Post by Zola Rhomdaen on Jun 18, 2024 9:29:53 GMT
(Following the events of the S14 Finale: Something Wrong.)
The celebrations are exuberant and carry on throughout the night; two dozen or so victorious adventurers whooping and cheering echoing into Zola’s bedroom down the hall from the cocktail bar. Though the noises keep her awake, she doesn’t begrudge them for it. They deserve this.
She stays in her room, burying herself in dreary volumes of law and history until her eyelids grow too heavy. She was the one who caused this problem and she did little to solve it — she has no right to be there celebrating with them.
However, the next day, she sees Jaezred Vandree and Celia Brockenhide — Mother Lillian’s protégée — eating breakfast together in a gardenside bistro. Zola catches only a short snippet of what Celia is saying, yet they are the most important words she will hear today:
“…Something Lonely is still out there…”
Zola halts in her tracks. She assumed the adventurers had caught it and sealed it with the rest of the Somethings last night. It still hasn’t been found?
She’d heard rumours that it was lurking in Killian’s shop and idle speculation that it might have never left the Mountain Palace. If the Lonely is still here, or even anywhere in the Witching Court, then…perhaps she can make herself useful at last.
She spins on her heel and marches with purpose towards Jaezred and Celia, who look up at her with surprise on their faces. She lays her hands flat on their table, and she tells them that she has a plan.
The summit of the Mountain Palace is the most solitary place in Queen Nicnevin’s realm.
Cor’Vandor gives Zola a worried look as he drops her off there, with nothing but a plate of cake and the clothes on her back. She steadies her footing on the slanted, rocky terrain and finds a boulder to sit on, setting the plate down in front of her. Sending him mental messages of reassurance, she watches Cor’Vandor fly down into the ocean of cloud and mist that now surrounds her and disappear from sight.
Now she is alone. Now she waits.
There is nothing up here — no hardy plants, no crawling insects, not even the resident spirits of the mountain can be sensed here. No sound but the rush of wind. No sight but the moon, looming so large and close above her head she could almost reach up and graze her fingers upon it, to feel its unfeeling coldness.
The passage of time is almost unquantifiable in the Feywild, and it is even truer here on the lonely peak. She can’t tell if she has been sitting for minutes or hours or tens of hours, but a long while passes until she finally notices a change: a subtle shift in the air that creeps up and envelops her before she can realise. Not so much a presence, but the absence of one that makes all her feelings of isolation more pronounced. The familiarity of it, having lived with it for so long, only emphasises it further, and Zola is unable to put the images of her erstwhile home — now an empty and derelict blast zone — from her mind.
In times like this, she used to turn her mind towards Eilistraee, praying to the Dark Dancer for comfort and peace, but Zola doesn’t even have that now. Despair sinks into her heart, weighing her whole body down like an anchor. She barely notices the tears dampening her right cheek as her shoulders begin to slump.
But suddenly, she looks up. “Lonely…? Is that you?”
No response. Only the wind.
“You know, I’ve been feeling pretty lonely recently. Mums are gone. Eilistraee isn’t with me anymore. Things didn’t work out with Tebrin. And…truth be told, I don’t really know how to talk about it to my friends.”
Silence.
“It… It sucks.” Zola barks out a laugh at how silly she sounds right now, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “But you know that better than anyone, don’t you? Even when we lived together, you always kept to yourself, under the stairs. And that’s okay, we made it work. But…we always shared this one thing.” She pushes the plate in front of her forward. “The worst cake in the world.”
It is a slice of banana-flavoured sponge cake dotted with blueberries and an overly large dollop of cream on top, garnished with glitter — Mother Lillian’s own recipe, created from ridiculous requests made with giggles by a six year-old Zola. Long after Zola grew out of it, the hags continued baking this cake to feed the Lonely with.
The wind dies down, but the silence at the peak takes on a roaring quality in her ears. The cake sits there being abominable.
Thinking that the Lonely needs some privacy in order to eat, Zola turns around, facing away from the plate, and gazes up into the starless night sky — that yawning, endless darkness that silently threatens to swallow her up. She can rove through that black void for an age and never find another soul.
“I wish things were back to normal, too. I wish we can all be together again — you, me, and my mums. But for now, maybe… Maybe we can be lonely together?”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, she feels the strength draining out from her. Her head spins as her eyelids flutter shut, and the last thing she feels is her body slumping forward onto the ground.
“You know, if you are just going to stand there staring into space, there are much more practical things I could be doing, Zola.”
Zola blinks and turns to look at the devil in her bed. Tebrin’s nude body is half-hidden under the covers, though teasing just enough below the waist to tempt her. He sounds halfway between joking and actually meaning what he said.
“Sorry,” she says, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “I’m just… It’s been months since I found out, but it still feels unreal. That my birth family is alive, and…not the people I thought they were.”
“You’re not having second thoughts on this, are you? We have a lot riding on this, Zola.”
“No, it’s not that. I just…” She takes a deep breath. “I structured my entire life, shaped my hopes and dreams around the knowledge that my parents were killed for their faith — it’s why I became a sword dancer, to honour their memory. And it was all a lie. When I get my mothers back, even if we rebuild our house and return to the life we once had, could things ever be the same again? I know they love me, I understand that they had no other choice, but…the truth is out now. Can I ever look at them the same way again?”
“The point of this is that you won’t need to look at them the same way again. You were their daughter, something to protect. By the end of this, you will be matron — a power to be reckoned with. Why should you look at them the same way anymore? You won’t be the same yourself.”
Zola stares at him in wide-eyed silence for a moment. “…You’re right. Gods, it’s terrifying. Who knew discovering more of your family could feel so isolating? It’s going to be lonely at the top, isn’t it?”
“Power is a lonely place, Zola. The more power you have, the more others will want it. Especially once you are the matron of the house. Even your friends and family will see you differently. You can never let them get too close… Countless supposed rulers have learnt that the hard way. You would do well to learn from their mistakes — if not for your own benefit, then certainly for mine.”
There is a smirk across Tebrin’s face that unsettles her a little. He is so cocksure of himself all the time that the expression alone is not unfamiliar, but the timing strikes her as strange. Was that a joke, or was there something more honest about his meaning — for his benefit?
She adjusts her position on the bed and leans back against the headboard, rolling her eye up at the ceiling. “You’re showing your hand there, Tebrin. I’ve already told you — I won’t let you control me.”
“I don’t need to. We have a deal, and I uphold my deals.”
“You’re so full of shit. Well, I guess this is my life now. At least our arguing means that you’ll be keeping me compa…”
She turns to him again, but he is gone. There is no warmth, not even a crease on the sheet on that side of the bed to indicate that he was ever there.
That conversation between them happened 3 months ago, before he too departed from her life.
Zola is lying on a different bed, half-propped up on a weak arm, staring at that empty space beside her. Her lips are cracked dry and her stomach rumbles loudly.
Half an hour later, Lord Jaezred is summoned into the room with a bread bowl of fish chowder. He carries himself with stiff politeness and the tone with which he addresses her is chilly — evidently, he is still angry at her for not telling him about Tebrin all those weeks ago. Yet even in her tired state, Zola notices the looks of concern he steals at her when he thinks she isn’t paying attention.
“I was out for two days?” she says incredulously in between spoonfuls of warm, creamy soup. “Wh-What happened?”
Jaezred shakes his head. “All I saw was your ladyship falling unconscious and the cake disappearing.”
“So…it got away?”
“Yes, I am sorry to report that Something Lonely has evaded capture once again.”
Zola curses bitterly under her breath. They were so close. “Well, do we know where it’s gone?”
“I’m afraid not, but…” Jaezred fiddles with the cravat around his neck. “When I was watching your ladyship up on the peak, I felt its presence, even though I was in a cave a hundred feet below. It knew I was watching. It has been observing this court for a while and it knows to play its cards very carefully. And afterwards, after we rescued you, I…I find myself plagued by intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that everyone close to me are going to leave me — Imryll, He’lylbreia, Velve… A-And I know it’s not true, and yet I feel a constant, pressing need to check in on them…”
He trails off as a blush darkens his cheeks, looking embarrassed by the things he just divulged to her. “Please excuse me. Celia has told me that there is yet another Something still in the Dawnlands, and it is not the Lonely. I must return to my work urgently.”
“Jaezred, wait—”
The flustered drow slips out through the door and shuts it behind him. The fact that Zola is, once again, alone dawns on her far too quickly than is normal; the faintly echoing sound of the door closing has barely faded from hearing when she is stricken by the oppressiveness of the quiet in the room.
That crushing loneliness she felt when her mothers were taken — that was paused when she welcomed Tebrin into her bed — is back, and stronger than ever. No family, no god, no lover.
She has no one.
Co-written with Anthony
The celebrations are exuberant and carry on throughout the night; two dozen or so victorious adventurers whooping and cheering echoing into Zola’s bedroom down the hall from the cocktail bar. Though the noises keep her awake, she doesn’t begrudge them for it. They deserve this.
She stays in her room, burying herself in dreary volumes of law and history until her eyelids grow too heavy. She was the one who caused this problem and she did little to solve it — she has no right to be there celebrating with them.
However, the next day, she sees Jaezred Vandree and Celia Brockenhide — Mother Lillian’s protégée — eating breakfast together in a gardenside bistro. Zola catches only a short snippet of what Celia is saying, yet they are the most important words she will hear today:
“…Something Lonely is still out there…”
Zola halts in her tracks. She assumed the adventurers had caught it and sealed it with the rest of the Somethings last night. It still hasn’t been found?
She’d heard rumours that it was lurking in Killian’s shop and idle speculation that it might have never left the Mountain Palace. If the Lonely is still here, or even anywhere in the Witching Court, then…perhaps she can make herself useful at last.
She spins on her heel and marches with purpose towards Jaezred and Celia, who look up at her with surprise on their faces. She lays her hands flat on their table, and she tells them that she has a plan.
The summit of the Mountain Palace is the most solitary place in Queen Nicnevin’s realm.
Cor’Vandor gives Zola a worried look as he drops her off there, with nothing but a plate of cake and the clothes on her back. She steadies her footing on the slanted, rocky terrain and finds a boulder to sit on, setting the plate down in front of her. Sending him mental messages of reassurance, she watches Cor’Vandor fly down into the ocean of cloud and mist that now surrounds her and disappear from sight.
Now she is alone. Now she waits.
There is nothing up here — no hardy plants, no crawling insects, not even the resident spirits of the mountain can be sensed here. No sound but the rush of wind. No sight but the moon, looming so large and close above her head she could almost reach up and graze her fingers upon it, to feel its unfeeling coldness.
The passage of time is almost unquantifiable in the Feywild, and it is even truer here on the lonely peak. She can’t tell if she has been sitting for minutes or hours or tens of hours, but a long while passes until she finally notices a change: a subtle shift in the air that creeps up and envelops her before she can realise. Not so much a presence, but the absence of one that makes all her feelings of isolation more pronounced. The familiarity of it, having lived with it for so long, only emphasises it further, and Zola is unable to put the images of her erstwhile home — now an empty and derelict blast zone — from her mind.
In times like this, she used to turn her mind towards Eilistraee, praying to the Dark Dancer for comfort and peace, but Zola doesn’t even have that now. Despair sinks into her heart, weighing her whole body down like an anchor. She barely notices the tears dampening her right cheek as her shoulders begin to slump.
But suddenly, she looks up. “Lonely…? Is that you?”
No response. Only the wind.
“You know, I’ve been feeling pretty lonely recently. Mums are gone. Eilistraee isn’t with me anymore. Things didn’t work out with Tebrin. And…truth be told, I don’t really know how to talk about it to my friends.”
Silence.
“It… It sucks.” Zola barks out a laugh at how silly she sounds right now, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “But you know that better than anyone, don’t you? Even when we lived together, you always kept to yourself, under the stairs. And that’s okay, we made it work. But…we always shared this one thing.” She pushes the plate in front of her forward. “The worst cake in the world.”
It is a slice of banana-flavoured sponge cake dotted with blueberries and an overly large dollop of cream on top, garnished with glitter — Mother Lillian’s own recipe, created from ridiculous requests made with giggles by a six year-old Zola. Long after Zola grew out of it, the hags continued baking this cake to feed the Lonely with.
The wind dies down, but the silence at the peak takes on a roaring quality in her ears. The cake sits there being abominable.
Thinking that the Lonely needs some privacy in order to eat, Zola turns around, facing away from the plate, and gazes up into the starless night sky — that yawning, endless darkness that silently threatens to swallow her up. She can rove through that black void for an age and never find another soul.
“I wish things were back to normal, too. I wish we can all be together again — you, me, and my mums. But for now, maybe… Maybe we can be lonely together?”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, she feels the strength draining out from her. Her head spins as her eyelids flutter shut, and the last thing she feels is her body slumping forward onto the ground.
🌑
“You know, if you are just going to stand there staring into space, there are much more practical things I could be doing, Zola.”
Zola blinks and turns to look at the devil in her bed. Tebrin’s nude body is half-hidden under the covers, though teasing just enough below the waist to tempt her. He sounds halfway between joking and actually meaning what he said.
“Sorry,” she says, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “I’m just… It’s been months since I found out, but it still feels unreal. That my birth family is alive, and…not the people I thought they were.”
“You’re not having second thoughts on this, are you? We have a lot riding on this, Zola.”
“No, it’s not that. I just…” She takes a deep breath. “I structured my entire life, shaped my hopes and dreams around the knowledge that my parents were killed for their faith — it’s why I became a sword dancer, to honour their memory. And it was all a lie. When I get my mothers back, even if we rebuild our house and return to the life we once had, could things ever be the same again? I know they love me, I understand that they had no other choice, but…the truth is out now. Can I ever look at them the same way again?”
“The point of this is that you won’t need to look at them the same way again. You were their daughter, something to protect. By the end of this, you will be matron — a power to be reckoned with. Why should you look at them the same way anymore? You won’t be the same yourself.”
Zola stares at him in wide-eyed silence for a moment. “…You’re right. Gods, it’s terrifying. Who knew discovering more of your family could feel so isolating? It’s going to be lonely at the top, isn’t it?”
“Power is a lonely place, Zola. The more power you have, the more others will want it. Especially once you are the matron of the house. Even your friends and family will see you differently. You can never let them get too close… Countless supposed rulers have learnt that the hard way. You would do well to learn from their mistakes — if not for your own benefit, then certainly for mine.”
There is a smirk across Tebrin’s face that unsettles her a little. He is so cocksure of himself all the time that the expression alone is not unfamiliar, but the timing strikes her as strange. Was that a joke, or was there something more honest about his meaning — for his benefit?
She adjusts her position on the bed and leans back against the headboard, rolling her eye up at the ceiling. “You’re showing your hand there, Tebrin. I’ve already told you — I won’t let you control me.”
“I don’t need to. We have a deal, and I uphold my deals.”
“You’re so full of shit. Well, I guess this is my life now. At least our arguing means that you’ll be keeping me compa…”
She turns to him again, but he is gone. There is no warmth, not even a crease on the sheet on that side of the bed to indicate that he was ever there.
🌒
That conversation between them happened 3 months ago, before he too departed from her life.
Zola is lying on a different bed, half-propped up on a weak arm, staring at that empty space beside her. Her lips are cracked dry and her stomach rumbles loudly.
Half an hour later, Lord Jaezred is summoned into the room with a bread bowl of fish chowder. He carries himself with stiff politeness and the tone with which he addresses her is chilly — evidently, he is still angry at her for not telling him about Tebrin all those weeks ago. Yet even in her tired state, Zola notices the looks of concern he steals at her when he thinks she isn’t paying attention.
“I was out for two days?” she says incredulously in between spoonfuls of warm, creamy soup. “Wh-What happened?”
Jaezred shakes his head. “All I saw was your ladyship falling unconscious and the cake disappearing.”
“So…it got away?”
“Yes, I am sorry to report that Something Lonely has evaded capture once again.”
Zola curses bitterly under her breath. They were so close. “Well, do we know where it’s gone?”
“I’m afraid not, but…” Jaezred fiddles with the cravat around his neck. “When I was watching your ladyship up on the peak, I felt its presence, even though I was in a cave a hundred feet below. It knew I was watching. It has been observing this court for a while and it knows to play its cards very carefully. And afterwards, after we rescued you, I…I find myself plagued by intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that everyone close to me are going to leave me — Imryll, He’lylbreia, Velve… A-And I know it’s not true, and yet I feel a constant, pressing need to check in on them…”
He trails off as a blush darkens his cheeks, looking embarrassed by the things he just divulged to her. “Please excuse me. Celia has told me that there is yet another Something still in the Dawnlands, and it is not the Lonely. I must return to my work urgently.”
“Jaezred, wait—”
The flustered drow slips out through the door and shuts it behind him. The fact that Zola is, once again, alone dawns on her far too quickly than is normal; the faintly echoing sound of the door closing has barely faded from hearing when she is stricken by the oppressiveness of the quiet in the room.
That crushing loneliness she felt when her mothers were taken — that was paused when she welcomed Tebrin into her bed — is back, and stronger than ever. No family, no god, no lover.
She has no one.
Co-written with Anthony