Tybalt, you ratcatcher! Will you walk?

[shadowandsnark]

 [OOC: All dialog and events herein come from the short story Rat-Catcher which is from the anthology A Fantasy Medley 2.]

June, 1666. London, England.

"I do love the way they stage the duels here," Rand commented to me as we perched up in the rafters of the theater the Duke Company used for their productions.

I sat cross-legged and scowled at him. "You've seen this show a dozen times!"

"Closer to a dozen dozens, more likely, and yet I never tire of it," he said, glancing away from the actors long enough to grin at me. "Can't you relax for one evening, and enjoy a little entertainment?"

"No, I can't, and neither should you," I replied, and folded my arms. "Father wants you."

"So he sent you to retrieve me?" Rand scoffed. "Did he consider, for a moment, that I might refuse to come?"

"He did, yes."

"And?"

"And if I fail to retrieve you, I'm to be put to work minding the kittens for a week's time, to teach me obedience," I replied with a baleful scowl. "I won't mind kittens for you, Rand. You're coming with me, whether you like it or not."

"Am I, then?" Rand asked, raising an eyebrow. "Will you fight me in order to bring me home? Much as I love you, darling Jill, I doubt you'd come out the winner in that particular contest."

"I won't fight you."

"Then what?"

"I'll sit here and cry through your precious performance if you refuse to come. And tomorrow night, when my time in the nursery ends, I'll do the same. And the night after that, until such time as you apologize to me." I replied and smiled sweetly. "You can save us both a great deal of time and suffering if you simply come with me now."

Rand cast a longing look towards the actors. Mercutio was preparing to die, and in the process was layering curses down on both waring houses. "Are you sure father can't wait?"

"Come on!"

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[shadowandsnark]

Of the Roane, only three things need be known: that they see the future, but never clearly; that few of them remain among the living; and that the one disaster they did not foretell was the one which killed the better part of their number.

So it was with great regard that the Divided Courts welcomed the messengers of the Undersea, a merrow escort for a Roane message.

"The fires will come, and though many will run, few will survive the burning. In their wake will come sickness such as has never been seen before nor will be seen again, and it will be a second burning, one that kills without concern for fae or mortal bloodlines. Few who call Londinium home will survive those fires, and royal lines will be henceforth shattered into history and dust."

"I have seen many of you before, in the motion of the water," the Roane, a little girl barely able to hold herself upright, finished. "Too many have I seen on night-haunt wings. Flee this land while the future can yet be changed. Stay, and may the mercy of the waters be upon you."

I stood beside my dear friend Rand, who had startled me not minutes before by walking, calmly as you please, from the shadows of my dressing room. Fortunately for he and I, I had been dressed and neither my husband, nor my servants had been in attendance. The man truly had no sense of propriety.

Regardless, together we looked at each other in fear and dread of what was to come.

Rand offered a courtly bow and said, "I must go, dear September, though it pains me to leave you so soon. I must report to my Father the words of the Roane."

"Farewell, my friend. Open roads." I replied with a formal tone and a warm smile.

"And kind, yet obedient fires to you and yours."