Fable - Ask The Futures of Fae - Ragash

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"As strong of spine as they are of arm," he mumbled under his breath. Curious phrase. The kind a general, or someone who kept themselves far away from any real war, would say.

"A mixture of soldiers past their best, criminals and exiles," he replied. If she was a foreign spy then that was hardly giving anything away.

If there was a core of hardened mercenaries they would hold. If someone chose the wrong collection, then he was certain they would break at the first clash with the enemy.

"You are not an abati governor," he observed. He didn't know these lands well, but he could tell the difference between a desert elf and a sand elf.

"Who are you?" he asked bluntly, seeing as nothing was going to be offered.
 
Second-hand soldiers. Criminals. Exiles. Men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, is what she was hearing.

"Perfect."

"You are not an abtati governor. Who are you?"

"Indeed I am not," Fiera replied with a wry look, giving the man a studying look down and up, "I am Fieravene, Executioner and Shadowhand to the Empress. We have need for men like yours for a rather delicate journey into the Scar. Whatever you're being paid to ..." she gestured lazily to the general area about them, "stay busy, will be doubled for this venture. What say you?"
 
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Executioner and Shadowhand?

Terms he did not recognise. There was an ominous cloud around such terms, especially when connected directly to the Empress. Brynneld offered at least a slight bow of his head in respect. He didn't lower his gaze.

When someone responded that old soldiers, criminals and exiles were perfect for a task it meant one thing. It meant that the chance of death was going to be high. Young soldiers would be offered an incentive to be the first unit into a breach in a siege. It meant running a gauntlet of arrows, boiling water, rocks and spears. Few survived and yet the incentive was so great that young men would take the risk.

He was only being offered double. Double pay to walk into a dark scar that would likely swallow him and his entire unit up whole. It was like walking off the edge of the world.

"I'll do it," he said firmly.
 
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"Good," Fiera replied, "in the morning please pay a visit to General Ihmoen at his office and give him this," the elf offered the man a black metal coin bearing a lotus sigil on each side, one red and the other green. The coin itself did not seem to be made of a particularly valuable material.

"He will know what it signifies. You will need to provide the names of each of your men and their primary skills. We intend to leave for the Scar on the evening of the full moon. Ensure your men are ready and fit. If they have need for any supplies, the General will provide."
 
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Brynneld let the coin lie flat in the palm of his hand. It was cold. He slowly turned it over so that the red markings were facing up.

We intend to leave for the scar.

Perhaps then, it wasn't to be a mission that no one would come back from. The coin wasn't a death sentence yet.

He didn't seek death out. It would be too easy in ragash to find the wrong end of a knife. He wouldn't turn away from it either. Not after his life had turned its back on him. Brynneld hadn't come to the western edge of the world to rebuild his life.

His gaze slid from the dark elf to the tree. For a moment, he considered asking about it. Executioner and shadowhand. Not the person for idle questions.

"We will be there."


The sun was still flirting with the distant mountains when Brynneld returned to tree. It was easy to doubt himself, to think that it hadn't really expressed itself to him. So he had thrown himself into the task he had been assigned.

There had been plenty of volunteers to register with the expedition.

It was the younger mercenaries who would take the coin and join the expedition. Many of the older exiles were quite content as long as they earned enough for a wineskin and the odd trip to the less expensive brothers.

The younger ones had been criminals or deserters. Some of them were hungry for the chance to earn enough to pave their way home. Maybe some actually had ambitions of earning a commission.

Brynneld hadn't asked the dark elf about the tree, but he had considered doing the reverse.

He sat down by the pool, dipping his fingertips into the cool water.

"You talk to the elf?" he asked, half expecting his madness to be confirmed before the expedition.


"Form the fuck up," he hissed. They were an ill-disciplined lot, but any good General would happily have his own lot whip any who showed disrespect.

They were assembled at the assigned meeting place and Brynneld had caught sight of one of the General's staff.
 
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Tonight the tree looked a small amount revived. The leaves were more pliant, a shade more bright, though it still appeared as though it had quite a long way to go before it achieved a healthy vibrancy. In the light of the moons pouring in through the courtyard, Brynneld found himself answered by the reappearance of the curious glowing lights within the tree.

His answer was not given a response at first, but the lights crept down along the weeping vines and branches to mingle along the ends just above the water's surface. There they swirled about in a listless cyclone, stirring up a fall of dried leaves to dance about the mercenary where he sat.

Then the lights came together at the opposite side of the fountain, forming once again a curious upright shape that did not seem to represent anything specific.

It seemed to watch him ... or at the very least was aware of his presence.

She saved me.
 
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When the lights came to life he actually heard himself sigh with relief. He was not going mad. He sat patiently and watched as they descended.

Brynneld felt a slight flutter of nerves as they danced around him. There had been few occasions recently where he had much of anything.

He turned where he sat to face the mysterious silhouette of light.

"The executioner and shadow hand saved you?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
 
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The figure of light bowed slightly to one side, then folded down along the raised edge of the fountain as if taking a seat there.

Yes, said the gentle voice, not quite so faint and distant as the previous nights, from imprisonment.
 
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"She didn't strike me as the sort to carry out a heroic rescue," Brynneld replied. "I suppose I am judging on her titles and a very short conversation."

"Could I ask how...and why...you were imprisoned?" he asked slowly. His eyes narrowed as if he might discover more detail in the shimmering apparition. He wondered if this was as rude as the line of questions.
 
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The tree did not seem to have much to say on the subject of the elf. Vashe would be forever in the dark one's debt for what she had done, even if Fieravene's actions had brought her to a new kind of captivity. Here, at the very least, her own life was not forfeit. Here she was safe.

Ignorance ... greed ... lust ... of mortals, answered the voice.

The man on the white horse has hunted my kind for ages.
 
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Brynneld knew that he hadn't asked a specific question of the elf, but the lack of any kind of response might have been telling. Fear of speaking ill of the emperor's executioner or simply that the tree spirit didn't contradict him.

He supposed that whilst he would have liked to know, he had already set his mind on this dangerous mission regardless of who directed it.

"Who is this man?" He asked, a flicker of anger crossing his face.

Brynneld knew, objectively, that this was very close to history repeating itself. Brynneld had shirked his duties to help an immortal elven sorceress whose people had been abused and driven from their homes by humans.

It had set him down a path that had led them both to ruin.
 
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I do not know, the voice lilted solemly, as if that particular subject had troubled it for some time, so few survive or escape an encounter with him. How does one name such a geist?

He is the white shadow, the wilted bloom, the ghost of stone. Call him what you like, he has haunted my dreams for a lifetime and yet still evades my knowledge. What misery he brought... it is unspeakable.

It was difficult for one such as herself to allow such memories to fade. The nightmare of her encounter with the rider on the white horse would likely never leave her conscious thought and she would live with it for the remainder of her own very long life. Vashe would not wish such a thing on anyone.

What of the woman I see in your memories... will you speak of your journey?
 
Brynneld was very easily drawn into the mystery. There was magic and meaning here beyond his comprehension. It sounded like a tale from a story passed down by word of mouth. People liked to tell tales as if the world had once been a more wild and magical place.

He was sat here and facing some kind of tree spirit. This wasn't a story that had been stretched over generations well into the fantastical.

Brynneld sat bolt upright at her question. He let out a slow breath through his nose as he considered how to answer. He had come out here to near the edge of the world to avoid his past.

"She was my downfall," he said plainly. "I loved her. And...in the end I betrayed that as much as I betrayed those I owed my loyalty to. I was disgraced for acting as traitor to my people and she rejected me for turning on her when I saw how much vengeance clouded her heart."
 
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The spirit fell silent for several long, drawn moments, letting the weight of his words settle into the open air like a fog rolling in from a storm at sea.

Vengeance is a great power of the heart... it said at length, sounding ruminative as the spirit's own thoughts drifted to that of her sister. Her twin - the pair of them so alike in countless ways, and unalike in but a few. Eske allowed vengeance to drive her through her challenges, burning them away like the sun she blossomed beneath.

Vashe?

Just as powerful as love.

Vashe chose love, lulling her tribulations like the light of the moon she basked in. Both of the sisters had suffered great loss from both powers.

What is left?
 
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"Blind love and blind vengeance," he muttered to himself. Brynneld had obviously turned his thoughts inwards. He was slumped forwards where he sat.

Brynneld hadn't walked to the other end of the continent because he wanted to think about the mistakes he had made. Now his mind was back there, in Alliria, it wasn't going to leave easily.

This was going to take wine.

He sat back up and laughed quietly. It was a laugh tinged in sadness. It's own kind of gallows humour.

"You're some ancient spirit in a tree. A silly man who got a few people killed by following his heart instead of his head pronanly sounds pretty small?"
 
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A human life did not seem small to her. Brynneld had once thought himself quite important. He had been a ranking officer in the Allirian Rangers.

As Brynneld had started to appreciate the scale of the world he had started to think that his own life had been quite small and insignificant after all. Most people here had never even heard of Alliria before. Brynneld had never thought such a thing possible.

"Can I ask what you are?" he asked brusquely.

"Mmm, that sounded rude," he said in a strange kind of apology. It was his nature, but he had still heard the question sounding particularly blunt.

"I've just not met a tree spirit before."
 
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Despite the impertinence of the question, the tree spirit did not seem to take offense but, instead, remained patiently listening. The glowing lights shifted slightly, as though the weight of his question were enough to provoke it to action.

There are not many of the mortal realm who have, it answered quietly, My kind are reclusive, secretive, and rarely on such display ... in a place so easily accessed...

But a tree spirit I am, in a way. Will knowing only this be enough to sate your curiosity?
 
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"I s'pose it will," Brynneld replied. A one-sided smile revealed that he assumed that asking any further questions on the subject were going to be unwelcome anyway.

"It a place to easy to access..." He misquoted, looking around them. "I imagine you're glad to be free, but there are placed a tree spirit might rather be. A forest, for example.

"Or is this white rider so bad you'd rather be in the middle of a city?"
 
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My presence here is not by choice, said the spirit, but by circumstances of fate.

A silence filled the atrium, the glow of the spirit sitting across the fountain from Brynneld beginning to wane.

I am not a prisoner, nor am I free. An unwilling but patient guest, kept here by threat. I hardly consider that to be a form of freedom.
 
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Saved from imprisonment, but not entirely free. At least, he supposed, the shadow hand of the emperor was not undermining her own title by carrying out acts of charity.

Brynneld felt a pang of guilt for deliberately trying to turn the conversation from his own misfortunes. He had walked her under his own volition. A soldier was never quite free, but his trappings were mold by comparison.

"Well, if I could carry a tree on my back..." He trailed off, looking down at the shallow pool that fed the tree.

"But is there anything you could be brought that would...I dunno...make this better for you?"

Despite the mistakes he had made, he knew this sounded like the start of a fairy tale where a stupid man ends up losing his soul to a vengeful spirit and still made the offer.
 
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The tree seemed to groan in reply as a swift breeze shuddered its branches. At the fountain's edge the spirit's form shifted again, intrigued and curious.

You would ... do that?

There was some semblance of disbelief and surprise to the disembodied voice.

I have no soil or nutrients to recover with. Water will only help so much.
 
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"Hmm," he went, looking down at the pool of water the tree had been dropped into. Its roots had made a stable home there, but it wasn't the forest floor.

"Yeah, does seem kind of obvious when you say it."

Magical tree spirit, but a magical tree that needed dirt and water nonetheless.

"For some time before we move out so I'll get some of the lads to carry some in."

He'd seen a fort being build from simple mounds of earth before. He knew that when you were carrying soil, particularly up a hill, it felt like a lot more than it looked when it was deposited.

"Assuming it's not gonna be a problem with murder eyes?"
 
If a tree could perk in anticipation, it certainly seemed to even without having really moved at all. The leaves, though looking hydrated, had begun to lose their green - pale yellow taking hold from their tips due to lack of nutrients. The hanging tendrils of weeping vines scuttled in the breeze faintly.

That would be very kind...

Then his last question seemed to catch the tree spirit off guard.

With who?
 
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Brynneld snorted. He would have taken a swig from a wineskin had he thought to bring one.

Better to avoid being caught drinking by his seniors when he was preparing the volunteers the next day. The wine didn't keep the heat at bay, but it did make him stop thinking about it.

"Terrifying dark elf that brought you here...and cornered me for an expedition," he explained. He looked over his shoulder suddenly, half expecting to find the drow there
 
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