Post by stephena on Apr 10, 2024 12:59:56 GMT
Following the events of the Bravery of Being Out of Range
Created with the one and only Beets the Beetle
Beets picked the piece of ‘meat’ out from between some her sharp teeth, giving it a brief uncomfortable look and a shiver before flicking it away as she tried not to think about if it whether it was just a leftover of short meal they’d had before breaking camp that morning and start of the long journey home. Or else a fragment from one of the many ‘bodies’ Calla had seemed all to happy to ‘stow away’ in her bottle bank from the previous night’s encounter.
The sun was rising high in the sky now as they made their way, its light warming the panels of her wings and picking out the fresh shoots that were emerging amongst the weather-beaten greenery either side of the road, signs that hopefully spring would be on the way. As if on cue a fat emerald green beetle rose from a stalk to the side of the path next to her and headed over in their direction before, almost lazily changing its trajectory and buzzing off back the direction they’d just come.
But it’s fading droning wings had brought back moment from the night before, to Beets mind. A short statement of words she’d caught between her own enraged wing beats that that assassin woman had said to Sorrel the before she.. ‘offed’ herself. “The Beetle is coming for you…” “Sorrel”, Beets said, glancing over to her dark clad companion walking just ahead of her, “Who’s ‘The Beetle?’”
Sorrel scratched her nose thoughtfully. "Well, the first thing to say is that I'm fairly certain they aren't a beetle or fey or anything like you," she sounded casual, but she watched Beets carefully. She remembered that her friend had been hurt and angry before at comments about fairies and flying fey and she wanted to make sure Beets knew Sorrel was about to go to war with a possible relative.
"That Tiefling comes from the House - I've told you about the House... the company that trained me and I worked for... I mean, in a sense you never actually stop working for the House, you just take long sabbaticals. The way she pitched herself made it seem she worked for my old mentor, Callimar, who runs the Dark College. It's a weird place." She shivered briefly.
"But the implication at the end is that she worked for the college that specialises in arcane work... the mages, I guess, although it's a bit more complicated. And she also gave me the impression..."
Sorrel paused. "Look, I'll explain but it's maybe better you also forget what I'm about to tell you. The Master of the House is a powerful position, although the heads of all the Colleges sit on a Council. The heads of the college tend to be enthusiasts in a particular field while the Masters tend to be duplicitous, devious, amoral, intensely political and excellent after dinner speakers. Those who are both still alive and who still show an interest in becoming Master are the kind of people you do not want to even be aware of under any circumstances."
Sorrel sighed. "And it kind of looks like Callimar and the Beetle, who I think is in charge of the mages, are competing for the job and the lives of my sisters are on the line as a result. So it's going to get very nasty. But I still don't completely understand who the Beetle is..."
"And I could use some help...?"
Beets fluttered along thoughtfully for a moment, before looking back to Sorrel. "So simply put, some bad folks from a bad part of your life are trying to come over here and mar the good life you've made here and threaten lives of you sisters. I don't need to fully understand all the magical/leadership squabbling bullshit going on in that little club of theirs to tell you: I won't flit by and let that happen. You're..You''re my sister in arms Sorrel.." She said, feeling very much like she was channelling her inner Kavel as she spoke, thrusting out a muscular arm towards Sorrel, open palm offered. "Sisters have got to fight together right?" She added with a sharp toothed grin.
Sorrel beamed. "Damn right we have. Even out here in the new life, it takes me a while to trust people. But we're good together Beets. Every time we've travelled out, it's always been like, phew, Beets is on the crew."
She paused. "Forgive me if this is out of line. But back a while ago when we were with brother Kavel on that heart-breaking trip where Nathalie and he had to destroy their bangles, you seemed mighty stressed. And it was the second time I'd seen that. They seemed connected. You're fine now, I think? But is it all over?"
Beets bit her lip as her mind flashed reluctantly back to that trip with Sorrel, and Lolli to help Kavel make his plea of his relationship with Nathalie to the Sprites of the Damphite Tangle. ‘The terrible funk,’ as Kavel had dubbed her state both physically and mentally thanks to the Feywild at that time had slowly ebbed away over last few months spent with The Rooftop Beetles.
Much to her surprise and gratefulness they had drawn all the closer to her after her overwhelmed outburst upon her return from her fool-errand run to the Queen of Air and Darkness with that Jasper fella. Since then she’d tried to keep herself as level-headed as possible, doing things that were low-key and ‘normal’: Weekly deliveries with the Rooftop Beetles, fighting a sea-hag alongside Lolli off the coast of Port Ffirst, helping Dwirian and Derthadd out with a few personal issues in a time warped village, attending a scrap between the Summer and Winter Courts at a icy-gala reception, a cosy sea-voyage with Kavel to his private island, fending off a tentacularly brain-dragon army from attacking the Dwarven city of Vorstholm, visiting a realm of baby dragonlings, a speed dating night.
Alright so they hadn’t all been as care-free as the dragon fighting-the speed dating had been particularly out of her normal comfort zone. But she hadn’t ‘Lost it.' again. Well Except-She reluctantly reminded herself-For those times when, in the midst of a fight when the thumping of her heart in her head and the smell of blood filled her nostrils she had felt herself almost give over to that cavernous ever droning darkness.
She may have accepted she ‘changed’ in those moments-for as long or short as they were and have become wary in warning others of it. She have to grown used to finding the rancid tang of blood and congealed lumps black incur and.. flesh.. in her mouth following many an encounter. She’d even learnt to control the still ever constant racks of hunger and desire ‘to feed’ that awoke her most nights. But to confirm with Sorrel she was ‘Fine’, that ‘the worst’ may be over…
Truth be told she hadn’t heard anything else from Bogar or her so called-royal Desirer…so maybe, this was just it now. “I’m..working on it.” Beet said aloud, directing her response towards Sorrel. More to stop herself from dwelling on it all for too much longer. “We all have our own…little bugs…now and then…” She added simply.
Sorrel nodded gravely. She hesitated. Something about Beets reminded her of when she was possessed by the Hunger Spirit - a strange brief flashback to the taste of blood in her mouth and the desire to fill herself with gore, friend or foe. But it passed in a second and she blinked to clear her vision. Best not say anything. It made no sense anyway.
"This is a strange place," was all she managed. "It's a frontier town... between the wilds of so many strange places. I have never known so many things clawing to get in. It can unsettle almost anyone. Not brother Kavel, as far as I know, but anyone else."
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a passable bottle of red, a few slabs of cheese and a hunk of bread. She offered them to Beets with the least menacing of her daggers to carve out a sandwich. "What bought you here in the first place? Or would you rather not say?"
Beets was touched by this gesture from Sorrel. As she took the offered rudimentary ingredients and dagger in hand, she recalled the many times she herself had turned up at the beginning of an adventure carrying a covered wicker basket, the contents still emanating warmth from the ovens of Paradise Frost, permeating the air with the wonderful smell of delicious baked goods.
Pa had always said that enjoying good food was a key part of the day, and that 'if you could keep your hunger at bay, any troubles you were having always seemed further away…' She hadn’t thought about him in a while..or the attack on the village that ended her life with him… and Gramps, and that had set her on that long uncertain path that eventually somehow wound her up here.
“Well I lived with my Pa and Gramps in the woods at the edge of… of… a village…” There it was again, every time she tried to recall the Village’s name, tried to recall any of the roads she had travelled on away from two years past, her mind just grew..empty… “Somewhere in the Feywild.” She continued, aware of Sorrel’s eyes on her. “That is, until it was attacked by a swarm of giant beetles…My Pa was..killed, and although I was able to stop them, the villagers felt..well more like drove me out of town because of my…similarities.”
She reflexively drummed two fingers upon her thigh, it’s hard exoskeleton giving off low clicks in response. “Hatred by association I guess you could say-or they did anyway.” “So, I hit the road. Not alone at first.. With Gramps for the first day or so..Until he went his own way… Said he had ‘Things to do.” Well, after a few months ‘travelling'… I ended up here.’ Beets finished her story with a wave of her hand still clutching the yet untouched bread and cheese.
Sorrel felt a sharp pang in her heart as Beets told her story. A wanderer without family, chased from home by fools who couldn't see her heart was as big as the world. She thought back to the times she had fought alongside Beets - how cheerful and reckless and filled with life this young barbarian was. A strange duality. A life force so powerful she was as mighty as Kavel all bottled up in this delicate fey body. And beetles. She knew her archfoe and Beets ruthless swarm were different kinds of beetles but the word still played on her smouldering fire of revenge.
She wasn't good with words, never had been. She fought, that's who she was. A weapon built of muscle and blood. And so she did the only thing she knew how.
"Beets, my good friend, it would be my honour and privilege to stand by your side whenever you desire. I will hunt the filth that murdered your family if you wish it. I will burn your traitorous village to the ground or walk into the dark heart of the Feywild to demand justice. This is a city of wounded souls, myself not the least of them, and I am not given to casual friendship. In the House we have a greeting - you will have heard it - 'at your service and your families.' We throw it around a little too casually. But for a few people, and you are one of them, we have another promise, a vow. Your friends are my friends, your enemies are my enemies and if you need me I will come.'
She held out her hand, palm open, a small obsidian stone resting there. In a certain light, you could see strange markings formed within the black rock, but it took an expert eye and a particular moon. "Hold this and speak so me and wherever I am I will hear you."
Beets gingerly reached over and lifted the rock from Sorrel’s hand with one of her far smaller ones. It was smooth and glossy to the touch and unlike the thick dark icr that formed her monstrous mandibles or claws it gave off a glassy reflective quality as if it was happy to interact with the light even within the darkest park of its core.
“Your friends are my friends, your enemies are my enemies and if you need me I will come.” She murmured aloud as she turned the rock slowly in her fingers. Sorrel’s pledge to help to hunt down the beetles that her taken her father from her was a big one, and if she’d been given that same offer Beets immediately upon leaving her home she may very well have taken Sorrel up on it.
But that was before things had been revealed to be far more, ‘complicated.’ There was just the small matter explaining about her lifelong absent mother apparently becoming cursed when taking something from the tomb of the ruler of a so-called ancient civilisation who now ruled over ‘the swarm’ that had attacked the village and her Pa. A curse had resulted in her..passing..and the fusion of what remained her mother and the curse into what she, Beets was…A fairy..with a monster on the inside.
“Thank you Sorrel.” Beets said, with a half genuine, half forced smile. “This means a lot.. and I’ll help you too with your matters of course, however I can.”
Sorrel gave a wry grin. "I'll take you up on that sooner than you might expect, Beets. I have a Beetle of my own to defeat in a dark dark place and I will need the help of good friends.
Created with the one and only Beets the Beetle
Beets picked the piece of ‘meat’ out from between some her sharp teeth, giving it a brief uncomfortable look and a shiver before flicking it away as she tried not to think about if it whether it was just a leftover of short meal they’d had before breaking camp that morning and start of the long journey home. Or else a fragment from one of the many ‘bodies’ Calla had seemed all to happy to ‘stow away’ in her bottle bank from the previous night’s encounter.
The sun was rising high in the sky now as they made their way, its light warming the panels of her wings and picking out the fresh shoots that were emerging amongst the weather-beaten greenery either side of the road, signs that hopefully spring would be on the way. As if on cue a fat emerald green beetle rose from a stalk to the side of the path next to her and headed over in their direction before, almost lazily changing its trajectory and buzzing off back the direction they’d just come.
But it’s fading droning wings had brought back moment from the night before, to Beets mind. A short statement of words she’d caught between her own enraged wing beats that that assassin woman had said to Sorrel the before she.. ‘offed’ herself. “The Beetle is coming for you…” “Sorrel”, Beets said, glancing over to her dark clad companion walking just ahead of her, “Who’s ‘The Beetle?’”
Sorrel scratched her nose thoughtfully. "Well, the first thing to say is that I'm fairly certain they aren't a beetle or fey or anything like you," she sounded casual, but she watched Beets carefully. She remembered that her friend had been hurt and angry before at comments about fairies and flying fey and she wanted to make sure Beets knew Sorrel was about to go to war with a possible relative.
"That Tiefling comes from the House - I've told you about the House... the company that trained me and I worked for... I mean, in a sense you never actually stop working for the House, you just take long sabbaticals. The way she pitched herself made it seem she worked for my old mentor, Callimar, who runs the Dark College. It's a weird place." She shivered briefly.
"But the implication at the end is that she worked for the college that specialises in arcane work... the mages, I guess, although it's a bit more complicated. And she also gave me the impression..."
Sorrel paused. "Look, I'll explain but it's maybe better you also forget what I'm about to tell you. The Master of the House is a powerful position, although the heads of all the Colleges sit on a Council. The heads of the college tend to be enthusiasts in a particular field while the Masters tend to be duplicitous, devious, amoral, intensely political and excellent after dinner speakers. Those who are both still alive and who still show an interest in becoming Master are the kind of people you do not want to even be aware of under any circumstances."
Sorrel sighed. "And it kind of looks like Callimar and the Beetle, who I think is in charge of the mages, are competing for the job and the lives of my sisters are on the line as a result. So it's going to get very nasty. But I still don't completely understand who the Beetle is..."
"And I could use some help...?"
Beets fluttered along thoughtfully for a moment, before looking back to Sorrel. "So simply put, some bad folks from a bad part of your life are trying to come over here and mar the good life you've made here and threaten lives of you sisters. I don't need to fully understand all the magical/leadership squabbling bullshit going on in that little club of theirs to tell you: I won't flit by and let that happen. You're..You''re my sister in arms Sorrel.." She said, feeling very much like she was channelling her inner Kavel as she spoke, thrusting out a muscular arm towards Sorrel, open palm offered. "Sisters have got to fight together right?" She added with a sharp toothed grin.
Sorrel beamed. "Damn right we have. Even out here in the new life, it takes me a while to trust people. But we're good together Beets. Every time we've travelled out, it's always been like, phew, Beets is on the crew."
She paused. "Forgive me if this is out of line. But back a while ago when we were with brother Kavel on that heart-breaking trip where Nathalie and he had to destroy their bangles, you seemed mighty stressed. And it was the second time I'd seen that. They seemed connected. You're fine now, I think? But is it all over?"
Beets bit her lip as her mind flashed reluctantly back to that trip with Sorrel, and Lolli to help Kavel make his plea of his relationship with Nathalie to the Sprites of the Damphite Tangle. ‘The terrible funk,’ as Kavel had dubbed her state both physically and mentally thanks to the Feywild at that time had slowly ebbed away over last few months spent with The Rooftop Beetles.
Much to her surprise and gratefulness they had drawn all the closer to her after her overwhelmed outburst upon her return from her fool-errand run to the Queen of Air and Darkness with that Jasper fella. Since then she’d tried to keep herself as level-headed as possible, doing things that were low-key and ‘normal’: Weekly deliveries with the Rooftop Beetles, fighting a sea-hag alongside Lolli off the coast of Port Ffirst, helping Dwirian and Derthadd out with a few personal issues in a time warped village, attending a scrap between the Summer and Winter Courts at a icy-gala reception, a cosy sea-voyage with Kavel to his private island, fending off a tentacularly brain-dragon army from attacking the Dwarven city of Vorstholm, visiting a realm of baby dragonlings, a speed dating night.
Alright so they hadn’t all been as care-free as the dragon fighting-the speed dating had been particularly out of her normal comfort zone. But she hadn’t ‘Lost it.' again. Well Except-She reluctantly reminded herself-For those times when, in the midst of a fight when the thumping of her heart in her head and the smell of blood filled her nostrils she had felt herself almost give over to that cavernous ever droning darkness.
She may have accepted she ‘changed’ in those moments-for as long or short as they were and have become wary in warning others of it. She have to grown used to finding the rancid tang of blood and congealed lumps black incur and.. flesh.. in her mouth following many an encounter. She’d even learnt to control the still ever constant racks of hunger and desire ‘to feed’ that awoke her most nights. But to confirm with Sorrel she was ‘Fine’, that ‘the worst’ may be over…
Truth be told she hadn’t heard anything else from Bogar or her so called-royal Desirer…so maybe, this was just it now. “I’m..working on it.” Beet said aloud, directing her response towards Sorrel. More to stop herself from dwelling on it all for too much longer. “We all have our own…little bugs…now and then…” She added simply.
Sorrel nodded gravely. She hesitated. Something about Beets reminded her of when she was possessed by the Hunger Spirit - a strange brief flashback to the taste of blood in her mouth and the desire to fill herself with gore, friend or foe. But it passed in a second and she blinked to clear her vision. Best not say anything. It made no sense anyway.
"This is a strange place," was all she managed. "It's a frontier town... between the wilds of so many strange places. I have never known so many things clawing to get in. It can unsettle almost anyone. Not brother Kavel, as far as I know, but anyone else."
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a passable bottle of red, a few slabs of cheese and a hunk of bread. She offered them to Beets with the least menacing of her daggers to carve out a sandwich. "What bought you here in the first place? Or would you rather not say?"
Beets was touched by this gesture from Sorrel. As she took the offered rudimentary ingredients and dagger in hand, she recalled the many times she herself had turned up at the beginning of an adventure carrying a covered wicker basket, the contents still emanating warmth from the ovens of Paradise Frost, permeating the air with the wonderful smell of delicious baked goods.
Pa had always said that enjoying good food was a key part of the day, and that 'if you could keep your hunger at bay, any troubles you were having always seemed further away…' She hadn’t thought about him in a while..or the attack on the village that ended her life with him… and Gramps, and that had set her on that long uncertain path that eventually somehow wound her up here.
“Well I lived with my Pa and Gramps in the woods at the edge of… of… a village…” There it was again, every time she tried to recall the Village’s name, tried to recall any of the roads she had travelled on away from two years past, her mind just grew..empty… “Somewhere in the Feywild.” She continued, aware of Sorrel’s eyes on her. “That is, until it was attacked by a swarm of giant beetles…My Pa was..killed, and although I was able to stop them, the villagers felt..well more like drove me out of town because of my…similarities.”
She reflexively drummed two fingers upon her thigh, it’s hard exoskeleton giving off low clicks in response. “Hatred by association I guess you could say-or they did anyway.” “So, I hit the road. Not alone at first.. With Gramps for the first day or so..Until he went his own way… Said he had ‘Things to do.” Well, after a few months ‘travelling'… I ended up here.’ Beets finished her story with a wave of her hand still clutching the yet untouched bread and cheese.
Sorrel felt a sharp pang in her heart as Beets told her story. A wanderer without family, chased from home by fools who couldn't see her heart was as big as the world. She thought back to the times she had fought alongside Beets - how cheerful and reckless and filled with life this young barbarian was. A strange duality. A life force so powerful she was as mighty as Kavel all bottled up in this delicate fey body. And beetles. She knew her archfoe and Beets ruthless swarm were different kinds of beetles but the word still played on her smouldering fire of revenge.
She wasn't good with words, never had been. She fought, that's who she was. A weapon built of muscle and blood. And so she did the only thing she knew how.
"Beets, my good friend, it would be my honour and privilege to stand by your side whenever you desire. I will hunt the filth that murdered your family if you wish it. I will burn your traitorous village to the ground or walk into the dark heart of the Feywild to demand justice. This is a city of wounded souls, myself not the least of them, and I am not given to casual friendship. In the House we have a greeting - you will have heard it - 'at your service and your families.' We throw it around a little too casually. But for a few people, and you are one of them, we have another promise, a vow. Your friends are my friends, your enemies are my enemies and if you need me I will come.'
She held out her hand, palm open, a small obsidian stone resting there. In a certain light, you could see strange markings formed within the black rock, but it took an expert eye and a particular moon. "Hold this and speak so me and wherever I am I will hear you."
Beets gingerly reached over and lifted the rock from Sorrel’s hand with one of her far smaller ones. It was smooth and glossy to the touch and unlike the thick dark icr that formed her monstrous mandibles or claws it gave off a glassy reflective quality as if it was happy to interact with the light even within the darkest park of its core.
“Your friends are my friends, your enemies are my enemies and if you need me I will come.” She murmured aloud as she turned the rock slowly in her fingers. Sorrel’s pledge to help to hunt down the beetles that her taken her father from her was a big one, and if she’d been given that same offer Beets immediately upon leaving her home she may very well have taken Sorrel up on it.
But that was before things had been revealed to be far more, ‘complicated.’ There was just the small matter explaining about her lifelong absent mother apparently becoming cursed when taking something from the tomb of the ruler of a so-called ancient civilisation who now ruled over ‘the swarm’ that had attacked the village and her Pa. A curse had resulted in her..passing..and the fusion of what remained her mother and the curse into what she, Beets was…A fairy..with a monster on the inside.
“Thank you Sorrel.” Beets said, with a half genuine, half forced smile. “This means a lot.. and I’ll help you too with your matters of course, however I can.”
Sorrel gave a wry grin. "I'll take you up on that sooner than you might expect, Beets. I have a Beetle of my own to defeat in a dark dark place and I will need the help of good friends.