The Hedge

The Hedge is the borderland between the human  world and Arcadia. But it’s more than just a strip of contested  territory — it’s a whole world in itself, one that’s  always around the edges of the mortal world. In the lonely  places, where yours is the only breath stirring the air; in  the uncanny places, where fear quickens your step; in the  liminal places, where you hang in the balance between  here and there. An abandoned office park, weedy grass  breaking through broken asphalt; a graveyard, Spanish  moss hanging from the low branch of a tree; a cold beach  at dawn, succulents dangling over the lip of a sandy cliff. It doesn’t always rip you away from the world, briars  catching you and tugging you into some dark hollow of  hobgoblins and malevolent Fae. Sometimes a fairy glen is  lovely and mild, with soft places to tread, or lay down your  head. Contact with the Hedge is the risk you take in your  reclaimed life, and risk brings not only disaster, but reward.

Somewhere in the Hedge where a heavy curtain of ivy clings to the face of a mossy green boulder, there is a stir. The vines recede upwards to reveal not slick stone, but a darkened side-street somewhere on Oxford's campus. Mehdi leads his terror toad steed through the familiar garage door Hedgeway, their masks cascading off around them as they hop through into the swamp. Tepid mist and the sweet smell of rot greet the pair, and immediately Mehdi is on alert. Can never be too careful in the Hedge. He glances back to the gory cargo strapped unceremoniously to Jetty's rear end and then glances around, wondering where to dump it. Certainly not in the Gloaming Wood, far too much traffic there. So Mehdi turns and rides the opposite direction, deeper into the swamp, hoping to find some sinkhole or tar pit to toss the extremities into. 

Mehdi soon finds himself in a blackened, barren swampland, littered with expansive pools of dark mud.

The yawning pools of inky muck seep into the Changelings mind as he rides past them. Jetty must sense this, as her lopping gait slows in tune with Mehdi's sagging shoulders. "Why'd we have to come all the way to the Hedge for this shit?" He begins speaking rhetorically to the toad. "Always the dirty work... I'm just..." he lets out a forlorn sigh. "A pet. Again." His sorrow gains an edge of spite at this thought, his bestial Seeming pushing to act out- just like a dejected pet would. He slides down the rigging until his feet are in range of the box containing the dismembered corpses. With a swipe of his clawed feet and a couple solid kicks the box tumbles down off Jetty's back and right onto the ground where they stand. He doesn't care if the swamp swallows it or if some hobgoblin finds it and eats it for dinner. Climbing back up behind Jetty's horns he casts a mirthless glance back at the body parts before spurring her back in the direction they'd come. "Come on girl, let's go eat some goblin fruit."

As Medhi settles back atop Jetty, he finds one hand in his pocket, turning the ring that he had found in Silas's apartment over and over in his fingers. His bat-like ears twitch, as though there's a breathy whisper just on the edge of his sharp hearing. 

Mehdi brings his steed to a halt and grasps the ring firmly in his hand. As the sound of Jetty's splashing fades, he strains to listen to the whispers.

Be free of him , the ring whispers to Mehdi in a voice that is strangely familiar.

Mehdi brings the ring up to stare in confusion at it. “Be free of who?”  

McCarthy...  the ring whispers, the voice easily mistakable for just another trick of the wind in the hedge.

All Mehdi can do is stare harder and bite his lip in anguish. Meanwhile, his mind roils.  Deep seated trauma battles with newer-found dependence, both soaked in the depressive mire of the swamp. How could he have been so stupid as to stake his whole new life on some self  vampire? All so he could be close to his past? A subordinate pet just as he’d been to her , no passion or will of his own, only existing to serve. But what else does he have? The weight of that question pangs in his chest as he bites back tears and spurs Jetty into a breakneck gallop. His knuckles grow white as he clenches the ring, unable to respond to it or throw it away.

What feels like half an hour passes as Mehdi and his toad bound through the Hedge. The Deluge of Sorrows gives way to the marshy edges of the Gloaming Wood, and the despair that sodden locale had instilled in the Changeling drains along with it. What's left is a hollow feeling: empty tear-ducts, a numbing in his hands, a pit in his stomach which no goblin fruit could ever fill. What else does he have?  The path he takes back towards his usual Hedgeway is familiar to him, but the Hedge does shift all the time. Something unfamiliar catches his eye this time: a shard of pale grey jutting up and out of the canopy ahead. Without thinking he veers towards the new landmark, a moth towards a flame, and soon he finds himself riding uphill. A steep, rocky slope rises out of the forest floor and atop it Mehdi finds that shard he spotted from below is in fact a steeple. There is a little church here in the Gloaming Wood, surrounded by stone walls and with moss and lichen mottled across its dingy siding.  "Watch my back." he instructs Jetty as he dismounts and steps through a stone archway into the churchyard. His ears swivel, searching for even the slightest sound of movement or danger inside or around the building, but only a hint of distant birdsong reaches him. At first Mehdi thinks to Helldive as he enters the building, just to be extra cautious, but every moment that passes inexplicably has the Lost feeling safer. He cracks open the front door and peaks inside. Prismatic sunlight dances in dappled rays across the abandoned sanctuary. It's a church alright, reminiscent of something he might have seen driving through a small New England town, but the Hedge has scrubbed away any crosses or Christian iconography. A massive round stained glass window glows above the pulpit, but whatever it once depicted has been warped into swathes of pink and blue and purple and orange as if the colorful panes were designed to mimic an abstract oil painting. There are pews scattered about, some sprouting moss and spindly toadstools, others draped with moth eaten fabric as makeshift beds. Mehdi finds another sign of life once he makes it to the pulpit where someone seems to have been living a bit more permanently. Bedding, abandoned bags and long empty food containers. This church is no longer a place of worship, but clearly someone had found welcome shelter within its open doors. It's only now that it occurs to Mehdi what a treasure he has found. This is an abandoned Hollow. Even as he realizes this he can feel the longing sensation emanating from the floor, from the walls, from the very Hedge beneath the building. It calls for his Glamour, not to take but just to feel, to be warmed by. It's a familiar feeling to Mehdi, or rather to what little bit of the artist Fletcher Brahimi remains in the Changeling. It's the longing of a blank canvas or an empty gallery, a longing to be transformed and uplifted. And for the first time in a long time, Mehdi knows what he wants. He wants to answer the call of this Hollow, to fill it with warmth and life. He laughs to himself when he realizes he's on the verge of tears again. But these tears are happy ones. Mehdi spends the next hour or so exploring his new home away from home. One side door to the left of the pulpit leads out onto a mossy walkway that wraps around the back of the church. As the building sits on a hill, this little outdoor area offers a wonderful view of the dark green canopy and the understory below. Back inside, a small but beautiful pipe organ sits to the right of the pulpit. Mehdi tests one of the keys gingerly and to his surprise he is answered with an almost electronic sounding beep . He tries another key, this one resounding with a boop . It almost sounds like a... a phone? Mehdi is curious, but now remembers that Liam is expecting him back at his office. Despite the Changeling's earlier angst he does actually enjoy working for Liam, most of the time , and contractual employment is not the same thing as full fledged slavery after all. His eyes flick to the side door on the right of the sanctuary. Mehdi knows most Hollows only have one entrance leading back to the real world, and having found no other doorways he presumes this must be the one. But where does it lead? Internally Mehdi has already grown attached to this Hollow and claimed it as his own, but it would be incredibly inconvenient if this door led into some fresher girl's dorm room. He walks up to the knob and focuses. After a moment, something comes to mind.  "I promise to make you my Hollow, And I will get others to follow, We'll make you a home, You won't be alone, Just please take me to where I swallow." He cringes a bit at the forced last line, poetry has never been his strong suit but he hopes it's enough for the Hegde. The doorknob turns in his hand and the door swings open to reveal a darkened flat. Mehdi smiles as he steps out of his kitchen pantry. Giving one last warm look at his new project, Mehdi closes the pantry door.

The pantry door in Mehdi’s flat opens to reveal the cool interior of his church house Hollow. Mehdi steps inside, rays of blue and purple and green illuminating him as he walks into the light of the stained glass. “I just found it here, empty and looking for a new tenant. What do we think? Better than free pizza, right?”

Daxon opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. A faint crackle of autumn lightning coruscates along his statuesque form as he stands at the door to Mehdi's pantry, gazing in awe at the Hollow beyond. "Umm... well. Did you say you were in the market for a flatmate?"

“Uhm, well,” Mehdi begins, chuckling. He runs his fingers through his thick hair and loosens a small shower of petals. “Maybe so. I don’t know if I mentioned but… I haven’t made very many Lost friends since escaping Arcadia. This is a big Hollow though, I figure it could fit a whole Motley. Weird stuff has been going on at Oxford, I think it’d be nice to have a place to retreat to if we need it.” He smiles, but there is faint hesitation behind it. Is he being too trusting? He’s only just met this guy… “You said before that you’re a courtier, right? Does the court know anything about the cats that’ve been trailing the Kindred?”

Daxon's well-honed observation skills sense Mehdi's hesitation, and he even respects it. After all, it isn't paranoia if a whole world really is out to get you, and only idiots among the Lost forgot their status as fugitives from psychotic demigods. "Wheels within wheels, right?"  Daxon sighs. "I know how you feel... you might be my first. The Court rescued me when I came through, helped me find my place again, so I owe them a debt. But you've definitely come to the right place with that question - I'm the one they tasked to learn  about the cats."

Mehdi’s eyes widen in surprise. “Really? Guess I have come to the right place… have you learned anything so far? There’s a mage I know that’s also been looking into it, we were together with Liam and some other Kindred when the cats first appeared. I talked to him earlier today and he informed me that the cats say they are protecting the Kindred from a group of bad mages. But why would fey cats care about vampires?” His eyes search futilely for  a sign of recognition on Daxon’s featureless face.

"Wait - do you mean Merric? He came by my office today! Not about the cats, though. But from what you just said... if they're fey cats... I'd guess someone with fangs Contracted with an Arcadian power - so what are the Kindred providing in exchange?"

"No, not Merric," he says, shaking his head. "This guy's name is Khalid." Mehdi crosses his arms and mulls over Daxon's theory. "I guess a Contract could make sense; and here I thought I was the only fey making deals with vampires. I don't know what they could be giving in return for the feline bodyguards though.... Liam could have an idea by now though. I haven't seen him since the other night before I went into the Hedge, got a feeling I missed out on a lot while I was gone." He looks over Daxon's obsidian face, seemingly considering something. "He should be getting up soon. You got any other plans tonight?"

Daxon swallows. Spying on vampires is easier when they don't know who I am.  "Nothing comes to mind. Need a shadow?"

Mehdi gives an affirmative shrug as if to say Why not? before stepping back out of his pantry. [continued in Headington]

The familiar garage door opens and Jetty comes bounding through, Mehdi, Daxon, Liam and his cat all in tow. Oxford is left behind for the Gloaming wood, and along with it go the Masks of the two Changelings and the Hedgebeast they ride upon. It’s only a short jaunt to the Hollow from the Hedgeway; soon the steeple of the old forgotten church is peeking up between the canopy. The understory around the Hollow is dense, but there seems to be a perfectly opened path for the group to enter. As Jetty pushes through the stone archway and into the churchyard, Mehdi beams with pride. “Hollow, sweet Hollow.”

Liam smiles back at Mehdi, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Quite the place. I imagine it's the type of place all my kind lived in the early days. I assume there is a nice crypt? Safe away from the sun? Does the sun even come up here ever?"

"You know... I hadn't looked. let's find out." Mehdi disembarks, leaving Jetty to lop over to a corner of the churchyard that somehow seems more sodden than it had before, likely a result of the Terror Toad favoring it as a nest. The twilit sky is overcast, but the stone walls are aglow somehow. Mehdi inspects this luminescence as he approaches the front door of the church and finds the light is coming from some sort of invertebrates that slide across the cool stones here and there. They are like fat worms, with patterns one might expect from undersea varieties of natural worms, and they give off soft green bioluminescence.  "Kinda cute." he remarks before stepping inside. Though clouds covered the sky outside, bright moonlight pours into the sanctuary through the amorphous stained glass, casting everything in shades of aquamarine and lilac. "The sun definitely comes up in the Hedge, it's actually brighter than in the real world, probably more dangerous for you honestly. It's unpredictable though. Dawn and dusk are generally more common, but sometimes night can stretch on forever and sometimes you walk into a clearing to find crystalline midday sun streaming down. It might be day on one side of a river and night on the opposite bank." he shrugs. "I've always done my best to avoid it when we've traveled through here." As he speaks he searches, crouching down to peer under the scattered pews and feeling along the edges of the walls.  As his hand passes over a particular stretch of wall, he stops suddenly and his ears twitch.  "Found something." He presses the hand into the wall firmly, and is surprised to find slight give. Now he extends a claw and tests it. The result is a tearing sound that loudens as he continues, revealing a narrow stairway that extends beyond the paper wall. Mehdi descends a short way and then calls back up. "It's perfect!" He runs back up and then gestures for Liam to go down. "See for yourself. One nice crypt, check. Now... internet."

Liam casts his eyes about the place as Mehdi investigates, gently running his fingers across the walls and nodding along to his explanation. He grins as the wall gives way and follows his friend down into the gap. "Perfect, maybe I'll get my new friends to bring along some cushions, or a blanket or something. I doubt these gentlemen are looking to share." He nods at the sarcophagi with a smirk.

Daxon slides down Jetty's side and lands lightly on the soft, thick turf of the churchyard. As Mehdi and Liam walk into the church, he follows, his obsidian form shining in the moonlight that streams through the stained glass. He moves from shadow to shadow, nearly invisible until he appears at the top of the stairway into the crypt. "Good luck getting mortal technology to work consistently here." His faceless visage gazes down the stairs at the two erstwhile explorers of the gloom.

Liam looks back curiously at the faceless figure, not what he had been expecting, but he had learnt that things here rarely were. "What do you mean? Mehdi said this has an entrance to his flat, can't we run a cable through the door?" Liam knows as soon as he asks that it was a stupid question and his assumption had clearly been off the mark. He looks again at Mehdi and Daxon and how they change as they step through the portal, no telling what data connections would do.

“Yeeeah, technology is weird here. If it seems like a simple solution it’s probably going to result in something way more complicated and obtuse than you’d ever want.” Mehdi ascends the stairs, passing Daxon and crossing the sanctuary towards the pipe organ that looms near the Hedgeway. ”I did have an idea though,” He steps up to the grand instrument and presses one of the keys, turning back and smiling as the ivory produces a tinny beeep   “Dial-up.”  He drags his fingers across several of the keys and and the resulting sound does indeed sound like someone dialing a number on a landline phone. “We’d have to plug in a computer somehow, and then… well… I’m really not sure, but this kinda crazy shit always has a chance of working here.” Mehdi begins inspecting the old organ, checking beneath and inside it for any clue as to how he might rig it to get a stable internet signal.

“Ok, so there’s a phone jack,” he says from down on hands and knees, head craned behind the large instrument. “ I could… ah ya know what? Fuck it. My flats right there, I’ll just pop over and get the videos uploading. It’ll be way faster than trying to rig this thing.” Mehdi walks back over to his camera bag and begins pulling out the memory cards he’ll need to upload Liam’s last couple performances. “ I’ve got extra bedding and stuff too we can bring over. Daxon you’re uhm, well you’re of course more than welcome to crash here too, if you want, unless you’ve got important shit to do tomorrow I guess. You know how the time is here,” He stands, ready to cross back over for the moment, and as he does his eye catches Liam’s cat curled around the vampire’s ankles. ”Oh yeah I almost forgot… Hey kitty, wanna talk now?”

Now that Mehdi turns his attention to her, he notices that Liam's snowy white cat seems significantly larger here inside the Hedge. She grins from ear to ear as she looks up at the changeling and, although she seems good-natured, her claws are somehow much longer than before and her mouth is lined with innumerable pointed teeth. "That depends a good deal on what you want to talk about," she purrs in return, although Daxon and Liam hear only a velveteen rumble and meow.

Mehdi’s mouth drops open. He glances over to Liam and Daxon, but is surprised to see they don’t seem to have noticed. ”Did you guys not hear that? She just talked!” Mehdi scurries closer and kneels down in front of the cheshire cat. “Well I have a few questions, if you’re willing to answer. Namely, who or what sent you and the other cats to watch over the Kindred, and what exactly are you protecting them from?”

"Of course I can talk," the cat admonishes Mehdi, crossing her paws in front of her. "What do you take me for, a common beast? As for the vampire, nobody sent me, but he is certainly at risk - not least from his own foolishness."

“Look, I’m not gonna lie, up until yesterday yeah I did think you were a regular old earth-cat. Clearly my mistake.” he shrugs and raises his hand apologetically. “Up until now I’ve been protecting him from his own foolishness as best as I can, but I know there’s something else out there after him. After all the Kindred at Oxford. If you know what it is, I’m asking you to tell me. The more I know, the more I can help. At least as he’s concerned it seems like we’re on the same team.”

The cat nods sagely. "The wizards. They meddle with a power that they do not understand. So vast and incomprehensible that no human could ever possibly hope to control it."

Mehdi nods in turn. ”Right, more Cthulhu shit. Great.” he says, crossing his arms in disdain. “I still don’t get why you and the other cats care though. If no one sent you all, what’s your motivation?”

Daxon walks closer to the one-sided conversation, a chilly and humid breeze of Autumn disappointment leading the way. Should've know a fae cat would be that way . He leans against an old pew near Mehdi. "Is it your Seeming that lets you understand?"

"We are the bane of the Outer Gods," the cat informs Mehdi, swishing her tail smugly.

Mehdi’s eyes go wide and his wings droop with the gravity of what this little cat has just told him. “Uhm…” Mehdi responds, both to the cat and to Daxon. “I’m honestly not sure, maybe. She says her and the other cats are ‘the bane of the Outer Gods’. The mages that are going after Kindred are into some freaky Lovecraftian shit so… I guess that makes sense. Kinda. What’s your name by the way? And is there a name for your… organization? You’re all working together I assume.”

"I am the one known as Moswen," the cat tells Mehdi, licking a paw and preening itself. "We are the Will of Bast."

“‘Will of Bast’ like… as in Bastet the Egyptian cat goddess? Didn’t Rae see something like that that night?” Mehdi looks around at Liam and Daxon before remembering they can’t understand Moswen. He relays what she has just shared before turning back to the enigmatic feline. ” Well, I guess I’m happy to have you on our side.” Again he looks to the others. “Any more questions for Moswen here?”

"What kind of treats do you like?"

"Are these Wizards after us specifically after the library? Or just as they are after all the vampires in Oxford? And what happened to the elders down there?" Liam thinks for a minute. "And I guess I'm sorry for being a dick at first and trying to escape him and suggesting that someone eats them so many times. I thought they were here to spy on us."

"Oh, do you have some fava beans?" Moswen asks Daxon rolling over on her back and then all the way back to her front at the happy thought. "I haven't had mashed fava beans in an age ." "Ending the vampires of Oxford isn't important to the Mabinogi, but they won't hesitate to sacrifice a city's worth of vitae to achieve their goals."

“So the Kindred are just a resource to them…” Mehdi says more to himself than anyone else before turning to explain to the others, “She called them the ‘Mabinogi’. And she says it’s less about hating vampires and more about using you for your vitae. Some sort of ritual sacrifice, makes sense with what we saw down there.” “I don’t think I have any fava beans on hand,” he says, turning back to Moswen. “Maybe we can see what the corner shop up the street has.”

Liam nods along. "Interesting. And do you need our help to investigate and end the threat? Or should we just be staying out of the way whilst you capably do all the work?" He smirks hopefully, addressing the last part to Moswen

"I think that you're in quite enough trouble as it is," Moswen admonishes Liam primly, despite the fact that the vampire cannot understand her. "The Avatar will keep the Black Goat of the Woods at bay."

Mehdi smirks at Moswen’s tone, “I… think she said that they can handle it.” 

Liam shrugs. "Well then, I guess we should focus on getting out of my kindred mess then. Perhaps we should try to get a message to the others. They have ignored my messages so far, but perhaps you will have more luck?"

Mehdi nods. "Message the others, upload the videos, find some fava beans, got it. We can grab some pillows and blankets and things from my flat to make this place cozier too." He turns back towards the Hedgeway which leads over into his tiny kitchen and his gaze lands on Daxon as he does. It's still unclear how interested the Darkling is in hanging with Mehdi and his Kindred charge for any extended period of time. Mehdi doesn't ask though, he simply continues on through the Hedgeway and leaves the question hanging in the air in his absence.

Liam waits for Mehdi to call him through, worried about stepping out into a bright day. He glances down at Moswen all of the old irritation gone and replaced with curiosity. "For the record, I'm still not sure you aren't spying on us, but for now, I have enough mess to worry about, without worrying whether you are wishing me dead too."

Mehdi returns from his kitchen only a moment later. “It’s about six in the evening, shouldn’t be too much longer til it’s dark. Also, it’s Thursday.”

Liam nods slowly, taking in the time jump. "This is something to get used to. Thursday I mean. Probably a good thing though, they can find me on days I miss right?" He grins, apparently the moment of doubt gone.  "Luckily my bass is still with Jetty. Don't want to miss a gig and make even more enemies eh?"