The Ties That Bind Us – Sheryl, the Fae-Touched – 4.03.2021

---

Streamers and flower petals fall through the air as the rising swell of a cheering crowd builds from the stands. She emerges from the giant mech, a construct made to be a flying archer. Other gargantuan constructs lay nearby, decimated with arrows as tall and thick as Ever Trees piercing their shiny metal forms. Merla looks up to the sun shining down and feels the elation of victory course through her.

A glint of light catches her eye and she turns. Her Mother, silver breastplate gleaming, is standing in the middle of the arena with a lilac skinned tiefling. Sunday. The Song is all around her, being sung by all the fey and mortals in the stands, in the flowing, falling petals as they pass her by, in the very light that touches all. She has never grown tired of its melody, not once. Some might consider that strange, but to Merla it is such a constant in her life she hardly even thinks about it. Titania is speaking and though part of her hears the words, it is the Song Merla hears more prominent.

The Summer Queen gestures to something at the centre and that’s when Merla notices the chrysalis. She recognises this moment now. The Amarantine Games. Titania’s victory. The beginning of the rise of the Summer Court. Merla beams as she starts to make her way off the mech, towards her Mother.

As she starts to carefully climb down, a new sound tickles her ear. It is different, conflicting with the melody she hears. Merla stops, looking around, trying to find the voice singing this other Song. She scans the stands, the skies, everywhere, but cannot find its source. The voice gets louder and she starts to hear it as a countermelody, the antithesis to the familiar Song she knows so well.

Merla looks at her Mother, wondering if she hears it too. Something about it unsettles her. But as her gaze passes over the chrysalis it snags and stops. Suddenly, she realises where this other Song is coming from.

Then she wakes up.

---

The Twin Paradises of Bytopia had a similar look to them as the Material Plane, except for the fact when they arrived on the Dothion side, looking up meant they saw not sky but another great mass of land – Shurrock.

It was from Jenna that Merla and Baine, along with their friends, heard this place was where the two would be able to find their families. Jenna had come across the name of a Tree of Yondalla in one of the many books Aurellia encouraged her to read: Craobh de Shruth Fala. The Tree of Bloodlines. It would be a more direct way for the two to find the families they were looking for instead of searching the whole of the Material Plane. And what is a small jaunt to the Upper Planes for ones such as them these days?

Practically a walk in the park.

Dothion is a beautiful place, full of well-tended farmlands on the brink of harvest time with the full but easy warmth of summer. It was a bit disconcerting at first to see land instead of sky above them, but somehow there was light shining as if the sun was there, so Merla was able to move past it easily enough. They approached a nearby settlement, speaking to the residence there, asking which direction the Tree would be. After giving their group a rough idea of the direction they needed to head to, Taffeta proceeded to lead the way, finding all the right paths very easily.

“My heart, it is thundering like a storm. I have not been this excited or nervous in a long time,” Merla confides to Astra as the group makes their leisurely way through golden fields.

“What has you so nervous?” Astra asks.

“I guess… finding them.”

Merla feels the question in Astra’s thoughts across their bond.

“I do not remember them. What if they’ve forgotten me too?” Her grip tightens on the vines around Astra’s withers. “Will seeing them help me to remember? Why did I forget them in the first place?”

“Perhaps this Tree can answer more than one question for you.”

“That is what I hope.”

---

In a large, open dale full of golden fields rose a great, gnarled, light brown tree big as immense as anything Merla had ever seen. Red and orange leaves hung from its branches, making it look like it was dancing with warm flames as a gentle breeze blew through its boughs. Two figures notice their group’s approach, stop what they were doing to come towards them. Halfling angels, Merla realises. Solars, to be exact. Greatswords appear in their hands but they do not threaten them. Rather the two angels take them in, curiosity more prominent than caution.

“You seek the knowledge that Craobh de Shruth Fala can provide?” the male, Ruman, asks them. They nod. “I have to warn you, the tree is powerful. It will allow you to understand things about your connections and bloodlines that have been known to drive many people mad. It is more than their minds can bear.” He scans them. “What makes you want to do this? Why not just ask around? Why come here?”

“Can’t speak for my friend here,” Baine says with a gesture to Merla, “but it’s just hard, innit. Both my parents are dead and I don’t even know where to start looking and… her story’s even wilder.”

The angels look curiously at Merla and she gives them a small smile.

“I was raised in the Summer Court by Queen Titania. She is my Mother in everything but blood.” There is a small shift of surprise from Taffeta who sits behind her on Astra. “I seek my halfling family, to learn what happened to them.”

“And, like, there’s no way to be modest about this,” Baine continues, half modest and with a sideways grin, “we do a lot of saving the world, you get like Zariel starting a blood war and that’s a Tuesday, so… we thought we’d come to this place.”

Laylah, the other female glances at Ruman. “You sound very impressive. So you think you can handle this tree?”

“Is it going to ask me to do maths?” Baine asks, half worried. Ruman laughs.

“No,” Laylah says with a grin.

“Should be fine then,” Baine says with an easy shrug.

Laylah and Ruman raise their greatswords and everyone freezes.

“Prove it,” Laylah says. “First team to yield.”

Astra loosens her wings as Taffeta slips off her back. Merla’s hand falls to her rapier, loosening it in her scabbard. She and Baine share a look.

“Just the two of us or…?” he asks, bringing up his maul.

“We’ll take all comers,” Laylah replies with a grin.

“Fuck yeah,” the big man says, setting his weapon aflame.

---

“You say ‘focus on your family’,” Merla says. “What if you don’t know them? What if you only have a name?”

“Focus on the name?” BB suggests.

Ruman nods. “Yes, exactly. If you can do a thunderwave like that, I think you can figure it out.”

Merla gives a small chuckle and Ruman smiles at her. The test fight the two solars put them through was over in less than an eight-bar count but it had been an alarming fight. Baine took Laylah out quickly, but Ruman had flown up, intending to unleash a bolt of divine retribution on them. Luckily, both her and Faye had given chase on Astra and Elchior, unleashing the mightiest of spells and weapon attacks that saw the halfling angel fall before he could draw his bow.

“Okay. Come on, Baine.” she says, taking his hand.

“On three or after three?” Baine asks, a nervous tension to his voice.

She looks up at him. “On three.”

He nods. “You count.”

She gives him a small, encouraging smile, raising her other hand to hover near the Tree’s trunk.

“One… Two… Three.”

Images, flashing across her mind, one after another after another. It is so much, almost too much for her to bear. Just when Merla thinks it won’t stop, that she will become overwhelmed, the images start to slow down. A feeling, a sense of the Tree beneath her hand, how far the roots extend downwards whilst the branches reach upwards. She thinks about how roots are not just one large, gnarled thing. They split, diverge, and part, each a tendril that reaches out like fingers reaching for something ever out of its grasp.

A name. That is all she has. But there is so much in a name. Meaning, history, beginnings and continuations. Merla holds the Copperkettle name in her mind whilst trying to reach out to those roots. She feels beyond the presence of the Tree to something more pronounced, more tangible, red like a string but stronger. Almost like-

Veins.

They spread like lines in all directions from the Tree, splitting into a web so complex, so dense that its tapestry could never be fully understood – except for a moment, she does. Though they all look identical in this mindscape of infinite red veins, she finds the one most closely tied to her easily. She does not remember what is on the other end but she knows, she feels it is the one closest to her.

And so she follows it.

In a moment Merla sees two scenes, vignettes.

The first is a home, a living room with a warm fire and a set of chairs around it that feels familiar. A prickling of memory stirs in her mind. Two elderly looking halflings sitting by the fire having a quiet evening, speaking to another, halfling woman. It takes her a moment of looking at them closely. But then, for the first time in years, decades even, Merla feels something released in her mind and she recognises her parents, Gelni and Ulvon.

“Mama… Papa…?”

In the third chair sits a middle aged halfling woman, speaking to her parents. Again, the feeling of something peeling back, a bond loosening, and Merla gasps as she thinks she recognises who it is.

“Yoara…is that you?”

Something is off. Merla remembers now that, yes, Yoara is the eldest and was always by Gelni’s side, sometimes acting older than her years when she was looking after them when their parents were too busy. But this is different. This is wrong.

Then Merla realises what it is: Yoara looks older than she should be by thirty or more years at least. Her eldest sister was not that much older than Merla as a child. It was a few years difference, not decades. Merla looks back to her parents and she sees it there too. They are older than when she last saw them, but they too are even older than they should be.

Part of her had always wondered about time in the Feywild…

Merla tries to still her trembling breath.

Yoara is speaking to their parents, telling them how the kilns are lit, that the flame still burns strong. In her mind Merla feels another bond loosen and fall away and she remembers. There were always pots and the smell of clay at home. Yoara seems to be the one running the family pottery business. This brings Merla a comfort she did not know she wanted.

Something in the room catches her eye. On the mantle over the fireplace is a family portrait. It is not done by the world’s greatest artist but care was taken by the person who painted the Copperkettle clan. Merla sees her parents closer to the age she remembers them to be. Around them is Yoara and (another knot loosens) her older brother Burton and another even smaller figure (another bond falls away) who is none other than Eina, her younger sister.

“I have three siblings,” Merla says, unaware she is speaking in Halfling for the first time in years. Her emotions manifest as tears in her eyes.

Other family members – aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins – that Merla is sure she is related to somehow are also in the portrait. She keeps looking at it wondering what it is she is searching for when Merla sees a small bird, like a sparrow, sitting on Gelni’s shoulder. It confuses her why she keeps looking at it in these few seconds she has when she is trying to find herself in the portrait.

From a memory long buried, Merla hears Gelni’s voice.

“…my little bird…”

A breath and a moment later Merla is in a different room, a second scene taking place before her.

This time it is easier to recognise the people she sees. Burton, again older than he should be, is sitting with her once younger, now older than her sister, Eina. There is a third halfling man who appears to be about her own age that she does not recognise. They all sit around a table in a place unfamiliar to her, having casual conversation over what appears to be dinner. She hears the sounds of sawmills, of cutting and carving and the creaking of wood. Through a window can be seen piles and piles of timber in what can only be a lumber site.

All three seem to be having a quiet night relaxing, though there is a marked difference in how they are compared to the other vignette. They look harder worn, almost as if life has not treated them as kindly. She sees the familial air between them, and it doesn’t take long before Burton says the third halfling’s name and Eina calls him brother.

Merla doesn’t remember having another brother.

Fetches, the thing that is left behind to replace the child that is whisked away to the Land of the Fey as a replacement is a tale she has heard told before. But they always look the same as the one who was stolen away. This halfling, Marto, doesn’t fit that. It could be something unusual, however Merla knows enough about people that when a family suffers the loss of one child, they might have another.

She sees it then, the vein that extends from her to Marto. It is the same as the ones that stretch out to Burton and Eina. As she is focussing on him, she notices a document he is writing on. At the top of the headed paper it says ‘The Copperkettle Logging Company’ and at the bottom in the corner of each page written in Marto’s neat scrawl reads, ‘for Merla’.

As she takes all this in, Merla’s focus drawing inwards to processing these revelations, she is brought back to the other scene with her parents and eldest sister. Glancing through the open doorway to the outside, where once there was a beautiful forest there isn’t one there anymore.

A shiver runs down her spine.

Her connection to the two scenes starts to slip but Merla steadies her mind. She has to stay strong, she can process all of these revelations later. Though she is able to keep a hold of one of the scenes, her ability to do so might not last for very long and there is still one more thing she must do.

It is as she is taking in the family portrait again, seeing her family gathered all together, the little bird sitting on Gelni’s shoulder, that Merla finally discerns she is pregnant in the painting. She focuses on her parents sitting in their comfy chairs, so much older than they should be, when a memory of a snippet of conversation drifts through her mind.

“Promise me… Promise me you won’t follow that voice.”

Merla feels the Tree pull her, trying to release her back into her body.

No. I’m not done yet.

Once more, she hangs on, drawing on the resilience of her will. It is mere seconds she has left, she knows this. But for years her family has thought her dead and gone, whilst she had forgotten them. They have mourned her, hope long lost at ever finding her. Merla has to let them know that she is alive.

By a song she sings Merla sends her voice across the distance, through the Planes, towards her family.

“I found you! I am safe. Although I forgot you I still love you.”

All three of them stand up, Genli and Ulvon a little slower than Yoara, looking around, hearing the melody of Merla’s voice come into their home. Yoara looks outside, trying to see if there is perhaps a musician passing by but she realises what she hears comes from somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away and yet all around them. It is clear they do not know Merla’s voice. Yet somehow, perhaps by the help of the veins Merla touches that lead from her to Gelni, Ulvon and Yoara, perhaps due to the nature of the Tree she is using to help cast her spell of Sending, they do recognise it is her. Gelni falls to her knees, weeping, Ulvon looks up to the ceiling, baffled, and Yoara scans the room, suspicious.

This time there is no way for her to prevent it as the Tree pulls her back. Just before she leaves though, as her eyes linger on Gelni’s weeping face, Merla catches a glimpse of a necklace with a small wooden pendant of a bird.

---

“Taffeta… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

The halfling woman gives Merla a mildly surprised look at the sudden apology.

“Oh, it’s… it’s okay. I mean… I never asked,” Taffeta says. “Like, who’s your mum, how’s your… cat…” She gives a small chuckle. “Maybe it’s one of those questions we forget to ask each other in all this fighting and stuff. But I… I guess I understand some things a bit better now. And that must make things difficult for you. Kind of amazing too, but… difficult, I guess.”

“Yes, rather difficult,” Merla agrees, glancing at Faye. “There is a lot of history between Daring and the fey courts, and amongst the fey courts themselves. A lot of things pulling people in different directions. It can be hard to know which way to move. If things happen- If things end up changing, I would understand.”

Baine rests a hand on her shoulder. “Mate, my mum literally besieged Daring Heights.”

“Look,” Taffeta starts, “what I said before – whatever I think of the courts and the nobles and kings and queens and all that, your home is your home and your folks and your folks. I didn’t know quite how close that was but it’s still true. If you need to protect your home and your folks, if any of your homes need protecting, I’m with you.”

Merla is very still and quiet but she gives a small, thankful nod.

“So, what do you want us to call you?” Baine asks her.

She starts to smile. “I think… just Merla for now. But if you still call me Sheryl, that’s okay. It is, if you will, a stage name, and the one I chose when I came to Kantas.”

“Well I’m going to call you my friend Merla.” He holds out his hand to her. “Nice to meet you, I’m Baine Cinderblade.”

“Is that Ser Baine?” she asks coyly, small hand clasping his forearm.

He grins. “Yup. Ser Baine Cinderblade, Master at Arms.”

“I can see you really have mastered those arms!” Merla says, patting his muscled arm.

“You should see some of the muscles on the new recruits, there’s some real talent in there. Anyway I need to get back to them, I’m meant to put them to bed. Apparently that’s what the Master At Arms does. And there’s some dogs to give me face-kisses.”

“I don’t know much about it but I understand that people sometimes also give face-kisses,” Ruman says, wiggling his eyebrows teasingly.

Baine suddenly blushes. Merla knows that look and rises on her toes giving the big man an expectant look.

“Look I- I don’t want to jinx it,” he says, flustered, throwing up his hands to ward off questions as he slowly backs away. “I’ve got all my recruits and I’ve got to put them to bed, right now. I don’t want to jinx it again. Last time I said I thought it was a date and then he said I remind him of his son.”

“Oooo,” Ruman and Laylah intone together.

“I mean, none of us are exactly lucky in love, are we?” Faye chimes in. “Except maybe Taffeta. Mine’s working for the queen who cursed my mother, Sheryl’s is unconscious, BB and Ghesh I don’t even know if you have anyone–”

“BB’s definitely got a girlfriend,” Baine interjects, trying to direct the conversation away from him.

“Whaaat?” Faye exclaims, turning to BB..

“I reckon maybe you should start coming to Back-room Nights,” Taffeta says to Faye. They all nod in agreement.

Merla skips over to Baine whilst Taffeta explains their bi-weekly gathering. “Baine, tell me. Is it someone I know?” she asks playfully.

The flush that was receding comes back. “Nope, no. Nope,” Baine says, clearly lying.

Merla giggles and gives him a wink as they all start to gather into a circle, ready to return back to the Material Plane.