undergrounds | [OPEN] Bromley & Bexley Claims + Afterparty

The fae moved in on Bexley the evening of the 8th, quietly and without resistance. There seemed to be a lot of odd characters out after dark, but that was the most that anyone could say aside from the unusual phenomena.

Regardless of the weather, there were no clouds over Bexley that night and the stars shone brightly. As well, there seemed to be an abundance of cats gathered in the area, although they went about quietly enough that one would have to be actively looking for them to notice.

As everything went smoothly, things were back to normal before sunrise, although doors to the Other Realm may be increasingly common from now on.

The air was cool and clear. A steady stream of unusual characters was about on the 9th, who mostly went about their business without conflict. There were a few odd occurrences -- a man trying to buy some antique with a handful of gold coins, a woman recoiling when offered a deal on a nice cast-iron pan. But for the most part, there was little resistance.

The fae moved in systematically and even fanned out as far as Crystal Palace Park, where there was mild amusement about the dinosaur statues. What would the humans think of next?

Of course, it wasn't completely without incident.

After the fae had secured their territory, the celebration could begin. There were strange lights about in Lesnes Abbey Woods in Bexley, starting from the Abbey ruins and proceeding onward into the trees and the Wildflower Enclosures. Should a visitor make their way into the center of the woods, they would no doubt find a very peculiar-looking celebration. Men and women in extravagant flowing clothes, each more beautiful (and slightly unnerving) than the next. Food and drink were freely available, as were song and dance.

Clearly someone was having a party here...

Balem wasn't used to throwing parties in the mortal realm, least of all during Summer, but given the recent victory (not one but two territories claimed in the span of two days) it seemed apt to do so.

They faced surprisingly little resistance, so the ordeal may not have qualified as a massive triumph, but it may have caught potential enemies off-guard and certainly sent a message that the fae would not stand by and ignore everything that was going on. That, he felt, was something to be proud of, and aside from that he felt like quite the trendsetter given that his fellow fae hadn't bothered to stake their claim here before. A hundred years ago, even, he would have felt the same way: taking territory here was beneath him, it legitimized human conflicts too much. But that was before he knew that some of them were powerful enough to seal off the Other Realm.

He could be found out and about, drinking wine and eating snacks (which visitors may want to be careful about; it is Faery food after all) and generally being in a pleasant mood. The stars were definitely in his favor tonight.

Heiji could be found here and there during the party as a large black fox easily as tall as an adult human. He was something of a pecular sight as he directed his fellow fae as to where to set up the refreshments and how best to arrange the lights, which vaguely resembled will-o-the-wisps. All in all, planning the party turned out to be more intensive than the conquest itself.

A giant skeleton as tall as a building flickered in and out of view; Heiji stopped every once in a while to converse with him. At one point, the skeleton picked up a bottle of wine and began to down it, seemingly not noticing that it was merely pouring down inside his rib cage.

"Bro," he was saying, his eye sockets welling with moisture. "I'm so proud of you, I'm sweating through my eyes!"

...Later on, Heiji could be found in a patch of wildflowers, snoozing while he listened with one ear for anything out of the ordinary. A night under the stars -- truly lovely.

Ringer noticed the swift and sudden expansion of multiple factions when it was already too late. Even if she had been the type to try to rouse her own Clan into action, there wasn't time and they weren't exactly the types to do so anyway. As per Sasuke's advice, she had stocked up on supplies of all sorts and now brought with her a decent selection of weapons and other relevant sundries. If nothing else, perhaps she could do some damage to the Unseelie attempting to overtake the city before they could bring genocide to accompany their arrogance.

Truth be told, she didn't really know what she was doing. Her former mentor and trainer, having secretly been loyal to the Unseelie themselves, had taught her less about fae than she might have hoped and some of the information they'd given her she later found out to be lies. As such, most of her information was cobbled together from rumors at Hillingdon House and the occasional text she'd been able to find. The best goal she could think of was to disable as many doors as possible before she was caught. There was a large risk of being killed, but she hoped if she was fast and careful, she might avoid such a fate.

It didn't take long for her to find one of the doors thanks to knowing what to look for and how to look for them. She watched it from a distance for nearly an hour, to ensure that it wasn't a popular throughway and she had an actual chance of succeeding. Finally, she moved forward and crouched down beside it to set it work swiftly and efficiently.

Ringer slid her bag to one shoulder and began digging through it, pulling out the salt, charm, and explosives that she had been told would do the trick. It made her uncomfortable to perform what was effectively terrorism, but she reassured herself it was for the greater good of mankind and set to work placing the charges and forming the salt circle and so on.

Green cat eyes glowed under one of the nearby bushes, dull sullen green and they were bigger than any house cat had any right to be. They blinked once when Ringer started pulling things out of her bag and then with a soft rustle they disappeared completely. Mab's watch on the portal showed up quite quickly in one of the nearby parks where Mab has a hand spread out in front of an alcove tucked away to one side and a soft glow is forming as she opens another doorway. Twining about her legs, Grimalkin yowled and the sound was completely out of place. His shoulders came up to her knee and he stopped to the side of her, out of the way, waiting for her to finish before bowing, paws spread out in front of him.

"My Lady, a human whelp threatens thy gate upon Elmstead." Mab made a motion of her hand allowing Grimalkin to rise. "A human?" She mused aloud. Her expression was somewhat anticipatory though and she turned in the direction of that opened doorway, moving past people without little effort. They barely seemed to notice her despite her height and abnormal coloring. Grimalkin followed, darting from bush to doorway and mostly staying out of sight.

When she came upon Ringer, she paused, just taking in the setup the girl had begun. She'd had some time since she started to get well on her way to destruction.

[Doesn't have to take place at the party if Balem's promotion comes later!]

Upon hearing of Balem's recent change in title, Heiji made a point of showing up with a nice bottle of autumn-appropriate wine wrapped neatly in leaves that glistened as though moistened by the dew.

"Congratulations on the new appointment," he said, presenting the bottle to Balem with a smile. He wasn't the only one who was moving up lately...

Ringer's head snapped up at attention when she thought she heard a bush rustling nearby. Noticing no explicit sign of anything, she quickly continued in her work, securing the second of four charges into place. Though none had been wired yet and the detonation device was still in her bag, it was a start. She was on the third charge when she tensed, worried that something wasn't right. It all seemed too easy.

The hunter ignored the feeling and continued in her work. It was wrong to look a gift horse in the mouth and if they were careless enough to leave the door unguarded, then she should take advantage of it and be on her way. No use in loitering. Moving onto the fourth charge.

Ringing might not notice it right away but frost starts creeping in on the grass around her, the longer she takes to notice it, the faster and more thick the frost grows, soon starting to form ice across the ground moving quickly toward her charges. Mab's voice rings out cold though across the space between them. She looks... mostly human but one hand is out, with fingers spread at about hip level but her eyes are luminescent in shades of green. "Human child, thou has't chosen to pit thyself against the might of the fae alone? This can nev'r end well for thee, cease thy interference immediately."

It is a fair warning. A chance for the girl to walk away without a fight. Or whatever it is Mab considers a fight.

As soon as she's set the fourth charge, Ringer glances down to the ground and notices the frost forming there and the ice that follows. She immediately looks grabs the remaining materials from the ground, turning to face the source of the voice. This definitely isn't good. Her gun is within easy reach and she briefly considers drawing it to open fire, but so long as the woman is talking, the hunter will oblige.

"You're interfering in the human world. I've seen how many lives that costs." Nearly a score of dead bodies compose her last memory of major fae interference. She has no intention of allowing that history to repeat itself if she has any hope of preventing it. "Destroy the door of your own volition. Then I can walk away."

Oh this human is delightfully brave. Or perhaps delightfully stupid, Mab still had yet to make such a determination. Anything left on the ground starts to gather ice as they speak and Mab's expression becomes absolutely remote. Cold. "Hast thou seen how may lives it costs?" She asked, voice silken, head tilting to the side. "Doest it cost more than thy wars? More than those nightly deaths of those in thine own city who cannot findeth food and shelter? Doest it cost more than thy revolutions or thy street burglaries?" The fae could become much worse than all those things. Humans just didn't know because they had not been truly and unabashedly active since the middle ages.

"I hath walked this earth at which hour thy kind wast still murdering one another with stone weapons. Thou believeth thee might order me?" The 'order' lashed out harshly painful to the ears. Ice starts creeping up Ringer's shoes and Mab could do it faster if she chose, anger was making it hard not to choose this. "It is mortals has't thrown down their gauntlet. The Fae were content to leaveth thy realm in relative peace. But we wilt not be barred away."

"Humans taking human life is irrelevant," Ringer answers plainly. This fae clearly believes herself superior to the species, which might not be so bad if not for the very active physical threat accompanying the attitude. She steps back as the ice nears her shoes, then to the side, trying to keep from being frozen without fleeing entirely. The girl hasn't even entirely recovered from her last beating by a vampire and now she can tell she's about to receive another. The joys of the hunter profession.

"You're not barred away. You have other territories. You're an empire looking to expand." It's not the smartest thing she can say and she knows it. Ringer believes in logic though, ignoring the nuances and trying to avoid being pedantic in favor of candor and facts.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the gift.

The appointment was not something he expected, but he was quite pleased with it. He didn’t quite know what the reaction would be from the court as a whole to his claim, but he was glad to see they seemed to support his more aggressive stance towards meddling humans even if it contradicted the usual apathy.

Although he didn’t abandon his usual space-like attire, he had adorned his cloak with hand-crafted leaves in gold and bronze that fell in lines and appeared to collect at the bottom.

“I’m certain your work will be rewarded as well, in whatever way that may be,” he said, although he didn’t know how exactly the Seelie court would react.

"Likely after all these years, this is actually a bit of excitement," said Heiji. At least if Balem's new position was any indication.

"So. Any plans for celebration? Or maybe after all this moving around, it'd be better to have a quiet night under the stars." That was a pretty nice cloak, Balem. Not really Heiji's style, of course, but he also didn't wear space-themed clothes as a general rule.

Even Tybalt couldn't automatically expect total obedience from cats, just based on who he was. Still, he could get them to listen, and that meant an opportunity to make promises, and to make bribes. All minor things for one of the fae, but certainly of use to mortal cats.

And so the cats scouted the area, passing as unnoticed as stray cats usually do. Tybalt wouldn't order them to fight - he'd learned long ago never to give orders that he knew would be refused. But as his furry spies reported in, it seemed there wasn't going to be resistance after all. So he sought out Balem and sauntered over to the other fae.

"It seems this will be far easier than expected"

"How is t that hypocrisy is irrelevant?" Mab asked, sounding genuinely curious if angry still, frowning in response to Ringer's assessment. "We have not, ere yesterday in fact, claimed territories of this realm. We have remained largely uninvolved in thine petty disputes. If 't be true thou wish't to lay censure, behold those who hath drawn our attention. A few minor Fae playing art no more dangerous than thine mortal monsters. Thy people has't drawn the attention of the high Fae." And with a motion of her hand the sky opened up above them, clouds gathered and snow kicked up in an area about the size of a small store. It didn't just drift, it blasted, falling so quickly it gathered around their feet in at least an inch right away and then wind sprang up sweeping it around them blocking them from view to everything outside and making it very difficult to see within the space and if not careful the snow would enter the eyes, temporarily blinding. Ringer got her very own mini-blizzard. "Lay down thine weapons and leave this place," Her voice seemed to come from everywhere instead of becoming hard to hear like it might in a normal storm of this nature. But normal snow storms did not suddenly appear in the middle of July either.

Edited 2015-07-11 20:54 (UTC)

"It's a human problem for humans to contend with. Your presence won't improve that condition, so it's irrelevant." She clarified as best she could without becoming irritable. As far as she was concerned, using the human condition as an argument for invading or killing the race was a flawed position. It was partially the result of being a human herself and Ringer hated humans who killed each other even more than those of the supernatural life. But that didn't matter right now either.

The information about the territories was new. Ringer had been under the apparently false impression that every faction had claimed an area of their own. If the fae were only now expanding into their world, it was considerably more troubling. The clarification that these were not high fae was only mildly reassuring.

At the snow, Ringer lifted one arm to help shield her eyes while the other quickly pulled her gun into her hand, cocked and ready in one fluid motion. It came before the woman's word and she was already shivering against the cold by the time the fae spoke again. She didn't fire, though her aim was accurate to precisely where the woman had been before. "One of your many doors is worth more than a human life and you say you're not a monster."

"Dost thee truly believeth that human problems doth not affect others?" Seeing as Mab has not come in killing anyone (although Ringer is really testing her patience) she has no idea that Ringer believes that is her sole purpose here.

Only the past fae were minor. The high fae were now taking note. Mab walked to one side, snow never touching her, flakes each finding some way around her as though her skin had a field of cushioning breeze around it redirecting flakes. Her footsteps are silent in the cold and she stops by the explosives, looking down at them while Ringer continues.

Leaning down her fingers touch one more to get a feel for it than because she needs to. And suddenly frost creeps in along the mechanism, freezing what would automatically trigger explosion. She moves to the other one and does the same thing. When she straightens again, she is behind ringer and she makes a rolling motion of her hand focusing the cold in on the metal of the gun, if Ringer isn't careful the whole thing will ice over in an instant and take her hands with it.

"Mine door hath no relation whatsoever to human lives save a mortal stumbling upon t and ignoring their natural instinct to stayeth hence. Thou draweth parallels that doth not exist." And she smiled to herself. "At no time didst I claim I wast not a monster."

"You bring your problems and your battles into this world and then blame humans for responding to them," she replied tightly. Ringer was blatantly shivering against the cold, making it difficult to speak. Her gun aimed true at the now vacant space, waiting and somehow knowing that the woman had moved. There was no reason for her to remain there, particularly if she could see beyond the snow that was clearly of her own making.

The hunter didn't need to hear footsteps to catch sight of her explosives being messed with, not two feet away from her. It was a set back and one noted with frustration. It wasn't enough to start a long-term conflict over when she could come and try again at a later time. On the other hand, Ringer was clearly in a situation that might result in her death.

Now knowing that the woman was in a different place, she fired her 9mm into the emptiness where no one could be hurt. It was for the noise, in the hopes of drawing someone nearby. She quickly holstered her weapon not a moment later, her hand already near numb, figuring the holster would be a safer place to hold the gun without losing feeling in her fingers entirely.

"Your people take human lives and ask humans to accept that as inevitability," she shot back. Ringer crossed her arms tightly, fingers tucking up beneath her arms in a vain attempt to stay warm. "I won't."

The gunfire did draw someone over, but not another human. A large black fox appeared perched on a rooftop nearby. He looked over at them, though he was mostly talking to Mab.

"What's the problem?" They had a schedule to keep. Stop playing with your food.

"They weren't expecting us, I don't think. Even if anyone finds out it'll be too late," he said, "It will be more complicated once we start closing in on their territory, I imagine."

"Some quiet will do me good for now, I think," he said, and although he was in a good mood he did look somewhat drained. He'd have to gather up some extra energy soon. Find a human who owes him something, perhaps.

"Besides, the height of summer may not be the proper time to celebrate autumn. My time will come soon enough."

Mab puffed out an annoyed breath. Her voice still seems to come from all around as she responded, "Child do you not believe that I could have killed you before this conversation began if that was my intention? Do not tempt me."

Her eyes lifted and the snow seemed to blow less dizzying for a moment as she listened to Heiji. Then she shot him an annoyed look if he could see it and the snow stopped entirely. Suddenly both Mab and Ringer were visible within about two fee to of snow that tapered off in a 100 meter circle all around them. Her eyes moved from Heiji back to Ringer but the charges were buried at the moment in fresh snow.

Grimalkin stepped onto the snow and stalked forward to curl around Mab's ankles ignoring Heiji and focusing on Ringer, heavily muscled and the size of a bobcat he made a soft yowling sound that grated on the ears. "Take your explosives and leave, Mortal. My kindness wanes." And indeed her voice was colder, more remote than even before.

Edited 2015-07-12 18:31 (UTC)

He laughed. "True enough. But there's always the Perseids to look forward to." He rather enjoyed those himself.

"So, they tell you what responsibilities you'll need to take on?" Not that he'd really know all that much about those; who knew what London's customs were?

[OPEN] Bromley & Bexley Claims + Afterparty

BEXLEY - July 8th (Evening)

BROMLEY - July 9th (Evening)

Party at Lesnes Abbey Woods

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CLOSED to MAB & HEIJI

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Re: BEXLEY - July 8th (Evening)

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