Home Sweet Home – Sheryl, the Fae-Touched – 6.08.2020

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Waves crash a hundred feet or so below the cliff’s edge Sheryl finds herself standing on. The drop stretches to either side of her with lush, green grass under foot. A softly muted sun hangs overhead. They’ve made it to the demiplane of Arkadius’ birth.

Something doesn’t feel right about this place.

They make camp on the island pillar, deciding after their journey through the Temple of the Raven Queen a bit of rest would do them all some good. Sheryl is subdued, the echoes of the words the Aspect said to her flitting through her mind. Offering to take the first watch with Faye, she comes close to the eladrin, speaking low so none of the others can hear.

“Faye, when you went through the temple… what did you see?”

The vibrato they normally wear like armour is gone. “I saw… many things. Sheryl, do you know of anything happening between the Winter and Summer Court?”

“No, I do not,” she answers truthfully. Sheryl leans in close, concerned. “Why, do you think something will?”

They shrug. “I don’t know. One of the visions I had seemed more like… a premonition?” Faye shifts uncomfortably before looking back to her. “The Summer Court was at war with the Winter Court and I was there, in the midst of it all.”

Sheryl is very still, her own concerns temporarily banished from her mind. “I… could try to find out for you Faye. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could try,” she says, resting a warm hand on their wintery one and giving a gentle squeeze.

Faye nods once and then nods again attempting to bring back their air of nonchalance. “They were just visions after all, it doesn’t make them true,” they shrug, looking out past the cliff edge.

“In your visions did the Raven Queen speak to you at all?” The question tumbled from her lips before Sheryl even realised she was going to ask it.

Faye raises an eyebrow at her and shakes their head. Somehow their answer doesn’t surprise Sheryl. They make some more small talk after that, Sheryl telling Faye a bit about her visions, but the rest of their watch is uneventful. She has a feeling if she asked the others the same question, even Arkadius, he would say the Raven Queen didn’t speak to them. It only serves to confirm something to her which fills her with foreboding.

They were more than just visions. The Raven Queen has her many eyes on me – has marked me for… something. I just don't know if I dare to find out what.

In the distance, a lighting storm danced across the twilight sky.

---

The next day, after having followed a trail that led north up to a Tri-Standing Stone site where they found a pile of discarded items, Arkadius, Sheryl, Faye, Bones and Wren were making their way south again, in the direction of what the fae-bard hoped would be Fallford. But if what they found at the Tri-Standing Stones was any indication, Sheryl was beginning to have doubts about what may lie ahead, or if they would find anyone.


Sheryl was watching how the waves crashed against the cliffs below them as they passed another bend in the trail when Arkadius let out a cry. Turning, she ran over to him as he clutched at his head, a grimace on his face. It was then she saw them, lines around Arkadius’ eyes, the way his dark hair seemed lighter on the sides, silvered with age.

“Arkadius, what’s going on?” Sheryl asks, alarm making her voice come out strong. “Talk to us, please.”

She sees him straining against something as he looks at her. “It’s Swan. She’s- She’s being a right bitch.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Faye asks, looking between Sheryl and Arkadius. Wren is eyeing the tiefling warily whilst Bones comes a bit closer. No one seems to know what to do.

“Just-... give me a moment,” Arkadius bites out as he remains bent forward.

Sheryl wasn’t going to wait. Brow setting into a determined line, she reaches into her satchel and pulls out a scroll case and small jar with a butterfly clasp. She has Faye hold the jar, whilst she takes the scroll out, unrolling it. Deftly popping the clasp on the jar held in Faye’s hands Sheryl takes a small pinch of the crushed diamond dust inside between her right ring finger and thumb. She utters the incantation on the scroll in her soft, musical voice, and the dust held between her fingers glows golden. Deftly, she sprinkles it over Arkadius’ shoulders before using the remaining bits clinging to her fingers to trace a symbol on his forehead.

The effect is practically instantaneous. He exhales a shaky breath and the cold sweat that broke across his forehead stops.

“Thank you, Sheryl.”

She nods and smiles, but there is worry still in the depths of her eyes. “That should last you for eight hours,” she reassures him. “Long enough for us to get to Fallford, and then get out of here.”

“What was that though?” Faye asks, handing the jar back to Sheryl who puts it and the now empty scroll case away in her satchel.

Arkadius doesn’t answer Faye’s question. He merely straightens up – He’s aging before our very eyes! – adjusts the eyepatch he wears and then continues down the path. Faye gives Sheryl a questioning look, but she shakes her head. Throwing their hands up in the air in exasperation, the eladrin starts after Arkadius.

“He’s aged nearly seven years since we’ve arrived,” Wren says beside Sheryl. “That can’t be good.”

“All the more reason we need to find Fallford, and quickly,” Bones advises. Sheryl nods in agreement.

---

The tavern was the last place Arkadius had seen his father. He had told Sheryl this, before her friend had thoughts about trying to find his home. The large, squat building, like the rest of the town, was abandoned and showed one hundred years of decay on top of strong stone foundations. Bones and Sheryl easily found a secret passageway that led to the basement, and the last remnants of the people of Fallford.

The family gathered around the deathbed of an old man had reacted to Faye’s approach with worry and fear. Sheryl was standing in the shadows of a hall perpendicular from the archway the others were entering from. She did not enter the room though, something holding her back. She discerned the family’s hopelessness, their resignation to the end which they knew would be coming for them soon. The lighting from the night before was building, the ground itself starting to quake. It wasn’t until the family explained it to them that the full scope of everything became clear.

“My name is Verdon. I was just a little child when you left. You were a few years older than me…” the old man said, his rasping voice weak as he spoke to Arkadius. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“I am… sorry…” Arkadius stammered. It was unusual for her friend to hesitate so much, but at this moment they all knew why. The second of the three stone pillars they had found pointed an unmistakable accusatory finger at the tiefling – one that Sheryl thought unjust and unfair.


The dying man groans, the old prejudice within him coming forth. “Why did you leave? Why did you bring them here?” he demands, straining himself. The woman, the mother, steps forward and takes his hand to calm him down.

“I-” Arkadius hesitates, drawing back, hurt. An unexpected anger flares in Sheryl but she reigns it in. Her friend tries again. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I just didn’t want to be here anymore.”

The father of the family looks at his wife then to the old man. “That’s Arakadius? The Betrayer himself, the one who left?” He eyes Arkadius warily and the two children withdraw behind their mother. “You brought the invaders here. You did all this?”

“I didn’t mean to do anything, I don’t know what I did,” Arkadius says quickly, attempting to appeal to them. They don’t look convinced. “Tell us about the invaders.”

Verdon tells them the invaders first came not long after Arkadius left. When they did, the people of Fallford thought they had offended the gods, and so they prayed it would be just the once. Unfortunately it was not. Each time they came, the land would change, lighting storms would appear and the ground would shake. The trees withered and died, the land eroded and started collapsing back into the sea. At first they tried to fight back, but the green and orange skinned invaders – “Githyanki,” Faye informed them – would always find them. Since Arkadius’ was not there to be blamed, his father bore the brunt of it instead. His smithy was burned to the ground and he was then cast out from Fallford.

“He went into the wild by himself. I assumed the invaders caught him. Eventually they would catch everyone…” Verdon falls silent. There was a righteous glint to his eyes as he looked at Arkadius. Sheryl wasn’t sure if her friend saw it or not.

He continues. “Some of our people lost all hope. They erected a monument and… commended their souls to the Raven Queen, hoping that she would save them.” Verdon sniffs. “They took the easy way out.”

The shadow’s coil around her feet and Sheryl hears a soft, welcoming cry of a raven behind her. A moment before she would have sworn she was alone in that hall, but now she can feel a cool wind at her back ruffling the feathers of her cloak.

“Why did you stay?” Sheryl asks from the shadows. The father jumps and turns, but he relaxes when he sees her, a small thing, not a threat.

“We couldn’t, not with our family. The last attack was so long ago we thought… maybe it’s over. We saw the lighting and the mists rise like they did in the past but… surely it’s because you’re here,” the father says. He suddenly deflates. “Still, there’s little hope left for us.”

“You could come back with us,” Bones states matter of factly.

“What? Come with you, with the Betrayer?” the man says, pointing to Arkadius. Sheryl’s brow becomes a line at the use of the misnomer. “The one who brought all of this to us?”

“He didn’t bring this to you,” Faye says, giving the man a chilling look, full of winter.

As much as she dislikes their attitude, Sheryl would not leave this family here. She takes out the pin Tsue had given them, thinking about how the spell tied to it is supposed to work. Bright blue eyes do a quick count of the people in the room and she frowns…

“Do you want a chance to live somewhere else, in a land that isn’t dying?” Sheryl asks, cutting through them. Her voice isn’t the only one speaking. It’s layered with darker, whispered voices, some which sound like her, some which do not. “Or would you rather live here for the remainder of whatever life you have left and die with this land? We can offer you a way out.”

From the shadows behind her there’s the unmistakable sound of beating wings and the throaty call of ravens. The shadows surge forward in a wave, crashing down at her heels to spray up over her shoulders and wrap around her in a proprietorial embrace. Feathered and wispy, everyone looking at her gets the sense that something else is lingering in the gloom behind Sheryl. Something darker than the shadows that watches all – from the old man laying in his deathbed, to her friends standing around the last family of Fallford. All of them look at Sheryl with varying degrees of awed trepidation, the family taking a step back in outright fear.

The shadows whisper to her.

…Raven Daughter…

“O-okay. If you can show us a way out of here then yes, we will accept,” the father answers, voice quaking. He averts his eyes. “Just, please… don’t hurt us.”

Sheryl smiles pleasantly, but to the others it’s spine-chilling.

“Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.”

---

Sheryl swoopes above the githyanki invaders, the wings on her back beating the air in a dreadful tempo. As her shadow falls over them she unleashes a final Shattering spell, the thunder of her song ringing out and killing the last of them. Far above her the lightning storm which had been on the horizon at the start of the day, starts flashing across the sky, rolling in. She looks over to Arkadius, sees Bones helping him to his feet, once more healing him with the powers the aaracora has from the Raven Queen.

A fascinating duality.

With the battle against the invaders done, Sheryl wanted to get Arkadius, and the rest of them, out of Fallford. Gathering once more in the basement of the tavern, Sheryl holds out the pin to Arkadius.

“I can get home,” she half smiles, and touches her circlet. The gem, which was normally shimmering and bright, was dull, hardly any light emanating from it. “You get everyone else out.”

Arkadius takes the pin but holds her hand, not letting go. “If you go home, you come back. You promise me right now, you’ll come back.”

She looks into his eyes, tasting the weight of the words before she says them. “I promise.”

“And a word once given…” Arkadius starts.

“…cannot be broken,” Sheryl finishes, her expression unreadable.

“I fucking mean it this time, Sheryl.”

“I know.” She pulls her best friend towards her as she rises up on tiptoes and gives Arkadius a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

“You also promised me you’d come with me to the Feywild,” Faye adds. Sheryl looks to them and sees they have misgivings about her decision. She must stay strong, if she shows any hesitation, they will know, and she cannot have that.

She makes herself laugh softly, to cover her growing disquiet. “That I did.”

“Yeah, so don’t you dare die,” the wintery eladrin teases.

“I don’t plan on it. Now, go.”

Arkadius, Bones, Wren and Faye, link hands with the last family of Fallford. The golden leaf harp pin in Arkadius’ hand starts to hum and in the blink of an eye Sheryl sees her friends snatched out of Fallford. Just she and Verdon remain.

The fae-bard turns towards the old man and the look on his face would be unreadable to anyone else. She quietly comes over to the bed, reading the mix of emotions she sees in his eyes.

“You are wrong about Arkadius. He is no betrayer,” Sheryl says, sitting down beside Verdon on the bed. “I will not linger here long, so I’m afraid you will have to face your death on your own.” Her gaze drifts over to the shadows where she stood before and she feels unseen eyes watching them, watching her. “Though part of me thinks you do not deserve it, I will play a song for you. A final gift, to see you into your next life.”

Sheryl unlimbers her harp from her side, feeling the strings hum. She keeps it simple, plucking the chords as she starts singing softly, her voice low.

        Hands cold to touch
        Feet worn and rough
        Soon the last of us
        Will be but ash and dust…


Continued in ‘Haunting Shadows’ 🦋