"Or die" for Muses with Remotes
“You only have three choices: run, hide or die...”
Lost
The rumors started quietly at first. The most dangerous ones always did. There was a young faerie claiming to be Auberon’s bastard son by a Winter Fae. He claimed to be the true heir to the kingdoms. He was a full blood faerie after all, not a half breed, not diluted. No one really believed him, he would have come forward at Auberon’s death, not now. But the idea was romantic and those conservative Fae that resented her marriage to a human and now his return from the dead liked it. Even more than racist against the other types of Fae they were specists, seeing other species as inferior, loathsome, toys. Because of Mab’s choices, their royalty would be forever mixed with them.
Mab let it go for a time. Better to let him fail than to make him a martyr. As the days went on, he didn’t fade away. People started considering him something real. She was tired and angry when she made the decision to end the waiting for him to go away. If he didn’t fade, she would spend less and less time in the public eye and he would be able to be about, more and more. His arguments would resound in their ears and their hearts until nothing she said could drive away the echoes. Time to silence him before she couldn’t. While she could still be the hand to carry out his end.
His home was a simple, quiet cottage in a wood so thick with magic and danger that she knew he had the power to back his outrageous claims. She used the old brass knocker, amused by it’s sun turned snowflake design. The man who answered was a good foot taller than her, and he looked so like Auberon in the early days of their marriage it made her chest ache. Chestnut hair with a slight wave fell to his waist. His eyes were soft green, warm and cold at the same time. The way he held himself was so like her. If Mab and Auberon’s son had lived, he would have looked like the young man before her. And she was going to have to kill him.
“I knew someone would come, but I never expected you.” Those eyes of frozen fire never left her face. He drank the sight of her in like it was what he had always dreamed of. It was disconcerting to say the very least. “You came alone, no guard, no visible weapons. I suppose it would be too much to hope you have come to see the error of your ways. But I don’t suppose many people can make you admit to making a mistake.” He shook his head, flushing slightly. “Forgive me my poor manners, come in. If we are going to talk, I might as well be a decent enough man to give a pregnant woman a chance to get off of her feet.”
She walked into his home without a word, following him to a seating area where he gestured her to a seat and took one himself. The room was lovely, in an older style. Something she should have been at home in. But it bothered her in that it felt familiar. Auberon would have made a home like this before he began to hate objects and wanted nothing but emptiness and cleanliness. This young man was too good at his role, it hurt. She would kill him just to end the temptation and memory. “I imagine you know why I am here. Why I came myself instead of sending someone to do the work for me.”
“I do. Can I get you something to drink or eat?” She waved it off before he continued. “But I have to wonder if there isn’t some other way to go about this. I could run back to earth, be banished forever. Or I could profess the error of my ways and act as your humble servant in the Court. Surely that would have a better effect than killing me and turning me into a martyr.” He smiled at her brightly, trying to beguile her. If he looked less like Auberon, she might have been charmed.
“Sending you to earth would be worse than making you a martyr. You would be a living saint, their hope for a world returned to the old ways. No, that wouldn’t work.” She tilts her head to look at him more closely, leaning towards him over her rounded belly. “And you know that have daughters on the way. Do you imagine that you will charm one of them, make her love you? No, you want more than that. You plan on playing them both against each other so you’ll be there to pick up the pieces of the winner then go after their brothers. No, there is only one choice.”
“But how will they believe it’s really me? Even heads on stakes can be faked, we’ve all seen it.” He was as close to pleading as he could come and still be the man who was so like Auberon. Young enough to still be hungry for his life and to be measuring her for weakness to exploit. She offered him nothing but a stony facade, no weakness, no cracks. “My ghost will always haunt you and your children.”
“Oh, your ghost will be put to much better use than that. Have you ever heard of the old tale of the harp that speaks?” He shook his head. “A stepmother grew jealous of one of her husband’s daughters, killed her and cast her into a river. A musician found her body and took her bones to make a harp that he strung with her hair. Each time he played that harp, she sang her story for the world to hear. The step mother was punished for it, put to death if I remember correctly. And the musician was imprisoned for his grisly desecration. The secrets a man will tell a woman when he believes she is a vision in his loneliness. And I am quite skilled with the harp.”
It was more than he could stand. He lashed out with heat and light and, in a moment of desperation, cold. The cold was what caught him, she used it to flood him with a darkness that emptied the warmth and light from him until he could barely breath. Soft sounds of desperation escaped his throat as she let the darkness surround his heart and slow the beating of his heart. “Go quietly, little boy,” her voice is sing song tender, “let yourself fall into that last sleep. Stop fighting, young man, it shall embrace you.” In the end his heart stopped the fight and his breathing stopped, all breath gone from him. She stroked his cheek gently for a moment before she produces her long, sharp knives.
* * * * *
The great hall is silent in the moments before Mab first plucks the strings of her new harp. All eyes are on the shining smooth lines of the harp, half between the large concert harp she loved most and the smaller, more comfortable harps. Her fingers dance over the strange chestnut strings, but it is not the pure sweet tones that sing, but the rich voice of a young man. No one breathed as he told his tale. No one doubted his death.
Lost
The rumors started quietly at first. The most dangerous ones always did. There was a young faerie claiming to be Auberon’s bastard son by a Winter Fae. He claimed to be the true heir to the kingdoms. He was a full blood faerie after all, not a half breed, not diluted. No one really believed him, he would have come forward at Auberon’s death, not now. But the idea was romantic and those conservative Fae that resented her marriage to a human and now his return from the dead liked it. Even more than racist against the other types of Fae they were specists, seeing other species as inferior, loathsome, toys. Because of Mab’s choices, their royalty would be forever mixed with them.
Mab let it go for a time. Better to let him fail than to make him a martyr. As the days went on, he didn’t fade away. People started considering him something real. She was tired and angry when she made the decision to end the waiting for him to go away. If he didn’t fade, she would spend less and less time in the public eye and he would be able to be about, more and more. His arguments would resound in their ears and their hearts until nothing she said could drive away the echoes. Time to silence him before she couldn’t. While she could still be the hand to carry out his end.
His home was a simple, quiet cottage in a wood so thick with magic and danger that she knew he had the power to back his outrageous claims. She used the old brass knocker, amused by it’s sun turned snowflake design. The man who answered was a good foot taller than her, and he looked so like Auberon in the early days of their marriage it made her chest ache. Chestnut hair with a slight wave fell to his waist. His eyes were soft green, warm and cold at the same time. The way he held himself was so like her. If Mab and Auberon’s son had lived, he would have looked like the young man before her. And she was going to have to kill him.
“I knew someone would come, but I never expected you.” Those eyes of frozen fire never left her face. He drank the sight of her in like it was what he had always dreamed of. It was disconcerting to say the very least. “You came alone, no guard, no visible weapons. I suppose it would be too much to hope you have come to see the error of your ways. But I don’t suppose many people can make you admit to making a mistake.” He shook his head, flushing slightly. “Forgive me my poor manners, come in. If we are going to talk, I might as well be a decent enough man to give a pregnant woman a chance to get off of her feet.”
She walked into his home without a word, following him to a seating area where he gestured her to a seat and took one himself. The room was lovely, in an older style. Something she should have been at home in. But it bothered her in that it felt familiar. Auberon would have made a home like this before he began to hate objects and wanted nothing but emptiness and cleanliness. This young man was too good at his role, it hurt. She would kill him just to end the temptation and memory. “I imagine you know why I am here. Why I came myself instead of sending someone to do the work for me.”
“I do. Can I get you something to drink or eat?” She waved it off before he continued. “But I have to wonder if there isn’t some other way to go about this. I could run back to earth, be banished forever. Or I could profess the error of my ways and act as your humble servant in the Court. Surely that would have a better effect than killing me and turning me into a martyr.” He smiled at her brightly, trying to beguile her. If he looked less like Auberon, she might have been charmed.
“Sending you to earth would be worse than making you a martyr. You would be a living saint, their hope for a world returned to the old ways. No, that wouldn’t work.” She tilts her head to look at him more closely, leaning towards him over her rounded belly. “And you know that have daughters on the way. Do you imagine that you will charm one of them, make her love you? No, you want more than that. You plan on playing them both against each other so you’ll be there to pick up the pieces of the winner then go after their brothers. No, there is only one choice.”
“But how will they believe it’s really me? Even heads on stakes can be faked, we’ve all seen it.” He was as close to pleading as he could come and still be the man who was so like Auberon. Young enough to still be hungry for his life and to be measuring her for weakness to exploit. She offered him nothing but a stony facade, no weakness, no cracks. “My ghost will always haunt you and your children.”
“Oh, your ghost will be put to much better use than that. Have you ever heard of the old tale of the harp that speaks?” He shook his head. “A stepmother grew jealous of one of her husband’s daughters, killed her and cast her into a river. A musician found her body and took her bones to make a harp that he strung with her hair. Each time he played that harp, she sang her story for the world to hear. The step mother was punished for it, put to death if I remember correctly. And the musician was imprisoned for his grisly desecration. The secrets a man will tell a woman when he believes she is a vision in his loneliness. And I am quite skilled with the harp.”
It was more than he could stand. He lashed out with heat and light and, in a moment of desperation, cold. The cold was what caught him, she used it to flood him with a darkness that emptied the warmth and light from him until he could barely breath. Soft sounds of desperation escaped his throat as she let the darkness surround his heart and slow the beating of his heart. “Go quietly, little boy,” her voice is sing song tender, “let yourself fall into that last sleep. Stop fighting, young man, it shall embrace you.” In the end his heart stopped the fight and his breathing stopped, all breath gone from him. She stroked his cheek gently for a moment before she produces her long, sharp knives.
* * * * *
The great hall is silent in the moments before Mab first plucks the strings of her new harp. All eyes are on the shining smooth lines of the harp, half between the large concert harp she loved most and the smaller, more comfortable harps. Her fingers dance over the strange chestnut strings, but it is not the pure sweet tones that sing, but the rich voice of a young man. No one breathed as he told his tale. No one doubted his death.