Movements of Fire and Shadow [M] (Marjorie)

[quaggan]

 Coriander remembered how much he enjoyed it as a child - how he'd jump to the window at the sight of winter's first snow, then gathered every thin layer surreptitiously to later sneak down the necks of unlikeable servants or hide on the chairs of invited guests. It was a fascination that didn't last long - how could simple frozen water hold any kind of mystery when at least one friend of his could conjure it at a drop of the hat. The people of Serendipity have long since conquered what once was solely the purview of nature, and enslaved its forces to their will. Arlan has not yet lost this feeling of awe towards what no longer moved the mortals - perhaps it was yet another aspect they should be envious of.

But it appeared that there was a limit of what snow had to offer to the Fae. Coriander took a moment to orient himself - while the enchantments hiding the door did wonders to make the guests feel like they were in a genuine Hyoite tundra, it also made it harder to find the door and leave. Then again, the lord of the house treated the Storm Garden like his personal retreat rather than something to be shared with the others. Making any intruders confused was probably something he viewed as an advantage.

"This way" he motioned. "The next part of the dome is... a bit strange."

[Marjorie]

Fae, like Neese, were fickle, flighty, and impulsive creatures. They were also very in tune with nature, connected to it by the fabric of their being. Nature had it's own magic and secrets - nature had in the past and would again in the future topple human civilizations without thought or effort - even these proud, fairy-blooded humans. It was no mind here though, Neese had no care for weather these people respected nature as they aught to or not.

"Oh...?" Strangeness, uniqueness, they were things that Arlan could appreciate. He liked things that were unlike others. Things that were unique were of value, and, in his opinion, usually, at least, beautiful. Things to be had, and kept.

[quaggan]

 Coriander's lips curved into a content smirk. He was glad to have piqued Arlan's curiosity - a Fae's attentions were infinitely more flattering than a mere mortal. He has almost forgotten about the party he worked so hard to throw, and the guests that were probably offended by the disappearance of their host. He strode forward, picking up the enchanted bracelet from its hiding place in a bush. The barriers around the third part of the dome prevented its contents from spilling, but in order for a human to properly enjoy its beauty, a magical enchantment was necessary. There was only one - the lord had no intention of sharing his haven, after all - but a Fae should be able to use his own magic to shield himself. If he needed it at all, that is.

Coriander opened the door and stepped through, into a world never seen on the surface of Le'raana. The entire section was submerged in water, opening into a small slice of ocean's depths. The darkness of the sector was only briefly illuminated by small orbs of light drifting aimlessly - the only concession from the surface world that was allowed inside. Proud coral bloomed on what little could be seen from walls, stalks of seaweed gently swayed with the tides, a bed of kelp was slowly sinking downwards into the depths.

[Marjorie]

Coriander was correct in his assumption. As he stepped threw the door, Arlan made a gesture with his finger, turning it in a circle in front of him, as he left his breath for the brief moment required for the spell to take affect. Then a moment later he was conferrable, warm, and back in the original form that his guest had seen him in -- and snug as a bug inside a study bubble that was large enough for him to sit comfortably on the "floor" of it.

Now this was a wondrous treat -- even for the fae. Neese, or Arlin in this moment, was a surface being as sure as any other creature that walked on two feet - or four. Thought he prided himself in tilting the world to his whims, he also knew his powers and abilities were not without limits - and that there were certainly secretes in this world that he hadn't discovered yet, and likely some he might never discover.

He'd been in the ocean before but certainly never drifted under the waters at the suggested depths of this room. As his bubble drifted past some kelp, the fey lord reached out, threw the wall from his bubble, which sealed neatly around his exposed limb and brushed his fingers against its length, and when he pulled his arm back in, well, he was as dry as he had been before they'd entered the gardens to begin with.

"I must complement your father's creativity and his mages," Neese said, not bothering to hide his surprise or wonder, "this is impressive on scales I usually wouldn't expect mortals to be measured on." He had always believed, even as vain a creature as he was, that acknowledgment of achievement should be given where it was due -- very little of the mortal realm impressed him for more than a fleeting moment, but this was there with those few things.

[quaggan]

 "I will let him know" Coriander promised. He would keep his word - his father would find out about his intrusion anyway, there was no point trying to hide it.

He closed the door and pushed himself firmly off the wall towards the middle of the room. It was rather dark in there, and luminescence was nowhere near as helpful as one could have expected. He wondered how could his father navigate this abyss. Perhaps he had some kind of a magical trinket that allowed him to traverse it better. Sneaking in without permission had this thrill, but also lacked the advantages the lord of the manor would have.

He looked around, trying to find his guest. Did the Fae disappear somewhere in the dark depths? Has he grown bored of mortal entertainment and left for his homelands, without even a word of farewell? No, he was further there. Coriander carefully approached. "It is the most recent addition to the Storm Gardens" he began. "My father commissioned it after a journey to Yoreiq, where he traded with a mermaid tribe for several goods that are difficult to acquire in the ocean. Their stories of their homeland - well, home waters - must have made quite an impression on him."

There was no bubbles coming out of his mouth even as he spoke - the enchantment kept the air inside. For a second, he questioned the wisdom of his choice to speak - could Arlan even hear him? A human probably would not be able to, but a Fae would have senses mortals could never perceive through.

He oriented himself back towards the walls. He would have to spend a little more time searching for the door to the next sector - he was not very familiar with the way this part of the dome was built. It was the newest one, after all, and not something he'd consider a personal favourite. As pretty as underwater landscape was, he found the limited mobility frustrating.

[Marjorie]

"I'm not sure he will be pleased to hear," Neese chuckled softly. Not that he cared if the man was pleased or not. Neese did precisely whatever he wanted to whenever he wished. Gliding effortlessly threw the water, Neese reached out one if his arms threw the bubble he was currently encapsulated in and caught Coriander around the shoulders gently, which propelled them both threw the waters toward the wall and, quite precisely to the door.

[quaggan]

 The Fae once again came to his aid. First there was the heat spell in the Hyoite dome, now manoeuvreing assistance... if there was one thing Coriander was to take from all this party it was that next time he invited someone to the Storm Gardens, he should take a few useful objects along - or spells to help him not to make a complete fool out of himself! If it was a next time, of course - his father probably wouldn't take someone invading his sanctuary well, a change of keys would be the least of problems he'd create.

He held onto the handle as he began to speak. "The final dome might be a bit of a let down, but I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless." He yanked the door open, then pulled himself along the frame and over the threshold into the next dome. It was quite a relief to once again be surrounded by air that presented no resistance to his body.

The final part of the Storm Gardens was based on bog flora. It wasn't exactly a new element in the kingdom of Serendipity, there were swamps in some provinces, and several nobles had their mire gardens. But Lord Coriander was never the kind of a man to mindlessly follow trends set by someone else, or to put any less than all of his efforts towards a goal. Rather than just sow randomly what plants grew well in local climate, he hired an enchanter to increase the humidity of air and subtly change the temperature, stole Baroness Daiva's personal gardener to choose the mix of soils... The result was stellar.

The ground where he stepped was still certain enough to stand, but damper than in any other dome before. Several patches were treacherously close to liquid, threatening to suck an unsuspecting guest into the artificially deep swamp. The interior was a spread of many colours of green, so varied that anyone save for a master painter would have a hard time naming all the hues. While it was a dominant shade, it was by no means the only one, as it was accompanied by vibrant blooms of flowers, thin pillars of gray reeds, accented by the darkness hiding within the water.

Should he warn the Fae about the uncertain ground? The last thing he wanted was to incur his noble guest's displeasure, or see his majesty stained with mud. "Please watch out" he began. "My father went a little bit overboard and had his hirelings create rather wide pockets of space to make the mire appropriately deep."

[Marjorie]

Ahh well, this was more like Neese's home - or rather, not his castle in the city, but what a place he might have come from would look like, had he lived in the wild. He shifted his form changing entirely, this time to his natural form - green/grey all over, and spindly with the leafy and twig-like appendages and all... and he no longer wore clothes. In this form, Neese looked like a peace of the landscape, like he aught to be there as much as the trees.

The fae lord ginned at Coriander. "You needn't worry I'll loose my footing here." In fact, as he did walk, he stepped on top of the water and mud, not into it.

[quaggan]

 Elethain watched, fascination clear on his face, as the fae lord transformed. He's seen such magic before, artists changing their body as a part of their performance; but perhaps this comparison was not as apt as it appeared when it first sparked into his head. It was clear even to one without any expert knowledge of experience with magic that what he saw was on a completely different level. It was like bearing witness to an original work of art, when one has only seen its reproductions before.

He realized that he was staring and quickly mastered himself. Fae or mortal, there was no excuse for a host to stare at his guest like that! His last remaining ounce of common sense tried to argue that if Arlan disliked attention, he wouldn't be showing off; but common sense never mattered when etiquette was concerned.

"That's quite a skill" he admitted, letting envy show in his voice. "I wish I was able to do that."

[Marjorie]

Neese, or Arlin, grinned at his host, bathed in the attention - quite pleased wit himself. Coriander wasn't incorrect - Neese loved the attention, he fed off of it. He shrugged, as if he'd done nothing at all. "The other was a mask," the posh gentlemen in the finely tailored suit, was a very fine illusion in deed, "all I did was lift it." Now he appeared to the young lord as he had been made.

[quaggan]

 "Why the need of a mask?" he asked. Serendipity, of all places, was not likely to react badly to a Fae in all his glory - quite the opposite, had Arlan showed up without the disguise, his presence would have outshone all of the mortal guests. Coriander never heard of discretion being a virtue among the Fair Folk.

[Marjorie]

Neese shrugged. Well, he was right, in Serendipity of all places, he didn't need the mask. "Sometimes," he said, "it's easier to walk the streets if the locals are not fawning over me," which was relative because wasn't he such a stuning creature to look at no matter what form he chose to take? Why yes, yes he was.

"Also," he said, "how boring would it be to always look just the same, when one could look anyway they chose at any given moment?" There was something else too, it was a bit of showing off to appear in such a perfectly placed glamour as he had chosen to that evening. 

[quaggan]

 Elethain suspected that Arlan was not opposed to fawning on principle - if he was, he would come up with a less stunning appearance, or shot down the courtier's attempts. Or perhaps there was some other kind of attention he wanted to avoid - Serenian society was full of powerful mages and dedicated scholars, the Fae would probably receive as much scientific questions as starry-eyed praise.

"I think it is a need shared by mortals as well" he confessed. "Granted, most of us have rather limited ways of indulging our whims and impulses. I can't imagine living in a dreary wasteland like Hyoite, without any enchanters or illusionists to help expand our options... It's hard enough to have to restrict myself to only altering my clothes, my hair and my jewellery when I'm waiting for my contractors to prepare a spell!"