and time slowed for the second time in the presence of this beacon of light.  a power kiesah had heard tell of, but never seen it put in play.  her frosty eyes watched the effects of this sun's hand of power, gaze seeking out the sight of small animals, birds and even insects in this otherwise deserted area to study how they faired when this seelie used her gift.  just as she had studied its effects upon the two men after sun and moon had exchanged distant glances downtown.  she looked upon the mist last, a reluctantly amused smirk tugging upward her oh-so-pale pink lips as the music of the mist touched her ears.

the diplomatic act was a move kiesah never would have made. 

in slowing down time, she knew the seelie was abstaining from the advantage that would come to her with the dawn.  advantages were what had kept kiesah alive this long - the unseelie moon seized them any chance she could.  but kiesah was also not born yesterday.  the winter maiden knew that the glittering throng were too well known for extending a sword cloaked as a branch of peace. 

"ahhhh……" she crooned, bending the lissome tones that came with the seelie tongue to create a mock dawning of understanding.  three tushes of her tongue followed as she turned her chill gaze upon the maiden of heat and light.  "and i am supposed to trust you because you have come all.  this.  way."  her words slowed into a languorous pace as she emphasized each of them.  "and because even now you delay the coming of dawn to talk.  but tell me, my radiant little beam, your gift works both ways, does it not?  and dawn could be here with a mere wiggle of your pinky and where would my trust go then."

now the moon did begin to circle.  for it was only three steps forward to close some of the distance between them before kiesah chose to orbit the sun by taking her pacing to the right of the summer sidhe.  her piercingly blue eyes never leaving her watch of the radiant fae.  "my mother is seelie.  i know full well what lies under the so-called glitter of your glittering throng.  i see through the mist as clearly as you."

as if to illustrate, kiesah moved her own hand.  more subtly than the sun had, a stretch of fingers which then lazily fluttered downward toward her palm.  but the result was far less subtle.  a blast of cold wind came from behind the unseelie, so cold it was as if she was summoning the chill of december on the spot.  once met with the stark heat that radiated from the glowing seelie before her, that heat and the barren wind made an abundance of mist, so that the two sidhe could gaze upon the ample thick of horrid little treasures that lay beneath the sweet chimes and elegant tiny rainbows.

"so what lies beneath your news."  while it was spoken as a statement, she meant it as a question.  the matter-of-fact chill that oozed from the unseelie frosted the tones of the seelie tongue she still spoke in.  "the story of why you are here, why you have so long watched me, interests me far more than what your court plans for me.  for if what you speak is true, they are joining a very long line of all manner of creatures who wish me ill.  to hear i am not favored by yet another breed is nothing new."

and kiesah seemed proud of that.

"your mirror," the heavy scoff which weighted those words was likely not a tone taken normally with the light lilting language of the seelie court, and it was partnered by a pronounced loft and roll of her chilling blue eyes.  yet as uninspired as she seemed, what the radiant maiden had told her kiesah did not denounce or deny.

for while fae could tell tales through omission, vagaries, half-truths and so on, they could not directly tell a lie.  in this case, to denounce what this sunbeam had spoken outright would be an impossibility.  for as eager as kiesah was to make it seem like hearing this news was no more than a meaningless, pestering bore, what churned inside the unseelie insisted otherwise.  there was a draw, a magnetism, as palpable as a force of gravity, which was currently keeping the frosty female from turning on her heel and walking away.

as much as this often obstinate force of winter would have liked to…simply to be difficult.

thus she was forced to find a different means of being difficult.  in the past, she'd found that icy sarcasm had always served her well.  "a second seelie coming to babysit," kiesah echoed this news with an eagerness so falsified there was no mistaking the disingenuous ring to the sounds, "moon and stars, such a blessing.  won't you both just have to join me for dinner sometime."  if the seelie actually dared, how entertaining that might be.  kiesah was quite certain that there was nothing more counterpart than their diets.

besides, of course, this sun's blustering heat to her barren cold.  as it was, any small particles of the moist mist that happened to fall upon her arctic skin hardened to small, glistening ice crystals, giving kiesah's flawlessly pale flesh a wintery sheen.  a mere hint of her true appearance hidden under the layers of glamour which masked it from the eyes of others.      

"and you mean to tell me that the pair of you, straying so very far from the mound to keep one from the enemy court from being 'taken'," the sun's choice of word used back at her then, with a piercingly pointed look, "will not pay dearly for standing against your own?  i was under the impression that banishment never goes out of style in the glittering throng, so tell me more plainly why in the worlds you would risk that."

she was as blunt as she was bitingly cold, so kiesah would no doubt keep repeating this question in various ways until she was given an answer that met her satisfaction.

"no doubt your heart flutters with the same vigor that my stomach shudders its suspicion."  a brazenly chilling smile curled the unseelie's oh so pale lips, barely pink in color.  the truths in the radiant female's words thus far were as unmistakable as the creature's heat, but quickly it was learned in the darkling throng that truth could hold just as much deception as a lie.  for that reason, 'trust' was a word that got little use in the language of the unseelie court.

then the icy sidhe lowered her own voice, breezing from her lips with the invigorating shiver of a november gust, her smile twisting into something more reflective of the deep, barren darkness of winter.  "that i've wounded you thrills me."  there could be no truer words spoken.  those who populated the court were called unseelie for a reason, and this winter maiden could be as sadistic as she was macabre in her mischief.  "i'd happily court your tears deep into midwinter."

after that admittance there was an immediate shift.  away from intimate whisper, to a cool matter-of-fact.  "yet i've never watched you.  heard of you.  or spied your face in any looking-glass, mirrors though you call us."  kiesah did not doubt that her so-called upbringing in the darkling throng was nothing like how this one had been reared in the supposed sweetness of the seelie court.  but the winter maiden also told another truth through omission - she said nothing about nor could she deny what heat in dreams she tasted come dawn when she laid her head down for sleep.

of course, the words that came next told a tale all their own.  kiesah's glacial gaze straying for but a second, long enough to sweep her eyes around the area still held captive by the seelie's pause in time, as she dared to take a single step towards the slip of summer heat, bringing her coldness closer.  "and my sweet little heatling, you could not lay a finger upon me without its soft warmth hardening from winter's bite."

yet the unseelie's sly, openly wylde smile said the sun was more than welcome to try.  after all, as the glittering maiden had said herself -

they both knew it was there.