Istharé was fuming! She and her coven were not to pursue the escapees, the Candeliana #Witch Brin and the probable #Oakenling. If it was being done at all, she wasn't advised of it. The hierarchy believed that Istharé had bungled the job, and if boredom was the worst punishment in store for her, she could count herself lucky. But, yes, oh yes, Istharé was not pleased! - #TwilightRealm and it's inhabitants belong to @LadyLeaf.
Sometimes she went months without seeing him, and then Isthare would feel a sudden yen for his company, and would spend several weeks alone with him except for duties she couldn't avoid. Ooneil seemed equally pleased with this arrangement. It was more unusual for him to come to her, as he was understandably leery of conscious folk, but the Witch and the Fae had somehow become... a couple. If they didn't trust each other quite implicitly enough for names, yet, they were each other's secrets.
Isthare didn't know exactly what had motivated her to investigate, and then after she had seen the Lyllu just as he slipped out, to await his return and meet him. She'd thought it was a whim, simple curiosity, but one doesn't camp out for four days based on an idle impulse. Ooneil, of course, had known her fairly well by the end of three nights of exploring her dreams, and been willing to encounter her in the waking world, or she would probably have been driven away by personalized nightmares.
Placing her hand on the door stretched like a cobweb between two giant oaks, she said, "It's me." And the portal swung open into a place that was not entirely real, but utterly desirable. Isthare stepped inside, closing the door behind her. He was a Lyllu, a Fae dream manipulator, and she... cared for him. The Dark Witch hadn't given him her name, but then she didn't know his, either. He went by Ooneil. It had been some years since she first stumbled upon this threshold deep in the forest.
She needed to get her thoughts in order, to focus, to use what had happened to make herself stronger... she needed sleep. Isthare was tired, exhausted from constantly staying sharp, fierce, always one step ahead. Yet it was the only life she knew, and it was not a bad one, all things considered. It was just that sometimes, on days like today, she very much wanted what only he could offer her: the Fae Dream. Therefore, because she was favored enough to know where to look, she sought him out.
It was humiliating to be beaten by a woman who never cast a single spell, to be beaten when the odds were thirteen to two in her favor, to be beaten at all, actually! Was she not, at 245, one of the youngest High Mistresses, rewarded for having discovered a way to spy on people who were otherwise shielded by calling up the image of their shadows in a black "mirror"? Isthare had seen by this very method the evidence of Brin escorting a man in a Hunter's uniform across into the Twilight Realm.
