He looked down at the shining blade he was currently sharpening with a whetstone with the sharp critical eyes of a man who was well accustomed to telling the difference between a well sharpened blade and a few quick swipes. Though times were peaceful among the twenty kingdoms, the battle tempered ex-mercenary knew that a weapon that was well taken care of could and most likely would mean the difference between life and death. He had been on the battlefield for as long as he could remember, he didn’t even have a name. “Nanashi” he was called; “no-name.” To the empty-eyed lad who’s sole purpose was the battle having no name only meant that death couldn’t find him.
His life as a wandering Gypsy with a troupe of Gypsy entertainers was considerably different to the life that had been all he had known until a year ago. He had a family. He had friends. He had a place to call home. For a man who had always lived a rootless existence having a home and family that traveled as a living was ideal. He shared a single wagon with his “elder sister” named Catherine, who was a dancer. Catherine was also quite adept with knives, no gypsy man or woman ever went anywhere without at least one on them though most avoided the pretentiousness of a sword and all the hassles that accompanied carrying one. Catherine however was better even than most Gypsies and that was saying something; she could hit a fly on the wall from ten feet away with her skirt knife, and the two throwing knives with the spring catches she kept hidden up her puffed, knotted, and beribboned sleeves could be silent death in a moment if she were ever cornered.
Trowa had never in all of his life imagined that he would become what he was now. It had started out harmlessly enough, he had taken up the flute to play while his sister danced taking in the occasional extra patronage playing for the impromptu gathering and things of that nature. It was at one such patronage that he’d run into a rich young merchant’s son named Quatre with whom he held the oddest conversation in his life up until that point. Quatre was a very special kind of player, he claimed could manipulate the forces of magic which wove throughout their world, with his music. He told Trowa that he was another such person. He held the Shine, and their impromptu lesson that had taken place that very afternoon had convinced him that Quatre did know what he was talking about.
Trowa held the memory of his first contact with his Gift to him like a warming stone. Everything had fallen into place on that day; what had once been merely a hobby to ease the boredom in between hired campaigns with his mercenary company turned into a true life calling. Quatre has hired Trowa on as a guard for the season so that they could travel together, and Trowa could learn the rest of his Gift. If left untrained he would be open prey for any number of creatures some benighn, most not. Being a mercenary, Trowa had opted for the training as he would rather not be caught off guard by something he couldn’t begin to see and might not be able to fight.
It was during his training that Trowa had been introduced to the Outrealms and to the other powers that existed outside of the human world. For the most part there were three basic powers, one were powerful supernatural wise and sentient creatures such as dragon’s and phoenixes, and unicorns (to name a few of the most powerful) who existed on magic, within magic and of magic. For the most part, these creatures had no real interest in humanity aside of the occasional old legend. The same could not be said of humans who were very interested in them, so for the most part they were very insular.
The second power were actually cousin to the first, and those were creatures that were nothing more and nothing less than physical manifestations of magical power, they were neither good nor evil, they often specialized in one specific area, some might manifest in relation to water, others in relation to the wild wood, others as spirits of mischief annoying but ultimately harmless. They were called a variety of names (not all of them complimentary) such as “elemental” “fairie” “sprite” and were actually quite common. They could be occasionally bargained with but the favor had better be something that took under ten minutes to accomplish otherwise the capricious creatures would likely forget all about it.
The third power was a race of magical beings that even Trowa, who had not had a childhood by any real definition of the word, had heard tales of. They were called the Elven. Tales of elves were widespread and often fantastic, no matter what land he traveled to he heard songs and stories about the elusive creatures who wielded strong and powerful magics and lived in incredible and fantastical castles Underhill. They created bubbles of organized territory out of the chaos and wild fluctuating energies that flowed to and from the real world and in these bubbles created by their magic they had only to will anything they could want into reality.
At first glance it was a world that existed totally of whims and fancies, having no boundries or laws (save their inhabitants whims) as the human world knew them, the same doorway for example could lead into two different rooms at once or rooms could change their size and shape at a wave of its owners hand. But there were certain rules to them. The space within the bubble was finite, so if one wanted to make larger, something else had to be made smaller. The energy that it took to wield the force of magic took its toll on the weilder; granted, elves had considerable resources to begin with but even they who measured their lives in centuries had their limits.
There were Humans, a small number of them but growing steadily, who had unusual abilities. These were named Wild Talents and being actively sought by Elves of the Dark Courts and elves of the Light.
Quatre himself was a Wild Talent from a line of wild talents, his being that of Empathy as well as his gift for music. He could feel the emotions of others as though they were his own; if he hadn’t had any training in how to shield himself properly he would likely have gone mad at a young age. He said that there were other kinds of abilities as well, ones that would let a person hear the thoughts of others, or even enter their minds and search through their memories, there were the ability to see the future (quite a few of his Gypsy companions had that one) the ability to see things far away, the ability to understand and communicate with animals (another common Gypsy gift) the ability to move things with the power of ones thoughts alone, start fires, sense water, commune with the dead and a myriad of other things that Trowa had seen some evidence of, but had dismissed as trickery. Trowa had been relieved to test out with no talent other than his Gift for music.
<It didn’t take much at all to convince me of the reality of
Not all Elves were treacherous, he was good friends with one and another was probably the single kindest individual he’d ever met. An elf with the unusually short name of Duo (most of the Fair Folk took long names with at least five syllables and fourteen letters) was a Low Court elf (nothing against him, it just meant his talents lay elsewhere than wielding powerful magics) ran a shop with a pixie-like looking human woman he’d fallen in love with and brought Underhill to be his wife hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The other elf he knew really only through someone. Heero Yuy, a fellow human mercenary, had told Trowa of how he had unwittingly saved an elven princess from destruction at the hands of a circle of dark path sorcerers intent on draining her of all of her magical power. He’d protected her in this dangerous human realm until she’d felt it safe enough to call up the magic to build a portal back to her own world. In gratitude for his services, Heero had been offered a position at court but he’d declined it. He wished to continue guarding the elven princess so instead he was made a warrior-knight and charged with her protection. It had made a rather good song, or at least Trowa had thought so, and it was gaining in popularity in the first three lands he’d introduced it to. Heero was still displeased with him for making him famous both Under and Overhill, he hated notoriety.
He found that sharpening his weapon made him feel clamer and enabled him to think more clearly. Analytical at even the worst of times; Trowa had gained a reputation for being cold and aloof, not showing his emotions easily or often. Among the Gypsy folk who were as a general rule, passionate, hot tempered and quick-tongued, Trowa definitely stood out with his mask-like calm serenity and his nigh empty-eyes gaze. It was quite obvious that Trowa had not grown up among the wild and laughing folk he now called his family.
<Perhaps if things had been different,> he thought with regret.
He pulled out his silver flute, a gift from master-craftsmith Elf Duo for his attainment of Mastery in the Songarts. Trowa considered it his other weapon, though generally speaking it held more direct physical power Underhill rather than Over. He gave the instrument a quick cleaning (he had just recently given it a full one so really it was little more than maintenance) before setting it to his lips and calling up an Air Elemental. Really all he was asking for was a small one of low power with nothing else better to do than maybe pop Underhill on an errand for him. In a short amount of time a tiny little swirl of wind blew out of nowhere, and out of it flittered a tiny sprite, it was feminine but sexless with no cute little flowers or leaves for clothing as was often painted. To Trowa, who was only a SongMaster and not a magic-user (who refered to themselves by so many different titles Trowa couldn’t keep them straight), the sprite was transluscent and glowed faintly.
“I’ve called to ask you to trade a favor with me,” Trowa stated quietly.
He pixie made its usual tinkling noise, it’s body language clearly stating with an outstretched palm ‘what have you got for me?’ Fairies, for all of their minute size were notorious packrats. They were almost worse than dragons in that respect; at least dragons had taste in what they horded, books, rare gems, piles of treasure, magical artifacts if it was valuble you could count on a dragon owning at least one of them. Fairies on the other hand were far less discriminating, if it was shiney or held their attention for longer than ten seconds chances were they would want it. That was actually a good thing so far as Trowa was concerned for it made getting messages to his friends and contacts easy and nearly instantaneous.
“Here,” he said, pulling out a tiny charm not much larger than a grain of sand on a piece of wire as fine as a hair. “It’s a music stone, crafted by me. It will play three of my songs for you anytime you wish. I’ll give it to you, but in return I want you to pop off to Underhill and find a friend of mine, Heero Yuy. Give him this message.” Trowa held up a tiny rolled up scroll written on silk.
The fairy nodded once in affirmative hummed the first lines of three songs he’d written (signifying that that was what she wanted in the stone), took the scroll and disappeared.
Trowa picked up his flute, played a simple version of the tunes (a stone that size didn’t have the storage space for complex melodies) and waited for the pixie to return for her prize. He wasn’t disappointed; five seconds after he was done the sprite reappeared and claimed her stone, handing him a small message cube of elven make. He noted that her wings, which had been simple iridescent a while ago now glowed with a variety of shifting patterns of colored light. Heero must have exchanged a favor with her on a reply since she was coming back anyway. Trowa whistled a simple five note tune to activate it and an illusory visage of his comrade appeared in the air above his palm.
“I got your message. Wild Talents gone missing recently you say? Relena is always up to her ears in Elven politics, but there haven’t been any stirrings of unrest from the Dark Elves that we’ve noticed. I’m not worried about them when they’re making noise, at least then I know where they are and what they’re up to. I worry when they are quiet. I should also warn you that even if you do find something worth acting on the Elves probably won’t do anything, and certainly not right away. For one thing there is a serious and heavy network of alliances and counter alliances that are as fragile as spiderwebs and every bit as complicated, and for another thing, these people tend to take the long veiw of things. They’ll remain inactive, preffering to wait and see what happens before carefully plotting some long vast complicated strategy that won’t affect their allies or their enemies very much but will solve the problem. Hn. Elves.”
That was the extent of Heero’s message. As a general rule, neither of them were very talkative but Heero was the one to go to when information was needed. His beloved )though you’d never hear him admit she was) was an Elven Princess of the Blood Royal. Heero seemed perfectly happy with guarding Relena. Duo and his human lover Hilde had been attached to one another for centuries and looked forward to centuries more by all appearances. Quatre had been betrothed to a young dukes daughter whom he’d had strong feelings for, for a long time now. Trowa felt he wasn’t doing too badly for himself. An ex mercenary who had lived for only battle and wen through life merely existing as an empty ghost had turned to a man who traveled with a group of carefree people who had a home and people he called friends and family. Still, part of him still wondered if he had ever really laid his past to rest.
There had been a time, small in its measure but definitely there, when he’d been the empty-souled warrior Nanashi; Nanashi never felt anything, not anger, not joy, not sorrow. Nanashi was empty, a body who existed for war and only went through the motions of living but there had been a time when Nanashi had felt.
It had been twilight. His mercenary company The Stormblades had been hired to guard a merchants’ string from roving bandits. The attack had come from all sides; the bandits, hidden in the dense, tall grasses of the fields had been able to sneak up very close and wait until the guards changed shifts. When the battle was over the empty-eyed Nanashi had still been alive as had his compatriots. The bandits had not. As it had turned out, the bandits had been hired out by the owner of the string himself so that he could collect the Surety money he paid for. There was already waiting false cargo manifest for several times what the caravan was worth. By the Code, the merchant had forfeited everything his caravan contained to the mercenary company. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really merchandize that could be easily sold, there had been some silks, some jewels, and some spices but the bulk of the cargo (abhorrent as it was) were human slaves.
Nanashi had woken the next morning o find himself tended to by a beautiful young girl aroung his own age. In all the years that he had been separate from her he had never forgotten his first glimpse of her leaning over him as he opened his eyes. Her golden hair reflecting the light of the rising sun playing against the canvas of his tent, her incredible blue eyes an impossible shade of blue-green, her beautiful face scewed up in anxious concern…for him. All for him. It had felt like his entire world had crystallized right at that moment, and the young soulless fighter known as Nanashi, who had snuffed out so many lives he couldn’t begin to count them, had found his breath completely gone from his body. He’d been bandaged, and then fed some kind of oddly cooked camp ration by the young girl who sat nearby silently waiting to see if he needed anything else.
“This is good, where did you
find it?” he asked of the sylph-like girl in ragged clothing currently crouched
nearby looking at him with wide frightened blue eyes.
“I didn’t steal it,” she
said softly, timidly. It was the first time she’d spoken all morning. “I cooked
it myself. I wanted to…thank you.”
“Oh,” was all he could think
of to say. He looked more closely at her, despite the rags she was an
exceedingly pretty girl; he beauty was of an ethereal quality, almost
otherworldly. Her soft features were almost too perfect, too refined, as if
dirt would never dare to contemplate smirching her perfect features. Her skin
was almost too pale, as if she were a marble statue come to life, her face was
too symmetrical, her eyes were too impossibly wide too impossibly deep. The
only imperfection in her child body that he could see were that her ears were
shaped a little oddly, they seemed to almost point upward at the tips.
“Who are you?” he asked
finally. “Do you have a name?”
“I was given the name Midii, Midii Une,”
she said. “How about you?”
“They call me Nanashi,” he said shortly.
“No-name?” she said in
surprise. “It’s better than hey-you I suppose.”
Nanashi was surprised into a small smile. Most
people were intimidated by his cold eyes and emotionless face as well as his
reputation as a hardened killer, Midii was either
unaware of them or unafraid and Nanashi didn’t know
which of them he wanted it more to be.
“So you’re a mercenary huh?
It must be nice.”
“I suppose,” he said
indifferently. “I don’t know any other way. I’ve been a soldier since the day I
was born.”
Nanashi didn’t ask about Midii,
he knew already. She was one of the slaves that his company had acquired by
accident; there was nothing else she could be. And he knew without looking what
kind of slave she would likely be sold as as well.
With features that fine and a face that innocent, despite her age (or even
perhaps because of it) she would likely be sold to a rich man, perhaps even to
a Lord, as a pleasure slave. He knew even without being a merchant or a dealer
in human flesh that she would likely fetch a fine price.
“Would you like something
more to eat Nanashi-sirrah?” she inquired
deferentially. Nanashi’s eyes widened. “sirrah”, while not quite “master”
, was a unisex title of respect given by one who is deferential to another. Did
that mean that Midii thought she was Nanashi’s servant? Or just that she was acting as a slave
was expected to?
“…” was all he could think
of to say. The words seemed caught in his throat as she smiled at him. When he
reached for his armor Midii was already there, he
noted that the worn leather straps had been replaced and the small nicks and
dents in the armor had been smoothed out.
“I took the liberty of
having it serviced while you were sleeping and I washed and mended your clothes
Nanashi-sirrah,” Midii said
soflty, as if raising her voice to him would hurt
her. Nanashi looked at the girl who wore rags as
though they were the finest robes yet had her head bowed to him and her eyes on
the ground her golden hair falling forward to hide her face.
“Ano…
Thanks. Midii, you don’t have to,” he said.
“You rescued me. I would
have been struck down and either killed or carried off by that horrible bandit
and then your sword came flashing in the light and he toppled over at your
feet,” and here she blushed as she said. “You were really amazing.”
Nanashi felt blood rush to his face and a strange
feeling of discomfort wash through him. He didn’t even remember killing the man
and he’d never been praised or thanked before, especially not by…
“Um, I think we’ll be moving
out soon,” he said. “They’ll likely decide what’s to be done after we reach our
main base. In the mean time…you can ride with me and I think there’s a position
in the kitchens open if you want it.”
“Gaiji
an tok, Nanashi-sirrah,”
she said softly. He recognized the language as coming from a small mountain
country renowned for its fantastic tales of elves and fairy rings.
“Sita,”
he said in reply. As a mercenary he’d found it useful to learn the basics of
many languages.In case he were ever stranded in a
place he didn’t know he at least wouldn’t be totally helpless and if he could
place the language he could place where he was. It was doubly useful.
In the weeks that followed as they slowly traveled back to their main base and winter quarters, Midii had attached herself firmly to Nanashi. She rode beside him on the weapons wagon, was present with a breakfast she made for him every morning, his clothes were washed by her, his armor kept in excellent repair, his few meager belongs packed by her every time they broke camp. He was teased good-naturedly by his comrades about Midii who followed him around anytime he wasn’t doing something where she couldn’t be present. If he had been older and more experienced he would have noted the open adoration in her eyes.
They had been a days ride away from their winter quarters when the trouble first began. Their mercenary train was attacked by a small pack of Coldfangs, hybrid beasts that were part wolfhound and part basilisk and all mean. Seven were killed by the vicious beasts before they were driven off. Shortly thereafter the real disaster struck.
Out of the mists of early morning the air shimmered with an unnatural light. Nanashi had felt an odd buzzing at the back of his skull, like low pitched sound he could more sense than hear. The air opened up in a glowing portal of mist and moonlight. Out od that portal flooded packs of beasts and horridly ugly contructs of magic with misshapen limbs and ill fitting clothes. They attacked the mercenary company suddenly and without warning. The ground was soon littered with bodies, blood flowed and congealed on the ground as Midii cowed behind him pinned between him and the back of the wagon with her face in her hands. Nanashi had had his sword out ready to defend the two of them but oddly enough they were ignored as the slaughter raged around them. By the time the massacre died out another portal shimmered in the air.
Nanashi had tensed, expecting another onslaught, but nothing came. A moment later a great black horse with an rider in garbed to match in silks and chased silver stepped out with slow and confident deliberation. The horse was a beautiful creature; all smooth sleek muscle, elegant lines and perfect form, if Nanashi had the wherewithal to design the perfect beast for both riding and fighting it would have looked precisely like that horse with sharp fanged teeth, clawed hooves, and gracefully deadly mien. It was an ugly pony compared to the beauty of its master. Perched securely atop the black horse sat a tall, lithe man with impossibly graceful features; dark raven hair that fell in waves to the middle of his back ears that were decorated with fine hammered gold earings and many precious stones, pale skin like the snows of yesteryear, a face that would make anyone want to cast themselves at his feet and apologize for being so plain in the company of such elegance... finely arched eyebrows over cool eyes the exact color of a thunderhead cloud, a perfectly straight nose, an aristocratic chin that was smooth as glass. He had a face that looked like it had been carved from a marble statue and his clothes were of the finest materials, many of them had to have been made or treated by costly magics. His demeanor was one of disdainful calm, of haughty elegance.
Without twitching a muscle the rider rode slowly up to Midii and beckoned her forward. Midii had only crouched farther into Nanashi’s shadow.
“So there you are child,”
the man who was too beautiful to be real, too beautiful to even be a dream said,
calmly uncaring of the destruction around him.
“Stand aside boy.”
Nanashi looked at the rider atop the horse and even
his empty heart felt something akin to a reverential awe in it. He quickly
dismissed the feeling and ignored the order.
“Not until you tell me why
you’ve murdered this company,” Nanashi stated calmly.
He felt no survivors’ guilt, he felt nothing; his face was detached and
emotionless. Much like the man who sat with detached haughteur upon his elegant beast.
“I did not murder them,” the
rider said, then pointed to Midii. “She did.”
“No,” Midii
said shaking her head in horifiied denial. Nanashi merely looked over at her. Her eyes were closed in
pain. “It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
“Oh but it is,” the rider
from the gate assured her genially. “You brought this destruction here .My
perfect little traitor, no one would ever suspect that you could have possibly
lured them all into my trap so that I could retrieve the artifact from their
protection. Good girl. And now I will simply finish them off.”
The arrogant rider on the
pure black stallion with the fanged teeth and the clawed hooves had gathered a
small bolt of power at his fingertip and pointed it at Nanashi
who had stared unperturbedly back at him.
“Please, I beg you… have
mercy,” Midii said dropping gracefully to her knees
before him and touching her forehead to the ground. The man-creature in black
had only looked down at Midii, his face a study in detachment
and said
“You have served your
purpose Midii, your infiltration of this company was complete and
successful. I have the artifact I came for. You have managed to please me; do
not erase your exemplary bit of betrayal by sparing one of them now.”
“I was merely concerned that
you might find this world too boring to hold your interest,” Midii said in a quickly contrived uncaring tone. As an
afterthought she added
“After all, it is full of humans.”
“A point,” the rider
acceded. “Return to me now so that we may leave.”
Looking back at Nanashi with sorrow in her eyes and tears streaming down her face she whispered a quiet “I’m sorry” before she walked over to the man perched atop the charger and allowed herself to be scooped up and placed in front of him. Nanashi merely watched as the beauteous creature summoned a portal back to his own realm and rode off with the girl. As a parting shot, the Elf, for that was the only thing he could have been, had blasted at the spot Nanashi had been standing at. Only Nanashi’s warded blade and armor had protected him from death.
Nanashi had wandered around after he’d recovered doing the odd bit of mercenary work before he’d been taken in by a troupe of gypsy performers that had become his family. Trowa Barton looked back on that memory of the slaughter of the mercenary company who’d raised him with regret but the past was the past. He couldn’t change it… but he also couldn’t forgive it. He’d thought she’d cared about him. He’d thought she’d been happy to see him return from a battle not simply because he was a soldier but just for himself. He’d thought that Nanashi could not hurt, but he had and Midii had done it. He couldn’t forgive her betrayal, he couldn’t forget the sight of his captain being ripped apart by ravenous creatures and devoured before his eyes. Midii’s fault, all her fault and he hated her for it. He hated that she had lied to him, that she had manipulated them, that she had killed them all in the end. He hated her and as long as he lived he would never forgive her.
* * *
It was beautiful. A castle like something she had dreamed of in her wildest imaginings as a child; the outer walls were smooth and shining like thick black glass created by the hand of a master glassblower with graceful arches leading to tall fanciful towers reaching up toward the sky in long pointed spirals. The central portion enormous black multifaceted jewel, like the carved heart of an obsidian stone. The great forests that surrounded Dark-Court Lord of Fire and Shadow Allerune’s palace were thick, dark and impenetrable to all but invited guests. The interior was stark, cold elegance like the master of the manse himself; the halls were tiled on finest black marble, with inlay of platinum and precious stones; the walls of pale stone the exact shade of a beautiful corpse laid in state to rest, with carved murals of ravenous beasts tearing at one another, and jewels in the places of their eyes to catch the light and reflect it back at the person wandering the halls. It was a place of cold opulence, of brutal finery; of sinister magnificence and of threatening wealth. It was not a place designed for the comfort of humans but rather a place designed to reflect the heartless elegance of it’s creator and master Allerune Si Terevin Do Kelariskin, Lord of Fire and Shadow, her master, keeper and possessor. There was only one place in the whole of that dark palace that held and measure of true warmth; the gardens in the very inner court of the palace. Like a wild fancy come to life; there were waterfalls that played music, fountains that made patterns of water to hang in the air then fade away, trees that grew jewels instead of fruit, magical animals that made songs a thousand times more beautiful than anything that ever emerged from the throat of a normal beast. In that garden the sun always shone with gentle warmth as opposed to the rest of the palace where it was always deep night. It was there that Allerune kept his most prize possession, in a beautiful gilded cage away from all contact, guarded by magical beings under his command who were silent as the wind and as substantial as raindrops. She knew that Lord Allerune would tolerate no threat to his position of total and absolute control over the one whom he had made his prize possession so many years ago. He was a jealous master, not because he held any special feelings for her, but because of what she was able to do for him… she gave him power, almost limitless power; and Allerune would strike her dead before he would let someone else know the key to his mighty pool of magic.
Her captor, her tormentor, her owner was a creature who fed off sorrow and misery. The negative emotions felt by people, especially Humans, was what fed his pool of power and made his magic stronger. The lives of others were nothing more than amusements to him. Her eternal curse was that of Empathy, she felt the pain of others as though it were her own; not only that but when she was placed near to one of her masters victims she not only resonated with that victims’ pain and anguish…and she amplified it tenfold. It was that Gift and curse that made her so very useful to her master. He essentially got the amplified power of ten for the price of one human captive. Whenever one of the Human’s Lord Allerune ordered brought to his realm felt any strong emotion at all her power kicked in; she drained them of every last vestige of feeling and then amplified it by ten spreading it out from her center in waves of heavy guilt. She just couldn’t stop it. And Lord Allerune soaked it up like the proverbial sponge, funneling it all to his ever growing pool of power. Midii had once tried to control her Gift (more like her curse) but to no avail, and when Allerune had noticed her efforts to stop his power from growing (essentially thwarting his wishes) his wrath was great and beyond terrible. Midii was nervously glad that her mind had blocked out whatever punishment he had given her for her impudence… for she awoke sometimes in the night bathed in a sheen of sweat with a choked off scream dying on her lips… the vague shadow of something hovering over her with shining black eyes and two great mandibles… better that she not remember what it was that had caused her to spend a week lying on the cold marble floor of a cell like one dead, awash with a burning pain that ate at every nerve ending in her body. Better anything than that.
Allerune was one of the highest ranked Elven of the Dark Courts, Midii knew that the power he horded away in secret could rival if not defeat even the High King of the Dark Courts, King Kellaris; however challenging the High King was not on Lord Allerune’s agenda… at least not yet. He was most interested in collecting all of the Wild Talents from the human world. They had discovered, quite by accident but to Midii’s eternal dismay, that the so-called Wild Talents had a special fire within them that made them last far longer than any normal human. Most Humans died after the first three or four times she drained them of their emotions; each draining left them with a smaller amount to draw upon until there was nothing left; after that they just seemed to slowly dry up and wither away. Wild Talents on the other hand could be drained up to ten times before they started feeling the ill effects of Midii’s Empathy-drains. But worse still was that Allerune had discovered that Midii could sense them, the Wild Talents. Whenever she was within range of another Wild Talent Midii vibrated like a harpstring next to a tuning fork.
In his quest for yet more power Allerune
had taken to bringing Midii along on hunts through
the Human world, finding Wild Talents among the unsuspecting Human populace and
dragging them back to his realm for him to toy with. Of course he wouldn’t want
the Humans he brought back to his palace to feel good about their journey; he
was Dark-Court and he fed and grew powerful from negative emotions; fear,
anger, hatred, despair… those were the wines of the
She knew with the implacability of universal fact that escape was not possible, not even the escape of death… Allerune had cursed her with not only life eternal but with life invulnerable; she was bespelled against the shedding of her blood, and bespelled against the stopping of her breath. No matter what her heart would continue to beat, her lungs to take in air, and her body to replace what it had lost. She could not die by mortal hand. A thousand times she had cursed her foolishness for ever venturing into that Elven glade that one night, all those years ago. She had tried in vain to end her life and stop the suffering she inflicted onto others, but also to no use. She was firmly his creature, from now until the day he tired of her and allowed her to die.