TIMESKIP.

[vrykolakas]

THE BRUCOLAC COURT Unseelie. TITLE Baron of Srathmarbh, Black Omen. OCCUPATION Baron, drugs manufacturer, political thinker gods help him, Umibōzu captain. ABLE TO FAST-TRAVEL Yes; puca. RESIDENCE IN 2,701 Srathmarbh. RESIDENCE IN 2,702 Srathmarbh. MAJOR EVENTS PUBLICATION OF THE REDDENED HILL Being a Personal Account of the Battle of An Carn Ban... [ ✖ ] ADOPTION DISCUSSION "There is no one I would want to do it more." [ ✖ ] COMPLETION OF THE SRATHMARBH SPIRE Description [ ✖ ] PUBLICATION OF THE GOVERNOR A brief meditation on what and what not to do while holding public office. [ ✖ ] BIRTH OF SHAMASH Description [ ✖ ] BIRTH OF ISHTAR Description [ ✖ ] RESCUE OF CHILDREN Description [ ✖ ]

PLANS By the time the timeskip ends, the Brucolac will be in a more stable position, his spire complete and the surrounding lands a buzzing centre of construction and commerce. He will have two children in the care of Alyosha Hazan. SUMMARY OF KNOWN DETAILS Beebins; daring rescue of beebins; becoming reluctantly published; stuff stuff stuff; seeing a scifi film and being the biggest nerd; building a wee town & preparing for ports & shipyards; maybe hunting cloudwhales; tsk'ing unhappily at the cult of the fox TIMELINE OF EVENTS SPRING IN 2,701 (Mar, Apr, May) MARCH - Publication of the Brucolac's The Reddened Hill: The Unseelie Triumph of An Càrn Bàn. Anonymous, though rumour suggests it was one of the Barons. MARCH - A long talk with Alyosha about adoption. APRIL 5TH - The Srathmarbh Spire is completed and the name 'Srathmarbh' finally begins to catch on. Construction workers are encouraged to stay and continue building on the town proper. Whispers abound of future, grander plans (the Brucolac himself ensures these whispers circulate). Various grants and start-up loans are offered to would-be business-owners. APRIL - Hunting cloudwhales for their precious floaty bones. MAY - Publication of The Governor. Anonymous/under penname. MAY - A run-down rural farmhouse west of Mair is chosen for the location at which to base the Brucolac & Dasha's growing drugs business. MAY - Aileas an Seabhac requests that the Brucolac act as her diplomat to help smoothe over tensions between the vampires and the elves. MAY - Those fucking swans. The Brucolac will scoop up a few and be seen to pour what wealth is gained from them straight back into Srathmarbh. SUMMER IN 2,701 (Jun, Jul, Aug) JUNE - Two vampire entrepreneurs take advantage of the Brucolac's offered start-up loans and begin to create a printing press in Srathmarbh. JUNE - The Brucolac participates in the Treun summer tourney, in the Melee category! Yseult comes to watch; the rumours which have long abounded about the Brucolac's kept woman in Mair become noisier. The event ends terribly for them when, during the daytime, Yseult is attacked by copycats of the fox cult for her association with shardbearers. JULY - Perhaps it's the rich heat of the summer sun which the slakemoths respond to? Or the blood in the air. They wrap themselves up in cocoons and emerge terrible, but are manageable. Don't ask how. JULY - An attempt is made to feed one Mr Bones to the slakemoths. AUGUST - The Festival of Shadow. FALL IN 2,701 (Sept, Oct, Nov) EARLY SEPTEMBER - The Brucolac is affected by the scrambling of the translation enchantment; he speaks some stilted Drabbish, and a whole heap of languages from his world, which are all totally useless to him. Expect terrible handwriting and a lot of gestures. Also expect one great big universally-understandable I TOLD YOU SO. SEPTEMBER - The Srathmarbh press is complete and ready for business! Grants for teachers and educators, or literate people wishing to become teachers and educators, are refined and more widely publicised. SEPTEMBER 29TH - Birth of Shamash, son of Verla. OCTOBER 3RD - Birth of Ishtar, daughter of Yseult. OCTOBER 5TH? - By the grace of the Unseelie monarchs, the children are returned, delivered safely to the arms of Alyosha Hazan. OCTOBER 25TH - 30TH - Samhain! An excuse to be naked with loved ones. NOVEMBER - Some of the escaped criminals are former employees of Mr Bones, out for vengeance or perhaps out for gainful employment now that Mr Bones is no longer quite the force he was. The Brucolac puts out feelers to ascertain various situations and deal with them appropriately. WINTER IN 2,701/2,702 (Dec, Jan, Feb) DECEMBER - The Brucolac stays far away from the White Hart. No thanks. Srathmarbh will hold a fervent Yule celebration, which promises to become a tradition. JANUARY - Fuck, what do you mean the slakemoths bred? Oh fuck. FEBRUARY - Yseult causes controversy at the Ostara Festival by anonymously submitting a work named Blindeye, a great abstract mural of wild colours meant to be touched and stroked and stared at with unease. It is torched by a traditionalist. The Brucolac tries to use this to distract from possible re-emergence of elf/vampir tensions caused by the assassinations of elven artists. SPRING IN 2,702 (Mar, Apr) DATE - Description DATE - Description DATE - Description

( codes by whambam )

Comments

MARCH 2701

[vrykolakas]

alyosha. 7th.

[vrykolakas]

The western pebble beach they met on was quiet at dusk; the noise from continued construction in the cliffs above and beyond muted by distance. The sea spoke over it, a few gulls cawed their derision. The air was salt and brisk. On the horizon, the jagged figure of the Srathmarbh Spire reached up into the air.

Black-clad, wind tossing his hair and cloak, the Brucolac crossed the treacherous terrain with more apparent calm than he felt. So nervous that the back of his neck prickled, that he had to fight to keep his claws from digging into his palms.

When he saw her, his nerves spiked, but with that came a sudden shock of relief. No turning back now.

"Red Lady," he said, unable to resist grinning.

[fairyfoes]

Alyosha was a few minutes late; though not by design. Her fingers and sharp nails were faintly stained from blotting ink, and she'd entirely forgotten about the wire-rimmed reading glasses she'd pushed up onto the crown of her head a half-hour earlier.

She wore well-tailored and form fitting blacks which looked rather like some manner of military dress uniform. But there was neither sword nor knife at her belt, or a cloak, and she laughed when he did, pausing her advance over the smooth pebbles to bow grandly.

"Baron," she rejoined, teeth flashing whitely when she smiled. Touched the leg of her glasses on the way to straightening, having realised with an embarrassed start that she'd been wearing them at all. Ah, well, nothing for it now.

She pulled them off, folding them with a familiar flick of her wrist. Gestured with them to the shadow of the spire behind him, speaking as she covered the last distance between them.

"I'd meant to congratulate you somehow. It's already... quite remarkable. I'd wanted to look at it more closely when I brought Effy, but..." No time.

march 22nd.

[erythristic]

[the word slips in quickly -- it's impossible to not notice a force of over two hundred and fifty seeking refuge, kin of Morevni and Aileas an Seobac and their servants. it would be even harder to ignore them with their leaders requesting to speak with the Baron, to announce their presence and all the usual formalities. et cetera, et cetera, work never ends, but they were honest enough.

and after that was all concluded, there was the matter of their dayguard, who for her part had been very patient in waiting for her turn to get to speak to the Baron. she looks a touch leaner from last they met, but there's an undeniable lack of tension in her bearing. who knew that long journeys were excellent in clearing out the stress from battles.]

You're looking better.

[vrykolakas]

You're looking wonderful.

[He's in his tent, a great spacious black and violet set-up with a screen set neatly across one corner, the rest of the space dominated by a large and busy-looking black desk which Grell will recognise as having been stolen wholesale from Caer Scima. He rises from behind it to greet her with a smile he can't surpress, reaching to clasp her hand in both of his.

She's not wrong; he looks neatly groomed, composed, his hair as wild as ever but unmatted by blood, with no signs of injury save for the occasional mild wince of tenderness when he moves his left arm. And he's not wrong either; she looks to him like a godsent relief.]

You've done so much for my kin. Godsdammit, I'd accuse you of trying to get me in your debt if I didn't think you'd take it so well.

EVENT.

[vrykolakas]

It's very fucking cold.

The Brucolac doesn't mind that, though. What he minds is losing a young lad to the ice-treacherous scaffolding which winds its way up along the spire; what he minds is the unease that ripples through Srathmarbh with the news the Baron has stopped construction. Most agree that it is only sensible; that it should have been done sooner, even. Nonetheless, in the few months that they have been here, there has always been construction, and the new silence is heavy.

Hence the bonfires. Three of them, the greatest in the very centre of the encampment, around which a crowd is gathered. Someone's singing. Someone else is hawking hot cider at a truly unbelievable price, which the Brucolac notes with weary pride. Towards the east, the family and friends of the dead boy are gathered about a smaller bonfire, huddled in private, silent grief; off in the north, a fire more well-tamed than the centre blaze, where people are assaying to cook, and not char good meat to a crisp.

The Brucolac works through it. Puts out advertisements for mages who can work with fire and heat, orders salt to be spread across the roads, keeps the bonfires burning; Srathmarbh is by no means so built-up yet as to provide adequate shelter in the face of this much cold. And every morning he breaks the ice on the Criostal, to cheer up the naiiads who should be thawing by now.

[selfimage]

Loki's not an elemental mage. He doesn't do fire, and nor does he have much desire to learn. He could write off some excuse about inelegance, but the metaphorical and literal prospect of it never fails to make him side-eye. (Metaphorically more than literally for reasons he's not about to divulge.) He's an Asgardian, and he's been raised Asgardian, but he has a particular penchant to the cold that comes from somewhere of his birth. He's still a polar bear diving frost giant somewhere in the depths of his tricksy heart.

When the call goes out he decides to pay a visit, not that he can be of much aid, really, but it's as good of a time as any. He may find some use for himself yet. It would be good to see what he was up to, keep the memory of himself fresh, and see if there's anything else to gain.

"Well ..." Loki says, approaching and tucking his hands into his pockets. "I should've brought a bag of marshmallows." It's hard to miss his signature horned diadem, the tacky green jacket and the way that he sashays up beside him. He takes a moment to survey—the bonfires, the seasonal drink, and the ice. All the ice.

[scorchedchivalry]

It took Saber a bit longer to get to Srathmarbh than she had planned given those with her could not travel through the fairy rings and the clegs they were mounted upon needed to land far too frequently to have their wings thawed and tended to. But arrive Saber did, dressed in a manner that most others would freeze in as her only concessions to the cold where a thick blue fur cloak with white trim and the gloves she wore. Upon her brow was the silver crown as the Winter King and the four men with her all bore banners of a white dragon on a blue field.

She quickly dispatched two of her men to assess the state of the Spire and help thaw out anyone that had become frozen. Then she sought out the Brucolac with her other two men.

[metalica]

The silence is like a sickening weight as Erik lands in the grounds of the Spire, the first he has been to since he heard of their existence. He's had no reason to come so far north for longer than he'd cared to admit, the safety of Maupertius and Morgana's protection (abusing the whispers of the servants to make him seem far more important than he really is) all that he had needed for the most part. Now, though? Now he needed money and people to come to his side, builders and perhaps some kind of guard, just until he had what he needed prepared.

He walks forward, reaching out with his mutation to feel the world around him, the iron he had been told about, the scaffolding, the in-progress building that makes his lips purse and his eyes dart around. It makes him feel powerful, if he's to be honest, and a part of him wonders if he'd be capable of simply waving his arms and lifting the entire structure into the air, reaching out and grasping all the metal. He wouldn't, has no reason to, of course, but the idea is a powerful one and leaves him considering.

It's only when he moves closer to the fires that he pulls on his bracers, flexing his fingers and feeling a power as familiar as his magnetism flick through him, the urge to manipulate and turn the flame, to have it dance around him, almost a distraction. If he didn't have a job to do he might spend a few hours experimenting - but he has a man to find and a job to do. When he spots his target he walks over, expression set and neutral.

"Tell me what you need."

[raavashing]

Wan arrived shortly after the call went out, coming in through the fairy ring. It was the first time he'd used one of them, though he had been told how to by some of the imps of Caer Scima before it's fall. It was a very odd and disorientating sensation, but not so terrible that he couldn't come back to himself within seconds. The ice really did cover everything within sight, but there were were areas that were more important to thaw out than immediately where he appeared. Taking a moment to orientate himself and wave a greeting to anyone who was near, he sought out the man who had made the call for help.

"Hello!" he called cheerfully as he finally found him and jogged up, "I'm Wan. I'm here to help with the ice. Is the man made of fire here yet?"

APRIL 2701

[vrykolakas]

paloma.

[vrykolakas]

The ice has melted and the Brucolac doesn't feel better for it. Rain slips down the windows of the new-completed spire, muddying the view of the night outside into streaks of orange and purple-black. His neck aches and his eyes sting, and he worries, even though there's nothing to worry about now. He worries about having nothing to worry about. His brain clenches about the nothingness. Shakes it like a dog with a rabbit in its mouth. His stomach feels jolted, like he's lost his centre of gravity, and he's never not hungry but he's never not slightly nauseated. He's not sure what it means, or what he might do because of it.

But there's work to be done, and this exhausted, teeth-tight nervous terror is no excuse; nor does he want it to be. The work makes him feel better. Each ticked box is a relief and a defiance.

"Come in," he says, before Paloma knocks, catching her scent and isolating the familiar creak of her footstep outside. He leans back, sighs, and arranges his face into neutral attentiveness, though his skin has a faint grey-greenish pallor to it, and on his desk the fingers of his left hand drum and twitch.

MAY 2701

[vrykolakas]

aileas an seabhac. 9th may.

[vrykolakas]

"My lord, the—"

"Elder of the Seabhac. Aileas. She's here and she expects me to come running to her." With a sharp sigh, the Brucolac threw down his pen, a spattering of ink splashing across one of the many documents he'd been leafing through. "Shit, don't you think I've ears to hear?"

Ears sensitive enough to pierce the walls of the spire with ease, picking up on what was happening outside and below. The clerk who had rushed in to inform him looked abashed and distinctly uncertain. He was too well-trained to take a nervous step backwards when the Brucolac rose, but he certainly looked as if he wanted to.

"I'm not going to bite you," the Brucolac told him. "And I'm not going to send you to get bitten by her. Go, fuck off." The clerk was only too eager to acquiesce, closing the door in his wake. The Brucolac sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and set about whisking the papers on his desk into better order. His office was spacious, dim-lit, papered with maps. Stars. The Drabwurld; as it was now, as it had been in past ages. Other, stranger places drawn by homesick shardbearers.

"Come on," he sighed, "Lady of the Seabhac, let's not make this a godsdamn public spectacle."

JUNE 2701

[vrykolakas]

JULY 2701

[vrykolakas]

july 9th. paloma.

[vrykolakas]

"Unfortunately, after consideration, I find myself under obligation to politely decline your request—"

"Cut the politely," the Brucolac said, leaning back in his chair, eyes closed. He heard his scribe's slightly pained hitch of breath and ignored it. "I didn't say politely in the original dictation, did I?"

"No, milord."

"And for good reason. And none of this under obligation nonsense."

"That was originally yours, milord."

"I'm aware. That doesn't stop it from being cuntishly circumlocutionary. Change it. I find myself obliged to decline your request for further funding."

"Yes, milord," the scribe said. There came the scratch of pen nib against parchment. The Brucolac, still with his eyes closed, flicked out his tongue to lazily taste the air. "Would you like me to continue?"

"By all means."

"Should you wish to appeal this decision, the—"

The Brucolac opened his eyes, and switched frequencies. Tuned his scribe out with ease while the man kept reading aloud his own words; found instead something else which was nagging at his senses, a familiar bright tang too specific to be categorised just as blood. Thaumaturgical, biological: a little of this, a little of that, delectable, in fact, if dead, dead, dead. His tongue twitched, and he turned his head, sitting up straighter. His scribe had stopped talking. He barely noticed.

"Fuck," he said, slamming back to the real, present moment, and standing. "Pack up and get out," he ordered his scribe, "finish off that letter as you see fit in your own office."

He was gone almost before the sound of his last instruction had faded from the air, tracking down the scent he had caught with bloodhound precision. He was familiar with the reek of Paloma's blood; it was only the quantity which had cost him a moment of confusion.

AUGUST 2701

[vrykolakas]

alyosha.

[vrykolakas]

It had been a long heat-sticky summer, full of blood and sweat and terrible things with terrible wings. And so it would continue. The Brucolac had been looking forward to this meeting not as solace so much as a night of freedom. Unrepentant, selfish and foolish.

Though why—beyond concerns for neutrality and secrecy—they had wound up agreeing to meet at the Station, the Brucolac couldn't say.

"The old red witch is here," Accalon hissed, hooves kicking up great fountains of dirt as he landed. The place was still ravaged and broken-looking from the Jabberwock's...Nemexia's attack.

"Good," said the Brucolac, as if he didn't already know.

LETTER DELIVERY - SPIRE 9 - 1ST WEEK OF AUGUST

[greenies]

To: All barons of Spires
Re: A Notice of What Ails the Golems

By now you have probably been told of the golems of the forests across the Drabwurld attacking travelers and visitors to their territory. This anger is caused by a fungus that grows on the plants, and especially the vines, that make up their form, which is growing too fast. It's basically the same as a rash on a person with skin, or fleas on the back of a furred animal.

A method for healing the golems has been found.

Please, take an elementalist who is able to control water and take them into the forests to speak with the Dryads that live there. Ask the Dryads to strengthen the golems and make it so the increased growth of the fungus doesn't irritate them. Agree to have the elementalist wash the golems so their irritation is lessened and they can calm long enough to be healed by the dryad's magic.

Do not destroy the fungus. From everything I've been able to find, it's a normal part of them. It's just that the weather seems to be exactly right for it to grow faster than it usually does. The golems only need to be strengthened so they no longer feel irritation from the current growth rate.

If you have any questions, you may send word to either Wan, in the the Village of Azure (within La Llorona) or Flora, a Marchioness of the Seelie Court.

Regards,
Wan

[ tip your couriers! ;) ]

SEPTEMBER 2701

[vrykolakas]

OCTOBER 2701

[vrykolakas]

october 5th. rescue. likely warnings for violence, possibly against children.

[vrykolakas]

The night after the girl's birth, the Brucolac stayed with Yseult. Both of them shocked and quiet as war-orphans, they locked themselves into Yseult's bright, beautiful rooms in Mair and passed an insensible night and day together. Yseult got drunk and wept into the Brucolac's hair. They argued, of course, more for the sake of snarling at each other than because they were angry; they argued pointlessly about the fact that the child was a girl and how had the Brucolac been wrong and whether it mattered; neighbours knocked urgently on walls to tell them to shut up when their voices rose to hysterical heights, and were ignored. After, having wrung themselves clean dry of emotion, they both slept through the day.

He took his leave after waking. Accalon got no joy from needling, the Brucolac being too exhausted to bite back, so they rode in silence save for the screaming winds and the ululation of nightmares as the puca galloped across dreaming terrors. At his spire he moved quick to avoid the attentions of his staff, was craven enough to walk in the shadows to avoid the petitions of over-eager clerks keen to tell him of all the work he had to do. Only let out a breath when he came to his private office.

And promptly sucked it sharpily in again when he opened the door to his sitting room.

"Oh fuck," he said, almost a whimper.

The imp which was sprawled on his floor in a literal puddle of red wine, guzzling happily at a half-empty bottle it had stolen from his drinks cabinet, swallowed and grinned up at him. "Was bored," it said, smacking its lips. "Don't stand on me, Lord Shardbearer your baronship. 've got a letter for you. I'll clean this up..." It staggered to its feet, and produced a note from its pocket. Held it out with slightly sticky fingers. The Brucolac snatched up the paper.

"Get out," he said, and looked down; the imp had already vanished, wine and all, with the puddle entirely gone. Blinking, dry-mouthed with horror and amazement, he returned his gaze to what else lay on the floor, in tumbled-apart black pieces. Reeking of magic and old, old blood.

"Fuck," he said again, staring at the High King's armour.

***

He had wondered what he had sold himself for.

The armour was heavy, massive, bleeding magic down into his bones; it prickled with spikes, yet made no sound as the metal plates (were they metal?) slithered against each other. He hadn't yet put on the helmet. It was about as intuitive as sticking his head into the maw of a mafadet, of a great bonefish, of an overgrown shark.

Steeling himself, he did it anyway.

october 5th. end of the night.

[vrykolakas]

He had sent a single message to Alyosha: Have food ready, wetnurse, something. With a twist of a dial, he had let the compass turn his words to text so she couldn't hear how exhaustion thinned out his voice. Then he had put it away and focused his attention on the children, without the energy to concentrate on anything more.

Shamash and Ishtar were swaddled now in fresh linens, fed with dabs of sugar water (administered with utmost caution, near terror, on the advice of a medic in Redgate) in the absence of milk, both sniffling intermittently with hunger still. He replaced the cold, slit-visored helm. Staggered under the weight of the world. Dorchadas crackled around him, all purple and blue, a thousand different colours of darkness.

He held the children tight, and took the single step which would bring him crashing before Alyosha's door in a burst of flame cold and bright enough to singe the earth around them. Knees nearly buckling even in the black-shell casing of his borrowed armour.

The weight of all this knowing was exhausting. He might as well have stuck his head into a hornet's nest for the painful whine which invaded his ears. If there was space between his brow and the helm's visor—and he wasn't sure there was—it was slicked with blood.

october 5th. redgate, between rescue & alyosha's.

[vrykolakas]

People get out of the way as the Brucolac strides through the fortress. He hasn't the energy to care about the scene he's making; still clad in Reul's highly recogniseable black plate save for the helmet, with two swaddled, squalling infants tucked against his shoulder, bizarrely incongruous amidst the spikes and weird, too-organic planes of the armour. His hair was darkened and matted by blood.

He was heading for Saralegui's quarters, fully expecting to be intercepted. The Lord of Redgate was too well-organised not to have some system in place which would lead to him being alerted when an Unseelie baron in demonic armour crashed into the fortress with the beginnings of a small clan of wailing bastards in tow.