---

---

---

---

"Welcome to my collection, mortals." The creature bowed low to the humans filling the spacious hall before him. The hall was not something of greatness, it was long past it's time of glory. The windows cracked and admitting the pale light from the sunny day. Moss and grasses forced their way though the flagstones. As branches of vines invaded where windows once were. About the entrances to the hall were suits of armor, rusted and rent though they were. Their long halberds however were keen edged. Bloodied still form whatever they once fought. The collector however turned to bow to the figures about the balconies. Tall and short, they wores the faces on monster and those of friends. Fae watched the mortals below. Freshly brought from their native Realm. They had been their for mere hours. Handed off from those who had brought them. A few had tried to run, only to be turned about and find themselves shacked to the posts that supported the rotting roof.

Tilting his golden head, a woman- perhaps a man?- watched from their chair. A thing of golden wood and green velvet. With fine features and strong nature about them. Yygdrasil lounged in his chair. "Oh, my~!" The great Dyrad sighed. "Look at all the pretty new servants. A shame my husband isn't here to enjoy this with me." Fluttering a fan in front of his face, the woman gave a pout. Her/His robes flowing about them in something reminiscence of a airy kimono. The forlorn look towards unoccupied chair of black and silver was unmistakable. The grey cloaked figure that stood between the chairs ignored the interruption.

None truly knew what the Collector was other than a gatherer of things. Of objects. A robe of thick grey with age, patched enough times it's original material was lost. His face was covered by the grey tendrils of his hair and a small ragged beard was seen coming from the depths of that shadow as well. Spreading his weathered hands, their nails cracked and yellow with age, he spoke once again. "Welcome to my collection, I am sad to inform you, that you may not remain." The hand before the empty chair closed into a fist. "My Lord King of the UnSeelie Courts, who has not been able to join us." His wheezing voice did not betray any dislike as his mirrored the motion on the side of Yygdrasil. "My Lord-" "Lady-Queen." "King of the Seelie Courts. You will separate into two groups. You will leave this place and take up what your Lord-King" "Lady-Queen!" "-commands. This is why you have been brought to our Realm. I have little care as to why you sold, or we were sold, your life." His hands folded before him. "You may decide, or we will force you. We are not unkind."

There was a round of jeering laughter at this last comment.

Two feet. Two hands. Two eyes. She still had all her pieces and bits. Short dark hair cropped to curl at her jaw, her faded green eyes flashed in anger. Full pouting lips in down turned frown, the sparrow-like girl would really like to kick and thrash and scream her demands to be released. She wasn’t alone in this. But she’d like to wager that she was the angriest. Her wish had been maliciously twisted. She shouldn’t be here! Her booted feet scuffled on the ground. Already having tried to make a break for it, she had been shackled up, her bindings anchored to one of the posts supporting the decaying canopy once called a roof. Layered in warm clothes, she was a wintery looking thing, though a bit thin and small for proper durability in harsh cold climates. Not that it had ever stopped her before.

She was stubborn and a bit spiteful, glaring as each horrible monstrous mask in the crowd, like a chained wolfling mutt ready to bite at anything that dared get too close. Collection! Ha! This was an auction! The decrepit corpse of the building was molding over with greenery and anything metallic gasped under layers of smothering rust. The grand jewel-colored windows were cracked and bleeding light, vines and brambles festering in their wounds. In the balcony teeth above, masks of faces smile down at her. Some were so horrific and other too painfully beautiful, so they must be masks.

Gold and glittering silver and other kinds of finery she could not name glimmered like stars in the skeleton teeth of the balcony. Gilded to hide their horrifying natures, no doubt. The Collector paired well with his dying palace, for he too was rotting and decaying, fraying at the edges, his wheezing voice cracking like the windows but holding no beauty. As if made of ancient wood, stone and dust, he projected his discontentment of some Unseelie King. Bodil didn’t know what an ‘unseelie’ was but it sounded like ‘unseen’ to her. She growled lowly.

Then there was the ‘seelie’ king-queen. Whatever. Didn’t matter. All Bodil knew was that this was temporary. She’d gotten out of a binding servitude once. She could do it again. The jeering made her snap to, tugging at her shackles and glowering like a starved wolf that hadn’t lost its fight quite yet. Decide? Decide what?! Where and who they would be slaves to? That was no choice! Bodil made a noise of frustration, squirming at her tightening bonds.

A beast man appeared and she shuddered. Round doe-like eyes went wide. Beast-men of were often the tormentors of her childhood nightmares. It grinned and she repealed in disgust and horror. So the revolting beasts of her nightmares were real and not just child’s dreams! Every wave of the creatures tail made her face twist a bit tighter in terrified abhorrence. The thing grew claws and she shiver, paling though she could not look away. This talk of ‘forcings’, whatever that was, sent shivers like cold ice water down her spine. Screwing her eyes shut, she pushed her face into her shoulder.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to be away from this awful place that housed nightmares. But all this ‘wanting’ is what got her in this mess to begin with. Why couldn’t she be satisfied with life as a Mennonite? Why couldn’t she simply suffer through the hounding that her father and brother had dragged he through, trying to get her to go home when clearly she was never going back? She had made it years through all that. Then one night, in weary weakness, she confessed her wish to what she had thought had been an angel.

And now Bodil was here. Betrayed. Oh, but she had gotten her wish. She’d never be bothered by her family ever again. A young man spoke, a human, same as her. Her eyes snapped to him. He was talking to them? Bodil shuddered. Why did he seem so calm? Didn’t he know?

They were never going to get away from this place. Not without connections and a plan.

Good thing she had experience with being held captive.

---

---

---

---

The Collector did not appear to have heard the kitsune's remarks. Then he spoke, his voice sounding like gravel being crushed beneath a boulder as his hands clasped before him. "You may herd them into separate groups if they do not move to stand to either side of the Hall, kitsune." For all the Collector was certainly not made of stone, he certainly seemed so. It was rumored by several of the fae that his heart was actually of stone. Locked deep within the ruined halls he called home. For it was here he always wandered, never leaving. Walking with that slow and steady step that sent mortal and lesser fae quivering into corners lest his shadow fall upon them. A wise thing to do, for even the Fair Yggdrasil would not meet his eyes fully. Their green eyes always slightly above or to the side. Never down, that would not do for Royalty. But never would the 'Lady-Queen' of the Seelie Court lock eyes with the ancient Fae.

No, that honor fell to one alone. It was one among many reasons some whispered the Fall King was far stronger than his odd counterpart. Though others argued that Yggdrasil's life giving tree made up for this slight weakness. That the prosperity of Summer and Spring was far greater than Fall and Winter which stood testament to Yggdrasil's greater power. It was a old argument for the long winter nights, scholarly towers and tavern corners. No one was truly sure of the answer any more.

But slowly the frost grew along the windows, the day turning slowly darker. As the wind whipped in whispers of laughter and taunts. A hound's bay carried on the breeze. Almost as if it taunted the terrified mortals. Already they were scared, and loath to move from their groups of safety. But those more resigned began to drift to one side of the ruined hall or the other. The Seelie or the UnSeelie. Several rushed the door in desperation, merely to be blasted back as wind grew to a howl. The Yggdrasil sat forward on their throne, their face keen on the darkening sky.

"Oh, Blessed are we." Her soft, yet wooden face (For the Fae Realm was filled with contradictions about such things) turned towards the kitsune as wind tugged his fur this way and that. "Kitsune, you said your Lord will not be attending? Did he say perhaps why he was not doing so? For it seems the Hunter of Souls rides the storms." The comment was not taken lightly as the Fae- greater and lesser- shifted uncomfortably on the balcony about the ruins. Several taking flight or melting away into the light or shadow as they sought a less precarious place to be. For all Fae knew that Yggdrasil was the grower, the farmer. The giver of life. Even as they knew this, they also had been told from the cradles of their mothers to beware the Hunter of Souls, the Great Hunt, the Wylde Hunt. For good reason it was told to be avoided as well. For once a soul was claimed, woe to he (or she) who was the claimed. They would ride with the Lord of the UnSeelie till they ceased to exist in the howling winds and ghostly apperations of his host. It was rare that the Lord would Ride, but from time to time he did. Generally to seek out those who had truly tarnished his law, with his loyal Cú Ifreann. A pack of hounds who sought for his hand to end.

Bodil shuddered, her round eyes narrowing at The Collector. She was not a thing to be sold or bartered! How dare these, these, these nightmare creatures treat them like cattle! 'Herd them into separate groups...' Eyes slipping to steal glances at her shackled wrists, their anchoring chain connected to the beams above, she wished she had great strength. If she had, she could just pull the ceiling down on all of them and scramble away. The dark haired human female glowered at her offending skinny and lean arms.

If she had been faster, she wouldn't be shackled at all. Lady Queen, Collector or masked nobel freak, Bodil refused. She would find her way out of this. They might think her weak, being mortal and thin, but she had something none of them had. The desperate desire for freedom. And it would crush them all under her heel. All she had to do was wait for the right time...

The Collector was like living dust. But he wasn’t her focus. ‘Herd them’ he said. Like she was just another cow among cattle. Hideous as all the beings before her were, the beast-man made her stomach roll. Nightmares from her childhood, out in the house they lay in the corpse-dead eyes of a wooded landscape. Everything decays under the surface in the woods. In the house a crumbling family under the pressure of a corrupted religion enforced by the men of her family distorted her days. At night, terrors of men who were part beast and all parts demon stalked inside her mind.

The Collector frightened her, but it was the fox man that sent her face twisting in revulsion and making her pale skin look waxen, even under the fae-sunlight. His furry tails twitched like tentacles of a slimy sea creature. He got closer. Night terrors resurfaced like burned memories on a revolving door in her mind. Her breathing hitched and she shuddered. He spoke towards her. Bodil gagged.

“If you are unsettled, then go away,” her voice was as chilled as a thin winter wind, her eyes looking up at him with ice and malice and pure revulsion. His tail stroked her face as he started to walk away and her anger boiled over. “You are already a nightmare,” she hissed, spiting at the ground, full of venom and malice, “You have no potential for anything other that what you are, vile thing.” That was what she said in her paper thin voice.‘Thing.’ Not ‘creature’ nor anything noting of a living and breathing being. But ’thing’. He was less than decay and fungus to her.

The land around her began to darken. Masked creatures fled and mortal squealed. Icy bitting air burned at her cheeks. Frost grew along the windows, the sky darkening. Bodil had come from a cold place and was still in her own clothes, so the wind only bit at the soft paleness of her cheeks, the slender curve of her nose, the reddening bow of her mouth, and her imprisoned hands. And she welcomed it, the familiar cold. It built up in her as an odd comfort in the familiar feel of the air that the place she had grown up in had. Everything was always crushed under frost and snow. And in the winter she was safe.

In winter, her night terrors were buried as her father and older brother went on long hunts for meat. Bodil relaxed as the cold air wrapped around her, tussling her dark hair. Her shackles heavy, she tugged towards the cold. She needed it. The winter was all she needed.

---

---

---

---

The Collector did not seem to notice the frost that formed over his robes and in his tangled beard. Nor the winds that whipped and howled through the building, building to a crescendo of might as they whirled and carried the cries of hounds and hooves of horse assumedly upon them. Shadows danced as though some flame flickered behind them, yet there was no such thing. "You might wish to hurry along mortals- kitsune." The wheezing voice should have been hardly audible over the small gale that was forming, yet it was perfectly clear. Fae magic was such. "The Lord of the Hunt approaches swift upon the hooves of his steed." Ah, did that seem true. But the kitsune would know better. For the Lord of Fall rode no beast, nor would ever require one. The hooves were of other huntsmen. Other beings who joined him upon his quest- whatever it may be.

No, the King of the UnSeelie rode the very winds themselves. For there he was in all his glory as they twisted and warped. Shadows spinning along their length, ripped from what made them to wrap about each other and form a figure well over six feet high. As they dissipated and the wind calmed, pale skin appeared over a well muscled body. The Fall King was a massive figure, lean with muscle and a angular face some of those who were mortal (and some who were not) swore was carved by the hands of a god. His dark cloak of feathers was whipped about his shadowy form. For someone who was said to have been hunting he bore no armor nor weapon. A good sign for those who knew him. Donning such a thing was rare and meant a bloody fight. Both for the legendary king and the challenger. Yet the King of the UnSeelie did not stand, nor did he watch the mortals. His storm grey eyes were elsewhere, staring off into the between as they often did. Seeing something else altogether.

Yggdrasil looked utterly pleased by this turn of events, though she maintained enough manners to flutter his fan before their face and look with a certain hunger at the King of Darkness. "It is good of you to join us, Dearest Falk. How was your hunt?" The question was merely answered with a sideways look from the Fall King- Falk. His attention turned to the Collector who bowed low to the King of Darkness.

"It is good of you to come, Majesty." The Collector stated in that dead tone, ignoring Yggdrasil sputtering outburst that the Fall King was the one who was given the ambiguous title. Nearly about the speak again, the Collector was cut off as the King of the UnSeelie crossed one leg over the other knee and propped his cheek up with a fist.

"I am merely here to see business done, Collector." The King's voice was firm, the deepest of mysterious pools that lurked within the spaces between stars. The roll of distant storms echoed in his language, as though he was not human and like no other Fae. So very opposite of the Fair Yggdrasil. "My hunt ended early thus I was able to fulfill my being here. Carry on." The Collector inclined his ancient robed head before resuming his orginal position. The storm eyes of the King fell upon Raposo, that last bit was for his servant.

"You could at least stop by to see me, or say hello." Huffed Yggdrasil, their robes billowing about them in that rougher wind. As the great Dyrad fought to tame them to their proper form again. Earning themselves a quiet 'hello, then. I shall be saying good bye shortly' from Falk. One could almost say the two were presenting a well worn and tried dance between the two. And this was so very true.

Bodil smirked in small victory as the hideous fox-like creature slunk off to torment some other poor soul. With her wrists shackled and bound, much like a few that had attempted escape before, her brown hair, so dark it was almost black, tussled about as the wind picked up. Closing her eyes, she let out a relieved breath as the icy hiss of wind drew its bitter touch over everything. Her pale skin blushed from it's eager bite, her dark lashes became laced with frost and her wide doe-like eyes seemed to become clear. A storm swept away by the wind.

But another human woman threw words like daggers at a leech that had attached itself to her arm. In drastic times, true notes of people shone through. Thinking on it, the thin young woman tugged at the shackles on her wrist, gaze on the gaping maw of the door. So close... So far... Eyes blazed a path up to horrid The Collector. Like something without heat, like the windows to his decrepit palace of sale, he had frosted over. That creature did not even flinch at the inhuman cries of hounds and hooves.

The angry woman cared not for beasts or nightmares or kings or queens. She would not be defeated by this stoney Collector or his milk-willed audience. But as the wind wailed, something in the air changed. Like all the cheer had been drained, a small tornado shifted and stretched in the hall. And it was coming closer, receding in on itself with each spiraling sweep. A form over the height of an average man cloaked itself in shadows and frost. Ah. This was the king they had all talked about.

Well, the Falcon King (for she had misheard his title of 'Falk' and in truth he looked a bit scowly like some such bird; dressed like one too) had graced his nightmare court with an appearance. He looked bored, if anything, not even examining the 'market meat' or even his creepy kin. That queen seemed infatuated with this fowl royal. But the others didn't dare look at him. The humans who trembled with fright all had their eyes on the ground, or anywhere but on His Royal Feathered Dramaticness. Even the high mannered human male, with all his flattery and manners, couldn't look on this Falcon King.

Bodil scoffed and muttered under her breath, "That's it? A whirl of the cape and a glare?" Something of a sneer crossed her face before she looked past the tepid creatures that were claimed to be royalty. Those eyes looked at the window where the frost had etched delicate patterns and her features softened. The love affairs and quarrels of such a revolting court was not of any interest to her, but frost on the window was. Restlessly she tugged on the chain that had her shackled to the beams above.

That lurking pest of a beast-man broke her gaze by slinking about and she scowled as if she had caught sight of a disgusting display. The beast-man showed off, rounding up some poor man who had bravely attempted escape before tossing him into a pile with that weeping leech. The group that had the well-mannered man in it too. Suspicious, Bodil's eyes gleamed sharply.

---

---

---

---

"Lady Spring...My apologies for my rudeness. I was out with Lord Fall on the hunt. How goes it m'lady? I see the gathering is in full swing, yes?"

"You are forgiven, Hound." The Ruler of Spring and Summer looked rather amused at the Hound's antics. Their eyes gleamed with the laughing swirls of sunlit dappled leaves. Giving a pointed glance at the Lord of the opposite Realm, Yggdrasil's smirk grew ever larger. She/He enjoyed tormenting the Lord of the UnSeelie Courts, nearly as much as they would have adored to woo the dark male. But the latter was fraught with dangers that the dryad respected. "The gathering held few of true interest til your Lord showed up in all his glory." The gold and green fan that matched the flowing robes fluttered before the nose and lips of the feminine male.

Falk adjusted himself giving the masculine female (Or was it the other way around?) a dry stare. "You lay it on a bit thick 'Drasil." He ignored the woman's/man's gapping face before they waved their arms in what essentially was a childish display of temper. For a dryad, they were not quick to rouse. Yet Yggdrasil was a odd one, there was no two ways about that. Even after so long there were still bets upon the Seelie Ruler's true gender. It was thought perhaps 'Falk' as the UnSeelie's dark King was called, might know the truth of it. But none dared to ask him. His reputation preceded him. Though a fair ruler, he was not one (much like Yggdrasil was one) to dally about and deal with nonsense. And speaking of nonsense, his eyes narrowed on the dark haired girl who had tried to escape earlier. As obvious by her jessed state.

"That's it? A whirl of the cape and a glare?"

"Would you rather I simply appear as your worst nightmare, little girl?" The king's stormy eyes took on their green hue as he tilted his head to one side. A sharp tip on his pointed ear showing through the blue-black hair that fell to the middle of his back in tendrils many a woman and man would love to run their hands through. He chuckled a deep sound that called to mind rolling thundered and pulsing drums. Of dark nights and the mysteries they held. "You will serve within my hall, little mortal. It has been some time since I have been amused." He glanced over at the Collector, who merely bowed.

"As the Lord of Darkness and UnSeelie wishes. So shall it be." The gravely voice answered. The Ruler of the Seelie huffed in annoyance at the fact they had been ignored and their apparent 'lover' had taken more interest in a mortal girl. Rather than his equal and the most lovely of the Fae. But mortals had short lives, even in the Fae Realm. She would perish and Falk would grow bored. She/He gestured and proclaimed as if to out-do the Lord of Fall. "Then I want the pretty boy who keeps bowing and then you can have all your women!" She/He gave Falk a annoyed look. Daring him to accept the proposition that he was possibly making a harem.

Which he was most certainly not. Falk's answering grin showed far too many teeth and was something out of nightmares indeed! "Then I shall indeed accept your proposition, King Yggdrasil." That proceeded to stiffen the spine of the wooden dryad. Their eyes glowing in annoyance at this turn of events.

Bodil balked at the girl who was trying to become friends with the hideous beast of a fox man. Certainly she had hit her head! Who so ever would wish to befriend such a revolting creature! The thin dark haired girl, round eyes in a seemingly up breakable glower, looked surprise. Her pale features with their rosy cheeks like an olden picture pursed their lips and grew eyes as large as saucers. Idiot! Do not try to befriend those without hearts or souls! If wishes could turn to curses from these creatures, what could offers of pure friendship do?!

The dark haired firebrand returned to a dour glower. Spring Queen, Falcon King, beast-man, then... A ghoul of a man who turned from wolf-beast to something of a human farce. More beast creatures! Bodil gagged. Hideous, revolting thing that turned her cold inside and out. She averted her eyes, clenching them shut at the grotesque sight. Apparently two beast creatures was too taxing to her... Her childhood fears were real! Hainously real! The pale young woman was waxen, but stubbornly opened her eyes to glower at anything before her.

A creature of smoke and decay, this wraith of a beast-male, but at least he had the common decency to keep his more animalistic features under glamors or whatever magic these nightmares used to hide their true ugliness. Her grandmother had told her many chilling stories of the beast men. Superstitions always had a grain of truth. But this... This was all true. Hideously true. Her own childhood terrors were flesh and blood! Bodil bit back bile that grew in her mouth like acid in rainwater.

This new horror did not transform smoothly as the others had, but bent his own bones to form a humanoid body. Most likely to rise ire and fear in the mortal humans like her and the other captives. She grit her teeth and her pretty petite features twisted in a stubborn snarl. Bodil might hide her shaking and trembling by gripping painfully to her own shackles, but she would not show weakness to these nightmares or their kin! She spit at her feet in the direction of the wolf-beast male just as she had with that grotesque fox-male. Let him know exactly what she thought!

The king-queen of laughter seemed to suddenly focus a type of venom on her. And all due to that bird-brained monarch with the autumn wind voice. "Serve?! Serve you?!" Bodil let out a howl of her own, startling noise from one so sparrowy and delicate looking, "I am not a slave!" She kicked her foot out with a vicious power from such a slender build. "I do not serve beasts or nightmares! Least of all some Falcon King and his beast-men court!"

The Falcon King mocked her and she flushed with either anger or embarrassment. She violently pulled on her own restraints and her ice-colored eyes glared at the fowl King. "No shape would suit you or this court of hideous creatures," she hissed as if casting a curse, "You nightmares hide true hideous nature behind magic, but you can never hide all of your disgusting features, no matter your shape!" Eyes like blades sliced from the fox to the wolf. "Beasts with 'no humanity, who only masquarade as mortals with envy for life they will never have!' " Bodil quote the line from her grandmother and sneered before closing her eyes and tilting her chin up, as if snubbing all of them.

Her grandmother's word echoed in the rafters, even if more than a few humans were confused. But the young woman who had once been of a highly superstitious family, with its own names for these fae, said her last piece. She belong to no one. And this so-called king better know what he was dealing with. Bodil bowed to no one. And certainly not any beast-man nightmare monarch or his snarling underlings! No matter how beautiful a visage these creatures dressed themselves with, Bodil believed them all ugly and writhing with hideousness that couldn't be bared in any fair light. It was why they hid in shadows and other forms. Not even the sun would look on them.

So the cowardly creatures hid behind glamors, like vampires in their coffins or a werewolf in its man-flesh. The Collector might deem her as a possession to this Falcon King, but Bodil was not one to be cowed. When she opened her eyes, her familiar cold cowl of fury masked her fair features. The dollish young woman glared with the wrath of storm brewing behind her pale eyes. The queen-king apparently claimed the well mannered man. So it was all a game between feuding lovers? She was not surprised, but this Falcon should be. For he would find her a most unruly pawn on his chess board. And rebellious pieces could always lead to the loss of any well-practiced game. The King's smile at the queen-king made her flinch, but she covered it with a glower out to one of the frost covered windows.

No one ruled over her. No one would play with her. No one would use her as a pawn.

And no matter how much her white-knuckled hands shook, she was not afraid.

Never afraid, you hear?!