okay, so totally ignore my bad latin because i did it through google translate rather than actually getting my latin books out and killing myself over conjugation and declension
i’m not sure who the narrator is right now? i think it’s persis because that would make sense since she’s an archivist(-in-training). I’LL LET Y’ALL KNOW AS I FIGURE IT OUT.
So—let’s start at the beginning.
There’s this place—a place that the people that live in the Euigilans Somnium don’t necessarily believe exists despite the fact that it is prevalent in their cultures, that they’ve seen glimpses of it with their own eyes, that they occasionally fall through the In-Between and find themselves in it—a place called The Glittering Venery.
Really, it’s usually just called the Venery, but ya know, introductions and full, proper designations seem a thing that should be here, at the beginning.
The people that live in the Euigilans Somnium call the Venery a number of things: The Hidden World, Seelie Courts, Unseelie Courts, the Never-Never, the Gothic, Liminality, The Shining Throne, The Golden Ones, The Summer Court, The Winter Court, The Otherworld, Fairyland, Realm of the Fay—
There are a lot of potential names. Really, it’s quite embarrassing. And, these are only a few of the names that only a few culture of the Euigilans Somnium have bestowed upon the Venery—and, some of the more kind. More often than not, the denizens of the Venery carry the less beatific name of demon, and that just isn’t true. The denizens of the Venery are not demons—okay, some of them veer in that direction—they’re mischiefs and tricksters, forces of nature, guardians of things that the Euigilans Somnium don’t even remember (or care about) anymore.
The denizens of the Venery are—necessary.
And, really, the Euigilans Somnium do have some of the things about the Venery correct—if not their actual alignment and abilities and intentions.
The Venery is, in fact, divided into a Summer/Seelie Court—to use the Euigilans Somnium colloquial—and a Winter/Unseelie Court; however, the Summer/Seelie Court and the Winter/Unseelie Court are divided into two more Courts: the Court of Miracles, the Court of Dreams, the Court of Calamities, and the Court of Nightmares. Each Court roughly corresponds to an Element, a Direction, and a Season, yet not in the ways in which the Euigilans Somnium expect or have supposedly cataloged: the Court of Miracles corresponds to the East, to the Aether/Air, and to Spring and is ruled by the First Unkindness of House Halkyon; the Court of Dreams corresponds to the South, to the Flame/Fire, and to Summer and is ruled by the Prima Princeps of the Eira Parcel; the Court of Nightmares corresponds to the West, to the Deep/Water and is ruled by the Principle Flutter of the Quille Shoal; and the Court of Calamities corresponds to the North, to the Metal/Earth, and to Winter and is ruled by the Oppositional Parliament from the Pius Flock.
And, while the Courts are not in conflict with each other, there is a certain amount of animosity that occurs because politics and old grudges, the nature of sentience and the nature of diametrically opposed—well, everything.
(Some of it is straight up prejudice. Some of it is more insidious.)
But, the tried and true methods are the ones by which the Courts keep the peace: they raise—I’m sorry, foster—each other’s children and arrange marriages between them.
Seriously, if you’ve ever wondered where the Euigilans Somnium got these ideas, blame the Venery. (Really, so many weirdly archaic practices originate with the Venery that it’s kind of ridiculous.)
As if this weren’t enough to bungle everything up for the younger generations of the Venery, it’s also expected that these Scions of the Venery go out into the Euigilans Somnium world and learn about them and live amongst them so that, in the fullness of time when they take their Courts and their Thrones (or Roosts or whatever), they will be able to responsibly effect and affect the Euigilans Somnium world.
Yeah, no pressure at all.
tentacle-made studios 