#baronyofthesilverwolf

Madern nods, and then stops as he says "You do not remember us?"

Head-tilt.

"Stasis."

Art’s expression shifts slightly as he watches her. He lowers his voice, speaking just to the others.

“I think she may have been here too long,” he murmurs. “She is… not keeping continuity properly. Like she resets things when they leave her attention.”

His gaze flicks briefly back to the Keeper, then to the grove around them. “As if the moment stops existing for her when she isn’t holding it in mind.”

“It is unusual for someone to find their way here,” she remarks, “And so I welcome you. May I offer refreshment?”

Indeed, when she turned to the trees, the goblets and water had faded, but now they return.

"But company could help. Sprites live in the moment, anyways."

"Thank you, gracious Lady."

Madern looks at a loss on how to deal with this, "Keeper, would you believe we've already met?"

To Madern,

"Have you visited before?" A delicate crinkle of her brow.

Art speaks with quiet pity, watching her for a moment before he adds, “Even if she had a book, she would forget her place after each page.”

He asks her, “Why do you stay here? When your companions have left? Why not go with them?”

“Yes,” she says at last. “They left. I am alone.” she continues, a little hesitant, voice faltering at the edges.

“The cold is still there,” she says more slowly. “Outside. It takes things that are not held carefully. It takes them and does not return them.”

A pause.

“If I leave…” Her voice tightens slightly, just at the edge of control. “It would take me as well. I would dissolve like snow on a warm stone. All who go into Autumn cease to be. It is known.”

Wondering if he's doing the right thing, he says "Aye. Only recently at that. And... you might have a way to go to the other side, the Changeling way is one though I'm not sure how it's done anymore... or like the Aracadians do, such as Squire Arthur did. It involves mortal blood and blending either way."

Madern looks to Thistle and Art and whispers "Am I right this might count as a right of rescue situation?"

Art looks uncertain. "She is safe here. To an extent. But..." He looks her over, the Keeper now admiring Citrine for the first time, again. "She doesn't even remember her name. That's no way to live."

"But... but Art's new. Yeah? My soul has kicked around, but his only recently came from Arcadia."

"And he's good, and safe."

"Either way I'm feeling out of my depth but as much as I want that Amberheart for the Baroness I feel even more sorry for the Keeper. I wish I knew how to help her."

She scowls and nods.

Maybe it is her beauty and he's a soft touch for a dame with long legs , like all Private Dicks are, but he wants to crack this case. Of all the stasis fields in all the dreaming... they had to walk into hers.

Art speaks carefully, glancing between his friends and the Keeper.

“I still have some regrets over the one I took the place of,” he says. “But I was once as you are. Safe in Arcadia, and I came to the Autumn world. I would have perished had I not wrapped myself in a mortal body.”

He hesitates a moment, searching for the right phrasing.

“It helps me persist against the cold. And there I have found things far more stirring than the deepest dreams of Arcadia, far more fulfilling. For the mortal realm is the source of dreams, and what is in the Dreaming, in a way, is its echo.”

"You're just an echo if you stay here, repeating until the meaning is lost." He says, gently.

Art's own brow furrows, handsomely, if not as lovely at the True Fae. He is thinking.

Thistle rubs the back of her neck, looking... guilty?

Art glances towards Thistle, then asks, uncertainly, "Thistle? Do you think your jars... would they hold only fruit?"

"I think they'd hold about anything, actually."

"Well, that'd fit."

As he considers, the Keeper speaks, “I am afraid,”

... “If I leave… I do not know what I will become.” A pause. “And if I stay…” Her fingers tighten faintly on the arm of the chair. “I do not know what I am becoming either. But it is... Less."

"We don't want you to be afraid. Just - you seem lonely, and we'd like to help."

"So we're brainstorming a bit."

The Keeper looks down at her hands, and there is a brief flicker of surprise in her expression, as though she had not remembered what she was holding.

The snow white fruit rests there. The Sidhe studies it for a moment, then gently twists it open.

The rind parts cleanly, revealing a rich interior of gold that seems to hold its own soft light. The juice within is thick and slow, like honey warmed by unseen sun.

She holds it out toward Madern. “Was this for you?” she asks.

"yeah I... was going to take it to someone," He wonders if it's no good to the Barones like this, already opened "But I was going to ask. We have a way to preserve it."

A thought hits him "A way... to preserve it." look at Thistle "Can we fit Keeper in an Urn?"

"Not forever, to transport?"

"If we could shrink her, maybe. I'd be hesitant to let her out unless there was someone... close?"

"Maybe she could shrink herself," he looks at them "The harder part is letting her out at the right place if she goes the Arcadian way."

"I think the other way, you need, like, someone pregnant."

"oh"

"I understand it is scary, but would you want to go to a place with more people and stories and Nevers and horses and seasons?"

"Where things change?"

"Heck, if we could get her to a hold direct she could maybe hang around as a chimera but she'd be bound up..." Madern wishes he were wiser in ways of magic "Not sure that's how it works though."

"I do not know anyone expecting. But if she's held safe, there is always the future?" Art considers

"She is right here."

The Keeper looks at Thistle as she speaks, the question settling into the quiet between them. For a moment, she does not answer.

Her gaze drifts past Thistle, toward the grove, toward the stillness that holds everything in place.

“There were stories here,” she says softly. “And I have them. Or I did.” A pause.

“I do not know what it means to have more,” she continues. “Only what it means to have things remain.”

Her fingers tighten slightly around the fruit in her other hand.

“If I go somewhere with seasons…” Her voice falters, just slightly. “Will I still remain myself when winter ends?”

Art offers, “I do not have all that I was,” he admits “but I have some Remembrance... Sometimes more, sometimes less. And even so, I am building more. Creating a new story, with my friends, every day.”

He reaches out and takes Thistle's hand. "If I had stayed in Arcadia, I never would have found my Rainbow."

Madern smiles at that line, but is wise enough not to say anything snarky or even butt in.

Oh, Thistle glows.

Citrine chimes in delight at THistle's joy.

She twines her fingers with Art's.

The Keeper listens to their words.

Her gaze lowers briefly to the dripping fruit in her hands, then to the grove around them, as though measuring something she has never had to measure before.

“I would like to feel that warmth,” she says quietly. Her voice is careful, tentative, as though she is testing whether the thought can survive being spoken aloud.

“If you will take me with you…” A pause, longer this time. “I will leave the safety of winter to try to brave the cold of Autumn.”

More softly, “I do not think I can remain here and still know what I am.”

"May we gather another Amberheart fruit or two as well? Forgive me for sounding selfish but our quest was for it before we knew you. And we'll help you regardless."

"We could... I could... I can make the jar better, I'm sure." She has her thinking face on, working through ideas. Infusion could work, and that particular magic thrums loudly in the Dreaming, where to imagien something is practically the same as smithing it.