HeartGear

Though it doesn’t look it, L’s made an effort to organise her vanity. Cosmetics to the right and split into the categories ‘understood' and ‘mysteries'. To the left sits Neith II's jar - now furnished with a water dish and a bed of small rags. And In the centre, right under the mirror, she keeps her trinkets.   Bracelets, earrings, circlets of precious metals, necklaces and pendants set with glimmering stones. A small but growing collection of rings. And, of course, buried beneath it all was the first bracelet, intricate and delicate, its pearl still gazing knowingly up at her like an eye. The trinkets didn’t all contain songs. Six or seven, at most. L's made a point of adding to her repertoire after every few performances. Her surreptitious meetings with Astraea to purchase them are… difficult… though not in the way she’d feared. If anything, L feels guilty on these shopping trips, as though she's taking advantage of the dryad. Of course, Astraea never seemed to care, and if she

         "Alright." L sits at her vanity, staring into the illuminated mirror. She's supposed to look… confident? Glamorous? Excited? Honestly, she doesn't know. If she has to pick one, though... if she has to narrow it down... She's pretty sure she looks nauseous.           "..Not alright," L groans, slumping into the wood with her arms folded in front of her. Neith II slithers through the detritus of her makeup kit, making curious noises as she investigates. L gives the little creature a moody scratch on her back as her own antennae quirk.          The week's flown by, Hedrick putting her on half-shifts so she can prepare for her debut performance. Whatever enthusiasm L lacks he's filled twice over; plastering promotional posters over every nook and cranny of the Market. The store rooms are packed with extra stock. He's had the lights redone.          "He's hired a band," L informs Neith II. The alp-luachra doesn't offer an opinion, instead curling up in the song-bracelet.

           The Fae Market L knows, the Market at night, is awas h with neon colours and vibrant glows. In the afternoon, however, the Market is drab and desaturated, lit only by the strange, cavernous awning that merely passes for a sky. The cavern extends hundreds of stories above them, its features lost in the centuries of urban condensate between them. In this space, structures built on structures, buildings and shops and homes simply grew up from themselves or were haphazardly repurposed every generation. As if the Market were merely a colony of hermit crabs.          In the upper floors, where L and Ian worked, the fog was light and moisturising. But at the base level where they found themselves, the world has to swim through a miasma of mist and fog. In that dampness was a flood of new life: mushrooms, mosses, lichens, rodents. With all these elements overlapping, the Unseelie was a nest for shadows, corners hidden and alleys lost. Unsurprisingly, the phosphorescent red lights

          The Glade's not a small building, but it's hardly a maze. Even with plenty of little side passages and corridors, the bulk of it is open space for the customers to mingle,  the mists accentuate more than they conceal.          Which makes it all the more frustrating that Ian is nowhere in sight.         "Ian?!"         L's frantic footsteps echo around the empty ground floor as she bursts out of the back room - irregular impacts punctuated by bursts of silence as her wings flutter, turning a stride into a hop. There's too many things for her to worry about to wonder if she’s actually moving faster, or just acting on impulses from her panicked subconscious.         If it’s even her subconscious at all."Ian?!"         There's no one there. No Ian. No Madeline, even though she'd been sweeping outside just before. L's antennae flicker, tasting the damp air, hunting for the familiar warmth of her friend’s presence, but it's all jumbled up with the fading scents of the night

          The diffuse lighting of the day filters through the skylight enough to illuminate the room in a hazy glow. L’s hair and antennae tangle around each other as she rests on her bed, her wings draped over like a thin blanket.          She’s used to sleeping until midday, what with the night work at the convenience store. Even so, it had been a late and eventful night, and her rest had been peppered with unsorted anxious thoughts. So it’s sort of… pleasant… to just lie there in a half-awake daze. She can think without really thinking. Drift through the space between consciousness and unconsciousness. Enjoying the in-between-ness of it.          She can see Ian’s slumbering form through the half-parted privacy curtain of clothes, out cold and his own blanket halfway off of him. It’s relatively warm in the Glade, but uncovered as he is, there's a tenseness in his body that comes from chill. He’s holding the beat-up cell phone, still plugged into the wall to hold the charge, tight