Into the Kruxelverse – Merla – 7.04.2021

---

It’s a cold day in Daring Heights, the wind howling as flecks of snow fall in the private garden on the other side of the double stained glass doors of familiar stately rooms. The late afternoon is turning into evening gloom quickly as Merla’s friends arrive. She has been busy, setting up the bedroom so everyone would have the comfort and space to lay beside one another, having the room bathed in warm, relaxing candlelight.

Where they are going, they will need something comforting to come back to.

Khazifa is busy with the final preparations of the potions as Elias, Ghesh and Taffeta all trickle in. Kruxeral lies still on one side of the four poster bed, thinner than when he was brought here but not unwell. Great effort has been made to make sure he is very comfortable with forget-me-nots arranged in tasteful bouquets around the bed by BB when she arrived earlier in the day. Merla keeps glancing at him, a nervousness making her restless as she goes about the room, moving her loom, harp, oud, and anything else that has migrated into the bedroom since Kruxeral’s stay began. It is clear she has been spending more and more time in this room than any other in the suite.

Lumina, Merla’s pet faerie dragon, watches as familiar faces arrive in her charge’s rooms, her slit eyes scanning each in turn. She has never seen The Child so frantic, not through all the years she has known Merla in the Summer Court. It is hard on the little faerie dragon, hard being on the Material Plane. But she stays because The Child asks her – and because she wants to see her reunited with the fey she loves.

The tiny dragon climbs across the canopy of the four poster bed before gliding over to join Astra and the eight legged horse, Elchior.

“I am worried about her,” she says quietly to the winged unicorn.

Astra’s horn glows softly. “As am I. But my mistress is strong, especially when her friends are with her. They will help see her through this.”

“There’s no way you can go with her?” Lumina asks, turning her green scaled head towards Astra.

“I wish I could, but I cannot. This is something she will have to do without me…”

Lumina notes the worry in Astra’s voice but does not say anything more, as Merla’s voice drifts in from the bedroom.

“Thank you for coming, everyone. Elchior is welcome to stay inside like last time, Elias. Blue can stay here or in the other room BB, it’s up to them. I’ve got us plenty of blankets and pillows so we can all lie around here comfortably because once you drink that potion it will knock you out very quickly, so make sure you’re comfortable beforehand. I’ll be there,” Merla points to the other side of the bed, next to Kruxeral. “Pick a spot, blankets, pillows, anything you want.”

“How are you doing, Merla? Are you okay?” BB asks her.

Merla goes still, her eyes wanting to drift to the fey unconscious in her bed. “I… I just worry what he’s been going through these past… almost eight weeks. Any time I think about it, I think about those creatures.” She shares a knowing look with Elias. “The dark creatures the Raven Queen summoned… He’s clever. He’d be able to get somewhere safe, I’m sure.” She finally does look over to Kruxeral’s peaceful, sleeping form. Merla feels an all too familiar pang of worry pierce her heart, and looks back to her firbolg friend.

“Thank you, by the way, BB, for these flowers. They’re beautiful.”

“Forget-me-nots are one of my favourites anyway. I know you asked for those specifically for him but I also got these just for you.”

From behind her, BB brings forth a potted cyclamen flower plant and presents it to Merla.

A story, one of the first that Kruxeral had told her after he began teaching her music, was of these flowers.

“They say a great Seelie Queen wore a crown woven of these,” Kruxeral tells her in her memories, voice rising and falling in that way that denotes all who hear him to listen. It is just Merla with him in the glade that day, the one that would one day become their own. “Cyclamen, flowers of deep love and wisdom. So beloved was she that when she passed, her subjects buried the crown with her, as none afterwards could ever be worthy of their blessing. Many eons later, when a band of dreadful Unseelie Fey sought to steal the Queen’s ancient magic from her tomb, the eldest eladrin who still remembered their wise and ancient ruler managed to whisk her treasures away.”

Kruxeral leaned in close to the delicate ombre flower, drawing little Merla in with his verdant green eyes. They were bright like leaves that day, enjoying the wonder that played across her face at his tales.

“But as the Seelie Fey eluded into the gloom, they saw the cyclamen flowers, still as vibrant as the day the Great Queen died, bent their heads in sorrow, devastated by the tragedy befalling the Queen’s descendants. That is why, even to this day, cyclamen flowers bow their heads, ‘For a love that is so rare and difficult to obtain as the one that wore this crown would ne’er be seen in these lands again.’”

“Did they get away?” child Merla had asked in slow, halting Sylvan, her big blue eyes wide. “Did the Unseelie Fey catch them? What happened to the great Seelie Queen’s treasures?”

“Who’s to say for certain,” Kruxeral replied, watching her closely as he sat up, shrugging. “Though if they did not, how would I be able to tell you their tale, little Mer?”

BB leans down to put a reassuring hand on Merla’s shoulder, which brings her back to the present.

Merla puts her hand on top of her friends, giving it a tight but warm squeeze, holding the potted cyclamen close to her chest.

“Thank you.”

Khazifa finishes preparing the potions and begins explaining to the others how they will work: once they drink the concoctions, all five of them will be transported into Kruxeral’s mind. Merla asks if there would be a way for her to help them get out like the last time when she and a different group of friends were delving into the mind of a Narzugon.

“Maybe. But it’s a bit different this time,” the druid says. “The way you explained it, you aren’t exactly in his mind, but in more of a shared, shielded place. Honestly, I don’t know whether your Sending message will be able to reach me, or if I could reach you. But you are a resourceful group and I tend to look at these things with a kind of optimism! I’m certain you’ll find a way to get back out.”

“He did find us an exit the last time,” Elias reminds her. “Hopefully he can do it again.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Merla agrees, suddenly nervous again. “Then is everyone ready?”

Elias nods with certainty, their winter eyes exuding confidence.

“As ready as I’ll ever be to go into the mind of someone I have only met briefly,” BB says.

“Taffeta?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” the halfling nods. “Last time I drank something and went somewhere else, I wasn’t expecting it, and it was the inside of some kind of giant worm. I still don’t know to this day if it was real or what. Hopefully this’ll be no stranger than that was.”

Hearing Taffeta say that reminded Merla of something else she should tell her friends, something important.

“The place we are going to, the Mind Palace, it’s a place similar to the Astral Plane. If we die in there, if something were to happen to us and we cannot get out, that would be very bad. I don’t want that for any of us. We have to be smart, we have to be careful. I need to make sure that all of you come back.”

“Will this be the case of if we die or if we were to fall unconscious we might come out of there?” Elias asks.

“I’m not entirely sure, but let’s not find out,” Merla says, locking eyes with each of them. Her nervousness is back again and she exhales on a lip trill like she would before going on stage, shaking herself to try to get rid of the nerves. “Right. I’m ready.” She climbs onto the bed.

Khazifa picks up a small blow filled with dried herbs she had crushed earlier and places them into braziers positioned around the room. She lights each one, smudging the room, Merla, Kruxeral and her friends as they settle down and get comfortable. The smell is earthen, a gentle spice of dried leaves and peppermint. After that, the dwarf hands them vials filled with a dark brown liquid, a little bit of sediment collected at the bottom.

“Be sure to drink up: the best stuff is at the bottom,” Khazifa says with a grin.

Merla hears BB ask something but she isn’t listening. She is looking at Kruxeral lying beside her, hoping that she will not be too late, that his clever mind and creative heart are keeping him safe. The memory of his eyes, the smile that is just for her flashes through her mind and she reaches for his hand, lacing their fingers together. Then she holds up her vial as if in a toast.

“I love each and every one of you,” Merla starts, emotions tightening her throat as she feels the bonds between them, knowing how fortunate, how lucky she is to have friends like them. “And I am so glad that I can count on all of you. Thank you.”

She turns back to Kruxeral. Leaning in she kisses his forehead, the same place she has kissed a hundred times, and says to him in Sylvan, “I will find you, arael’salif*. Listen for my voice.”

Then she tips her head back and drinks the potion.

---

Sleepy topaz blue eyes slowly drift open. A dim light from an unknown source permeates the room. The small woman groggily rolls over on the gigantic, downy bed some part of her expecting to see someone there. A darkly tanned hand touches someone beside her and she softly rubs away the sleep still in her eyes as they begin to focus on who it is. It is someone important, someone she loves. Soft, light blue skin in a fine fur, covered in floral tattoos.

Then it all comes flooding back.

Merla sits up, seeing it is BB she was reaching for. She looks around, checking again, some foolish part of her hoping, wishing he would be here, even though she knows he would not be. Ghesh bolts up next, dragonborn eyes scanning everything around them. Elias gracefully gets up out of bed, stretching a little. Taffeta and BB wake up last, both a little disoriented but adjusting to where they are soon enough.

As she gets out of the luxurious bed, Merla sees that though everything looks the same – the deep colours, exuberant details, the grandeur and movement that creates a sense of awe that is purely and entirely Kruxeral – the lighting is different, almost like something forgotten, and there’s a fine layer of dust covering everything.

Her lips press together in mild concern.

“Is everyone okay?” Merla asks, turning to her friends.

“I guess so,” Ghesh says. ‘I’m not sure how to go about being inside someone’s mind so tell me if I do something I shouldn’t.”

“You’re doing okay so far. Be careful about breaking things,” she says with a slight teasing grin.

“I mean, my magic used to do very weird things so I dunno,” BB hesitated, “but I’m okay so far. I’m going to try something though.”

The big blue firblog pulls out her horn and tries to summon Blue by giving a little doot on it. BB looks up expectantly but then her face falls. She closes her eyes, furrows her brows then gives a little nod.

“Seems I can’t summon Blue here.”

Merla glances at Elias who is absentmindedly casting Prestidigitation to clean the dust away when she decides to try her own little something.

“Astra, can you hear me?”

“I can Merla,” the winged unicorn replies. “Is everything alright?”

“It is, for now. I’ll let you know when we are passing into the Mind Palace.”

“Please do.”

“Well,” the fae-bard says aloud to her friends, “if everyone’s ready, I’ll lead the way.”

As she pushes open the double doors, the grand hallway of the Memory Promenade with Kruxeral’s most precious memories is there, all of the moments the two of them shared together. Except this time the paintings are still, looking more like work done by a third rate artist. Seeing them still, no life no music to them raises the hairs on Merla’s neck.

Between Merla and Elias they are able to navigate the baroque style hallways of Kruxeral’s mind by way of these still paintings. There is dust everywhere as they walk down halls, ascend spiralling staircases and descend tilted landings. With ever twist and turn that takes them farther away from the heart of Kruxeral’s mind, Merla and Elias tell BB, Ghesh and Taffeta what happened the last time they went into the Mind Palace of the Black Heart Cabal, and how the Raven Queen used her to summon a bunch of shadow monsters that attacked the Unseelie Fey.

Eventually, they come to a familiar long and gloomy corridor where they see scattered planks in front of an unmarked half door – the same door Merla, Kruxeral and Elias had passed through the last time.

Elias looks around, their keen eyes scrutinising the area as they approach.

“No one’s been here in the last two months,” they say, gesturing to Kruxeral’s mind, but also indicating the door ahead of them. They turn to Merla. “That could be good. Could mean nobody has come into his mind or disturbed his memories.”

A knot of worry loosens within Merla and she feels a little more hopeful.

She turns to the others.

“That door leads to the Mind Palace of the Black Heart Cabal,” Merla says. “The shadow monsters are probably still in there so we will need to be careful.”

“There’s no sign of them having come in here, so until we go through there we’re okay,” Elias adds, trying to be reassuring.

“Is there a chance the shadow monsters could have been trapped on the other side of the door the whole time? Waiting for us or for someone to come in?” BB asks worriedly.

“The impression I got was that they’d come to punish the Cabal, not Kruxeral, so maybe they’ve been busy with the others,” Elias suggests. “I also don’t know how time moves in that space. It could be only minutes since we left.”

Merla thinks about that. If there is one thing she understands about the Raven Queen it is she does not forgive and she will not forget. Even though Kruxeral left the Cabal before he got trapped in the Mind Palace, the Raven Queen promised retribution on all who tried to use her power.

And that did include Kruxeral for a time.

“Ready?” Merla asks, now more eager to get on with things.

“You said you don’t know what happens if we die here. Let’s scout and be as quiet as possible,” Elias suggests, and they all agree.

“We are about to pass through to the Mind Palace, Astra. Let Khazifa know,” Merla says.

There is a pause. “It is done, Merla. I do not have to tell you to be careful, I know you will be.”

The fae-bard chuckles. “And yet you just did anyways,” she says warmly. “Astra…” She wants to say thank you for everything, for being there for her and for Kruxeral. Merla knows she did not trust him at first, possibly didn’t even like him for what he had done. But these past weeks have shown to her dearest partner what Merla could not put into words: There is forgiveness in love, just like there is sacrifice in love. Kruxeral sacrificed his freedom to get her and Elias out. Now she is coming back for him, returning to the dark, to use the light of her love to find him and bring him back home with her.

“I know,” Astra says. Of course she already knows. Their hearts are the closest they have ever been, their bond strong. “Bring him home, Merla.”

“I promise, both of us – all of us – will come home.”

They prepare themselves magically and mentally to enter the Mind Palace, Taffeta having checked what might be waiting for them on the other side by using her Plane Walker abilities. Nothing, so far as she could see, was lurking in the glade. Agreeing to stealth, Merla pulls on the magic of her harp strings to gift herself, BB and Ghesh enhanced dexterity. Then she goes to the door and pushes.

Or tries to. It does not give at first. Merla has to put all of her considerably minuscule strength into by leaning her shoulder into the hard, dark wood, before it slowly but surely pushes open. When she comes through on the other side it becomes clear what was blocking the door: A fallen branch. That was not there before. So, with caution and a growing unease, Merla looks around at the glade she knows and yet doesn’t know.

The trees all around and grass underfoot is all wrong. The grass is crumply and wherever they step it breaks like fine egg shells. The trees seem to have wilted away, no longer healthy and certainly not as dark or imposing as Merla remembers them to be. Looking about, it surprises her to see for the last time everything was pitch black like the darkest night. It’s not like that anymore. There is light coming from somewhere, casting the entire place in perpetual gloom.

BB is the last one through the door. As she steps away, Merla feels a tingling sensation of foreboding run down her spine, the scars on her back prickling ever so slightly. Before she is even aware of it, Merla goes back towards the door and closes it, laying the branch and some rubble in such a way to disguise it even being there. The last thing she wants is for something to find its way into Kruxeral’s mind and destroy any part of him.

“Hello,” Elias says. “I’m looking for Kruxeral. Do you know where I can find him?”

Merla turns around and sees her friend speaking to a large raven. Unsurprisingly there is no answer.

“Well,” Elias sighs, gesturing to it. “Not a shadow monster but…”

They trail off as Merla approaches the raven, watching it carefully. She wonders briefly if speaking to it would yield anything. For what question could she ask that the raven would feel compelled to answer? As Merla looks at the raven, and it looks back at her she thinks she feels the Raven Queen looking back at her.

This is not a conversation. It is a warning.

The Raven takes flight.

“Helpful, as always,” Merla says a little too brightly.

“Shall we follow it?” Elias asks her.

“We have no other way to go…” Merla shrugs. “Sure.”

“You reckon it could be going to report back to anybody?” Taffeta asks.

“If it is, the Raven Queen already knows.”

Creeping through the forest very quietly, they head off in the direction the raven flew. The land they traverse could be from anywhere, nothing about it distinguishing it from a place any of them have seen before. That is why it appears familiar, but something is amiss. The ground is solid, but the brittle sensation of the grass continues and the trees are no less dead the further in they go. After some time, they emerge from the forest to see exactly how wrong everything is.

Islands of solid land lazily float through the gloomy sky, animated by seemingly nothing at all. Overhead, a chunk of rock with a dead tree clinging to it is languidly tumbling by, the lifeless branches reaching for them like the grasping boney hands of a dead man. Above them, around them, and all the way to the gloomy horizon the land swirls and has lost all sense of order. The air is warm and sticky and for the second time, the hair rises on the back of Merla’s neck as a dreadful vertigo threatens to break her mind.

She doesn’t let it.

Ghesh points out a figure in a bone-white mask, making inconceivable leaps from one slowly tumbling lump of land to another. The figure is between two such asteroids when a shadow moves and a creature made of darkness snatches them out of the air. Between one breath and the next the figure is consumed and the land they were leaping to crumbles away.

They decide it would probably be best to fly. BB pops out her dragonfly wings, whilst Ghesh chugs back a Potion of Flying. Elias Polymorphs into a giant eagle and together with Taffeta, Merla climbs onto their back. She feels a need to hurry, that the longer they stay here, the less likely it will be for them all to get out. As they take off, heading in a direction perpendicular to the shadow creature they saw before, Ghesh mentions he saw something stirring in the trees behind them. Taffeta decides to face backwards to keep watch.

Scanning the floating islands in their nearest vicinity, there does not appear to be much life or any clues as to where Kruxeral might be. Merla does not loose hope, the light in her circlet pulsing to the beat of her heart as she keeps searching for something, anything. For all that she sees, a place of diverse landscapes, some islands with forests different than the one they came from to islands with structures and bridges, it is all so strange. The shapes she sees are no longer familiar, they are alien and distracting, not a clue among them.

But she will not give up hope. Love will find a way.

Merla spots a small island with a dim light coming off it. Something about it draws her in and she tells Eagle-Elias to fly in that direction. As they draw closer BB gives a small gasp.

“Guys guys guys! You know when we were in Vortshold and we went travelling to the mines there was that really cool moss that glowed?” Merla and Ghesh nod. “Would Kruxeral be there? I was looking for an island that’s more feywildy than moss-glowy but…”

“Let’s try looking,” Merla says. “If there’s nothing there, we can try somewhere else.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” BB agrees. “What’s the harm in looking?”

Elias flies closer and they begin to see the light has a purple hue to it. The island itself is not very large, sixty-feet wide at most. There is a single tree sitting in the centre of it, mostly dead. Around it is a growth of purplish ferns, giving off the light which draws them in.

“Do you see anything?” Merla asks Eagle-Elias.

They squawk, shaking their head a little.

“Shall we get a little closer?” she asks her friends. They all nod.

Eagle-Elias lands on the island carefully, followed by Ghesh. Merla and Taffeta do not dismount, choosing to stay where they are for the moment. BB doesn’t even wait. As soon as she lands she heads straight for the ferns.

It is then that Ghesh spots the eladrin in dark clothes with a white mask hanging around his neck, back against the tree. As he sees them, his eyes go wide.

“No! No no no no! What are you doing here? No, get lost! This is my spot! Get away!”

They all stop, thrown by his visceral reaction. Merla is the first to recover.

“Do you recognise me?” she asks.

“I have no idea who you are, I don’t want to know, just get away before they come. You’re messing everything up,” he says his panic rising. He holds his hands up as if to ward them off.

“We will leave,” Merla concedes, her voice persuasively calm and pleasant. “But first, tell us: Have you seen a satyr around these parts?”

Eagle-Elias flaps their wings a little.

“Satyr. I was running. I think I saw him,” the eladrin says, though his eyes are watching the purple glowing ferns closely. “The guy is crazy, I tell you, no sense at all, he’s going to draw attention to himself. You can’t miss it. Floating castle. Madness I tell you. But, leave me, please, they’re going to find me, you’re going to attract them to us.”

“Who’s they?” Ghesh asks.

The Unseelie Fey looks at Ghesh, dumbstruck.

“The monsters,” he whispers. “Have you not seen them?”

“Yes, we have,” Merla answers. “Tell me, why did you join this Cabal?”

The Unseelie Fey sputters. “Is this really the time? I’m just trying to-”

“Yes. It is the time.”

Something in the tone of her voice finally makes him look at her. His lip curls back from his teeth.

“I wanted to make a change, I wanted to achieve something. Was it power? Yes. Influence? Yes. I had dreams. I wanted to change things for the better and we were going to until you – yes, I know who you are – YOU messed it all up!”

Merla can see he is getting worked up. The ferns around him is start to glow brighter.

“Now, I am trapped here and I’m trying to hide in this pit, and I can’t get out.” He takes a few heavy breaths. “But at least I’m staying safe. At least-”

The shadow Eagle-Elias casts shifts and then something is dragging itself up from below the ground. It’s not that she hears it, rather it is the absence of something Merla knows she should be hearing that makes the shadow-creature even more terrifying.

Elias takes off immediately, as does Ghesh not a second later. BB lets out a puff of dejected air into her fringe then joins them in the air a moment later.

The Cabalite screams in fear and rage.

“You destroyed everything!”

“You brought this upon yourself,” Merla says solemnly.

The shadow-beasts descend upon him. It is mercifully quick; one moment his terrified high pitched screams are chasing them into the air, the next they are gone. The creatures look up at them for a brief moment, then fold back into the shadows. The glow of the ferns dim and then go out as the island starts crumbling into pieces.

That Cabalite was desperately trying to hold the dark at bay but in the end was still swallowed by the Raven Queen’s shadow beasts. He may have deserved it, but the sound of his scream before the dark took him will stay with Merla for a long time to come.

She looks to her friends. “How are you all doing?” Merla asks.

“Seeing those creatures sneaking up before just… I get the sense they could be hiding in more places than we think,” Ghesh says. Merla notices he looks nervous, which is unusual for the black dragonborn.

“Yeah, I don’t like the look of this,” Taffeta says. Merla twists around to try to see her face but she is looking away. “Let’s get this over with as quick as we can.”

BB doesn’t say anything, just has her arms folded across her body, like she’s holding herself together as she flies very close to Eagle-Elias.

Merla takes another long look at her friends. She knows they are strong, she knows they have comes to help her willingly because they love and support her. She does not wish to see them suffer though and it pains her to see the look in BB’s eyes as if the light of her unwavering optimism has been snuffed out. This place, so much like the Shadowfell, is trying to tear her family down, to make them weak. That is why she must be strong. She must carry the light of hope that will see them to Kruxeral and then out of this horrible place.

“He said Kruxeral is at the castle.”

Eagle-Elias gives a soft squawk as Ghesh and Taffeta point out an islands with what looks like a structure with fortifications. They begin to fly a little quicker now in that direction, passing by other islands with houses and towers and other buildings. At first the movement around the island looks to be mist however, as they get closer Merla begins to see it is actually fragments from other islands or debris coming together. They flow towards the castle, reinforcing it. Bricks are being added to the walls, rocks are cementing themselves to the foundations, and the ramparts are being strengthened with each piece of rubble. It’s a slow and steady process but it keeps going on.

They fly up and over to see a courtyard with a great tree in the centre of it. Like all the other trees in the Mind Palace though, this one is dead. Merla takes careful note of the shadows seeing there are some about given that the walls of the castle are rising with each piece that affixes to it, but the centre of it is still clear.

Eagle-Elias lands in the courtyard, Merla and Taffeta sliding off their back, before they return to their Winter eladrin form. As Ghesh and BB join them, Merla beings to look around. The absence of sound within the courtyard is disconcerting for Merla who is used to hearing so many things in the world. There is no sight of anything else moving though and she wonders if maybe they are too late. Then BB points out faint traces of cloven footprints and they are heading in the direction of the tree.

Quietly, softly, Merla pulls her harp from her side and plucks the C string on it briefly before laying her hand over the strings, silencing the ringing note. The magic takes though, as it only needed a second and she Sends a message.

“Kruxeral, it’s me. I’m here to rescue you. Please come out. I need to bring you home. Come into the light, please.”

She feels the message has been received but there is no answer.

Merla turns to look at Elias, the worry beginning to show.

“Maybe we can stay here where it seems safe and I can send a scout to have a look around. If it’s attacked, we don’t have to get hurt,” Elias offers.

“Sure, try it.”

They pull out a small figuring, utter an incantation and a perfect copy of Elias stands on the far side of the tree from where they stand, waiting. Merla watches as Elias’ eyes go white and sees the copy begin to look around. The copy gets closer seems to see something among the roots but does not get any closer.

Elias’s eyes become ice blue again and they turn to Merla, concern painting the panes of their face.

“Merla, I think he’s hiding,” they whisper. “Brace yourself, he seems to be having a rough time. He doesn’t seem to be injured but he’s well hidden among the roots. I think he’s scared of something.”

She steps forward on light feet, careful to not make any sudden noises or movements. The copy of Elias points and she thinks she can see something different in the patterns of the wood but she is not sure. Merla decides to try casting a Message towards the roots.

“My friend Elias has found you, among the roots,” Merla says, keeping her voice quiet. “There are no shadows nearby. I am going to talk to my friends and make a plan and we are going to get you home. Please be a little bit stronger for a little while longer, arael’salif.”

There is a long pause.

“You’re not real,” Kruxeral replies, his voice weak.

“I am. Of course I am,” she tries again, letting some light into her voice.

“Nothing here’s real. You can’t be real. If I don’t acknowledge you then you don’t exist. If you don’t exist then I’m safe just a little bit longer.”

Merla hears how broken he is, how fragile. She wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to curse everything in this thrice forsaken place but she will not. No, she has to be strong. For him. For her friends. For all of them.

“I am real, Kruxeral,” she asserts. Tears like diamonds want to come, pouring from her eyes but she will not let them. This is not the time for tears. “There is no other sound such as mine, no other voice in all the realms. Remember? My song you know very well. You helped me find it. And there’s a song that we share together. One that I feel every time you are near.”

There is a stifled sob.

“Stay still,” Merla cautions as she continues. “We will figure out how to get you out but do not lose hope, arael’salif. Keep it burning bright in your heart. I will get you and we will take you home.”

She looks to her friends. Ghesh is keeping an eye on their surroundings but both BB and Taffeta make encouraging gestures for her to keep trying. Merla glances to Elias briefly before stepping closer still.

“Do you see me?”

She can see him now. He has disguised himself so completely to look like one of the roots of the gnarled and dead tree it is a wonder she could see Kruxeral at all. But it was his verdant eye, green as the Enchanted Forests surrounding the Palace, green as the Glade that is their place. Kruxeral slowly opens his other eye expecting nothing but disappointment.

“Hello, Kruxeral,” Merla says, a warm smile gracing her lips. She crouches down to be closer, so he can see that she is real. “I have come to take you home. Will you take my hand?” she asks as she offers her hand to him.

“Can it really be you?” he asks, voice breaking.

“Can you truly doubt that it’s me?”

She beings to hum softly, the song she sang for him in the Four Fair Winds, the one about a beautiful stranger. The song stirs something in him and, very carefully, Kruxeral relaxes and lifts his head. As he does the brown-grey camouflage he has covered himself with cracks and starts to fall away.

“This place is made of dreams and lies,” Kruxeral says slowly, cautiously. “I couldn’t trust what is real here and what is not. Is that… Can it really be you?” He looks into her eyes, and sees that it’s her. “You’ve come back.”

“I was not going to leave you here,” Merla tells him, her hand still held out to him. He has not looked away from her eyes. “It’s taken time. I can tell you the whole tale once we are home. Please take my hand.”

Kruxeral reaches out very slowly, tentatively, almost recoiling before our fingers touch. When they do, she hears it, the soft melody that is their song, faded and distant. He moves his fingers up her arm in a familiar pattern, feeling the warmth of her skin. As his fingers swirl back down Kruxeral takes her hand and everything that was holding him together, falls apart as he breaks down.

Merla embraces him, holding him tenderly. She can feel the bones underneath his skin in a way that is worse than the state she knows his physical body is. She can also feel how weak he is, how even though he pulls her towards him strength that was once in his hands and arms is almost entirety gone. Without thinking Merla casts a Greater Restoration spell into him as she pulls back just a little to kiss his cheek. Where her lips touch his camouflaged cheek a warm, golden light ripples across his skin, flowing all the way through him to the crown of his head to the tips of his cloven hooves. Kruxeral looks at her, eyes filled with tears and she sees the last vestiges of doubt are banished from his mind.

“I am so sorry, little Mer. I was sure I would die here. That this would be the end.” His horned head falls forward a little and Merla holds his face in her hand to help keep his head up. “I don’t know how long it’s been. Forever? A day more? I don’t know.”

“Well this forever is over,” she says to him. “Your forever with me is going to start again.”

“Is it really? How can we leave this place? I’ve seen them. I’ve seen things,” Kruxeral whispers, his eyes starting to dart around. “The shadow beasts. They hunt us all here. Draw attention and you’re dead. I’ve hidden away and they haven’t found me yet but everyone I have seen who tried to escape – they were all caught.”

“We know the way,” Merla tries to reassure him. “We can find the way back to your home, to your mind.”

“Umm.”

Kruxeral flinches a little at the new voice. Merla keeps a steady hand on him as she turns towards BB.

“I don’t want to interrupt what’s going on here, but, um, I think we should figure out how to get out of here soon. I felt a disturbance in the flower force…”

“Right.” Merla’s mind starts to race, thinking over their options. “I’ll try to Send a message to Khazifa.”

As Merla plucks the string of her harp, quickly laying her hand over the strings to still the sound, she feels the spell bounce back to her. She shakes her head.

“Perhaps if we can get into Kruxeral’s mind and board up the door to here, then he can eject us from his mind himself,” Elias suggests. “Can you plane-shift us back to the glade?”

Merla is about to say she doesn’t think that will work when Kruxeral speaks up.

“There is a way, and I have done it before, the last time you were here. But this will draw attention for sure.”

Merla looks at him, one hand going to his face, the other holding onto him.

“You’re coming with me this time, though. You’re not staying behind.”

“Yes. If I can grasp enough control of this place, I can get us all out. But they will be coming for me. Everyone so far who has tried, they got them. But I know it works. I saw someone got out. But I don’t know…”

“Who?” Merla asks, hesitantly. “What did they look like?”

Kruxeral is shaking his head a little, trying to remember. “The Cabalites, they threw themselves at the shadow beasts that appeared. One of them got away. The others did not.”

“Perhaps once you’re back in your own mind you can get the rest of us out,” Elias says. “We can hold the beasts back.”

“Uhh guys?” Ghesh says. All four of them look to the barbarian but his gaze is turned up to the battlements.

Ravens are alighting on the walls, unmoving, black beady eyes looking down at them. More and more arrive and Merla feels Kruxeral pull back a little, but Merla holds onto him. They both stand up, looking up at the little beasts and Merla feels a prickling down her back.

A figure detaches itself from the shadows. It stands unnaturally still. They can see there is a shape under the cloak but there is no face to be seen in the deep hood. In fact, it’s so dark that where the face should be Merla thinks there may well be none at all.

A voice reaches into each of their minds and they all know who or rather what this being is.

“Step aside,” the Weaver says, its voice made of dark coiling smoke. “This one is ours.”

“No,” Merla says.

“This fugitive is the prize of the Raven Queen,” the voice continues as the Weaver points to Kruxeral.

Merla raises her head, defiantly. “He is mine. She will not have him.”

“We know who you are. But She will not spare you. He committed a crime and the Queen demands satisfaction. Stand aside.”

“I returned the cloak to her. That has to count for something,” Merla asserts. Kruxeral looks at her and he is in awe. “He left the Cabal before all of this. That has to count for something. Do not damn him for one bad, mistaken choice. Give him a second chance.”

There is a pause. More ravens are assembling.

The Weaver says, “We will offer you a bargain. He will not suffer but he will serve for the Raven Queen’s revelries. That shall be his punishment and his service.”

Kruxeral grabs Merla’s hand and with what little strength he has, she feels him squeeze it, pleadingly. She gently squeezes back

Merla asks, “What kind of revels would they be and for how long?”

“For as long as the Queen desires. Look around you. Is this not a revelry to be envious of? To be aspired to by the lesser courts? This is the glory that the Queen offers. This is our bargain.”

It takes everything in her will power to not spit out a refusal right then. The Shadowfell is no place for Kruxeral, it is everything the Summer Court is not. Merla will not consign him to wither away into despair serving the Raven Queen. He has suffered so much already, and Merla knows she has been partial author to that suffering. Can she really make such a decision for him?

Merla looks back to the satyr. “Would you agree to that?”

Kruxeral is white as parchment, uncertain if she is seriously considering this for him. He looks around, sees the shadows are stirring and he grips her hand tighter.

“Please don’t leave me here.”

Merla smiles and there’s the glint of steel in her eyes.

“I won’t,” she vows. She raises her voice loud enough for her friends to hear. “But since you don’t want that, we will have to get out the other way.”

Kruxeral draws breath and stands just a little taller, green eyes lingering on her as a very small mote of light appears above his head. Merla turns back to look at the Weaver, a storm of defiance thundering across her features.

There is no change in their stance but the words they say into all of their minds are clear enough.

“So be it.”

Ghesh immediately lights his morning star.

The shadows begin their assault.

Taffeta summons a magical volley before disappearing whilst the swarm of ravens that had been gathering on the battlements descends upon BB and Ghesh. Elias’ glittering scythe cuts through the dark winged birds, scattering them with bright aurora borealis light that shimmers with each swing. Then one of the shadows peals off and comes for them, their gaze cancelling any magic that is in their field of vision. One monster and then another rushes at Merla but before they can attack her, she takes a piece of the maelstrom within her and calls it into being in the midst of the shadows. They writhe in agony at the psychic energy assailing them as she carries that song through to an inspiring trill to help BB.

Suddenly Taffeta is by her side but her eyes are blank, focused solely on Kruxeral. Merla starts to turn around, but stops as the bladed arm of one of the shadows tries to skewer her in the side. Her rapier is suddenly in her hand, dancing across her body to protect her whilst Kruxeral struggles to take control of the Mind Palace one last time. She does not see the light grow, does not feel any kind of magic answer his summons. Instead he falls to his knees, weak and loosing hope. Merla begins to wonder if they will be able to get out, that maybe it was foolish to think she could defy Fate with her pitiful declarations of love…

“Stay away from BB!”

Elias’ voice rings through the air and Merla sees her friends struggling, dying, fighting a battle they cannot win. Ghesh, always so strong and sure, the fire of his rage the strongest shield he has is barely protecting him. The shadows cut, making him bleed, drawing him closer to his end. The hungry dark tries to consume BB but an echo of Merla’s voice, her Song she shared helps her friend push the darkness back if only for a moment.

Then she sees the figure, the one that was cloaked and spoke of a bargain too horrible to consider. Now it is stripped of its meagre cloth. Dead, white eyes look at Elias and the Weaver tries to enchant them into a Feebleminded state, but luck is with them this day and it does not take hold of her friend’s mind. Merla glances back to Ghesh, barely holding on; to Taffeta, blinking in confusion, wondering why she is preparing to attack Kruxeral; to BB, flower tattoos glowing as she casts a cone of acid at the Raven Queen’s servants; to Elias, who is swinging their scythe into the back of a hungry shadow.

Spinning around to kneel in font of Kruxeral, Merla gently takes his head in her hands, the small, glowing mote of light lifting up as she makes him look at her.

“You can do this. I believe in you, I always have.” Merla smiles and it is as bright and encouraging a midsummer day’s sun. “I love you, Kruxeral. You are my arael’salif, and I know you can get us out of here.”

Then she kisses him and the world surges into brilliant life.

Feeling their Song echo all around her, Merla stands up, turns around, takes a deep breath in and without even opening her mouth, the Daughter of Summer unleashes every last vestige of her mind unto all the shadows surrounding her and her friends. Every thought, every memory, every feeling of love she has for those standing beside her blasts into the minds of the shadow monsters. They reel and squirm, unable to comprehend the melody of the song she sings into their minds and many of them are stunned, unable to move.

Kruxeral looks up to Merla, the student who grew to surpass him in so many ways, the mortal that captured his heart with her song, the one who always brought love and light wherever she went. He did not know how, after everything he has done, or not done, that one such as he could be worthy of such a love – and in that moment he thinks he may never, truly be worthy of it.

But it is a gift she has bestowed upon him, and he will never squander ever again.

Kruxeral stands up, straightens his back, and fixes his gaze upon The Weaver.

“Not today.”

With one last effort, the little mote of light Kruxeral had been summoning shoots up to the sky as he takes control of the Mind Palace, opening the way out.

Merla feels herself pulled upwards as brilliant, warm light shines down. The shadow beasts cower and try to disperse. For the first time, they can finally see the hungry dark and it does not shy away from the light. Instead, it looks balefully up at their ascending forms, groaning.

“This will not be the last time we meet!” the Weaver swears to them.

Elias pointedly flips them off.

---

Sleepy topaz blue eyes slowly drift open. The smell of burned leaves and crushed peppermint assail her senses as the warm glow of many candles wrap her in a comforting embrace. The small woman groggily rolls over, pushing through the last vestiges of a waking nightmare. A darkly tanned hand rubs away the sleep in her eyes as she sits up. There is a linger headache there but she is sure with some fresh nettle tea, she will be alright.

Then it all comes flooding back.

Merla’s hand is still holding onto Kruxeral’s. She brings it up to her bosom and watches with bated breath as he slowly opens his eyes.

“I told you,” she says as the tears finally flow down her rosey cheeks. “I told you we would bring you back.” She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses it.

Looking around at her friends, Merla exclaims, “I love you all so much!” and casts a powerful Mass Healing Word. There is a feeling of merriment as her spell heals them, banishing the last remnants of the nightmare they just came from. Her smile is bright as she turns back to Kruxeral.

He is looking around, taking in the stylishly decorated room, glancing over the others all laying on cushions and pillows. His brow furrows in slight surprise at the forget-me-not flowers tastefully draped around the two of them on the four poster bed. Then his verdant gaze rises to his hand clasped close to Merla’s breasts. A small, slight smile graces his face as he looks up to Merla.

“This seems nice. And… who might you be?”


*arael’salif – (my) Heartsong; said to someone you love


Continued in ‘Little Talks’ 🦋