A Trickster's Tea Party

*Featuring characters from "Message from the City" and "A Family Secret"

Neri rubs Iki's shoulders. "You got this. You are going to kill it, and it's going to be awesome." She adjusts her friend's hat. "I think you look great, and this whole tea society will love you." She smooths out the skirt of Iki's dress, an elegant white number with a pink floral pattern. "He won't be able to look away."

"I feel like that duckling you found and put in little dresses," Iki complains. She was all for dressing up and going out with Pascal, but a tea society? Talk about imposing.

"Pascal said formal. He was crystal clear with his instructions regarding the type of attire. Besides... I think you look cute..." Neri pats her on the back. "Time to go." She links arms with Iki and half-drags her friend along. A short walk later, Neri spots Pascal standing by the gate of the Litely Manor. "This place is gorgeous, so it'll no doubt be stunning on the inside too." Neri leans in. "Besides, your date's waiting."

Iki could feel her cheeks burning. "Okay." She takes a breath. "I can do this." She hugs Neri briefly, adjusts her hat, and strides up the path to the gate.

Pascal Ellington was dressed to the nines, as they say, in a suit that eschewed a jacket for a paisley patterned vest with golden buttons that brought out the bronze color of his shirt. His dark eyes sparkled at the sight of Iki. The hat he wore was reminiscent of the 1920s. "You look lovely! I'm glad you decided to come. We do this every so often. The tea meetings."

"Do I really?" Iki fidgets with her gloves as she takes him in. "I'm not fishing for compliments," she assures him. "I'm genuinely concerned that I may be underdressed. Which is weird, as I was just thinking I was overdressed."

"Actually, compared to the others, you'll see..." he trails off a moment. "This is very tame. Very elegant. Very beautiful." Pascal pushes open the iron gate. "I promise, you'll fit right in."

"Okay," Iki mumbles, blushing furiously now. She steps through the gate, guessing that was why Pascal was holding it. "Is the meeting very far?"

"No, it takes place on the lawn. Though the location tends to change. Our estate has hosted before." Pascal smiles at the memory. "Alyvia and Alyn were known for their parties."

"Well, it's official," Iki says. "I'm going to make a fool out of myself." She sighs.

"You are not. Besides, the tea society wanted to meet you. And Neri too. But she didn't seem interested," Pascal says. They take a few more steps and round a corner into the yard, which had rows of cloth-covered tables filled with food for a feast, and a full bar was set up to the side. Canopies were set up in the various corners with curtains that drifted in the subtle breeze. Dancers spun around the arranged dance floor. Everyone wore extravagant assortments of hats, feathers, flowers, dresses, and cloaks. "See. You fit right in."

"I've never seen anything like this," Iki marvels. She reaches for Pascal's arm and holds onto him as a tether to reality. "It's unreal."

"You haven't seen anything yet." Pascal flashes her a smile. "Every fourth quarter, we host this because... it's a revival party. A day when we are in charge of our destiny, and there are no rules."

"There's something alluring in that," Iki says, thinking out loud. "Being in charge of your destiny..."

"Have you ever heard of the fae courts?" Pascal asks. He leads her to the bar area. "If you haven't... You'll be hearing a lot of that tonight." He takes two glasses of wine from a man who had horns protruding from his head. Flowers ringed his horns.

"Fae?" Iki isn't really listening, her attention fixed on the horned man. He smiles at her before walking away. A costume? "I thought this was a formal party."

"It is. To honor our god. Every year. Upon this first day of our ruling, our god appears to us for… well, the party. Maybe a few tricks," Pascal says. "You never know with him."

"Your god," Iki says, paying attention now. "Is this a cult or something?"

"No... I told you. We're a court. Just look." Pascal takes her arms and turns her to the crowd to really look at them. "Open your eyes. Really look."

"All right..." Iki scans the crowd. Nothing out of the usual. But when she focused on a particular person, something changed. She gasps as her vision seems to ripple. The woman in a green silk dress with her blond hair in an updo now sported a pair of incandescent butterfly wings. The man next to her, who Iki had thought wore a circlet, now had a row of tiny horns. Closer to where she stood, a woman's flowery sundress showed off her goat legs while she flirted with another woman whose ears were long and tapered to fine points. "What's happening?" Iki whispers.

"You're looking past the illusion." Pascal escorts her to a less crowded part of the lawn. "Everything you saw before was the result of mad magic." When she stiffens, he squeezes her shoulder gently. "It sounds worse than it is. Madness magic is called such because it tricks the mind into seeing what we want it to." He nods to direct her attention back to the dancers. "Ordinary humans."

To Iki's newly opened eyes, there was little of the ordinary about them. A humanoid chameleon in an old-fashioned suit complete with tails waltzes with a humanoid tree person wearing a hat woven of branches decorated with live birds. A vixen in a dress with elaborate hoop skirts swirls around another humanoid tree person who continuously changes his size. An androgynous person with pointy ears sways with a humanoid she-wolf wearing a fitted top and pants with a feminine train flaring out about her hips and a hat done-up with holly and vines. A man with cat eyes and a too-big smile plays the violin to the side of the dancefloor.

"This doesn't feel real," Iki says mildly. There's a dreamlike quality to her thoughts that makes her wonder if she's been drugged somehow. "I wonder if this is because I was obsessed with Alice as a child," she muses, glancing up at Pascal and finding a tree person wearing his clothes. "Pascal?" She squeaks.

"You need some tea," he says, placing a hand at the small of her back to guide her to where the adults with children were gathered to watch over their little ones as they played.

A small tree child in a pastel-pink dress brandishing an even littler tree child in a white onesie chases another tree child in a sailor suit.

"Do not hit your brother with your other brother!" A woman calls sternly.

"Maybe not," Pascal says, turning Iki away and bringing her face to face with a woman with curled blond hair and a low-cut dress. She had a small hat on the side of her head with elaborate feathers. The woman notices her and makes her way over.

"Hello, I hear you're living at my old house. I'm Alyvia." She holds out a hand. "It is quite the pleasure."

"Oh, thank God, another human," Iki says, taking Alyvia's hand.

"Don't be silly! This is my human form." Alyvia replies, smiling broadly.

"Iki… Meet our queen." Pascal gestures with a bow.

"Pardon me?" Iki squeaks.

Alyvia giggles. "I do so love it when they look confused. You may have heard of me. I was quite the actress for a time. My greatest trick of all." She does a little wiggle.

"I've seen your portrait," Iki says as she comes to her senses. "We have newspaper clippings reporting your death."

"Thank you. I'm quite proud of that trick. After that whole murder thing, we had to get out of there." Alyvia loops an arm with Iki. "You should come to meet our god. The greatest trickster of all has yet to arrive."

"Pascal," Iki says, panic bubbling in her chest.

Pascal glances at her, following beside them. "You'll be fine. He's really not as prickly as they say."

Iki had plenty of time to question every decision she's ever made by the time Alyvia guides her to the back of a line. "It looks like your god is very busy," she says. "Guess I'll have to come back later."

"Don't be silly. Our god will love to meet you. Humans so rarely come anymore. It's a shame." Alyvia sighs. "There was a day when we would have these parties that would spill into every street... Back when our people were known. And pixies didn't day drink so much."

Pascal nods toward a table. "We could sit and wait if you'd prefer?"

"Yes, please!" Iki hurries over to the round, white table with a vase of flowers in the middle. 

Pascal follows her with a soft smile. "I know this is all... abrupt. But I knew that you needed to know. Neri did too. But she had other plans, I guess. Alyvia and her brother went to the human world some time ago. And then the murder of their host… or father as you know him... it made things a little too sticky for them. So they left. But there were clear, specific instructions for the staff. Nessie, to lady the estate. The real Calloway heir, to run it all. And I was to care for the land. It's complicated, but my mother had a whole history with the Calloways."

"Neri wanted to let us have some privacy," Iki says quietly. "She thought this was a date."

Pascal smiles softly. "I wanted to ask you on a date. But I thought you would have said no."

"I accepted thinking this was a date," Iki says.

"It still can be... if you'd like...?" Pascal tries softly. "When you said I looked older than Nessie, I just assumed that was a hint."

"Sorry," Iki winces. She'd formally apologized already, but it didn't feel like enough. "I really didn't mean to insult you. And, it wasn't a hint."

"It's okay. Though, it was the first time I've been told I look old..." Pascal unfolds the cloth napkin in front of him. "So if I did ask you out on a date..." he coughs a little. "I was going to ask if you'd say yes, but you're here, and you thought it was a date, so you did say yes." He smiles, his eyes shining with the joy of it. "I'm sorry I missed that connection," he says with a soft laugh. "You don't seem... troubled by the revelation. I knew when I met you that you would be one to truly see us for what we are."

"I don't know that I'm all that special," Iki says. She hesitates for a moment, then takes his hand and laces their fingers together. "I did say yes."

"I'm glad." Pascal grins and gently squeezes her hand. He turns when he sees the queen approach.

"The god will meet you now. He is rather excited to have a human here." Alyvia holds out a hand to Iki. "Come, come."

Iki takes a moment to breathe. Logically there was nothing to worry about. Yes, she was about to meet a god, but Pascal wouldn't have brought her here to die. She takes Alyvia's hand and stands. "I'm ready."