The Fey Child

Member created stories, poems, & other creative work.
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Peter_Abelard
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Posts: 335
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:42 am

The Fey Child

Post by Peter_Abelard »

The Fey Child

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
- W.B.Y.
Character arcs are sharp, pointy little things. A little blood may spill!

Now Playing: Luva Si'nede, Olivus Angustian
Past Characters: Valyar Floshin, Sarenna Irithyl, Millicent Riverstone, Dev Revels, Catarina Helms, Fenris Estelmer, Arryn Temple, Penrose Hawke, Kara Ravensfell, Arana Belecthor
Peter_Abelard
Gelatinous Cube
Posts: 335
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:42 am

Re: The Fey Child

Post by Peter_Abelard »

Encumbrance

She was crouching.

Folded in the shadow of the boulder at the base of the hill, she pressed her back hard against it as if she were readying to push it up the slope. The wind from the north was cool and constant, and swayed the trees of the forest to the south of her, filling the night air with the soft creaks and whispers of a tranquil wood.

An irritating and dangerous whisper, because the tranquility was a lie. The murmur of the forest hid the sounds of the predators that had been stalking her since she entered the Kryptgarten. Worse still, the breeze carried her scent to the leucrotta as she walked north, murderous hunters that she knew were never far off, even if she couldn’t see or hear them as they silently tracked her.

She risked a look up the slope. By Selune’s silver light she could see the crumbling ruins of a keep atop the hill, its name and shape forgotten, with only a few broken walls remaining to hint at what it once was. She smelled them before she saw them. Five…six Zartruss, their keen and malevolent eyes searching the wood to the south and to the west. She had come that way, keeping to the moonshadows as she worked her way around heading to the east, and safety. Thirty strides away a patch of trees would give her cover, but from the boulder to the trees there was nothing to protect her. She would have to be quick, and quieter than the wind. She waited till their gaze turned, and sprinted from her hide.

Ten strides from the trees two arrows bit into her side, and she stumbled and crawled the last distance to safety. Wincing, she broke the arrowshafts off, and backed her way into the trees, keeping her eyes trained on the hill for the sentinel’s pursuit. She couldn’t risk the light and sound of a healing spell until she was sure they weren’t following, and hobbled slowly deeper into the shadows. Grimacing and silent, she nocked an arrow in place, her eyes straining to see any darker shadows approaching from outside the grove. Intent on the west as she was, it took her longer than it should to hear a breathing from behind her, calm and even, and deeper than her own pained breaths and beating heart. She tensed, drawing the bowstring taut and whirling in one motion.

What she saw made her breathe in so sharply she sent a wave of pain through her wounds, and she dropped to her knees in the leaves. It was a unicorn, his coat so perfectly white it seemed to glow, even in the shade of the grove. His deep black eyes were watching her close, and he stood silent and still.

He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen; it was difficult to meet his gaze, but impossible to look away.

She had only seen one unicorn before. About a moon before, near this same grove. A hobgoblin patrol had it surrounded, and it was nearly dead when she found them. There was little she could do to save it. She tried to fight her way into their circle to heal it, but it was gone before she could break through.

She swallowed hard, and was about to push to her feet, when she saw her own arrow had bit into the unicorn’s side. Her face creased with regret she managed a single word of apology, spoken in elven, her palms out in front of her in surrender:

“Aspene…aspene.” Forgiveness. Forgive me.

The unicorn lowered his head for a moment, and met her eyes once more. And stood motionless as before.

She had used her gifts many times of course, to reach for the minds of animals, to let them know her intent. So many times that the wonder of it had faded for her. It was simply another way of communicating now. She stretched her emotions and will outward to an animal, and they would submit to her hold on them. For some her presence was welcomed, accepted. For others, the will to escape her hold on them was always clear. She prayed to the goddess that this time the unicorn would understand she meant him no harm.

She reached for his mind. And felt his mind rushing toward her, in a wave of sensation so brilliant and blinding she fell backward fully to the ground.

The night, the dark of the grove around her exploded in a thousand fragments of obsidian, and her mind was filled by the sensations of a forest more beautiful than any could possibly be: the sun’s rays flowing like water sparkling in the sunset between impossibly green boughs of trees, rustling softly in a symphony of summer sounds; a brook, flowing swift and clean over stones that tapped out a rhythm to accompany the song of a hundred kinds of birds, sounding a harmony more rich and deep than any choir could ever be. She lay on the forest floor a long while, immersed and mesmerized. When she at last lifted her chin, the unicorn was standing as before, but still surrounded by the luminous forest of his mind, shared with her. The air around them resonated with a word spoken back to her, but this time in what she had to believe was the unicorn’s voice.

Aspene…Aspene.

The brilliant vision of the unicorn’s mind faded and withdrew, and the darkness of the grove settled over them both once more. Sarenna sat up, and felt at her side where her wounds had been, now healed. Her loosed arrow lay on the ground, the unicorn’s side unblemished by its mark.

She stood, feeling weightless and light, in a way she never had. She stepped toward Aspene, and the unicorn, as with their minds, stepped forward to meet her.
Character arcs are sharp, pointy little things. A little blood may spill!

Now Playing: Luva Si'nede, Olivus Angustian
Past Characters: Valyar Floshin, Sarenna Irithyl, Millicent Riverstone, Dev Revels, Catarina Helms, Fenris Estelmer, Arryn Temple, Penrose Hawke, Kara Ravensfell, Arana Belecthor
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