Border, KS

“You can’t destroy Border.” Morgan answered simply, shaking her head. “It’s fixed, it has to be. You might as well talk about destroying continents, or Faerie itself. I’m not saying you’re lying,” She allowed with a wave of her hand, “But that doesn’t mean it’s actually possible.”

The Earl shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t have thought it was possible either, your Majesty.” He agreed, and Walter had to blink and shake his head at the use of the unfamiliar title. It didn’t seem to fit in a room that was still fairly mundane, despite the mostly exploded table and all of the other weird things he had seen in the Border Police Department.

“Is a Faerie Queen a Majesty?” Walter asked wryly. “I’m surprised the title isn’t ‘Serene Highness’ or ‘Most Radiant Queen’.” He offered with a grin toward her. Morgan simply quirked an eyebrow at him, hiding her smirk as she shrugged.

“Maybe we can expand my titles when we get back, although I seem to remember that even I was bored when they read all my silly titles.” Morgan responded, before she looked back to the Earl. “So how is it that father dearest expects that he can destroy the Border?”

Walter noted her use of the definite article in the sentence again, and filed it away to discuss later. His file to discuss later, he thought, was getting impressively long. And some day, he thought wryly, I’ll have all the answers I want. And unicorns will fly out of the sky and take me to freedom. That caused him to snort, which drew looks from both the Earl and Morgan. “Nothing. You were saying?”

The Earl looked like he was going to sneer, but then he looked back to Morgan and apparently decided better of it. “Ki…er…Oberon,” he corrected on the fly, “Believes you’ve denied him his birthright by banishing him from Faerie. Regardless of whether he is right,” He said, holding up a hand to forestall an obvious argument coming from Morgan, “that is what he believes. And more than anything, besides punishing his daughters, he wants to re-enter the lands of his birth.”

“He did,” Morgan pointed out wryly, “Wage a war to that effect. We rather suspected that it was the case. But how does he expect to do it? He has been banished from the borders, exiled from the entrances, sent from the seas, et cetera et cetera.” She said in her best Yul Brynner. “It was a very thorough invocation, precisely because we didn’t want him to be able to come back in. If we were binding it in our blood and bone then we wanted to make damn sure it worked.”

The Earl nodded with a sigh. “Yes, I’m aware of that. Trust me, we looked for loopholes for a very long time, your Majesty—it was properly thorough. I always respected that.” He pointed out self-servingly. Morgan did not smile or look proud, instead continuing to stare at him evenly in an an increasingly awkward silence until he continued. “But he believes he found the way.”

“And?” Walter prompted. The Earl glared at him, and Walter gave him his best ‘go screw yourself’ smile. “Cut the theatrics, or I and any constitutional protections we’ve decided you have walk out the door, and I let Morgan relieve some frustration.”

The Earl looked like he was torn between glaring and terror, and settled for glarror where he tried to manage both and failed miserably. He wilted a little bit as he looked at Morgan. “You’ve banished him from every corner of Faerie, so he plans to try to move Faerie. If he moves Faerie, then the corners you’ve banished him from no longer exist. And he will be free.”

Morgan stared at him once again in silence, but this time it was shock rather than anger or an interrogation technique. She radiated disbelief, as if she was trying to come up with the words for how insane that was. Walter didn’t know if it was insane, of course, because he had next to no idea what they were actually talking about.

“That’s impossible.” Morgan manage to settle on after a little bit. Almost immediately she gave Walter a glare, to keep him from saying anything about a Faerie Queen declaring something impossible. “That can’t be done. Faerie is fixed, relative to the Border—and the Border is a fixed space that defines the territories around it. It is bound…” She trailed off, as her mind ran ahead and she thought through different variables.

“It is bound, your Majesty.” The Earl emphasized. “Faerie controls the Border and vice versa, and you know that because you made it so. Of all the realms, it is most closely tied to ours—and that tie goes both ways.” The Earl explained. “As one is set, so is the other. As one is malleable, so is the other.”

Morgan stared at him in horror, and then stood up quickly. “Damn him, damn him to the Blight and back!” She cursed angrily, storming toward the door. “He’s more insane than I thought if he thinks he can make it work, and either way it will kill hundreds of thousands of people. Humans, and our people alike!” She almost shouted now as she moved to tear the door open.

Walter stood up and bolted to follow her out in to the hallway, where they were joined by William Alexander, Andre, and Leah. “Morgan, what the hell does he mean?” Walter asked, calling out to her as he jogged to keep up. “Stop ninja-ing out of here and talk to us!” He reached her, and put a hand on her shoulder.

Morgan spun, and her eyes were wide with fear and anger. Walter pulled his hand back away, and stared at her in shock. He had never seen her so bothered, or so scared. “Walter…I know what he’s doing now, and it’s terrifying. It’s dumb, and worse, it might work.”

“What is it?” Walter asked.

“On the night of the winter solstice, my father is going to slam Faerie down right on top of Border, and make himself ruler of whatever survives.”