Winter is coming.  It's getting chillier and chillier outside and
the leaves have long turned to brown and fallen like angels to the earth.
The streets seemed to be dirty despite the rain the night before, and it's
Saturday morning.  I want a cup of coffee and a warm talk so I went to
meet Joey Russo at the diner like always on Saturdays.  Maybe my problem
is I'm getting into too much of  a routine.  But I so love this place.
Black and white tile floor and a jukebox sitting in the corner.  Damn
Whirlitzer sometimes doesn't play the song you ask it too, but always
manages to find the right song for your mood.  Whirley says that's what he
was dreamed for.  That and to hold that little bit of the balefire we call
our own here.
	I go put a gold coin in, calling up Yesterday by The Beatles.  A
piece called Heaven Can Wait, sung by Meat Loaf, greets my ears.  Whirley
gives me that sardonic grin of his.  And just being so near the balefire
is enough to take a little bit of the old out of my bones.  I soak up the
music for a moment, letting it caress my ears and trace a slivery path
over  my body.
	Voices call to me from behind the counter.  I glance back over my
shoulder to see the owner known as Adria McAlister to the more mundane
customers.  Some also know her as the boggan Adrianna dan McAlister,
former chef to the Sidhe nobility.  She cooks in this little spot of
paradise in her seeming, while Joey takes care of the more knick-knackish
stuff around the freehold.  Pretty much how things have always been.  They
watch the place for the Seelie Court, and looking for any stray Sleepers
amongst the college crowd.  
	Beside her is a friend of mine, working her odd hours to pay her
way through school.  Melody is a girl with one of the cutest blushes I've
ever had the pleasure of causing.  What else are you suppose to do to a
music major named Melody?  Still there is always a bit of a cat about her,
and she is more than adept at toying back with the odd prank and flirting
wink.  I think it is the similarities that make us get along so well.
Sometimes I wonder how'd she feel if she could see the ears.  
	I trot over to the counter and greet her with one of my best
smiles.  She smiles back and pours me a cup of coffee like usual.  The
warm bitter liquid is welcome this morning.  A mix of Columbian and
Brazilian beans by the taste of it.  Likely one of those semi-gourmet
brands that the better restaurants use that tastes pretty fair, and better
than usual.  At least to the other costumers.  I can almost taste the hard
work of the people who farmed the beans; the hope they have for their
children as they work to give their families a better life, or the despair
of another day in the nightmare of poverty.  I wrap my fingers around the
cup, drinking deeply then inhaling the smell like the perfume of a
returned lover.  A sigh escapes me and Adrianna glances over at me before
going back to her stove in the kitchen.  Melody giggles slightly as she
heads towards another customer waving over his newspaper.  
	The front page is just visible from my seat at the counter.
Something about more military actions being taken in Europe; another about
an anthrax scare at an NYC hospital.  I wonder where innocence and
laughter has gone these days.  Even as these thoughts pass through my
head, I notice a group of teenagers heading past the window, out and about
early.  Dressed in black, shirts proclaiming death and betrayal via the
bands they listen to, I remember that Winter is coming.  Almost easy to
forget that as one sits in these last few places of Glamour.
	A jangle of pots and pans jars me back to Banality for a moment.
I hear Adrianna shout an order to exit the kitchen immediately, and give
Joey a grin as he rushes out as fast as his short legs will carry him.  He
skids to a halt in front of me and then walks around the counter to sit
beside me.  All the while giving a sheepish grin of regret.  
	"I knocked over a big stack of them while looking at the gas line
on the stove."
	I shake my head and take another sip of my coffee.  Melody comes
around the counter and refills my cup.  She then pours him one as well.
She gives us a sidelong glance, then seems to understand this will be a
private conversation for a few moments. 
	"I like that one.  Quick on the uptake, you know.  Might want to
think about using that charm of yours to seal the deal."  Joey face plays
innocent.  
	"A nice enough thought, but I don't think she can take the ears.
Besides, I'm still recovering from the last one."
	"Aren't you always?" He says with a hint of laughter in his voice.  
	I stare into my cup and watch the thin steam swirl away from it
for a moment before taking another sip.  He has me over the proverbial
barrel and he knows it.  Maybe I just give my heart away to easy, or maybe
I just am willing to fall head over heels whenever the time comes and I
find it coming often these last few years.  I don't tell anyone else that
I think I'm scared.  I'm scared of being alone.  I'm scared of losing that
last touch of Glamour and passion when Banality finally sinks in.  I'm
scared of Winter.  
	"We're losing, you know?"  It is the only reply I can give to him.  
"I know." He pauses in reflection before continuing.  "Look at Melody.
She wants to believe in something, something wild and untamed like the
stories she read as a child.  She wants to sing it and make it real again
and bring meaning back into music like there once was.  But she can't
believe any more and she can't bring the Dreaming into her songs.  She
can't see us for what we are unless we force her, and she'll forget soon
enough. They always forget because humanity has forgotten.  They don't
dream anymore.  They don't know how."
	"They're killing themselves."  Rarely have I ever heard his voice
take on such a bittersweet tinge.  "Bit by bit and splinter by splinter,
they are killing themselves, and they are taking us with it.  I know.  You
can see it every time a paper is delivered in the morning with more bad
news.  Every shooting in the street, every mugging and assault.  Even the
redcaps know it, that deep down inside the people have come to expect to
be terrorized, killing the dark Glamour that passion once invoked.  No one
believes that a real leader can come forward anymore, bringing with him a
better life for his followers, so the nobles are left posturing behind
outdated ideals.  We're dying, my boy.  Winter might not be coming; it
might already be here. We are just too stupid and stubborn to realize it." 
	"So what does that mean?"  My voice carries a bit more than I
intended, earning me a disquieting look from Melody.  My frustration
continues in a whisper soft as a sluagh's tread, around a sip of coffee.
"Are we just fighting for lost causes?  Are innocence�creativity�beauty
really that dead in this world?"
	He takes a swallow of his coffee and looks at me, then past me to
a better place and time.  "I remember sometimes, a moment caught from a
long time ago that made it past the Mists, of what we once were.  I
remember this moment; I see this Sidhe noble leading her troll guards down
upon the redcap bandits attacking a small village in her barony.  Back in
that one moment, back when we were known to be real and we could be seen
if you looked sideways into the night.  She came riding down on a pale
horse, fire coming from its hooves as the trolls took arms beside her.  I
can't remember the fight, though I know she won the day and rescued human
and fae alike.  But all I can see is that one moment, when the fading
sunlight made her armor glow as red as the hats worn by her foes, when the
white horse screamed with her in a cry of war, when the trolls honor oaths
made them take up arms to defend the weak, and they saved my forge and my
wife.  Back in the day when we were real, not a delusion of a sick mind."
	"That's what's missing, my friend.  Those moments when faerie tale
can still collide with what humans think the world is and redefine their
reality.  They are too closed off to realize that the old tales that are
fiction and children's stories to them are history to us.  And there may
not be anything we can do about it except board up in the freeholds and
try to hold out as long as possible.  We survived over 600 years as
changelings once without all of us becoming undone.  Maybe we can hold out
again.  I don't know.  We aren't fighting anymore, and we sure as the
Dreaming can't afford to lose."
	His words ring into the hollowness I feel.  It seems easy to
forget myself and settle into a more mundane life.  To leave behind the
ears and singing and become a responsible adult.  But that would risk
losing myself to the world outside, risk forgetting my faerie heritage.
That doesn't appeal to me, to lose that precious bit of myself that has
been one of the few things to sustain me through life. Nor does the
alternative appear appealing; to gather up as much Glamour as possible and
try to bunk out in the freeholds, fighting off the madness that sometimes
seizes the grumps isn't much of a life either.  I sit and I despair, not
seeing any solution for myself or the Kith.
	The small bell above the door jangles, interrupting our silent
contemplation.  A young mother walks in, another battle-scarred veteran of
this world at the tender age of 19.  Hard to keep up the age illusion when
your outside is 22 and your inside can sometimes remember a cold night
warmed by a lover in the woods over three hundred years ago.  The small
carrier is a bit dirty, speaking of a second hand nature and well used
during its many days of service.  Loving those in it, it's become a bit of
the Dreaming itself, a temporary chimera destined to die when it finally
becomes too broken down and is thrown away into the trash heap.  I look at
the poor dream and feel a slight sorrow creep further into my old bones.
So few of even those left, and so many destined towards melting away
without anyone but us to mark their passing.
	The young mother smiles nervously as she notices me watching.  I
know it is rude of me, but I guess part of the ears and the horns is being
able to appreciate the beauty around me.  Even in this, a young mother
likely unwedded and struggling day to day, there is some beauty to muse
upon.  Doesn't matter too much, because she naturally goes into some small
talk.  It is human nature to babble when they are nervous.  Ask any pooka.
Joey looks at me as she sits at the counter, an unreadable expression.
	"She likes it here.  I don't know why.  She wouldn't quit crying
the other night.  It was driving me crazy and I needed to get out, but I
couldn't leave her.  So I thought that maybe going for a walk would be
okay, calm her down or something.  I live two streets over.  I remembered
passing by this place once or twice and thought I could at least see if it
was open and get a coke or something while she wore herself out.  As soon
as I walked in, she started to calm down.  Just like that.  She was
screaming, then hears Elvis on that jukebox and decides to shut up.  I
can't stand Elvis, so naturally that has to be the only thing that puts
her sleep when she is cranky."  She continues in the usual manner as she
sits beside me, getting an early morning cup of coffee as she continues
the job hunt.  I know this is entirely the wrong thing to be doing, so
naturally I look inside the carrier.
	She is smiling.  I know it.  She is looking right past me into the
real self and she is smiling.  I look into those bright blue eyes and can
see the world looking back.  Her eyes are laughing.  I think she finds the
horns extremely interesting, which isn't that bad, but she doesn't have to
be that damn tickled by them.  Her cheeks are red from laughing to
herself, not from crying today.  She can hear Whirley.  She wasn't
listening to Elvis; she was listening to Whirley hum old Arcadian tunes to
himself as he passed the time.
	Mom has gotten some small breakfast, courtesy of a quick word to
Melody from Joey.  She is smiling undecidedly, still a little too proud
for charity and knowing she desperately needs the help.  I can see through
her for a split second as the sun peaks out from behind a cloud and
streams inside the diner.  I see her back when she was a child, back in
those two or three days when she thought anything was possible, even
faeries, back before the hitting started.  As my gaze shifts from the
mother to the daughter, I know that all the kindness and hope she has left
in the world is staring at the rainbow tiles only some can see adorning
the ceiling.  
 	Joey is right.  We can't afford to lose.

Finished rough draft at 12:41 AM, September 8, 1999
First Edit 11:18 PM, September 11, 1999

Based on Changeling: The Dreaming, developed by Ian Lemke for White Wolf
Publishing.