Now, dear reader, put yourself in Handy's boots for the time being. For the most part, on the sheer balance of things, he'd been having, for lack of a better word, a rather excellent week. Plenty of chances to blow off steam in a violent manner? Check. Time off duty? Check. Petty vengeance on a smarmy princely bastard? Check and check. Then, in the course of a single day, he lost his favourite cloak, which was literally the best cloak, he got axed in the back, and got a close and personal experience of what it was like to be dying slowly and painfully. He also got a better appreciation of how easy it could be for his vampiric nature to outright usurp control of his body... or drive him mad with fear. Which meant he was long overdue for a good hard look in the mirror in his near future about exactly what he was, which he was not looking forward to. He had the shit thoroughly kicked out of him, by a wizard no less, magic resistant armour be damned. And now he was in the middle of God only knows where, hopefully only miles away from festival grounds where, you know, all of his money and goods were. And his friends and his king had no fucking idea where he was. He had his freedom of thought and action subjourned by agreeing to a fae spell he had tied himself to in order to safeguard Crimson's release so that his one and only sure link to the Mistress and her magicks, which he needed now more than ever, wasn't lost to him. And now... Now, the person responsible for that last addition to the shitheap that thoroughly ruined Handy's mood was tittering at him like a schoolgirl.