The Courts

 There's a difference between the Western Courts and the Eastern Courts that's like comparing dogs with cats. They're both wonderful animals when domesticated and beautiful to look at when wild. Dangerous and deadly in their own ways but very clearly distinct animals that are different in more ways than they are the same but their similarities are definitely there.

In the Western Courts they don't think of Humanity as a threat yet, despite looking at the rest of the planet and the big cities. We're still a nuisance. A plague, sure, but not actually dangerous. How could we be? We're only Human, after all. We're just playthings and if they decided tomorrow to wipe us out it would be over in an instant.

The Eastern Courts know better. They've been through too much. Individually Humans are playthings, sure. Sometimes even in groups. But stir up too much trouble and the east coast humans somehow still remember and react. They come out with their iron and their electronics. They still believe on the east coast. They have no choice because the forests speak and the night whispers. There's something in the air that the humans react to.

Maybe the difference is the humans themselves. West coast humans hold fewer beliefs - perhaps something about the spirit that brought the white people out there in the first place. They don't hear the Old Words or the wind. When the night howls most of them are too busy with their own lives to shiver and recoil, remembering the old ways to protect themselves. When too many of them disappear they put it down to human interference.

On the east coast there are too many whose blood still remember that there are threats out there that can't be stopped by thin walls and wavering lights. That when people start disappearing off the streets or children go missing it's not always because of the interference of other people.

The Courts are different. But they'll catch you up in their webs if you're in their area just the same. Gladly and gleefully they'll suck the essence from your spirit, quickly or over a hundred years, then discard you, broken and drained.

Whether they're wild or slightly more tame doesn't matter. They'll take you in, break you, and spit you out.

Don't mess with the Courts, wherever it is you are. You don't need to know them and you don't want them to know you.