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

[fairyfoes]

She hissed a thoughtful sound, frown growing. "Elven kingdom lost king and prince, or I wouldn't risk asking; too much bad blood. Not certain who rules now, though it can be..." She flicked her clawed fingers, "Found out."

Aileas leaned her hip on the edge of the desk, arms crossing. "Likely shardbearer led. Not much trust between shard-folk and natives. Mine are prepared to be civil at my word, knowing I'm a worse fate for them than elf-fire; but the others..." She bared her teeth, vexed.

"Morveni clan lost the most. No surprise; all soft-handed, soft-throated, quick to starve. Many what weren't burnt in Glaschu went blood-mad on the march northward, had to be cut down, or felt they'd lost enough that they gave themselves like brides to the light of dawn." She spoke with a frustrated fondness, as one about family members who just couldn't keep it together. "They'd be stubborn and high-tempered. Lainosti swords all have their pride at stake. Stupid, selfish, but might be led to water with the right plan. Serpents... serpents would be with us. Loudest for peace in the start."

She shrugged, forging on, "Don't know what to expect of the elves. Not even sure if accord is possible, but... seems foolish not to try. I can work the other clans; having broken the first law of siring and then also been disavowed gives you poor footing with any of our Kin. Be my diplomat, help me grow this thing from the seed of the idea. I can lead allies to you, others for peace from either side; help in any other way."

[vrykolakas]

"When you say side," the Brucolac said, "do you mean elves and vampir, or Seelie and Unseelie? We are aligned. For better or for worse." He clicked his tongue, pushed himself away from the desk, began to pace across the expanse of the map-lined office. He twitched at the shadow which his cuff cast on his right wrist, tugged at it like something elastic, worried it in delicate movements between his fingers.

"This race war is good for the war of the shards, at a first glance, but I think I can make a good case for Unseelie to wish for peace between us. This place, for one thing, won't blossom as it should if the conflict makes it a target for genocidists or revenge-takers. Whether leech or long-ear." He flicked the shadow away, made it flee to join its fellows in corners. "Well. That's for me to manage." Thinking aloud.

He stilled his pacing and looked to her, his gaze set and calm. "Give me contacts and allies, elves especially who will work with me, and I'll do something drastic for you, in the finest tradition of slickshit smoothtalking politician cunts." His smile was sudden and almost brazen. It made him seem young rather than simply look it. "You're right. Foolish not to try."

[fairyfoes]

"I mean from all corners of this nonsense. Elves. Seelie. I'm not without eyes in far corners of the world." Her grimace flashed teeth, though, no less vexed for the elaboration. She watched the movements of his hands with vague but palpable fascination, like a cat briefly distracted with string before determining that it wasn't worth her time to chase.

"Elves and vampir Kin are the longest-lived folk of the drabwurld. But we are both candles burnt to the last, dying out with the world. Their children are less and less, and those we attempt to turn remain dead more and more. As magic dies, so do we. Better if our last years are spent better than worrying at each others' throats; I take no pride or pleasure in killing what's already dead." And then, after a significant pause, "Only to see to my own. I want to live. I want my cubs to live beyond me. And that's large enough a goal for these harried nights. And as you say, genocidists, killers of kin, are thick in the night. They hunt us by day, and slay us with fire. Haven't we wept enough over ashes?"

Her grin was bright and broad and sharp as a fox's. "I'll get you what you need and more, cub, never you mind. You know how to be in touch?"

[vrykolakas]

He was reminded of what Alyosha had said to him. About how these last nights made her want to do what she liked, what would better her life and others. His tongue flicked. Apocalypses were so revelatory.

"No. Messages addressed to the wilds rarely tend to meet their intended recipient."

[fairyfoes]

Aileas clacked her teeth at him harmlessly, rumbling in clear amusement, "Would if you weren't doing it wrong. Some other pup will show you. Later." A possibly worrying statement; she had little concept of time. She ran her fingertips over the scars in the desk, now, and watched his hands, vaguely frowning.

"Tonight, come out with us to hunt.

[vrykolakas]

Distinctly troubling; she didn't seem like someone who kept a diary of appointments, nor a to-do list full of reminders, but what good would it do to nag her?

At her invitation, he frowned. It was a moment before he answered. For a few uneasy seconds he thought of all he had to do which wasn't go charging through the wilds with mad creatures like Aileas. "I'll run with you," he said, "but the blood of beasts does nothing for me, and I don't hunt the quick anymore. For the sake of hunting, though." He flashed her a smile. "Yes."

[fairyfoes]

She reflected his smile back at him, broader, brighter; an expression that tickled at the hindbrain like a jolt of adrenaline. In the span of a blink, she was nudging her shoulder to his again, herding him away from the desk with her body like one wolf might another.

It was distinctly companionable, happy and without reserve. "Only going to put the teeth Shuck gave you to any fucking use defending some other beast's borders, pup? Come, come, come, far-worlder, bloody yourself and your kin and the prey that was meant for you. Give and gain scars and shed a while this mantle of duty to anything but yourself."

[vrykolakas]

He started, then laughed, and put his shoulder to hers in response. He was glad to have been asked; knew, despite his unease with the concept of scavenging for his food—not squeamish, nor moral, but as a matter of pride, never again will I have to be a beast so as not to starve—that she wasn't intentionally scratching her claws against it.

"You talk like I'm cleaner than a virgin's bedsheets. I might be a pup to you, but...ah, fuck it, let's go. What I catch is yours, in case your ancient legs won't carry you quick as you want them to."

[fairyfoes]

She cackled a snarling hyena's laugh, head tipped back, and gripped his shoulder. "Smartmouthed cunt! You'll be cussing those young legs of yours when you run with us, I wager, and whatever you catch's likely to be taken out of your mouth if you don't grip tight fast enough."

Her smile flashed fang, and she pushed him happily along.