I'd Pull Their Strings To Set Them Free

[Bainrigh Mab]

Cailleach sits brooding on the moss-covered stone that served as her throne in the mental play she'd spun for her not-quite-sister. She is rankled and she's stubbornly refusing to admit as to why. At first she thought it was having left Kat to fend for herself in the woods with naught but her new powers, but it's a decision she stands by. Powers aren't a magical fix, they're an act, a role to play and the sooner she learns that the better. Then she assumed she'd been away from the sea for too long, away from the cove and the small cult she had gathered, but the important parts, the powers she'd found within a select few and ripped from their flesh to keep for herself still sat nestled within her. No, what truly bothers her is the fact that the mask she'd put on for Kat felt right. Better than the ones she'd worn before. Enough so that she doesn't even miss the darkness beneath the waves.

The mote of light she rescued from the Abyss before her banishment dances around her finger. She's annoyed because she'd been wrong. Not... entirely of course, but the mask of the dark fae she'd worn had felt right. Part of her had fought it, clung to the familiar of the waves that had welcomed her when nothing else would, enough that even the girl had taken note but it had felt comfortable. Even now she still has the fleshy wings dotted with dusty scales spilling down her back like a cloak. Because it feels right.

She just doesn't like the idea that it took her this long to see the truth. Even the obnoxious little monster smelling of lightning and steel had intuited it somehow, roped her into putting on a play, handing out masks and roles to play, even if they were trite and dull. Yes, the monster lurking in the depth is a role all it's own, but now that she's explored behind the curtain and seen the truth of it... The story she told Kat rings true. They'd toppled the court and though banished from it's realm she now holds sway over the fae. Their erratic and inhuman natures, adherence to roles and masks that define them. She feels ashamed for having been blind to them for so long.

But no longer. Queen in exile, awake to her duties at last.