Freedom Forsaken

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Aoise))

Flagstones smelling of elf shoes and the menace of wolves assaulted Aiose’s nose. Her head—delicately constructed and covered with a loose pelt of silvery, damask softness—was lowered close to the ground, wet nostrils undulating as they inhaled each new olfactory sensation. Darragh had wanted her to track out his companion, the man who smelled of marble, dusty silks or satins, and too many kinds of soap. The dog didn’t like him very much; he antagonized the creature, unlike her friend, and she hated the little crawling boy. He was feral, and he reeked of danger—wolf piss, boar-bristles, bogwater and mud, all manner of unpleasantness. Moreover, the snarling, strange, bony thing wanted Aoise very badly, for which the dog much feared him; often had he cloaked her mind with his and then, all her being was enthralled to him until Darragh came to her rescue.

Too much leaf-mold flew into the hunting-hound’s muzzle. Breaking her ambling trot, she paused, working her mouth for a moment before sneezing cacophonously. The action disrupted her concentration, bringing her to rest lightly on her haunches and paw at her face with a forefoot, wrinkling her nose with a half-coughed exhalation of breath every now and again. However, this interlude in her activities was not long-lived; somewhere in her dog’s mind, a small voice of warning yipped her back into action, a unique intelligence and focus bred into her line of game hound.

Nails clicking, she paced on. The trail winded and twisted; her target had been all about. It perturbed Aoise somewhat that he’d changed from her memory. A long-lived breed, she could recall events and personages from up to ten years past, and she recognized Lysander from what history she could recollect—he smelled of gentility, soaps, sometimes horses. But the cold elf she’d scented last night had, underneath the screen of lavender and cloying sensations, the undertones of mossy worlds, and he’d not entirely been rid of the Unorian-hunter smell, the saltiness. Perhaps this strangeness was why Darragh, when he’d asked her to seek his pack-brother, had stank lightly of… of… not fear, but bred-of-fear?

This was the trail, and now she heard them. The grey dog’s ears perked up, her head lifting as she ceased to require a chemical path. Noting an unfriendly message on the breeze—her canine heart sank, as much as a canine’s heart could sink, when it registered as the changeling elf’s uncanny signature—the hound raised her mouth to the sky and barked loudly for Darragh. She wouldn’t approach the weirdling boy alone, he was too terrifying in his desire to eliminate free will. But she’d achieved her task.

---

((Lysander, Niall, Dia; omniscient 3rd person))

At Aoise’s bark, the heads of Niall, Lysander and Diarmuid all turned as though jerked on a string. Lysander’s focus shifted because he anticipated Darragh’s arrival in the sound of his hound. Niall had turned mainly at the highness of the sound, for he didn’t much care either way about the man behind it or his pet; and Dia’s head turned because he’d heard the elusive Unorian canine.

Lysander was the first to turn away, barely sparing two seconds of attention to the interruption before he returned to marking necessary stocks for their re-provisioning. Diarmuid’s gaze never wavered; it strengthened, and he rose intently, foggy eyes growing near-white as his desire for Darragh’s dog was reflected in his increased exertion over the wild court he already contained.

There wasn’t a chance for him to touch the bitch’s will, though, for the booted clip of the Unorian were quick to come on his tracker’s call; Diarmuid grit his teeth, not the least bit pleased at being so abruptly stymied. There might have been a slight tilt of scorn to Lysander’s lip: an odd reaction that only his foster-brother summoned, unique among the people the Ælfher esteemed in that he was spared little scoffing. “Tá an lá go maith*,” the mage stated abstractedly, his voice as low as though he addressed Niall and not Darragh, who’d only just turned the corner.

A sharp disparity of disposition existed between them; to Lysander’s measured rudeness, the other elf broke into a wide smile, as untainted by the stress of years as a child’s, and cheerily replied, “Tá sé cinnte! “** He was himself much like the dogs he adored, eager to please and capable of handling a large quantity of neglect—this quality alone seemed to be what allowed him to foster such continued closeness for his singular near-brother. Aoise, a sleek specimen of good breeding—one would hardly guess that she was from a tainted litter, and therefore a lurcher—slunk close about the hunter’s legs, eyes making triangles as she nervously eyed the Ælfhers about her.

“So,” Lysander murmured off-handedly, as though the topic were of little concern to him, “what brings you here today, Darragh, when all the fighting elves are supposedly with Dian Aerain?”

“You’ve taken up the proper title, I see,” he replied, voice like deep laughter. However, although the lord’s voice made merry, his wintery eyes were tentative, and the smile that so frequently graced his lips didn’t sparkle in his gaze. Lysander let a lull follow that comment, tapered fingers lightly skipping over rows of soaps. The materials necessary for good hygiene, which had grown scarce in their travelling, would certainly not be wanting from now on, if he had aught to do with it.

“Pine and eucalyptus,” a voice breathed into his ear; Lysander very nearly whirled about in surprise, angrily checking himself as Darragh’s happy face came into view. “Show-off,” the mage curtly retorted, selecting a soap with biting scent for their stock, as the hunter had recommended. He’d not stoop so low, nor give the other elf the satisfaction, of asking what made that brand preferable; he wasn’t so foolish, though, as to disregard his friend’s learned advice. He glanced at the seal-haired noble from the corner of his eye—the uneasy shift remained.

“Darragh,” Lysander casually voiced, “would you care to account for yourself? It’s rather unseemly of you to dodge my earlier question.”

A sigh left the addressee’s deep chest, for which Lysander smirked. 316 years, and yet many of the Unorian’s habits hadn’t changed a jot from his forties. “Well, if you must ask…,” Darragh mumbled, and the mage didn’t have to look at him to know that the flautist was staring at the tiled floor, scuffing his left boot, over something which seemed important to him and silly to the Ælfher.

“Lysander,” Darragh stated abruptly, and with sudden loftiness as he resolved his spirit. “Let me be frank in telling you this: I’m every breed of coward, you know that.” Actually, the lord was much inclined to think otherwise—how many boars and savage beasts had the other elf launched himself at, caught in the revels of the hunt?—but he’d obviously not state such a compliment.

“And last night, I was out on my own, no Aoise to keep me company, no Conla or Tréasa to strike a banter with, and so the loneliness set me to contemplating my current situation in a manner which I hadn’t before.” Well, that was typical. “To be honest with you…” Darragh sighed, one large hand ruffling Aoise’s head. “Well, to be honest, I signed up for this lot because of the sheer number of people who matter to me, whose lives are on the line here. Honestly, it won’t affect the Unorian yet… but then, when we heard that the Rau-lass were marching to the border of the Ælfher’s province, and that they would freely take inexperienced hands and train them under the tutelage of an Occalus faery… Parthalán was quick to send me. Of course it’d be me…” the elf’s tone reflected decades of bitterness over not fitting fully into the fold of his family, but he rapidly resumed what was becoming a tedious narrative.

“I’m well and truly a competent archer, Lysander, and I can fell a stag if you point me to it, at least nine times of ten… but—look at me, will you?—“ A strong hand turned Lysander’s face, gripping the mage by the jaw. He made a face at the manhandling, though no complaint rose at his friend’s manner. Hazel eyes fixed on wintry eyes, Lysander complied with Darragh’s need for closure long enough for him to continue. “I can’t do this,” the elf whispered, fear dominating his bold features. “Fates, Lysander, I can’t… I… it’s not the killing that gets to me, because I know I can kill, but it’s the… I’m a coward, see? My life’s on a line here, and I don’t much like that, nor does it settle well with me to try imagining what a fight with my foster-family would be like. It’s… I can track, lead, work in a hunting party, take a group, travel through all hell, but fates preserve me if I can do a suicidal dash into something so chaotic.”

Lysander reserved his response for a moment, touching the strong hand that yet remained on his cheek. Gently taking down Darragh’s palm, the vigilante bowed his head to lightly kiss his foster-brother’s lip. It wasn’t greeting, but it was comfort for his highly physical friend.

“Darragh Unorian,” he stated flatly, “you are without a doubt the single most ridiculous example of an elf I’ve ever had the mischance of meeting.” The other smiled sheepishly. Continuing in all pompousness, Lysander assured him, “of course you may join me in leading this group of mine northwards! Certainly, your skills would be of more use to me than to Altair, and honestly, I wish that I could take my brother as well.” Shaking his head with a sigh, Lysander remarked, “this entire enterprise seems suicidal to me, but... I have some faith in the teachings of the faeries. If you recognize the futility behind so much of this, how it stands more as a vain show of comradely glory to the end, then who am I the deny you an exit through a far more sensible course of action?” Flipping his hair, Lysander resumed his mental listing of supplies they’d need to be stocked with. Having the addition of Darragh lead to greater benefits than hed anticipated, all of which were neatly presenting themselves in Lysander’s thoughts.

“We simply need to inform Lilith, now…” he mused.

*It’s a nice day.
**It certainly is!

[ShadowWake]

((Connie/Dannon))

Connie had never liked the dark and yet found herself – impossibly –liking it even less in this dank, chilly woodland. She shivered, wide green doe’s eyes staring nervously out at the twisting shadows that danced in the tiny light left from the sun, and felt Dannon’s warm wing curl around her own. She could feel the tension in his arm – wrapped tightly around her waist – and in the way his long fingers protectively squeezed her shoulder. She’d always loved those fingers; somehow, they always made her feel safe. And yet, tonight, they didn’t seem to hold the same security as they had before. Connie didn’t want to look anymore but found she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the twisting darkness that wreathed the trees like smoke – an early evening mist that cloaked everything in a hazy wetness. It was like death – like a forest of souls that drifted through the land, unable to ever rest...

Feeling his wife tremble again, Dannon leaned down to press his lips against Connie’s dishevelled blonde curls, and she stifled a sob, turning her face into his embrace, lips shaping a prayer to Calixto. “Fallaces sunt rerum species,” he murmured softly to her, tilting his head to peer at the tanned side of her face, “Shadows won’t hurt you here, love.” He squeezed her again, wingtip gently brushing a tangled curl behind her small ears, noting as he did so the slimness of her neckline. True, she had never been slight, but Connie’s rounded curves had begun to wane with her sorrow, emphasising her large eyes and hourglass figure all the more.

Despite his words, Dannon was as uneasy as his mate, his own senses attuned to the sights, smells and sounds of dusk with a kind of paranoia that bordered on fear. Where in Calixto’s name was that thrice-damned shifter? Sure, he could draw the bow slung over his shoulder, but the woodpecker-winged faery was no warrior; he could just about defend himself and his family – though even that didn’t stop them from taking his only child... Damn you, Iosif, where are you?

Feeling a sudden faint pang of guilt and innately knowing its origin, Dannon snapped his head up and glared into the mist-wreathed forest as a rangy figure emerged, almost shedding the evening’s grey like a cloak as he drew near. The canine shifter’s lips twitched into a mischievous smile that disappeared almost instantly; as untameable as the wilds, Iosif nevertheless seemed a man of morals and sensing his companion’s fear decided not to play with the faery’s emotions further. “We’re near,” he growled in a hushed tone, and Connie lifted her face to look Iosif with weary eyes, “The wolves have tracked the human’s mate – the one who helped defeat their previous leader – to this spot.”

Pale yellow eyes settled on Connie, clearly sensing her combined nervousness and hope. “I think they must be close by; the dogs have lost the scent but I can sense a faint trace of something, which suggests there must be someone here. The fact that I can even sense it from above ground makes me think that there has be to more than just him, which supports what the girl said at least. I think we should try the vial.”

“Oleander,” Dannon stated, watching his shifter friend closely, “You’re sure she said a poison?”

Iosif nodded gravely in response. “I’m certain,” he confirmed, “She didn’t lie to us, nor did she intend us to come to harm when she said it. Trust me, Dannon,” he finished, “My magic has never been wrong about someone before. She would not betray us. ‘Spill a poison and make yourself known’, she said, ’They will sense it and investigate. If you make it clear you mean no harm and keep the wolves close, they will approach you when they believe it safe enough to do so.’”

He repeated the words easily from memory, though Connie could barely remember what her home had looked like. Releasing his wife, Dannon watched her straighten with resolve, though her hand shook as she drew a small bottle from the pouch at her waist. Uncapping the vial, she let the contents leak onto the leaf litter where it rapidly soaked into the soil, disappearing quickly in the flickering light of the brand Dannon bore. When it seemed to have vanished completely, Connie slipped the empty bottle back into its place in the bag, and curled up against her husband once more.

“You have the letter?” Iosif asked her and she nodded, drawing the tip of a bottle from her medicinal pouch to show him, “Good.”

Holding his love close with one hand, Dannon nodded in echo. “And so now we wait?”

The canine shifter smiled wryly in return. “And now we wait.”

[Wakboth]

[Tek Tek and the Guards]

As the world began to come into focus, Tek Tek noticed a large rock. Thinking to evade the guards ahead, he made way for this protrusion. There was some commotion and the guards were talking with each other, he disregarded this as it appeared the rock was talking back in a low, rumbling tone. Sheer nonsense of course!

As his possessions fell away behind him, arms still flailing like he was attempting to make it rain, Tek Tek charged full tilt at the guards, perhaps they would move aside, or be so confused as to let him onto that rock, and from there who knew or cared! Yes, brilliant genius, let the guards deal with whatever monstrous evil lay behind him whilst he escaped. He was a champion runner! In any case, he was feeling lighter by the second for some reason, a second wind most likely!

As he began to close on the guards, screaming in manic panic he realised one of them was beginning to shift, first his hair grew long, then his nose began to flatten and his face lengthened. Soon he was covered in fur and the form of a proud and war-savaged lion became apparent as a shaking blur in Tek Tek's world of pain and confusion. Didn't this fool know that a beast most foul was just behind whilst he toyed with shape and form and tried to intimidate the bravest gibbon that ever lived?! Well, this moggy would soon be proven wrong when the black beast of the darkest nightmares was upon him!

It was in this revery, still quite manic and enraged that, quite unbidden a roar filled Tek Tek's ears. It did the marvellous work of completely clearing his sight, whilst entirely deafening him. Unfortunately, the lack of hearing did not come before Tek Tek's entire firmament was shaken to the core. Feeling rather less brave and a bit less great - well perhaps a lot less! - Tek Tek tumbled, regained his balance on shakey hands and then, tumbling again found himself in a complex mangle of arms and legs from which he did not seem able to extricate himself. Soon, this turned into a sideways roll, every so often an arm would jolt out unbidden, causing him to bounce or shake bodily before in the split second whirl of chaos he found himself, straightened out, arms by his sides taboganing neatly between two great, fur-clad paws. His ears were ringing, and as his hearing came back into focus, his infeebled mind became aware of a request, or perhaps a demand?

He shook his head and declared, as bravely as he dared "Tekket the Fleet Footed Traveller, Bravest of the uh . . . Brave and adventurer. I'm actually a hero if you must know, you may have heard of me. In fact, no doubt you have, oh humble . . . I mean uh, noble guard. Most call me Tek Tek. You could, if you liked? In any case, I demand that you - OH PLEASE DON'T KILL ME NOBLE AND MIGHTY KING OF THE JUNGLE I ONLY MEANT TO REST A WHILE BEFORE JOURNEYING ON WHEN SUDDENLY, FROM BEHIND ME CAME THE MOST FEARSOME MONSTER OF THE BLACKEST HEART. LOOK, ONLY LOOK AHEAD! IT IS SURELY COMING TO CONSUME US ALL. EVEN YOU, OH . . . WARRIOR OF THE SHIFTERS CANNOT HOPE TO STAY HIS TREAD! ALL HASTE, ALL HASTE, CLOSE THE DOORS, FORTIFY THE BUILDINGS, BRING RATIONS TO A CENTRAL AREA, QUICK, QUICK. THE DOOM BELL TOLLS FOR THEE! IT TOLLS FOR TH- IS THAT BIG GREY ROCK LAUGHING AT ME?!"

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Signum/Foertis))

The two men bathed quickly, with Foertis’s combed fingers preening the dye from Signum’s wings. Consequentially they were returned to their normal physical state in short time, though Signum’s hair bore a burgundied tint rather than its customary blue-black. By dint of Foertis’s command over fire, they were quickly dried—it was rare to see how controlled the blond could be when he was focused, as sheets of flame raced over bare arms and chest, raising steam but not once singing flesh.

Sibylline eyes tracing the moon’s course, Signum glanced at his companion and pondered aloud, “how fast might the horses be?” The equines in question were of the regular proportions and simple features of most human stock; even so, there was beauty in their plainness. “Huh…,” Foertis stalled, stretching his arms as of a man waking in bed. “I’m thinking, say… twenty, maybe thirty miles over an hour?” He mused, raising a brow as if beckoning the other’s input. “We’ll keep them at a pace,” Signum said softly, as a doleful-eyed equine bobbed its head against his back. “They’ll likely get winded regardless, but perhaps they won’t be lame by the night’s end.”

The other faery snorted, much like the horses themselves, and scathingly replied, “You don’t have any sympathy for them because they’re not high-bred. Poor creatures, they can’t help that they’re not Brónach.” With that retort, he set to checking their cinches, back and shoulders moving with the resourceful adroitness of a stableboy. Glancing over his shoulder once, he noted the other’s expression and muttered, “don’t look so affronted…,” adjusting the load of their fifth and last horse. “We’re richer by both arms and chattel now, and I know that you only meant to keep an eye to the time.”

Signum wordlessly took the reins of an honest-seeming grey. Mounting—the horse was lightly loaded, and the faery weighed little more than eight stone—he shook his head in contradiction to Foertis’s last words, sad eyes trained ahead. “You were quite right, Foertis,” he sighed heavily, “I did give them less regard because of their blood.” The cabal set to a rapid trot, cloth-muffled steel clunking sluggishly. Obstinately staring ahead, the blonde grit his teeth and glared. “No,” Foertis said stubbornly, drawing out the vowel to three o’s, “No, you weren’t thinking that way at all, you git.” Signum was mute; so the covert ride passed.

---

((Argenti))

The quill scratched fine columns up and down weathered parchment, forming coded symbols which Argenti had devised only in the past day. …I pray to Itineris that Lysander hasn’t landed the whole party into a deadly situation, but I ill-trust the man to listen to either his guide or his faery companion. Gods keep his arrogance at bay, or else let him learn some humility—though the latter should likely signal that the end times are nigh. The grammatical order he used bore scant foundation in Common or Fae, and common conjunctions such as is or and had been branched out to have multiple synonyms and forms; keeping the jagged, irregular beat of the code in mind was a small trial in itself, but Argenti was glad to have something which required mental exertion. Gods, it was his way to work and think away negative emotions, but there was hardly anything to do; going from constant action and spur-of-the-moment decision-making with Phoenix, where even the events of the next day were enshrouded in mystery, to this tepid series of tunnels and rooms…

How ever on Aduro did that confounded bastard manage to live down here? Argenti mentally groaned, standing and pacing with a look that some would call murderous. While he appreciated the organization of the place and the fact that he was only one currently not putting his neck on the line, it was quickly growing into the most maddening experience of the past months. It was nigh on enough to re-set a longing in him for the hectic schedule he’d lived on with Foertis and Signum, back at Tumulosus. Or the sudden fright of finding the Queen’s forces blocking the mountain pass, and Phoenix’s sudden madness as she tore into their supplies, her wind-chapped lips cracking as she exclaimed for him to do the same…

The wall met his forehead. “Damn it,” Argenti hissed under his breath, eyes closed by the pained furrow of his brows, “damn it all…” If he could just have a sign, some portent that she was alive instead of caught in chains or hollow-eyed in some prison worse than this rat hole! If she sent back any communication, which hadn’t happened since she’d left—if Phoenix would just show a sign of herself, then perhaps Argenti would be better reconciled to his inactivity!

Oleander. The faery’s eyes snapped open. Yes, there was no mistaking that signal; it tugged at his magic like a dog nosing for attention. Signum and Lilith would release nitrates from the soil, and Lysander’s party couldn’t be back so soon…

Rising swiftly, Argenti cloaked himself in icy shadow and, like a serpent, stole silently into the night and his heart hammered hope against hope. He knew it wasn’t Phoenix, who could slip in and out as easily as himself—she had the magic to see the shadow-sealed entrance—but if she’d finally sent some word…

The murmur of voices; Argenti set a fast shield on his thoughts—mentally thanking the Dei and their enemies for its slippery force—and approached with the silent feet of the hunted. The scabbard against his thigh assured him of his weapon, and the equal weight of a pouch pulling on his waist ascertained his magic. There was a man around whom the other two gathered and seemed deferential, though there was more to the interaction of the group which he couldn’t place; feeling was strong on their faces, particularly the sweet-looking woman. Her eyes were large and hollow, with the skin loose in a fashion which indicated recent, rapid weightloss. That her companions looked hale made it less likely that this was from starvation—there was more to her in the way she leaned against the faery man, like a chick tossed from the nest and bewildered at where it found itself. If it weren’t for her meek presence, then Argenti would have been more wary of them than he was. The grizzled one had a special look about him, a look of knowing—where had he seen that sort of expression before?

… Sorea, of course. She’d used her telepathy right and left, tried to be in your thoughts without you knowing, and since the power of her magic loaned her a greater sense of safety about an area, she was inclined to mischief with it as well.

The people might be Rau-lass illusions, or two faeries who’d come into contact with Phoenix and had been summarily captured by a human of the Rau-lass. Slipping up behind them, Argenti took to hand a vial of deadly belladonna. “Civitas vestri voluntas quod causa*,” he stated softly. In the chancy unlikelihood that the two faeries were captives, the human—or possibly shifter—with them might not recognize the language, and because it would be out of place for the two to respond in a different tongue, they would be capable of relaying their straits. It never paid to lack caution.




*State your purpose and reason

[Alacer Phasmatis]

Stars twinkled in the far-away sky, millions of cold, distant torches. The traveler’s compass. The moon was about to embark on a new cycle, and want of lunar light drew a hush over the woods.

Faedra dreamed. A world of ink swirled about her bare feet; curling her toes and wriggling them, she saw that they were stained with the purple-black liquid. Her brow crinkled; how was that so? This substance was called ink by the dream, but it swirled like a thick, dank, floor-clinging mist. Her head turned about and she twisted around to see if anyone else was there, but she wasn’t compelled to walk; her feet pushed against the creeping substance again, and found wetness beneath it. It felt like mud.

Faedra crouched down, inhaling deeply of the metallic air, tinged with steel and the smell of nickel. Cautiously, she prodded a finger against the slick, slimy mud and lifted her hands to her face—she was improbably illumined—and screamed. Blood ran down her fingers, and the parts of her which had contacted the earth suddenly began to split and crack apart, her own flesh sundered slowly to the bone of her hands. She screamed again, frantically rubbing her palms against her undyed cotton dress , and at some point she did not heed, her frantic wails became her little sister’s name: “Tréasa!” She shrieked, ”TREASA!” Her sister didn’t come at that, though. A great white horse broke through the blackness, and an unseen rider slashed away the shadows with a blade that flashed clear blue.

Now the dream changed tack, the rider concluding the presented chapter. The obscure world was replaced by a very familiar sight: the courtyard where she’d been sketching Caera, on the day Aerain arrived. Nervously, Faedra took a step—and suddenly, corpses and bodies were being formed by the hundreds as elves fell against Rau-lass, and it was the fairer folk who met their deaths most quickly. Whirling about, Faedra saw a hawk falling upon a tiger, whose huge paws swiped at the bird’s feathers twice for every stroke its fell talons made on the murderous feline’s eyes and cavernous red mouth. The elf woman picked up a light run to nowhere, dashing through the scene as she took stock of everything that swirled about her, letting her feet guide her to something greater.

Then she saw it: on a hill, which didn’t exist in reality, Altair and Caera fought together against a lithe dragon the size of three elves, from whose fish-toothed, fanged mouth poison rained. Altair raised his hand, bringing with the movement a thunderous wave, upon which the dream split: in one version, the tide fell upon the scene and brought calamity to all, though the elves massed their magics and won victory. In the second version, nothing came up and the tiger roared triumphantly behind Faedra, as Caera’s sword flashed into the dragon’s heart in tandem with the serpent’s bladed claws, which ripped into a suddenly weak Altair. The former vision felt weak, like the haze of a wish that would not be achieved; the latter felt as strong as death.

In bed, Faedra’s body twisted violently and her unconscious lips parted in an angry gasp as she strove for consciousness. But there was no escaping the dream yet.

Five horses galloped through a treacherous wood, their movement traced by the shadow of a peregrine falcon whose able wings would have done better had it not been caged by trees. The equines were distinct and grouped. In the lead there was a powerful chestnut, whose hold at the van was just barely maintained against the swift, steady pace of a white mare. Directly beside the chestnut ran a great bay horse, the most powerfully built of them all, but he faltered most in his step and his flanks heaved with sweat—he looked ready to break pace. The last two horses stayed several lengths behind the leading three, though of the pair, there was a skinny chestnut that looked capable of overtaking the sweaty bay. He stayed back, nipping on the heels of an unruly palomino stallion whose matted mane scraped constantly against the trees. Their motion was disturbed, though, and the pack was suddenly forced to break when the deciduous trees they’d been moving through gave way to emerald pines. A herd of haggard, demonic black horses manifested themselves from the shadows to drive apart the bay and chestnut. With the dominant stallion gone, the white mare now took the lead and the lean chestnut sprinted with new wind to take the position that the bay had occupied. Beside them races the ghostly black herds, their skeletal frames just barely visible as they snaked in and out of trees; the falcon was almost invisible now, but it was still there… somewhere.

The chestnut horse and the bay horse had been joined by a small bird, and of their own accord, they began to canter southerly. The elf-woman’s body jerked insistently, her angry fingers wrenching and coiling the linen of her sheets. She was close to waking.

Faedra’s dream jerked ahead and grew confused, rushing to complete itself before she escaped it. Five horses were together again, but the bay was attacking the slim chestnut and palomino farther away, and the falcon became a grey destrier as it and the white mare repeatedly blocked the chestnut horse from attacking a latent dragon curled over a heap of ashes. The woman’s hands flew against the headboard, producing a loud knock. The whole thing was distorted, as though these events weren’t supposed to be taking place at once but were crammed together due to their receiver’s lack of cooperation—and a strange man came up, his face as beautiful as Damrius’s but his flesh tanned, his hair and eyes brown, his wings barred like the falcon’s. The horses ran to him and his companions, two wolves—a silver and a red—and a limping fox twice larger than the species should be. Picking up the pace again, images flew together, not at all cohesive: a burning rose, only five days, a dragon and tiger, five days and the chestnut stayed, a falcon’s talons shredding the neck of a swan, a foul snake eating horse-flesh, the falcon held at bay by a shadow-ringed phoenix, and a far-away castle glittering through clouds of swirling ash and corpses.

The dream was forced to break off in chaos as Faedra awoke, finally, falling from bed entwined in her sheets. The elf hit the floor hard, but she was slow in collecting herself. For a moment she just lay there with closed eyes, cheek aching against the smooth, cold wood as her lips silently recounted the entirety of her dream. Then, slowly, she picked herself up and pulled a silken robe over her night gown, tying the waist tighter than normal because her hands were still stiff and numb. Taking a deep breath, Faedra left her room and then found herself running to her cousin’s, still half-asleep.

“Lysander,” she croaked, pounding on the wood. Her voice and mind was in low action, but limbs had total possession of their force. She couldn’t hear him approaching from the otherside, but the lock clicked and the door flew open with the speed of someone who had the grace to be hasty. Unprepared, Faedra was knocked off-balance and into his arms. “What is it?” He asked, catching the woman by her shoulders. Lysander took a look at Faedra’s blanched features and promptly led her to a chair, settling her at a sitting table which had two cups of wine, one half-drunk. The full one he tilted to her lips. Faedra drank a small sip, her frightened eyes fixed on Lysander’s calm, hot gaze, but the wine came spluttering out the moment Trisha slipped in from her cousin’s bedchamber, knotting a silk over-robe.

“Faedra,” her sister whispered, joining the man Caera so hated. Swallowing, Faedra closed her eyes and remembered her dream: Altair dying beneath flashing claws even as Caera slew his foe. Lysander’s large hands took up hers and chafed her cold fingers, at which the maiden swallowed back a scream; they had been burning apart by an invisible flame just moments ago. “Lysander,” she hoarsely whispered. He looked at her, as steady and warm as Altair, but far more relaxed. “Lysander, you have to leave,” she whispered. “The Rau-lass are almost here… we have only five more days.”

[Hedya]

((Selan))

Upon hearing Fiala's answer, Selan turned to Eadmar. However, the shifter admitted not being specially skilled with a sword. His specialty were knives, or simply bare-handed combat. Selan thought that was quite amazing. Even if swords gave her a feeling of safety that nothing else could, being able to fight with short knives or even without a weapon was something which deserved to be praised. Eadmar added he had this preference because of his background.

Eadmar stood silent, and Selan looked at him with a confused face. What did he exactly mean by "background"? It didn't take long for her to get an answer. It was Fiala who spoke, now, explaining how they had lived in the streets as pickpockets, small thiefs who stole to eat, so they could be able to survive. Selan was sure this couldn't have been an easy life, so she was sort of surprised they were able to smile like that in such a dire situation like the one they were all facing. But it made sense. While there's hope...

So Selan was surprised when she saw Fiala standing up, apparently moody and unwilling to speak anymore. She announced in a low voice that she'd go grab some food, and walked away. Selan wanted to spend some more time with Hylas, but now it wasn't the right moment, she thought. "Hylas, you go with our friend, Fiala, ok? She will get some food for you. I'm not going, because apparently I made her remember something not very nice... you have to cheer her up a bit, okay?" Upon seeing the little boy's worried face, she smiled lovingly.

"Don't worry, we're all in the same place, you don't have to worry at all, I'm not going anywhere..." she embraced the young shifter, and gave him a pat in the back. "Go with her, I will come to you later."Selan smiled at the sight of Hylas walking quickly towards Fiala. She then turned to Eadmar. "I understand. I am sorry to have made you remember some harsh things. I have also been through some hardships I would prefer to forget. However, I think that everything we go through shapes ourselves, and if we have been able to make it through, we should be able to remember things without suffering." She smiled uncomfortably. "Although I know this is a very idealistic point of view."

She moved some hair away from her face, and tried to change the subject, so as to forget about this uncomfortable moment. "So you said your head guard would be one of the best, hm? That's good to know. If you will excuse me, then, I will walk around and try to meet him. If I could practice a bit, that would be great for me." She bowed to the shifter and turned around. Selan walked away, thinking about if she really should ask for some sword training. Maybe they would think she was being pretentious, or trying to prove a human could be better (no matter if she was or she wasn't).

It was very important to remember that the relationship between humans and shifters was not as strong as it had been in the past, and it was their job to strengthen it. Selan kept walking, asking a few guards for directions to meet the head guard, but the more time she kept walking, the more convinced she was that asking to do that sort of a 'mock duel' was a stupid idea. So when she was finally seeing the head guard, she did not want to use her sword anymore. She laughed at herself, as she turned and walked back. How stupid was that? She had spent all that time asking people and searching for this person, only to just leave after she was there. Was it fear? Was she afraid of not being good enough?

Selan looked at her sheathed sword, and smiled to herself. That wasn't the reason. She was confident on her skills, and maybe that was the actual reason she decided not to ask for some practice. The time she had used to find this person had been time she had spent on her own, thinking about what she had been through lately, and realising her swordplay had actually improved since the time she had been at the faeries' camp. How far away those times were! Seeing how she was not doing anything good, she went back to her room, where she found her old dress, the one she had been wearing when everything started, in a perfect state. "Bless these shifters...!"

After closing the door, Selan left the sword there and proceeded to put her old clothes on. They fit exactly the same way they used to. She was surprised, but also pleased. She was still herself, in all senses. Finally dressed in white, she opened the door and headed to where she hoped would meet Fiala and Hylas. Hopefully, with their stomachs a bit more full than before. The corridors were narrow, and not very illuminated, but she felt more at home here than she had felt anywhere for a long, long time.

However, something bothered her. The preparations that were being made. Of course, everything was fine right now, the way it was. But no one knew what they would be facing once everything was ready and they began their move. But maybe because nobody knew, Selan accepted it was okay to enjoy this little calm before the storm.

[ShadowPhoenix]

((Lilith))

In an almost resentful motion, Lilith flopped to the ground, leaning against a tree for support. For the past five days, ever since they had been kicked out of the Idiot’s house, they had been traveling as fast and as long as they could. The Moron had been in an increasingly bad mood, and had taken it out on pretty much everyone by micro-controlling their lives. More specifically, he seemed to think that making her eat enough to vomit was a good idea. Bloody air-magic, she thought, letting her eyelids droop. If It didn’t cheat so much, I’d bash It’s head in and leave what’s left of It’s brains scattered across the road…

With an inward sigh, she looked through her eyelashes to do a quick head-count. While she didn’t believe that they needed to be quite as highly strung as the mage was, it didn’t hurt to make sure everyone was still here…

Sparing a glance in the red-head’s direction, Lilith wondered—and not for the first time since their hasty departure—what they would do if the man lost it. She highly doubted that any of the new additions would be of much help; the chipper one who had so rudely interrupted her reading—granted, she was getting tired of reading volume after volume of Nieander’s ongoing life history, and that Evander needed to shut up about himself—practically worshipped the Supreme Moron, and had yet to display any magics which would be useful in such a situation. Niall was subservient, and the crazy rat named Diarmuid didn’t seem like he really knew what was going on most of the time. Anahita was completely out of the question, which left only herself.

That could be a problem. Her magic really only had begun to return yesterday, and it would probably be several more days before she would have enough to actually use. And, even when she did have it all back, what could she do if the mage went insane? The best she could really do was have a store of anesthetics and hope that a) it wouldn’t be necessary and b) if it were, that she’d have a chance to use them. In theory, she could just deactivate some and slip it into his food. The problems with that idea were that the poisons most likely wouldn’t stay in his body, and that practically anyone with poison magic could activate them at will. Unless it was from my blood… she thought. Shrugging the notion off—she didn’t have magic enough to contemplate anything anyway—the albino shut her eyes against the sun’s glare.

Lilith crossed her arms, mentally wincing as her self-inflicted, still-open wounds rubbed against the fabric of her shirt. Even though the blood had already been in the process of drying, Lilith had been picking at the scabs. It was a way to keep them from healing over, for awhile. She’d eventually have to redo them, but she didn’t quite fancy the idea of doing it anywhere near It. She knew that if the Imbecile saw her cutting herself, she could say goodbye to all her weapons and any hope for privacy. The stupid git was so closed-minded towards anything new or different…

Lilith’s breaths became slower and deeper as she let herself drift. She wasn’t quite in that half-asleep stage, but she wasn’t quite awake, either. A small sound nearby registered in her brain, but by that time Lilith had already thrown herself in motion. Grabbing the person’s arm, she twisted it behind him and knocked his legs out from under him, forcing him to the ground. Just before she could twist the man’s shoulder out of its socket, she recognized the brown-haired form.

“What the **** are you doing?” she snapped, maintaining her grip on Darragh’s shoulder and arm.

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Lysander/Darragh))

“Stop that infernal racket,” Lysander growled in Courtly Elvish. Darragh’s wintry eyes snapped onto his and with a nonchalant flourish, he ended the damnable ode he’d been poking out on that cursed bansúir. “Cut your self-pity,” the Unorian scoffed, cleaning the instrument and slipping it back into its supple white-leather pouch, “It’s not as though it’s helped a single one of us, least of all these cheerless little adults you like to call ‘children.’” The speaker’s lip curled in exquisite disdain at those last words.

“Self-pity,” Lysander snarled under his breath, stalking closer to Darragh. “Self-pity? You may humor yourself with such churlish statements, you half-common lurcher, but you have no family left at home in the hands of an addle-pate faery, do you! Which hasn’t the least bearing on the fact that many a wild turkey has screeched its death-keen better than you play that old reed.”

The insult to the flute hit home, and the addressed snapped quietly back, “it has everything to do with it, you pretentious, preening peahen, because you haven’t got the self-control to stop yourself from acting like a toddler feeling sorry for himself because he misses his Big Bwother.” Niall glanced at the pair from his seat near the horses although he didn’t hear the words, hushed as the irate discourse was. Neither Ælfher nor Unorian desired for the trivial contention between them to be advertised, and that was part of why they conversed in muttered Courtly speech. However, Darragh had been quick to wrest half of the reins of command from Lysander—command over all but Lilith, that is, who heeded the stronger, better-suited, and overall more intelligent elf—and having had established himself, Darragh began to contend with Lysander over anything he disagreed with.

He wanted Lysander to cheer up, he wanted Lysander to leave the others be, he’d told Lysander just this morning to go stuff it, as if he’d had the right, and now he insisted on playing his flute because of some confounded notion that the children actually liked to hear that hellish clamour! Darragh had no place here but that which his friend had granted him—why he had been so chivalrous, Lysander couldn’t even recall—and damn it all, the popinjay was quick to forget as much. It was just like the fool to assume that he understood something just because he had experience in a vaguely related topic, as he now insisted on treating this affair like a drawn-out hunting expedition.

Lysander glared hotly back at his counterpart, and turned away with a smirk. “At least,” he whispered, “I’m not so much a coward that I deserted my people when they needed me.” Darragh’s hand shot forward half the distance between the two, as if to arrest Lysander (who’d turned away and strode to Niall), but the motion ceased midway through, his fingers quivering in the air as though he’d thought better of it. He really had: the minute things got physical, Lysander would flout his command over the elements. A losing battle wasn’t worth fighting with the Unorian’s odds. Scowling, he spun about and barked for Aoise.

“Niall,” Lysander hailed his nephew, who stood and bent his head in a quick bow. “Yes, uncle?” Niall murmured, reserved voice ever lifting like music.

“Has Diarmuid completed his task?” The task in question was obscuring their tracks; before, Lysander had been forced to over-extend himself by shielding their entire company and utilizing air and earth to obliterate their trail. Now Darragh mantained contact with all the local canines, thereby keeping them informed both of whether they were near enemies or if foes had been by in recent times, and Diarmuid’s wild brethren ran ad hoc over their path, allowing Lysander to reserve his magic for combat. And, perhaps, to rest; fates knew he’d been noble enough when he’d been the only competent mage in this motley group.

“Let me ask him,” Niall murmured; the words had barely slipped out before Darragh brazenly drawled, “The deed be done, oh Great Lord. So spake my dog.” Lysander grit his teeth. “Get the horses, then,” he snapped, “there’s no point in idling. And Darragh, be sure that you don’t get near Brónach or Aolani, hm? They might take a chunk out of your side again.”

The other lord’s high cheeks flushed at that reference to an earlier mishap. In the evening of their hasty departure, the three noble-elves had gone to quickly round up enough horses to carry everyone and their packs, for travel would go twice faster with lightly-loaded horses. In the darkness, both Aerain’s horse and Lysander’s had lunged at Darragh with bared teeth and thrashing hooves as he approach them; had it not been for his foster-brother’s quick reflexes, the hunt-lord would’ve been off rather badly. As it were, there was a crescent-shaped bruise on his side which they attributed to Brónach. Even with the accelerated healing of elves, the mark had lasted for three days. Aolani’s queer behavior was chalked up to being the influence of Diarmuid, in whom festered a malicious resentment towards Darragh, for daring to encroach on his realm of magic and for stymieing the littlest Ælfher in his every attempt to gain Aoise. For Brónach, they had no explanation, other than that she must have taken lead from the other mare.

The Pardai chit cleared her throat; Lysander made a study of his nails on perfect cue. Nonetheless, she politely stated, “I don’t think that we should press on for the moment; I’ve been flying around the area and we’ve travelled a good deal further than even you predicted we could manage, Lysander. The children, horses, and adults are all tired— we should take a moment’s rest, even if-“

“-even if the Rau-lass are due to strike my home today, you thoughtless little bitch?!” Lysander snapped, as Darragh simultaneously barked, “language, Lysander!”

Rounding on the Unorian, he snarled, “ five days is all we have between them and us, oh noble mage, and while I understand perfectly well that you’re ready to forsake all ventures for the sake of your own yellow hide and tired limbs, we will press on.”

Darragh muttered something under his breath, all too likely an oath, and turned around to go rouse Lilith. It was most annoying, how he’d taken to observing her out of the corner of his eye every now and again, or casually stood by whenever Lysander forced the foreign brat to eat the food so many starvelings would fight for.

The thud of Darragh being reflexively tackled was music to Lysander’s ears. He sighed privately, paying small heed to the commotion behind him. Darragh was telling her, now, that their break had been cut short and they were moving again. Now that he wasn’t the one arguing with Darragh, a part of his frigid anger towards the lordling thawed a touch.

Darragh, of course, didn’t seek to anger Lysander. He just wanted to look out for his foster-brother, and if anger was the best way to divert the other’s thoughts from his imperiled dear ones, then it was natural for the elf to go about the business of striking dischord. Chances were that if he’d been on better terms with Niall, Darragh would have been just as annoying to that Ælfher as well, for he’d certainly not skimped on attempting to get closer to Lilith and trying to befriend Anahita. The man was really an over-grown child, and like all children, he preferred it when life was all bouncy glee and happiness.

Fool.

[ShadowPhoenix]

((Lilith))

Letting go of the elder elf’s arm, Lilith stood up and stalked over to where Anahita was rounding up the children. Keeping a somewhat healthy distance between herself and the others, Lilith waited for a few moments, her eyes running over the group. They were all tired, all depressed and gloomy. Except for Caelen, it seemed. To her eye, it was obvious that he wasn’t entirely aware of his surroundings, but he kept on chattering. Over the past day or two, his grammar had devolved and he had begun speaking in Cetairiacelosian. It was a testament to the other children’s tiredness that they had stopped telling him to shut up.

Once the party began to move again, Lilith ghosted around, unable to find a place in the procession she was entirely content with. For now, the mage led the group. They were still within the Idiot’s lands and, unless It erred, Lilith wasn’t about to challenge him for the lead. She was already doing enough to rouse his temper, and she highly suspected that Darragh was doing the same. Even though she had never caught them arguing, there was a slight tension between the two that suggested something was going on. Not that it was any of her business, of course.

Caelen spotted her, and began chattering on about how mean one of his old classmates was. Without even acknowledging that topic, Lilith began to grill the tawny-haired kid, even though she knew that he wouldn’t be able to remember any of his lessons in his current state. Only the Fates knew how he’d ever be able to survive as an assassin if he couldn’t get more than seven hours of sleep…

*********

Lilith carefully pulled the knife through her bleached skin, following the all-but-invisible scar tissue that remained from her first marking. They had been travelling for a little more than two and a half weeks now, and not once had she had an adequate opportunity to redo her “tattoos.” She hadn’t been able to secure enough time to herself, and the mage had been extraordinarily moody up until about a week ago. Since then, It had slowly gotten better, and was now at a stage where a little bit of prodding was needed to get a reaction. Taking advantage of that, Lilith had begun to whine and complain about how much It was still making her eat. This was a delicate balancing act, and she had to be able to perceive the point just before It started using air-magic. Once or twice she had gotten a shade too far beyond it, and had almost been force-fed.

The albino sheathed her dagger, eyeing the back of her right hand critically, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Pleased with her progress, she caught hold of the poisons in her blood and guided the dripping mess into a couple of glass vials she had permanently borrowed from the Aelfher’s home. Lilith then checked her wet, dripping hair to make sure that none of her blood was on it. After braiding the bone-white mess, she pulled her shirt and gloves back on. With a small sigh of regret, Lilith left the small stream they had come across. Anahita had been quick to leave, stating that the water was freezing. To the Northerner, however, it was a delicious reminder that this infernal heat didn’t belong in the spring.

Lilith hadn’t attempted to persuade the faery to stay; in fact, she still hadn’t spoken to her beyond the absolute bare minimum, a grand total of twelve words over eighteen days. As a result, she had enjoyed a very peaceful, very relaxing wash and had had time to redo the designs on her skin.

Entering the camp (smelling nicely of pine), Lilith held back a small sigh as she realized she was just in time for dinner. Wordlessly she accepted the food the mage handed her, letting the look he had slide straight through her. Sitting down, Lilith eyed the lengthening shadows. She really was starting to hate mealtimes. And she knew that it would be unwise to procrastinate, at least, this time; she had already started bickering with the mage before lunch, and they had ended up at an entirely different topic before he had noticed
and threatened to use magic. And yet… it was entirely unfair. She had been gaining weight and didn’t look like a skeleton anymore, apart from general coloration. Combined with that, she was bored out of her mind.

Reaching a decision, Lilith continued to eat quietly. When she had eaten as much as she wanted—a little bit more than an average person—she set the bowl down in front of her and pushed it away. It would be a losing fight, and she knew it. But she’d be d*mned if she let that stop her.

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Lysander/ Darragh))

“Break for the day,” Lysander announced, pulling Brónach to a halt. A sigh of relief rippled throughout the group, though of course he hardly cared. Darragh, who was forming the poor habit of riding away at random, cantered back to the band, grinning boyishly.

“Where were you?” Lysander snapped, treating the elf to a hot, sustained stare. Ducking his head in apology, Darragh laughed (the way one will when moderately embarrassed) and replied, “I was just scouting out the area. The local coyotes were some of the friendliest I’d met—“

“Coyotes?”

“Yes, coyotes, Aoise ran into two of them! Anyhow, they were quite helpful and they went so far as to warn me away from the usual route of the wolves around here. S—“

Lysander rolled his eyes and archly finished for his friend. “So you went off to find the wolves, got caught up in their riveting conversation, and perhaps got so sidetracked that you forgot to see whether the area is safe or not?”

Darragh’s upper lip twitched ever so slightly above his teeth, a testament to his ties with canids. Suppressing the urge to growl—it was like slipping into Elvish when one meant to speak Common—the nobleman replied, “this place is perfectly safe, not a single fox or wolf denies it. We’re in Regneld forests now, for pity’s sake!”

Niall cleared his throat softly and murmured, “Nor do any of the birds, lions, deer or insects claim to have seen the Rau-lass or atrox. Dia has not sensed their presence in their minds, either.” The young man was barely audible, but his meaningful glance at Darragh clearly bespoke his opinion on the latter’s independent expeditions: that they were roundabout, with the greater range and detail of Diarmuid’s similar gifts, and perhaps slightly wanton. The older elf’s lips twitched, whether in a human smile or canid growl, it was difficult to tell. Nonetheless, his voice was gay and bright when he explained, “but Dia’s been lagging, Niall, I’m sure you’ve noticed! For instance,” he elaborated, “it was just three days ago that Aoise and I had to send a pair of foxes to touch up on his work covering our trail, and he’s a most capricious little boy, uninclined on the whole to hard work. Over-exerting him is clearly to blame, but of course—would you blame me for trying to ensure our safety? My magic is may be the meeker cousin to his, but I am more adept and have the stamina of age.”

The three nobles had automatically fallen into an exclusive triangle, horse faced head-in, whilst the rest of the party dismounted and untacked under the supervision of Lilith and Anahita. During the entire discourse, Darragh’s eyes twinkled brightly, and his whole demeanor effused a restrained, exuberant desire to be helpful and likewise inoffensive; in contrast, Niall kept his gaze lowered from both elders and his cheeks flushed with unspoken opposition to the Unorian’s words. Lysander simply looked bored with it all and feigned inattention, looking over both mens’ shoulders to the flurry of youths, packs and women. “You, hunt-lord,” he drawled to Darragh.

“Yes, great mage?”

“Diarmuid’s pack has been getting messier with its food,” Lysander said, turning Brónach's head away from the lot (for she was beginning to make demonic faces at his foster-kin). “Partially masticated bones, remnants of corpses, and the like have been strewn about behind us, which I have suffered to redress. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem,--“

“-but you have that she-lion leaving her own signature all over the meat,” Darragh finished. Almost gleefully, he asked, “are you going to ask me to go kill a deer so that the pack can eat where you can supervise their dining habits?”

Wryly, Lysander responded as Niall stonily turned his horse away and left to help the women, “I intended to, but there’s no point in re-iterating.”

“I’ll go fell you a hart, then!” Darragh proclaimed, wheeling about his grey stallion, Failbhe. “Not so large!” The mage snapped back, “though we don’t doubt you’ve shot many a stag in his prime. Go for a brocket, Unorian, though the prize is smaller—at least the lot can finish it.” Darragh didn’t deign to respond with words, though he snapped a cheeky salute in departing.

With a lofty shrug, Lysander turned his attention to the lot. Like an organized military unit, they had set up camp effectively and quietly whilst the top brass conversed. Lilith had naturally divested herself of as much responsibility as possible, which was no more than he’d expect of such a woman. She was, after all, a foreigner, and if there was one thing that the Ælfher knew beyond a doubt about such types, it was that they generally lacked much of the industry of the native race. The faery looked as though she were readying for a quick bath in the cold stream-water, and Niall had put each set of children to the task of grooming down their horses. The bone-backed hard brushes and rounded curry-combs, studded here and there with modest stones and still gleaming dully owing to a protective layer of wood-wax, looked out of place in the too-small hands of the children and their dusty effects.

Lysander shuddered once—Altair, my dearest brother, you must have braved the Rau-lass by now—and turned his thoughts away. He felt certain that if his brother had died, he’d have received some sort of physical signal. A sudden sense of loss or bereavement, for a world without that dear life would surely note the mournful loss.

In another hour’s time, all had settled with a bowl of food and a fist-sized shred of meat from the stag which Darragh had returned with. Contrary to Lysander’s orders, the hunter did not shoot a brocket, but came back with a medium-sized staggerd, which had been efficiently quartered and rolled into a pack on Failbhe’s back. At his friend’s displeasure, he simply remarked that he preferred fresh meat to salted rot any day of the year.

Self-indulgent tripe, of course. Lysander was in the process of examining his elegant fingers when the sound of a bowl being shoved aside arrested his attention. Fey eyes glancing up from beneath his noble brow, Lysander looked directly to the albino, who had of course been the only person to leave her meal unfinished.

Lysander wasn’t in the mood to mince words, and the posture of the cur indicated that she was well aware that she was acting out of line. The smallest elfling would know better than this thick mule, he mentally growled.
“Lilith,” Lysander snapped, “ finish your food, or I swear I’ll force it down you.”

“Woah now,” Darragh interjected. His diplomatic tone, edged with a lace of hoarse ruggedness, made a clean contrast to Lysander’s elevated, lofty voice. “I think she’s had enough, old friend. You keep feeding her like that,” he cautioned, “and you’ll do more bad than good.”

“How dare you say that,” Lysander coldly interrupted, his words back with sudden hostility from the other two Ælfhers, “when you know so well how Niamh ended her life.”

“She’s fleshed out,” Darragh pointedly countered, smoothly moving past the sore spot of Lysander’s dead mother. “Your 316 years of experience has nothing on mine in this field, isn’t that so? I can’t help but think of the sheer number of people we’ve had to nurse back to health over the decades from winter hunts gone awry, or else dogs lost for days to weeks in blizzards, whose bodies reached much the same state of frailty as Lilith’s. Besides,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “she’s much more attractive where she is right now. Put more weight on her and you’ll have her losing that slender, eldritch beauty; take weight off, and she’ll be unfeminine and less seemly.”

Darragh knew few words to describe the mix of incredulity, frustration, and other unnamed emotions contained in the mage’s face as his various reactions manifested themselves. The seal-haired lord's face reddened with restrained mirth as the other burst out, “you dare compare an elvish woman to one your bitches?! Darragh Unorian, what on Adu—and good light, you half-wit, you call that mule attractive?! You—oh, fates!” He snapped, glaring at Lilith, “just finish your food, and don’t listen to a whit of this travel-addled fool’s mind.”

[ShadowPhoenix]

((Lilith))
The mage’s voice cut through the air. It’s a good thing I didn’t count on being unobserved, she mused as she let her cool gaze slip to meet the mage’s green one, “otherwise I’d be very disappointed right now.”

“Lilith, finish your food, or I swear I’ll force it down you,” the ever kind, compassionate, humane Moron snarled.

Lilith opened her mouth to reply, when Darragh spoke. “Woah now. I think she’s had enough, old friend.” Purple eyes suddenly flashed, and Lilith eyed the man skeptically. He had no reason to speak up for her; less than that, actually. He had begun to develop a habit of sneaking a bit too close, which would result in a reflexive knife to his throat. If anything, he should have been siding with the mage, not her.

He had to have an ulterior motive, Lilith decided. For now, though… for now she wouldn’t argue with him. If he thought that she would feel indebted to him, he’d find out just how wrong he was. But not today.

Letting the woman’s name slip out of her momentary concern—though it was filed away for further review—Lilith eyed Darragh again as he continued speaking, obviously having avoided Niamh’s name in a marginally similar fashion. “She’s fleshed out. Besides, she’s much more attractive where she is right now. Put more weight on her and you’ll have her losing that slender, eldritch beauty; take weight off, and she’ll be unfeminine and less seemly.”

Speechless, Lilith simply stared at the man, missing the Idiot’s reaction entirely. How dare you? she almost spat. How dare he treat her like a child, a frail little creature that needed to be comforted? Only children needed to be patronized in such a manner; only a child would need such stupid, pointless reinforcement. Only children needed to be told they were pretty. Only a child would believe it. But not her. She had never believed the rare occasions when adults would call her cute, even when they didn’t hesitate and didn’t let their eyes show how much of a lie it was. Ever since she had realized that the word ‘pretty’ could be applied to objects that weren’t reflective, she had known it would never describe her.

A memory slipped up, unbidden and unwanted, a young girl about her age bouncing up, shining locks of gold lightly trailing behind her. Without preamble, the girl had stuck her hand in front of the pale girl’s nose to check for a breath. “You look dead,” the beautiful goddess had stated, matter-of-factly. Without waiting for a response, a response which would have never come, she had continued. “You look like the dead guy that they found in the river yesterday. My brother took me to see him. He was all white and funny-looking, just like you.” And that was how she had met Clarissa.

A few years later, she had walked into class, a massive purple blotch covering one side of her face, proclaiming at least one very good reason to not try running down wet stairs, even if someone were chasing you. No one had paid her any attention; unless they were bored or needed something, they never did. But the perfect child with the perfect smile had looked up at just the wrong moment in just the wrong place. “Hey, Lilith, your face almost matches your eyes,” she had said, her bright green eyes glittering with a malice the teachers always pretended not to see. “I feel sorry for you,” the girl had continued, those hard emeralds giving the only indication that all of her sympathy was just another charade. “I guess it’s good that you’re so ugly,” she had continued, “Otherwise it’d stand out a lot more. Though it does stand out a lot. You should do something to make the color less noticeable.”

From that day until a day more than half a decade later, Lilith could nearly count on having some sort of color. In the beginning, it was just a variety of shades of purple, blue, green, and yellow. Very rapidly, though, she had begun to sport a dark shade of red. Until a day over half a decade later, she had been noticed, unable to escape detection but for a handful days if she were extraordinarily lucky and her pursuers were extraordinarily busy. Until the day Cormac had slipped, Healer Asa had tried to tell her that she would be much more beautiful than anyone else, and that all the others were just jealous. Until the moment Cormac had fallen, his cut hand touching the blood—her blood—on the floor, she had been convinced she would die then and there, right before her fourteenth birthday. Up until the moment when, seconds after falling and recovering himself, Cormac had collapsed, dead, frothy blood spurting from his nose and eyes, she had been at the end of every priority list in existence, if she had even been on some of them. After that moment, after the healers and the teachers had sorted out what happened, she never had to wait for a healing again, was never told her injuries “weren’t serious enough,” was never was allowed to walk around with visible wounds.

It hadn’t mattered. She was still a walking corpse. Being a poisonous walking corpse only made everything worse. And soon, she would die. She had read all the articles, studied all the textbooks. Nature was not kind to freaks. And Time was only revealing that she was more of a freak than anyone had first realized. It was really then that she had made her decision. After that moment, after the entire school knew about the creepy ghost-kid with the creepy blood, she had told Healer Asa to stop lying, otherwise she was going to stop coming for healings. She had known it would hurt, for her to call what he believed true a fantasy, for her to threaten to bleed out in the bed in her dorm, her roommate too cowed and afraid to get help. But she did it anyway. If someone had heard him, they would have thrown him in the Asylum for hallucinating. And even if no one had heard him, Nature would have found out and punished him for trying to help an anomaly feel better.

The Idiot’s irritated voice broke through her thoughts, temporarily drawing her back to the here-and-now. “–and good light, you half-wit, you call that mule attractive?! You—oh, fates!” Turning It’s attention to the mule in question, he continued. “Just finish your food, and don’t listen to a whit of this travel-addled fool’s mind.”

For a long moment, Lilith just stared at him. For a moment, she considered lashing out, snapping at him and Darragh both. Reigning that impulse in, she ensured that her expressionless mask was still in place. There was no point in driving away any support she could get right now, much as she hated to accept the condescending motive behind it, however temporary it might be. And if she yelled, became emotional, it would signal her inability to deal with simple things and would make her look like even more of a child to them.

Then she spoke, her voice cold, quiet, calm, and very obviously under her control. “I fail to see why I should. I am no longer underweight, and see no point in nearly vomiting after every meal,” just so you can be a control-freak, she mentally added. “I should be allowed to decide how much I wish to eat. If I begin to lose weight again, then I will accept that I am incapable of regulating my own body weight. If I can prove that I do have such control over myself, I see no reason why I should continue to be managed and given even less freedom than the children, especially since I am your guide and have been taking care of myself for more decades than they’ve been alive.”

And that, really, was the heart and soul of it. Yes, a large part of her resentment stemmed from the fact that it was the mage, and that It was just pushing her around because It could. But what bothered her the most was that It was giving the children more leeway than It was giving her. I’m not a toddler, she wanted to tell him. I can take care of myself; I don’t need anyone to look after me, I don’t need anyone’s pity, I can get along just fine. I don’t need you, I don’t need friends, I don’t need another authoritative dictator. All I want is for you to listen to what little I have to say and to leave me alone.

[ShadowWake]

((Aerain))

Aerain narrowed her amber gaze in concentration, one hand holding back the wind-whipped coils of her hair, the other wrapped tightly around the stave of her spear as she used it for balance. She wished she could see further, but she would be breaking her own orders if she had tried to escape the woodland’s leafy confines. As it was, she’d had to perch upon the highest balcony she could find – though in the grand scheme of things, it was not so high at all – in order to survey the organised chaos of the elven forms below. Some faces she could name now: Nieander, Evander, the spritely twins Caiseal and Faolán; she was sure she had seen Caera and Altair flit by a short while ago. Many, many others she couldn’t name, though she had tried. She wondered how Terailán had ever managed to do it.

Some had already been despatched to scout, despite the large number of people still left. At times, Aerain found herself wishing the boy Diarmuid had been older – nearer a man – and that he and his uncle had stayed. Niall particularly would have been useful, as his knowledge of the forest stemmed more from his nephew’s escapades than from magic. Gods, but it was so difficult sometimes to be the only one with experience of these things! If Jassie had been here, she’d have roused them all with brave, confidence-inspiring words; even Terailán would’ve thought of something to distract their attention from the upcoming nightmare. No! her soul screamed, Triumph comes! Failure is no option – there must be victory!

Heart fluttering with an odd mix of anticipation and nerves, Aerain’s attention was suddenly caught by a small group towards the corner of the courtyard: more, her ears picked up the harsh whisper of rapid elvish and – a slight frown creasing her brow – the faery warrioress leapt neatly from the balcony, wings spreading to reduce the jar on her joints. In truth, the one thing she was fed up with was the quarrelling; though less than children, the comingling of distant families provided no few disputes – from petty arguments to uneasy flares of anger – and face set, Aerain swore this one was going no further. She recognised an Ӕlfher and one who seemed to be from a close family, but the others she’d seen only in sparring. All raised their gazes to hears as she approached with a broad mixture of expressions: against their conscious will, she imagined.

“You,” she said, nodding at one she recognised as a mage, “Go and gather those mages remaining: I need to talk you through retreat tactics.” Seemingly hesitant, the elf eventually cut his losses and left to do as she bid. She ignored the sour glare and turned instead to those left, face impassive as she flattened her wings almost casually against her back. “Did I interrupt something? I do hope not. Until the last group has left and we can set up the retreat points, there are several things that need doing and I hope you can be of help." Aerain eyed each elf sedately, folding her arms. "The stores must be hidden – from both enemy and animals – armour needs checking for faults, weapons need sharpening and the perimeter can never have enough scouts. If there’s anything more pressing that needs to be discussed, let it be said now, for I currently have more need of action than words.”

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Faedra/Tréasa ))

“Altair will die today.”

“Yes and no.”

“Altair’s physical form will be killed in battle. This battle will be of the same reason as today’s, or it will be today.”

Trisha’s mouth curved into an almost-smile, similar to relief. “No,” she murmured, squeezing Faedra’s sallow hands, “Altair will live. But I do not think he will be whole.” Faedra sighed heavily and her prophetic gaze swept across the trees and stone below, swarming with men and a few women. As Trisha had finished her sentence, the very elf they spoke of called for Caera. They both watched in silence for a moment, safe in the alcove of their windowsill perch, as the silver-glinting form of their sister wound her way through the milling people to their cousin. The two figures conferred briefly, and then broke off in opposite directions. The movement was soon followed by the breaking and splitting of elves into organized ranks and groups. There were many subgroups organized into three main sets, one for each of the primary commanders today: Caera, Altair, and Aerain.

Faedra’s flush lips moved rhythmically, painting out her next thought in her head before voicing it. Their corners were just slightly asymmetrical, but the trait was disguised by Faedra’s turned head—she still observed the scene below. Now the young lady turned to face her sister again; dim, white light bathing half of her shadowed features.

“Aerain is evidently the hawk,” she whispered, as though speaking plainly would bring destruction all the more quickly.

“Yes.”

“The dragon is the Rau-lass army.”

“Yes and no.”

“The dragon represents the Rau-lass army, but there is another force behind it?”

“Yes.”

“And the tiger is another Rau-lass or an ally of theirs; a significant force, because the hawk focuses on it.”

“…I don’t know.”

Trisha’s hand rose slowly to her neck, her fingers rubbing disconcertedly at the pallid skin before trailing down the leather band of her faery-gift. She played the feather’s tip against the ball of her thumb, eyebrows crinkled and lips parted as she muttered to herself—charms? Spells? Things Trisha didn’t use for her magic because they were largely ineffectual and never needed. Her innocent brown eyes rose to meet her sister’s. The young mage looked uncertain and apprehensive, her face fever-flush where it hadn’t blanched-- as though even her body was unsure of how to react.

“…I… I don’t know…,” Tréasa uttered, and she clasped the amber stone of her necklace until her knuckles were white. Her throat sounded like it was clotting.

“The tiger is a metaphor for a distinctive Rau-lass; is the tiger a Rau-lass or not, Trisha?” Faedra asked again.

Those discerning eyes looked lost.

“I can’t say.”

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Assorted elves))

“Do you really think so, Aed!” Conla snapped. Aed Ælfher’s lip curled ever-so-daintily into a look of calculated disgust. “My dear Lord of the Blessed Blood,” he frostily returned, a literal translation from the Old Dialect of Blodsian, “it’d best behoove yourself and your honor if you tried perhaps a bit less hard to embody your family name; the reddest poppy would pale to you.”

“I merely stated,” Conla snarled, elegant tones spitting desperate anger, “that if Lysander hadn’t gone off to the damned war, then perhaps your lot would be a touch better off, and you haven’t refuted that! “

“Then why did you come here?” Aed hissed, “why, when you’re so far to the north and buffered on all sides by other provinces? Why did the Unorian send Darragh, and the Mære send Llefelyss, and the Fæderne send Arthfael or the Regneld , Orduian! Why did so many noble families send one of their men—often their weakest, I should add,” he venomously purled, “if not because they want to see how this shall play out and prepare themselves? None of this is my cousin’s fault, Conla, and I deem you faithless for such bitter words against he who’d call you friend.”

Conla scowled. “You and I both know that’s false,” he scowled—the Ælfher had taken a low blow by bringing that up, for he and Lysander had been somewhat close until they became interested in the same girl. “But you can’t deny that those two families most heavily involved have clearly come off the worst in this conflict—first the Ædellic province comes to ruin, and then the Ælfher. Don’t you see the message? Lysander was a mage in the Allied resistance against the Rau-lass, as was Ciarán, and now you’ve both been made examples of.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” Aed scoffed, gathering support from a small handful of kinsmen who’d overheard the argument and wished to voice their opinion. “By the Lady, Ciarán was a casualty of war! And given that the main army is stationed at Occalus, we’re the easiest province to hit, seeing as the spring thaw hasn’t warmed the largest mountain passes and won’t until mid-spring, meaning that the Raon Siar* protects the Fæderne and –“

The two lords’ bickering was cut short by Aerain’s approach. The faery was quick to send off
Aed—shrewd, since he was more resolute in pressing a point once he’d latched onto it than Conla. An excellent trait in politics, but not nearly so suited to the quickly resolved disputes of war.

Aerain eyed each of the remaining elves. "The stores must be hidden – from both enemy and animals – armour needs checking for faults, weapons need sharpening and the perimeter can never have enough scouts. If there’s anything more pressing that needs to be discussed, let it be said now, for I currently have more need of action than words.”

As they dispersed, Altair—who’d taken note of the conflict from a further vantage—made his way to Aerain. Reaching her was easier than it appeared, given the thronging men; all were quick to part for an elf if it was either an elder or one of the three commanders. Lysander’s brother had overheard both the later portion of the argument and Aerain’s rather public rebuke of the two lords, which must have grated their nervous prides. “Aerain,” he hailed, bowing his head briefly, “a word, if you please?” He drew away from the crowd, to make his statement privately.

“Dian Aerain,” he murmured, making a small gesture of courtesy with his right palm, “you have helped my generation enormously. Therefore, I beg you not to think I make light of your contributions, or the selflessness with which they were given, when I ask that you be more considerate of the elves you’ve trained to fight—especially today, of all days, when our spirits run highest.”

“You work with proud, desperate people,” Altair murmured, “and these are people who’ve in many cases been treated with obeisance before you were born. They are not accustomed to sharp rebuke unless it is from an elder, or a close relative. Therefore, to upbraid a pair of men before fellow nobles and subjects, when you’re neither a dignitary nor even a legally present foreign ambassador… it won’t do well for earning loyalty. ” The elf shrugged, a familiar motion made somewhat unnatural by the weight of metal on his shoulders. “Consider, as well, how such a slow-acting people must still feel: blind-sided, trapped, and unexpectedly weak.”

“To me,” he explained, “all of this still looks completely wrong. We’re encasing ourselves in cold, hard metal, like glassware stowed in crates of tightly-packed straw, for the threat of a cold blade made of the same steel ripping through our flesh and killing men whose birthright is immortality. Our fae friends to the south have died facing an enemy which spreads like a plague and has no mercy. I wonder why there can’t be any diplomacy in this, what a disorganized madness must possess such lethal minds if they can claim so many dead and not cease campaigning out of remorse—the Rau-lass are telepaths, Aerain, yet they cannot appreciate how unique and full of vibrancy each life they take is, nor does it seem as though any is inclined to.”

“All of us feel pressured today, in varying degrees. We noblemen can trust our subjects to stand by us, but the sectionalism in our mindsets has made the presence of fellow nobles and the ballast they’ve brought a disturbing affair.” With a wry smile, Altair noted, “the reigning typecast of the Western faery is that of a stoic, aloof warrior, and the stereotype of the elf is that of a capricious immortal who tends to be both ahead of and behind the times, but never spot-on. In many senses, I feel our situation supports these notions. Given the amount of attention that the rest of the provinces have focused on this enterprise, we Ælfhers feel an ancient pressure to live up to our history and name--‘Strong Elves’ in Old Dialect, once aptly given.”

“ The other families also seek to familiarize themselves with the situation at hand and prepare themselves individually for the potential backlash of the Rau-lass, but everyone’s working backwards and forming deeper divides, when they ought to be moving forwards. I feel that many of the non-Ælfher nobles here today realize this fact and are engaged in an active mental rebellion to the confusing tumult of the present time accosting them. They’d love to blame it on someone or something, just to make themselves feel less burdened, but they can’t.” Altair shook his head sadly, and remarked, “but most importantly, today we will face death, and we know that men who we’ve esteemed through decades—men who we’ve depended on to save us from grief by being capable of not aging, and roughing the dusts of time as easily as we do, men who outlive the trees of a forest—these men will face death today. A sudden death, neither slow nor predictable, as is the course of an illness or the depression of suicide.”

“I spoke too much,” he realized, with a small laugh at his over-emotion. “But it must be excused—in 356 years, I’ve only known the sheltered strife of government. What year did the war begin in…? 2677. I’ve spent twenty-nine years heavily involved in the Solais** war and was one of the delegates sent to Occalus when we drafted the first plans for a pan-racial alliance. Morteza Melchios showed me the finest army in all of Aduro, and even then I couldn’t fully understand. He died, and the mightiest of kingdoms was over-run, and the circle of the aristocracy was reduced to eleven with the sudden removal of the most ancient nobility among us. My brother was declared missing, but in the record-books is marked a casualty of war. Even then, I was in denial of how much was happening at once. Knowing the dread of war isn’t natural for a nation whose depth of feeling can kill—there’s little other reason for why few of us live to see 1,000.”

“That is all.”



*West Range, the Elvish word for the portion of the mountains to the west which extend from the northern forests until they’re broken off by a large estuary to the south. My awkward statement shall make more sense if you look at the map of Aduro.

**Altair’s abbreviation for Cogadh Solais, the War of Light; the Elvish name for the resistance war is either Cogadh Cosanta (Defensive War) or the former, which derives from the universal name translated from Fae, the War of Light and Dark.

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Melchios))

Memories were poison, the lion knew as he guided the snakes through the heart of this pure, rancid forest.

Memories really were poison.

You killed her, you killed her, you killed her. “You killed her.”

”The Council acknowledges Lord Esidor.” A golden-haired man rose, golden-red hair, a young initiate to the Council. But so cold and assured in his dealings that until he spoke, one would think he’d served there for decades. Eyes were brown, tainted green—the beginnings of moss rotting a tree. What an arrogant voice! Morteza’s hard fixation skimmed over the puppet, though, it skipped over young Esidor and latched onto Lord Nieander—eyes focused downwards, forehead rested on a tepee of his two long hands, very, very seemingly detached.

Damned elves could hear everything. That sly one must be whispering to his callow nephew, certainly the lad spoke in measured tones that reflected either on-the-spot-thought or muttered direction. Of course! The reigning attitude was for new voices this decade, youth and fervor had more power than the ponderous, well-known old. And wars had just been settled. A new generation was born, a generation which could cultivate the finer arts and let blossom courtesy. Let that generation speak.

Not Morteza’s memory; he’d not been born. Whose…? His father’s. Sardar. Eastern name. Something he’d described. Morteza: he’d fumed against the elves. Them and their political tricks and conniving, their cheating. It was cheating, wasn’t it? To have hundreds of years of experience? Know how to read the crowd? Speak to the people and rouse their sentiment before speaking to the ruler of that body? Force him into acceding!

Damned elves.

Recollection was twisting his heart. It was good though, it was steel—steel for the spirit, a blade for the mind. Shred your affection, strike with hate. Use the old burning blisters of memory to armor your faery spirit against the lethal, wicked tie of alliance—it wasn’t striking your own kin if their ears were pointed, though.

They were close—so better drink that poison, it’s good for you.

They’re fine dogs. Look at that head, the superb line of back and barrel. Quick! See how quickly the bitch caught the lure! Sardar and Parthalán. It was stupid, he hated dogs, hated the way they served and lolled about and stank. They left their poor smell on your hands and you couldn’t get them wet unless you wanted to suffer. “Look at how Morteza watches her!” He’d give him the silver bitch. Because he coveted her, apparently—didn’t he follow her with narrowed eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun-washed fields?

Bastards. No, he didn’t want the bitch. He hated dogs. HATED them. If he wanted something, it’d be a cat—clean, small, quiet, plotting. If even a cat… still a subservient creature, wasn’t it? Still lolled to be petted, it just bit back or snapped at you on occasion. And tiny little needle-point claws, they could scratch. Then again, cats were quite diplomatic in their design: aloof and wary, letting you think that you could pet them, gaining your trust before assaulting your hand. Smart. Yes, he’d want a cat.

The stupid bitch. She gamboled up to him, red tongue hanging out of her mouth. “She looks daft,” he hissed. Under his breath. The stupid elf still caught it, because damned elves could hear everything. Morteza blushed red, and he hated the centuries-old man for making him go red, but not as much as his father for suggesting that Morteza get the dog. IDIOT! Wasn’t it obvious that he didn’t want her?!

Oh, well. They'd get the dogs and he’d kill them all. That’d show them.


Yes. Yes, he’ll kill them all.

[ShadowWake]

((Connie))

”State your purpose and reason.”

Connie let out a small frightened whimper, pressing herself against her husband as he spun suddenly on the spot at the soft voice, bright wings curling around her in protective possessiveness . She felt a reassuring sweep across her thoughts and nervously caught a glimpse of Iosif through the barred gloom of Dannon’s feathers, the canine shifter’s forehead furrowed with a slight frown – though his gaze was still fixed firmly upon the newcomer. Feeling a little braver, she pulled aside her mate’s soft appendages to peer at the huge, pale faery before them as Dannon cleared the nervous knot in his throat.

“Nos addo haud vulnero,*” he stated in a quiet voice, his stoic nature barely holding the tension from his tone as he switched to Common so that Iosif could understand, “Only a message from the Alpha of this pack.” He winced as Iosif gave an odd, growling bark from behind them and the greyish forms of the wolves slipped out from the forest’s shadows. Connie trembled slightly as the largest came to stand beside her, huffing through his muzzle at the sight of the Easterner. His tail wagged slightly – a faint swish from side to side – and she looked up at the taller faey with wide eyes, not sure anymore whether she should believe the human woman or not. Miss Raine had said he was a gentle man – a healer and loyal friend – but it looked to her like he could crush her head with his hands alone. Not only that, but he held a vial in his grasp that by the careful way he gripped it, she knew would be lethal. And for him to have subdued the great shaggy beats surrounding them...?

Iosif prodded at her thoughts, inserting a hint of urgency to her mind. Oh, yes – she was supposed to give the message... Dove’s wings fluttering with nerves, she shrugged off Dannon’s warm embrace and took a tentative step forward, reaching into her pouch for the hidden vial. The faery watched her warily, his silver hair glinting in what was left of the moonlight and his pale gaze penetrating as she fumbled through the clinking glasses, hands shaking with trepidation. The boys couldn’t help her: she knew they seemed the biggest threats in the group. Oh, Calixto...! If she couldn’t find it, he would think them the enemy and they would have to fight, and oh, she didn’t want to fight again, she didn’t want to have to run—

Tears pricking her eyes, her roaming fingers finally found the correct vial and she pulled it out, carefully unstopping it to display the coiled parchment inside before holding it out to the faery in cupped hands. “I...I have been... been...” Her husband placed a firm hand on her shoulder, squeezing it with reassurance; Iosif sent her a thread of courage, and she took a deep breath and started again. “I have been asked,” she said timidly, her words barely louder than a whisper as she found her eyes trapped by the tall man’s haunting gaze, “To deliver this to you by another who... who would be protected by the shadows, though- though it is not wanted.” Connie wasn’t really sure what the human had meant by that but certainly hoped by the faery’s stricken expression that he had recognised who had sent them. He cautiously reached forwards, retrieving the vial from her cupped palms and drew out the note, reading it quickly. Pain flashed across his features for the briefest of instants and in that moment, Connie knew he was who they sought.

“You are Argenti, aren’t you...” she whispered in the faery tongue, wide-eyed, suddenly seeing the man Miss Raine had described behind those almost perfectly controlled features. She also finally understood why the human had asked her to go. Taking another step forward – though she had to shuck Dannon’s grip from her shoulder – the shorter faery peered up at the Easterner, her soft face sympathetic. “You miss her,” Connie murmured even softer and, tentatively, she covered the huge hand that held the parchment in one of her own, “She misses you too. I understand now, why she seemed torn. Her heart would have her here, where I am, but her mind knows that she cannot be. I promise you, on the soul of my own beloved, that she is in safe hands for now. I know it is a poor substitute for her presence but I hope it can bring some form of comfort to you.”

She straightened, noting that Dannon was hovering nervously behind, and stepped a pace backwards once more, grateful for the strong arms that surrounded her. Her heart ached for this man and his brave, foolish human love. Did she not realise how short her life was compared to his? Did she not know that she should be spending every precious second of her time with him? Dannon eased his embrace slightly as she placed a hand on his in reprimand. It did not seem fair to revel in their own love while Argenti waited patiently for his.

“I am Connie,” she said gently in Common, “And this is my husband Dannon. We are Western faeries from Tehralos. This is Iosif,” she indicated the ragged-looking shifter, who merely nodded with a slight frown, eyes still fixed on the Easterner, “He is a canine shifter and a friend. These wolves have guided us here by their Alpha’s command, so that we may help you in any way possible. I...” Connie paused, uncertain that her help would be wanted, but at another mental nudge from Iosif she continued on. “I am a medicinal healer,” she indicated her pouch with nervous hands, “and my husband has a trade in carpentry, though he also has some skill as a bowyer.” Silently – albeit a little grudgingly – she thanked the feisty Lari for the gift of her knowledge. She made to speak again, but Iosif suddenly interrupted.

“It would be wise for us to retreat to shelter,” he growled, adding pointedly, “There are many things in this forest that can sense our presence and it would not do for that information to be passed on.” Connie turned to look at him in fear of his words, but his attention was still fixed on Argenti. “To ease your mind,” Iosif muttered roughly at the man’s sceptical expression, “Yes, your suspicions are correct about me. But no, I cannot with you. It seems you have learnt your skills from the best.”

Feeling suddenly as thought she had been left out of a significant conversation, Connie shivered and tucked herself closer into Dannon. It was so cold, and all she really wanted now was to sit before a warm fire with her husband’s arms around her and her tiny son sleeping quietly in the crook of her elbow. She sniffed at the thought and Dannon’s sharp voice snapped above her.

“If you don’t mind,” he said tightly, “I would like to ensure my wife is safe. I would ask you to leave your pleasantries until later.”

*We bring no harm

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Lysander/Darragh))

“…I am no longer underweight, and see no point in nearly vomiting after every meal,” Lilith murmured. “I should be allowed to decide how much I wish to eat.”

Darragh grit his teeth and growled in frustration, for he knew well the obstinacy that high colour on Lysander’s cheeks meant. “Oh, stop it already,” the Unorian said, clipped and rough-voiced. Lysander’s lip curled testily, just a twitch. His stony features and unmoving glare spoke volumes: it was a combination of silence, you dolt, as well as you’ll stop eating or lose weight some other way and most importantly, my word is law, child!

“If I begin to lose weight again, then I will accept that I am incapable of regulating my own body weight,” Lilith pointed out. “If I can prove that I do have such control over myself, I see no reason why I should continue to be managed and given even less freedom than the children, especially since I am your guide and have been taking care of myself for more decades than they’ve been alive.”

“No,” Lysander replied. It wasn’t short or drawn-out, nor was it mulish; the word was just lofty. “Good light, Ælfher,” Darragh hissed under his breath, “just box up that slime and throw it in a lake, already! Stars above, are you asking for a duel?” Though the question was posed as a rhetorical ‘no’, Lysander looked archly at Darragh, derision richly manifested in his visage, and he uttered a single word in Common:

“Yes.”

Darragh gaped mutely back at the other elf, dumbstruck for the space of two blinks before he declared, “You’re unfit for leading for as long as your mind dwells on Altair, Lysander.” Turning his back to the redhead and squaring his attention firmly on Lilith alone, Darragh stated firmly, “the very first thing Lysander and I did was split the group evenly between us in the event that we had cause to separate. Well, I declare him incapacitated by grief and will accordingly take my group elsewhere.” Projecting his voice so that it reached the rest of the camp, Darragh ordered, “Lilith, Anahita, and my younglings—untether your horses, we’re walking half a mile downriver and re-organizing a camp there.” As the lot leaped to follow his commands, not entirely sure why—bar the faery, whose unevenly matched eyes exchanged a knowing look with Darragh—Lysander flew up, in movement so quick that Darragh had scarcely registered the sudden disparity in their heights before the mage’s hand cut a quick slap to the Unorian’s face.

It hadn’t been as hard as the cuff from Bronach’s hooves, nor half so violent as the teeth of a rabid wolf he’d once met, but it was shocking. “You hit me,” Darragh reflected, flat words tinctured with wonder at the occurrence.

“Excellent observation, you son of a bitch,” Lysander snarled, jerking the other lord onto his feet after he simply looked up, unfazed and possibly even amused. It was unwise of Darragh to the extreme—the hint of humor that toyed about his mouth and eyes touched too strongly on Lysander’s abraded ego. “What an unschooled mind you must have, Darragh Unorian,” Lysander whispered harshly, his left hand menacingly close to Darragh’s throat. “And it’s really quite evident all about you, you little rat, you whelp, you misbegotten, insignificant little creature unloved by his own mother and father—“

“You liar,” Darragh whispered, “you damnable—“

“What, it’s not true?” Lysander snarled. “It’s always true, you sycophantic freak, and don’t you dare deny something which you and I both know so well. It’s not as though you hide it, and don’t look so defiant, imbecile, it was you and neither Caoin or Cathal who was sent away to my family more or less as soon as you gurgled your first pathetic word!” The hunter’s wintry eyes turned icy and for all that they still spoke in a private, cutting undertone, an involuntary bark ripped out of the elf’s deep chest. The Unorian had never looked so canine.

Lysander magically reigned back Aoise, who’d understood the distressed dog-language if not the rapid Elvish words and had sought to slip beside her master, and continued. “Look at you,” he hissed, “lying about with any slender whore willing to take a rejected runt into her bed, far too loose with your drink even now, let alone a hundred years ago, and just so willing to do anything for anyone who’ll spare you the barest scrap of positive emotion. Fates, it’s no wonder your brother took the council seats instead of you.”

“Shut up, Lysander.”

“Why!” Lysander shouted, abruptly lowering his volume again. “Look at me, dog,” he demanded, shaking Darragh roughly; he let himself be shook, for all that he was capable of easily resisting. Like an obstinate child, Darragh kept his eyes angled away, down towards the scree of the forest floor. Lysander followed his gaze and scoffed, “what, contemplating the weird fate that gave you an elf’s form? It certainly didn’t change your value much.” Darragh then did avert his gaze. His eyes were shining and too bright, but they were steady. “Lysander Ælfher,” he quietly replied, “that was the most ham-handed way you’ve ever equated me to dirt these past three centuries.” Coldly backing away, Darragh growled softly, “and if it’s insults we’re trading, at least I’m not the cur so childishly incapable of checking his negativity that I needs must snap at my foster-brother every three minutes, and at least I don’t have to force-feed an intelligent young woman in order to feel that I can still control something of my life. You know what, Lysander? It’d be really easy to stab you where it hurts right now, so elegantly simple to just drop Altair’s name and suggest that you deserve his death, but I’m not going to.”

Darragh glared, not coldly nor angrily, but like a small child that had found itself unexpectedly kicked in the stomach. “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said, “and see if you’ve calmed any. But remember, my dear Lord, you can’t go any further for as long as I’ve got Lilith.” So saying, Darragh stalked away to Failbhe and mounted him, whistling for his group to fall in line. The whole time, he rode away straight-backed and rigid, though he worried in the pit of his stomach that the better mage might yet decide to turn violent.

Darragh and his lot set up camp perfectly fine, though he knew that Lysander could have stopped him. The thought had followed Darragh the entire time, and he felt a heavy dose of regret for not having had been empathetic and complacent rather than incendiary: he’d overstepped an invisible line, after all, and had gotten away unscathed only by the grace of Lysander’s personal worry.

Well, not entirely. The minute he’d mounted his horse, Darragh had been beset by a beastly migraine, and such a thing was really quite easy for an air-mage to do.

[ShadowPhoenix]

((Lilith))

“No,” the mage said, managing to somehow embed the word with the superiority he obviously felt over her. Lilith was entirely unsurprised. The moron was so fixated in his controlling-behaviors that It wouldn’t listen to the slightest scrap of reason. Being so under-esteemed in Its eyes didn’t make matters any better. Well, she had expected all of that. Now comes the part when It uses air magic to ram everything down my throat… she thought, briefly wondering if it would be better to put up a struggle or let It and then go vomit out of Its sight.

Darragh said something quietly in Courtly Elvish, too quietly for her to have understood even if she could make out the d*mned metaphors. Whatever it was, he looked quite shocked at the mage’s affirmative response. For a moment, the dark-haired elf remained silent. Then he calmly, as if he were remarking upon the weather, rejected the mage’s leadership, speaking as though everything had been planned out already and it was just the surprise at the unlikeliness of this situation that had temporarily frozen Darragh.

The grey eyes met her own pale ones. “The very first thing Lysander and I did was split the group evenly between us in the event that we had cause to separate. Well, I declare him incapacitated by grief and will accordingly take my group elsewhere.” For the longest moment, Lilith simply stared at him. She had known about the potential division of their party, but she hadn’t foreseen the possibility that it could be done even in the absence of an emergency and in the face of something so... so... trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Numbed by this revelation, Lilith didn’t twitch until he ordered everyone to reorganize themselves. Only then did she move, certain that she must have looked just as puzzled as the children. If anyone bothered to look, that is. Needless to say, no one spoke loudly—if at all—as they uncertainly began to obey.

Lilith eyed the reddish horse she had been “riding” (in reality, she had just tried to stay on and let it follow the others; she was of the opinion that her own two legs had done her well enough so far and she didn’t need help from a horse, but she hadn’t yet dared to bring up the issue with the mage, even though riding made her muscles stiffen and cramp). Realizing that the mage and her advocate hadn’t parted, Lilith moved slowly as she untethered the horse, straining her ears in an attempt to overhear the conversation between the two elves. Even though she wasn’t all that far away, for an elf’s hearing range at the least, she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

“Why!” the redhead suddenly shouted, his voice once more dropping into obscurity. Then Darragh’s voice drifted to her sensitive ears, and Lilith nearly flinched at his words, waiting for the sudden roar of a fire and the stench of charred flesh. “It’d be really easy to stab you where it hurts right now, so elegantly simple to just drop Altair’s name and suggest that you deserve his death, but I’m not going to.”

Oh sh*t, Lilith thought. Just shut up, she willed. Shut up and we might get out of this alive.

Needless to say, the man didn’t hear her silent pleas. Not only did the Unorian have the guts—or idiocy, an acerbic voice added—to speak in such a manner, a manner which would have her dead within seconds, he continued. “I’ll stop by tomorrow. But remember, my dear Lord, you can’t go any further for as long as I’ve got Lilith.”

Mounting the horse—or, more accurately, scrambling up onto it somehow—Lilith gripped the reins quite tightly, now expecting that the magical repercussions would now include her. Instead, the other elf was permitted—whether it be by the mage, the gods, or the Fates—to mount and lead them away. Without any prodding, Lilith’s horse followed.

For the entire trip, Lilith kept waiting for the axe to fall, for the mage to halt them all and wreak horrible damage upon the adults and possibly the children. It didn’t happen, which made Lilith begin to believe once more that maybe there were some sort of Higher Power that had a different demise in mind for them.

Once they reached a new campsite, Lilith slipped to a tree and leaned against it, letting herself slide to a puddle at the base. Her eyes followed Darragh, the shadow from her hood covering most of her face, as he slipped from one small clump of children to the other, cheering them up and helping Anahita get them settled down.

Now that she wasn’t feeling a constant itch between her shoulder blades, she had time to think. There was one question on her mind, the question that the mage had so vehemently shouted. Why. Nothing was free, nothing was without a price. People didn’t help you just because; they either wanted something from you or they wanted to feel good about themselves. As there had been no reason for Darragh to take her side of the argument, there was even less of a reason for him to defy the mage’s authority, to completely separate himself from the Moron.

Yet her theory had one major flaw. There was nothing she could repay any hypothetical debt with. She didn’t really have that much money with her, she had bluntly refused to tell him anything about either herself or her country when he had prodded, and, honestly, even if her skin and hair weren’t so odd she didn’t have what could be called a desirable figure. The only thing she had in her favor was that she was an assassin. But if he had wanted her to assassinate someone, he should have known that all he had to do was give her the name and how much he was willing to pay. Right, she thought sarcastically. We’re in the scenic middle of nowhere, and the neighbors are bothering him.

Her eyes narrowed a bit as another idea occurred to her. She already knew that the two elves had spent a good deal of time talking privately to each other, and she had already noted that they didn’t often look chipper afterwards. The bit she overheard from this most recent conversation indicated quite a good deal of conflict, even if one disregarded the most recent actions. And what had Darragh said? “...you can’t go any further for as long as I’ve got Lilith.”

Which could mean only one thing. In this game, she was just a pawn, an bone of contention that could and would be used to prove a point. How she was used might have no relation to the point that was being proven; in the end—to her—it wouldn’t matter.

Her eyes tracked Darragh as he finished speaking to the children. He took a step or two towards her, but evidently decided that her slouched position indicated a lack of consciousness. Or he was learning. Yes, and next year the Devkto’ans will start inviting the Elvish nobility over for supper, she noted.

For a long time, Lilith stayed awake, her mind more or less blank. At home, she knew what point she had been used to make because it was simply a variation on two or three themes. If, that is, she had realized that she had been used as a game piece at all. Here, now… she hadn’t even the slightest idea where to begin. And she highly doubted that she could avoid any consequences by simply hiding her head under the covers and wishing it all away, which was all could do.

What’s done is done, she finally decided. She’d keep an eye on both of them, and do her best to minimize personal punishment. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of asking Anahita if she knew what this was all about, but pushed it away out of sheer improbability—though if she were totally honest with herself she’d admit that she just didn’t want to speak to the woman. And with that, she shut her eyes, determined to fall asleep. The die had been cast, and it wasn’t her move to make. It never was.

******************

Gasping for air, Lilith focused on her legs, forcing them to move, if not faster, at least not slower. Passing a certain tree, she let herself slow down, her feet now falling sluggishly and heavily without her will to drive them. One thing she would concede to the mage, and one thing alone: being pulled back from the brink of starvation had allowed her body to regain some of her former speed. She still wasn’t as fast as she would like to be, but it was a work in progress. Every morning—or evening, depending on how pushy the mage was for them to start their day—she had begun running and practicing in an attempt to better her fighting skills. The cuts on her arms helped her sleep at night, but they would not help her settle her debt.

Lilith walked until her breathing had returned to normal, and slipped back into their camp just long enough to grab some soap. The sun hadn’t come up yet—though dawn was not far off—so no one was awake to take notice of her.

Slipping down to the stream, she washed off all the sweat then rinsed her clothes and placed them on the bank after wringing them out. She had discovered that, with some effort, she could either break apart the water molecules to separate them into its gases (which was hard to do), or she could simply use it in a chemical reaction to make some sort of poison. Either of these options worked better than she had anticipated and only left her marginally damp, but she still preferred to let as much liquid evaporate as possible.

Resurfacing, Lilith looked at the sky. She could technically stay until Anahita or one of the children were sent to fetch her, but she would probably have to start heading back in a few minutes. With a sigh, Lilith anchored herself against the stream's lazy current by latching onto one of the rocks in the streambed with her feet and simply floated on her back. Closing her eyes and crossing her arms so that her palms touched the opposite shoulder, she took a few moments to simply enjoy the refreshing numbness the cold stream brought. It was going to be a long day, and she still wasn’t sure how Darragh and the Idiot’s spat was going to play out, so she savored the moment while she could.

[Alacer Phasmatis]

((Darragh))

“Hey, elf, you’re alright, right?” Darragh snapped out of his pained trance, stretching his arms nonchalantly and proclaiming, “Couldn’t be better.” He flashed a quick grin towards Anahita, who’d posed the question. “By the Lady,” he remarked, “I’ve said it of Aerain and now I’ll say it of you: you faeries are a damned awkward lot. It’s as though you’ve got a yardarm’s span between yourself and someone else’s emotions, but you’re busy petitioning your Gods for more. Fates, woman, couldn’t you just ask an honest question rather than making it a statement?”

“I object to that,” the faery replied. She mentioned the emotional bond of the fae folk, and some arguments related to the topic, but Darragh occupied himself in observing her movements instead. The way she operated about things tickled him immensely—her head was in as much quick, flitting motion as a finch’s, courtesy of her limited peripheral vision, and the way she managed those huge, seemingly awkward wings—hell, the expressionin those wings—captivated the elf.

Of course, he was trying to distract himself from Lysander’s vindictiveness. No telepath, Darragh was certain, could have summoned a headache of equal force; being half a mile away, they were out of Lysander’s sight, but not at all away from his range for such a small thing as a headache. I swear you’re such a brat, he groaned. In that chief respect, Lysander was a perfect mirror of his half-brothers. Cathal and Caoin… He shut his eyes against the mental images and in an attempt to divert his thoughts from the red flush of humiliation, for nothing that the mage had said was entirely false, the hunter muttered, “fates, you’re a bitch.”

“Who’s a bitch…?” Anahita cocked a brow at him over the saddle she carried and idly remarked “my sister had Lysander’s acid inclinations, though perhaps she wasn’t as petty as he. I blame it on us not being spoiled little noble brats.”

“Speaking as one such brat…”

“I assure you, you can be quite the ass when you want to be,” Anahita idly replied, flipping back stray hairs from her good eye. “Gods, don’t even try to deny it. You’re a very genial sort, though, so don’t take it personally. Still, your affront over some silly things—flute playing, for mercy’s sake, or the make of your cloak!—do make you a lesser breed of brat.”

“I see,” Darragh smiled. “But you were speaking of something else, fair lady.”

“My sister,” the faery affirmed. “She was a harsh sort, sometimes. Though not, I’ll warrant, as often as Lysander. I just wanted to tell you not to take it personally.” On a compulsion, Darragh walked behind the young woman and hugged her. “We don’t take any of Lysie darling’s guff personally, do we, Aiose?” he crooned to his companion over Anahita’s shoulder. The hound gave him a confused wag of the tail; she picked up on the positive address and on Lysander’s pet name, but cared to point out that she didn’t understand anything of his Common garble. “You’re a baby of a noble,” the bird-wing remarked, adroitly wriggling out of his embrace.

Darragh glanced towards Lilith, the object of the two lords’ conflict, if not the source, and made as if to approach her. He wanted to know if she was alright, that was all. But the white woman had fallen against a tree, slumped like a rag doll, and he knew this meant she preferred to be alone. For a moment he paused; then, the Unorian lordling turned back to Anahita and the rest of his charges, cursing his aching head all the while.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


“The Lady!” Darragh gasped to no one, breaking the surface of the river. In two strong, sinewy strokes, he’d achieved the harbor offered by a rock and clung to it with one arm, wiping his water-blackened hair out of his face with the other. Shivering, the elf submerged himself again.

His eartips went numb with cold. The sun still had an hour to rise, but slumber hadn’t stayed long with Darragh; he’d woken to a migraine of even sharper, less ignorable force. Gods, it’s cold! Lips trembling with each breath, the young elf quickly swam back to shore, where Aoise raised her head up from her crossed paws and barked her welcome. Darragh’s eyes lit happily as he returned the greeting. Fumbling with chilled fingers, he grabbed his cloak and briskly, deliberately dried himself with the murky-green wool. “Has Lilith or Anahita woken up yet?*” He asked of the hound, pulling on his breeches and leaving off the tunic; his hair lay in straggling, dark strands against his neck and back, dripping little rivulets of water down his torso. Waiting for his locks to dry would take less time than waiting for a wet tunic to.

Aoise replied that all the others still slept. Sighing to himself, Darragh lay back on the forest floor, inhaling the familiar early-morning scents of moisture and damp, cool things. “Three hundred years and that hasn’t changed at all, has it, old girl?” He mused, reaching back to fondle Aoise’s ears. Mentally, he mapped out what he’d have to do before noon.

He had to go talk with Lysander, of course. He could only imagine how this separation must seem to Anahita and Lilith, for its cause had been a touch trivial in the grand scheme of things. But both Lysander and Darragh knew that taking a comfortably quick pace to travel wouldn’t kill any kingdoms or make any significant sort of difference regarding how soon they could double back to the Ælfhers. And Darragh knew quite well that the fear of Rau-lass was marginal in the Regneld’s province; he knew it too well.

“The problem is, Lysander’s not confiding his feelings to anyone,” Darragh murmured to Aoise, twisting up to look at her, “not even me. He’s jut trying to bottle things up, excuse it all as unnecessary baggage and attempt to move on. But Lysie’s not that strong, is he, old girl? And he’s not trying to address his feelings on his own either, so he just takes out all the stress and fear on the rest of us.”

With a loud exhalation, the elf looked back up to the dark sky again, brows furrowed. This was all subtext they were arguing over, it was just another attempt to one-up the other man and run things the way each lord saw it should be run. I guess I’ll rouse the rest of the lot and go to Lysander's party after we’ve broken fast. He screwed up his eyes tightly and laid a cold, limpid strand of hair across his forehead. “Dammit,” he hissed. Fates, what a sorry headache…

On an impulse, Darragh propped himself up on his elbows and eyed his torso. The hoof-shaped bruise from Brónach had all but disappeared; a barely visible U still marked the pale flesh in tints of ochre and plum. “At least he’ll lose some fight after this affair mops itself up,” he muttered. Suddenly, Aoise stood up, stalk-still. The dog’s nostrils flared noiselessly as she scented the air, Darragh’s finger silently seeking his dagger and bow.

The brindles on her neck relaxing, Aoise sat to her haunches with a small wag of the tail. “Who…?” Darragh softly asked. Melting brown eyes fixing on his, the dog barked back, “Female elf.”

“Shit,” Darragh growled, as he heard the sound of crushing leaves and a small splash. Mind racing, he wondered how best to warn the younger woman of his presence without offending her. If he’d trusted Lilith’s lack of sense a bit more, he’d have just not announced himself and waited for her to leave; however, he didn’t count on Fate to be so kind to him today. Gingerly, the hunter spared a quick peek at the river and swiftly averted his eyes, breath hitching. If she turns around…

He’d seen other women’s bodies before, and the elf was certainly not a virgin. However, there was something sanctified about a person’s physical privacy; even if the sight of an unclothed body wasn’t embarrassing, the knowledge that you’d violated that person’s wishes by seeing their nudity was. Biting his lip, Darragh quickly coughed and bashfully cleared his throat.

“Er, Lilith?” he muttered, pulling on his tunic—wet hair or not, he didn’t fancy being seen half-dressed in this sort of situation—and keeping his attention clearly trained on the pebbles at the water’s edge. “I, um, think you should wait a moment for me to go before continuing your bath…?”



*Keep in mind that when Darragh speaks with his magic, communication isn't as linear as it's portrayed here; he's using a good deal of body-language to convey his ideas in addition to making sounds, and several terms are symbolically rather than literally portrayed. For example, I might write 'Niall' but what Darragh would be saying would be a brief metaphor or description understood to reflect Niall, such as 'deer-elf'.

[ShadowPhoenix]

((Lilith))

With a small sigh, Lilith submerged for the last time, regretting her decision to come back South. Not that I had any choice in the matter, she mused. But still. Why couldn’t the Rau-lass have waited for just a few more days before launching that final attack? If they had, she wouldn’t have had to come back down here into this stupid land that didn’t know the true meaning of the word ‘snow.’ And it’s only spring, she thought with a mental whimper. She really didn’t want to be here for the summer. Or, if she had to, she wanted to be as far north as possible, and in an area that hardly got any sun.

Standing up, Lilith twisted her hair as tightly as possible, watching the water run in rivulets to once again join the stream. Letting her eyes droop, Lilith concentrated on the blood coating her arms. It had been difficult to keep it close to her skin and prevent it from washing away. Now she had to decide either to add it to the vials in her pouch or to destroy the poisons and let them float away. After a moment, Lilith decided that she could use a little bit more, especially since she had trouble drawing poisons from her environment at a moment’s notice. Focusing on the ever-whispering molecules, she gathered them together in front of her as if they were fragile eggshells.

A sudden cough and her eyes jerked open, her arm moving in a swooping arc to send the hovering red sphere off in a new direction before she had a chance to identify the sound. Recognizing the voice before she understood the words, Lilith nearly swore. Forcefully snapping the bonds between the ions, she spun off, tugging on her clothing and sprinting away, boots and belt in hand.

Sh*t, she thought as the burst of adrenaline finally wore off and left her nearly at the camp. Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot! I could have killed him! She was so stupid, so… so… incompetent. She should have known he was there even before she entered the water. And even if she hadn’t, she should have known who it was right away, not after she—

Good gods. She had thrown her blood at him. Well, a small voice in her head mused, intent on being entirely correct, technically it was poison and the blood was just… there.

But still. Lilith could only imagine the awkward conversation that would ensue. Then again… it was Darragh. Maybe there was a small bit of hope. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything and he wouldn’t tell the Idiot, who would use the incident as an example of her lack of control, at the very least. If she were lucky.

Pulling on her boots and belt, Lilith pondered the wisdom of hoping for such an improbable thing. She had almost poisoned the man, after all. But no one told him to stick around while I was bathing! she thought furiously. A sudden flush worked its way up her pale face as realization hit her. One hand moved to cover her mouth, as if that would help anything.

He saw—I was—

Lilith flopped to the ground, hiding her face in her hands. She could feel the heat radiating off her face, ears, and neck, and doubted that it’d go away any time soon. She hadn’t been wearing anything.

After a very long moment, Lilith took a deep breath. And another. She’d have to get up eventually. And she’d at least have to be in his general vicinity. So what she really needed to do was calm down, objectify the situation, and move on. But she could still remember that one instant before she had fled, when his eyes moved from the pebbles to the wet blob flying towards him. Her face burned scarlet, and probably was the exact same shade and richness as the color would have been in paints or inks. Deep breaths, she admonished herself. Just breathe. Forcibly she drew her attention away from that memory and dredged up another. Mentally superimposing the image of a forest onto what she saw now, she began to draw up a list of all the differences, fighting to regain her usual emotionless demeanor.

A bird called out somewhere nearby, finally making the elf aware of the passing time. It hadn’t been enough, and she could still feel heat emitting from her ears and cheeks. But it was all she had. Standing up, she slipped into camp. After donning her cloak, she dug around through her pack until she came upon a strip of black cloth. Lilith tied it around the lower half of her face, noting as she did so that it still smelled faintly of a Southern drug she had bought only a few months ago. The faery she got it from didn’t have a pouch with the quantity she desired, so she had simply poured the opium into the cloth since she never used it. And, because she never used it, it had sat at the bottom of her pack all this time, undoubtedly feeling alone and neglected.

Oh well, she thought while pulling her hood well over her head. Climbing the tree she had slept against, she watched as the group began to waken and stir. Smelling nothing but opium all day was much better than letting the world see her crimson face. Assassins, as everyone knew, didn’t blush.