hadriel | one ❀ voice

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one ❀ voice

[There's no video, because it's too dark in the coffin to show anything anyway. Adam's voice is carefully steady, as if he's keeping himself under control through sheer power of will.]

I saw that Fear said our air supply will be refreshed. I don't know if that's true - I don't know if we can trust him - but I thought people ought to know anyway.

[Not that he necessarily believes anything any of the gods say, but - well. Who knows.]

Talking is a little less impersonal than text. It might help to hear a familiar voice, if any of your friends are buried. There also isn't much to do down here but panic, so if anyone wants to talk - I wouldn't mind.

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I don't have a lot of stories, but I'll try.

[He can hear that, and he's not surprised. There are so many of them, all over, and he doesn't know if Peter has friends here but at least someone's digging. At least he'll find someone, and there will be one less of them stuck down here in the dark.]

I've never seen a faerie, I don't know if they exist. Not where I'm from.

I'll bet you can come up with something.

Bet you they do. You've probably seen one, just thought it was a firefly or something. They're tiny little things.

[the shovel scrapes into the dirt again, heaves out its burden onto the ground.]

Anyway, Nicolae--that's my grandfather--he found a faerie once, buzzing around our insect zapper. Not the smartest things, sometimes, they get suckered in just like moths and flies. Anyway, he saw her before she could get zapped, and got her into a bottle somehow. One of those big mason jars, for whole pickles, y'know? She bit the hell out of him first--don't get the idea that faeries are all sweetness and light, they're mean little buggers. I was maybe six. It was the craziest thing, this perfect little naked lady, wings like a dragonfly, glowing in this bottle. We kept her for a few days, gave her grass to make a bed and fed her flies. I think she would cuss a blue streak every time i tapped on the glass, but I didn't know any better and all you can hear is a tiny squeak anyway.

Hmm... maybe.

[Adam thinks if he'd seen one since his bargain with Cabeswater, he'd know, but it's possible he saw one before then. His logical mind wants to think that such things can't exist in Henrietta, but then there's the ley line, and its magical forest, and Gwenllian, and the things he's seen in a bowl of water. There's an end to even Adam's doubt, eventually.

He likes the story, though. The idea of it is interesting, intriguing. He thinks Peter's world must be an odd one, if that sort of thing is normal for him.]

Did she curse you when you let her go? That seems like the sort of thing a faerie would do.

[there's a little pause, and an odd sort of smile in peter's voice when he answers. is he making up the story from whole cloth? retelling a childhood incident with a bit of extra magic? changing the ending? telling the truth? who knows. as far as peter's concerned, it doesn't matter, as long as adam is listening.]

Nah, I don't think so. Stung the hell out of me instead. Or bit, really. Sharp little teeth on those ladies, hurts like a horsefly. But really, she was happy to get out, despite everything. It's not like she could escape on her own. Faerie strength is no match for a good mason jar.

I still saw them sometimes, when I was little. Then we moved, and I guess there's no nest where I last lived, because I never saw any there. But Hemlock Grove was a weird sort of place. Might've been too much other shit going on there for faeries.

[The truth doesn't really matter to Adam, either, at least not right now. Maybe later he'll care, but right now all that matters is hearing someone else's voice and knowing that he isn't alone. That he hasn't been forgotten.]

Hemlock Grove, that's where you're from? Must be pretty weird to be too weird for faeries.

[He thinks about home, Henrietta. How much he hates it, how much he misses it.]

Did you move around a lot?

I'm not really from anywhere, but Hemlock Grove is where I last was. Little podunk town outside of Pittsburgh, used to be a little less podunk before steel went bust. It's pretty weird, as places go. There's...something, there. Most places don't have a something like that.

But yeah, you could say I move around a lot. The locals like to use the term 'fuckin gypsies'.

[there's an odd mix of of attitudes in his voice, pride in his heritage that twinges against the contempt for people who mock it.]

What about you? Where're you from?

I'm from Henrietta. It's a small town in Virginia, a few hours from Washington.

[He doesn't say it with any pride at all, but he doesn't say it with disgust, either. It's just a fact, maybe an unfortunate one, but a true one. There are all kinds of people in Henrietta, Aglionby boys and Blue's sort of people and Adam's, too. Being from there doesn't say anything in particular about him.]

What sort of something? Something like a ley line?

[Generally Adam avoids topics like this until he thinks he can trust someone a little, and he doesn't know that about Peter yet. But Peter is the one who has been casually talking about magic, and knowing that ley lines exist isn't giving anything important away.]

Might've driven through it once. We drive through a lot of places.

[it's not at all impossible. peter has ridden through innumerable small towns, from the quaint and thriving to the shabby and dying.]

Mm, I don't think so, although that might be why Dee likes living there. Clears up her third eye. More like a physical something that sleeps beneath. Far, far beneath.

You wouldn't have found it very interesting.

[Just another small town. The weirdness doesn't show itself unless you look for it, after all.]

A sleeper? Do you know what it might be?

[He's interested - it's a good distraction, and not so very different from what they were looking into at home, after all. He would much rather hear Peter talk about it than share his own information, too.]

Something's interesting about pretty much everywhere, if you look.

[adam can't see peter's shrug, but there's an accompanying sound.]

Not a damn clue. Just that it's big, it's old, and we probably want it to stay sleeping. Weird things happen in Hemlock Grove. It was a steel town, once, and then the family that owned the mill--the Godfreys--shut it down when steel went bust, and changed over to biotech, or whatever. Which is great and all, except for the steel-workers. So the Godfreys have shitpots of money and half the rest of the town is just shit outta luck. Common enough story, but strange place, all the same.

And the Godfreys, they're weird too. Not bad, mostly, but weird. I think they know something's down there, too, and that's why Olivia stayed.

Some things are better left sleeping, I think. Not all, but some.

[He doesn't regret waking Cabeswater, but Adam's opinion on Gwenllian is mixed. He wants to wake Glendower, for the favor, but the third sleeper - well. They've been warned again and again about that.

But Adam is awake now, and Cabeswater, and it hasn't all been bad. Not all of it.]

Most rich people are weird, in my experience. But not usually that kind of weird - more the kind that thinks pastel polo shirts are a good fashion choice and that there's nothing at all abnormal about flying to Rome for authentic pizza one weekend. Sounds like your Godfreys are a different breed altogether.

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