The office door slammed behind the Principal of Crystal Prep with a sound of terrible finality, the lock clicking a moment later to ensure that there would be no outside disturbance until such time as the occupants were ready for it. Both figures that had entered the room found seats—one behind the enormous desk, the other in a lone chair before it—collapsing with a weariness neither had wanted to show to prying eyes. A wavering breath escaped the being called Abacus Cinch, and with it, the tenuous threads of magic still holding their glamours about them collapsed into a shimmer of dust that then ceased to exist.

Beneath it, both looked awful.

Described by the fanciful tongues of poetic mortals, the sidhe and their kin were painted in vivid color as shining, ethereal beings, humanoid but not human, with gleaming hair that flowed like liquid metal and felt like the finest of gossamer and silk, with pale, milky skin free of blemish and age, shining eyes that seemed to glow with charisma and power, and elfin features far too delicate and perfect to ever be found on a mortal…

That illusion had been stripped away with part of their essence, by dangerous and furious power wielded so casually by the unNamed invader. Now, high cheekbones and pointed chins were little more than withered death’s heads with papery, dry skin stretched over bone, and dry, lank hair that looked brittle enough to break off at the slightest touch. Even their hands looked gnarled and bent, like the roots of an ancient tree.

Nothing was said for the stretch of several breaths as both of the fae attempted to steady themselves. Finally, it was the elder of the two that broke the pained silence.

“I cannot save you,” Itheadair said, studying the one who had served under their hand for more than fifteen hundred years. “Not this time…”

Cànanach had always been…worth more than others, with a cunning and loyalty far superior to most of their kin, from the very beginning. It was intrinsic to the stern faced sidhe’s very nature, as immutable and permanent as the stars in the sky, and from the very first, that loyalty had belonged to Itheadair. Even now, wounded deeply, they sat straight and did not debase their impeccable record by wailing or pleading or blustering. Instead, eyes like large, dark pools on frost touched moor started resolutely straight at the older fae, waiting for the rest of the decree.

“He would never allow it.” The words came almost unbidden, a lapse of control and judgment brought on by something that Itheadair might almost call regret, if one of their kind was privy to such mortal weaknesses. “Not with potentially costing Him His prize.”

Those eyes remained without the rage so many others, much younger, might have exhibited. “I know,” Cànanach responded, voice rough.

There was another, tight, heavy silence that stretched between old allies.

And then…

“My essence will never touch the Dreaming, nor the wheel turn for it ever again.” It was not a question, but a surety.

“No.” The answer to the statement that was not a question was short and cutting in its finality, but spoken with a brutal, curt honesty that belied the respect Itheadair had for Cànanach. They rose from their seat behind the desk and moved to a locked, polished cabinet in the corner, near the carafe of water from their former realm. “Such a thing is deserved least by cunning Cànanach, out of all here. It…should not have come to this.” Long fingers opened the cabinet and selected two fine goblets of purest gold and silver, studded with a fortune in precious gems, and a crystal bottle.

Still those dark eyes watched—even with back turned, Itheadair knew that they waited only for a word, a signal.

Instead, the sidhe placed the goblets and bottle on the desk, and did the same with a platter of fruit, bread, and honey, and the carafe with its empty crystal glasses. “Our first meeting was done with broken bread, milk, and honey, Loyal Cànanach. Let our parting be savored but bittersweet, in bread and honey, with the wine and water of the foreverlost.” It was the only way to appropriately prepare for the inevitable, a rite older than even them, to send a valued companion—never one who was just a servant, no—to the final days of their winter. And even if this was an end come early at the behest of their master, Itheadair would ensure that Cànanach went to oblivion knowing they had earned the elder sidhe’s respect.

Those eyes, for the first time, showed a hint of something more than acceptance. “As seasons turn, so does the wheel,” they responded in the old tongue.

“What was carried up is now to be cast down, dissolved to make dreams anew,” both intoned as two sets of hands broke the bread and selected pieces of fruit, letting sparkling golden honey paint each piece in turn.

“May the memories be savored by your dream and mine,” Cànanach said, pouring water and wine into glass and goblet.

“And both the bitter and the sweet carry to the Dreaming with you,” Itheadair returned, mirroring the gesture. “Loyal and Cunning Cànanach…Once well met, and now fare well. You shall be long remembered, and I shall honor your loyalty with blood.”

With great solemnity, the two fae creatures, inhuman and ancient, exchanged both the plates of food and the paired drinks, before dining upon that which each had gifted the other in the quiet of the office, knowing that soon, their Master would come to collect what He was owed…

It was halfway through the ritual meal that it happened. Cànanach had just set the crystal glass down when they began to seizure, mouth open in a soundless scream as their body twisted and bent and jerked in impossible directions. The room grew darker, shadows hissing as they slithered across all manner of surfaces, angry, gleeful sounds; the encroaching void stole all the heat from the room until the fae expected to see hoarfrost forming on the desk’s surface.

Cànanach slumped forward, still for some few suspended moments before jerking unpleasantly upright again like a marionette. Dark eyes were pits of blackness now, and liquid shadow oozed from the corners of their lips like spittle, dripping without sound to vanish before it ever hit the floor. With a somewhat disgusted sound, a hand was slowly lifted to be stared at, as if the owner of it were trying to decide if it truly belonged to them or not.

Those fingers closed stiffly around the goblet again, raising the finely crafted gold and silver piece up as if to contemplate its existence. “Itheadair…” came the deeper voiced rumble from Cànanach’s throat, dripping with condescension and reprimand, followed by a level of displeased annoyance, “…Would you care to tell me what happened here today?” The Master stared hard at them through borrowed eyes.

Itheadair tensed, searching for the words to answer. “…initially, all was progressing according to plan, my Lord. The girl’s alchemical remedy was stolen and her paltry possessions ruined, as you requested. She even reacted as we anticipated…”

Eyes weeping liquid night at the corners gave the sidhe an arch look. “And then?” He asked, much like disapproving parents did when they dragged a story from their recalcitrant spawn.

“…her latest companion dragged her to Cànanach’s rooms, where Cànanach was poised to see to it that her mental state was appropriate to accept your influence, Master…” Itheadair swallowed hard. “…but there was an unforeseen complication that occurred to disrupt the events.”

It proved to be the exact wrong answer. “Complicationssss?” He hissed, his words echoing from a dozen tenebrous shapes around the room. Smoky miasma created a haze in front of the borrowed face briefly. “Complicationssss are exactly why you and the resssst of your glorified cradle robbing ilk are here, Itheadair!” He snarled over the rim of the goblet. “Were you really sssso incompetent and usssselessss assss to be overwhelmed by ssssome big breasted ssssuccubus!? A ssssuccubussss, you overblown night terror! Not even a demon worth mentioning, but a lusssst addled piece of trassssh who doessssn’t deserve to be called a demon, in the body of ssssome half grown harlot, and you act assss though Pazuzu himself came through the doorssss for all the fight you put up!” He took a long drink from the goblet, and the face twisted in fury. “Asssssh!” He spat, control over the body wavering as he hurled the whole thing at the wall in contempt.

Succubus? A shiver went through the ancient fae. The thing wearing the skin of some teen couldn't have possibly been one such, not with all she had done even before she set foot on the grounds. “A succubus, my Lord?” Itheadair uttered in pure disbelief. “She could not have possibly been one of the concubi breed—their kind never have that much…focus…and the magic…” Over the centuries, they had encountered a dozen handfuls worth of distinct demons—the Master’s army of shadow things did not count—and among that number had been a few of the aforementioned ones whose abilities lay wrapped up in the baser urges of humans. Not a single one had ever carried within the kind of discipline and raw magical power that had been behind those glittering, baleful eyes turned upon them in the office earlier.

The Master stared a moment, as if digesting the fact that Itheadair had challenged His assessment. “It was a ssssuccubussss, Itheadair,” He said pointedly. “Unlessss you have ssssuddenly become a greater expert on ssssuch matterssss than the King of Demonssss?”

This was dangerous territory, and not meant to bring into question Him. “No, Master…I only thought that…perhaps you had not witnessed all of her activities…”

His voice became edged and deadly. “Explain.”

Fear clawed at their senses, but… “Concubi, my Lord…they are weak, beneath notice. Their fixation on the baser urges and desires of their selected prey means they lack foresight, and operate entirely on their own hungers. They very rarely expend power over more than one or two mortals at a time, because they lack the ability and discipline to do so.” As the stare grew more intense, Itheadair gripped their own goblet tightly. “This she-demon…was not that. She had bound one of the students to her will in a way that escaped notice of all Your servants, Master, and when she arrived…”

The arrival had been felt across the entire property by every shade and fae on the grounds. Even the shackled souls, endlessly trapped in their own misery, had felt her entrance. “She tore through the wards that should have kept her at bay as easily as one might wave away a troublesome insect, and sent magic like I have not felt in a thousand years back through them…there was no fear in her…only rage, and she thought nothing of destroying anyone that attempted to stop her. Your shades learned this lesson the hard way…as did You, Yourself, Master, when she broke your connection to this realm for a time.”

Silence, and one hand raised imperiously to gesture at the sidhe to continue when they hesitated to keep going.

Steeling themself, the fae did so. “Cànanach attempted it as well—confronting the intruder—standing between her and both the she-demon’s marked student and the girl You have Marked. The demon tore a portion of their essence away and proclaimed her intent with all the power and authority of one who expects to be obeyed and feared, as if she were a Queen herself, and not in the body of a scruffy teenage peasant…”

Cànanach’s possessed form stiffened, a sign that the Master was tearing through their memories to find the event. When it passed, the being that went by the name Abacus Cinch continued. “She was there for the girl, and the chambers that were once Cànanach’s are now no longer usable by any of your servants—the magic she used in them prevents any of us from entering now. Moreso, her power did not include only the one student under her aegis—she has somehow enchanted Twilight Sparkle’s entire family and one—if not both—of the last remnants of the Solare line.”

A bitter draught that had been—confronted by Luna Solare and realizing that the line curse laid upon her ancestors for challenging the sidhe hundreds of years ago had been purged from her blood. That, if nothing more, convinced Itheadair that this could be no mere succubus. That line curse had been ancient magic, a powerful rite that took a fae lord’s full court to cast, not once but thrice for it to take hold. Nothing so weak as a succubus could possibly have undone it—even Itheadair would not have been able to cast the counter rite anymore—their court of followers was too weak and too few in number.

Still the Master did not react. “Issss that all, Itheadair?”

“The soul, Master, at the end. It was not enough that she made the wards falter, she plucked a soul from its bindings…took the pain from it…and released it to its final fate….and still had the strength to walk from this place under her own power, carrying the girl she came for and her own glamour in place. Surely no succubus could do all of that?”

Steepling long fingers, the Master let out a heavy sigh, and spoke as if trying to explain something to a very young and particularly dim-witted human child. “Sssshe could if sssshe has been feassssting on the very girl who is meant to sssserve My ends, you ignorant, sssshort ssssighted fool! The girl who issss meant to have been under my control before now, if it weren’t for your bumbling incompetence, Itheadair. Insssstead, My prize issss now in the filthy, dissssease ridden clawssss of a former peassssant trollop, the power that issss desssstined to be mine allowing gutter trash to put on airssss and insult me within my domain instead of pleading for my indulgence of their very exisssstence…” His voice trailed off and He leaned forward. “Which raisessss a very, very interessssting quesssstion, Itheadair.”

“My Lord?”

He stood abruptly, talons snagging the sidhe by the throat and lifting them into the air. “You brag sssso often about knowing everything that goessss on in thissss city, and yet thissss sssshe-demon ssssomehow esssscaped your notice? How did you missss another demon traipssssing around My territory, Marking humanssss for herself, and whittling away at land that issss Mine?” His voice was low and deadly, almost an animal-like growl. “Either you have grown far more incompetent than issss acceptable, or you chosssse to keep thissss knowledge from Me…”

Already wounded from the earlier assault by the intruder demon, the sidhe had little defense from the power in that grip or the terror it evoked. “I…I swear, Master…I had no prior knowledge! None of my informants and spies ever mentioned anything—the she-demon was completely unknown to me until she overwhelmed the defenses!” Itheadair swallowed, trying not to consider how the talons around their neck could end their existence. “If I had, I would have told you, so that they could be strengthened—they were meant to keep such things out!”

He released them, the sidhe dropping unceremoniously back into the high backed chair. “Which they would have, if they were properly maintained.” His voice was icy calm again. “A failure on the part of you and yourssss. I told you to bring me more ssssoulssss, and every time, you have whined and mewled about the feelingssss of the humanssss. Now your failure hassss cost me a ssssoul and allowed a ssssuccubussss to believe sssshe can challenge My might…perhaps even My crown.”

The air in the room was so thick with shadows it was hard to breathe, and Cànanach’s form that contained their Master loomed impossibly large over the desk, pure void pouring from every orifice like a waterfall of tar, running over the desktop as a smoky miasma before melding with the red eyed shadows closing in around the desk and threatening to put out the light overhead. “An error you WILL rectify, Itheadair.”

“I….I live to s-serve you…my Lord…” Oblivion licked at the sidhe’s calves as waves on a shore, brought by the shades trying to climb their legs. Was this to be their end as well, then? came the stray thought as pain gave way to numbing cold, creeping higher inch by inch.

He sneered down at them. “Yessss, you do.” A gesture was made with one hand. “Even you are not irreplaceable, Itheadair-Anam, and your repeated failuressss of late mean your exisssstence hangssss by a thread…and at my longanimity, which issss quickly reaching itssss end.” The subtle insult was a slap to the face, but the cold froze breath and prevented speech as surely as any gag, so all that Itheadair could do was seethe in silence. “Your grossss negligence allowed an enemy to waltz into My domain, and tear free one of My ssssoulssss that powered the magic and defenssssessss here. And sssso thissss precioussss Cànanach of yourssss will take itssss place to repair the damage.”

Itheadair felt a shudder pass through them at the decree. It had been bad enough to know that the Master would consign Cànanach to nothingness, denied the Dreaming that had long fled with the magic of the world to somewhere the fae could no longer reach. But to use their essence in place of the soul of human cattle…? To commit them to what would be endless suffering until the very magic of the wards finished dissolving them into itself, chewed apart slowly for what could be centuries?

It was a fate Loyal Cànanach did not deserve, an agony and an indignity all at once…but what choice did either of the sidhe have?

Unless…

“My Lord?” The query was forced out of a throat that still felt stiff and chilled, everything from the stomach down numb. “…might I…suggest an alternative? One that may grant more power to the wards in the long term than Cànanach’s magic?”

From the abyssal pits that Cànanach’s eyes had become, the Master scrutinized them for several frigid minutes as that cold crept ever higher. Finally he raised a hand and the shadows melted down and away, allowing feeling to return to Itheadair’s extremities. “You may sssspeak,” He said flatly.

It would have to be done carefully. The Master was no fool, and it would need to appeal to His deeper desires, rather than seem like a way to circumvent His wishes. “…there may be…more suitable sources. Among the knowledge we brought with us from the old homeland, were many elder rituals of power from my kind and from others even older than they. There are…several rituals of sacrifice meant to do exactly what you seek to do, to empower or bolster protection to a demesne.”

“I ssssee. And what makessss you believe thissss ritual would be more potent than your underling’ssss essence?” He asked.

The sidhe forced their voice to remain level, practical, calm. “Numbers and intent, my Master. It would still sacrifice all of Cànanach’s magic and being, but such a ritual also requires at least two others of age and power to pour a considerable portion of their own magic into it. It will leave them weakened for a time, but the magic created would be of a magnitude greater than Cànanach’s being alone.”

Fingers tapped an absent pattern on the desk with long nails. “And…how long…would they be weakened for, Itheadair?”

Keeping their expression schooled to careful neutrality was a battle against a faint sense that they might convince Him after all. “A moon, my Lord. Two at most, given the lack of magic in the world.”

His voice became deadly and intense. “And in two moonssss you expect nothing of conssssequence to happen? That thissss ritual will make this place ssssomehow…invulnerable to another assssault?” He did not raise his volume, but the sidhe still fought rising terror at his tone. “Never mind that in just one moon, we have planssss for a ritual that cannot be posssstponed, the key to My resssstoration in the world that issss rightfully Mine?”

Cracks appeared in ancient fae’s carefully controlled mien as the power of the even more ancient Master they served pressed down upon them. They struggled to speak, aware now that any misstep might prove their undoing. “T-that is my sincerest d-desire, my Lord. It should be more than enough t-time to discern more about this intruder and how to dispose of her,” they dissembled.

The darkness and shadows swirled around the possessed form of Cànanach, until the being on the other side of the desk swelled into apparent immensity, towering over Itheadair. His voice echoed from a thousand places around the room, overlapping again and again until it was a multitude. “Your dessssires and My reality have differed assss of late….” He growled with scorn, “…and now you sssseek to reduce our forcessss by three of our most powerful, with the belief that nothing further will occur? That thissss…interloper…will not take that weaknessss assss an opportunity?”

“Master, I—”

He interrupted, voice scathing. “Have you completely taken leave of your ssssensessss?”

For the first time in centuries of dealing with their Master, the sidhe had miscalculated. Badly. “N-No, my Lord. I had merely thought to offer a more effective alternative to repair the damage done by the intruder…”

“I ssssee.” That shadow covered face, almost impossible now to see any features of as it devoured all light that reached it leaned close enough for Itheadair to smell sulfur on each word. “You would do well to remember that blind faith and trusssst are not virtuessss of My kind or yourssss,… however…I am amenable to an…exchange…”

Breath struggled amidst the frigid cold that had returned. “An exchange, my Lord?”

“A deal, assss it were.” For a moment, He turned, pacing a few paces in the longest part of the room, night swirling around him like a cloak. “I will be willing to take your ssssuggestion….and even allow you to pick another to be ssssacrificed in Cànanach’ssss place, provided you can meet your end of the bargain….” He began, pausing pointedly.

It was a pause that did not bode well. Itheadair knew this, even as the response fell from numb lips. “W-what…would that be, Master?”

The suggestion of his horns brushed the ceiling of the room, and smoky wings flared aggressively. “What, ssssidhe? …,the girl and the ssssuccubussss both, before the ssssun ssssetssss on thissss day, that we might rectify all that hassss gone wrong.”

It rang with dreadful finality, like a terrible tolling of some ancient bell, and whatever faint delusions the creature feared and respected as Abacus Cinch, Principal of Crystal Prep had were scattered as ash before a stiff wind. Admitting it was sour and bitter on the tongue, poisonous and infuriating all at once—no fae being ever liked having someone beat them at their own game.

“Well?” The Master turned back, and they could hear the arrogant sneer in the tone. “Your answer?”

Fingers gripped the arms of the high backed chair tightly, though they could feel almost nothing except winter’s chill in their essence. “You ask for the impossible, my Lord.”

Palms came cracking down on the desk’s surface with a horrid crash and the smell of sulfur and heated wood stain. “Then I expect you to do assss I have already commanded and sssstop quesssstioning my orderssss, you pressssumptuoussss sssspawn of a lowland baen ssssidhe!” He roared, His power—though currently weakened—driving pure terror into Itheadair, making their vision gray out at the edges, eclipsing even the indignation created by the deliberate insult. “Or the next ssssacrifice I require will be yourssss!”

Silence became a deafening thing.

Then He straightened, His voice once more firm and commanding rather than on the verge of rage. “And when you get done with that, I expect you to find out everything about thissss thrice damned ssssuccubussss who thinkssss to challenge my ssssovereignty—am I abssssolutely clear?”

“A-as crystal…my Master…”

All of that coalesced darkness exploded violently from every inch of Cànanach’s body in an instant, choking and blinding the elder fae with primal emotions their kind were not made to feel. By the time Itheadair’s sense had returned to some semblance of normal, all that remained was a pale, gagging, ragged Cànanach, trying to recover from the possession with the knowledge that what awaited them was infinitely worse…

*sips drink*

So. How about those <insert generic sports team here>?
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I kid, I kid.

Lots happened in here. Some plot details revealed for the readers, but of course other characters are still in the dark.

I know a lot of you suspected Sunset's demon was still around...and a few of you actually guessed the type. which is both plot relevant and absolutely taking the piss out of the fandom and the way I often see Sunset described as...well. Impossibly attractive with giant knockers and still somehow a model-esque figure, while still eating chocolate, pizza, and copious junkfood....which I assure you is not conducive to being a thin woman most of the time.

Plot relevance will be revealed in time.

*cackles*

As for the rest....Hmmm.

Anyone feel bad for the fae yet?

The Master is not happy. At all.

Oh, and remember how I'd mentioned a while back that I had a potential announcement soon?

I'm getting cover art done for the story, by an amazing artist. I don't want to say too much yet, but I've seen the WIPs of the art, and it blew my goddamned mind. I cant wait to be able to show it off. You guys are gonna love it.