Thread: To Trap a Fae (TrystexRetro)

Sometimes, men are brutish, uncouth creatures that never give a thought beyond their own pleasures. Sometimes, they are anything but...capable of great artistry, able to outsmart the Gods themselves. Arminius liked to think himself one of the latter. Named after a hero of his people that had crushed the might of Rome's legions in his grandfather's grandfather's time, he hoped to channel just a bit of his namesake's cunning this day. The Sidhe had been especially active in the Teutonenburgen Wald, the forbidden forest not far from his house, and more than one young man had gone missing when he was out picking hunting, more than one maiden deflowered by Sidhe warriors when she was collecting mushrooms. The elders had forbidden anyone to enter the forest for the time being, in an effort to prevent any more trouble till the Sidhe could be placated. Arminius was too clever for that, of course, and intended to take advantage of the Fae court's turbulence. He had convinced the blacksmith to stretch him a piece of bronze wire ten feet long and thin as a maiden's hair, then solder the ends together with the finest tin so there was no risk of it breaking. A silver needle was forged next, and then an iron one. The iron one was taken to the wise woman of the village, along with back ink mixed with the essence of the mandrake root and wolfs bane, together with just a drop of oil from what was known as Fae's throne, a mushroom that gave men wild hallucinations before killing him. Mixing all of these with the iron needle, she used a stick to tap the back of the needle, driving the mixture into his skin. What was left behind when she was finally finished was a pentagon inside of a star inside of a circle, each line with carefully written symbols in both the old tongue, that which was said to be passed down from Odin himself, as well as the Roman's way of writing, calling on the protection of the Gods to strengthen the circle. At last, he was ready. He gathered up a loaf of bread, unbroken, together with a skin of milk and a smaller one of honey, and went into the forbidden forest with all three. He searched for an unbroken fairy ring of mushrooms, where the fae would be sure to return, and carefully laid down the bronze wire like a circle around it. A drop of the leftover ink together with a drop of his blood, extracted with the silver pen knife, linked the nearly invisible bronze circle to the tattoo on his back, which in turned linked whatever was trapped there to him. He squeezed a bit more of his blood into the base of the bread, and a bare drop into the milk, before carefully lifting his father's torc from around his neck and laying it beside the three other traditional offerings for the fae. No lesser fae would be willing to touch such a powerful offering, with so many emotions left embedded in the gold from being worn by three generations of men in times of happiness and despair. No, it would summon one of the Lords of the fae to it. He carried not a piece of iron on him to irritate their senses, nor had any been used to make the bronze circle, so he could only hope that it wouldn't trip the Sidhe's senses as he settled into wait, huddling beneath the heavy woolen cloak that he wore.