pisum_sativum

Cobweb stacks sets of acorn cups neatly, delicately fastening loops of spider-silk around the bundles. Well. Two of the bundles, and then her attention palpably wanes.

She casts an eye round the court, assembled (in the loosest sense of the word) at the edge of the deep woods.

"Stay, are those crickets I hear?" she asks no one in particular. "I do hope so."

A girl can work up quite the appetite from all that hard work.

From:

Peaseblossom casts his eyes heavenward.

"We've a task at hand, Cob. I pray thee, do try to remember it."

From:

Cobweb sighs faintly.

"I yet recall it, Peaseblossom. But you would not have me go hungry into the woods?"

Without waiting for a response, she drifts towards the sound of crickets.

Which comes, it would appear, a few paces downwind from a small knot of courtiers.

From:

He looks decidedly unimpressed by this argument, but carries on with his own bundle of acorn cups.

If he finishes the job before she gets back, well, that's no fault of his.

From:

Cobweb is not gone long.

(Long enough for him to finish the job).

"It's too bad," she says, wide-eyed. "It doesn't seem to matter if you bite off one wing or two. Either way, the music stops."

She holds out a hand to show him several wingless and one-winged crickets struggling vainly in her palm.

From:

He sighs, all patience. "Yes, floweret. The little fiddlers do need both wings to play."

One of them flails feebly toward the edge of her hand. Peaseblossom reaches out absently to pick it up between his own finger and thumb before it falls off.

"And is your terrible hunger quite satiated? Might we do the queen's bidding now, do you think?"

From:

She blinks at him.

"I have no notion of doing anything else, my blossom."

The crickets are forgotten as she stoops to gather several bundles of acorn cups.

"Tis surely past midnight now, why do you tarry?"

Edited Date: 2012-09-12 10:13 pm (UTC)

From:

He seems to deliberate between several answers before sighing, shaking his head, and absently popping the one-winged cricket into his mouth.

(Waste not.)

Laden with acorn cups, the two start toward the glade where the precious herb grows.

From:

Cobweb leads the way, stepping light over the mossy ground and glancing occasionally overhead.

For the stars, mostly.

"Tis a wondrous calm night, is it not? You can hear the very leaves themselves as they rustle to each other."

From:

"And they do whisper such fascinating things," Peaseblossom says, in a tone that might be earnest or might be deeply sardonic.

From:

The dark of the night seems darker still in the glade by the time they reach it, barely a glimmer of moonlight misible through the leaves and branches above.

Someone is waiting for them there, sitting against a tree with his eyes closed, as if asleep.

From:

It's Peaseblossom who spots him first -- or at least who acknowledges it first.

"Hist," he breathes, lifting one hand and going still as a shadow.

From:

The reclining figure leans his head further back until his face is just illuminated in the gloom.

"Busy about your duties, little bees?" Hellebore asks softly.

From:

Cobweb drifts out of the shadow by Peaseblossom's side, the movement carefully unhurried.

"Alas, sir, we collect no honey tonight."

If she has any indication that Hellebore did not mean his words so literally, she gives no sign of it.

From:

"We are on business from the queen, yes." Peaseblossom's chin is raised. "Will you delay us, sir?"

From:

There is a sudden rustle in the bushes from across the clearing.

"There! And here I have been searching for y-"

He notices that Peaseblossom and Cobweb are not alone, and stands awkwardly laden with acorn cups.

"Oh. Good even?"

From:

"Good even," Hellebore echoes, smile slow and just a little mocking.

"As it happens, the Queen has sent me about quite another task; one that weighs heavy on her heart. If delay you I must, be assured it is only to better speed you in obeying her wishes."

From:

Peaseblossom glances at Mustardseed. Not warningly; of course not. What could there be to warn him from?

"To be sure," he says to Hellebore, with a charming smile. "We are all her servants, are we not?"

From:

"But of course," Cobweb says, feint surprise at the notion there could be any other way. In the shadows of the glade, her smile is oddly similar to Peaseblossom's.

"If she speaks, we have but to obey."

There is no hint of emphasis on the word she.

From:

"...pray tell," Mustardseed says, cautiously glancing from Hellebore to Peaseblossom and back again. "What task do you speak of?"

From:

Hellebore smiles.

Or.

His teeth show wide and white, which is surely the same?

"One of our people has strayed far from our lands. Too far and for too long, thinks the Queen, and I must agree."

Edited Date: 2012-09-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

From:

"So must we all, certes." Peaseblossom's smile, in contrast, could never be mistaken for anything but a smile, sweet and winning and utterly opaque.

"And the happy task of welcoming our strayling back to the nest; has it fallen to you then, sir?"

From:

"To me, to all of us who desire to ease our Queen's mind."

(Yeah, you lot aren't getting out of helping.)

From:

"Then you speak of all who are gathered here," Cobweb says, glancing between them.

If the Queen wishes their help, it is hers even if they must obey by bowing to her intermediary.

"But I am sure none could wish our Queen's mind at ease and her subjects united in her court more than you, sir."

From:

"So tell us, sir," and Peaseblossom takes one flitting step forward, "how may such as ourselves aid you in the cause of lightening our Lady's spirits?"

From:

"Our lost one has strayed very far, even for one who could flit over all the Earth on a whim."

Whim is really the guiding force of that one, after all.

"Many eyes may find him faster than one pair alone, so I'd send you on together."

Were it up to Hellebore, he would go ahead quite alone and seize the creature single-handed - but he knows full well that his presence might only cause flight. Not desirable when the one they seek was always faster than he; not stronger, never that - but fast enough that he has to admit the unlikelihood of catching him if he fled.

From:

The slightest hesitation -- long enough for him to be sure none of his comrades are going to speak.

"Send us on whither, pray?"

From:

"He fled very far; to the end of all things, and there he remains."

Hellebore remains contemptous of such cowardice.

And annoyed that the place has been so long out of his reach.

"The way is tricksy, but I have something that may be of help to you."

In more ways than one.

From a fold in the air he produced a thin coil of rope - gossamer woven with just a strand of something else.

Edited Date: 2012-10-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

From:

"Our Lady is generous, as always," Mustardseed says, cautiously diplomatic. Titania has many eyes and ears that do not belong to anyone involved in this scene.

"Er. How are we to get there?"

From:

... oh. Oh now.

Mustardseed may or may not recognize that cord for what it is, but Peaseblossom certainly does, and it's all he can do to keep a look of naked covetousness off his face.

The Lady's own hair. Oak and ash, that's a powerful thing -- and her willingness to offer it says something about just how important this task is to her.

(And, just by the way, does a great deal to confirm that Hellebore really is acting in her name.)

"Yes, good sir," he says lightly, "pray tell us."

From:

and_i

"'Tis a bright place," comes a soft voice from the branches over Hellebore's head. "And no great trial to find, through the woods."

From:

Hellebore lets the rope run through him fingers, a little too smooth and quick for any ordinary rope, and smiles slowly at the sound of the quiet little voice overhead.

"Just so. Magic burns strong there, and with our Lady's will to guide you all I have no doubt you shall find it."

From:

Peaseblossom schools his face to show no sign of startlement at that voice from overhead. Has she been there all -- ?

-- of course she's been there all along.

"Ah, there she speaks at last," he says pleasantly. "Give you good even, Moth."

From:

and_i

Moth gives them a little waggle of her fingers.

"Send us on, sirrah. We'll find him for the Queen."

From: