Even a fey with her limited empathy, in truth pathetically low for a fey and almost an embarrassment to the Seelie Court, was now suffering from the tree-heart deep corruption and rotting that had taken to this section of the forest. How was it that the elders hadn't noticed this only a bee's flight from the Court?
But she was only speaking relatively. The Seelie Court was not a physical place but in truth existed out of the mortal world. It was only through the fairy gates that touched many places that gave the Court a semblance of being rooted like any untouched forest glade.
The darkness under the trees was unnatural. Even the oldest growth forests had small rays of light filtering through the many layers of branches and leaves. Unseelie didn't have the power to do this. But their ruler did, she who was the most corrupted and twisted of the Unseelie, only more so because she had once been Seelie.
Emiri knew the tale, of how the sister of the Queen of the Court had found a black diamond and became obsessed with it. She became paranoid, certain that everyone was out to steal her precious gem from her. So paranoid that she committed the ultimate crime among the Seelie, setting on fire an entire fire, killing all sylvan creatures within it, and almost allowing the fire to pass through a fairy gate into the Court.
But in the Court, the Queen's power holds no equal. And when the sister whose name had been erased from all records dared to strike out at her sister and queen, the Queen banished her from the Court, barring all fairy gates, and naming her Unseelie.
It was said that the Unseelie had always existed, nature has its way of keeping all things in balance after all. But they were flighty individuals incapable of working together and were just as often bickering among themselves as raising havoc among the other races. But the Nameless Sister came to them and by power and fear, took control of them, using them as her army to wage war against the Seelie Queen.
Though all Seelie knew of it as a war, it was not a war as such thought by humans. There were no battles where waves and waves of soldiers clashed at strategically important positions. There were no cities to be captured, no land borders to dispute. It was only an increased danger of wandering near known Unseelie haunts, as the Unseelie would now turn as one against any Seelie intruder.
But the dry, fallen leaves that carpeted the ground marked these forests as a recent acquisition. Emiri couldn't remember hearing anything about the Unseelie spreading the borders of the glades they desecrated and corrupted. The thin, reaching branches almost seemed to shine with the gleam of their sap bleeding from the slowly petrifying limbs.
Emiri feared where their cackling, gleeful escorts were taking her and her nearly comatose twin. She could only wish that it might be a place like which Zelgadiss in the story had been going.
The stone skin that caused most people to shy away from him had been a reminder of his somewhat reckless and overly proud youth. Oh yes, defiant; let's not forget defiant. He always wanted to get out of his famous father's shadow, ready to take any wild treasure hunt, any whisper of a ferocious monster, anything to try to be recognized as himself.
But always, always, everyone would say how great Terim was or what else could you expect from Terim's son. No one even bothered to remember his name, what did it matter if it was somewhat long and unusual! It was the fact no one made the effort to even try to see him as his own person.
So he had taken that utterly ridiculous quest, one said no one but Terim Graywords could ever attempt and succeed. Well, perhaps his father would have been the only one to get through it relatively unscratched but Zelgadiss managed to get through it. Like father, like son, was what the archmage he met at the end had to say.
The whole thing had been a trap, one created specifically to ensnare Terim Graywords because the archmage apparently had quite a bone to pick with him. He supposed that sending back a petrified son to Terim was sure to arouse the retired hero to come confront him. Except he hadn't counted on Zel's other heritage.
Which resulted in the charming walking, talking semi-statue that Zelgadiss was today.
But that didn't quite explain why he was cutting his way through a twisted thicket of blackened vines with wickedly sharp thorns that were actually capable of cutting through his enchanted skin. Well, no one said this was a normal growth of thorny vines that rose to entangle themselves in a messy knot high above his head. The pain from perhaps a hundred cuts around his body was almost a welcome sensation, after all, he hadn't been able to feel much through this cursed shell during all the years since he killed that archmage in a fit of anger.
Well, back to why he was here, and in truth tying into a lot of other things in his past, Zelgadiss was impulsive. Ask most people, and you'll be told he's one of the most predictable people in the world. But most of the things he did that definitely had an impact on his life, like killing probably the only person who could undo this curse, had been done in a split second decision, in the heat of passion and all that bardic nonsense.
Here he was several days' journey away from the only niche in this world that he had to himself, chopping his way through a forest to find a sorceress everyone else believe died about sixteen or so years ago if not over a century before, all on the words of a pair of fairies(?) and a novice cleric. People had gone off on hare-brained adventures for lesser reasons, say a dare over many tankards of ale.
He was doing it because he was under the belief that he might actually care for someone he had not even known for a week's time. Zelgadiss hacked a vine out of his way, using the above normal strength courtesy of his curse to tear the vine away from its companions and toss it to a side.
Call him paranoid but wasn't the opening he had been cutting through a bit wider? Zelgadiss frowned, for all appearances and stench, these vines were still alive but vines don't grow back that fast. He did not relish the thought of having to cut his way back out, especially if he did find something, okay someone, who needed to be carried out.
Murmuring the arcanic words to a minor spell, he summoned forth no more than a candle's light from the tip of his extended finger. The black vines almost seemed to cringe as he brought the tiny fire to touch the cut and bleeding end. There was a hiss as if a strong acid was burning away metal and then the smell of rotten eggs and something else wafted up from a sickly yellowish-green smoke as the vine's cut end desiccated. So he'd need to make sure the ends he cut died for good. Zelgadiss figured a Fireball might take care of the path he already made, as long as he took the necessary precautions to keep from being turned into a smoking stone himself. Maybe it didn't even have to be fire, perhaps if he imbued his blade with magical energy, that would be enough to prevent anymore re-growth in the path he had yet to cut. Zel shrugged as he brought to mind the necessary spells. He needed the chance for some mindless destruction anyway.
Filia flitted worriedly around the perimeter of the inn room that the two young humans had secured in the nearest human settlement to the Black Grove, what Filia now tended to call the corrupted glade. After all, this was a very serious issue. If even after all of this trouble, Zelgadiss Graywords and Lina Inverse still didn't get together, she'd lose her fairy godmother license!!
"I'm sure Zelgadiss will get through that bad gardening problem just fine," Shala reassured the fairy pacing several feet above the ground. Of course, she didn't know the source of Filia's true anxiety. The incognito princess wrung out a wet cloth and placed it on her feverish little brother's brow. "I wish I could have gone too. What's the point of learning sword-fighting but never actually getting a chance to use it?"
"Since when was swordcraft on a princess's course curriculum?" Vandanes groaned, trying to convince his stomach that he wasn't on a ship tossing and turning on a stormy sea. His stomach was very hard to convince.
"There have been in the past great and legendary warrior princesses and warrior queens," Xelloss supplied, floating cross-legged as he trailed behind Filia. To ensure her fellow fairy would stay out of mischief, Filia had fastened a leash to Xelloss's neck and wherever she went, so did he. "Besides which, Princess Shala is quite a number of steps removed from being Crown Heir so most people will only think of her as a stepping stone into royalty. After all, her mother is a commoner."
"Don't talk about my mother that way!" Shala threw another piece of cloth she was rinsing in a wash bowl at Xelloss and smacked him square in the face. The added weight almost dragged Filia down as well but she quickly recovered, glaring at Xelloss who was always her first suspect when it came time to find the source of trouble. "Everyone on the estate adores mother and she is the most gentle, charitable, kind-hearted, pure - "
"My, my, do I detect some inferiority complex arising? Do you feel some kind of inadequacy that you aren't more like your mother? Hm?"
"Xelloss, be quiet!" Filia slammed her mace on her errant fairy on a leash. There was a pained look to Shala's face, the kind that point to an old pain. "Don't listen to him, he just likes to say silly things like that."
"Of course...silly things," Shala said softly before busying herself with taking care of her brother. But gods, she wanted to be up and doing something! If Vandanes hadn't fallen ill...no! She mustn't think like that, Vandanes had no control over his reaction. But if he wasn't here, she could have gone in with Zelgadiss and fought creatures of stories and legends before rescuing the sleeping princess (well, sorceress at any rate) from her eternal slumber in a glass coffin surrounded by flowers.
Shala was right on one count, there were flowers around where the sorceress Lina Inverse was laid as Zelgadiss will soon demonstrate for the entire reading audience. He had finally cut and burned his way through the hedge of tangled spiked vines with one thought standing out quite prominently in his mind.
I am going to burn whatever is left of these clothes the first chance I get and I am going to soak myself in a perfume shop until this stench gets out of my skin and hair!
Zelgadiss, despite the great therapeutic release of any and all buried and frustrations vented on the vines, was in quite a foul mood. The increasingly decaying odor was now at about fresh carrion level. He had perhaps thousands of scratches and slashes from those thorns, he was tired (must be out of practice), and if there was nothing at the end of the proverbial tunnel, Zelgadiss was going to have two fairies mounted on his wall as hunting trophies.
How fortunate for the fairies, there was something here though it looked like some weird cage of the black thorny vines that Zel was quite sick of by now. The vines rose from the ground, bulged in the middle between the ground and whatever was considered the top, and rose up to disappear in mostly blackness.
Without care or stealth, Zelgadiss just walked up to it. If there was a trap, he might as well spring it and get it over with. He was in no mood to go around one or even disable it if he found it. Funny how they never mention any of the foot aches, horrendous odors, annoying bug bites, or that damn rock in his boot that he can't dislodge, or plain old annoyance when you hear about adventuring tales.
The middle of the bulge was just about below Zel's chest level but the vines twisted around each other so tightly, that he couldn't really see what, if anything, they were growing around. It had to be something since he doubted even corrupted plants like these just didn't grow weirdly for no reason whatsoever.
"You know, if I ever find whoever went to all of this trouble, I'm going to skewer them," the normally level-headed seneschal muttered, imbuing his sword once again with arcane energy. His magical stores were depleting rapidly today. Zelgadiss almost went for a full swing but decided that if it happened to be a large stone boulder in there, he didn't want to take the edge off his blade, that is, if it didn't break from the impact.
Tedious as it was, Zel began to cut away the vines one by one the best he could. This was something else they never mention in the stories, all of the nit-picky, grunt work that garnered no fame. Zelgadiss wasn't sure what he would find behind all of the vines but it was kind of what he was expecting. Or at least hoping deep down, way deep down, in his psyche, in a place that he could truthfully claim he had no knowledge about.
Yes, it was Lina lying there, asleep as far as anyone else could tell though why she would be sleeping in the middle of a tangled briar patch would confuse any non-fanciful sage. There was no crystal or even glass coffin, just a simply-made shallow bottom woven basket with enough cushioning to function as a bed. It wasn't even big enough for someone of Lina's stature to lie straight, instead she was slightly curled over on her side, one arm folded across her body, the resting palm up close to her face. Apparently, the fairies had decided to have some dress-up fun with the sleeping human as there were flowers woven into her soft red hair and scattered around her form that appeared to be draped in a soft gray robe.
But none of this was what caught Zelgadiss's attention first. His eyes, after registering that yes Lina was asleep here, and did not ask any further to ascertain whether this was Lina since one never bothers to in fairy tales and such, had fallen to the bunches of flowers arranged around the bed. Zel knew these flowers very well, they were the ones he had brought to Lina' grave marker every year for the last sixteen years. So it must have been the fairies who brought them here. All of the bouquets had wilted but it appeared to be a relatively recent happening. Perhaps the fairies had some kind of preservation magic on them, which the current dark powers have negated.
Speaking of dark powers, had it at all touched Lina? After all, why only make it difficult to get to her if that was its purpose? Why not just kill Lina to settle the matter once and for all?
With that very depressing thought in mind, Zelgadiss moved to try to wake Lina up. Given that he hadn't really known her that well, aside from numerous one-sided conversations with her picture, he decided to take an age-old solution.
He picked a feather that some bird must have dropped on the bed some time ago, and tickled Lina's nose.
What were you expecting?
Lina's nose twitched.
That just might have been enough, but Zelgadiss was hardly in a forgiving mood right now and as Lina was the reason he had to make this trek in here, all romantic thoughts have long flown the coop for more fragrant grounds, he was going to make her sneeze and sneeze good.
More applications of the feather.
More nose twitching.
More feather.
"ACHOO!!"
It was like a gunshot, the silence of the place only emphasizing the only sound made in it. The sneezer rubbed her nose and rolled over onto her back. Zelgadiss was half-ready to push her out of bed. Good thing Lina finally woke up.
Okay, I don't remember ever having a canopy bed and I certainly wouldn't have chosen one with this kind of creepy evil black vines motif either. Having just awakened, Lina's mind hadn't yet oriented itself yet. Her senses were in good working order though. Phew! Something really reeks!
Lina holding a hand over her nose, looked around for the source of the odor and looked at a scratched-up, stormy faced, blue-skinned with dark pebbles(?) man standing outside of the bed. She didn't recall having a bedroom in the forest or signing up to help some idiotic prince who just couldn't follow instructions get rid of a curse.
"Who are you? And where the hell is this?"
Zelgadiss smacked a hand against his forehead, cursing Cupid and any other deities in hearing distance. "What do mean you 'Who are you'?? Not that I'm some prince charming or anything but for someone who just went through several hours of hacking and spell casting through a cursed garden hedge that obviously wants to keep people out just to free you, I'd expect a bit more gratitude!!"
"Jeez, what side of the bed did you wake up this morning?" Lina grumbled, wincing at his volume. Someone was a bit touchy weren't he? "I'm just asking a perfectly normal question for someone who just woke up in a place they don't recognize with a guy she doesn't know standing right next to where she was sleeping."
Zelgadiss snorted. "I'll bet Sleeping Beauty was much more polite. But then, she was a princess."
"Well, excuse me! For your information, I'm not Sleeping Beauty and-You didn't kiss me to wake me up did you?!?!" Lina screeched, fire appearing in her hands.
"Don't be ridiculous!! If I had known you were going to be this ungrateful, Lina, I would never have agreed to come here. Those damn fairies must have worked some kind of magic to make me agree to do this."
"Fairies...?"
"Yes! Your fairy godmother and fairy godfather. They left you here to sleep off your injuries from that Mazoku and - "
"Mazoku...?" Lina repeated shakily, her face turning an ashen gray as her body began to shiver uncontrollably.
"Hey...are you alright?"
"Mazoku...Sairaag...Zanaffar...Knight..." Memories began flooding past Lina's mind eye, scenes of destruction, scenes of friendship, scenes of complete nonsense, scenes of love lost, and scenes of... "Reilin!!!"
"Oi, Lina!" Zelgadiss caught the girl as she fell out of bed basket, curling herself into a ball as the yet unhealed mental scars broke their scabs and re-opened. Her red eyes dulled, losing their focus as she fell into reliving the near-death trauma she had yet to recover from.
Okay, so perhaps that wasn't the best thing to think of, Emiri admitted to herself as her and her sister's captors came to a halt. She didn't know what made this place look any different from any other, she didn't have the sensitivity to tell the difference, but the Unseelie just hung the metal cage on a branch and scampered off, jabbering all the way.
Kashandra had fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber. Of that, Emiri was thankful. Her more sensitive sister wouldn't have these terrifying memories branded onto her mind. Still, her own eyelids were getting heavy since she had stayed up the entire night and it was far into day now. But sleeping would mean letting down whatever meager defenses they had against the Unseelie whose purpose for bringing the twin fey here was unknown.
There was some rustling behind her and Emiri whipped her head around to see what new monstrosity was about to be unleashed upon them as malicious amusement. But it was only a human, a human female with long dark hair. Her clothes were torn and ragged from being caught on too many branches and claws, her feet were scratched and bleeding from walking barefoot on the rough ground.
"What are you?" the human asked softly, staying a safe distance away from the cage as if she too was wary of this new thing. "Were you brought here by the evil ones as well?"
The blonde fey only nodded. She knew the human tongue but she didn't know if she could trust this human. Why would the Unseelie have a human prisoner?
"Are you...fairies? Good ones?" The woman's eyes, a brilliant green that Emiri could see even with the separation between them, turned inward in nostalgia. "I remember meeting a pair of fairies before, during a battle against a Mazoku."
"A Mazoku?" Emiri couldn't help echoing. There weren't many intelligent creatures that have actually crossed a Mazoku and survived to tell about. She could probably count on one hand the ones who also met a pair of fairies at the same incident. "Who are you?"
"At the time, my name had been Nels Rada but now it is Gabriev," the female human stepped closer, as if trying to get closer to what may be her only salvation. "Sylphiel Gabriev."
Ninth Night | Fanfiction