Changeling, Part I

imovipositive:

You live for this.

The music, thumping; the lights, flashing and shimmering overhead; the press of bodies all around you, the smell of a thousand people dancing and laughing and eating and drinking and crying and living. The floor beneath your feet jumps in time with the boosted bass pouring out of the amps. It’s Friday night, you’re in the Grove, and you’re ready to party.

Your friends are here too, of course: Cindy and Micaela and the pixie Willow-bark. Willow’s flitting around by your shoulder. You have to keep an eye on her– she ordered a thimble-sized rum and coke, but when you came back from the bathroom, your own cocktail looked a little shrunken and her flight path was noticeably more erratic. You’ve had to fish your six-inch friend out of the bottom of enough eight-inch glasses to know what to look out for.

Later for all that, though. Right now, you’re feeling the beat from your head to your toes. You didn’t come to the club to hook up– though that’s always an option for later– but you’ve been ogling plenty of the goodies on display. A muscular ichthys, bare from the waist up except for his breathing apparatus, is bopping away at the center of a crowd of admirers. A creature made of shadow and bone with the thickest ass you’ve ever seen is twerking its heart out. Literally– an ephemeral ruby heart orbits the frenzied dancer at a distance of about two feet.

Sidhe clubs are wild.

You’ve seen a few of the proprietors drifting lazily through the crowd. They’re easy to spot– tall, elegant, humanoid but for the elongated proportions of their limbs and their curiously smooth heads. Their faces are masks. That’s not a figure of speech, either; gleaming porcelain interfaces smoothly with hairless flesh, and the expressions that pass across them have the exaggerated affect of the classic sock and buskin masks. Wherever they go, the crowd parts with a whisper and an awed stare.

Cindy left about five minutes ago, giggling and hand-in-hand with a handsome satyr. You know she can take care of herself– you’re not worried. Micaela, though– you were just talking to her, before the bass dropped and the music lifted you off your feet. Where is she? Your ecstasy momentarily forgotten, you look left and right. She was just here. Should you text her? Has she even got her phone? Maybe you should go back to the table…

You turn, and nearly run directly into someone. You stumble back a foot or two and start to stammer out an apology. You’re staring at a well-tailored waistcoat about a hundred years out of date. You look up, and up, and up, and there, at the top of a slender neck, is the face of the person you just bumped into.

Well, the mask.

Oh, shit.

“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry,” you begin, and he winces. That’s right– the trappings of the Church burn and bind the Sidhe. You curse inwardly. You’re really fucked now. If you leave the club in a hurry maybe they won’t take your name down and ban you. You try to apologize, to explain, to beg forgiveness, but you’re trying to do all three at once and it just comes out in a jumbled mess. You’re aware now that you are standing in the middle of an expanding ring of people, all staring stonefaced at you.

“Oh sor, I’m so sirry… I mean, oh sir, I, oh I never meant to, please don’t–”

He hushes you with one long, graceful finger, and you’re so surprised that you actually shut up. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, but you can still hear it somehow even over the pounding beat.

“Please do not furnish me with your apologems. I misconstrued you in the crowd. Truly, the faultline was my own; I do not wish to emburden your person with further maladies.”

You squint. What? It occurs to you that you’ve never heard a sidhe speak before.

His mask looks down on you with an expression of infinite patience and infinite kindness. “Allow me to make introducement,” he says, bowing. “My name is Thousand-Silver-Stars-Falling-Like-Rain-Unto-The-Fallow-Earth. But you may name me Star.”

“Uh, I’m Y/N,” you manage awkwardly, and hold out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Star. If you don’t mind, I’ll…”

“That is why I have emblazoned you, my dear. I am well approached of your misfortune.” He pauses. “Your erstwhile friend.”

“Micaela?” you ask. “Where? Where is she? How?”

“Allow my to rend the veil,” he says, and turns. One finger crooks over his shoulder, beckoning you to follow. The crowd parts before him and closes behind, not quick enough to cut you off but quick enough to ensure you any number of stubbed toes, bruised shoulders and dirty looks. He leads you to a corner booth, where Micaela is sitting propped up against the corner. At your ear, Willow draws in a shocked gasp. Mic’s eyes are open, but they’re glassy. A line of drool trickles out of the corner of her mouth.

“Mic?” you ask. Willow buzzes over towards her and waves a tiny arm inches from her face. She pinches Mic’s nostril, always a surefire way to get someone’s attention. Nothing.

“It appears that she has undertaken incautious imbibement,” Star says. “I do again profoundly apologize. Our wards are normally proof against such unwholesome adulterants. It appears that some miscreant has pierced our countermeasures.” The mask now shows a wrathful grimace. “He will be soundly punished, once ferreted out. This club is a sanctum.”

“Will she… be ok?” you ask. You swallow. What if it had been your drink? Or Willow’s?

Star waves a hand. “Of course. But she will be insensate ‘til dawn. Do you have a conveyance? She would recoup with more alacrity in a familial setting.”

“I don’t… we took an Uber, and…”

“The club can provide a car. Would that be to your satiety?”

“Of… of course.” You feel a little lost. There’s a burp by your ear, a brief fluttering sound, and then something lands on your shoulder. You reach over and gently scoop up Willow, who appears to have passed out. She’s snoozing peacefully in your palm with the occasional hiccup. “Maybe for her, too?” Star suggests.

He waits with you while the club’s floor manager– a put-upon human man in a dark suit– dials a car. When it arrives, you hesitate. It’s barely midnight. Normally you’d just be getting started now. But you really should see your friends home…

Star seems to sense your distress. He presses something into your palm. You look down in wonder– it looks like a little silver leaf, its surface faintly glittery. “Go,” he suggests. “This token will secure your renaissance, should you still wish to partake in our gaieties. Another night, perhaps.”

You nod. “T-thanks, Mr. Star.” His response is a deep and sweeping bow; he seems to hinge at the waist and fold up like a puppet. When he stands again, his mask is looking down on you with a smile so plain and cheerful that it warms you up inside.

“Until that night, Y/N,” he says, and vanishes into the crowd.

–

It takes you two weeks to go back to the Grove, and when you do, you go alone. Cindy had a great time– she always does– but when she hears about what happened to Micaela, she sounds appalled. “Oh God,” she says, “that’s horrid.” ‘Horrid’ is a bit of a fairy-tale word, but you have to admit that the whole experience has you shaken up. The next week, the four of you just meet up in your apartment for cocktails and Mario Kart.

The week after that, though, you get the dancing itch. Micaela flatly refuses any more clubs (and, frankly, you don’t blame her,) Cindy’s with her current boyfriend (human, for once), and Willow-bark sounds enthusiastic enough on the phone but stops responding to your texts around 9pm. You’re not too surprised– she was slurring when you got off the line with her. She still hasn’t adjusted to everything in the city coming in human-sized portions. She’s with friends, at least.

That leaves one. You could just stay in, but… that silver leaf is still sitting on your dresser. It’s not made of metal, but it’s definitely not paper or plant material, either. It feels like silk, but it’s far too heavy, and the way it catches the light… something about it calls to you. And you barely got to enjoy the Grove before.

You make a decision. You’ve got a great new dress, you just cashed a paycheck, and you’ve got a ticket to the hottest club in town. There’s only one option, really.

The line for Grove stretches around the block, but you stride confidently to the front, ignoring the angry side-eyes from people waiting. The orc at the door clears his throat and you can see the words “back of the line” forming on his lips, so you pull out your leaf and flash it like a badge. It takes him aback, and he turns and whispers something to someone just out of view. You’re left standing there awkwardly for a moment or two, then a tall and spindly shape materializes out of the darkness of the club and favors you with a painted smile. It’s Star.

“Welcome, Y/N,” he says, and ushers you inside.

The layout of the club is totally different from last time. Much of the furniture has been cleared away. The ceiling seems higher, too, though maybe that’s just you. The air is full of rainbow light… and bubbles. Tiny ones like kids might blow at the park, big ones like at a circus or museum, and gigantic ones that hover far overhead like flying saucers. A couple of them have people in them. You gawk in astonishment. There are figures up there dancing without a care, suspended in shimmering translucent spheres. “How…” you ask, and Star’s mask grins at you.

“Glamour,” he says, as though that’s an answer.

The music is hypnotic. A female ichthys in a dazzling green dress is standing on a dais in the center of the room singing in her own language– you can’t understand it, but the warbling words put you in mind of whalesong. It’s incredibly tranquil, even over the electronic beat. All around you people are dancing in their own little worlds. More bubbles float by from somewhere behind you; you expect them to pop, but they settle all over you like snowflakes. They feel gauzy and not-totally-real, but when you burst one, your finger gets wet. You look up at Star with awe in your gaze. “This… how…”

“That is a sufficiency of questions,” he says. “Please. Will you feign to dance?” He begins to move, and you have no choice but to join him.

He’s incredibly graceful. More than once it seems as though he’s about to fall over or hurt himself, but at the last second he always twists into a new and perfect position. Watching him dance for too long makes your head hurt. It seems as though sometimes his arms pass through each other. It’s probably the club lights– they flash in all the colors of the rainbow, vibrant patterns of dots and lines that meld and intersect and split apart again. You find yourself falling into an easy, regular pattern. You’ve always been a bit self-conscious about your dancing, but at the club nobody really pays attention to other people’s moves anyways. Now, though, you’re moving with the grace and confidence that you always wished you had. And you’re not even drunk!

Star dances faster and faster. He loops around you and you spin yourself dizzy trying to keep up. His mask flickers through a catalog of expressions– joy when the music soars, sorrow when it plunges, anger when the bass comes in heavy. As it does, shadows of those emotions stir in your heart. It’s as if the feelings that he’s feeling are too big to be contained by one body. They’re spilling out all over you.

All too soon your breath starts rasping in your chest and your limbs begin to feel weak and wobbly. You’d want to dance all night if you could, but your body is betraying you. You stumble back a step, and like a flash, Star is there to catch you. “Please, Y/N,” he says, his voice like honey in your ear. “Let us repair to a more privileged locale,” he suggests, and you nod dumbly, too tired even to smile. He leads you to a corner booth and helps you into the chair.

“I hope tonight has in some small measure recompensed for your most dreadful misadventure of before, Y/N,” he says. “You look exhaustive. If you wish to retire, that is your prescription… but if you are not ready for this night to conclude…” He dangles the sentence out like a fishing line, and you bite eagerly.

“I’m not too tired,” you manage, suppressing a yawn. “What else do you have to show me?”

“This,” he breathes, and kisses you.

You expect to feel cold porcelain against your skin, but to your shock, the lips that press against yours are warm and soft and welcoming. You taste honeysuckle and nectar in his kiss, the taste of summer evenings in the country as the day spools closed and the sunset sets the grass aflame. You taste fear and exhilaration, yours or his you can’t tell. You taste desire. Your nostrils fill with the scent of him, a sweet and piney smell, as your tongues tangle and intertwine and melt into each other. You can feel something passing from yourself to him, some energy or emotion, and something else jumps back along the same bridge: a buzz, a crackle of joy and anticipation, a delicious little frisson of pleasure that tingles all the way up your spine and lights up your brainstem like a Christmas tree.

“I think we should get out of here,” you purr as the kiss breaks, and he nods. His face is just porcelain again, but the expression on it is the devil grinning in His pew.