So Huw's been gone for a bit, now, much to Drancy's disappointment. But, well, it's all right - she's a lass with ideas, she is. And right now, this lass's ideas have been keeping her very, very busy. It's at around eleven-thirty at night that the rented Mini pulls up a stone's throw away from Amesbury. She'd been a little worried, that there'd be some stiff security to circumvent, but luck - or something - has been with her. The hundred pounds she budgeted for bribes hasn't even been necessary, so far.
     So it's a heavily cloaked figure that scrambles up the path, deep slate blue wool wrapped around and hood pulled up, vaguely reminiscent of her Little Red Riding Hood outfit, even complete to a basket she lugs in both hands. The path isn't exactly well-lit, so her progress is punctuated by profanities. "Ow! Son of a -!" She does eventually reach the circle, and oh, it's dark, and it's enough to make even Drancy a bit nervous, in this deep stillness. Falling to her knees, she begins pulling items out of the basket.
     First - fat white beeswax candles, pleasantly scented of honeysuckle and woodbine, in glass holders to prevent a casually errant wind from snuffing their lights out. She lights them quickly, settling them around - far enough back that they're unlikely to be quickly knocked over, close enough that she can halfway see what she's doing, while her eyes adjust. Then she pulls out a glass bottle with a sealed top, filled with what appears to be milk. Prying open the top, she pours its contents into a bowl, the milk so thick and creamy as to almost be yellow. Next, she procures a bottle of wine, dusting it off and giving it a critical glance, and finally, a bracelet made of artfully interwoven silver links. Only then does she rise, lifting the charm she wears around her neck, glancing down briefly at the items at her feet, to give the owl-like cry..
     "Huw ... Huw ... Huw!"

     Sacred ground, this. A ring of stones, wide this -- far larger than Stonehenge though a lot less... grand. Just a ring of regularly placed stones, worn and shaped by wind and rain. Thousands of years of wind and rain. And though it's nigh-on winter, it's a precious dry evening. There's fog, laying low on the surrounding hills, the rise and fall of the Somerset Plain. Not far from Glastonbury and Avalon are you. Not far from the land of Arthur. The magical heart of a magical island.
     And you hold a charm in your hands and you speak a name in three's...
     The fog thickens around you, and perhaps it's a trick of the darkness and the encroaching mist, but the stones seem alive. Receptive somehow. Guarding. Their eyes turned out to all sides, not watching the one in their center, but all around you....
     There is a congregation of shadows and swirling fog. The swirls take on a pattern, and then you hear the steps upon the grass. The grass begins to pull and tug, the earth becoming animate, and a tall, horribly tall, and shadowy figure pulls it behind him in a cloak, bound to his shoulders by purest fairy gold.
     Huw... Huw... Huw...
     His eyes are almond shaped, slightly slanted, and dark. A shade deeper than night. And he stands some seven feet tall one's eyes may think. In vestments made of shadows and earth, fur. Fox, both grey and red. Wolf at the edges of his cloak. There are talismans of fairy metal, and of claw and tooth and bone.
     Oh, and of course you won't miss the horns. Curled and curved like a ram's. Where they and his head meet is hidden by hood and hair. Long, some of it braided, some of it not. And there are bits of metal in it that clink as the wind moves through it, as he walks.
     Huw the Hunter moves toward you, gloved hands extending, one out for you, the other toward the fog. It thickens and lifts. And now you are quite hidden from the world. Perhaps you're not even in England anymore. The world but for this circle seems to disappear.
     "Brave little thing," he says, and it is not English and yet you understand him. The words appearing in your mind a half-second before each syllable. "Of course, you know that is what I like about you. Merry midnight, Fiona dear..."

     Changeable eyes caught currently somewhere between grey and blue, like the cloak, widen as she brushes the hood away from her hair. She's ... cut it, somehow, and somehow persuaded it not to grow out, or at least, not yet, a shoulder-length mane caught back in a loosely bound ponytail. Drancy holds her ground, despite a moment of panic that bubbles up in her chest.
     Oh, shite... wonder if I can go through with this...
     "Evening, Huw," she says, and her voice quavers, to her own annoyance, raising a hand towards yours as she steadies herself. "I hope I'm not inconveniencing you too dreadfully, with this summons, but I have - reasons for calling you." Of course she did. She has her curiosity. But evidently, that's not all.
     She shrugs her cloak back off her shoulders, and underneath the cloak, she's wearing something you've not seen before. Soft black leather, and quite a lot of it, though it lacks the dull shine of menace that bikers try for. Breeches lace up her thighs, clinging to her hips, while a vest of the same material brushes the waistband from time to time in soft whispers, leaving her arms and throat bare. Around her upper left arm, she wears a band of some cloth or other, black embroidered with red, gold, silver and green, in a pattern of leaves and berries - simple, but pretty enough. And on her feet, incongruously, she wears a pair of soft black ballet slippers.
     "I've brought you tribute..." Where did she learn about that? Hwyll and his big mouth, no doubt. "Whole milk from a red cow, from an organic dairy in Leeds," she says steadily, trying not to look away or down, or indicate any discomfort. "I milked the bloody thing myself this morning, just so you know it's the real deal. A bottle of wine from my aunt's vintner - I think you'll rather like it. Merlot. And a silver bracelet that belonged to my great-grandmother, which I inherited, and has been in the family for oh, a few years now. And," a pause as she musters up courage, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin with unconscious arrogance, "with it, I've brought you a challenge, Huw. Will you accept challenge from me?"

     Mouth twists in a smile, a shadow across the smooth plain of his expression. His skin is nut-brown, you can see it in the glow of the candles you have lit. And to not ...tower over you quite so much, Huw lowers to a kneel. Now, you're almost even.
     You in leather. It's a good look. And in this form, his true incarnation, there is no hiding the look, a hunter's look. Smoky with a resonance wholly masculine. There is even the scent of musk to go along with the visual. It goes with the horns. Huw tips his head, eyeing you up, eyeing you down.
     "Fresh milk in a bowl, wine from the vine, silver to call me, silver to bind me. Very well," he settles in, hands resting on his thighs. "Name your challenge." I'll name my price.
     And he smiles, and there is something of primal fondness there. Along with an intense curiosity. Brave little thing, to have been curious enough to travel to Leeds and then southward to Somerset. To stand in a magic ring and call me.
     I will be compelled to reward this bravery...

     It's difficult even for her to keep her balance - whatever she was expecting, well. It's probable she didn't even know entirely what to expect, and being this close, under these circumstances, to her would-be lover is definitely not without effect on the self-styled punk. A moment of self-consciousness washes over her, and she goes to push blonde hair out of her face, ending up grazing her cheek instead.
     "The challenge is ... pretty simple, I'd say." There's that unconscious arrogant little lift to her chin again, used to cover any uncertainty or hesitation. "If you accept, it'll start in about two hours. You hunt. I hide. If you haven't caught me by half an hour to dawn, I win. If you catch me, you win. London, of course - I wouldn't want to make it too easy on you."
     Fiona lowers her hands to in front of her, loosely linking her fingers together. "You can ask up to three of your friends to help, if you think you need it - to be your hounds, or huntsmen, or whatever. I'll even make it a little easier - nothing north of Picadilly for you to worry about. So." She tilts her head to the side, unable to quite look away. "What d'you say? You win, you get to name your prize, and any huntsmen you choose can ask one question of me, each. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I win..."

     Oh, you are tricky...
     He laughs without laughing, it is all in the eyes and housed in the grin. Fiesty, dark. Perhaps I could love you in time. Whatever love is. A dark eyebrow cocks upward and the Hunter lifts a finger, tapping his mouth. Hmm. Interesting proposition.
     London.
     It would require me to use more cunning than magic. I like this idea. And there is beer handy there. I could use a good stout. Among other things. Huw tips his head back, his attention unwavering. "Sound reasonable," he whispers. Bells and metal, bone and tooth chime and rattle as he shifts, leaning forward, his hands on his thighs. "And if you win," Huw trails out, grin following his words. Words you still feel as much as hear. You understand the strange tongue without difficulty, syllables breathed against your blood just as they are spoken. "What will your price be, Fiona ni Drancy," he makes up a name for you, oddly Gaelic.

     It's somewhat staggering, but she steels herself against it. It's in her, that it calls to her, but it's her that's doing it, after all. "Well," Drancy says finally, with a slight smile. "That's if I win. I've left the stakes pretty high, I like to think - makes the game more interesting, and," the slight smile turns into a feral grin, "more motivation to win, yeah?"
     She stretches once, up onto the balls of her feet, arms raised above her head, then drops lightly back into a carefully wary stance. "You win, you can ask for anything you want. Any assistants you drag in on it don't get quite that much leeway. I win, I ask for anything I want... and neither of us knows what the other'll ask for, unless we lose."
     She folds her arms behind her back now, assuming an almost schoolgirl pose, one toe shifting against the ground, chewing on her lower lip. "I don't," she clarifies, "intend to make it easy for you..." I have every intention of winning, the flare to her eyes suggests.

     He rises to his full height, and the grin is savage-sweet. "Good," he murmurs, "...it would not be worthy of either of us if it were. Very well," Huw the Hunter half-bows, hand sweeping out, "I accept your challenge. May the winner enjoy the spoils..."
     Gloved fingers motion to milk and wine. "Care to join me for a sip or twa, just to toast the proceedings in?" The Hunter grins and a step brings him close to you. "It's a long journey to London and though the nights are longer, we should start at sundown next. Tonight," he holds out his hand to you, "... we drink and feast in preparation. You will need your strength, particularly if I win." Glittering gaze, curving mouth. "Sit on the lawn with me," he says. "And drink..."
     "You have not told me... what you think of this... if your...curiosity is well-answered..."

     Gulp. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound... and if she does lose, she's got no one to blame but herself. And any scapegraces she comes across on the way, of course.
     "Might's well. Sure." She'll just make sure and make a few calls, to ... make sure her personal arrangements can all be met. After all, Fiona didn't know for sure if her challenge would be taken up on. "A bit, sure, though I don't want to overdo it. Hangovers aren't going to help me, any." Carefully, and with just a bare moment of hesitancy, she accepts the hand, stepping closer.
     "What I think? How do I put this..." She closes her eyes for a moment, swallowing. "I think if I think about it too hard, I might pass out from all the blood trying to leave my brain. You look scary. And sexy. I'm not sure which, more."

     There's no blush, there's no blanching. There's no laughter, there's no grin. Just a simple look, a simple smile. A simple understanding for plain truth. Or maybe he's just not used to being complimented. The fingers are long and slender, though the hand is strong -- like a musician's hand, strangely not a hunters, and strangely soft.
     And strange, strange... subtle like the first chirp of a cricket... the low sound of an owl... the insinuation of what and who he is all around you when hands touch. Even within you, quiet as nightfall. You did not know that his whisper was the sound of fog moving against grass. That his look was Midnight. That his smile was the crescent moon. That the primal urge for procreation, the bustling and bursting of nature and of earth was the scent of his skin and in the shadow of his smile.
     You couldn't know that lurked beneath the visage of a fae hunter with spiky hair and more talismans than a disco lounge lizard has medallions...
     Huw the Hunter finally cracks a smile, a twist of a grin and a dark chuckle. "The punk likes the danger, like a moth likes the flame. But the young lady... she prefers mystery." His thumb presses against the center of your palm and he lifts your hand for a kiss. Upon the knuckles of your hand. Upon the center of your palm. Upon the belly of your wrist.

     Of course, she's doing quite enough blushing for any three, and is as aware of her own skin as if it had just been poured onto her. As old as the world is, tonight, there are so many things which are new in her eyes...
     An intake of breath, at each touch, and she's reeling, even if not down for the count. "I... " Drancy moistens her lips with her tongue, turning her head to look down towards the ground. Part of her wants to cry for a tactical retreat - some comment which will allow her to put distance, physical or otherwise, in the way. Joseph wrestled with the angel, but she wrestles with her fears.
     "I don't think of myself as a lady, you know." She settles for something halfway - neither retreat nor advance, cautiously holding her ground while still unsure of its solidity. She lifts her chin again, trying to find and meet your eyes. "But I am glad if you think that highly of me."

     You tilt up your chin and his attention deepens. Your fight. Your strength to stand even with legs of jell-o. Your stubbornness. Your willingness to have him neutered if he piddled on your carpet. These are the qualities that Huw most admires. He takes your hand and with it pulls you near. "Have a little wine with me," he whispers, "...just a sip. You called me here, that is the first part of the spell. But you should seal it, and seal our duel upon the shining streets of the Old City."
     His hand drops your hand, and they cup your face, lifting it. As if a kiss is to follow. Perhaps it shall, but for now he only bends, trying to seem less... immense. "You're the Lady Punk. Part fairy, part magician. An earl's daughter. It is like the old ballads. How could a fairy such as I not find it appealing?"
     Huw says nothing for a time, his expression remains unchanged. He stares. He waits. Perhaps he plots what he shall ask once he wins the hunt and seek. Maybe he thinks of those old ballads. Of earl's daughters and of soft heath. Maidenheads dashed on the heather. Another chuckle and he kisses, sudden, long and deep.
     Count to nine. That's as long as it lasts. No more, no less than nine heartbeats.

     To fight, even if to lose while fighting, is something that has been bred into her. Not knowingly, perhaps - it is unlikely that the present Earl of Arundel and his wife had any thought of seeing their only daughter, their only child, march away to battle with sword and drum. But then, it's not as if they truly understand the war she's been waging with herself and against the world these past few years. A blink of the eye, to the Tuatha...
     She holds her ground, even though she trembles, and you can feel the effort she puts into trying to still it. It doesn't entirely work, of course - fear and excitement, a troublesome mix. "As long as this doesn't end up with me dying or something like that. Most of those ballads didn't end any too happily."
     She doesn't know what to do with her hands, while you cup her face. Drancy looks up at you, a faint truculence to mask the uncertainty and inner strife. And then you're kissing her...
     It's like being dragged backwards through a treeshredder, only less physically painful. Her hands come up in front of her, planting firmly against your chest, as if to push you away - but she doesn't. She just ... stands there, legs holding her up by force of habit and only just, lips parting under the kiss as if under momentous impact. And it is as if sledgehammers are being applied to locks and bolts, inside her, where noone can see.
     And it ends, and she stands there, swaying, eyes wide as any deer's...

     And at your ear, the whisper low, the voice both deep and soft...
     "The moon is sitting low, my love, the moon is sitting low...
     And we have been here all night long, and now it's time to go...
     See the light at the horizon there, the night gone pink and red...
     Soon the day shall dawn again, my love, and the sun shine overhead..."
     Huw's behind you, and with him out of your line of vision, you see the mist and fog dissipating, grey and dark gone pinkish and green. You feel him pressed against you there, holding you as if to hold you up. "I will meet you in London tonight," last moments of darkness wrap around your waist, like his fingers curling there. "Happy hunting..."

     Drancy shivers as you withdraw, wrapping her arms around herself. "No fair," she whispers, as she draws the fragmented remains of her composure around herself. "That's ... hitting below the belt." But, of course, if it weren't, it wouldn't be right, would it? And in a way, it gives her a sense of permission, to throw what wrenches she chooses, in the way tonight...
     She wraps herself up in her cloak then, voice firming up. "Happy hunting. We'll see which one of us wins this little wager, Huw. If you haven't found me by the agreed-upon time, I'll call you..." And she retreats, now, lifting her head with a hint of arrogance as she heads away from the ruins, ignoring the tickle of ancient magic.

~*~   ~*~

     The sun, difficult as it is to see at the best of times through the London haze, has slowly begun to sink below the horizon. Drancy's spent the most of the day, once back home, sleeping and resting up, and eating sparingly, concentrating on foods which will travel well, as it were, and confirming her plans with various people. And now she's up and dressed again, as she was the previous night, though sans cloak - leather is, after all, something which fits in well enough, most of the places she frequents. She's added a pair of boots for the sake of protection and verisimilitude alike, and added a small backpack with various items - her usual 'purse'.
     She steps out of her apartment, leaving Pashmina's behind for the streets of London, an hour left before the wager's to begin. An hour. And she starts laying her trail, with a visit to a roti shop about two miles down the road...

     The sun sinks and London goes from pinkish, blueish haze to simply grey fog. Mist rises up off the serpentine Thames and lays low, and the air is crisp. Autumn's segue into winter...
     And he in his seasonal prime is at his greatest strength this time of year. The time of the Holly King. The Hunter's season. In the gathering of trees around the Old City's zoo -- first founded strangely enough by the father of one of your acquaintance, Drancy dear -- there is a breeze, a creaking of wood.
     He has to enter the city somehow right? Or did you mean to call him...
     A raven calls from an upper bough, black glittering eyes giving the street and surroundings quick survey. And then with a bounding leap, the raven lifts. Black form slinking invisible against the blackening sky...

     She isn't staying out on the streets for long, of course. That would make it too easy. Drancy is not utterly without some form of native cunning...
     And the first stop of the night? The cinema. A gigantic multiplex which has interior openings into the other shops, all new and brightly gleaming chrome and steel. People of every description stream in and out, a struggling tide of humanity that seeks to dull their minds to the woes of their daily drudgeries.

      The city is a wide, wild place. Its seeming civility. Its seeming order. But this is merely a second kind of nature. An amazon of glass and steel, street and building, with a river running through it. The bird lifts off and makes a circular tour, north... south... east... west...
     And he follows a feeling, leading him toward her 'native' section of London. There, the light of Pashmina's. He'll start there, where the feeling is strongest.
     And he won't even cheat. But will you remember the charm around your neck and its secondary power?
     Chocolate brown leather, brown as earth, jacket and pants. The rest is black, but for the silver talismans around his neck. Chiming. Ah, like the cat that has been belled...but will you hear it? He blends in among brick walls, moving along the sidewalk, part of the pedestrian tide.
     Huw lights a cigarette and blows smoke. Clove smoke. And he smiles.
     I'm looking for a girl, looks a little like this...
     And so the wind will carry the smoke to the trees. He lays his own trail, and traps all for you...

     Drancy brushes back blonde hair with a self-smug smile as she bundles up her clothing, charm and all, in the loo below the cineplex. Among other exits, there happens to be the lair of a dragon, some might say - the Tube stop for the area, to be precise. It's there she is, and there she lays down an assortment of funds to rent a locker for the occasion, when she emerges.
     And emerge she does, her hair tucked up underneath a smart purple beret, matching silk blouse tucked into designer jeans, sneakers expensive enough to feed a third-world family for a month if they got paid per the selling cost for making them. The backpack has become two, its twin also black, but shiny-new, while the old one is stuffed with its contents into the rented locker.
     And with a grin that speaks volumes of horrible mischief, were any there to read it and know what it might portend, crosses her face as she moves with quick and light steps to make her train. The distorted loudspeakers declare, "Haymarket Station, next stop!"

     You know, if I were smart I'd just go back to her flat and wait for her to give up and go home. But she'd kill me. He grins, blowing smoke and he heads through her section of London, the section that most superficially speaks of her. But not the Hidden Her. It's not Fiona's London he walks. It's Drancy's.
     He moves among Them, but not truly seen by Them -- the mass of foot traffic. Easily lost, until he's just a shadow. A memory. Moving down the street as inconsequential and as unnoticed as one stray brown leaf...
     He stops a while...
     Not to rest but to get his bearings...
     And most importantly, to get yours. The secret of hunting is in not chasing...

     For all of her varied 'charms', she's not an experienced tracker - what experience she has in these matters is not as Drancy, the London streetpunk, but as Fiona, and that from the back of a horse, wearing the hunting pink. It's been a few years since then, needless to say, and the terrain is all different. Not to mention the perspective.
     What she does, she does by instinct - she keeps moving, never stopping for too long in any one place, thinking only as little as she can get away with - there, through that door, people in my way, tinged with impatience perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary.
     Nothing meant to flavour her as anything but another London sparrow.
     It almost works, too, but as she's rounding a corner, having gone up an alley and down a street and back onto train and up to the surface again, closing in on Phantasmagoria's coveted doors, she's bumped into and knocked down by a punk, who sneers at her without recognizing her for who she is, and for a moment, as she rounds on him, her 'true colours' flare to the surface, snapping like crystal into clarity.
     "Stupid sodding bastard, learn how to fucking walk on your own two feet and leave me on mine!"

     Charming...
     But back to Huw...
     The prey may never be still. The hare cannot assume that the fox will lose the scent and miss its mark. It must keep running. The fox, however, may chase, and yet behind it... picking up the scent...
     The flavors you leave behind...
     It follows more slowly, the fox after the hare. Saving itself. Keeping a step or two behind, preferring it that way. Huw pushes off a brick building, seeming to come out of the brick, and he rounds a corner. You're still in your section of London.
     You've gone in a .... circle? You haven't gone far. He's still on his first cigarette, unnoticed by those around him. He folds himself into shadows and hits the alleys, London's hidden labyrinth. They say that if you know the way you can traverse the entire city by them...

     Her scent is strong there, the taste of her lingering after she's been. She's been relying on her shortcuts, careless girl that she is. Of course, she wasn't really thinking of how someone like you might go about hunting her, either...
     Her trail leads through the alleyways, up along some crates to a largely disused fire escape and into a building - that door's stood open so long, it's a wonder it even still is there - down the stairs, through the kitchen of a busy hole-in-the-wall Thai takeaway place, and back to the sidewalk.
     This rabbit's likely to run herself into the ground before the hunt's done, unseasoned tender bun that she is.
     After venting her spleen on her would-be assailant, and making her identity thus known by her tongue, Drancy's pushed her way into the Gory, to have a little ... chat with some of the cage dancers she knows. Low, confiding tones. "Yeah, it's a bit of a joke. Guess you could call it a test. Anyway, if you see him, try to distract him, keep 'im busy for a few hours, will you?"
     "Ooh! That sounds like fun!", one of the girls says archly, an ebon-haired kittycat, to judge by her costume (which is, it must be admitted, more left to the imagination than the body it rests upon). "Is he cute?"
     "If you can get him into bed," comes the dry, terse rejoinder, "then call me and let me know, because that's definitely something I'd want to know. However, that is not the point of the exercise."

     Quicksilver the smile. Your anger strums the air. And his steps quicken, then go silent. The fox catches a whiff of the hare, hears it move through the brush, and now comes the chase. He doesn't run -- he doesn't have to -- he takes one twisting alley over another one, unbothered by those who roam them. Cut throats, murderers, Jack the Ripper's cousins, junkies, homeless, wandering beatnik throwbacks, goths and punks. He issues out of shadows and into the parking lot of Phantasmagoria's. There's the plain door. He can feel and hear the thump of the music...
     Or is that the hare's heartbeat?
     Huw is lighting his second cigarette, a smokescreen of clove fog. He breathes it, it lingers on the air. Do you feel him near? Do you feel him as he feels you?
     So into the hunt, into the chase he hasn't paused to wonder what he'll ask you for...

     "I've got to get a move on, he'll be here any mo." Intuition or knowledge, or mere paranoia?
     Even an inexperienced hare knows the danger of dallying too long. After her hurried descriptions, she's already pushing her way out and through the back. One advantage of her profession - Drancy has more backstage access than anyone other than a groupie-girl, and all without having to get calloused knees.
     But now, while she's larrupping off to her next stop - another set of walls, only the little details differing, using another set of twisty passages, all alike - a set of feminine would-be succubi now scour the club, looking for quarry.
     After all, any bloke who's got Drancy's actual interest must be something special.

     He's certainly.... something alright. But toned down, he seems like the average well-visaged punk, mahogany hair spiked, brown leather folding around tall form. Not as huge as you saw him last night. Not as strange. Minus two horns. Talismans more-than-silver, occasionally chiming, doc martens spotted with condensation from the fog and the intermittent drizzle.
     Huw doesn't stop at the bar. He doesn't really eyeball the surroundings. He gives a quick survey and starts to move his way through the crowd. The smile is now permanent. Sly. Winding. Slender and twisting.
     You've left, you've not been gone long. The residue is still on the air. The smell of your hair. He has not truly felt the stirrings of lust, not truly, until this moment. Lust, not so much in contemplating physical consummation, but in more vague terms. Chasing. Catching. Having...

     Do the girls even notice you, based on the description she's given? Probably no more than any other young punk-about-town. Wouldn't they be surprised to know what a punk was, in Elizabeth's day? A lowly drab, working in a stew - it'd make that girl with the kitty-cat tail and ears screw up her face in a puzzled frown. Or perhaps not. Who knows how many Dots and Drancys are strewn throughout...
     The crowd is moving with electricity tonight, the band on stage a good one. Maybe it's your own animal instinct infecting them, but the dancers and servers are particularly attentive to that mood, and the patrons receptive.
     Drancy, meanwhile, moves with light feet, picking up a jackhammer's pace to match her pulse. Tap-tap-tap-tap, regular and steady and just only this side of breathless, she weaves through traffic at an intersection, narrowly missing being killed by an oncoming taxi. She doesn't even notice.
     There, the wind's caught hold of her beret, revealing the shining not-white of her blonde locks. A futile grab behind her, but it's gone, and she hasn't the time to chase after it, not if she's going to beat you at your own game. It's left to tell its own tale to the watchful, discarded on the sidewalk with a few loose strands of hair still attached to the felt.
     She's almost up to Vauxhall, by now...

     Gone like a sparrow...
     Gone like a wish...
     Quick like Tomorrow...
     Slippery as a fish...
     Phantasmagoria needs so little inspiration in that kind, and when they get it, the primal goes from erotic to illegal in 0.6 seconds. Well, for some. Huw smirks and gives a spin, and in the middle of the dancefloor now, he closes his eyes. In the middle of the electricity. In the center of the storm.
     Light bounces off of him, and music reflects like light. He turns to the southwest and opens his eyes. Hands moved against him. Dancing became personal. But soon it's just the dancing crowd again. Huw the Hunter is gone...

     She's not dressed for it, not in the slightest, but there you have it - a disguise is of little use, if it's not worn. Drancy slips into Betty's Boobs, presenting her idea without a sneer, just an impatient tapping of her toes. She's gotten a little dishevelled, with all her rushing about. Of course, with her luck, she'll run into one of the people she hasn't let in on the race in any way, shape or form, and they'll try to chat her up and delay her...
     Drancy makes her way to the bar. All this chasing about is thirsty work, though she can't delay for too long - she orders her usual, vodka straight up, slapping a fiver on the bar even as she takes and downs the drink, turning to make her way towards the back. "Give my regards," she mutters, through her teeth, eyes seeing only the path in front of her, moving with determined step through the crowd of bodies.

     He pauses outside to light a cigarette, the fox taking a taste of the air again. No, you're not far... but you're not nearby. The circle has become a star with all the intersections. In the background, the sound of some girl and some guy going at it in the alley -- speed kills, kids -- and conversations and drunken stumbling, even someone getting sick. Ah, the dulcet tones of London's melody...
     Huw blows a bit of scented smoke in front of him, smoke that becomes a fog soon enough, until he's cloaked in shadows. He passes through the city and it whirrs and whistles around him, moving at seeming light-speed as he, much more methodically moves. From club to warehouse district, following you still paces behind you. The cigarette is launched from his fingertips and dies on its way to earth and in the concealment of an alley, the form of the hunter shifts into a raven once more. A bird's eye view for a change....

     Where is it that Drancy heads now? Well, it's still theoretically within her 'beat'. To wit, Cheapside, and Saint Mary-le-bow's that rises above it from the center of London. Perhaps not its exact center, no more than the heart is placed in the exact center of the human body - but close enough.
     She's jumping at shadows, just a bit, and the evening's not even gone too much past eleven yet - even all this running around only eats away at time just so far. And the sanctuary of the church is gained, if it's sanctuary she thinks it. More likely, another access, with other exits.
     But inwards Drancy slides, through a door opened with mild astonishment by an old woman shrouded in black linens, on her way out from saying her prayers. Do you perhaps catch sight of her, with bright bird's eyes, the slide of her limbs, or the silk of her garb, the toss of her head which is so characteristic of the punk and even the lady, in different degrees?

     Large, like one of the tower's sentinels, but his wings aren't clipped. He moves through London night, stopping to roost only occasionally as he circles. Upon steeples of forgotten churches. The edges of buildings. Statuary. A living gargoyle. He spirals, circling widely and then narrowing as he hones in on your current location.
     The universe is a spiral. The galaxy that contains earth is a spiral. DNA threads are formed in spirals. The soul's progression is a spiral. The raven dips downward, landing outside the church.
     Wings fold into shadows, shadows into brown leather as he passes by the church. Pauses. He has to pause. A moment to feel you. The fox holds still, waiting for the hare to make its move...

     There's stillness from inside the church, but it's a waiting sort of stillness, tensed and held ready, rather than peaceful. That's Drancy - no other bundle of nerves quite like it. And it doesn't last long, before she's moving again, hair bound up in a scarf as she shoulders her way into a jacket she'd left here just in case, battered grey denim lending a dingy air to her clothing. She's picked up a pebble in her shoe along the way as well, and it's laming her, but she shuffles along as best she can, until she can find a place she feels enough at ease to pause to deal with the tedious business of unlacing and relacing.
     A private little hunt, overseen by crows and ravens and sparrows - isn't it a pity noone ever looks up?

     Bundle of nerves like static electricity. It pops and it colors the air around you. Ha-ha-ha, there you are, my little beacon. Not quite as roman-candle-incandescent as the first night I felt your tremor on the air and knew you existed, but still with that power, crackling.
     It calls me...
     Just as it would call others like me...
     Somewhere in London tonight, there's a fellow setting down a pint and looking over his shoulders with inebriated, but still sharply brilliant green eyes...
     But that's neither here nor there, at the moment. Clip-clop-clip-clop. Tap-tap-TAP. You and your morse code running sending out a message: come and get me.
     Do you smell the clove? Something of wet earth, too. Of moss. Of musk...

     Drancy looks over her shoulder furtively, picking up a bit of speed. Whether or not her senses have become attuned to that otherworldliness in truth, imagination does much to fill in the void. As she moves, though, she's fumbling something out of her backpack - a small glass bottle, rounded rather than oblong, filled with some liquid that gurgles.
     She rounds a corner, leaning up against the wall as she works the bottle's cork out, and then she's smearing the liquid on the heels of her boots. A strong, bitter herbal scent, that - but nothing in and of itself unusual or untoward.
     Until she pushes off from the wall again, and squinting up her eyes in concentration, can you feel it? She summons up the energy that lies inside of her, uncoiling it ... and becomes a blurred, undistinguished figure, easily overlooked and ignored by those around her. A glamour to deceive the eye, though not the other senses. Gods only know how she picked this one up, or what she was thinking.
     And it's a bit interesting, isn't it - it's a line of commitment Drancy's just stepped across. The first time she's actively reached for and used her own power, by intent, rather than relying on the spells and magicks of others, old or new...

     The fox and the hare are at it again, it's more like cat and mouse...
     He is of earth and of shadow and of autumn and cold and darkness -- though not cursed to stay out of the sun, unlike the other men you hang around -- and he moves in the subtle ways and in the occult paths. Obscure. Obsfucation. His favorite form is that of the shadow that creeps beneath roses in night bloom. His favorite moon is the new moon -- that is when his power is at its height...
     Strange scents of strange ...flowers. There's something of power here. A shimmer of the world. Fireflies of glamour congeal and then are gone.
     Somewhere in London, there are darker lords than even this, those who take the sparkle from the eyes of women and children, the most stealthy and silent of thieves, who turn from their nightly disillusionment as one corner of the city starts to glimmer...
     Huw is quite close. He knows he is close. He is close to catching you, and so... quite near... he stops, shadow pressing to the stone of the edifice, brown leather issuing from brick...

     The mouse, having tasted prospective freedom, is unwilling to let it slip from her grasp just yet. She is dual in nature, split unevenly between light and dark - a summer creature cast out into the cold by her own decision, and grown sharper and harsher for it. And she spots her goal...
     A garden, aptly enough. This is a high-rent district, no doubt about it. But it's a garden with a wrought iron gate, and she steps through, pulling the gate closed behind her. Silly girl - if iron alone were enough to stop you, London's pathways would have been closed to you for far longer than this.
     She hurries, though, fleeing the hunter, perhaps to seek sanctuary in the stone and brick townhouse the garden adjoins, blonde hair glimmering in the faint light. Somewhere, a clock tolls the death of the day.

     He has your scent now. He has your trail. And from fox to hound he goes, he's on it. The Hunter has his mark. And as primal as the lust is that carries him, the drive of the world to procreation, so too is the drive for the hunt. Hold out your hand to nature, and nature will take it. Every time...
     Maybe you hear his steps, maybe you don't. Maybe you hear the sliding of his feet to halt before he hits the iron. Maybe you don't. But no, the iron does not stop him. A look to the left. A look to the right. Behind him. Before him. There's a whisper, and then there is the sound of wings again. He flies fast, the raven. How quickly do you run?
     Over iron gate, high over it. Vaulting upward and then circling downward into the garden, the raven flies. And he calls out, that hawking voice. I'm right behind you. I see you. I'm going to catch you...
     The raven's voice is dually the toll of Death and the Heralding of Dreams. It is both simultaneously, for there is very little division between the two. You hear it, and there are other ravens who answer it. A murder of crows is nearby...

     She used to be in excellent shape, once. When her days were filled with sunlight, and her nights with dreams of comparative innocence...
     But that was a while ago, now, and she's out of practice. Still, some things you don't forget - Drancy sprints up towards the steps, towards the house, executing a gymnastic leap of almost ballet proportions, stretching her hand out for the door...
     And falling short, foot catching on the cement of the step, causing her to make contact with the door with a hollow thud that drives the breath from her. She crumples to the stoop, trying to pull herself up by the doorknob, while gasping.

     There is the sound of ravens again. Does their hawking sound like laughter? You have an audience now, they're perched on all sides of the garden, strolling upon the lawn. Which one is him?
     The scent of clove again. And earth, wet earth. The kind that would swallow you. The kind that feels like an open mouth upon the skin. Or ...surely... what must feel like that, you can probably imagine it, even if you haven't felt it...
     And how would that feel? His open mouth against your skin? For if you pause to think of it...
     Wings flutter and air stirs, and as your hand grasps the doorknob and as you gasp, you feel the curling of his fingers against your own. The shadow of the building moves upward along your arm...

     Drancy turns, eyes filled with dazed panic, even as butterflies move up in her stomach to try strangling her at the throat, even as she turns the knob. The knob turns, but the door itself doesn't budge - nobody's home, it seems, but - they left the chain on.
     With the impact of falling, something popped, almost audibly - nothing physical, but the glamour she'd cast dissipates like smoke in a strong wind, torn to pieces. The scent of rosemary and Christmas oranges is very strong, this close to her, a less solid scent than the cloves.
     She's trembling again, and doesn't seem to know how to stop. She clears her throat, looking up, and finally manages to state, voice sounding like talking hurts, it's that difficult to get out the words, "Looks like you win."

     It's not every day or every night that one gets nearly tackled by the fellow who turns the leaves from green to gold. The spirit and embodiment of nature's dark season. You are right to tremble in Autumn's hands, even if he doesn't mean you any harm. His fingers of shadows curl at your hand, and you feel him everywhere. For although he didn't tackle you, he does currently press and surround you. There is a gentle chill without wind wherever his form and yours makes contact. For a moment, when his power congeals from shadow to Form, there is a glimmer of his true self. "You would win, if it were summer," he whispers. "I should have mentioned that." And he winks. And then there's the punk fairy you've come to know and love, in his brown leather, with mahogany hair spiked and in intentional disarray. Huw isn't quick to rise.
     No, you can see he likes you here. "But now you have me trapped, as much as it would seem the other way," he whispers at your ear. "When a fox hunts a hare," Huw continues, mouth at your neck. "...the fox has the advantage, so long as he is in chase. But, should he catch the rabbit, it is the rabbit who wins. For... now the rabbit is valuable to the fox. He holds it in his mouth. And as he caught the rabbit, the rabbit has captured him. That is nature's paradox."
     His hand leaves your hand, and, gloved, comes up to touch your face, to turn it toward him for a kiss. "Are you alright, little rabbit?" You took a bit of a nasty spill...

     It's not entirely a bad thing, though, even if she's not ready to admit it, being caught, being surrounded by you. She's just ... for all her fire, all her heat, she's ill-prepared for dealing with the reality of an opposing but equal force. Most people, in the face of her press, back down - or at least, shrug ... and turn away.
     But then, you don't do that, and that is why she makes herself vulnerable to you...
     "Mostly ... winded." As you change to a more familiar shape, she breathes a slight sigh of relief, rubbing her ribs with her free hand. She can take comfort in the familiar. "You're not trying to tell me something, are you?"
     She doesn't pull away, though - for her, the game ended when the door didn't open. If it'd opened, she'd have kicked, struggled and bit to get away, but like this? Nowhere to run to, nothing to manage, and there's an element of frustration, at that bar in her plans. She adds, "If the bloody door'd opened, I'd have won!"

     He smiles and he begins to lessen his press against you. To be a gentleman. To eventually rise and to pull you up. But not yet. Huw smiles. "So... when do I get to name my price and have my prize, hmm? I am a man who loves his rewards. The cake, before the dinner. That's me." And he doesn't kiss you. Not again, not yet.
     "What is this place that marks the end of the chase?" And finally he starts to look to the building, as he sits back upon his knees. Huw realizes he is rhyming. Hmm, nasty side effect. Hands upon leathered thighs a moment and then he looks to you, eyebrows lifting. A hand out to help you up, even as he starts to rise.

     "Whenever you want. You won, after all." She shifts her position, slowly, almost reluctantly. The hunt, it's gotten to her a bit, too - she's hardly immune. Drancy accepts the hand, slowly sitting up, then pushing to a position where she can perhaps stand. She's stiff, after all that, now the adrenaline's starting to wear off.
     "This? Oh... it belongs to my parents." She glances up towards the door sourly. "I called ahead and told the cook to leave this door open for me. Guess they forgot, or decided not to." Must be nice, to have that kind of money.

     "Good," he says, eyes downswept to you. I suspect you know what I'm going to ask. Or rather, I suspect I know what you think I'm going to ask. "They're not expected, are they? That might be ..." he grins, "...awkward." And with a gentle jerk, you are on your feet. And he is pulling the door closed, even as he pulls you in. He laughs, it is whisper-quiet but it is rich all the same. "Now do us a favor," he seems to say to you, "...open the door..."
     And you hear the chain rattle against the wood. A turn of the knob, and he pushes the door in, opening it with a swing. "Little rabbit," Huw the Hunter says to you, "... I think I like that name for you, best of all." He brushes his hand along your face again, a wink, and he draws you in.

     Is it possible for her to be more off her guard than she is now? It's debatable. Eyelashes flicker downwards, cheeks flooding with colour at the touch against her face. "About the only thing you and Hwyll have in common," she mutters, striving for a light tone, "aside from being too cute for your britches, is the insistence on calling me 'little this or that'." Which isn't quite a complaint, is it?
     "No... they're not in..." Drancy tries, actively, to avoid her family whenever she can. Particularly at times like this. Her eyes widen at the little magic, at the door opening. "If I'd known how to do that," she blurts, "I'd have used it faster than..." A flush. "Never mind." She allows you to draw her in, eyes still wide.
     "As for what you'll ask... you've the right to ask for anything you want. I ... I've been trying not to speculate."

     "Well," he says near your ear, bending for that pleasure, "... that is in the lesson plans. It's not difficult, really. One just needs to build an...alliance with doors." But enough of that. No lessons tonight. None, but those that have already been taught. Huw looks around, a quick discovery of the place wherein he finds himself, but then turns to you.
     Again his hands come up, again they cup your face. It is different than when you were in his ring of stones -- for many reasons, height and distance between you among them -- do you find it any less intimidating? The energy is more contained. Controlled. Perhaps, for that, he appears all the stronger.
     The kiss is slow to come, and it is brief. But even so, he does not back away, and in his leaning to place yet another, the talismans around his neck chime. "If we were playing this by the ballads, I would demand your virginity," he says there, and he smiles there. "But I have no intentions of bartering for that, to make it seem like... a bargain." Huw tilts his head. "When it is time for it to be broken, we will break it." A kiss upon your forehead, and then his hands draw away. "Besides, the wager was for the answer to a question." His smile is sly. "And so, here is my question for you..."
     Huw steps back, removes his gloves, plops down in a chair and with elbow resting on the arm of the chair, his hand comes to his mouth. He tugs upon his bottom lip a moment, and then he grins. "If you had won, what would you have asked of me?"

     She listens, though distractedly. Even if her parents aren't around, that doesn't mean there are no servants lurking - but then, surely they'd have investigated by now, with such noises and bangings and thumpings. And yes, it's still a daunting thing, being kissed. She refuses to pull away from it, though, a certain not quite pliancy, but acceptance of it. Perhaps because of the chase - you've fought and won her, certainly - or just the breathlessness which still plagues her, she does not draw back.
     "I wasn't going to ask for that!" Her face goes pink again, and she draws herself erect, folding her hands over her chest and leaning up against the wall. "And the questions and answers were for if you ... had help." Drancy gestures with her chin, a little lift and toss of her head. "If you'd invited Hwyll or someone along to help you out. When I said anything, I meant anything. But is that really what you want to use it on?" She slants one eyebrow up, a bit of challenge to her glare. She'll answer, if that's what's wanted...

     Chin rests upon his palm and he just stares at you for a time. A quizzical little smile on his face. Taking delight in your blushing, constant blushing. He would tease you -- and likely shall, but...the night is young...
     "Yes, that is what I want to use it on. I don't need to wager for your affection, your desire, secret or intimate details about you. I spend it...yes, I spend it to satisfy my erect curiosity," and believe you me, that was an intentional phrasing. "So..." hands gesture to you. "...what made you come out to Amesbury, call me, risk seeing me in all my native glory. What was worth the risk of the Unknown? What ... desire... turned the rabbit to a fox in her own right..."

     Drancy squirms, tightening her grip on herself, arching in embarassment. Oh, she'd hoped, in a way, that you wouldn't ask, that you'd pick something else. "I wanted to know what you really looked like, before we ... did anything." Had sex. In some little ways, she's an old-fashioned girl, isn't she? "And I wanted to show you up," she adds, with wry honesty. "Fat lot of good that did."
     Challenging the hunter at his own game - well, points for style, perhaps, but not much else. "I was ... " A pause, as she tries to figure out how to word it, face still red from the intimacy of discussion, the choice of words and the images they provoke. "Mum and dad're having a house party, end of the month. I have to make an appearance. If I go by myself, I'll spend the entire time fending off young eligibles. I was going to drag you with me, if ... if I won."
     She turns round again, running both hands through her hair, letting it fall, hands falling as well down to her sides before lifting again to cross her chest, fingers on opposing shoulders. "But I mainly went to Amesbury to see you. Not because of that. That was just ... incidental." And oh, she blushes, even as she lets the candid admission slip past her lips...

     "After such a worthy chase, I would be honored to attend with you." And he even stands and bows. Returning to his seat, he chuckles. "Normally, the price for losing to me is death. You're brave. I think that is why I coming to love you. You bit off more than you could chew, and yet.... even with a full mouth, you had strength enough to carry it through and... even assert how you would have won. Not many would have done what you had done. Not many would have asked what you asked, after seeing what you saw. Come," he crooks his fingers to you. And even though he's inhabiting an apparent mortal body, a solid form of his own design, he now seems anything but to you. You have seen him as he is. You will not be fooled by the mortal guise.
     "In twelve-month time, it will be my goal that I should lose to you," Huw murmurs. "In the meantime, park it on my lap and we'll talk about this... party. And the story you would like to tell." Of the young man you've brought with you.

     A blink, a pause. "...Death?" Even so, though, she steps forward. This is no time for fear. The words overshadow the other words, for a moment, but she's stepping towards you as they slowly seep through her shell, her armour.
     "Why wouldn't I want you to come with me? Because you're you?" That makes Drancy snort, even as she obediently curls up against you - and, there's no hesitation, in the gesture. She leans into your solidity as if to shut the rest of the world out, for a moment, a silent flicker of weakness that she indulges in without, perhaps, even noticing she's done so.
     "I don't know if I'd be able to beat you in just a year," Drancy says dubiously, against your shoulder, then straightening. "You've had a lot more time to practice'n I have. And ... well, I don't know what to tell them. Not the truth, obviously." Oh, that'd go over well.

     "I usually don't hunt for fun, admittedly," he dismisses the notion of death rather casually. Being a natural process, it can be easily dismissed. Like pissing in the wind. Or what bears do in the woods. How is it any different?
     As you curl up in his lap, his arms surround you. His hold is light and gentle and yet solid as earth and stone. It emits the same comfort as if you had just curled up in a peaceful meadow under a night of stars. As light as the hold is, you know it is formidable. And he has you again.
     "I will teach you tricks," he says it simply, uncovered hand to your face again, a soft insistence there for you to turn toward him. "How a little rabbit can out-manuever a fox, for example." And he smiles quicksilver and darkly again. "I think we should tell them that I'm a musician with a symphony orchestra in Europe. Russia or perhaps Austria. I play the violin. That way, I will be unconventional, but not distasteful. They don't need to know the Truth. The Truth is irrelevant. This, as you know, is an image. That story will... just go with this image. That's all." The smell of cloves again is strong, and earth, and the clean scent of grass and moss. A brush of his mouth to yours and he waits for you to counter or agree to that. And in the meantime, he busies himself with little touches on your neck. Occasional brushes of his mouth elsewhere. He's starting to get you.... used to the idea of it all.

Posted by rowan at June 01, 2003 03:10 PM