Star Harbor Nights

“There are eight million stories in the naked city,” according to conventional wisdom and popular cinema. The number of stories in the Sands are as uncountable as the sands of the Sahara, but some of them are just there to drink. Still, as the events which concern us most are for the moment beyond our prying, let us briefly dip among them.

At one round, black oak table--or rather, on it--sat a baffling variety of what can only be termed "little folk." There was a boggart, and toadstools, and a gnome, and a red cap, and other creatures both jolly and hideous. They all sat looking up in rapt adoration at an even tinier figure who sat wrapped in the coils of a plastic purple novelty straw propped up inside a hurricane glass filled with some vibrant pink mixture of crushed ice, fruit, and alcohol.

This delicate-looking creature, blessed with shimmering gossamer wings and a fine girlish physique, was clad in a tiny fringed dress made of leaves that were just barely long enough for even pint-sized modesty. Even sitting, she was a bundle of energy, fidgeting and gesticulating wildly, tilting her head this way and that with little heed to how her exertions caused the straw to spin and twirl within the glass, and the glass itself to wobble and teeter dangerously. She did seem to have some awareness (perhaps from a primitive brain at the base of her spine) of exactly how her long, bare legs looked, as at each moment they seemed displayed to their full effect.

At first brush, one would think that the tiny figure was humming or singing, as the stream of sound that issued forth from her miniscule mouth sounded not completely unlike The Flight of the Bumblebees played on a tiny xylophone.

Tuning one's ear a little more attentively revealed words beneath that tinkling melody, and they ran along lines like this:

"So I says to Pete, I says, Pete… I can call him Pete when we're alone, 'cause you know, we're so close, we're like peas in a pod, we're just close, you know, we are, me and him, him and me, so I says to him, look Pete, I says, these kids are killing me out there, they're killing me, they're just killing me, I mean, this childhood obesity thing, this fatness of babies, it's just too much, these bastards weigh like twenty, thirty pounds even when they're in their cribs, you know, so maybe instead of crib deaths and spilled prams we could branch out, you know, like maybe grab some of those crack babies, or those kids who died of wasting diseases, or malnourishment, I mean like starvation, like maybe some kids from those places in Africa that you see on TV, like 'You could feed this brat a Bible for six cents a day if you wanted to' or something like that, but if we took those kids, nobody would have to worry about them, and let's face it, Neverland has never been too big for  diversity..."

...and she continued on in the same vein, tirelessly, never pausing for breath... though she did pause briefly from time to time to take another pixie-sized gulp from her drink, wrapping her tiny but remarkably full and womanly lips around the tip of what was to her an enormously out-sized straw. It seemed to be this feat, rather than the particular points of her endless and breathless speech, that kept her audience's attention.

An interesting sight, no doubt, but hardly one worth lingering on.

Elsewhere in the bar, on a stage which seems to have been built just for her, Ms. Trinity Night was just finishing her set. Two parts Peggy Lee, one part Elvira, and somehow all original. The audience of gillmen, werecreatures, ogres, manes, and other beasties ate it up. A performance worth noting, if we’d turned our attention to it a bit earlier.

Elsewhere in the bar, would-be serving girl Jolie la Belle fished fruitlessly for compliments, unable to get anyone to comment one way or the other on her new piercing. Interesting? Hard to say.

At the end of the bar, a lady in a diaphonous white gown avoided the eye of a man in pale gray motorcycle garb while a vampiress assured her date that she’d heard all the jokes before. It is, all in all, a rather typical evening in the Sands…

…until the man in the spotless white leisure suit walked in.

A hush didn’t exactly fall over the room. Some places where there had been conversation, it faltered… and murmuring sprang up in places where there had been none. Maybe some recognized him, but most simply reacted to the aura of power that clung to him. More than one name was mentioned here and there.

He was somehow imposing without being physically large. His features were fine, if a bit angular. His unruly, untamed mass of red hair seemed somehow to give off a sense of being perfectly styled, or vice versa. His suit bordered on the obnoxious. Everything about him pushed the boundaries of taste.

People stole glances at him. They looked at him sideways. They watched him over their hand of cards or from behind their fingers. Nobody looked at him directly.

Except for the bartender Johnny Dark, who simply glared at him.

“Of all the metaphorical gin joints in all the existential planes, I had to walk into yours,” the man said, grinning like a lunatic.

“Get out,” Johnny said between gritted teeth.

“Oh, but I’ve only just got here… and you don’t have the power to make me leave,” the figure said. "Not without calling on names you've long since foresworn."

"I may not have the power to eject you," Johnny said, "but neither do I have to serve you."

"That seems like a serious breach of the rules of hospitality.”

"Of hospitality, oui, but of the hospitality industry, not so," Johnny said. "It is a fine distinction. If you were a guest in my home, I could not fairly refuse you, but you are instead a patron in my bar and I have the right to refuse service to anyone."

"So, you lack the power to eject me so you'll refuse to pour for me instead," the newcomer said. "My, how terribly petty you've become."

"Is that truly as petty as a being of your power who, unable to smite his foes, hangs around instead to spite them?" Johnny said. "Besides, we both know my protest is as symbolic as your demand. If you actually desired refreshment, nothing prevents you from procuring it yourself."

"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny," said the interloper in white, shaking his head sadly. "Why must you live in the past? I'm not here to spite you or to revel in your admittedly rather, ah… humble and servile position. I just came here to relax, have a few drinks, and maybe chat a bit, catch up on the last few decades... maybe talk about a few mutual acquaintances. Is that so hard to believe?"

"In a word, yes."

"You wound me, Johnny, to the very core of my... well, to my core, anyway," he said. "Very well, then... if I am to have no conviviality from you, I believe I will 'procure it myself'."

He turned and went to the table where the pixie's rambling sing-song discourse had progressed beyond the childhood obesity epidemic and onto the difficulty of coaxing a happy thought out of an infant suffering from withdrawal symptoms. He approached her from behind, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, and he leaned, very casually, to speak gently just behind her left ear.

"Perhaps you're simply not giving yourself enough credit," he said softly. "Perhaps you've just lost confidence... could it be that the real problem isn't the vagaries of modern life but just that you don't believe in yourself?"

"You're right, you know, you're right," the fairy buzzed. "I hadn't thought of it that way, but now that I have thought to think of it that way, I think you're right, it's all willpower, you know, it's all about self-confidence, when you get right down to it, and when you get right down to it maybe I really don't believe in myself..."

At those words, all color drained from the fairy's face and she went ram-rod straight, toppling over headfirst into her drink in front of the astonished and horrified folk. The red-haired man picked up the glass by its stem.

"Hold the applause, please," he said to the stunned assemblage of little people.

"It's a little tart, don't you think?" he said, gesturing with the dead fairy before flicking her casually over his shoulder. "And as for the drink... it's a bit sugary for my taste, though that may be the fairy dust. I bet if you sold them this way, you'd find a market. 'Pixie Passion'... 'Pixie Colada'... very kitsch. Maybe a Bloody Fairy, where instead of a celery stalk..."

"Get out," Johnny said.

"Oh, don't get your ovaries in a twist, Johnny… somebody, some where's bound to be doing that bloody play of hers and she'll be right as rain just as soon as they get to the clapping bit. If not, she had a good run... I mean, most of her folk are gone within a year. It's only that silly story and the ritualistic re-enactment of her death and resurrection that keeps the little twat going strong." He paused, cocking his head as if a thought had just struck him. "Hey... does that remind you of anybody else who we both know?"

Even as he spoke, the fallen fairy's form was softening and beginning to regain the healthy glow of life. It had begun so gradually that it was hard to say how long it had been in progress when, quite suddenly, the diminutive figure flew up right off the table, wings buzzing as she tolled out a series of incomprehensible curses. The fairy looped in the air over the table a few times, then swooped and grabbed a nearly empty beer bottle from the stunned hand of a boggart. The bottle was quickly smashed against the table, and the next thing anyone knew its jagged edge was hurtling through the air towards the man pushed by a streak of light.

He reached back without looking and arrested the forward momentum with the touch of one finger.

"Uh-uh, Ms. Bell," he said pleasantly still without even turning to address her. "Let's not go losing our happy thoughts."

Letting out an inarticulate shriek of rage, she dropped the broken bottle, which shattered into tiny shards on the floor, and then zoomed off out of the bar and out of sight.

"Chicks, huh? So flighty. Oh, she never would have finished this anyway," the man said dismissively. "That Toadstool looks so sad, though. I think he imagines he had a chance with her... maybe when she was dead. Sorry, little guy, but your princess is in another castle."

"I told you to get out," Johnny said. "You have officially abused the bounds of hospitality."

"Oh, pish posh... or is that tish tosh? They both sound silly," he said, shrugging. "I've done no real harm. The pixie's proof against all physical harm, thanks to her little collaboration with Mr. Barrie. But I digress… shall I continue to ‘procure my own refreshment‘?”

“No… that will not be necessary,” Johnny said.

However the encounter might have played out if it had continued, it was interrupted by the sudden arrival of no less than the mistress of the Sands herself.

If the figure who so vexed Johnny Dark had not completely subdued the room, it was only because he sparked curiosity. If any were curious about the Seeress, they were wise enough to keep it to themselves, and so the silence that greeted her sudden appearance at the foot of the staircase was total.

She wore a gown of green crepe which displayed the fair skin of her ample bosom is a very flattering manner. Her face was concealed by a velvet cloth of the same pale green. In a place that had been visited by minotaurs, trolls, harpies, pixies, nixies, elves, and every manner of demon and devil conceivable, one would not suppose that a device as simple as a featureless mask could possibly make a seemingly ordinary mortal human being stand out. Somehow, it did.

She glided across the floor like a marionette. Time seemed to stand still. The only motion besides her own was that of the bar patrons who parted like reeds before her, until she reached the spot where the red-haired man in white stood in front of the bar, grinning devilishly at her. He did not stand aside.

"I beg your pardon, Mister..." she began, and faltered. For the first time in longer than she cared to remember, the Seeress found that she did not know who it was she was addressing. "I'm sorry, I don't believe I know your name."

"Terribly disconcerting, isn't it?" He smiled, a shark's smile, as warm as a blazing fire and tempting as an unguarded cookie jar. He thrust out his hand, which the Seeress took and gave a cursory shake. "Mr.… Morgenstern. Mr. S. Morgenstern, lately of here and there."

"You will have to excuse me, Mr. Morgenstern, but I must borrow my bartender for a moment. I'm sure you two can catch up later."

"That's alright, Mme. Seeress," Dark put in quickly. "M. Morgenstern was only just on his way to being somewhere else."

"No, I actually wasn't," Morgenstern smirked. "I was looking forward to a long evening of drinking in the company of one of my old friends. But we have all the time in the world, or what's left of it, eh, my dear John? So I guess I'll see you later." So saying, he left the bar for the front door, and whatever part of the world it would take him to.

”How went your conversation with the Fire-Eater?” Johnny asked.

“It went… exactly as it should have,” the Seeress said.

“Forgive my saying so, Madame, but you seem a touch less certain than usual.”

“I am not uncertain,” the Seeress said firmly. “I am never uncertain.”

“Of course,” Johnny said, hanging his head. “It was foolish of me to suggest it. But what do you need of me?”

“Earlier this evening, you entertained a bird,” the Seeress said. “A Storm Raven of the Valkyjra. I have need of her.”

Johnny reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a black feather.

“She seemed nice,” he explained. “I asked her for her number, and she gave me this… I do not know…”

The Seeress snatched it from his hand and held it up before her mask, speaking in low tones over it.

“Little bird, I hold your feather in my hands and your soul in my power. I have a mission for you, ordained by the Norns. I hope you will do it as a favor to me, but know that you will do it regardless. Tonight, you shall fly over the city of Star Harbor until you see a blazing fire. Running from it you will find a woman dressed all in blue, with a ring on her finger and a sword in her hand. You will guard her, and bring her to me. Do this, and your reward shall be great. Fail, and your fate shall be terrible.”

She thrust the feather back at Johnny, who fumbled it back into his pocket.

“It is an interesting game that you play, Madame la Seeress,” he said.

“Would you call it a game, Johnny Dark, if I told you that all of existence were at stake?” she replied.

“I would expect nothing less, if it demands your full and direct attention,” he said. “I hope I do not presume too much, Madame, but… given the stakes… are you certain you are leaving your personal feelings out of the matter?”

“I assure you, I do not know what you’re talking about,“ the Seeress said coolly. “And neither do you.”

“I assume your plans touch on the Fire-Eater… and I know your history, as much as anyone does.”

“The Seeress is not concerned with history, but with the future,” she said.

“As you say,” Johnny said neutrally.

Privately, he retained his doubts.