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So, off we go to Seattle to visit the Joyous King (who lives nearby).  My first chance to visit some grunge rock location and I'm dressed in very formal wear.  Mom tells me to be on my best behavior.

Not that this trip wouldn't be entertaining after all.  Hey, I got to meet Elvis and Curt Bane (is that his real name?  Some guy who was with a band called Nirvana).  I don't know all the details, but both of them managed to kill their real bodies, but live on in the dream world.  Since the elves have the same relationship to the dream world as men do to the waking world, these two ended up performing for the Joyous King who has pretty eclectic tastes in music.

Though, of course, he would make some really bad mistakes.

The Joyous King The Mountain Shidhe of the Pacific Coastal Mountains have two kings, the bitter king and the joyous king.  The bitter king traditionally rules over warfare, and recent bitter kings have expanded into poison, chaos, treason, curses and spite. Anyone who feels a call or a desire for these things, follows him.  The joyous king rules over celebration, peace, blessings and trade.  The shidhe can follow either or both and many attend both courts. It is a different pattern than the continental (european) one of the dark (ugly) and light (beautiful) shidhe courts and is relatively new (only a few thousand years old).  On the other hand, it does lead to a grouping of the shidhe more on behavior and attitude than appearance, which many consider an improvement.  And, the courts do not fight or raid each other in the traditional sense (like the european seelie and unseelie courts do). I guess the best way to describe the Joyous King is to compare him to the President of the United States -- the old one -- the one in the tabloids, not the real one. I still remember catching a shidhe in the checkout lane at the grocery store, there to pick up every copy of the tabloids he could find.  Turns out that the tabloids are really a big thing (at times) with the Mountain Shidhe. The important thing to be aware of is that they admire the Bill Clinton of the tabloids and honor the H. Clinton of the tabloids.  I'm not going to get into what the real people are like (what do I look like -- you think I've ever met them?) but to understand the Joyous King and his consort, realize that they feel it a great complement to be compared to the Clintons of the tabloids.  They are all sure that the tabloids must be right, because they know the press doesn't like the Clintons and "someone must be telling the truth." I kid you not.  I got told exactly that.

Funny, this time it was Mom who was patient and Dad who almost caused a terrible scene.

The Joyous King has some fire based magics he uses to attempt to bind and seduce those about him.  I don't think he really understands the magic, it is natural to him, and he is so used to smoothly using it on people he probably didn't realize anyone would notice.  Mom and Dad both did.  One of the side effects of the magic is that it is also a call to judgment.  It forces people to chose and to judge and that is part of how it binds them.

Except with Dad ... He has some sort of, well, not a weakness, but a drive to honor demands for justice.  The King, of course, just expected to charm Mom and Dad and perhaps manipulate them a little.  What he didn't realize was that he was going to pull down full scale justice on himself and find himself intruding into the bond between lightwalker and familiar -- a deadly insult.

Mom could feel the magic setting up, she has a feel for things that are fire based.

Sure enough, when we got there and the King engaged Dad in conversation, drawing the magic about him, Mom told me to go to the Bitter King and to demand that he honor my favor by interrupting the conversation and demanding to speak with Dad.  When he got  to Dad, he was just to tell Dad to hold (stop) and to show him a ring that Mom gave me.  She breathed on me ("so no one will recognize you") and sent me on my way.  Hey, I'm a fire elemental too!  That's fun.  The Bitter King recognized me, though most of the court just thought I was another messenger from somewhere else.

I'm not sure the Bitter King expected to be asked a favor like that, but he played the part well, interrupting, demanding to talk and then holding Dad's attention long enough to cause Dad to stay the magic and not render justice now.  The Bitter King looked a little befuddled, and kind of smug, all at the same time.  To redeem a favor by being rude to the Joyous King, that he could manage.

Mom had walked over to the Consort and got her attention by seizing control of all the fire magic in the Court.  Then she began to give the Consort a friendly lecture on how the various magics interacted, their side effects, their intents, their possible consequences.  You could tell the Consort was kind of interested, kind of annoyed, kind of careful (mom was Mom, if you know what I mean, but friendly and you could see magics in the air that were very subtle.  Everyone who could was listening in, or trying to, without being too obvious.  People were learning things they would never have suspected).  When Mom got to the fires of justice, vis a vis the fires of reason, the Consort suddenly got the "ah hah" look, especially when Mom pointed out that the Sword of Severance had manifested.

"As always, we are pleased to render justice when called ..."  "Now, lets look at that fire sprite bound into the mural behind that panel" (some left over magic from an older king that no one was aware of).  The Consort had the look mom and dad get when they are talking mind to mind and you could see the Joyous King's magic dissolve from the air.  "Ah thanks, that will make it easier to look at that sprite."  You could tell not more than five people in the room realized what had gone on.

Several looked bemused.  Dad is known for talking, not mom.  Not that mom doesn't know an awful lot, she just isn't prone to public lectures.  On the other hand, it was one of those things that really got people's attention.  Lots of practical notes scattered about, with the ending revelation that there was a very powerful sleeping fire sprite bound into a mural that was slowly eroding away behind some "new" (only fifteen hundred years old) paneling.  When the mural finished fading, the sprite would wake up.  Not that a cranky, powerful, unguided fire sprite wasn't what they all wanted to encounter some time in the next several months (the mural's magic was finally wearing out).  In fact, everyone figured this was the real reason for the visit, and, of course, mom's grabbing all the fire magic in the court also locked the sprite down tightly.

Everyone thought that mom was looking for a way to handle the problem without embarrassing anyone or her message getting lost, hardly anyone realized that what she was really doing was diverting the Joyous King from needing a successor. The Bitter King caught it though.  It was fun to see him blanch when he realized that Dad's sword wasn't just displaying itself as a decoration (lots of the older fashions require a sword of some sort) but that it was the Sword of Severance and it was about to "cut loose" so-to-speak.  As the magic dissolved, Dad kind of relaxed into being dad, and the sword was just a sword.  Then dad looked at the Bitter King and said "thank you" and handed him a ring as a favor gesture.

That distracted the whole court again (they are so like teenagers at a prom sometimes).  The Bitter King just smiled and bowed out of the Court.

Of course everyone was glad to give us the pro forma permission to visit the Snow Dwarves up the coast (they are in the mountains near Juneau), mom woke the fire sprite up slowly and reoriented it and it settled into our fire place as a guardian (which was the original binding and its nature -- but a mural -- it liked being in a real fire place, not just a picture, and being kind of awake, not sleeping in magic stasis).

Interesting visit, and I gained a new skill from it (transform to fire elemental).  And hey, I didn't end up in the sewers or fighting anything or doing much more than running a little errand and stand around on my best behavior. That I can do.

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