Solstice Hibernation

[The Spider]

Each day that passed the Call throbbed inside of Spider relentless like a migraine.  Unlike a migraine it wasn't isolated to her head.  If only the coming of Solstice was as easy to weather as that.  Monday was the day and she felt its approach raging through every sinew of her body.  Each Summer Solstice, the day when the sun blazed for its longest in the sky, the power of the Summer Court of Faerie was at its greatest strength.  Until midnight passed, and the tables were turned into the hands of the Winter Court as nights grew slowly longer and longer.
 
When Solstice passed the call of her Mother's blood would mercifully wane.  Until Winter Solstice, Summer would be the weaker of the two Fae Courts.  A cause for celebration come Tuesday.  But that fact gave little solace to Spider now.  These days were ones when the Fae within wanted to rip free and claim the full of her body, mind and spirit.  When she could feel her Mother, Summer Queen that Will Be, as if she were folded within her sweet honied arms.
 
Temptation.  Promise of power.  Of pleasure.  Of enchanting freedom.
Demand.  The call of service.  Of duty.  Of loyalty to the Summer Queens.
 
This is what Summer Solstice was made of for ones like Carolyn Margrette LeFey.  For changelings such as she, the longer they waited to make the Choice between their two halves the more maddening the call of the Fae became.  It was why most changelings made their choice by the end of their teens.  The stalwart who resisted were most often pushed into choosing by the solstices.  The pressure was too great.  Spider herself had learned the hard way almost a century ago that solstice power was too much to ignore, block or resist.
 
Yet she was a hundred and twenty-one.  One of the oldest changelings alive.  Spider owed this to one simple fact:  she knew the worth of fairy tales.  Sleeping Beauty had provided her with the epiphany almost a hundred years ago and the method had yet to fail her.  Each year for three days (the two days prior and the Summer Solstice itself) Spider put herself to deep, dreamless sleep.  A level of sleep that couldn't be achieved, maintained and guarded without the help of a potion.
 
This particular potion was the application of ten recently obtained ingredients.  All purchased from Madeline the same night Spider met that infernal creature passing itself off as a cat.  If Jamison knew Spider used rat poison in a potion she yearly ingested he'd likely have words for her.  Fortunate that he didn't know.  Estranged these past hundred years as they were Father didn't know of her yearly hibernation from Solstice either.  That bit she would change.
 
As the potion brewed at least an hour away from completion, bare feet crossed the public hall of the first floor long enough to slip a letter underneath Jamison's door.  It was straightforward:  "Father, Until Solstice has passed I will be in hibernation.  During this time I am unable to be roused.  Do not bother trying."  The signature underneath was a conflicted mess.  Hard to decipher, if his eyes used their imagination he would see the scribble of joined script read 'Carolyn'.  The first time she'd signed her birth name to anything in a very, very long time. At least he would know it was truly penned by her hand. For who else knew her given name? Mother. Here, no one else.
 
Spider returned immediately to her room.  The seconds spent in the warm hallway were temptation enough. She was already flush with a hot sweat. Her silver-pink complexion glowed with Summer's hum, and was dusted with the burnt orange Fae which came from her on these occasions when Mother's blood dominated. Honey-bright eyes shone, pupils tunnels of gold which dilated much like a feline's. And her hair, long gone was the black dye. The shocking holly red of her natural color had taken over and would not be suppressed. None of it would. Her lot was difficult enough without lingering in this hallway with the itch to run down the stairs and out the front door to the garden.

Door was shut and locked.  Her usual wards efficiently cast.  Then to her circle. "Liggen." The command sealed its power with an audible pop.  She had no business inside of it besides a labored unfocused attempt at meditation.  Circles were Wizard's business.  Being inside of hers made the voice and power of that blood stronger.  Helped to quiet the din currently caused by Summer's cry.  Eyes tightly closed she put all her attention on the sound of her breath.  Each time she exhaled she uttered a word.  "LeFey."  Dedicating what strength she could to her Father's line inside of her.
 
It was the first time she'd ever tried such a thing.  In years past she'd rather spit Father's name than invoke it for balance.  Now she could feel the repetition drawing on his nearness.  Reminding her of the mark so freshly inked on his chest.  The crest visualized in her mind with the resolve of a fortress.  The resulting aid of cool ease ironically knotted her stomach.  Reminding her that she still wasn't comfortable with her and Jamison's newfound...reality.  As the saying goes - once bitten, twice shy.  So it was with Spider when it came to Father and his past actions and opinions which had caused her old, deep, and bitter pains.
 
Could Father feel her doing this?  As surely as she could feel his power close?  She wouldn't let herself linger on that thought.  Only the crest, the repetition, the comfort of her circle.  Only an hour longer, and she would have the familiar quiet of the potion's dark sleep to protect her as she was accustomed to.