anarchist_queen | The Lands of Lord Corwyn of House Alton, Faerie

Eli wouldn't have thought it possible to be any colder in the lands of House Alton. But this close to the border, it was colder than one could imagine. Perhaps a further deterrent to keep anyone from attempting what he was after.

If I can just stay calm, they won't know I'm gone until it's too late. he thought.

He shivered in his t-shirt and jeans. All the clothes he was wearing. The human outfit itself would be enough to earn him a severe, horrific punishment. That he had been able to obtain the clothes at all was a testament to how successful the Queen's attempts to change Faerie culture were.

The frigid wind stung his golden eyes and made the veins in his exposed skin stand out in blue spiderwebs upon his skin. Only the Elvin blood within him allowed him to survive at all.

His shivering caused the tiny silver bells on his bracelets to chime softly. Fifty nine bells on two bracelets. An archaic tradition to signify Trueblood Royalty. But on him, they were an alarm system. If he removed the bracelets, the bells would cry out a warning to his master, who would then hunt for him.

He took a deep breath and blew it out. It was now or never. Before he lost his nerve, before he could be missed.

He dreamed a willow tree, and it appeared. It's long branches swept over the ground and swayed in the wind. He had formulated a theory that the bells could be fooled if the bracelets stayed in motion. He quickly transferred the hated ornaments to the tree's branches. It seemed to work. No alarm cry went up.

Even the smuggled literature he had gotten his hands on strongly advised against what he was about to do. Travel across the border could only be done safely at the place where it is thinnest. The guidebook pages he had tucked into his back pocket claimed in bold, capital letters that it was virtually impossible to jump the border and survive.

Eli dashed forward, and dove into the border.

The bells on the bracelets sent up the cry, and almost immediately, Corwyn's hounds began to bay.

[Kicking off a plot based on the Bordertown short story "Dragon Child" by Midori Snyder.]