Chapter 2: A Faerie's Dance

"I hear your voice in my dreams, I see you when I wake. Only for you to vanish in the fading night. You told me names I thought you wouldn't know, you told me I could speak with you more freely. Yet, you remain silent. Still, I must be patient, but I so wish to speak with you again, Ghost." 

Year of Wrath 1231, Season of Waiting D.67

Neaves sat perched high up on the rock face that served as the walls to the Valley. More like teeth, the longer she sat and watched as the mists grew brighter in the rising sun. Like a cage, these spires marked the bounds where her world mattered, and the rest of the world only saw them as a passing curiosity. Watching as the grass kowtowed to the endless mistress of the wind, as the thunderheads began to form on the southside of the Mountains. She shivered at the thought of the rain touching her, the fire that glowed softly in her wings twitching at the imagined sensation. Storms were a constant here in the mists, shifting from hour to hour. Thunderstorms were less common, but then again sometimes one couldn't tell the difference in the geyser filled valley.

The clan was hiding under the great boughs of the pine forests, as the Tears of the tree fell in the valley proper. From even before she was born, the clan had a fear of the rain, their people having a special reverence for living on the edge of fire and water. But then again, she never got to experience the Clan with any sense of normalcy. She was an Ember, an outcast. Told she and her siblings were charged with protecting the village, the village that thought they were cursed at birth. Glancing back at the tear in her wing, the only reason she was marked as such. Pulling her legs up closer to her chest as the thunderstorm was just beginning to crawl below her. Only the skirt of the storm before the real thing finally appeared.

Though the mists were their charge to maintain, when the Great Butterfly Azu touched the earth with her incandescent hand, the geysers rejoiced at her ministrations. During this time, the family honored their Deified Mother, keeping the sacred flame safe, unwilling to let it go out even for a moment. As The Butterfly walked among them in those times, she breathed fire into the earth and warmed the bones of this world. Gazing out into the darkness, she looked upon the horizon, and the sun rose. These mists, they were born of her breath, they were born of the fires below their feet. Afjie would take the Shrine Guard out to the holy well, and breath our fire into it's waters, continuing the creation of the mists. 

We, her children, called the guard, not children. Neaves bit her lip as the light drizzle graced her wings. Steaming off them, off herself in gossamer wisps in a pantomime of the fog in the vale. She shuddered, but she still wished to experience it. Curious, this feeling. It felt wrong, but she still relished the opportunity. She had been cloistered away in the valley her entire life, having snuck off from the family to see these thunderheads form. To feel their power rise like a slow god reaching to the skies.

"They keep so much from us. This is a lie. The rain will douse my fires, clearly not." She spat as the others drifted through her mind. Pyria would have no doubt started dancing in the rain if she were given the chance. Ryhs might have even smiled for once in his life. Erlin, well, he would probably be so much Neaves. "Is it really fair? That we have to be both outcasts and guardians that they depend on?"

The rain began to fall harder now, soaking her hair, the real storm finally making itself known. Slick, stuck to her neck and shoulders, her dress clinging to her in the warm rain. The feeling began to fade as she felt her wings cool, breathing in deep. Accepting the strange sensation, thinking back to the words of Mother Afjie. "One must avoid the rains, lest we remember what it was to be before our Great Mother graced us with the world before us. To see the flames dampened would only see us dismayed." Neaves only thought to back to her life in the Shrine.

As the rain streaked down her face, the stinging was somehow far more familiar to her than anything else. How the clan would rush their children away from them, how every man in the village crossed their arms when we passed. The side-eyes the women gave us, the disgusted looks as Mother told us to ignore them and flair our wings with pride. Puff our chests out, straight-backed and powerful, we were, as they all knew. Still, it always hurt to see that in their eyes.

She didn't really understand it now, focusing on her breathing. Feeling the sensation of the hot rain gracing her skin, to hear the lightning crack in the distance, she began to feel a sense of peace. Each rain drop a pinprick that sent a jolt through her, something they were taught to suppress. "Hide your anger, hide your discomfort. They will only judge you more for it." Afjie's words ran through her mind. Neaves hummed a soft song she had heard the shipbuilders sing for that hulking monstrosity of a vessel they were building for some foreign country. The jaunty shanty made her smile; although she didn't understand all the words, she liked how it sounded.

The memory swimming in her mind as her wings burned brighter. She was watching the men build a piece of the frame for that monster of metal and steel, watching as they used torches to weld the pieces together. Hiding from behind a box, though know she wasn't doing the greatest job at it. Summoning the mists to let her feel just a bit more comfortable, the men looked up and finally spotted her. 

One of them beckoned her over, and with cautious, tentative steps, she walked out to them. The cloth armor around her chest felt tighter the closer she neared them. "Ah, our dear Fotia! Little fire! Do you want to try?" Though his meaning was clear to the others, most of his words were nonsense to me; all my mind heard was "Dear...Fotia!... Try?" I didn't know what language they spoke, but they only cocked their head when I spoke. 

The man who spoke to me handed me the torch, clicking a small cup that sparked when squeezed. With a whoosh, the fire bellowed out of the end of it. I raised a finger, and mimicked the fire from the torch as a much hotter flame sat at the tip of my finger. Giggling as they all watched with open-mouthed surprise, the first man didn't bother speaking again as he pointed to the iron frame again. I suppose they were curious if my fire could do what they were doing. 

Though they stopped me just as quickly as I began, I had melted a hole through the steel. I suppose our fire was hotter than theirs, but that still didn't stop them from trying to ask questions. The shaking of my head was their only answer as their words slipped in one ear and out the other; I didn't understand them. These humans are strange. Yet I remembered the first man pointing at himself, repeating two words. "Name, Jacob." He pointed at another, saying one of the words again, "Name, John."

"Name." They looked surprised when I spoke, my own voice sounding odd to me as I said the word again. "Name, Neaves," I said, thinking I understood what it meant. The group of them smiled brightly as they said my name back to me. Something moved from down the pier, and reflexes kicked in with a mighty gush of wind as I went skyward. Leaving my small group of friends below, as another human and something much shorter walked with him. Getting just enough of a look at the short one to see it was covered in burns, and wore thick brass goggles. 

Breathing slowly, coming back from her memory, the rain was still hammering down on her. "Clear your mind, you are a Shrine Guard. You are meant to live, not feel." She thought back to her family huddled in the safety of the trees, under the pagodas and the earth mounds. Unconsciously playing with the feather necklace she wore, the symbol of the goddess they honored. She closed her eyes, seeing in her mind's eye the village and the countless fires and candles that would no doubt be waning in the rain. The amber glow of light in the mists that never left, even when the rain washed the sins of the world away. Much like a turning wheel, this cycle marched endlessly one season after season. She wondered if the family would ever overcome their fear of the rain.

She was told she had an ability for magic and fire not seen in the last few generations. She wondered what that meant. Mother Afjie always told her she was a prodigy, her wings burning brighter than even her own. Is that why she could sit here in the rain and not quite enjoy it, but endure it? As the flames in her skin, in her wings, hissed and steamed in this storm. She was still unsure if it meant anything at all. Afjie had wanted her to follow her footsteps and help lead the clan in the faith, but did she want that?

The Clan certainly didn't give any inclination toward trusting the Embers at all. The way they hissed like cats when she walked by, even when in the company of their own High Priestess. Afjie would throw them the same look they gave her children. Neaves loved watching them slink away. Still, every time she was brought in front of the Hierophant, the Father would always smile at her, not a hint of disgust or fear in his eyes. We were told that being an Ember was never someone's fault, that our wings were torn when we were being given our baptismal rites. 

For our wings to drink in the glory of the sun for the first time. Only Neaves parents, Ryhs, Erlin's? They miss stepped, they tore out wings when they were still wet, eyes never having opened yet. They didn't know who their parents were, exiled for their crime of breaking our connection with the goddess. Little Pyria... she was a different story. Her drunkard mother tried to cut her wings off when she was just a little girl; how was that her fault? Why did she have to become an Ember for a crime they never committed? Why did they all?

Still, the rain pattered on her skin. Why did she come out here? What was it? Did she really want to sit here and test what the Mother had told her all her life? Was the rain going to really kill her?

She doubted it as her wings still steamed in the deluge, great sheets falling in rhythm to her humming. Her wings felt hotter now, though not unpleasantly so. She only sat and wondered why they all had to stay in the vale. Was this all there was? To slavishly maintain a path for the humans and Gnomes to traverse their ancestral roads? To toil away maintaining the heat of the valley, or the ever present mists? Why did they never see their goddess anymore, not in the valley anyway? Why were they chained to this place? Why was she chained to this place? 

They only ever left the valley for very special occasions, when the Tears of the Valley fell when all the geysers would erupt all at once. When the Symphony of stars happened, where they would fly to the peak of the Mountains to the north, and watch the stars fall from the heavens. When they gave their children the first drink of the sun... 

"You are an Ember. You are a Shrine Guard, Neaves. Why do you hate your people so? Its the only thing they know." Trying to repeat the lessons Mother gave her in her mind. She just couldn't bring herself to accept that this was the only solution. The Shrine Guard protected the Shrine in ways they didn't even appreciate. Neaves had earned herself a name for herself in the eyes of humanity; they called her the Witch of Ash. When they protected the Shrine from any daring to stray from the paths they kept clear for them, the Guard would hunt them. 

"We kept the Shrine safe, and they don't even thank us for it." She bitterly spat. Erlin and Neaves would stalk the intruders, telling them to leave. Over and over, they were taught one phrase in Common to use against the Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes. "Leave or suffer the consequences." Still, some humans were stubborn enough to keep going. Some seeking harm, some seeking truths they had no right to know. The firestorms that Neaves could weave earned her name well. Leaving nothing but ash behind, as the grass and trees burned with just as much fury. Fat, wood, and bone burn all the same in her eyes. 

Erlin had become The Hunter, his bow like the command of a god. His wings were the brightest out of all theirs. Like a second sunrise making a beeline toward a trespasser, arrows pinning them to the ground, he never liked to kill outright. One of the most recognizable out of the Shrine Guard, he showed his face to all who entered where they shouldn't, the voice of reason. If they agreed to leave, he'd free them, if not? Well, very few could pull their arrow out of their skull. 

Pyria, sweet Pyria, was a ghost in the skies. She'd be the one to track intruders with a bird's eye view, flying higher than any bullet or arrow could reach her. Eyes like a hawk, she'd mark trespassers with that spell Afjie taught us all, like a beacon to us, invisible to all others. If they ever got away from Neaves or Erlin, they called her The Rain. Dropping heavy metal bolts down on them, never giving them the chance to make peace with their gods. 

Ryhs. Neaves shuddered when she thought about him, the last time they fought. He was the Gate Keeper, a paladin amongst these holy warriors. If any were to make it to the stone archway that marked the entrance to the Shrine, Ryhs would greet them in his own way. A greeting and a farewell. Neaves still remembered what he said in one particularly quick ending, "It is not my place to judge you, it is the gods' domain alone. I simply sent you to meet them." He was never one for much talk; he hardly spoke at all. Yet, he was the kindest of them all, always by Afjie's side.

She opened her eyes, seeing the storm roil overhead. The thoughts in her mind roiling as much as they were. The clouds snaking about like a fitful specter, to the clan, the storm would be a malevolent omen to come. To her eyes, it seemed peaceful, something to understand and experience rather than something to hide from. As arcs of lightning trailed from thunderhead to monolithic cloud, the gods' fingers traced paths of energy in brilliant blue light. She didn't even flinch as a bolt came crashing down not far from her perch. "Suppress all reaction." Neaves whispered to herself.

Rocky shrapnel flying about in a dozen different directions. Though the few that tried to encroach upon her, she batted away with an intense heat vaporizing them long before they reached her. The dissipating streams of dust were the only memory that existed at one point. She stared down at her hands, wondering how she did that. Is this what Mother had meant? Was she really graced by the goddess herself to possess such a potent affinity to fire? Then again, the things she could do, she shouldn't have been surprised at all. Though that was new, just heat and no fire?

She landed back at her original question, lost in the maze of her cyclical thoughts. What did it mean? She lost track of how long she sat there, long enough for the light to fade. The sun was low over the city to the west as it peeked below the clouds. Sinking below the waves of the sea to the south. She thought back to the ship workers, the trips she snuck in when she was meant to be patrolling. She sat long enough for the only light to be the arching energy to illuminate the earth in a staccato array. She only watched as the storm unleashed its fury upon its supplicant world. Powerless to do anything but wait it out in rapturous awe. Rain pattering away at her skin while her fingers traced the afterimages of those mighty bolts. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, the lightning arced where her fingers moved in the heavens, thinking nothing of it. The storm's fury reaching it's height as she sat below the anvil of the world's might. Rain so heavy she couldn't tell where here started and the waters began. Still tracing lines of light in the storm as the rain settled down. 

Eventually, she could see the city in the distance, eventually she could see the rocky spires that marked the entrance to the valley like a gaping maw hungry for more. Yet, this time, she didn't fear them. Gazing down on the valley below, just a thin ribbon of clear air marked the path they allowed humanity to use. She cared not for her duties in this moment, as he cloths grew cold in the chilling night air. 

As the wind picked up, the storm died down. An ebb and flow like the endless tides against the sea, skies opening like a gateway to the heavens. The clouds gone to dazzle her eyes in the splendor of countless stars, as the multicolored nebulas swayed between constellations. Staring as she suddenly felt small beneath the open night sky. A reverence reserved only for the divine, placing her hands in her lap, neck craned to witness the movement of the earth under her. Her humming picked up once more as her wings grew warm again, the memory of the stinging rain lingering just long enough for her to remember.

Only when her hair had dried, sticking to the side of her face. Messy and haphazard from the storm. Only when her dress had dried and flowed like a curtain in the breeze, her wings warming her back. Only when her shadow grew long over the valley under the early morning light did the sun begin to rise in the east behind her. She jumped as the woman next to her spoke. "Beautiful, isn't it? To see what the Great Mother had made for us to see?"

Neaves whipped her head over as she stumbled to the ground in shock, a glowing spark already in her hand. The woman who sat next to her had wings of pure fire, not fire, pure sunlight. Flowing like the sunrise across a field of flowers, like the whisper of a promise for a new day. Small antlers on her head, arching out in graceful curves that would have put the mightiest buck to shame. The same fiery red hair as her people, curly and messy in a way that rests on her shoulders with perfect certainty. Though her eyes were the same as hers, like a fire burning in them, glowing softly in the dim light. "Who, who are you?" She asked nervously, still shaken at the sudden appearance of this woman. Suddenly self conscious at everything about her, her clothes wrinkled, her hair a mess, a stark difference between them. 

She extinguished the spell in her hand when she saw this women was in her full glory, like the light across the water, she was brilliant. Not able to pull her eyes away from her, she sat back down heavily, adjusting the cloth armor across her chest. This woman seemed far too familiar, like she had known her her entire life. She just didn't know it.  

"In days of old, before the mountains had names, before the streams were drank from, we were. I was." She started as one of her eyes turned black like a raven's, only to regain its original crimson. Her antlers shifted in form to solidify in reality once again. "I would wait another thousand years to see one of my Children again. I would sit beneath the sun and stars, my Dear. You just let me know that you're coming home." She spoke, though Neaves felt an immense comfort at the sound of her voice, something felt off.

"That's an old prayer Mother Afjie used to tell us before putting us children to bed. How do you know it?" Neaves asked, getting tentatively back to her feet. Some how both fearful and trusting of this women, an awestruck experience she couldn't explain. The woman rose with her, pulling Neaves into an embrace.  

"They are prayers offered to me, I hear all my Children's prayers. You may call me Syn or Azu. Whichever you prefer. You know me as both, you know me more as The Butterfly." Neaves' mouth fell open as it all clicked into place. Azu the Great Butterfly. "Tell me about your worries, sweetheart. Sit and tell me about what bothers you." She spoke, breaking away from the embrace, walking around Neaves to look at her torn wings. 

"I, I just don't see why they treat us as outcasts, yet depend on our protection. Why do my wings being ripped matter so much to them when I fly so much more than they do?" Neaves started. 

"That's what they told you? My sweet daughter, your wings are meant to experience the world. Would you harbor resentment for the carpenter who has callouses on their hands? Do you harbor resentment for the soldier who bears his scars? No, your wings being torn means you have lived, allowing my light to enter your soul all the more readily." Syn told her, a hint of sadness touched her eyes. 

"I never saw it that way." Neaves began, "But they will never see it that way. They never have, that's why I'm a Shrine Guard." 

"To protect what you must, sacrifices are made. With the blood of man or with child, what is here cannot exist forever. Does the sun care what the trees below think of it? Do the stars worry about the thoughts of the rocks in the night? Does the mountain move against the wind? No, you are more than that, you are one of my Children. You may not know your worth yet, but with each beat of your wings, the winds of change will come." Syn answered, cupping Neaves’ cheek. "Neaves Emberwing, a fitting name. For no fire starts without an ember. No inferno burns without a coal." 

***

I crossed my legs, floating listlessly in midair, staring down at her frantically searching a pile of stones. Hundreds, if not thousands of them, moved aside, clearly looking for one in particular. There were dozens more gather round, worry plastered on their faces. The lone Fae-borne Witch with a small child hiding behind her skirts, a look of consternation as sweat beaded her brow, as some strange force held back an even stranger force. 

The Fae-borne's eyes were darting toward me, and back at the goblin woman, I knew she could see me, though none of the other Children could. Save for the one I had chosen, the one who had opened her heart to me, knowingly or not. Such is the bond they forged with me at every opportunity. Though something familiar touched my mind as I watched her work, something I wished for for so long, she lives. 

The goblin woman finally pried herself out of the pile, a truly ancient stone in her hands. Familiar runes etched into its ancient, weathered surface, words kind, words nostalgic, words lost to them as they drifted away in time. A name I knew far too well, as my breath caught in my throat, one of my daughter's names. That gravestone reminded me that time had passed without me. That the world truly held no penance back, even for the gods. The firelight danced off her soft face, the dust and dirt clinging to her, though did nothing to hide the fire in her eyes. A fire I knew all too well, as they were once mine in another time.

The goblin woman plucked a soft cushion from a plinth, which she rushed back outside the cave. I felt that pull in my chest as she began singing to the keystone held in her hands, an elder song. One that teased our hidden emotion, not those that had long been repressed, but those you never thought you had. Love, anger, glory, belonging, grief felt truly to the depths of one's soul. An ancient prayer, not heard in eons, at least not to my ears. Then again, it had been so long since I had given the opportunity to walk among the Children as I did now. That presence again, her warmth beside me once more. Pulling through a time that had long passed, "So you wish to make this a premonition?"

Despite the Shadows' constant presence, they didn't seem to realize I existed here still. That feeling like the sun rising, touching my mind as she did in the elder days, from before we held our forms. Like a Child creeping along in the dark, trying not to wake their parents, I walked quietly as I followed my Champion through her life. "Let us remember the Fallen, Oh dear Mother, the light in which you cast to our world still gazes in time past to witness your smile once more. Oh Great Father, Grant us yet another day." Though the magic took hold like a hook to the mouth, working effortlessly to render out notes to a symphony to the song I sang, my eyes still twitched at her use of 'Great Father'. 

Twisted, vile creature he is, bastardizing my own prayers and magic to erase me from their minds. I remembered that rune carved into the Keystone, though in this form, I could cry no more; it still hurt my heart to recognize it. Rythia. "Time echoes forward as we wade through our battles, each day regaining a renewed sense of purpose. Oh, Sister of old, have you rested well? Has the Great Father, in his graciousness, treated you kindly? Please tell me about your mind."

I realized it now, that wasn't her keystone. She had not found the right one. Clever girl. Even all this time later, still working in the background. I wondered how far she planned this out. Still, it was sweet to see my little girl trying to commune with the Priestess of old. I wish I had enough strength to explain all this to her. I had used the stones too much, protecting them from those Shadow Touched Fae. Humans, they called themselves. If only I could get some information to that Fae-borne Witch, something, anything. I could only speak to my little girl in her dreams at the moment, too weak to even let her see me. 

I knew in my heart that this prayer would never reach her ears. The first of the damned, the first of the Shadow Touched to change, the first to be crushed beneath the heel of Bhal and his golden spear. The magic rebounded from the stone as arcs of arcane energy formed in great bolts to ground out around her. Rythia was too far out of reach, the goblins of old still harboring much of their ancestry, steeped deep within their blood. Etched into their bones. This prayer was wrong, the wrong magic to never reach the ears meant to hear, the eyes to see the skies I had made. Besides, it was also the wrong stone; hers would be plain, not decorated.

She looked up at me, floating over the waves as she tried again, frustration and anger building as she tried again and again, only for the thunder to roll over the clan as bolt after bolt rebounded away from the keystone. "Why won't you answer me!" Though to the crowd around her, may have thought that she was speaking to the Cairn that she held in her hands, her eyes tried to burn a hole through me. 

"You said that I could speak to you more... you said that something had changed. Why won't you speak to me now?" She tried to keep her voice from cracking, but barely. Too weak was I to comfort her, it didn't stop me from trying. 

That Fae-borne Witch and her ever watchful gaze waved a hand through the air, flooding the area with air that felt easier to breathe for me. Small pulses as the atmosphere vibrated with energy, "Please, rest. Illy, I need to rest as well. Time, too quickly. I love you." 

I sat up too quickly, heart racing. My wings burning like a second sunrise, burning away the mists in the Valley. Like stars colliding inside my mind, a black feather drifted into my lap. Eyes slowly rising to see a woman whose beauty I couldn't define, sitting perched over me, burning eyes boring into me. "Did you enjoy your vision?" Her words like warm honey on a cold winter day. 

Recognition slowly dawning on me, her eyes were different, yet she was the same Syn I had spoken to this morning; her eyes were wrong, her wings duller. Like a raven staring down at its prey. She smiled and vanished from this world. I didn't even remember falling asleep atop the spire, only Syn telling me my scars proved I existed, lived a life worth telling. Then all I remembered was that vision. Who was that goblin woman? Who was that Witch? Whose eyes did I see through?