Tournament of Darkness: Tea and Beer

     It could be any small city in Canada, an becoming place where nothing strange ever happens; that is nothing strange that anyone ever sees. A European woman dressed far too fancy for this city, and especially for this part of the city strolls down a blind alley as though it were the most normal thing in the world to do. Outside the view of normal people she stops before the door marked (The Marionette). Her Victorian style dress changes into a black tar like substance, her silky smooth white skin changes into a black oil like substance offset from the clothes only by texture and common opinion on what is clothes vs flesh on a person; she however is no person.

 

  She the buzzes the door and is allowed in by the doorman, inside there are elves, faeries, leprechauns, and various other humanoid inhuman beings moving about, talking, like people would in any mundane pub. Behind the bar, the owner a stout Dwarf with graying white heard and hair. The woman spots her target, in the far corner at a private booth is a pale skinned Grecian woman with pointed ears and semi-long yellowgreen hair flowing up off her head as though it were grass in the current. Her eyes are solid blue ovals, and her clothing barely qualifies as clothing, green leaves covering her breasts and crotch while a white garment of some kind flows about like a ghost vanishing and changing shape. Around this booth are several very large men, clearly bodyguards, although the dark woman knows this person needs no protection.

 

  As she walks over, the dwarf behind the bar keeps a close eye on the scene, his bar is a sanctuary for all of faerie kind, this two women however barely qualify as faerie.

 

  A large bald man steps in front of the dark woman, “Seelie or Unseelie,” he says.

 

  “Stand down,” says the woman at the booth with her soft song of a voice that draws many attention around the room as she hardly speaks, and when this woman does speak her words are usually riddles or prophesy, “she is of no court of this world, thou would only be slaughtered should you stand in her way, she is of no threat to I.”

 

   “I’m no threat to you Apole?” says the dark woman.

 

  “I meant it not as a challenge dear Hydera Dredge, merely as thou are not here to challenge me, rather to speak.”

 

  “It’s what you asked me here for,” says Hydera Dredge walking past the large man and giving him a twisted smile, her unblinking solid black eyes deeper than the black of her body, deeper than any shadow like staring into the infinite abyss beyond even the reach of hell’s unholy fire light, make the man shudder and will be the cause of his nightmares this night.

 

  Hydera Dredge sits and a waiter instantly comes over as Apole beckons for one, something she rarely does, normally in this place only to observe.

 

  “Wh…what can I serve you two ladies tonight…” says the waiter.

 

 “Green Tea,” says Apole

 

 “Beer,” says Hydera Dredge, “I don’t care what brand, you decide.”

 

 The two women just sit there, staring at each other with their monochromatic eyes, barely moving save for Apoles wavyness, and a shimmer like a ripple that occasionally comes over part or all of Hydera Dredge clothes as well. The guards are very nervous, as is anyone seated anywhere nearby.

 

  When their drinks arrive the waiter backs away slowly as both women move in unison, turn their very different cups around with both hands three times and sip. A strange ritual that even to the faerie folk here is most bizarre given their different drinks and appearances.

 

   “Overlord of the Soot Hell,” says Apole.

 

  “Master of the Springs of Divination,” says Hydera Dredge.

 

  “I am curious,” says Apole, “are you aware of the events that have transpired in the caribean?”

 

  “The island,” says Hydera Dredge, “I had heard that foolish man Frad’s island there had been overrun and the island is now under the control of a VesperaDaemos Queen and an Eldritch One called Paramalia.”

 

   “Second daughter of Albiornesh of the Hell of the White Sea.” says Apole

 

  “Which,” says Hydera Dredge, “makes her the younger sister of Echidaria who currently stands as one of the three rulers of the supernatural world upon this Earth, and older sister to Albia who is slated to compete in the next Tournament of the Dark.”

 

  “Should she compete,” says Apole.

 

  “She might endanger our chances,” says Hydera Dredge, “of winning,”

 

  Both women speak together, “and forming a proper balance between light and dark.”