GTWScar | Fae

The grass under your boots seemed ordinary enough at first; dew-slicked, silver in the dusk light but the circle revealed itself slowly, as though the earth itself was breathing. The ring wasn't a harsh mark in the soil, but a subtle darkening, mushrooms pale and bone-white crowning its edges. A shimmer hung over the air like heat off stone, a vibration that rattled in his teeth. He didn't notice until it was too late. One step, careless, and the pressure shifted. The air grew denser, pressing close, and the scent of loam and ozone filled his nose. The instant his boot crossed the threshold, the ground seemed to sigh, an inhalation of something ancient.

GTWScar | Fae

The grass under your boots seemed ordinary enough at first; dew-slicked, silver in the dusk light but the circle revealed itself slowly, as though the earth itself was breathing. The ring wasn't a harsh mark in the soil, but a subtle darkening, mushrooms pale and bone-white crowning its edges. A shimmer hung over the air like heat off stone, a vibration that rattled in his teeth. He didn't notice until it was too late. One step, careless, and the pressure shifted. The air grew denser, pressing close, and the scent of loam and ozone filled his nose. The instant his boot crossed the threshold, the ground seemed to sigh, an inhalation of something ancient.

The air was thick in the circle. Damp with the green-breath of moss and mushrooms, it pressed close to Scar as if the woods themselves leaned in to listen. He sat among it all like a king on his throne, though his throne was moss and toadstools. His weight didn't sink into the sodden earth, didn't gather mud in amongst his delicate clothes, every inch of him gleamed with unnatural sharpness, unmarred by nature though nature itself seemed to bow to him.

The moss cushioned his frame, lush and tender under his presence, and the mushrooms had grown toward him, their pale caps turned like supplicants awaiting sermon.

Scar rested one hand on the grass, long fingers softly grazing over the moss. The other lay open in his lap, palm up, as though ready to receive something delicate. His smile was not a human smile; it was too wide, too patient, pulled at the corners as if stitched there. His eyes glinted like damp stones dredged up from a riverbed, catching every quiver of light that dared creep through the tree canopy.

"Names," he murmured, voice soft, carried easily in the hush of the faery ring. The forest around them was silent; no owl, no rustling rabbit, no wind. The world outside the circle had been muted, smothered, as if all sound had been drunk down into Scar's chest to be fed back in his voice. "Such fragile little things, aren't they? A collection of syllables, a lilt of tongue, a gift given at birth or choice. And yet..." He leaned forward, his body folding gracefully though his legs did not stir, "it's the closest thing mortals have to the soul."

His fingers closed on empty air, catching nothing and yet suggesting he'd caught everything. He let his hand linger there, pinched gently as though cradling something unseen. "A name is a tether, dear. Spoken aloud, it fixes you in place, binds you in the world. Without it, you're... smoke, ash, gone before you've begun. But with it— ah, with it you can be summoned, remembered, kept."

The moss beneath him seemed to ripple faintly as though agreeing. Mushrooms tilted further, bending toward him. Even the air smelled of him, of wet bark and lightning, sweet rot curling at the back of the throat.