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May is rolling her way to the library. It's not icy - in point of fact it's summer - but she's got an unhappy ankle from tripping yesterday and it's an accessible library and it's downhill on the way there and Ren will pick her up after. So, rolling.
a may in the moon kingdom
"Ceremonial, I assume," says Ebb. "We'd notice it just fine by ourselves."
"It was nice to be reminded, though," says Reflect. "And I used to love the celebrations on the first day of autumn."
"The fey near my folks' place used to bake cakes and give everyone some," Charm reminisces. "It's no roast cricket, but it was good."
"Cake is good," Reflect agrees.
The streets are a little busy this time of night, once they've rounded the curve of the lake and entered the city proper. They pass all sorts of folk on their way toward the cliff. Mostly humanoids of varying shape, size, and colour, but also a few foxes and rats and small wiggly mammals who go by too fast to be easily labeled as ferret or weasel or stoat. Local custom seems to be a bit like a busy city on Earth, although this place isn't nearly as dense: where possible, strangers try to go past without acknowledging one another.
It's pretty gawkable. The buildings are indeed clearly built with accessibility in mind: doors tend to be saloon-style, there are upper-floor entrances for winged folk... No one thought about wheeled contraptions, but she's mostly covered just by the sheer range of existing needs: a bear and a weasel can't really use the same set of stairs, so when they start to go up the cliffside it's all gradual inclines.
Indeed!
And then, halfway up the cliff, they come to a huge silver set of double doors, a new moon engraved in the left and a full moon embossed on the right. They're open; if they weren't, it's not clear how they'd get that way.
The gate guard is a fey of ambiguous gender who looks about nine feet tall, thin and angular, and also seems to be made entirely of ice. "What's your business in the palace?" they ask. Tiny flecks of frost form in the air when they breathe.
"Bringing an outworlder to meet the Queen," says Starlight.
"You may pass," says the guard, nodding.
"Ah—none of us knows the palace very well, as such—" says Charm.
The guard kneels down and touches the ground in front of the open doors. A line of sparkling frost forms, maybe two inches wide, leading into the dimly lit interior of the palace. "Follow that."
"Yessir," says Charm.
The ice-fey nods graciously.
"I think I'll wait out here," says Button. "I forgot how much I don't like enclosed spaces where I can't see the exit."
Ebb and Reflect also hang back, but Charm and Starlight and Snowfall accompany May into the palace.
The light in here is dimmer than outside, but the frost-line catches it very clearly, and the floor is smooth stone tile, neatly joined and devoid of obstacles.
"Spooky in here," Charm comments.
of-secret-night
They proceed. The line of frost leads them through a maze of barely-visible corridors, until finally it runs under a set of closed double doors similar to the ones at the front entrance.
Charm scampers up and taps the bottom of one nervously with a paw.
They swing silently inward.
The room on the other side is a vast empty hall, with one side made almost entirely of a window looking out through the falls at the lake and the kingdom beyond. The view is stunning. The moonlight pouring in reveals that there is absolutely nothing here except for the polished grey marble floor, the polished grey marble walls and ceiling, the three creatures, and a raised platform with a silver throne, on which there sits a beautiful woman in a long black dress who looks almost entirely human except for the telltale details of being twenty feet tall and having luminous white hair and bright silver skin.
"Welcome," she says. Her voice is lovely, and carries all the way to their end of the hall despite its low conversational volume.
of-secret-night
"It is rare to see an outworlder in the Kingdom of Night. I was glad to hear of your presence, and I hope you will enjoy your stay," she says.
maybeso
"Your kingdom is very beautiful," says May, "and the creatures I have met have been very hospitable."
of-secret-night
"I am glad to hear that as well. I would like to speak with you privately, if you don't mind."
of-secret-night
"You may wait outside," she says to the other creatures. They retreat, with varying reluctance. The door closes behind them.
It's very quiet in here.
of-secret-night
Her posture shifts to something less majestic and more... conversational, attentive. Perhaps also tired.
"What have you heard about the war?"
maybeso
"It's... close enough to eternal as to make no subjective difference to the participants..." She pulls out a notebook. "...predictably seasonal, avoidable at least on this side by moving to the mountains, seems to use an all-volunteer army, not harmless but my vague impression is that it is still more harmless than the average war from my world, not over any apparent strategic objectives or economic motives or anything more concrete than ingrained cultural opposition to one another, partisan by species, and, uh, mysteriously beloved of its participants."