Sirius. Earth refracted through a thousand twisted shards of glass. And how do you think I know?" Violet said, a whisper-smile on her face. "I should have died a babe, and even in myth, the fae are known for their bargains. Do the maths."
"Oh," Sirius whispered. A terrible, broken expression came over him as he looked at her. "So you're a—"
"No," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a changeling. That's actually a myth. The fae have few enough children as it is to go around swapping them for mortals."
Sirius let out a whoosh of a breath. "Oh, thank Merlin. I wasn't ready to have a faerie goddaughter. But you've been here before? Wherever 'here' is?"
"I live here, Sirius," Violet said. "Well, not here, here. It's much too hot for one, and I'm contractually obligated to have a problem with the inhabitants."
"You—Heh." Sirius shook his head. "I have so many questions."
"I sort of figured."
It took a while. One question led to another, and by the time she had even managed to convince Sirius that, yes, the Unspeakables were keeping a doorway to the world of mythical boogeymen in the Ministry's basement, the sun was high in the sky. Hot became very hot, and Violet could feel beads of sweat forming on her back and under her arms. It was rather strange. She was still mortal enough to sweat, but she knew from experience that it would never leave her clothes dirtied or her composure compromised. It didn't make logical sense, so she didn't think about it.
"So you're… half faerie? Fae?" Sirius asked.
"No. That's something different. I'm mortal, in the dies-for-good sense, if not the gets-old-and-gray sense. I'm just… blessed."
"By… Winter?"
Violet nodded.
"And this is Summer."
"You think?"
Sirius snorted in amusement. "So wait, every time you come here, you might end up anywhere? That seems inconvenient."
Violet curled her lip. "No. I think this is your fault, actually."
"What? How could it possibly be my fault?"
"The Blacks used to be Summer aligned, back in the bad old days. That sort of thing tends to stick."
"Really?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow. "How many of the old Pureblood families have that kind of history, you think?"
"Couldn't say, but probably a lot." Violet got to her feet and brushed herself off. "We should probably get moving. Personally, I could do with some shade."
"One last thing," Sirius asked. "How do we get out of here?"
"Simple. You just need a court and its Lord and Lady to grant your their blessing, which would be easy if we were in Winter. Here?" Violet shrugged. "The price would be high for you and likely unreachable for me."
They set off west, in the general direction of Winter territory. Violet did her best not to let her tension show. She wasn't worried for herself. Even if she was in enemy territory, she struck the perfect balance between still being mortal enough to pass undetected and having enough knowledge of the customs of the fae to avoid making any fatal mistakes. As long as she didn't use Winter magic, its presence would soon recede within her, and she should be able to pass for a normal mortal to anything less than a Summer Lord. And even if she couldn't pass undetectably, that didn't necessarily guarantee a fight. The war between Summer and Winter, though fierce, wasn't like a mortal war, and fae weren't like humans. You couldn't predict how an encounter would go even between two nominal enemies.
For Sirius, though, this could be very dangerous indeed. Most fae were curious toward mortals rather than outright hostile, but that often wasn't any better, and many of the lesser Sidhe wouldn't see them as anything other than a convenient snack. Humans who stumbled into the Wyld by chance didn't do well, as a rule. If they were lucky, they would end up the pet of a mostly genial fae and live out a life of luxury and decadence at the expense of their freedom. If they were unlucky, well, death was the best they could hope for. Sirius wasn't a normal human, of course. He was a wizard, which put him far ahead of the typical mortal in the Wyld, and more importantly, he had Violet with him. He should be fine, really, but it wasn't certain. There were dangers here that he likely wouldn't even recognize as such before it was too late, and no amount of preparation she could give him would fully forewarn him.
Also, he might still be dying.
Violet didn't notice at first as Sirius gamely kept pace with her despite clearly faring worse in the heat, but after the second hour of travel and into the third, his pace began to flag, and his steps grew uneven. He was clearly doing his best to hide it, but Violet was pretty sure he was about to collapse if they didn't stop. The grassland continued to extend outward, but Violet could see a dark green line in the distance, a little to the south. She put a hand on Sirius's arm.
"Let's stop for a moment," she said.
He didn't even try to argue, which would have set alarm bells ringing if they weren't already, and immediately conjured a tall glass of water which he drained in under a minute. He sighed heavily and wiped sweat from his forehead.
"Feeling all right?" Violet asked.
"Yeah. Just a bit tender from getting used as a pincushion. Nothing serious." He chuckled. "Think you got those out of me in the nick of time, but I'll be right as rain tomorrow."
Violet nodded and didn't push it. They ate the rest of the winged rabbit, and Violet made a note to keep out for any more walking lunches they might come across. Sirius asked her a few more questions about the Wyld and her childhood, but his heart wasn't really in it. He seemed to still be trying to catch his breath.
"Think that's long enough," he said eventually, nodding to the distant treeline. "I'd love to get some shade before tomorrow."
Violet narrowed her eyes as he swayed a little getting up, but he made a rude hand gesture when she tried to support him, so she assumed he couldn't be feeling too poorly.
It started to rain after another hour. Formations of clouds marched in to the beat of thunder and sheets of rain poured downward, banishing any memory of the earlier sultriness. It was a breath of fresh air to Violet as her sodden undershirt clung to her like a pleasantly cool second skin, tight enough to make Sirius visibly uncomfortable. But that didn't last long, for he seemed to be weighed down more with every droplet, shivering and stumbling like the walking dead. He had tried a number of spells to ward off the rain, but the weather seemed unnaturally persistent. Impervius Charms frayed around the edges, and horizontal rain curled around transfigured barriers. Still, he carried on in silent obstinance.
Then, Sirius collapsed.
She was on him in a trice. He was breathing, but they were short and labored, and when she pressed a finger to his carotid, the pulse was rapid and irregular.
Not good.
She had no idea how to help him or even what might be wrong. When one can naturally regenerate from nearly any injury, healing magic doesn't exactly seem essential. But even if she could knit flesh and mend bones, she suspected it would be of little use here. Whatever was ailing him, it wasn't his physical injuries. Though fairly deep, the gouges left by the Unspeakable's spell were not nearly lethal, and with the darts themselves removed, the curse shouldn't still be able to affect him. It must be some sort of aftereffect, a poison in his veins, be it material or metaphorical.
He needed a healer, clearly, but they couldn't exactly swing by St. Mungo's while deep in the heart of Summer. The only option was to find a fae capable of it, which was a profoundly troubling thought. Some powerful fae could cure wounds with little more than a gentle caress or kiss, but it always cost them something. And if a fae had to actually sacrifice something to uphold their end of a bargain, you could be assured the mortal would pay thrice-fold.
In any case, this downpour was doing Sirius no favors. Violet lifted him, his body limp and awkward to hold. His weight itself wasn't a problem, her supernatural strength easily supporting him, but he was almost twice her weight, and that alone did unfortunate things for her center of mass. Moving carefully to avoid overbalancing, she carried him toward the forest.
As it grew nearer, it became clear that it wasn't what she had been expecting. In Winter, the forests were stark and picturesque, like an artist's depiction of something along the lines of the Swiss Alps. They were every bit as beautiful and deadly as anything the mortal world could offer and more so, but a casual observer would not immediately recognize them as unearthly.
Not so these woods. Forest probably wasn't even the right word. It was a jungle, or perhaps a rainforest. It was dark and cool inside, the dense canopy high above blocking both sun and rain, except for when a great bough of leaves inevitably bent under the weight of pooling water, dumping several buckets' worth downward. Strange plants abounded, mushrooms that grew in the shapes of faces, crystalline flowers that smelled better than heaven, ripe, colorful fruit, and so much more. Birdsong and the sounds of small rustling creatures filled the air along with the pattering of rain.
Violet found a mostly dry spot and set Sirius down. He still showed no signs of waking, but at least his breathing had evened somewhat. She lit a fire to hopefully dry his clothes and placed an alarm spell on the area, then slipped deeper into the rainforest. After carrying a fully grown a grown man over a kilometer, she was very ready to find something to eat.
She tried one of the fruits, trusting her Winter-granted resiliency to protect her in the event it turned out to be poisonous. It tasted a bit like an apple crossed with an orange, but it was sweeter than either. She picked a few more and wrapped them in her robe, which she carried as an improvised pouch. They tasted quite good, but she was looking for something more filling.
A flightless bird, about the side and shape of a wild turkey but with a massive, vibrantly decorated fan of tail feathers reminiscent of a peacock did the trick nicely. Violet snapped its neck after catching it with a Stunning Spell.
She hefted it. It was quite hefty, and she was already looking forward to how it would smell roasting over a fire. Hopefully Sirius would wake up and—
There was a sense, an impression in her mind, like a rubber band snapping. The alarm spell had been triggered.
Violet fairly flew her way back to the campsite, wand ready. She crashed through the brush into the camp and spun, searching for whatever had set off the alarm.
At first, it seemed like there was no one there. Sirius still lay, deceptively tranquil, on the soft loam, arms crossed over his stomach. But on his chest, rumbling softly, was a small black and white cat.
The cat shuddered in the way cats do when something stirs them from sleep and raised its head, giving Violet a slow, languid look. Without the slightest hurry, it stood up, stretched, and padded down from Sirius's chest to the forest floor. It was small, certainly no more than three or four kilograms, and colored only in dappled patterns of white and black.
Violet didn't lower her wand. Few things were as they appeared in the Wyld, and often the most dangerous beings assumed the most unassuming forms.
The cat looked at Violet, licked its paw, and blurred.
AN: Hello, all. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter, and thank for all the favorites, follows, and reviews. I honestly never imagined my first fic would get this kind of support.
If you're just here to read the story, feel free to skip the rest of this AN as it doesn't pertain to the story itself.
I've decided to make a discord server for this and any future fics I may write. This site's poor features for discourse between author and readers is getting a tad annoying—there have been several reviews I want to reply to but don't want to artificially inflate my word count by responding in the story's text. Your reviews are greatly appreciated, and I want to respond and discuss your points, but I don't have the ability to easily do so on FFN. So, if you're interested in discussing Sleet and Hail, or anything else, really, you can join with this link:
discord . gg / HfyNqfMqfJ
At some point in the fairly distant future, I'll probably hold a poll on the server to decide on my next fic. I may also start posting upcoming chapters there early for proofreading if people are interested in that. Feedback and suggestions shared there are also probably going to be more likely to be taken into account because back-and-forth discussions would be possible, instead of just a single review on its own. If any of that sounds appealing to you, feel free to stop by.
Right, that's enough blathering. See you next week.