The Winter Queen final, more or less.

[Guest guest]

This is another edit making correction pointed out as well as a few other things I noticed.

A Bad Day for Some 11/04/10

It was cold at the front of the century old trading post. The wood burning stove was in the back outside my office and its heat stayed close to home. It was late winter yet the air was cold enough to fog my breath and stiffen my fingers as they fumbled over the week’s sales book. Not that there was much to tally since customers came down the road as infrequently as power did down the lines these days. Raucous laughter from the card table by the stove broke my concentration. Four men lurked at the table, amusing themselves by cheating at cards and telling lies. Large men, ragged and dirty, in so need of a wash I could almost smell them sixty feet away. I’d have to open the window and back door to my office later to air out after them. A white ceramic jug of rotgut moonshine sat upon the table, and battered shotguns leaned against the wall, as my self described security guards protected my wares. If they only knew how useless they were. The heavy inner door a few feet in front of my station at the register opened, blocking my view of who entered my establishment. I’d neither heard nor seen anyone approach so my right hand casually slid under the counter to the cut-down double-barrel. I hoped my fingers had enough feeling to shoot straight. My guards in the back were oblivious to the newcomer. The lady appeared around the door, looked about the store until her gaze settled upon me. She smiled and closed the door behind her. My hand returned to the counter top. I wouldn’t have to shoot just yet, which was good because that beast was hard on my wrist. It was also loaded with lead and likely to only irritate my customer. She was dressed in clothes more than a century out of fashion. Her 1900’s dress was a dark royal blue with black highlights and a high collar that nearly brushed her jaw. Fine gloves of the same blue and black theme graced her hands. A black hat with a blue ribbon wrapped just above the brim sat atop her head at a jaunty angle. Midnight black hair framed a face of ice white skin, large amber eyes and a small expressive mouth. “Has my package arrived good sir?†the lady asked. Her voice was as wind driven snow. It carried to the back of the store. The four men forgot all about their game and stared wantonly. “It has,†I replied, my breath fogging the air more thickly now. The lady excitedly placed her hands on the counter. One was empty, the other held a small pouch, my payment for services rendered. I crouched behind the counter and pulled a blanket off a wicker basket. Inside was the small, plainly wrapped package the lady had come for. I stood with it and placed it before her on the counter, noticing yet again the elegant calligraphy I could only appreciate for its artistry. The lady picked up the package, roughly the size of a paperback book, and shook it gently beside her ear. She seemed as pleased with what she heard as it disturbed me. The four men in the back were rising to their feet. “Is there anything else I can help you with?†I asked out of habit and regretted it instantly. “You know there is,†the lady purred. Her smile reminded me of the pleasingly smooth mother of pearl handle of the straight razor in my shaving kit. “Sorry, but that’s still not happening,†I replied. Her laughter was genuinely mirthful, as a cat to a cornered mouse. She blew a goodbye kiss and exited through the heavy door. I could see her standing on the porch waiting for someone. “Who’s the skank?†grunted the first brute to reach my counter. He could see her through the window, his face a mask of feral lechery. “No one you should bother about,†I said honestly. “Bullshit,†came the witty reply. His cronies guffawed. “Just because you ain’t man enough to hit up on it doesn’t mean I’m not†“You mean we‘re not,†said one of the others. I thought for a moment the first one, their leader by virtue of being the largest, meanest, and smelliest, was going to deck the upstart. Instead, the brute glared at his mate a moment, then laughed. He got first dibs, then the rest could have her. They exited the store and the leader sidled up to the lady. The rest surrounded her, blocking the steps on the end of the porch and my view from the window. I could hear the leader’s voice, but not the lady’s rebuff. The leader roared at whatever she said. The lady could handle herself I knew, but four to one might be too much even for her. I noticed the men had left their shotguns in the back, so I picked up my revolver, which had lain beside my blunderbuss and made for the door. No sooner had stepped onto the porch when the lady screamed. She fell the few feet down from the rail-less porch to land in a most unladylike fashion in the dirt. The men jumped down from the porch, surrounding her again before she could regain her feet. Their laughter spoke of the cruelties festering in their brains. Then the Winter Queen was there. She was suddenly just there, at the edge of the road. Now, I don’t mean Winter Queen as some title from the fair or what some mad woman fancies herself. She was THE Winter Queen. Damn the bastards for bringing that kind of trouble to my doorstep. She was angry, too. You could feel it even though you couldn’t see her, not straight on anyway. At the edge of your sight you might see a fractional glimpse of a tall and terrible entity, but look straight at her and she was a blur as a shard of thin ice distorting the view beyond. Perhaps it was simply the mind blotting out what it couldn’t comprehend. I’d seen her once before clear as day, when she was in a good mood, well, I should say a hospitable mood toward me. To her, with what was coming, she was in a good mood. Even her making nice was sight enough to set one’s heart crossways. The brutes were frozen in terror at the sight. They wanted to run, I could see them fighting to, and scream, only to jerk and twitch as if a spider were worrying a puppet‘s strings. That’s when her gaze fell upon me like a tsunami of liquid nitrogen. My breath crackled in the air as it froze, falling as sleet to land with a whisper on the weathered wooden boards of the porch. The lady said something. I recognized a word or two, but Sylvan is a bloody hard language for humans to fathom. The Winter Queen’s gaze softened to a mere stream sized torrent of water from the arctic depths. “Mind your business, mortal,†the Winter Queen’s voice said directly to my mind leaving a chill imprint of the words upon the gray matter itself. I nodded and hurried back inside. I caught the spring loaded outer door to keep it from slamming, and bringing attention back to myself. Leaving the eyehook dangling, I closed the heavy inner door as quickly as silence permitted and pushed the bolt home and sneaked to my office in back. Their kind provided me with more custom than the humans in these parts. My place is kind of a neutral ground where the different houses and kinds come to trade. I’ve gotten pretty used to their kind and they to me, but still they are touchy and best handled with all due care and caution. The greatest should be avoided at all costs. I warn folks now and then to be careful about who they meet around here and in the woods. But they just laugh at the crazy rustic who runs a store in the middle of nowhere on the side of a decaying road seldom traveled. Like I’d warned those very four just this morning: Don’t trifle with the fey.