Hall Pass

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Amadeo waited patiently for his order to be filled. He never was one for the pomp of the courts. Its glamour was at best a gilded lily for him. He despise that he'd always found its garish beauty enchanting. He inhis worse moments longed for the comforting poison of the capricious beauty of his land of origin. Scenery changed at the whim of the crowned or whichever of their vassals had curried favor of the moment. The lords and ladies contracting with the very elements. Flames that gave no heat were woven into tapestries and ice that burned used as whips or other implements of punishment. It was truly a magnificent place in its grand, gory, glory.
He loathe the place in equal amounts to his love of watching it mutate changing with the slightest breeze. Sorcha brought all of his unresolved feelings to the fore. He had left the place for a reason and he would not go back. Yet, here she was bringing the stinging caress into this world and place. She brought the touch of the wyld into the urban jungle. With it she broought a whisper of the unfinished business he'd left behind. Amadeo sipped his coffee slowly. He was suddenly intimately awareof how close he was to the sun. He was just inside the orbit of her and he knew that his wings were held together with wax.
Looking into her eyes Amadeo simply said," You raise points of course. But most of these people are completely unaware that you are preying off of them. As keyed up s mostof them are if they were to find out their first reaction would be to get the torches and pitch forks. They're human its in their nature to respond badly to theft. So why do it?"

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Sorcha laughed a sweet quiet laugh that sent chills down his spine and up his soul, such was the icey carress of this laugh that the flames in the fire place actually died down and guttered slightly. She took a sip of her iced late and a mist of the coldest kind rose off the top of her cup.

"You really see it as predation and theft, what sweet notion." she looked around at the people around her her eyes met their stares with the sweetness of deepest winter's frost, "I think of it as an exchange all these people live the same day over and over again, they think the same thing, play the same games, and feel the same way every day. Then i show up and give them a chance to feel emotions in a new way, a way that is stronger and more pure than they have ever thought possible. All that I do is stir what lays beneath the surface, and of course you know as well as i do that the glamour we harvest doesn't hurt the mortals they can't even feel it. All that we take is what they put out the emotions they give the world fuels our glamour. Of course you are right about how they would react, how we gater even more magic from their creations and emotions that they send out into the world is a thing vastly beyond their ken." One of the waiters walked up with their bills and Amadeo could see a phone number scrawled across hers.

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"Predation is predation is predation. If what we Arcadians did was so innocuous then it wouldn't have to be hidden. Its done in stealth because in the end even we know its wrong to take these things not meant for us."
He Finished his coffee and picked up both checks. He carefully tore the number off Sorcha's receipt and laid it on the table for her.
"Sorcha I would like to get to know you and I hope you feel the same about me. You seem to be a touch of Arcadia; It would do me a small good to be able to sound out against it every once in a while." Amadeo didn't bother attempting to exchange numbers there were ways more specific to contacting one of the fae. He would have to think on today. Was he not doing much the same as Sorcha with his class. Yes he was, but he was also sowing seeds giving something in return. There that was the intrinsic difference. He didn't give a momentary touch of the wierd. A fleeting and ephemeral thing. He gave something lasting something they'd carry with them long after the memory of him had faded. He was sure he hadn't explained it as such to Sorcha but there might still be time. He glanced over his shoulder back to their table to see if she was still there.

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Sorcha Still sat at her table, drinking her coffee, she tossed her hair down the back of the chair. The meeting had been interesting and had gone better than she had actually anticipated, he seemed very willing to talk to a member the shadowed court. Of course he also didn't understand what she did for the mortals, those of the shining court and her own usually forgot what the did for each other as well as for mortals. As summer gave to the world it's gifts of warmth, comfort and food, winter took, stripping the world bare revealing all that the riotios life of summer hides. Winter is the balance of summer the toll that is paid for walking the road of pleasure loss given so gifts recieved can be more fully appretiated. No one can know joy without saddness, pleasure without pain this was the nature of balance and the balance of nature. Sorcha saw this in what the seelie and unseelie did some would see it as evil and good, and she had to admit some of her people took it to those places, but she saw it for what it was neither good nore evil just summer and winter light and shadow. Hopefully she would be able to explain that to himone day but not today he wasn't ready he was still too wounded by the life Arcadia had thrust him into, for now she would just have to work with him to open his eyes to how the fae truly functioned. She felt him stop and look back to her she turned her head to the side so he could see her glorious profile a thing as aweinspireing as the greatest of waterfalls or mightest cliffs she locked one eye on him and smiled. He obviously had something on his mind and she was more than willing listen.

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Amadeo watched as Sorcha posed for him. He chuckled that the small movement so reminded him of Arcadia as to make his heart bleed. He had never considered the place a home to him. Yet having spent time with another Arcadian made him miss the place. It was if he'd never truly experienced it and now longed for a chance to do just that. Shaking the misplaced nostalgic minded cobwebs from his head Amadeo paid the checks. Moving back to the table where Sorcha rested Amadeo scanned the crowd of mortals who were so entranced in her that they absentmindedly caused themselves pain. Lost data on a laptop form the spilled coffee. The numerous neck strains from twisting to a catch a better glimpse. The many contusions and abrasions from walking into things. The burns that the barista suffered by being more fixated on Sorcha than the brewing station. All they would have to show would be their scars and losses.
"Sorcha I have a game we can play. It will be the final arbiter of our discussion. If you win I will be your servant for one year and a day and if you lose then you will be mine for the same period of time." It was a rash idea but he would risk it if for nothing but to open her eyes for just the slightest bit.

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"What a charming and interesting idea, please tell me what would this game be, so that i can better understand." She laughed at the thought of what he proposed depending on what the game was would determine if she would play or not. The fire light caught in her hair to mortal eyes it would be gold reflecting of onyx, but to his eyes it was sapphires set ablaze with a gilded glow.

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"Okay the wager is this to walk as a mortal for twenty-five consecutive hours. No cantrips, spells, glamours, hands of power save to hide our essence. To constrain ourselves to the rules and regulations of humankind." Amadeo paused looking towards the window.
"That is unless the wager is too difficult. I know that mastering ones own power can be nearly an impossible task. If even one lowly knight as myself could have such a time with it I know that such an august being such as you might find controlling their abilities to be a chore."
Amadeo waited the ball was in Sorcha's court.

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Sorcha frowned and it felt like the world was comming crashing down around him. The unseelie princess stood and as she rose her glamour fell away revealing her true self, the people in the shop starred wide eyed and jap jawed but their glazed looks told Amadeo that they would have no memory of what was transpiring before them. The simple mordern clothing that she had been wearing melted away to be replaced by a gown of everflowing white snow, and sitting across her brow made of delicate silver and ice was a winter crown. This was the first time he had ever been so close to one of the seasonal crowns, and the weight of it's power crushing, icey wind howled throught the coffee putting out the fire and stealing the heat from the coffee. It was obvious the winter was standing before him in the flesh, he could feel it the crown and the season lived in her and the two could not be separated one from the other without destroying them both somehow.

"Your challenge is interesting but as you can see i am one with my season and there is no way that i can step away from it even for a day, by my will or no. This is the path that all royal sidhe walk to always be separate from mankind even if we wished to we cannot be as they are for we are one with our power." Her voice was the sound of wind howling through ice caves terrifying and cold yet somehow still impossibly beautiful it was the voice of truest winter. There could be no denying the truth of her words just standing in the prescence of the crown told him that she could never be less than she was not even for pretend. That was why she stood out so even when she tried to pass for human, beacause of what she was she would always be denied the freedom he had to truly leave arcadia behind.