Dust Bowl Dance – Sheryl, the Fae-Touched – 13&20.01.2021

And if she could show off a little to the fey of the other courts in the second finale, then that would be an added bonus.

Roxane is a formidable archer, able to hit with uncanny precision and force that would be hard to dodge. Varis points out Crios’ use of divine magic as he swoops in on his griffin to attack the opposition. Antheia favours the alcoves of the ruins to hide in which dust the bowl of the arena before she strikes out, daggers flying. The owlbear they have with them appears to be very powerful, possibly magically enhanced, but is not as elegant in the ring as the others.

King Ulorian, dressed in an elaborate new outfit on the third day, long, bluey green hair flowing over one shoulder, parts the river into the familiar circular arena from the throne he lounges across. The audience has only grown over the past three days, some of them swimming in the water, others standing on dry patches of exposed riverbed. A familiar song begins somewhere in the crowd, one inspired by their team’s name: ‘Weepe Ye A Rivere Unto Me’. It gets picked up quickly, the support for the team from the Material Plane clearly outweighing any for the Summer Court.

            You can’t refuse
            This game you will loose to some mayfly

            The bridges were burned
            Now it’s your turn, to cry

            Weepe ye a rivere
            Weepe ye a rivere, yeah
            Weepe ye a rivere
            Unto me, yeah yeah

The others are doing their final preparations, getting ready to sneak, dash or fly over to their chosen starting positions when Merla speaks.

“I want to prove to the Inglorious Company that we are not to be underestimated.” She glances to Varis. “That isn’t to say I don’t want them to be, how do I put it… completely annihilated. They are still people from my Court, from my home.” Her expression, heartfelt and earnest while she spoke, shifts, becoming an echo of another Archfey some of them have met before.

“Let’s make it a lesson they will remember.”

---

---

Ulorian stands up from his throne of stone and steps forward.

“Well. Well, well, well. A bunch of prime materials. That’s delightful,” the River King grins impishly. “In fact I think it’s fitting somehow. You’ve all won. Weepe Ye A Rivere? There’s word-play of some kind there, I think. You lot usually want gold, right?”

“Cool magic stuff is always appreciated, my lord,” Faye says stepping forward.

“Your Majesty would be better, I think,” Ulorian says distantly. “Cool magic stuff, that can be done. But you are of our kind, I think.” He glances between Faye and Merla. “But your companions might want something else?”

“Some nice flowers would be nice,” BB speaks up, softly.

“Just flowers?” Ulorian asks, perplexed.

“There are some very beautiful flowers here that we don’t get on the Material Plane,” the big blue firbolg explains.

There’s amusement in the King’s voice. “And you want… my permission to pick them?”

“I wasn’t really… never mind,” she mumbles clearly embarrassed.

Merla frowns as Astra stomps her front hoof.

“Someone will help you with flowers. Cool flowers.” Ulorian glances over his shoulder and an aide seemingly appears from nowhere, already scribbling down what has been said so far. “What about the rest of you?” His eyes land on Merla properly and she feels the weight of them. “What about you, child of summer? I’ve heard about you. You’re Titania’s pet?”

Merla feels herself bristle but keeps her voice even, composed. “I am her daughter.”

Ulorian sniffs. “I suppose that’s different. What would you like?”

Merla glances at Varis, then back to Ulorian. “A favour from the King of the River Court.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Well surely you understand I won’t just give any favour. It depends very much on what you want.”

She turns to Varis properly, nodding for him to step forward. Even though Red and the other spectral forms that surrounded him in the battle are no longer there, she feels the weight of their presence in the set of his jaw as the Grandmaster looks up to the River King.

“I wish a truthful answer to a question, king of the river,” Varis says.

Ulorian’s demeanor changes from disinterested puzzlement to keen interest.

“This sounds like a fun game,” he purrs, leaning forward slightly. “Go for it.”

“When the fey courts competed last in the Amaranthine Games, your agents unleashed a plague on our city. 122 citizens of Daring Heights lost their lives. My question, and I bind you to a truthful answer only: Did you know?”

A soft sound of a harp chord rings through the air between Merla and Varis as her deft fingers pluck a minor F chord. She watches as Varis carefully studies Ulorian. They all see the king smile as if remembering something fondly, but at the mention of the Lassitude the Archfey frowns in genuine confusion.

Leaning over to the aide beside him, Ulorian asks, “Did we do that?”

The aide whispers something into Ulorian’s ear.

“Apparently we did. So I suppose, yes, I did know,” he says with a shrug. Merla hears the soft sound of shifting metal as Varis shifts slightly. “Yes, it’s slowly coming back to me. Sure. Sounds like something I would do.” His distant gaze focuses on Varis once more. “Is that an answer? Did you want more?”

“You have given me quite enough,” Varis enunciates, his voice cold as winter.

Ulorian ignores it. “So! The tall blue one wants flowers, the Daughter of Summer wanted a favour and the favour was apparently to let you ask a question-”

“I didn’t say what I wanted,” Merla cuts in.

“What is it then?”

The Daughter of Summer breathes in, channelling everything she is, every bit of her conviction into the words she speaks.

“As long as you live, you will neither touch nor meddle with Daring Heights or any place in the Dawnlands ever again. Or this display will be only a taste of what will come to you.”

The River King looks down at her, amused.

“So the favour is to let you threaten me?”

Merla does not balk, despite the terrifying look the River King is giving her. She sees Faye looking back and forth between her and the Archfey, slight panic in their eyes.

“It is to never do anything like the Lassitude for your own gain, ever again,” she clarifies, voice strong.

“Well I won’t give you that,” Ulorian says, his lips curling back from his pearly white teeth. “Instead, the favour will be that I let you threaten me without killing you instantly.” He dismisses her with a wave of his hand and turns to Heret. “You, merchant. Gold?”

“That was… bold,” Astra says.

“It was a risk but I had to try. I did not think King Ulorian would take my request seriously,” Merla admits to her friend.

“Then why?”

“Because.”

“Well, that was the first finale. I believe we have a second one!” The River King claps his hands together. “Will you be participating in that?”

“When will that be, your Majesty?” Faye asks.

“I’m rather tired, I was thinking about tomorrow.” He arches an eyebrow as he looks down at them from his throne of stone, no trace of tiredness anywhere across his sharp features. “The winner of that game would of course be granted an additional thing. Maybe you want to threaten me again? What say you?” Ulorian asks, looking down at Merla.

“Once is enough, I do not need to repeat myself,” she says, smiling a little too sweetly.

“But will you fight?”

“Of course. I am the daughter of the Warrior Queen, after all.”

He gives a dismissive laugh. “If you say so. I’m going to get absolutely smashed. Someone will be along with the things you wanted. Flowers and such. I will see you tomorrow.” He stands up to leave.

“Until the morrow, King Ulorian,” Merla calls out.

He pauses and looks back at her. “Good. You remember that title.”

The planes of her face grow sharper as the shadows around Merla darken. She feels a phantom pain, the remembrance of wings on her back and a distant cry of a raven echo through her mind.

Then Ulorian grows to twice his size, raises his arms, and lowers the water walls surrounding them. They are left to either run or fly away to safety, or get swallowed by the river.

---

---

Their return to the Material Plane was quick and easy. One benefit of being knocked out so early in the second finale meant that Merla was not drained like the others. The melodious tone that represented the Mundane Realm swirled around them, brushing through hair and dancing across skin as a familiar pull teleported the circle of friends back to the damp, wintery square of Portal Plaza. It was mid afternoon, the sun starting to descend into the west over the rooftops. Already she missed being in the ’Wilds, though the River Court was not anything like the Summer Lands, it still made her long for home even more.

Three of the Courts have I visited yet none are the one I long to return to…

Merla had not said much to Varis after the finale, her wounded pride holding her back as much as her anger at herself. She had wanted to prove herself, to show off that she is not to be underestimated to Ulorian in order to back the words she had said to the River King the day before. But once again, her weaknesses, her obviously mortal flaws got the better of her.

She had been angry – oh how the heat of her anger had burned inside her like the heat from a thousand suns. Not even Astra’s serene starlight presence could calm the scorching rage in Merla. Such a reaction would have surprised her if she was on the Material Plane but in the Feywild where emotions are felt a thousand times more, she had to let the feeling run its course.

What finally quelled her was when the River King stepped down from his throne to speak to them after Varis’ victory in the second finale. He addressed her after giving the others their prizes from the previous day’s win.

“Now, because I am a kind and merciful ruler and I refused what you asked of me yesterday, I will ask you again, Daughter of Summer, what do you want?”

It felt like the kind of question that had more to it than its simple words suggested. She could ask for anything, there were things she wanted and things she needed. But if Merla asked them of Ulorian, he who has proven himself to be more mercurial and changeable than any of the Archfey Merla has met, there was no guarantee he would keep his word, let alone remember it.

The river may change its course when it wills.

“If it is within your treasury to give King Ulorian, I would ask for an item that, when thrown at my quarry, would bind them in cold, iron shackles, inescapable. The only release would be a kind word from lips of love.”

Ulorian rolled his eyes. Was that disappointment or boredom she read from him? A tentacle emerged from the river – Merla shuddering at the memory of the kraken-like beast tearing her and Astra’s Simulacrum forms asunder when they went for a “swim” – and threw a ball of iron at Astra’s hoofed feet.

Merla was reflecting on what Varis had said when she saw an opportunity to speak to the Grandmaster. She catches up with him, Astra falling into step beside the great silver stag, following the others.

“That was clever what you did,” she says with a sly smile, falling into step beside him Tuevel on his left glances to Astra. “You know me well, and my weaknesses.”

“You don’t have many – I used what I could,” Varis says with a nod.“I didn’t fancy another double barrel of whatever that was you were slinging around.” Tuevel exhales his agreement.

Merla gives a little laugh at that, the sound of soft birdsong. She looks up to Astra, whose horn glows as she catches Tuevel’s eye, but their conversation is private, not something she can hear. She raises an questioning eyebrow but leaves it be, her own thoughts turning to something more serious. Her smile fades as she glances to Faye and the others ahead, their bright voices seeming far away from her in that moment. Merla looks up to Varis, her expression serious.

“Does your offer to help me still stand?”

His own quiet smile fades too, and he looks a mixture of weary and concerned as he looks at her.

“It does,” Varis replies. “But I would remind you – unnecessarily, I’m sure – of the power of the beings we face. You and I know a few tricks. We made short work of Titania’s fixers, but a creature like Ulorian? He has had millennia to learn and fight and hoard power. We will need to use our wits and be clear who our foes are. For the sake of our people, if not for ourselves.”

Merla winces a little and nods, understanding the meaning behind his words. “It wouldn’t be to face one of the Archfey – at least so far as I know now,” she reassures him. She deliberates about something, her steps slowing. Varis slows with her. “I don’t think Roxane will pass on what I said to the Green Knight, at least not right away. That’s why I must speak with him instead, the Master of Revelries. He is-… was my mentor and… lover.” Bright, flushed spots appear on her cheeks. “If the information I have is true then he is involved with the Black Heart Cabal. And I must find out why and where they are.”

Varis watches her for a moment, coming to a slow stop.

“Why? I mean no disrespect my friend, but what drives you to follow this thread?”

Merla’s light feet stop too as a different kind of heat rises in her, but Varis continues.

“Your former comrades seemed to have little enough regard for you – indeed, I spoke with one of them last night. He seemed to think your trial and banishment a convenient political fiction. Why help those who would so readily abandon you? You have another home now.”

She meets his gaze.

“If I were to abandon this, if I turn away from the people of the Summer Court because they are being manipulated, lead away from knowing the truth, how does that make me any different or less ignorant than them? Sure, I could live out my days here in Daring with you and the others, leaving behind the Summer Lands and its people. It would be so easy to do so…”

Merla’s eyes drift to their friends, their distant laughter and camaraderie. She thinks about Akradius, the children of Thia’s, the pie nights with Taffeta and her family, all of the friends she has grown close to and relies upon, including the man beside her. For a moment she sees that thread laid out in front of her. It has always been there, ready and waiting for her to choose it, all she needs to do is reach out and clasp it in her hands and she would be free from the obligations to the Fey Courts and her Queen Mother.

Merla turns away from it, looking into Varis' peridot green eyes.

“But how would that make me any different than those in the Cabal of the Black Heart? By doing nothing, by abandoning the Summer Court I would be helping the Cabal and leaving my Mother to her Fate.” She shakes her head.

Astra glances down to her mistress as Tuevel turns his majestic head towards Varis. A small, light wind passes between the fae-bard and the pale warrior, before the world goes still once more.

“You ask what motivates me yet I would have thought, after all I have told you, after every conversation we’ve had it would be obvious.”

A small smile lifts her lips but in her eyes there is a glint of something else, a sadness perhaps as she looks at Varis.

“Love.”

The word hangs in the air between them.

He nods, a warm smile breaking across his face.

“Good. We will help your people, Merla,” he vows. Merla feels her throat tighten with emotion. “If the last years have taught me anything, it is that we – Daring, The Order, the nations of the Aegis Accords – cannot stand alone. So let us seek out this master of revels, and see what he has to say for himself. The Courts of Faerie will be free of these cabals.”

For the first time in days the trembling inside her chest goes still as a warmth without depth blooms in Merla’s heart, its ardour reflecting out from her clear, blue eyes as she returns Varis’ smile.