Fable - Ask Unwinding Threads

[Delaney Lennox]

Delaney just started at the man in front of her. He waved. So casually. He made it seem like they were old friends that hadn't seen each other in while. She had no idea who he was or where she was.

"I've had my eyes on you for a while."

Delaney narrowed her eyes but didn't speak because he continued. Wood? Sanded down? Sure...yeah...made total sense.

"Help me with what?" She finally asked as she took a step towards the doorway and Tulio. Such a strange name. Such a strange place. "Where are we?"

 

[Tulio]

A horrendous sound echoed from outside of the house, distant and faint. Tulio's brows knit together, but each tiny gesture and quirk exuded laconic confidence. The elf smiled.

"This is my home," he said, "but you're not quite here. And I'm afraid you can't stay as you are."

A second, resonant boom shook the house - the discordant bells of ancient keepers of the dark places Tulio and Delaney were all too intimate with. The elf approached her and extended his closed hand. Opening his palm to her revealed a whistle of onyx-colored wood.

"With this, you can find me again," he shrugged, smirked, "if you want."

He would stand there as ringing bells sounded off closer and closer each time. Should Delaney take it, she would find herself instantly drawn back to that cold, lonely warehouse, like being yanked by a rope tied around her waist.

There would be no further whispers in the shadows.

 

[Delaney Lennox]

Delaney hear the sounds, the booms and she looked around with concern etching her features. What the fuck was going on?!

It was not a question that the Dreadlord Initiate got to ask though because Tulio had appraoched with something in his hand. She looked down at his open palm and listened to his words. He wanted her to find him again. It looked like she found her first stop after graduation.

Delaney nodded at him and took the whistle from the elf. There were no more words exchanged between them as she was pulled away from him. The darkness swirled around her until she was sitting on her ass on the floor of the warehouse.

She looked down at her closed fist. The whistle was real. Weird.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Without any better alternative, save being alone either in a dreary warehouse or in a drearier rainfall outside, Kristen descended the ad hoc steps made from gnarled roots.

And regretted it near immediately. Close to the bottom of the descent, the steps retreated from beneath her feet. Kristen yelped, flailing her arms and legs, and crashed to the floor of the hole in a heap. Her elbow had struck the ground perfectly to ignite her funny bone, seizing up her entire right arm in a paralyzing, prickling agony. Her head bounced off the floor as well--not enough to break the skin and cause bleeding, but enough for a burst of crackling colors to explode briefly before her eyes.

She had no idea what happened to Delaney nor to Henk, nor where Liliana and Trix were heading.

Kristen in that moment just lay on the floor, wincing and groaning, cradling her right arm with her left, aghast and wondering why Beatrix (and other mentionable Initiates like her) was just so consistently...gosh...mean-spirited!

Liliana Trix Delaney Lennox