Strange Constellations

Written more because I haven't written anything in almost a week than because I had any real inspiration.

“I danced upon a darkling bridge into blinding light, I squinted, flinched from the pain and stood amidst a sea-swell of odor and noise. I fell from warmth and freedom into cold and fetid closeness and the voices of my kin, raised in song, bled into this meaningless cacophony of noise.” the ghost of a smile haunted his fair lips as he settled back against the worn leather of the booth, “It was not, you might say, a pleasant experience.”
“I, I can see that.” to be honest the smile I had plastered across my face was less comforting and more nervous than I like it to be, but none of what he was saying was making much sense, “The fact remains that you appeared in the upper mid-west without a visa, any form of identification... frankly, if you don't give us at the least a credible personal history I don't know how long I'll be able to keep you out of ICE custody.”
“They would be hard pressed to find me, if it came to that. Please, I am cooperating with you and yours to the best of my ability, I want only to return to my home, nothing more.” his voice floated, skipping over a dozen accents without landing on any one immediately recognizable.
“You would be surprised, I think, but I'm trying to avoid that situation altogether. Can we start at the beginning?”
“Of course,” he said, swirling his glass, “Though I fear you will not like my story any more than your fellows.”
“Let that be for me to decide, eh?” I felt like I should be growing tired of his deflections and presumptions, but in the hour that we had held down the darkest corner of Al's Pub on sixteenth and Ramses Boulevard I had unaccountably grown to like the strange man seated opposite me rather better than I was comfortable with. He was a client after all, one more tacked onto the bottom of an endless caseload.
“Very well. I landed three fathoms hence,” he gestured with his glass before shooting back the last of its amber contents, “it was midmorning, or so I reckoned by the position of the sun when I first spotted it through the baroque monstrosities that you hem yourselves in with. I wandered in a daze for some time, unable to strike a clear path, or even to find a fit destination. Until, that is, evening fell.”
“What happened then?” I was embarrassed to find that I was leaning across the table, but was unable to pull back.
“The lights came on, so many captured stars. Strange constellations swirled about me, flaming dervishes, so alive that I was dazzled. I, the master of lies and masques, was stunned until, it seemed, through the momentarily open door of some dance hall I caught sight of one of my kith.
“She met my eye, coiled, at the bottom of the pole, and I caught a flash of recognition from her and then her eyes cast down, and the door swung closed, and I lacked the will to enter. Such was my introduction to your city, some several weeks ago.” he spoke with earnest dignity and passion such that I found myself believing him, until he stopped speaking and my brain had time to catch up to my heart.
“So you fell out of the sky, and into love with a stripper? You've got to take this more seriously, take me more seriously, I am trying to help you. How is this, I tell you a bit about me, why I'm on the case, and then you tell me the truth, and then maybe we go find your stripper friend and see if she can't fill in some of the gaps in your story?”
“A trade, yes, a contract. Your truth for mine, I accept.” there was greater gravity in his voice and face than the words deserved.
“Right, so, there are two reasons I'm working with you,” I adjusted myself, now suddenly nervous as to how to proceed but able only to do as I had promised, “One is because you slept with the last two case workers that were assigned to you, they raved about it afterwards which means that it constitutes a breach of ethics, they are now on punitive furlough. So I suppose the first reason is that they consider me somewhat expendable.”
“Now you see why they did so however, and so that riddle, at least, becomes clear.” if I knew how to say shit like that without sounding like an asshole... a skill that he certainly had in spades.
“I... I do,” as uncomfortable as that may be for a straight man to admit. He was tall, and the A-shirt that he wore was stretched over broad chest and shoulders, and his mane of wild, Rowan hair tickled his shoulders. His eyes drew me in, deep blue pools shot through with sparks of violent green that flickered and flirted as he shifted his attention around the bar.
“And the second reason?”
“Right, the second reason is that I have always been the odd one in a way. I read tarot, and sometimes have practiced certain kinds of witchcraft. They figured we would get... along on that account.” I trailed off as his face shifted with fear and anger and he drew away from me.
“Will-worker.” he spat, “You would ensnare me thus?” and his voice grew both deep and powerful, “I have powers of my own and am not so easily over mastered.”
Upon seeing my confusion all but the last shreds of shadow fled his brow, “But the truth you gave me, and it was truth I promised in return. So I am bound, so shall I be.
“I was born in the lands beyond the sun to the people of tree and river, scions of the Court of Summer. I grew up there, in the hinterlands beyond the great cities and far from the rift, but that life ill-suited me for my power was not in passing unnoticed, nor in destruction for hunting or war.
“When a band of rovers, wastrels, and minstrels passed through our lands we were overjoyed, for news from beyond our borders, ever slim, had in those days grown yet leaner, and we feared that there were things moving in the world beyond our lands that would have dealt with us grievously had they known of our existence. They styled themselves Players and storytellers and for three days and four nights they held forth upon a makeshift stage, illuminated by starlight and by moonlight and when they left I went with them, for I found that my calling was in the assuming of roles and faces, in the spinning of tales and glamors.
“For many lives of your kind my lot was that of a wanderer and entertainer, and for a time I was content. Lately though I found myself growing bored with the life and the old tales, and I decided to craft my own. Doing so proved more difficult than anticipated, for ideas that are new have trouble gaining traction over old habits, and so I resolved to leave during a performance, to slip away.
“I have never had a strong singing voice and so I thought to leave while the better part of the company sang on stage and I did so in the city of the Vale and these two things proved to be my undoing. Strong are the voices of the Young when raised in song, and thin the barriers that lie between the worlds in the deep places of the Vale and the darkling bridge I found, and on it I danced, and from it I fell.
“That is my story, true as any beneath your sun or mine.”