[PRP] all these things (aleksy & jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

"I'm not entirely sure she was born where I came from," he clarified. Though Piers could have and would have kept it entirely secret. Meredith would have- It was neither here nor there.

"Anything?" Jeremiah let out a breath, a near laugh. It was not the good kind. "Ignore that. Did I say anything as to why I thought she wasn't dead? Why do you think she is?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Her tongue was deliver to the police in the box," said Aleksy, who had a face like he was giving God himself the side-eye. "Her things found in the bay. This does not happen to someone is alive, it only happens to someone who is dead."

That was the easy part. Aleksy sighed. "You say she is likely in the otherworld. I say no, there's no indication that she had magic. You say, most people conceal it, especially lawyers. I say, you think magic operates like fairy hill rules? Even if she has gone to the otherworld, she has eaten of the poisoned fruit and will never know humanity again. Game is over."

It was an old, old argument. He didn't want to rehash it. "You were in a denial," said Aleksy. "That's all it was."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

At least that all made sense. "Probably," that he had been in denial, "but then if she went to the otherworld that world- The otherworld that exists now is not the same, is it?" The other ashdown that they all went to, dreamed of, was the one that gave from the bygone world not this world.

"If ... she was not part of the Court, then ... I've no idea how I would have become a Noble or how the Court existed for that matter." His fingers were still closed around Aleksy's foot, thumb pressing into the ball of it without thought.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Aleksy shook his head. "It is different. I am not understanding what a noble is, or what a court is?" He shrugged. "Only that all of you are very worried about it."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

His hand stilled a moment before it resumed (a slow, gentle massage given without thought). "What happened last year then? With the red moon?" Then he was quiet, a thought crossing his mind. "Lisichya? Do you happen to know how many cycles it's been? Since it started?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"The red moon?" Aleksy tilted his head. "The fae did something with tithes when we had blood moon."

He flushed an abrupt, dark red. He hadn't even told his Jeremiah about the stuff that had gone on there.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah paused again, noting the flush. That was an interesting shade he had not seen in a long time. "... why do I think that that gathering was distinctly different than what I dealt with. Was I not there?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"No, you were most certainly not," said Aleksy. It was almost comical how hard he was trying to not make eye contact at that moment in time. He knew it, too, and ended up putting his gloved hands over his face. "I was not paying very much attention."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah had an idea, especially with that color and the way Aleksy was not making eye contact. It was an expression he was familiar with.

"Right, not paying attention," he just poked his finger against Aleksy's toe, before he leaned and tugged a gloved hand away from his face (a sign he was not going to pursue that anymore), "but I have a feeling perhaps you were paying attention to certain parts. Ours we gathered because someone was to be sacrificed, a ball to honor the tithe that would be a sacrifice on the night of the blood moon to strengthen the cage. It was held in the Court of the Sorrowful One, which was made of Nobles and the fetches that served them, along with the tithes they had taken."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"There were tithe trials," said Aleksy. "There was meal with ridiculous number of courses. Even for me." He felt like his face was going to explode from how much blood had to be up there. "To free the fetches who desired to return to the otherworld. There was no Court or strengthening of cage. What cage?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah blinked, as if this was something he had considered but- "If there's no cage, then there's no cycles and ..." He let out a breath, hand rubbing across his face. "Renard was caged, thousands upon thousands years ago, or he was where I came from. Separated from his magic and his schema because they did not understand what he was trying to do. The cage changed everything, including the world and we were trapped along with him by proxy within the cycles."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Renard is old, but not millennia," said Aleksy uncertainly. "His schema was confiscated in the early aughts..."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

That uncertain look was echoed on Jeremiah's face. "... who confiscated it?"

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Aleksy shrugged. "I do not know. I was not even fifteen, why would he confide such a thing in me?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah nodded, his hand going back to settled around Aleksy's foot without thought. "It was still his research on eliminating AIDs, wasn't it?"

Then, he blinked. "I always assumed his age was due to the existence of the cage- if that's not the case then how has he been alive so long?" Sonny was over a hundred and the Shore family was something of a town secret that wasn't always secret.

shibrogane