Ya know, when Cait suggested this, I shoulda run the other way. It'll be easy she says. Good for the... never mind. Most of what she says, won't make sense now. She ain't important right now either. That's a lot later. This stuff is harder'n it looks. I'm trying to tell things so folks what don't know what came before can at least puzzle it out without lots of rambling about history and crap; but the more I tell, the more I realize stuff that folks that didn't live it won't get. Or folks that ain't fully fae. Short and sweet, if I use a word that don't make sense, look at archaic meanings. It prolly will then.

That said, I mentioned Kink a little bit ago. That's a club the March ran when I was with them as a whole. It was as bad as Eric's new place while he was there. I... well cleaned it up ain't right, but I untwisted it when he bailed. He forced the dancers. Yeah, like that. Made some good money off it too, but I got rid of the force. Paid the girls right too, especially if they wanted to keep earning the bigger bucks he was taking from them. It's not a great place, but it's a kind of home. It's where me and Genny met and where those Eric abandoned and didn't want to come join me when we decided to relocate stayed.

There was a lot of us back then. Eric kept some. Some wanted to leave and once he was gone, I let 'em as long as they didn't turn us in. As I said, we had a few join us once we got settled. If they ain't obvious when I bring 'em up in the proper place in this story, I'll add some details in another break. Figure it's working so far, may as well keep it up, right?

Anyways, we had folks from all the major clans, or kith as we usually say. It's from old terms for friends and family. Kith and kin. Kith are folks of the same type of fae. Kin are folks with fae blood but no fae spirit. With the right help, they can see our world as easy as we do, but they handle the mundane easier. I'm rambling though. I was gonna talk about the kiths. There's redcaps, satyrs, creepers, trolls, pooka or tricksters, boggans or brownies, eshu or wanderers, sidhe, and builders or knockers and a whole metric buttload of lesser ones. Most are kinda obvious, or I already talked about what they are. A few need a word to make sense. I'll probably go into details later, if I feel like it's needed, but the big thing is the sidhe think they're in charge and in most places, they made it happen and trolls are usually their bodyguards and front lines.

Another thing I brought up is the Dream. It's got a lot of names, like dreamtime, the dreaming, Tir na nog, the mists, and a lot more. It's like another dimension where our spirits are more free and open. It's where Rip Van Winkle took his nap, so it ain't exactly welcoming to mortals. It's too wild though so even us fae can only stay there so long without getting a little nutty. It's the source of the balefires that fuel our Glamour or magic and that magic is wild and chaotic. We need it to survive, but we get too much and we're uncontrolled and just as chaotic. We call our spells cantrips like the old witchy magic and not the new game led minor spell crap, and the casting is either ritual and really involved like the work I did with Eric's body or it's bunkum, or a bunk for short, since we usually do something that might be seen as silly, pointless, or weird to build power for it. Some of our magic has formal names, like shaping the material of the dream is called Dreamcraft. Real subtle, I know.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

My work as a seer is called Soothsay, again creative, but it can not only predict, but it can guide. I can make predictions and make them more likely, enough they're basically a sure thing. Hard part is being clear enough to get what I want without either pissing off the Dream or doing enough to earn it. The bigger the change, the harder to force. That's one of the reasons I use it more to spy than to change things. Like with Eric. I took a big chance there. If I didn't know Theo would have a meth lab because she had one before she left with Eric, that prolly wouldn't have worked, even with the level of ritual I did in a hurry. And even then, there was a chance someone might have saved him with enough magic and then maybe he gets a new Theo that makes a new lab and that one blows up and kills him years later. Glamour can be tricky like that. Worth the risk there though. Wasn't a better way to destroy everything he was doing wrong in a hurry.

Oh, there's some warnings I should have put in the prologue too, but better late than never. Sometimes, there's gonna be places things don't come out quite right. I'm asking Genny her side of things as I'm putting this together and I ain't always smooth moving from her parts to mine, even telling them mostly in my words. I didn't realise there was places I told her step by step when I had a step in between until I looked back, or vice versa. I'm leaving it that way though because this is already giving me a headache. It'd be easier to just talk it out, but ain't had a builder make a tape recorder for the Dream yet and I ain't rewriting this to smooth out the rough spots I didn't see before I made them. Speaking off, I know there's some stuff coming up that's almost all her. I'm gonna take a break in them parts and have her tell it until I'm back involved in them places.

And before it's asked, I still cuss worse'n most and I’m not exactly nice, but I got a lot more to lose by seeming less than I am now. Back then, it was more important to be seen as a pure brute. It's better for me to seem sharper in my now than it was in the time I'm telling about, so I'm trying to watch my mouth more. It'll show as time passes and then gets closer to now. Anything else that seems weird could just be me getting old or a touch looney from being in the Dream too much.

Anyway…where was I?