Deep in the darkness of eternal nightmare stood a chair. Vines occasionally tried to grow up its legs, giving it the appearance of having roots. The vines, long since dead, had turned hard as stone and black as sin. The color matched the material of the chair itself, which gleamed with the soft radiance of old obsidian in the faint starlight that filtered through the bare branches above. Some unknown sculptor had carved the image of a raven’s head into the back of the midnight throne. No real noises marred the stillness of the ancient forest, but the memories of hungry caws haunted the air.

The thing in the chair bore the form of a woman, ancient and wizened, yet still possessing a phantom of her youthful beauty. The Morrigan often wore this form here, where the eternal cold saved it from decay. So long as she did not turn too far to either side, her chair hid the bloody mess that remained of the back of her skull.

The dead woman's hands rested on the arms of her chair, holding her back straight, her head high. A smile crept across her face as she thought about plans she had in motion. Her minions marched in legions, and contained fiends fell and demons dire. They also contained... others.

"...and as lords of my court, they are bound to me by blood."

With that, she drew one arm across the needle-sharp spike at the end of her arm's rest. She lifted her hand in front of her, posing dramatically. A few moments later she frowned as a great deal of nothing happened.

"Bother."

The spike left a ragged tear through her wrist, but the same cold that kept the body from decay also kept her blood from flowing. She focused her will, and steam rose from her mouth, from her nose, and from the rent in her arm. Her heart pumped, flash thawed blood flowed and fell to the ground before her throne. As she spoke, she tossed her hand back and forth, flinging boiling blood into the air, where it stuck and burned.

"Now. Come to us, blood of our blood. Come to us, little Fae who borrows our power. Come to us, our Baron of the Spot."

Power surged. With every word the Morrigan uttered, the very air of the realm shuddered. With the final word, reality ripped asunder along lines burning crimson. The hole burned through the air opened onto a sunny Caribbean beach. In the distance, achingly blue waves crashed endlessly onto a strand of pure white sand.

"Hey, Ricky, we got any of that rum left?"

A black skinned figure, his head turned to speak with someone outside The Morrigan's field of view, stepped through the hole in space. The moment his foot touched the ground, he froze in place. She had done nothing beyond opening the gate, but as he stood there, she saw his breath steaming in the frozen air, heard the crackle as water from the distant sea turned to ice on his skin, in his hair, on his wings.

A voice echoed through the hole in the air. "Ai, Papi, where you go? Ricardo saw you here a moment ago. Do not hide from me in the places of your making, or eating the couch and lying on the cold shoulder you will be!"

"Oh, shit." The whisper was barely loud enough for the Morrigan to hear, but here in her realm no sound escaped her notice. She smiled down at the black-skinned man, who reached barely to her seated knee. He turned his head to face her, a cocky grin sliding into place as he did.

"Yo, boss lady. You wanted to see me, I'mma guess?"

She simply smiled down upon him, her hand still open and dripping steaming blood on the ground at her feet. A few seconds later, the owner of the second voice dashed into view. His skin honey amber to his companion's ebony black, where the first Fae stood naked as Adam before the fall, his partner wore a fetching sarong in sapphire blue, with the tips of matching sandals that reeked of wealth barely peeking out from beneath it.

The moment the second Fae stepped onto the snow, the Morrigan's stolen hand clenched shut into a fist once more. The seething rent in reality closed, leaving the two Fae standing before their dark queen, at the center of her power, in all her terrible majesty.

Of course, none of that appeared to phase either Fae. In the case of the black-skinned Fae, that came from pure bravado, machismo so deeply ingrained in him that she doubted even she could remove it without destroying him. In the case of his amber skinned follower, the reason was simpler. The Morrigan wore the body of a woman, and she wasn't wearing shoes.

"Ai! Papi, why you make it so cold in here? Your place, normally she is filled with the reek of old gold and gems, but she is warm. I like it the other way! Change it back!"

The black Fae spoke without taking his eyes from his queen. "Ricky, take you eyes off my butt cheeks for one second and look around."

The little amber skinned Fae did just that. His wings stopped buzzing, and snow crunched beneath his shoes as he settled to the ground.

"Mierde."

"Yeah, that about what I said."

"Why, can it be that our favorite Baron and his Lady love do not wish to see their Queen? We are heartbroken."

"You ain't got a heart to break, Boss Lady. Why we here freezing our butts off?"

"Perhaps we simply wish to speak with our subjects once in a while?"

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The little, amber-skinned Fae peeked around his lover's shoulder. "You tell the badness of untruthing, Lady!"

With a burst of Power, the Morrigan animated the frozen frame she resided in long enough to stand towering above the two winged Fae, her damaged hand pointing down at the sapphire-garbed Fae. "Lady? We are no Lady, tiny Fae! We are your Queen, and you will show Us proper respect!"

In less time than it takes to blink an eye, an ebony figure covered in ivory tattoos hovered before her, a tiny sliver of shining steel glinting in one lifted hand. His other hand clutched at her eyelashes, pulling her eyelid open. Idly, as her lips curved into a grin, she pondered how painful having an eyelid stretched that far would be for a mortal.

"Don't nobody threaten my Ricky, Boss Lady. Nobody. You put that hand down, nice and slow."

"You would make demands of us, here in the heart of our power?"

"Just did."

"You do not fear us?"

"Fear got nothing to do with it. Fear like light, wherever you look you can find it. If you can't, you ain't looking."

"Oh, my. So, for the love of your Lady, you would defy a Monarch of the Fae?"

"Defy, hell. You not put that hand down before I count three, I cut you."

A laugh, too rich and full to be coming from the desiccated maw of the corpse the Morrigan wore, echoed through the dead, frozen forest. Time itself seemed to freeze, and between heartbeats her frozen claw wrapped around his waist.

"There are none to see us, little Fae. To that and that alone do you owe your sanity this day. I tell you this now, however; even as my Champion, you will bend knee to me in public, or you will suffer."

"I suffer plenty before you. Ain't nothing you can do what I ain't had done to me before."

"So, you have no enemies, then? No foes who are angered by your elevation to my court?"

This time she saw the ghost of uncertainty in the black Fae's eyes. Ricardo, still standing in the snow, looked on in terrified awe. She saw in his eyes that he already knew what she hinted at.

"You not scare me, Boss Lady. They all punks, I take whatever they dish out."

The Morrigan simply raised an eyebrow at the little amber Fae. The words leaked out of him as if he wished he could keep them trapped inside, but he wasn't made of the same stuff as his lover.

"I cannot, my X."

At Ricardo's whispered words, comprehension dawned on the dark fae. "Oh, shit. You just wrong, Boss Lady. That not fair. That damn not fair. That... that evil."

She smiled at the unexpected compliment but did not release her grip.

"Baron of the Spot, you will be my Champion, when I need one, against the forces of the Seeleigh court. When next their King seeks to thwart my will, you will stop him."

The tiny Fae's eyes went wide, and his hand finally slipped loose from her eyelid. "Boss Lady, I say this 'cause I love you, but you gots to stop smoking the crack rock. Ain't no way I can take the big O straight up."

She cocked her head, waiting for him to understand. When he shivered in the cold and still hadn't made the connection, she relented, just a touch. "Whenever did I say you had to?"

The little Fae's mouth dropped open comically, and the Morrigan's laugh filled the dead forest once more. When he spoke, it only served to fuel her humor further.

"You want me to cheat. In a duel. Against the High King of the Seeleigh Court."

When her laughter died, her grin remained, ever so slightly wider than any mortal might manage while alive. "And not five minutes ago you had determined the truth."

"What that, Boss Lady?"

With a toss of her free hand, she indicated herself. "Evil, remember?"

X, never the soul of discretion, rolled his eyes heavenward. She chuckled again; she had chosen her champion well. This one wouldn't break when faced with the charging might of the Court of Light. He might run, but only to lead them on a merrier chase than they'd ever seen. There, in the darkness, she ignored her vassals for a while, paging carefully through purloined memories until she found the image of him fighting against a host of their kind, leading them on just such a chase of death and embarrassment.

For a Fae, the embarrassment was the worse fate by far.

"Boss Lady, you gonna freeze us here?"

"Of course not, my Champion."

"Why you not using that 'we' thing anymore?"

"Ah, X, you are ever ignorant of protocol. As my Baron, as blood of my blood, and as my Champion, you are permitted some small indulgences, such as a certain degree of familiarity."

"Oh. That great. Can we maybe get a fire instead?"

"Answer me a question, my Champion. Your charge, the geas I placed on you for your elevation. How goes it?"

"Oh, she ok, Boss Lady. We gotted her a job and everything now."

Again, the Morrigan stole a memory, but only one this time. When she was done with it, she put it back, chuckling as she did so.

"I am pleased with you, my Champion. Back to your island home with you."

"Hold on tight, Ricky boy, this maybe a rough trip home."

The Morrigan pulled him around once more to face her. "I did not say he would be going with you." Before her Champion could react, she continued, "I need to speak with your Lady, My champion."

Once more, before she could move, a Pixie hovered in front of her. "My Queen! Finally on the trip to buying you new clothes we will be going? This is wonderful! X, to the island with you. Keep the bed warm, but do not wait up."

"Wha?" The black Fae looked as bewildered as he sounded.

"This, she is a girl's night out, silly. Now do what the nice Queen of Darkness, she says to do. Go!"

The Morrigan released her Champion, and with a burst of Power sent him winging his way back to the mortal realm. The other Pixie flitted around her, taking measurements with what looked like a piece of thin fishing line with marks on it.

"So much fun we will be being had! Ricardo cannot wait to get you into a store and begin trying the newest styles on you!"

Snatching the little designer was easier than catching X had been. She pulled him up to her eye level, but he still looked over the body she wore, measuring her up with his eyes.

"Ricardo, your enthusiasm does you credit, but you are not Our Champion, nor are you more than the Baron's doxy."

The last word hit the little Fae harder than any slap to the face would have. Tears streamed from his eyes, and it was all she could do to keep herself from licking the sweet drops straight from his face.

"Ricardo knows this. X, he does not. Duels he has fought for me, for our love, but they do not change custom, they do not change tradition. In all eyes but ours, Ricardo is but his plaything."

The Morrigan let the little Pixie's despair wash over her, savoring it like fine wine. Before she'd had more than a taste, however, she had to stop. She had a task for this one, and he would be unable to complete it if he were dead, no matter how tasty draining him to suicide would be. Banishing hunger from her eyes, she turned her satisfied smile on him.

"It is true. By tradition, you are his doxy, not his wife, not his husband. Fighting cannot change tradition."

She allowed herself one last taste of the Pixie's despair, then set to work.

"But We can."

The fashion-obsessed Pixie's eyes snapped open; sorrow banished by hope. Hope lay bitter on her tongue, but a touch of bitter only enhanced the sweet of the previous sorrow. She kept her smile when she spoke to him once more.

"I have a small task for you, Ricardo... My new Lady in Waiting."