And I don't mean to tinker in fabled affairs...
The days between the first and second halves of the Gala go by quietly, most of the fae guests staying in their rooms or the common rooms off of the atrium. The servants are standing at the ready, waiting for requests for food or guidance. They’ll happily show you to the library or the gardens - or at least willingly, since their expressions never seem to change.
Tempest seems to have disappeared for the duration of the break. Perhaps resting herself, perhaps preparing for the second half. Either way, she’s nowhere to be found.
*
The festivities resume on a cloudless day, heralded by the knock of servants on the doors of every guest and the presentation of an invitation to the afternoon and evening events. Gala-goers begin drifting out of their rooms in their warmest finery as the sun starts going down. A grand stairway leads out of one end of the atrium and straight into a tiny courtyard outside that opens into a forest. The cold only hits after the guests step past the edge of the courtyard.
It’s very cold tonight, getting colder as the light dwindles away in the shadow of the mountains. The trees begin to light up one by one, the branches adorned with little colored flames that appear to have tiny, catlike creatures sitting at their hearts. Pixies bound from tree to tree, setting each one alight with varicolored frost.
The attendees begin to drift, forming clumps and pairs and slipping away into the twilight.
*
Only when it’s fully dark and has been for almost two hours do the guests again head for the doors, signaled to do so by the pixies and the tiny, glowing cats. The atrium has opened up into a grand hall again, though this one is rather different than the first. It’s all rough-hewn stone, warm and dimly lit and set with several long tables instead of a multitude of small ones. Once again, there’s a long table at the front where Tempest and her counselors sit, perpendicular to the rest. The whole arrangement looks a bit like the set of a medieval play.
Behind her, there’s what looks like a raised platform of some kind with a cloth draped over it.
Once everyone is seated, she gets to her feet. There’s no vitality or force in the motion. She seems distant, almost disconnected.
“Friends.” She studies the faces around her with the same disconnected air. “At one time this celebration heralded the shift in Seasons, a change in the balance of the Courts.”
She stops a moment, her lips pinching into a thin line. “Alas, that we may no longer observe that event so traditionally. Yet we remember, always, the Courts and their value in harmony, and strive to maintain what harmony we may in the Wood as it stands this day. All, together, Winter and Summer in this blessed sanctuary; whatever our differences, whatever our divisions, may we always remember the cost of betrayal and the spreading and poisonous result. May we live in unity, if only for our own sakes.”
Another pregnant pause.
“If you will rise with me to toast my father, the Winter King.”
She turns; the curtain over the dais behind her melts away like snow itself, revealing a black man in clothing finer than even the princess’s, wearing a crown fashioned from what looks like rubies and glass. He lies prone across a slab of white marble, a steady pool of blood spreading under him to collect in a trough along the edge of the marble and trickle out of a spout into the fountain at the base of the block. Little, stained figures stand about in the blood, their chalices and pitchers overflowing with it.
Tempest drains her glass and sweeps into a deep curtsy, those around her following suit.
After the toast, the feast will begin. It’s a quiet, somber affair, with simple foods and whispered conversation.
The still-bleeding body of the Winter King presides over it all.
[[OOC: Info available here.]]