Nodding off, [Imperfect_M]

[homeboy!]

A warm breeze brushed gently across Bobby's face, his eyes fluttered, struggling to stay open one caught in the warm glow of the sun, the other in the cool shadow of a tree overhead. Face half baking in the suns rays. A yawn left him, a hand coming up to instinctively cover his mouth. An egg lay by his head, resting on a root near the base of the tree, while his spear was a few inches from his foot, lodged in the lower tree branches. Hanging upside down was tiring work.

An hour or so ago, a bored Robert chucked his spear, just to see how far it would fly. Some yards away, he found it lodged in a tree, and he soon followed. He could chuck his spear pretty far, he'd concluded.

He could almost feel a swell of blood rushing to his head as his breaths became more labored. His foot was lodged tight between two branches, what he thought an ingenious foothold would become his downfall. Sweat ran down past his shoulder and down his arm until it reached his fingertips, making a subtle drop to bridge the gap between his index and a blade of grass beneath it. He took a deep breath, struggling to free himself was pointless, he'd only run out of air faster. He'd have to be patient if he was to best this tree.

He hated being patient.

[Imperfect_M]

Simply breathe... And let yourself fall through...

The barrier between the Faewild and Le'Raana is remarkably thin in some places. In those places, what is present in one is reflected in the other: Be they forests, mountains, even stones. Where there are those parallel spaces, there is an overlap where a properly motivated being could step across the gap between worlds as easily as one would step over a root or stone in a path.

How that barrier presents itself is... Murky at best. Some scholars have said that it appears like a veil, others have said that it appears as a physical wall of matter, and others still have said it is less of a physical barrier and more akin to a mental or spiritual one. Perhaps the way the Barrier presents itself is purely dependent on who perceives it, or perhaps folk have simply not learned how to observe it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Taernichanthach stood in a grove of her own making. It was no snowy forest, but she had made herself comfortable here in preparation to step across the gap. She knew that if she tried to force herself through the barrier- like so many other Fae folk do- she would be robbed of her strength and disoriented for a time. For one like herself, that was unacceptable.

Breathe... And let yourself fall through...

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, held it, and released. With each breath, more and more of the world fell away. The wind through the trees, the birdsongs of the Faewild's ever-present teeming life, it all began to feel so far away. Taernichanthach felt the Barrier as if she were standing on the surface of water. She could feel her feet making tiny, almost-imperceptible depressions into the surface yet her mass could not break its tension. And there was Le'Raana, reflected just beneath the water's surface.

Breathe... Fall...

Taernichanthach took one long, last inhale, and let herself fall backwards.

The sensation was that of her perception: Falling into a pool of still, cold water. Despite her armor and her garment, she felt the cold rush over every inch of her being as she sank beneath the surface. As a Winter Fae, she always enjoyed the cold, even to temperatures that would freeze a living creature inside-out, but this... This sensation was different. She felt it seep through her skin and into her bones, gripping her in an uncomfortable embrace.

Breathe...

She exhaled slowly, letting the breath draw out for as long as she could stand. That uncomfortable, bone-deep chill left her with the breath. She felt the surface of the pool again, this time against her back and the top of her head. Taernichanthach adjusted her posture and felt her feet touch solid ground. She stood up; the surface tension of the water against her offering little resistance as she broke through it.

When she opened her eyes, she stood not in the Faewild, but in Le'Raana. The sun shone down on her face; it was uncomfortably warm... But she would fix that in a moment. She took another deep breath to steady her senses. Crossing the gap, even if it was easier in these places, always took its toll.

- - - - - - - - - -

What a coincidence it was that Taernichanthach happened across a young man dangling from a tree mere minutes after she had crossed over. Dark skin, strong frame, hair curled into a very interesting shape. He was hanging upside down, and apparently not by choice either. A mysterious egg lay at the base of the tree, and a spear- presumably his weapon- jutting out from a branch up near his caught foot.

Taernichanthach smirked with amusement as she approached the distressed warrior from behind. The air around her grew colder with each step as she drew closer.

"You seem to be the instrument of your own unmaking, traveler," she sighed, her voice like that of a winter breeze. Soft and gentle, yet carrying with it the promise of a biting, frigid cold.

[homeboy!]

For what felt like ages, Bobby hung in the tree, with only the sounds of the swaying leaves to accompany his breathing, which was slowly becoming more labored as time went on. The slightest rustling of grass behind him caught his ear, and then, a voice! Bobby seemed to perk up in excitement upon hearing who he assumed to be his savior.

"Stranger!" He exclaimed, attempting to crane his neck to look at the source of the words. Admittedly, he hadn't really paid attention to what she had been saying, but a voice was a welcome sound regardless.

"Care to lend a hand?"

[Imperfect_M]

"Stranger!" exclaimed the man, "Care to lend a hand?"

Taernichanthach's ears twitched at the sound of the Human's baritone. He swayed slightly as he craned his neck in an attempt to see her, though from his angle he would only be able to see her boots.

She chuckled a breathy laugh; that winter breeze in her voice intensifying to a razor-like edge. Even without a look at her voice, one could almost hear the wicked smirk that spread across her lips.

"Hmmmm," she hummed, still keeping behind Bobby, "And why would I do that? O you, who harms the trees on a whim."

She ran a fingertip along the tree's bark as she walked the long way around the treetrunk. Perhaps "hear" is not the right word when describing how one like her communes with nature. It is more akin to a "perception." She perceives what the trees and animals want her to perceive, with all the senses she possessed. The spear had broken through the tree's bark and embedded itself into the wood. While it was not a deep nor grievous wound, the tree did not want to be wounded in the first place. But at the same time... It was afraid. Not of Bobby, but of her. The Winter Court- to the broadleaf woodlands of the continent- represented death and hibernation. This oak tree feared her winter, her cold... As did the rest of this forest.

I am not here as an enemy, she promised the old oak.

The Winter Fae reached up and yanked the spear from its branch and stabbed it into the dirt near her feet. She squatted down to look eye-to-eye with the warrior. Pale eyes with slit pupils like that of a cat met the bright blue of Bobby's own gaze. Taernichanthach's face was stoic, neutral...

"You should hear what your captor has to say of you," she explained, "While the oak does not desire your death, you have made a fool of yourself in the eyes and ears of the forest."

Perhaps this young man had never seen the Faefolk before, or perhaps he did not know of their connection to nature.

"Maybe I can lend my aid," she explained, tilting her head to one side. "In return for a favor, of course."

To bargain with a Fae is almost always to invite disaster. They are bound by their supernatural Laws, and are compelled to perform their sides of a deal, but by proxy they are able to extend those compulsions to those that bargain with them. Any Faerie of reasonable age is a master of deception. And "a favor" is an extremely open-ended bargain. She could be asking for something as simple as "tell me a joke," or as imperative as "give me your life."

"So," Taernichanthach said coyly, her voice lilting up at the end of the word. "Choose."

[homeboy!]

"A fool I've been made?" Bobby humored with a cough. "I hope they had a good laugh!" Bobby tried to manage a chuckle as he hung upside down, trying to manage deeper inhalation as the strange woman spoke. A favor? Easy! Bobby thought very little of the deal, but admittingly, he would take almost any deal to get out of that uncomfortable situation.

"Ok!" A naive Robert happily agreed, unknowing of the risks he'd taken. How bad could a favor be?

[Imperfect_M]

"Ok!" the warrior chimed. He had agreed so readily and with little thought to the implications of Taernichanthach's bargain.

The Winter Faerie blinked. Slowly. He-... He could have not known, could he...? No mortal would so readily agree to such a thing. Unless they had some kind of motive. Some knowledge that she did not possess. Surely she was being played for a fool.

Or the young man simply did not know.

Impossible! Surely!

The hamster ran on the wheel for a few moments more; so much more that it tired itself out and left Taernichanthach mentally turned around by her own thoughts.

She huffed a puff of mist. She ran a finger along the tree's bark once more and the oak's strong branches simply unwound to release Bobby's foot, letting him tumble to the ground.

Taernichanthach had followed up her end up the deal. But now what could she possibly gain from this mortal? Curiosity gnawed at her like a dog with nothing to do...

"Why did you so readily accept my bargain?" the Winter Fae finally asked.

[homeboy!]

Bobby landed with a soft thud, then proceeded to stand and dust himself off, hands quickly moving to his head to fix his hair. "I mean, it's just a favor right?" A brow was raised, but his focus remained on the dark locks. Sated with the result, his eyes moved to his savior.

'Pretty.' was the first word that came to his mind, but he was wise enough to not say it aloud.

"I mean, it's not like you're gonna ask me to commit some sort of crime, right?" His attention turned to the egg that sat at the base of the tree, gently lifting it off the ground, revealing scorched grass underneath. Nesting between his arm and his body, he turned back to the woman.

"So what do you need?"

[Imperfect_M]

The young man flopped about for a moment before getting to his feet. As if on reflex he began to fuss with his hair, hands moving in practiced motions to keep its signature, spiraled pompadour.

"I mean, it's just a favor right?" he commented as he continued fixing his hair, eyebrow raised.

Satisfied with his work, the man fixed his bright blue eyes on Taernichanthach. "I mean, it's not like you're gonna ask me to commit some sort of crime," he said, "Right?"

Taernichanthach twitched a lip in amusement. This mortal... He... He really didn't know. She could have ordered him to do whatever she wanted, or perhaps put some kind of geas upon him for fun. Her musings were interrupted as Bobby gingerly took the egg from the grass and rested it in his arms. What was this strange... Object... Taernichanthach had never seen it before. Perhaps she should ask about-

"So what do you need?" the warrior asked.

The Archfey hummed a long, single note as she pondered what she could possibly ask. This mortal did not thrum with power, but his egg had a certain... Something surrounding it. She could ask for the egg... But judging by the way he was caring for it, making such a demand would surely make an enemy out of him, and the Pale Queen had given Taernichanthach a little pearl of advice when dealing with mortalkind: "There is no reason to have an enemy if you can have a friend instead."

So... The Archfey leaned on the strong, aged oak tree and invoked her end of a Fae's bargain on something relatively harmless:

"Tell me a story of your travels," she commanded, her voice ringing like wind chimes.

For the barest of moments, the air shimmered as the ambient power of the Fae came to bear. Taernichanthach's invocation was not a request; true to Fae Law, it was a compulsion.

[homeboy!]

"A story?" Bobby ran a hand through the back portion of his hair, thinking on an appropriate answer.

"I don't have many stories, my father is much more experienced in the realm of heroics, for the time being." He gave a small chuckled. "But, there was a time where I squired under him, and I saw some fantastic feats I'd be happy to regale you with." He performed a few more stretches before sitting back on the spot he had just recently been hanging overtop.

"Come," He patted the area next to him, where the grass was blackened and almost uncomfortably warm. "Sit as I regale you of the time I fought a dragon."

[Imperfect_M]

The Archfey raised an eyebrow as Bobby patted the patch of blackened grass beside him. The young warrior seemed blissfully unaware that the egg in his possession had- in some small fashion- scorched the earth. But she saved that question for another time... For now, she decided to listen to the Human's end of her bargain.

Rather than oblige his request to sit on a spot warmer than she was comfortable with, Taernichanthach took to Bobby's other side, stabbed her slender blade into the dirt, and laid on her back, propping her head up on her hands. The grass and ground beneath her chilled, and little wisps of fog formed around her silhouette.

"A dragon, you say?" said the Faerie woman as she made herself comfortable.