Southern Dublin, 1942 (Open RP)

[Red]

The sound of fine white-and-blue china shattering was something that everyone in the house had grown accustomed to over the last few years. Many a cup and saucer had been sacrificed on the alter of clumsiness, though more often as of late.

Alana MacAlister was down on the floor in a heap of dull red and while cloth, mopping a towel back and forth over the tea she'd just spilled. The dark wood was gouged from years of trailing feet as well as the tip of her father's cane, and that of his father before him. The black wire frames of her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose, the thin golden chain that held fast to either side clanking violently with an airy tink as she soaked up the rich brown liquid with a dish towel.

A thick volume with an unintelligible title had skittered across the floor in her desperate dive to save her tea cup. "When will you cure those butterfingers, little lass?" said Maeva, the head cook who'd watched over Alana for the first handful of years on this earth. As far back as Alana remembered, there had never been a hint of anger in the old woman's voice. No matter how frustrated Alana got with herself or her father, Maeva always seemed to be able to break the tension and cheer her up.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Maeva's pale, weathered hand wrap around the binding of the book she'd dropped. "Sidhe? Now what on earth has gotten you into that lot, Laina?" she said, her thick lilt wavering on the end of her syllables.

"It's nothing," Alana retorted, scooping the last bits of white stoneware into the terry cloth and dropping it into the sink with an unceremonious heave. "Just something I came across in Papa's study last night." She made a grab for the book, but Maeva nipped it just beyond her reach. "Does he know that you've moved past the library into 'is private stores?" she said before relinquishing the text to Alana's waiting hand.

"Thank you," she said, "and of course he does....kind of..." A small smile crossed her lips as she saw Maeva's half-sarcastic look of disapproval. She offered the woman a small wink before hitching up her skirts and making off to the privacy of her own study to look over the text that had swallowed her up since last night...

[Red]

Sidhe lore was something that had become almost silly over the years. There would always be a few firm believers in the stories of the fae folk, but the rest only had the wild tales that had moved from ear to ear on the tongue of travelers to go from. The Seelie Court had been credited with the beauty and good in this thriving world of green, whereas the Unseelie had taken on the way of the night, prayed against and warded off by any means a mortal man could fix his hands on.

Folk songs have laced years worth of tales of fiends from the Unseelie Court stealing the hearts of beautiful young women and leading them to their death or spiriting them away to their dark fae mounds.

It's a good thing I'm not pretty... Alana thought, smiling inwardly as she devoured the tales, one after another. Most people had been mistaking her for her mother since she was 16. She'd always been quite plain and dressed years behind her time in rust reds, worn whites and other dull hues.

Speckles of dust hovered lazily through the checkered beams of sunlight that forced their way through the dirty window on the western side of the room.