The Traveler camp wasn't quite what Harper expected. Granted, she didn't really know what to expect, but the reality of it was...different.
They were in the process of setting up two very different camps. The first, the "open to the public" version, as Drey dubbed it, looked straight out of a movie set. The vardos were ornately decorated wagons, some easily tall enough for Harper to stand up in, with wooden frames heavily decorated with carvings, and painted in all the colors of the rainbow—and in some colors Harper wasn't even positive officially existed in Nature. Mixed in amongst the wagons were tents of all sizes, colors, and shapes, and wagons and tents alike were situated around a large, open circle where some people were clearing out a fire pit.
Drey had explained that while vardos weren't "historically or period accurate," they were stereotypically associated with the British Romani, which, according to Drey, "Are a completely different ethnic group from the Irish Travellers, and we're not quite really either of those ourselves since we're Uncannies and all that, but for the purposes of the Ren Faires and the public, we just go with it. We don't even get too upset with the word gypsy, although I'd definitely try and avoid using that particular word for any Rom, Tinker, or Traveler, just to be on the safe side."
Trying not to gawk as they passed through the Faire Camp, they slowly walked along a small cobblestone path that led through a copse of trees that delineated the edge of the Fairegrounds and one of the Estate's permanent camp grounds and RV parks, where the Traveler's true camp was buzzing with just as much activity as the other.
"This is our main camp," Drey said, flashing Harper a small, amused grin. "It's not much, but it's home for the next few months."
The entire RV lot and campground was filled with a variety of RVs ranging from small, older models hooked to the back of old trucks, to new, top-of-the-line live-ins that rivaled high end trailers. Once more, tents of all sorts were being set-up around the camp, but unlike the ones in the Faire Camp, these were all a lot more modern and in a wider variety of designs, though the colors tended more towards the traditional blue, red, green, or gray.
Kids ran around, shrieking and playing games, going wild as they chased each other through the camp, under the watchful eye of a group of surprisingly muscular, if scruffy, young teenage guys and a couple of pretty girls, were occupied setting up still more tents.
Harper felt a tingle passing over her, through her, as she followed alongside Drey. There was old, potent magic throughout the camp, but despite the fact the camp was far from Harper's expensive (former) condo or the Llewellyn Plantation she had grown up in, she felt the energy surrounding and permeating the camp was oddly welcoming.
As the two wove through the organized chaos, Drey returned greetings but otherwise maintained her course, steadily leading Harper towards one RV in particular. It was one of the larger RVs, one that was a dark, deep indigo with glittery silver shooting stars and entire constellations painted along the side. There was even a huge rainbow-maned and winged unicorn—Pegicorn? Unipeg?—rearing up and prepared to leap into flight, straight out of a 70s album cover!
Using the head of her cane, Drey ratta-tat-tatted the RV's door and waited. And waited. Just as the shorter woman was lifting her cane in a white-fisted grip for another, harder, rapping though, the door was flung open with enough force it slammed against the RV’s side with the bang of a shotgun.
Everyone in the camp stopped at the bang and it fell silent; that weird silence, when even the wind seems afraid to whisper for fear of drawing attention from the rampaging beast.
Or in this case, the slender, tall woman who tumbled out of the RV wearing only a pair of boyshorts and an oversized black t-shirt with the neck and sleeves cut off, all revealing a startling amount of ivory skin.
Not pale Anglo-Saxon skin. Not even Irish pale skin. No, her skin was paper white and unblemished, which made the shock of wild, messy, seafoam blue hair all that much more startling as the woman shoved it back to reveal beautiful, aristocratic features, with a long, narrow nose, high cheekbones, and thin lips currently pursed in a scowl. Her eyes were a strange, nearly colorless blue, although they were currently bloodshot they were nearly glowing crimson as she glared at them.
“Oi, would ya’s quiet the fuck up? I’m trying to get a kip in and you know what I’m like when I don’t get my beauty sleep! Makes me pissy!”
Suddenly realizing she was the center of attention, not only for Harper and Drey, but for the whole, already silent camp, the woman jerked her attention towards the gawkers. Thrusting her chin up, she took an aggressive stance, and opened her mouth.
“Oi! Ya’s all need to quit yer squizzing ya fucks and get back to it!” She bellowed, and she had a set of powerful lungs on her, since Harper would bet she had been heard clear back at the Château!
Once she was satisfied the rest of the camp had returned to whatever they had been doing before, she turned back to face an exasperated Drey and a speechless Harper.
Harper squinted. Does her shirt say… Faebitches?
Yes, in bright, glittering script that shimmered iridescently across the woman’s chest, Faebitches.
Harper’s attention went back up as the pale woman drew herself up to her full height, though she was still a few inches shorter than Harper, and tried to assume a more dignified mien. Despite the boyshorts and t-shirt.
The woman cleared her throat and spoke in a more modulated voice as she met Drey’s pointed glare, “G’morn, Drey. Sorry, I got blind fucking drunk last night and whose this bitch? She’s a bit… shiny, ain’t she?”
Harper suddenly found herself under the intense scrutiny of the strange, pale woman, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Before she could interject, however, Drey put a restraining hand on Harper’s arm.
“Sorry for waking you up, Ash, but Harper here is having a wee bit of trouble with her magic, and we need to get it under some semblance of control before she draws the attention of the Sanctuary guardians,” Drey explained, her soft, lilting voice an odd counterpoint to Ash’s sharper accent.
Once more under intense scrutiny, it was Harper’s turn to draw herself upright with as much dignity as possible, as Ash walked around her, expecting her like a curious bug.
“Ah, righto. Well, she’s right witchy, that’s for sure,” Ash said thoughtfully, “But her magic is all twisted up.”
As Ash came around, she turned and met Harper’s level gaze. Harper found it oddly unsettling to meet Ash’s odd eyes, but she didn’t flinch. Too many years facing down judges for that.
“Do you know your bloodline?” Ash asked bluntly as she canted her head. “Or are you an orphan?”
Gasping in outrage, Harper glared. “I’m not an orphan! My fraternal lineage is Llewellyn and my matrilineal is Morgan.”
“Oooh, a Welshy, ain’t ya?” Ash laughed, shaking her head. “Well, that’s your damage then.” She waved a finger at Harper, “Morgans are natural witches, always have been and always will be, but if I remember correctly, the Llewellyns turned their back on all that and went ritualistic, all hoity toitty and proper. Two different styles entirely, and their mojo followed after.”
Waving her hand to indicate all of Harper, Ash continued, “So your problem is that you’ve been trying to tame a dingo, your Morgan blood, by making it act like a tea poodle, your Llewellyn side. And vice versa. You got two different magics in you, and they’re having a right go at each other. Instead of dealing with them, or getting them to work together though, you’ve probably been bottling them both up…and they’ve decided to chuck a sickie and leave you holding the proverbial tail.”
Harper wanted to object, but found that she couldn’t. Hellfire and damnation, she recognized the truth in even her two inner personalities, the Southern Belle and the Raging Bitch.
“But what set it off? Why now?” Harper found herself asking, only to be met by two sets of incredulous eyes.
“Do either of us look like fucking soothsayers?” Ash waved a finger between her and Drey. “I’m just a familiar whose fucking witch happens to be on walkabout and decided to drag me along.” Casting a glance at the RV she had emerged from, Ash narrowed her eyes and muttered, “Bludgie-bitch, sleep through the bloody apocalypse, she will.”
Hunh, now that was rather surprising. Familiars were supernaturals that mystical bound themselves to a witch in a symbiotic relationship that enabled them to share powers. It also allowed the witch to draw on greater power, without straining their own resources, while enabling the familiar to likewise draw on the witch’s innate magics. Unfortunately, during the Inquisition, many witches started forcibly enslaving familiars, turning the relationship parasitic instead of symbiotic, draining and discarding familiars in order to save themselves from the witch hunters. Few witch families could claim to have formed any familiar bonds in generations.
Supernaturals never forgot and rarely, if ever, forgave.
The witches had been left to fend for themselves during the Witch Hunts. Entire families had been slaughtered, bloodlines lost forever, and it was only in the last century or so that the witches had managed to earn a place once more in the supernatural communities in Europe and the Americas. Sadly, it was an often unspoken, and rarely acknowledged, fact that it was due in no small part to the Orisha, the “Sidhe” from Africa, and African-American practitioners of witchcraft and the occult, that the European witches had once more been able to practice more openly and be accepted.
Many believed it was the Hippy and New Age movements of the Sixties that allowed the witches to re-emerge, but that was only for the white communities and the American perception of Wicca and the Occult. The African and Hispanic witches had kept their own practices within their own communities, and had never been shunned by the supernatural community as a whole.
“Anyways,” Ash interrupted Harper’s introspective thoughts. “Once my witch wakes her lazy ass up, I’ll send her your way and see about getting you under proper control. ‘Til then, I suggest you figure out just what triggered your dingo and get that sorted.”
Glaring up at the early morning sun, crowning over the mountains and emerging from the clouds, Ash squinted and grumbled, “I’m going to catch some more sleep.” She waved a dismissive hand, “Be gone, foul creatures of the light.”
And just like that, Ash disappeared back into her RV—although this time she quietly closed the door—and she left the two women standing there, looking at each other in bewilderment.
Harper felt like she had been run through a gauntlet. This was so not how she had hoped her day would go. Rubbing her face, squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to gather her thoughts.
Oddly, instantly, her mind turned back towards those incredible, glowing blue eyes that had been haunting her dreams, the ones she had seen in the face of the most intimidatingly handsome man she had ever seen.
“Um, excuse us…” a soft voice came from behind Harper, catching her attention.
Dropping her hands, she turned to face the two teenage girls she had seen earlier. The boys they had been hanging out with were hanging back a distance, but the two girls, before her, were obviously sisters, and almost definitely twins. Same height, same build, same beautiful faces, same white-blonde hair, and the same intense blue eyes that were oddly familiar. Yet, they were dressed diametrically different. One could have passed for a younger version of Harper, a young fashionista who wasn’t afraid of the color pink and all the power it held over the male mind, while the other dressed more like a tomboy, in scruffy blue jeans and a purple hoodie.
The young fashionista looked at Harper’s outfit in approval, giving a nod and a wide smile as she flashed her sister a quick thumb’s up. The hoodie-wearing sister rolled her eyes and sighed gustily, but gave Harper an oddly sweet, shy grin.
“Sorry if we’re interrupting, but that guy over there,” she pointed towards a blessedly average-heighted and slender blond guy, who gave a wide grin and a friendly wave as attention turned his way, “Said that you might just be the true mate of our brother…”
Blinking rapidly, feeling oddly lightheaded, Harper could only manage a startled, “Um, hunh?”
Fishing out her phone, the hoodied sister quickly flicked through it, bringing up a picture that she showed Harper. Indeed, it was the big, burly Viking she had seen earlier, grinning at the camera and flanked by two men who could have been his clones, even if they all wore their hair and beards in different styles.
“Oh my,” Drey said with a muffled, but delighted, giggle, “I didn’t realize it was one of the Ulvfang boys! Which one?”
Mechanically, Harper reached up and pointed unerringly at the one in the center. “Him. He’s been…in my dreams…”
Squealing in delight, the young fashionista threw herself at Harper in a surprisingly fierce hug. “Yes! Finally! Finally!”
Drawing back, grabbing Harper’s hands and bouncing like a kid in the proverbial candy shop, the young fashionista gushed, “I’m Tanja, this is Sanja. That’s Bard, one of our big brothers! We’re so happy to meet you! It’s about time one of them found his true mate and settled down, and you’re beautiful! And know how to dress! And are a girly-girl like me! O-M-Double Gee! You’re my new best friend forever! You’ll actually go shopping with me and know what you’re doing!”
“Tanja, breathe,” Sanja said laconically, giving another eye roll as she tried to pry her sister off of Harper. “Sorry about this. My guess is she’s just excited someone will actually speak Prada with her.”
“Wait…why aren’t you with Bard, if you found each other?” Tanja finally allowed Sanja to pull her away, looking up at Harper with confusion. “True mates are usually all over each other, and tend to disappear quite often. Why are you here?”
“Your father nearly went berserker on Harper when she met them this morning,” Drey interjected, her tone laced with considerable amusement. “Something to do with her being a witch.”
Tanja growled, a surprisingly deep, guttural, and fierce sound that shocked everyone. “Oh Hel no! He’s not going to ruin this for me!”
“Uh…don’t you mean for ruin this for Bard?” Sanja interjected, looking at her twin in amused disgust.
Stamping a foot, Tanja grabbed Harper’s hand and began to physically drag her away, back towards the Fairegrounds. “Whatever! Harper, come on. I’m going to fix this, you’re going to mate and marry my brother, and we’re going to be happy! Dammit!”
With a last, helpless glance at Drey, who shrugged and made a shooing gesture, Harper suddenly found herself surrounded by teenagers and hurried off, apparently to meet her mate properly.
The trip back to the Fairegrounds, and towards Harper’s shoppe and the smithy, went quicker when led by a teenage werewolf on a mission. During the jaunt, Tanja filled the air with chatter, describing her family, the Ulvfang Pack in excruciating if amusing detail, the Lodge, her favorite fashion designers and Houses, and whatever crossed her mind at the particular moment. She apparently had no filters, at all.
Her twin would interject or clarify occasionally, but seemed more content to just act as an escort, keeping a watchful eye out, while the teenaged boys seemed just as content to bring up the rear.
Soon enough, they were walking up the path towards the shoppes, and Harper could feel her heart start to race, her hands growing clammy as they approached. She was about to object, to try one last time for a graceful exit, when she saw him step out of the shadows of his smithy, tugging off his shirt as he spoke with someone still inside.
In that moment, Harper understood the meaning of the term enraptured. Enthralled. The interplay of muscles along his spine as he raised his huge arms over his head, that narrow waist that flared out to a pair of strong thighs, those impossibly broad and thickly muscled shoulders. But honestly? As beautiful as all that lightly tanned flesh and muscle looked, it was the sound of his laughter that made something inside of her melt.
When he turned towards them, his bearded face split in a wide grin, those blue eyes flashing brilliantly even in the light of day, her heart raced even faster. When her steps faltered, Tanja tugged on her hand once more while Sanja grabbed her other hand, completely preventing any hope for escape.
Granted, it might have also been the sight of that massive chest, pectoral muscles glistening with sweat that seemed to catch and reflect light like carefully positioned diamonds as they traced tantalizing trails down over his torso, that also kept Harper from running away. But whatever, she was going to cling to the excuse of the twins, even if she admitted the truth only to herself.
“Come on, Harper, you’ve got to actually meet our brother! Well, one of them at least. The other two are probably roaming around here somewhere, but you don’t want to meet them anyways,” Tanja said without missing a beat.
In a nonchalant voice, Sanja added, “And don’t worry about our dad. He’s just old and grumpy. Mom uses a spray bottle or a rolled-up newspaper when he gets too bad.”
What finally broke through Harper’s hesitation, however, was the look in Bard’s eyes. When he looked at her through the long, flaxen strands of his hair, she could see the raw emotions on his expressive face. She didn’t see the feral ferocity she had seen on his father’s face. Instead, she saw…hope, need, and a bone-deep fear of being rejected.
She had seen those expressions before. Never directed at her, but shared between her parents. Half-forgotten memories swam briefly through her mind, but she shook them off and focused on the here and now.
Drawing herself up, Harper approached him. “Um, hello again. I’m afraid we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.” She held out her hand and met his gaze. “I’m Harper Llewellyn, and I think you might just be my annwyl…”
He glanced briefly down at her hand before he snapped his eyes back up to meet hers. Hesitantly, slowly, he reached up and took her hand in both of his. His huge hands were heavily calloused, but exquisitely gentle as he cradled her hand like the most delicate glass.
His voice was rough, raw, as he cleared his throat and spoke, his rich, husky voice sending a delightful shiver through her. “Hello, my Harper…I am Bårdr Roarson Ulvfang, and I have no doubt that you are my mate.”