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[5E] The Age of Worms - Solid Snake's Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Alexander Bryant" data-source="post: 7186862" data-attributes="member: 6884000"><p><strong>Journal of Etona - Entry Six</strong></p><p></p><p><em>They do not know.</em></p><p><em>They do not know.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>It is why I will not kill them. There are other, better reasons, of course, and I am just grumpy right now, but to render an elf unconscious is simple cruelty. Part of their message, perhaps.</p><p></p><p>This is another test. I am so angry I am shaking, but I look around me and there is more misery than what has been visited on me. I am not special, I keep reminding myself. Not a test then, if I am not special. She is gone, remember?</p><p></p><p><u>The Ambush</u></p><p>The ambush was a flurry of sleep-poison-tipped darts from small crossbows wielded by the <em>kenku</em>, a race of raven-men. We had been seeing ravens for days. He is Trickster but also Helper to our people, the Bright’s Raven King: chaotic, impulsive, but ultimately defender of the people of the Fey, so he is friend to the Children of the Mirror. I must find out what these raven people want and whether they can be persuaded to recognize our old bonds. If only Verdre was here! She knows of the Old Bonds more than I.</p><p></p><p>Rey and I brought two down before I was felled by a dart. When I awoke, Egan had chased others off with fire and Melinde had one of them in chains. I must keep my heart hardened for now, so I am calling him <strong>Sqawk</strong>. He must explain his people’s actions.</p><p></p><p>But first there was a growing blaze to put out. One of the sheriff's lackeys, I don’t recall this one’s name, appeared as we formed a line of townspeople to put out the fire and I dragged people from inside to safety. He wanted to arrest us or something? I couldn’t hear past his supercilious attitude and so I pressed him into service instead. While he made himself marginally less useless directing an already well-formed water brigade, I took two of his boys – for that is all they are – with me to rescue the people I could not get to, up in the second floor. They were actually helpful and received my heartfelt thanks.</p><p></p><p>Smenk was injured but not seriously: his depths of fat served as adequate shield. But he was beside himself watching his home smolder. He offered Egan 500 gold on the spot to bring the leader of the Dourstone mine’s cult to him alive.</p><p></p><p>We took Sqawk to the garrison. There we questioned him. He was clad in leather. The crossbow, a small sword and a necklace of Vecna (deity of shadows and secrecy like my own, though Vecna, at least, seemed consistent towards his followers) were his only possessions. Egan says the amulet is magical, though we were unable to ascertain what it did.</p><p></p><p>Sqawk told us the attack was a warning to Smenk from the Faceless One: they do not care to be sold the rotten meat and broken goods he has apparently bartered. Though believable, the story does not ring complete to me: a squad to brazenly attack a local criminal lord because they did not care for the products sold them? Perhaps, but this cult is shrouded in secrecy and work to keep it that way (what sort of people live in a mine who aren’t interested in mining, after all?). An attack with sleep darts only creates attention, not subverts it. Anyway, they thought we were in league with Smenk and so folded us in to their ambush.</p><p></p><p>When asked about the green worms, Sqawk readily admitted to his fellow mine-dwellers “experimenting” with them. The worm changes people, imbues them with power. The test subjects are volunteers. They are just knowledge gatherers.</p><p></p><p>“Can we see your area of the mine? Can we question the volunteers? Will you guarantee safe passage in and then back out of the mine?”</p><p></p><p>All of these questions were answered with a Yes. He seemed to me to be telling the truth.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I should mention that while this was happening, Rey had freed Smenk’s great apes and was calming them, seeing to their wounds as much as possible, and feeding them just outside the garrison. We would need to do something with them now that we have liberated them. Perhaps the Emporeum could help? I will come back to this.</p><p></p><p></p><p><u>A Short Trip South</u></p><p>Before diving into a potentially hostile mine owned by a separately hostile mine owner, we wanted to see the worms “in action” for ourselves. We decided to go to their source, south, somewhere in the swamps. So we secured horses and three men from Captain Trask: we would ferry down some reports and other paperwork and bring back information. And the horses. Especially the horses, said the captain.</p><p></p><p>Davin, Randall and the elder soldier Malak were Trask’s choice to accompany us. I met with them and introduced us and our mission. The younger men in particular were wide-eyed at meeting elves. As we would journey south, I would gently correct their odd ideas of how we elves lived, ate, recreated, and worshiped. It seemed inconceivable to me that they would have literally every idea wrong, but it did make for amusing conversation. And oh how annoyed Rey got! I can see me teasing her with their notions for weeks. I can hardly wait.</p><p></p><p>We made ready to leave the next day, but first, the visit to the Emporeum.</p><p></p><p>We were able to speak to Zalomandra, one of its owners. She was cordial in offering us, and then charging us! for expensive tea. Sadly, it was astonishingly good, so I cannot bear her a grudge from this ungracious maneuver. She will take the apes, keep them safe and healthy and relatively free while she opened pathways to secure their release in their own lands. They would need to be trained to survive as well. Rey could see to that when we returned, and Zalomandra would aid in this as well. All for a price.</p><p></p><p>“What do you want? We have little money,” I said.</p><p></p><p>“A favor, to be named in the future.”</p><p></p><p>“Intriguing. Will it be fun?”</p><p></p><p>She smiled. “I promise.”</p><p></p><p>“So long as it does not harm any who do not deserve it. So long as it does not run counter to my Mistress’s commands.”</p><p></p><p>“Of course not.”</p><p></p><p>“Then I am actually looking forward to it,” I said with a smile.</p><p></p><p></p><p>We set out. Our journey was to include a single overnight stay, but this had been secured, or at least promised, by lodging at <strong>Byron’s farm</strong>, a family farm of citrus fruits. He is very popular with the garrison, often lending his stables to them as they pass through and giving them small gifts of oranges and lemons. I have not had an orange in about a year, so I looked forward to it as much as then men did.</p><p></p><p>During the ride down there, I struck up conversations with all three men. Malak was the most interesting with many war tales and other stories of his thieving ways before he was drafted into the local forces (it was that or go to prison). Now he is respected, a man of character with enough tales to while away the hours. He was also very interested in my own stories. I suppose they are dramatic, though I didn’t know if he believed all of it. Whenever I tell of myself, I am struck by how much has happened to me in the past two years. And here I am on another adventure. I suppose being idle is not in my nature. Except for Father, it is a shared Aspianne trait.</p><p></p><p>Egan laughed and joked with the men, completely at home with them despite his bookish background. He is a chameleon among humans, always saying the right thing to get a laugh or at least a listen.</p><p></p><p>Rey was stolid and quiet as usual, but I know I caught her listening to us more than once. I grinned at her and was rewarded with the rare sighting of a warm smile back. I think she was actually allowing herself to be happy at certain moments. I want her to be: there is a such a weight on her most of the time, it must be exhausting. But I think I am slowly breaking through. I see my s’theya in there, but like a sculptor I must clear away all the marble first.</p><p></p><p><u>The Farm</u></p><p>As we approached the farm, we began to see orchard trees, but everything was covered in a gritty white ash. One of the trees, too, had been split up the middle and it and the ground around it were black. Egan confirmed there was a necrotic energy lingering, and whatever caused it was unsubtle, very powerful. </p><p></p><p>The ash was bone, Rey said.</p><p></p><p>We all had the same thought at the same time: we needed to get to the farm!</p><p></p><p>The house was boarded up. Rey and I stalked up to it. She spotted tracks of boots but also misshapen feet in the dirt outside the home. Stealthily we climbed to the roof. It was an easy effort to open the windows and slip in. The second floor was quiet, but I had the impression of hushed voices below. After a moment, it was clear these were the family and that they seemed to be all right, if scared.</p><p></p><p>“My name is Etona. I am with the garrison. We are here to help –.”</p><p></p><p>“Shhhh!” two voices commanded me urgently from down the stairs. “They will hear you.” </p><p></p><p>Chastened, I padded down the stairs. It was the family, I saw with relief: mother, young daughters, a terribly-aged father – no, that would be the grandfather. </p><p></p><p>“I am Etona from the garrison,” I repeated in a whisper. “What can I do to help?” We had come to help ourselves, but those were not the words this terrified band needed.</p><p></p><p>I am not certain what prompted Melinde to break the silence of the twilight just then. She strode to the house yelling, “We are from the garrison! Let us help!” or something like that, possibly banging pots and pans as she went.</p><p></p><p>Howls broke out all around: terrible, longing songs of hunger and despair. I have heard such before. The undead were upon us.</p><p></p><p>I heard them come out and attack our bande. I heard them surround the house and a moment later start pounding on its makeshift battlements. I darted upstairs and saw them from a window. Rey was nowhere to be seen: she must have climbed down. Yes, I think I’d heard that as well, which meant she was in terrible danger. Or, as I hoped, they were. I eventually spotted her and Obi tearing through them.</p><p></p><p>In the distance, Malak, Davin and Randall had set a perimeter with torches around the horses, waiting with crossbows out and swords at the ready. Egan, Rey and Melinde were all together now to face the horror of what was coming out of the woods: ghouls. Creatures of cunning in endless pain. They would have to be put down, all of them, right now.</p><p></p><p>Fire sprayed from Egan’s hands lighting up the scene; Rey slashed, parried, stabbed; Obi gnashed her beak and mauled. I fired arrow after arrow. But it was Melinde who quite probably won this fight before it even really started.</p><p></p><p>All priests of life can channel their respective deities to lay waste to unlife. Melinde is not a priest: she is one of those noisy human fanatical warriors who burn with passion and holy fire. She is a <em>paladin</em>. I did not understand this before. Part of my mind must have simply blocked out the clues she has been giving me all along. Not that Melinde concealed her nature, far from it. I was simply blind to what she is.</p><p></p><p>I am not fond of paladins. They do not exist among elves, as far as I know, certainly none have ever blazed their way through our tribe. They are violent people of moral certainty and absolute adherence to law. Their worlds are black and white. Their utterances, commands. They are dictators of divine will wrapped in steel.</p><p></p><p>So with an oath that probably woke Captain Trask, Melinde gestured with her sword and the ghouls in front of her . . . burned away.</p><p></p><p>I could do this once. Or rather, we could do it: Sehanine and I. But the Children of the Mirror no longer have a channel to make ashes of the twisted. How long would that last? Would another be born one day to take my place?</p><p></p><p>The creatures broke through the front door to the family below! I hurried down in time to see the grandfather cut down by one of the slavering things. I leaped between the nightmares and the trio of mother and daughters, my inadequate hunting knife drawn. I motioned them upstairs, told them to lock themselves in, and I would follow in a moment. If they saw one of these monsters instead then I was already dead and they needed to get out of a window.</p><p></p><p>It is not natural for a predator to defend the helpless. We eat the helpless. That is the way of things. Why, then, does my Once Upon A Time Mistress command all of our tribe to protect the weak as She always has to the earliest of our stories? I look on these three strangers as they run up the stairs, and I will defend them as if they were my own daughters, I know. I may die here in the next few moments. And it is absolutely right to do this, as right as drinking pure water or breathing. But why?</p><p></p><p>I sliced up the first ghoul in front of me, the one that was starting to eat the grandfather’s still-quivering form, and retreated up the stairs after the girls. I waited – Angivre drawn – for the others that had followed it in, but Egan came into the house then and burned them down before they could start towards me.</p><p></p><p>We won. We killed all of them and their apparent leader, as far as we knew. But those girls could not stay here, not anymore. They would all need to come with us to the keep down south. Like the apes, Fate had cast them adrift.</p><p></p><p>The tale they told was heartbreaking. </p><p></p><p>“Byron got sick a week ago trying to remove a rotten tree from our orchard. We were never sure what it was or what caused it, but he was stricken with fever and was muttering nonsense in his sleep. One night, I went to check on him and he was gone. It was shortly thereafter that we began to hear the howling at night. My father and I boarded up all the windows and we haven’t left the house at night in days.”</p><p></p><p>After I spent time with them calming them, hopefully befriending them, soothing them to sleep, I searched the ashes of the burned corpses. Byron’s ring was there. He had attacked his own family.</p><p></p><p>Where had this come from, this little evil drama? Why here? A passing necromancer cruelly amusing himself? Miasma finally boiling forth from below? Ebon lightning? What?</p><p></p><p>Since I had taken the night shift, of course, I went back to the center of the black magic searching for answers. It was habit, I suppose, that saw me performing the cleaning ritual as I had when I was the Mirror’s priestess. I chanted the words, held Angivre aloft, spoke from my heart for Her cleansing touch, expecting nothing.</p><p></p><p>The necrotic tentacles that were burned into the earth shivered, and then they faded, shrank. They left the earth and rolled up into a black ball. As I watched, transfixed, white sparks the color of Her face coalesced on its surface. It grew smaller changing to purple and angry red and other spectral colors I had never seen before.</p><p>There was a beat . . . </p><p>And then it was torn apart by jagged moonbeams! It sizzled, screeched like mice dying, becoming smaller, fainter, until ultimately it was snuffed out like an ugly candle thrown into the sea.</p><p></p><p>Gone.</p><p></p><p>Everywhere I looked, completely gone.</p><p></p><p>The tree, the ground around it, all was cleansed.</p><p></p><p>How bright the moon was, Her full face smiling down!</p><p></p><p>“Mistress,” I whispered from my knees. “Mi’iya Sehanin’e os’thrar ae’silva, ae’glimm i‘merea.” <em>My ecstatic soul blazes because You have shone down upon me</em>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>It is an old phrase, formal, little used for centuries. The words hearken to a simpler time when we worshiped Her as human fanatics worship their gods. A passionate, intimate form of the phrase is still in use today but only during <em>dorse feu</em>. My heart almost chose that one.</p><p></p><p>Angivre murmured something causing me to look over to her. Opalescent lights swirled just under her skin, weak but reminiscent of how she glowed before. I brought her into my arms, cradled her. I had removed the string before the ceremony, so in a fit of hope I drew the non-existent one back.</p><p></p><p>And the Silver came.</p><p></p><p>She is groggy, her luster weak, but Angivre grants me the Silver for the first time since she did not, four seasons ago. The radiant moonbeam that should also form does not come, however: she keeps that inside, or maybe She does. Or even perhaps as My Mistress Herself said to me once – the Silver has not yet returned within me. That long time ago, a child under all that water, She had told me that I would one day not need the bow to cast the arrow. I had pondered this ever since. How does one launch an arrow without a bow?</p><p></p><p>I cried most of the night. I do not remember <em>not </em>crying. I wept like a human girl. Tears of joy. Tears of sorrow for my crime against the Fey. Tears of despair that this was my fate: to be manipulated by this cruel goddess and then weep on Her first smile. But She is mine again, as much as this piteous thing, this tiny, stupid elf who loves and loves and is endlessly slapped down from it can claim a goddess.</p><p></p><p>And I am hers.</p><p></p><p>In the morning, only Rey notices any evidence of my transformation. She also sees something in Angivre, subtle new colors, she would tell me later. She arched a hawk-like eyebrow, and I ran to her wrapping my arms tight around her. It was like embracing a sympathetic but petrified tree.</p><p></p><p>“Rey, I am not hugging you,” I cried looking up at her confused, alarmed face. “You are hugging me.”</p><p></p><p>And she did, finally. Poor Rey. Her defenses are so mighty, she thinks not even love can penetrate them.</p><p></p><p>Except that I am the ocean and her ramparts are mere stone.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alexander Bryant, post: 7186862, member: 6884000"] [b]Journal of Etona - Entry Six[/b] [I]They do not know. They do not know. [/I] It is why I will not kill them. There are other, better reasons, of course, and I am just grumpy right now, but to render an elf unconscious is simple cruelty. Part of their message, perhaps. This is another test. I am so angry I am shaking, but I look around me and there is more misery than what has been visited on me. I am not special, I keep reminding myself. Not a test then, if I am not special. She is gone, remember? [U]The Ambush[/U] The ambush was a flurry of sleep-poison-tipped darts from small crossbows wielded by the [I]kenku[/I], a race of raven-men. We had been seeing ravens for days. He is Trickster but also Helper to our people, the Bright’s Raven King: chaotic, impulsive, but ultimately defender of the people of the Fey, so he is friend to the Children of the Mirror. I must find out what these raven people want and whether they can be persuaded to recognize our old bonds. If only Verdre was here! She knows of the Old Bonds more than I. Rey and I brought two down before I was felled by a dart. When I awoke, Egan had chased others off with fire and Melinde had one of them in chains. I must keep my heart hardened for now, so I am calling him [B]Sqawk[/B]. He must explain his people’s actions. But first there was a growing blaze to put out. One of the sheriff's lackeys, I don’t recall this one’s name, appeared as we formed a line of townspeople to put out the fire and I dragged people from inside to safety. He wanted to arrest us or something? I couldn’t hear past his supercilious attitude and so I pressed him into service instead. While he made himself marginally less useless directing an already well-formed water brigade, I took two of his boys – for that is all they are – with me to rescue the people I could not get to, up in the second floor. They were actually helpful and received my heartfelt thanks. Smenk was injured but not seriously: his depths of fat served as adequate shield. But he was beside himself watching his home smolder. He offered Egan 500 gold on the spot to bring the leader of the Dourstone mine’s cult to him alive. We took Sqawk to the garrison. There we questioned him. He was clad in leather. The crossbow, a small sword and a necklace of Vecna (deity of shadows and secrecy like my own, though Vecna, at least, seemed consistent towards his followers) were his only possessions. Egan says the amulet is magical, though we were unable to ascertain what it did. Sqawk told us the attack was a warning to Smenk from the Faceless One: they do not care to be sold the rotten meat and broken goods he has apparently bartered. Though believable, the story does not ring complete to me: a squad to brazenly attack a local criminal lord because they did not care for the products sold them? Perhaps, but this cult is shrouded in secrecy and work to keep it that way (what sort of people live in a mine who aren’t interested in mining, after all?). An attack with sleep darts only creates attention, not subverts it. Anyway, they thought we were in league with Smenk and so folded us in to their ambush. When asked about the green worms, Sqawk readily admitted to his fellow mine-dwellers “experimenting” with them. The worm changes people, imbues them with power. The test subjects are volunteers. They are just knowledge gatherers. “Can we see your area of the mine? Can we question the volunteers? Will you guarantee safe passage in and then back out of the mine?” All of these questions were answered with a Yes. He seemed to me to be telling the truth. I should mention that while this was happening, Rey had freed Smenk’s great apes and was calming them, seeing to their wounds as much as possible, and feeding them just outside the garrison. We would need to do something with them now that we have liberated them. Perhaps the Emporeum could help? I will come back to this. [U]A Short Trip South[/U] Before diving into a potentially hostile mine owned by a separately hostile mine owner, we wanted to see the worms “in action” for ourselves. We decided to go to their source, south, somewhere in the swamps. So we secured horses and three men from Captain Trask: we would ferry down some reports and other paperwork and bring back information. And the horses. Especially the horses, said the captain. Davin, Randall and the elder soldier Malak were Trask’s choice to accompany us. I met with them and introduced us and our mission. The younger men in particular were wide-eyed at meeting elves. As we would journey south, I would gently correct their odd ideas of how we elves lived, ate, recreated, and worshiped. It seemed inconceivable to me that they would have literally every idea wrong, but it did make for amusing conversation. And oh how annoyed Rey got! I can see me teasing her with their notions for weeks. I can hardly wait. We made ready to leave the next day, but first, the visit to the Emporeum. We were able to speak to Zalomandra, one of its owners. She was cordial in offering us, and then charging us! for expensive tea. Sadly, it was astonishingly good, so I cannot bear her a grudge from this ungracious maneuver. She will take the apes, keep them safe and healthy and relatively free while she opened pathways to secure their release in their own lands. They would need to be trained to survive as well. Rey could see to that when we returned, and Zalomandra would aid in this as well. All for a price. “What do you want? We have little money,” I said. “A favor, to be named in the future.” “Intriguing. Will it be fun?” She smiled. “I promise.” “So long as it does not harm any who do not deserve it. So long as it does not run counter to my Mistress’s commands.” “Of course not.” “Then I am actually looking forward to it,” I said with a smile. We set out. Our journey was to include a single overnight stay, but this had been secured, or at least promised, by lodging at [B]Byron’s farm[/B], a family farm of citrus fruits. He is very popular with the garrison, often lending his stables to them as they pass through and giving them small gifts of oranges and lemons. I have not had an orange in about a year, so I looked forward to it as much as then men did. During the ride down there, I struck up conversations with all three men. Malak was the most interesting with many war tales and other stories of his thieving ways before he was drafted into the local forces (it was that or go to prison). Now he is respected, a man of character with enough tales to while away the hours. He was also very interested in my own stories. I suppose they are dramatic, though I didn’t know if he believed all of it. Whenever I tell of myself, I am struck by how much has happened to me in the past two years. And here I am on another adventure. I suppose being idle is not in my nature. Except for Father, it is a shared Aspianne trait. Egan laughed and joked with the men, completely at home with them despite his bookish background. He is a chameleon among humans, always saying the right thing to get a laugh or at least a listen. Rey was stolid and quiet as usual, but I know I caught her listening to us more than once. I grinned at her and was rewarded with the rare sighting of a warm smile back. I think she was actually allowing herself to be happy at certain moments. I want her to be: there is a such a weight on her most of the time, it must be exhausting. But I think I am slowly breaking through. I see my s’theya in there, but like a sculptor I must clear away all the marble first. [U]The Farm[/U] As we approached the farm, we began to see orchard trees, but everything was covered in a gritty white ash. One of the trees, too, had been split up the middle and it and the ground around it were black. Egan confirmed there was a necrotic energy lingering, and whatever caused it was unsubtle, very powerful. The ash was bone, Rey said. We all had the same thought at the same time: we needed to get to the farm! The house was boarded up. Rey and I stalked up to it. She spotted tracks of boots but also misshapen feet in the dirt outside the home. Stealthily we climbed to the roof. It was an easy effort to open the windows and slip in. The second floor was quiet, but I had the impression of hushed voices below. After a moment, it was clear these were the family and that they seemed to be all right, if scared. “My name is Etona. I am with the garrison. We are here to help –.” “Shhhh!” two voices commanded me urgently from down the stairs. “They will hear you.” Chastened, I padded down the stairs. It was the family, I saw with relief: mother, young daughters, a terribly-aged father – no, that would be the grandfather. “I am Etona from the garrison,” I repeated in a whisper. “What can I do to help?” We had come to help ourselves, but those were not the words this terrified band needed. I am not certain what prompted Melinde to break the silence of the twilight just then. She strode to the house yelling, “We are from the garrison! Let us help!” or something like that, possibly banging pots and pans as she went. Howls broke out all around: terrible, longing songs of hunger and despair. I have heard such before. The undead were upon us. I heard them come out and attack our bande. I heard them surround the house and a moment later start pounding on its makeshift battlements. I darted upstairs and saw them from a window. Rey was nowhere to be seen: she must have climbed down. Yes, I think I’d heard that as well, which meant she was in terrible danger. Or, as I hoped, they were. I eventually spotted her and Obi tearing through them. In the distance, Malak, Davin and Randall had set a perimeter with torches around the horses, waiting with crossbows out and swords at the ready. Egan, Rey and Melinde were all together now to face the horror of what was coming out of the woods: ghouls. Creatures of cunning in endless pain. They would have to be put down, all of them, right now. Fire sprayed from Egan’s hands lighting up the scene; Rey slashed, parried, stabbed; Obi gnashed her beak and mauled. I fired arrow after arrow. But it was Melinde who quite probably won this fight before it even really started. All priests of life can channel their respective deities to lay waste to unlife. Melinde is not a priest: she is one of those noisy human fanatical warriors who burn with passion and holy fire. She is a [I]paladin[/I]. I did not understand this before. Part of my mind must have simply blocked out the clues she has been giving me all along. Not that Melinde concealed her nature, far from it. I was simply blind to what she is. I am not fond of paladins. They do not exist among elves, as far as I know, certainly none have ever blazed their way through our tribe. They are violent people of moral certainty and absolute adherence to law. Their worlds are black and white. Their utterances, commands. They are dictators of divine will wrapped in steel. So with an oath that probably woke Captain Trask, Melinde gestured with her sword and the ghouls in front of her . . . burned away. I could do this once. Or rather, we could do it: Sehanine and I. But the Children of the Mirror no longer have a channel to make ashes of the twisted. How long would that last? Would another be born one day to take my place? The creatures broke through the front door to the family below! I hurried down in time to see the grandfather cut down by one of the slavering things. I leaped between the nightmares and the trio of mother and daughters, my inadequate hunting knife drawn. I motioned them upstairs, told them to lock themselves in, and I would follow in a moment. If they saw one of these monsters instead then I was already dead and they needed to get out of a window. It is not natural for a predator to defend the helpless. We eat the helpless. That is the way of things. Why, then, does my Once Upon A Time Mistress command all of our tribe to protect the weak as She always has to the earliest of our stories? I look on these three strangers as they run up the stairs, and I will defend them as if they were my own daughters, I know. I may die here in the next few moments. And it is absolutely right to do this, as right as drinking pure water or breathing. But why? I sliced up the first ghoul in front of me, the one that was starting to eat the grandfather’s still-quivering form, and retreated up the stairs after the girls. I waited – Angivre drawn – for the others that had followed it in, but Egan came into the house then and burned them down before they could start towards me. We won. We killed all of them and their apparent leader, as far as we knew. But those girls could not stay here, not anymore. They would all need to come with us to the keep down south. Like the apes, Fate had cast them adrift. The tale they told was heartbreaking. “Byron got sick a week ago trying to remove a rotten tree from our orchard. We were never sure what it was or what caused it, but he was stricken with fever and was muttering nonsense in his sleep. One night, I went to check on him and he was gone. It was shortly thereafter that we began to hear the howling at night. My father and I boarded up all the windows and we haven’t left the house at night in days.” After I spent time with them calming them, hopefully befriending them, soothing them to sleep, I searched the ashes of the burned corpses. Byron’s ring was there. He had attacked his own family. Where had this come from, this little evil drama? Why here? A passing necromancer cruelly amusing himself? Miasma finally boiling forth from below? Ebon lightning? What? Since I had taken the night shift, of course, I went back to the center of the black magic searching for answers. It was habit, I suppose, that saw me performing the cleaning ritual as I had when I was the Mirror’s priestess. I chanted the words, held Angivre aloft, spoke from my heart for Her cleansing touch, expecting nothing. The necrotic tentacles that were burned into the earth shivered, and then they faded, shrank. They left the earth and rolled up into a black ball. As I watched, transfixed, white sparks the color of Her face coalesced on its surface. It grew smaller changing to purple and angry red and other spectral colors I had never seen before. There was a beat . . . And then it was torn apart by jagged moonbeams! It sizzled, screeched like mice dying, becoming smaller, fainter, until ultimately it was snuffed out like an ugly candle thrown into the sea. Gone. Everywhere I looked, completely gone. The tree, the ground around it, all was cleansed. How bright the moon was, Her full face smiling down! “Mistress,” I whispered from my knees. “Mi’iya Sehanin’e os’thrar ae’silva, ae’glimm i‘merea.” [I]My ecstatic soul blazes because You have shone down upon me[/I]. It is an old phrase, formal, little used for centuries. The words hearken to a simpler time when we worshiped Her as human fanatics worship their gods. A passionate, intimate form of the phrase is still in use today but only during [I]dorse feu[/I]. My heart almost chose that one. Angivre murmured something causing me to look over to her. Opalescent lights swirled just under her skin, weak but reminiscent of how she glowed before. I brought her into my arms, cradled her. I had removed the string before the ceremony, so in a fit of hope I drew the non-existent one back. And the Silver came. She is groggy, her luster weak, but Angivre grants me the Silver for the first time since she did not, four seasons ago. The radiant moonbeam that should also form does not come, however: she keeps that inside, or maybe She does. Or even perhaps as My Mistress Herself said to me once – the Silver has not yet returned within me. That long time ago, a child under all that water, She had told me that I would one day not need the bow to cast the arrow. I had pondered this ever since. How does one launch an arrow without a bow? I cried most of the night. I do not remember [I]not [/I]crying. I wept like a human girl. Tears of joy. Tears of sorrow for my crime against the Fey. Tears of despair that this was my fate: to be manipulated by this cruel goddess and then weep on Her first smile. But She is mine again, as much as this piteous thing, this tiny, stupid elf who loves and loves and is endlessly slapped down from it can claim a goddess. And I am hers. In the morning, only Rey notices any evidence of my transformation. She also sees something in Angivre, subtle new colors, she would tell me later. She arched a hawk-like eyebrow, and I ran to her wrapping my arms tight around her. It was like embracing a sympathetic but petrified tree. “Rey, I am not hugging you,” I cried looking up at her confused, alarmed face. “You are hugging me.” And she did, finally. Poor Rey. Her defenses are so mighty, she thinks not even love can penetrate them. Except that I am the ocean and her ramparts are mere stone. [/QUOTE]
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