[Changeling IC] Time's Wings: Dark Omens

[Thanqol]

"You also get April Fools, does that not amuse you?" Lily said, smiling a little at the indignant cat.

The cat gives you the haughty glare of a cat who knows that you are teasing it and will get its revenge by knocking your plates off the shelf later, after it has finished being patted, and had a sleep, and the whim strikes it.

"I also have to put up with ANZAC day," the cat sighed. "Everyone getting all weepy and patriotic. It's awful. Still, I guess not as bad as Winter - she gets nothing at all. You know how the only good thing about Winter is Christmas? Well in Australia she doesn't even have that. She's just spiteful and envious and bitter and the only thing that gets her out of bed is the Queen's bloody birthday, which doesn't do anything for her ego. It's not even the Queen's actual birthday! So Winter thinks that makes her the Queen in question!"

"It is. Along with..."

And Edmund proceeded to rattle off the name of every Dragon he'd slain. Great or small, strong and weak, by every name he knew them. Which, coincidentally, gave any surreptitious visitor plenty of time to finish their business and make themselves scarce.

"Find them. Let me speak with them. And once I have, you and I will have much, much more to speak of."

"Finding people is my speciality," said Mrs. Height with a thin smile.

"You will kill me." A tilt of the head, a side-stepping of destiny. "Unless you don't. Unless you have your heart. Nothing to lose." And this is what he means: if you entrust me, I will find your heart. Not just because it will save others, and because it will save me, but because I don't know any other way but to help someone who is hurt in the wilderness. I am the Pilgrim and I am the guide for the caravan. Nothing can hide from me forever. Let me help you.

I am sorry for being wicked.

Mercia thinks.

Three warring instincts twist within her, three iron laws play across her face for a while. But two find an uneasy alliance and the third is only invested as a matter of convenience, so the fight can be won. She might yet be your death but you are not her quarry.

"Fine," she says. "I will accept it as an oath sworn on iron chains. Find my heart and return it safely to me and I will release you from my grove. I will not trouble you again until you again come between me and my hunt. Fail and I will yet find a use for you."

She offers her hand. Iron mail. She makes no concessions and offers no weakness. It will hurt.

[Shaking her hand to seal the oath will inflict 1 Aggravated damage]