The Temple of the Wilderness
Taeyel and Kael were never far apart
from one another. They were litter mates and neither had left the
other's side since they left their mother's womb. Taeyel was the
bigger, stronger pup from the start. Her coat was redder than the
other wolves in the pack, marking her as a child favored by Tera.
Kael, the younger of the two by a few minutes, had a lighter coat. It
was still red, but a far paler shade than Taeyel. Kael was also a
runt, far from the most valuable member of the pack, but her sister
protected her and saw to her needs, so that she grew to adulthood a
sleek, well fed wolf who lurked in her sister's shadow at all times.
Their people were the Red Wolves, who
were long ago gifted with sentience and intelligence by Tera. Other
beasts deferred to their authority, and they were fair, never killing
more prey than they needed and never harming travelers who wandered
through their territory. At night, they howled their worship to Tera,
a great chorus that echoed through the forest. They lived in harmony
with nature, with the give and take of wild things, and though they
were predators, they knew compassion.
In the midst of the wolves' territory,
there was a natural spring that rested at the bottom of a great
mountain and fed into a flourishing stream. This place was the temple
of the wilderness, where the beasts came to give reverence to the
goddess Tera. The Red Wolves traveled to this spring every day to
drink from its pure waters.
That morning, Kael woke with a troubled
mind. Her sister had risen before her, leaving her alone in their
den. Kael followed her sister's scent out of the den and down to the
clearing where the pack gathered each morning before making their
daily walk to the temple of the wilderness. The rest of the pack was
there already, most with their heads bowed in reverence to the alpha
who was addressing them.
The alpha gazed at them with his yellow
eyes, somber as always, his presence commanding respect. Kael tucked
her tail between her legs and sought out her sister. She gently
nudged Taeyel, giving a low whimper to get the other wolf's
attention. Her sister glanced at her and her eyes spoke of fondness.
Kael's unquiet heart settled a bit. She always felt better at her
sister's side.
A tilt of the alpha's head indicated
that it was time to go. The pack followed him at a calm, unhurried
pace through the forest. Along their path, a dirt trail worn by daily
travel, the creatures they met stepped out of their way, always
affording the wolves with the utmost respect. In return, the wolves
made no attempt to prey on the other creatures traveling to the
spring.
Kael trotted along, always behind her
sister, for Taeyel's position was much higher that Kael's own. This
was not something that Kael minded. In fact, she was filled with
pride at her sister's importance in the pack. Taeyel was kind and
uncommonly intelligent, a wolf apart from all others. It was an honor
to walk behind her, in Kael's mind. For her part, Taeyel never
treated Kael as less than her equal.
Though the walk was as serene as ever,
Kael could not shake the bad feeling she had. She looked to her
sister for any sign that Taeyel also felt uneasy, but could see no
indication of it in the other wolf's body language.
“Taeyel,” she called, keeping her
voice soft. “I am troubled.”
Taeyel looked back at her, considering
her words. “What troubles you, sister?”
“It is hard to explain,” said Kael.
“Only I cannot keep from feeling that something is wrong.”
“Stay alert,” Taeyel replied. “I
sense nothing myself but your intuition has helped us on more than
one occasion.”
A feeling of pride swelled in Kael at
her sister's praise. There was little that Kael could contribute to
the pack, except as a caregiver for the young pups, but the pups were
all grown at present and Kael had only Taeyel for company. To know
that Taeyel trusted her intuition was a great comfort to her.
Nonetheless, when they at last reached
the temple of the wilderness, nothing seemed out of place. The spring
water was clear and fresh, and there were other beasts at the backs
already, drinking deeply from the stream. Kael hung back, as was
expected of her, to allow her brothers and sisters to drink first.
Taeyel gave her an apologetic look as she followed the others to the
bank.
Kael did not mind. She was patient and
could wait her turn.
From her vantage point, she could
observe the many other beasts that drank from the spring. There were
small creatures like rabbits and squirrels and lizards that could
drink without fear of the predators that shared the space with them.
There were two mountain bears, giant creatures with shaggy coats, and
there were foxes and weasels too. A herd of deer stood on the bank
opposite of Kael's pack and close to the spring's source, a single
unicorn drank deeply, its horn shining in the morning sunlight.
This was the temple of the wilderness.
Beasts did not fear one another in this place, their hearts made
peaceful by the power of Tera that ran in the spring's water. It was
late spring and the trees and grass were many rich shades of green.
Kael had always loved this place, as did all Red Wolves. To be so
close to Tera was a gift.
And yet, even in this holy place, Kael
could not shake off that feeling of wrongness that she had woken up
with. It wasn't wise to ignore one's intuition, but Kael trusted her
pack, and none of the others seemed to sense it. The usual sense of
calming peace she felt when visiting the temple of the wilderness did
little to ease her discomfort.
A shrill whinny from the unicorn made
Kael rise to her feet, her gaze turning to the majestic creature. The
unicorn had begun to prance and stamp at the head of the spring. Its
body language spoke of fear and the other creatures drinking at the
stream soon took notice of its strange behavior. Kael's pack started
to back away from the bank, their fur bristling.
It was as though the fear was
contagious. Kael could smell it on her fellow wolves. However, her
attention was fixed on the unicorn. Its fear and morphed into panic,
its cries growing more and more distressed as it reared back, sweat
shining on its pristine white coat.
A low growl bubbled up in Kael's throat
as she watched, too horrified to look away. Something was happening
to the creature. Its flesh seemed to ripple and shift grotesquely.
The white of its coat started to change, changing gradually to black
as its body morphed into a great, hulking monster of a thing. In a
matter of moments, it was no longer recognizable as a unicorn at all.
It had taken on the misshapen form of a demon with piercing red eyes.
Kael whimpered and backed away from the
stream. Her gaze finally flickered back to her pack. To her horror,
she saw that the alpha, as well as many of the other animals gathered
on either side of the stream, had started to change as well. The pack
began to yip and howl in fear, even Taeyel who was normally brave in
the face of adversity, and their fear crippled Kael. She kept backing
away until she was hidden from the scene by the forest. She kept
miserable watch from the underbrush, hoping against all hope that
whatever was happening to the animals would not happen to every
member of her pack. To her horror, the mutation spread until even
Taeyel was caught up in it. Her sister's body was twisted into the
same horrible monster as the unicorn and the other beasts. The howls
of the mutated wolves were horrible.
She could not fathom why such a thing
had come to pass, and at first she did not understand why it hadn't
happened to her as well; for though she stayed hidden in the brush
for some time, watching the monsters, she felt no change in her own
body. Whatever had changed them must have been in the water, she
realized. But the water was pure, a gift from Tera herself. Could it
be possible that something had corrupted it?
A great cry rose up among the monsters
at the river and Kael watched as they all took off running in the
same direction, as though of one mind, a horrible swarm that tore
through the forest, hundreds of pairs of red eyes glowing like
demonic beacons.
And yet, one monster remained behind.
It howled and twisted on the ground, as though it was somehow
fighting back against whatever was changing it. With a start, Kael
realized that she could still identify the creature by scent. It was
Taeyel.
She crept out from the brush, keeping
her distance but unwilling to run from her sister. Taeyel sounded as
though she was in great pain, and Kael longed to ease her sister's
suffering, but could not see how she could help.
Taeyel's red eyes suddenly fixed on
Kael, and the monster that her sister had become stood perfectly
still for a long moment. Kael was frozen, too scared to move lest
that should cause the beast to attack her.
The monster howled again and then it
turned from Kael and ran, snarling and spitting as it went.
Kael hesitated for only a moment. The
monster had gone in a different direction from the others, and Kael
felt certain that this aberrant behavior meant that her sister was
trying to regain control of her body.
Following Taeyel's scent, she trailed
her sister at a distance.
–
Taeyel's mind was in chaos. Her
thoughts were hard to hold onto, as though something was doing its
best to wipe away her conscious mind entirely. Her body was in agony,
making it even harder to think, but there was something that cut
through all of that. It was something that had always called to her,
in the back of her mind, but now it was the clearest thing. She had
no other choice but to follow it, hoping that somehow it could help
her.
She did not know if Kael had followed
her. For a moment, she'd locked eyes with her sister and she'd felt a
horrible blood lust well up in her. It made her want to fight
whatever was happening to her even more. She would not give in to
this evil, especially if that meant she would kill her own sister in
cold blood. She had always protected Kael, and she would keep doing
that, even if the one Kael needed protected from was Taeyel herself.
All she could do was run, run toward
the presence that called out to her, and so she did. Despite the
overwhelming pain of her twisted, freakish body, she ran. Despite the
terrifying blankness trying to overcome her mind, she ran.
It must have been days of that, just
trying to outrun the changes being forced upon her. She stumbled and
fell many times, but picked herself back up and forced herself
onward. If she stopped, somehow she knew that the toxin running in
her veins would overcome her completely. So she kept going, clinging
to the only thing she had that kept her in control.
She was deep in the heart of the forest
when she found it at last. Whatever it was called out to her from the
gnarled roots of an ancient tree. Taeyel tore at the roots with her
mutant claws, howling desperately, heedless of the wounds she was
causing herself as she did so. She knew nothing except that she
needed to find whatever the tree was hiding.
At last, her paw touched it and she
felt its energy surge through her body again. She surrendered to it,
letting her mind at last quiet, and felt her consciousness slip away.
–
Kael lost track of her sister many
times, for Taeyel did not stop to rest and Kael simply could not make
her body keep going at the same pace. As it was, though she could not
keep herself from collapsing in exhaustion from time to time, Kael
had not spared the time to hunt and only drank when she was lucky
enough to come across a water source by accident. Every time she
drank, especially from running water, she feared that whatever had
turned the beasts at the temple would infect her as well. So far, she
was still unchanged.
Luckily, Taeyel's scent had not
changed, despite her body's transformation. Kael soon picked up the
trail again each time she lost it. Still, it was days and days of
travel, and Kael was slowly wearing down.
As the sun was setting on the eighth
day since leaving the temple of the wilderness, Kael found that her
sister's scent was growing stronger. Though weary from travel, she
pushed herself onward, following it to the base of a great, ancient
tree.
Though Kael recognized her sister's
scent, the creature she found there was not what she expected. The
dark red wolf she'd known since birth was not visible, but neither
did Kael find the twisted monster that her sister had become at the
spring. Instead, there was a pale, mostly hairless creature, like the
travelers Kael had sometimes seen. The creature had a mane of shaggy
auburn hair, the same color as Taeyel's fur, and a matching pair of
canine ears and a tail. Kael quickly surmised that her sister had
undergone yet another transformation.
She nudged the pitiful form but found
that Taeyel was fast asleep. With a watchful eye on their
surroundings, Kael laid down with her sister and curled around
Taeyel's slumbering form, seeking to keep her warm. She rested, but
stayed alert and on guard, her ears pricked for the slightest hint of
danger.
Taeyel slept through the night and well
into the next day.
When she did begin to wake, Kael nudged
her sister's cheek with her muzzle and Taeyel turned her face towards
her sister's touch on instinct. Her eyes slowly opened and Taeyel saw
that they were still golden, like her own.
“Sister,” Kael murmured, gazing
back at Taeyel. “Do not be alarmed.”
Her sister's mouth opened but her
speech was intelligible. Taeyel flinched at the sound of her own
voice and whined, her ears flattening against her head. She shifted
her unfamiliar form, off balance with limbs far longer than
necessary. Her misshapen right forepaw was curled around something
but Kael could not tell what the item was.
Kael rose to her feet, watching her
sister with anxious eyes. Aside from her ears and tail, Taeyel
resembled a human. Kael had seen humans before, though she had never
interacted with one. She understood that they too were gifted with
self-awareness, and she had heard that some of them were nearly as
intelligent as wolves. Why her sister had transformed into one, Kael
did not know, but she favored this form over the previous one, at
least.
On the other paw, Taeyel did not seem
so forgiving of her new body. The former wolf brought her now human
hands to her chest, still clinging to something, and howled in
misery. Even her howl was different, distorted by a human throat, and
Taeyel's bare cheeks were painted with tears.
Unsure of what else to do to comfort
her, Kael licked her sister's face and nuzzled her hair. She
whimpered mournfully to show that she felt Taeyel's pain and
confusion. There was no explanation that Kael could see for what had
happened.
Taeyel lifted her right hand and slowly
uncurled her long fingers. For the first time, Kael glimpsed the item
her sister had clung to with such ferocity. A round green crystal
rested in Taeyel's palm. It was plain and unadorned, but its beauty
was still captivating. Kael peered into it, wondering where her
sister had found it. She glanced at the torn roots and disturbed soil
at the base of the great tree and surmised that Taeyel must have dug
it up.
“What is it?” Kael queried, though
she didn't have much hope that Taeyel knew the answer herself.
Her sister looked back at her with a
lost expression. She opened her mouth again and spoke carefully
formed words. “It... called to me. It brought me back.”
The words were in the common tongue,
not the wolf tongue, which Kael could understand but could not speak.
It seemed as though the opposite was now true for Taeyel. At least
they could still understand one another.
“What's wrong with me?” Taeyel
whispered, staring down at her body in horror. “Why has this
happened?”
“I don't know,” Kael replied
honestly. She couldn't have begun to explain it. But to find her
sister alive and well had been more than she could have hoped for
after seeing what had taken place in the temple of the wilderness,
and she was grateful. Regardless of her shape, Taeyel was the one
Kael cared about the most.
–
It was a normal, if uneventful evening
for Fae, the outcast slave of Vana Vale. She was a fairy woman of 25
years, though she'd never been recognized by her family as such. It
had been many years now since she'd been cast out and forced to
survive on her own. Since she had been a slave before, she had not
seen being cast out as such a horrible punishment. It gave her the
opportunity to learn how to use a sword. She was strong, despite her
diminutive stature and lack of fairy magic.
The fairies were a reclusive,
superstitious people. Fae had been obliged to serve her birth family
as a slave until the head of the family, a man she refused to refer
to as her father, had banished her from the city. She held no love
for the place and people she came from, but she had learned over the
years to keep her anger from consuming her. The ultimate act of
defiance against Aster Gwillimen, the man who'd enslaved and banished
her, was to thrive and achieve happiness in life.
In her search for things to bring her
happiness, she'd soon found that helping others in need brought her
the most joy. The realm was a mostly lawless place, though it had
once been quite different. There were many isolated villages that had
little defense from marauders and thieves, and Fae was happy to use
her skills as a swordsman where she could to defend good people from
harm. In this, she had found a purpose and and a sense of peace.
The last people she'd helped had gifted
her with some wild game, a couple of plump rabbits for roasting, and
so she'd set up camp and built a fire to do just that. The coneys
were already gutted, so she made quick work of skinning them out and
cut a branch to spit them on over her campfire. Soon, she was
enjoying the scent of roasting meat, sipping from a flask of spirits
and musing on her good fortune.
The snap of twigs nearby drew her from
her thoughts and she looked up to find herself faced with an unusual
and rather alarming sight.
A wolf, larger than she'd ever seen,
and tawny in color, was peering at her from behind a tree some
distance away. Her first thought was to grab her sword, but there was
a peculiar awareness in the beast's eyes as it watched her, as though
measuring her up. Fae released her grasp on the handle of her sword
and observed the animal in return for a long moment.
Some beasts of the realm were
intelligent, Fae knew, and it was bad luck to treat them poorly. She
wondered if this wolf might be one of those. The animal did not seem
to be afraid of her, nor did it seem to have any intention of
attacking her. It was regarding her roasting rabbits with particular
interest, however, and Fae wondered if it was hungry.
To test her theory, she gestured to the
rabbits and spoke directly to the wolf. “I've plenty if you'd like
to share, friend.”
The wolf startled, as though Fae had
done something rather unexpected. It continued to stare at her for
another long moment before it disappeared behind the tree entirely.
Fae gave a soft “hmm” at this, a
bit disappointed that the creature had gone. What a conversation she
might have had with a wolf, she thought, provided it could speak with
her. She supposed it was only a regular wolf after all, though it was
a rather unusual wolf in appearance.
Her attention returned to the meal she
was cooking, but a short time later, she was once again disturbed by
the sound of someone or something approaching.
She was not surprised to once again
find the red-colored wolf watching her from the edge of her camp. The
beast had come a little closer this time and Fae saw, oddly enough,
that this time she was accompanied by a slender, wild-haired woman.
At first, Fae took the woman for a
human. She was of the right stature and build, but she was odd. Her
clothing was scanty, consisting of tanned animal skins that she'd
fashioned into a sparse outfit. Fae almost missed the fuzzy red ears
hidden in her mass of tangled auburn hair, but the tail she also
sported was more obvious.
“Oh, there's two of you now,” she
remarked, and privately wondered how far her two coneys would go
after all, but she was not one to turn away a hungry stranger. “It's
alright if you'd like to eat with me.”
The wolf took a few hesitant steps
forward, but the woman remained were she was. It was clear from the
expression on her face that she did not trust Fae but she also looked
very hungry. Fae could see that she seemed a bit undernourished, and
her skin was littered in scratches and scrapes, probably from
traveling in the woods with such a lack of attire.
What an odd individual, she thought to
herself. Did the wolf belong to her? It truly did seem a rather
special beast, especially now that she was getting a better look at
it. Its golden eyes truly did convey a great intelligence and Fae
found that she'd taken an instant liking to it.
“Let's get a bit for you then, shall
we?” Fae cut a sizable portion from one of the coneys and offered
it to the wolf, who sniffed it but did not take it. Instead, the
animal panted and let its long tongue loll out of its mouth. A spark
of amusement seemed to shine in its eyes, unless that was just a
figment of Fae's imagination. “Not hungry?”
In response, the wolf licked its chops
and Fae noticed that the area around its mouth was stained slightly
red. It must have fed recently, then.
“What about your shadow over there?”
she asked, gesturing to the woman who still kept her distance. The
wolf glanced back at the woman and then at Fae once more, and it
whined softly. “She's hungry isn't she? Poor thing.”
She ventured toward the woman, keeping
her pace slow so as not to frighten her away. The woman shrank back
but didn't bolt, just watched Fae approach with a guarded expression.
“There, there, Lady Shadow,” Fae
murmured, holding out the meat in offering. “It's just some cooked
rabbit. You can have it, no catch.”
The woman stared at the meat with
undisguised hunger, though Fae could see her body was trembling with
the urge to run. Finally, when Fae was near enough, the woman reached
out with her left hand and snatched the meat. Fae could see that her
right hand was held in a fist, as though she had some item she was
trying to keep hold of.
After a quick sniff to make certain the
meat was safe, the woman tore into it with all the elegance of a wolf
her own self. The portion soon vanished and the woman looked to Fae
in askance, her stomach growling.
“There's more,” Fae said, gesturing
to her campfire. “Come over and sit with me. You're both welcome.”
Returning to her fire, Fae sat down and
cut a piece of rabbit for herself, savoring the fresh meat. She
wasn't the best hunter herself, so it wasn't often she got to enjoy
game of this quality. While she ate, she kept an eye on her odd
guests.
At last, the wolf came over to the fire
and settled itself down like a huge dog, apparently assured that Fae
was no threat to it. Fae observed this with a smile, which widened
when she noticed that the woman had also ventured closer, though she
was still keeping her distance.
Fae did not stare at the woman, but
instead chose to direct her attention to the wolf.
“You're a strange one, aren't you?”
she said to it. “I feel as though you can understand what I'm
saying to you.”
The wolf grinned that somewhat
frightening grin that only wolves and their kin are possessed of.
Then her head bobbed, as though in a nod to confirm Fae's suspicion.
This delighted Fae as she realized her fantasy of speaking with an
intelligent wolf might be possible after all.
“And can you speak?” she asked it
next, but was disappointed when it shook its head. It did, however,
look over at the woman, who'd crept a little closer still.
The woman crouched down a short
distance from the fire and stared at Fae with eyes that were, to
Fae's surprise, nearly the same golden color as the eyes of the red
wolf.
“She cannot speak common,” the
woman said in a raspy voice. “Her name is Kael and she is my
sister.”
She rolled her R's, as though she was
growling them instead of speaking them.
“Ah, I see, what a lovely name. It's
nice to meet you, Lady Kael.” Fae beamed at the wolf, who blinked
at her in return, and then looked back at the woman. “And what are
you called?”
“... Shadow is fine,” the woman
replied after a moment's consideration. “My sister calls me Taeyel
but I do not think I am Taeyel anymore.”
“Shadow it is, then,” said Fae. She
understood the value of choosing one's own name. “I am Fae. I was
called something else one too, but Fae is the name I prefer. Come
over, I won't harm you. There are two rabbits here and I only need
one. I've got a canteen of water as well, if you're thirsty.”
At last, Shadow seemed to reach the
same conclusion her wolf sister had that Fae was safe, and she edged
over to the wolf's side. She seemed to relax a great deal when her
legs touched her sister's body, her bare feet resting against the
wolf's thick pelt.
“How long has it been since you had a
decent meal?” Fae asked as she took one of the rabbits and handed
it over to the woman. She was quickly finding that Shadow was as
intriguing in appearance as the wolf. Indeed, she shared similarities
with Kael, as Shadow had called the wolf.. Her hair and the fur on
her ears and tail were red, though they were a much darker shade than
Kael's fur, but the ears were the same shape. Their eyes were nearly
identical, even in the shape of their pupils. Shadow's eyes, Fae
realized, were more responsible for her wild appearance than her
unkempt hair and her pale, scarred skin.
Shadow's gaze was locked on the roasted
carcass she held in her hands. “I've eaten fruits and nuts for many
days now. I tried to partake in my sister's kills but the meat turns
my stomach and makes me ill. This... This meat, you put it over the
fire? Why?”
“I can't eat it raw, I can't digest
it like a wolf can,” replied Fae. “I'm guess neither can you. I'm
cooking it, you see. If it's cooked, it won't make you ill. But don't
eat too much at once if you haven't had enough to eat for a while,
that might make you ill as well. Eat it slowly and let it digest.”
“I see.” Shadow began to carefully
bite strips from the coney, as though holding back the instinct to
tear into it like a dog might do. She gnawed on a leg bone
experimentally, and Fae arched a delicate eyebrow at the action.
“Pardon me for asking,” said Fae,
“but would I be correct in assuming that up until recently you were
a wolf yourself?”
Her companion gave her a sheepish
smile, and her ears twitched. “Yes, I was a wolf. Now I am a human,
I think, though... not completely, it would seem. I have gained the
ability to speak the common tongue aloud as well. I could not tell
you why, except that I was saved from a madness that overcame my body
by a strange stone that I found.”
Shadow opened her right hand to show
what she had been holding on to so desperately. It was a beautiful
green crystal, and Fae found to her surprise that she had seen its
make and shape before. She drew up her own own ragged sleeve to
observe the silver bracelet she wore on her right forearm. The yellow
crystal set into the metal cuff was indeed similar to Shadow's stone.
They were very different in color, however, and Shadow's was not
fashioned into jewelry, so Fae could not have said if they were from
the same source.
The one that she wore, she'd found
scavenging on the outskirts of Vana Vale. It was a fine piece of
jewelry, if a bit plain for a fairy adornment, and she had often
wondered why it had been abandoned. Despite its beauty, she also
could not say why she had never sold it. She did not wear any other
jewelry, except for the silver hoop in her ear, which she could not
remove. It marked her as a banished fairy.
“You haven't any pockets, I see,”
Fae remarked, wondering if Shadow carried the stone in her hand at
all times. “Would you like something to keep it in?”
“I suppose,” Shadow replied,
sounding a bit puzzled. She watched Fae tear a strip of cloth from
her ragged dress and allowed the fairy to lean over and wrap it
around her upper arm. She let Fae take the stone with a little
reluctance, but relaxed when Fae secured it firmly to her arm with
the fabric. “Thank you, this will make it easier to carry it.”
Fae nodded and drew back. “Of course.
If I may ask, where are you and your sister traveling?”
“Nowhere in particular,” Shadow
replied, and she went back to chewing on the rabbit carcass with
great enthusiasm. Between mouthfuls of meat, she added, “Kael has
been trying to find food for me. I did not know about 'cooking' the
meat and I cannot make the fire like you can, either. I am only
accustomed to being a wolf, you see, and I seem to be having trouble
making the adjustment.”
“In that case, might you both
consider traveling with me for a while?” Fae proposed. She liked
the pair of them, and was of course intrigued by how they had both
come into being in the first place. It almost felt as though she'd
been destined to meet them, though she did not know if she believed
in things such as destiny. “I've been cooking for myself a while
now and I'm quite good at it, if I may say so. I'd not be opposed to
some company on the road.”
Shadow and Kael locked eyes for a
moment, as though they were having a silent conversation. Then Kael's
tail began to wag, thumping against the ground, and Shadow looked at
Fae again.
“Very well, we would be honored to
join you,” the strange woman said and a grin spread across her face
that eerily resembled the one her sister had worn earlier, and
similarly revealed long, pointed canine teeth. “Where are you
headed?”
“North, towards Vana Vale, the fairy
city.” Fae gestured in the northern direction with the stick that
held the remaining rabbit. “I wander back that way from time to
time. Mostly, I am a vagrant. I travel here and there, offering my
service as a swordsman in exchange for the goods I need, or lending a
hand where I can. It's a simple life and I prefer it that way.”
“I have never seen a fairy before.”
Shadow cocked her head to once side as she observed Fae with new
curiosity. “You do not have wings?”
Fae's smile fell a bit but she shrugged
and said, “I am an outcast fairy, and so I have been cut off from
the communal magic of Vana Vale. Fairies do not have wings all of the
time but with our magic, we can manifest them. I've never possessed
any of the magic, so I've never had wings, no.”
“Outcast,” Shadow murmured. “I
suppose that Kael and I are also outcasts. No, perhaps the word is...
orphans? We are alone now.”
“Not anymore,” Fae reminded her,
and her smile returned.
Shadow returned her smile, the flame of
the campfire making her eyes glow strangely as the dark of the
evening settled in on them. She was strange, for certain, but Fae was
not afraid of her or of Kael. Her intuition told her they were no
threat to her, and she had always been a good judge of character.
They were like her, Fae thought. They
were alone and their appearances marked them as surely as Fae's
silver earrings and fairy stature marked her. They would make good
companions and Fae was certain that she and Shadow would have many
more conversations after this one. It had been a long time since
she'd last journeyed with another person and it was a relief to have
someone to talk to.
As for that green crystal Shadow
carried, Fae supposed it was coincidence that it so resembled her
own. Likely, the two stones had nothing to do with one another.
Still, it did seem odd, and she wondered, but did not ask, if
Shadow's crystal had also glowed when she first touched it.
FIN
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