Darkest Days, Brightest Nights

zersergathant wrote:

AJ: I realize that going to Negav would be suicide for a fairy, but Anastasia has quite a few tricks up her sleaves.

Just as long as they don't require extreme stupidity on the part of the Negav defence forces* and/or a Deus ex machina in order to circumvent the Isolon eye and disguise her species.

zersergathant wrote:

and I thought Eowynn resting her head on An's shoulder was a little much...

But apart from that she's fine.

*Because stupidity without luck is death, and large grouped of armed people tend to have their luck spread thin.

Like AJ pointed I think the part about her going to Negav can be a bit problematic with the Isolon eye and such, unless she manages to find a way around somehow. But that was a great chapter ! Nicely described and giving a nice insight in the mind of that very twisted fairy
And I don't think Eowynn sounded too cute, I think you striked the right tone with her ^_^

Sorry about it being a couple of days behind schedule, I ended up being busier lately than I had anticipated. But anyway, here it is!

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“No, guys, seriously, dig it, I’ve totally nailed the solo from ‘Lord of Wyrms’.”

Negav’s Lower Tier was not a place of luxury; rather, it was designed with practicality and functionality in mind. Should the city’s walls be breached, this greyed place of unattractive-but-sturdy boxy buildings and men and women working in sweat-stained clothes and frank faces would be the first attacked. The smaller secondary walls, turret emplacements atop high towers, and guard buildings around the perimeter of the place where Negav truly began emphasized this.

The sounds of machinery and the bellowing of workers and their supervisors filled the afternoon in the Lower Tier with a sort of frenetic white noise. Almost all noise coming from the residential area of the Tier was obscured. So no one would be bothered by, say, the wail of an electric guitar or pounding upon a drum set.

In the simplistic living room of one such drab, square little house sat Nalea, sorting through a half a dozen stapled together groups of papers- about thirty sheets in all. These papers were all a part of a song: lead vocals, backing vocals, lead guitar (which would be an electric), bass guitar, rhythm guitar (which would alternate between acoustic and electric as the melody required), and violin. She was in charge of the violin and backing vocals, and she’d spent much of the previous night practicing her parts.

The song was called “Tears In The Red Tide”, about a blooming romance between a human man and a mermaid cut tragically short when the mermaid is killed by her lover’s companions out of revenge for an attack on their coastal village by a giant mermaid, was to start with a slow, sweet-sounding acoustic-and-violin intro, like the intro to a tender folk ballad. After half a minute or so, the soft lead vocals would come in, singing the first four verses, then the chorus. The instant after the chorus first ends, the a slow electric guitar harmony kicks in, the bass and drums joining in suite, then another four verses and chorus before the music peaks in intensity with a final four verses. The rest of the song was a slow but intense guitar solo that took up a page-and-a-half of staff paper, the instrument singing all the rage and grief and hate and love and gain and loss of the story until all emotion is exhausted and the song ends on a somber long note of the violin. Erin had come up with the idea for the song and written the lyrics, but Nalea had written all the notations and compositions, and she was immensely proud of the piece.

Now to start work on actually performing it.

“Sounding pretty badass, there, Aiden,” the inu complimented her friend, listening to the blisteringly fast pentatonic apocalypse his fingers, moving like lightening, conjured on the guitar strings- another one of Nalea’s songs, the aforementioned “Lord of Wyrms”, this one about a folk tale she read in one of Erin’s books on mythology about a monstrous dragon that would one day awaken to devour the sun of the world it heralded from. Aiden, a skinny human whose bald head and pale eyes made him look a fair bit older than he probably actually was, smiled at his mastery of what was inarguably a very difficult solo.

On the beaten metal chair next the one Aiden sat in was perched a neko with an unshaven brown beard and long, disheveled hair, wearing a baggy t-shirt bearing the name of what was presumably a band from wherever he came from and faded acid-washed jeans, looking through the lyrics for “Tears In The Red Tide”. This was Delvin. “This song is kind of a downer, don’t you think?” he asked in his spaced-out voice- Nalea had gotten used to the stink of “Sue-Anne” that followed him everywhere. His scratched and scuffed electric bass was propped up against his chair.

“Mmhm,” Nalea agreed, tuning her practical redwood violin. “It’s a tale of a romance that can never be. The fact that it’s a downer is kind of the whole point.”

“It’s kind of stupid, too, though,” Delvin added. “Dude lives in a coastal village. Number one, why would you live by the coast in Felarya unless you want giant mermaids and krait nagas and shit messing with you? Dude goes fishing- again, like he wants something to come eat him- and meets a mermaid, and they fall in love like right then and there, even though there’s no why it could work and they both know it. Dude goes home, giant mermaid floods the town and kills a whole bunch of people, dude’s friends fish up and lynch his mermaid, end of story. I wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t going out of its way to be a downer.”

“Delvin, for one, as long as the music is good, no one will care about the plot holes in the story it’s telling,” Nalea argued coolly. “Second, when a song is telling a story, you rarely get the whole story in the lyrics. The town is next to a body of water that’s too shallow for aquatic predators to swim in. That’s why the pred that destroys the town has to flood it from afar and wash it into the sea where it can get at the people. Erin explained this to me as she was writing it.”

“But krait nagas are amphibious. And what about flying preds?”

“Woah there, okay, you’re thinking about this way too hard, Stoner Cat,” said the dark-skinned human with a well-groomed goatee sitting at the drum kit; Trent, also the owner of the house. “I thought that cat nip or whatever it is supposed to make you mellow.” Across the room, Aiden let loose a barrage of profanity as one of his guitar strings broke. He set to work repairing it as the fifth and final member of their ensemble rushed herself through the front door and scarcely remembered to close it behind her before making her into the living room, her guitar case being shuffled about madly on her back in her haste.

“Sorry I’m late!” said the petite inu girl as she removed her guitar case from her back and set it on the floor, opening it and removing her instrument, brushing strands of her flowing light brown hair from her lively green eyes.

“No problem, Issa,” replied Nalea, now warming up her violin. “Get yourself set up, we’re starting work on a new song. “

Issa’s bushy tail began to wag at that news. She plugged her guitar into one of the two amps in the room and sat herself down on the ratty couch next to Nalea- the amps were expensive enough that Trent was unable to afford enough chairs for all five of them. They went about their own businesses, each of them warming up themselves and their instruments to their own tune. Nalea ended her warm-up first, and then went around and handed each of the others their component of the song. As she gave him the bass notations, Delvin handed her the copy of the lyrics he was reading; that was the papers for the lead vocals, which Issa would need. Her voice was a gentle ocean breeze; perfect for this song. Nalea, while still a competent singer, was easily the inferior of the two vocalists, and her deeper, raspier voice would only front their heavier songs. Once everyone had their papers and had read through them, they began.
All five of them would not join in until the first repetition of the post-chorus riff. That was there they started. The violin and acoustic sound of Issa’s guitar started them off of the first beat. Aiden came in on the third beat, and on the following beat came the drums and bass. The melody was slow and rather off-key in some parts, and either too fast or too slow in others. But they weren’t master musicians, and this was only their first attempt; that it was a rather poor attempt was too be expected. However, they stayed in sync and mostly on time the entirety of the play through, something they were mutually good at. They played through that riff into the next four verses to the chorus about fifteen times. This took them nearly an hour and a half. They only improved by a barely noticeable margin with each repetition, so by the final time, they had progressed from “fairly terrible” to “almost not terrible”. Still, it was improvement. Aiden suggested a break for ten minutes or so, something they all agreed to.

Issa, as she got her guitar back in tune, turned to Nalea and offered with her inquisitive eyes, “I was about to ask the guys if they wanted to go out to dinner tonight. Would you be up for that?”

Nalea frowned. “I’d love to,” she answered sadly, “But Erin wanted me to help her with her writing tonight. She does her best work when I play some music for her as she writes. Tends to take hours, but I need the practice anyway and I owe her that much. Sorry.” After a moment, she added with a bit of a cheerier face, “Tomorrow night I’m free, though.”

Issa, ever sanguine, nodded. “Erin could come too, if she likes.”

Nalea, almost failing to realize how innocent that offer actually was, only nodded. It was an easy misunderstanding to make, what with Erin and herself being too grown women living together so closely for so long (not to mention how masculine Nalea no doubt appeared with her hair and physique) and Nalea was rather too wary of people making it for her own nerve. The ten minutes expired, and they returned to practicing for another two hours, until it began to near dinner time.

***
“How’d the band meet go this afternoon?”

“Started on ‘Tears In The Red Tide’, and we suck at it, as we no doubt will for weeks to come.” Nalea smiled at her human friend. “It’s a decent enough start, anyway.”

Erin nodded as she sat at her writing desk. “You’re getting there, Beethoven.”

“Any particular preference?” Nalea asked, looking over her shoulder at Erin, who already settled at her desk sipping coffee and feeding fresh papers into her typewriter. For their “jam-write” sessions, they closed themselves off in their “hobby room”, where Nalea’s instruments and music and Erin’s carvings and dormant manuscripts and all related paraphernalia were kept.

“We’re at the big car chase through the city, so plug in the amp and guitar. I need some DragonForce-style noise in here,” Erin answered with enthusiasm.

“So long as you don’t mind DragonForce sounding a bit muted,” Nalea answered with a grin as she prepped her electric guitar and began to warm up. “We got a noise complaint during the shootout.”

“’S’all good,” Erin answered with mock mellowness. “Chapter eight… While he had only a junkie’s word to take for it, it seemed rather silly to Thomas that the silo would have exploded after so little provocation.”

Nalea struck a low, ominous power chord following that sentence. Erin grinned and commented, “That was perfect.”

Nalea kept her playing restrained to slowly strumming those deep, nefarious notes, until after about three pages, until, at last, the fun began. “Okay, faster now, Thomas is getting into the Hummer with the G-men in pursuit.” The strumming quickened, the odd distorted high note and power chord barging in every twelve beats or so. This kept up until Erin announced with the manic glee of an adrenaline junkie getting their fix that “The game is afoot!” and that the gunfire and glass-breaking had begun, and the inu commenced the face-melting. Her fingers flew across the strings just as Erin’s flew across the keys, each of them attaining such speed and intensity that it seemed as though their hands would burst into flames!

After a good ten pages of shredding and pounding, Erin finally announced, somewhat short of breath, that the chase was coming to its conclusion. Nalea began to slow down, until at last the guitar’s wailing faded out with the pumping of the keys. She knew it was over when Erin cackled, “’Hell’ and ‘Yes’!”

Nalea, grinning ear to ear herself, asked “Happy with it?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m too pumped to read!”

They panted in relative silence for several moments, both of them swollen with pride over the work they’d just performed. Finally, Nalea, figuring this was a good enough to ask, inquired, “Would you be up for dinner with me and the band tomorrow night? We’re thinking of going out somewhere. Not sure where yet, of course, but we’ll figure it out.”

Erin exhaled slowly. She looked back at Nalea, the massive smile the inu expected to see on her face absent. “Uh, maybe,” she answered, her enthusiasm also strangely gone. “I’ve been in kind of a stay-at-home-mood lately, you know, with all the work there is to do.”

Nalea cocked her head a bit to the side. “Then take the night off. The Multiverse isn’t going to implode if you don’t write or carve for one evening.”

“I just don’t really feel up to it.”

“Are you okay? You seem rather… Off.”

“I feel fine, I just… Well, I’m not fine, I guess. I just feel…”

Nalea was becoming concerned. “You feel…?”

“Wrong, I guess.” With that, Erin stood and began towards the door, ignoring Nalea’s request for her to wait and question about what was wrong.

“Erin? Seriously, what is it? Wrong about what?” Nalea followed her to the door as she opened it. “Are you alright? This isn’t like-“ The door closed in her face.

***
The sun had set now, yet the lights of Negav still lit the sky over the immense city. Anastasia watched it from the trees across the Motoro River, out of range of the magic aura encircling the city that kept her at bay. As a predator, she was unable to enter Negav- even if the magic didn’t keep her out, the city was doubtlessly defended in a multitude of other ways that would make entry impossible for a lone fairy.

But she came here with a plan, and prize in mind.

She would not be denied her prize.

Intriguing.
I see you're still introducing things here. This story appears to be turning out to be more complex.

Mhh it's interesting to see the stories beginning to get joined together
This chapter was great ! it's not often you read about a music band in Felarya XP

Good stuff! Keep it up!
A rock band in felarya! That's a great idea, and nicely described.

Glad to hear it's still looking good! I really appreciate all the feedback so far. About Nalea's band, I'd say they're more folk metal than rock, although that doesn't really come through in this chapter. I kind of what to write a shorter story after this one is over about a sort of Negavian battle of the bands, that would probably be fun.

I should set in stone now that due to my schedule getting busier again, I'm aiming to put up a new chapter every Friday specifically.

Also, am I allowed to post my Felarya stories on deviantArt if they're already here on the forum? I want to start posting some of my original writing on my dA account, but I've done that before on other sites and no one has noticed. So I want to try putting up some stories based in pre-existing universes to attract attention to myself first, and Felarya seems to have a decent following (for such a niche setting, anyway) on dA, so I was wondering if I'd be allowed to put this story here up in chapters on my account there. Is this allowed, or is there an unspoken rule against it, like the "No connections to IRL Earth" thing?

zersergathant wrote:

Also, am I allowed to post my Felarya stories on deviantArt if they're already here on the forum?

I sure hope so, cuz I've been doing it :s

What do you mean IRL earth thing?

Oh and I didn't really know what kind of music they actually played, but I figured "rock band" was generic enough term to apply to just about any type of band that played those instruments, you know, kinda like "rockstar"... Maybe it's just me.

TheArchvile wrote:

What do you mean IRL earth thing?

It's generally discouraged to connect Felarya to our real world Earth (unless you can do it really well, like French Snack's "Lost In Felarya"), although Erin in this story is clearly from our Earth and no one's said anything yet, so I guess it isn't as strict a rule as I thought.

TheArchvile wrote:

Oh and I didn't really know what kind of music they actually played, but I figured "rock band" was generic enough term to apply to just about any type of band that played those instruments, you know, kinda like "rockstar"... Maybe it's just me.

It's cool, "rock band" is close enough. Like I said, it's pretty vaugely defined in the story itself what kind of music they actually play.

its not discouraged to use characters that comes from earth. you can do whatever you want.

Krisexy26 wrote:

its not discouraged to use characters that comes from earth. you can do whatever you want.

Are you sure? When I initially posted Anastasia's profile, she was supposed to have been brought to Earth and raised there by Russian scientists (hence her being named after a Russian princess). However, someone almost immediately popped in and said, "You really ought to change that, it's generally discouraged to connect Felarya to our Earth". And I'm quite sure there are a few other things we absolutely CANNOT do, ie zombies, world-ending cataclysm, uber-powered death machine characters that annihilate all in their path, human conquest of Felarya, et cetera... Not trying to argue or anything, just saying what others have told me.

As ever, an interesting story and a pleasure to read.

As for characters from Earth... Some people don't like it, for various reasons, but there's definitely no prohibition on it. It's true that it's preferable to avoid there being too many (across the various writers), simply for the sake of plausibility, but if a story is good, a character being Earth-born doesn't detract from it, in my view.

Ah, okay.

(in before "Where's the latest update?")

OH GOD I'M SO SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN SO LONG. The next chapter is coming soon, I promise! It's a long story, so whenever I'm late updating I'll just say Some Shit Went Down and you'll know something very important popped up to delay me.

On the bright side, I've got a job at my local book store now, which I've been trying to get all summer =D

Jesus christ. I'm not even going to bother apologizing. Here's chapter six. Enjoy. I'll just say I hope it was worth the wait.
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Chip after chip fell away from the wood as the blade slid under them, separating them from their former mass. Chip by chip, the figure within that small wooden block was slowly, but surely, liberated. Erin wasn’t sure what this figure was yet; half the time, it seemed to take shape of its own accord. Normally, she would have done her carving in the hobby room, but earlier that day she had taken a small block of wood and her carving knife from there and brought it into the bedroom, as if she had anticipated this happening. She felt foolish. She felt weak. She wasn’t even sure herself what she meant when she told Nalea she felt wrong. So she stood at her bedside table, forcing herself to focus on the carving, and that alone.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. “Erin?”

She let out a long, deep sigh. “Come in,” she replied, trying her best not to sound solemn, despite the sigh giving her mood away a moment earlier.

She heard Nalea enter. “What’s wrong?” the inu asked.

Erin stopped a moment. She set the knife and wood down onto the pile of shavings. She said nothing.

“Erin, this isn’t at all like you. Please tell me, what’s going on?” Nalea sounded deeply concerned, almost frightened.

Having no idea how to say it, Erin simply began. “We’ve lived together a long time, you know? I think it’s been… What, nine years?”

“Nine years sounds about right. Why?”

Erin turned to face her friend. “I’ve really come to care about you. I mean, that’s normal if you live with someone for nine years, but…”

Nalea stared intently. “But…?”

Erin tried to laugh, to break the tension- Nalea only seemed to become more worried by that. The human hastily added, “I’m worried too. About… About us, and mainly you… No, that isn’t right, is it? It’s just that…” Silence. The two locked eyes.

“Here’s how I know something is really wrong,” Nalea finally said. “The social butterfly is at a loss for words. Erin, whatever it is you want to say, please just say it. You’re kind of scaring me.”

“I like you, Nalea. I really, really do. But, well…” This was harder than Erin imagined. It shouldn’t be this difficult, should it?

“Erin, what the hell…?”

May was well come out with it. Erin took a deep breath, and said, “Nalea, I love you.”

Nalea’s ears twitched a bit. She cocked her head a little. “I love you, too,” she replied gently, managing a thin smile. “You’re like the cool little sister I’ve always wanted.”

She wasn’t getting it.

“No no, Nalea, I mean… I-I love you.”

Nalea’s smile melted away completely, before she forced it back. “I don’t think I understand.”

Erin sighed again. Without thinking, she walked up to Nalea, threw her arms around the inu, and locked lips with her. The embrace was maintained for a few moments- long enough that Erin thought Nalea was accepting it. Maybe even going to return it.

But no; not now.

Nalea struggled out of Erin’s embrace and pushed her away. They locked gazes again, and Erin saw the maelstrom of emotion in Nalea’s pale eyes; confusion, fear, anger, grief. Nalea’s face was blank with shock. Her mouth kept moving as if she were about to say something, but nothing came out. Then, she turned around and left. Erin heard her walking, hastily and clumsily, down the hall, and then she heard the front door open and slam shut.

***

The time was right. Anastasia never thought this day, this reclamation, would come. And yet, it had. She had to stop a moment and beam to herself. Then, however, she set her mind to business. This would be a notable day for two reasons- for one, the aforementioned reclamation. Second, it would be the first time she used a charm she had been developing for a very long time. She still doubted at the back of her mind whether or not it was ready. Even after all those years of testing and adjusting, she wondered if she had truly perfected it, if it was stable enough to serve her needs.

No, no doubts. No distractions. It was ready. It had to be. She needed this to work.

Anastasia had brought two humans with her, both men. One, she ate and enlarged in her stomach; no distractions. The second human, she placed on the ground, very carefully so that he would stand on his own two feet. She was at her full size- roughly 110 feet in height- and the human, six feet in height. She knelt in the moonlight, and removed a small vial of black liquid from her satchel. Popping the withered cork out of the top, she dipped her finger into the liquid and gently rubbed it onto the human’s face. She then removed another vial, this one filled with plain water. Within it was another comatose victim; a human-sized mermaid. Anastasia uncorked the vial and poured its contents into the calm waters of the Motoro River. The mermaid floated belly-up to the surface, mumbling something in her stupor, allowing Anastasia to rub more on the liquid onto her and enlarge her as large as she could- roughly thirty feet in length. Finally, Anastasia rubbed one last bit of liquid onto her own forehead, then sealed the vial again and stowed it back in the satchel. Laying herself down at the trunk of a mammoth tree, she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.

The human’s eyes opened. He seemed fully in control of himself as he stood on stiff legs and approached the river’s edge. The mermaid also seemed to regain consciousness, rolling herself around and directing herself towards the opposite bank of the river. The human climbed onto her back, taking hold of clumps of her hair as though they were the reins of a horse. She swam over to the other side of the river, where he dismounted. He stopped long enough to allow her to slap her tail into the water, drenching him- and washing Anastasia’s scent off of him. He then took off running through the sleeping dridder slums, where the spider-folk slept in their homes of webbing and wood, and then into the last small stretch of jungle outside of Negav. He ran and ran, dead set on the titanic walls of stone and metal, reinforced to stand nearly any attack, with towers and cannons and turrets rising from its top and from behind it.

The gates into Negav, despite the immaculate walls around them, were quite small, only wide enough to about two or three people walking side-by-side in at once. On each side of the gates were guards, both fully armed and armored. “Stop right there,” one of them demanded. Both of them stepped towards the man, who stopped, panting and sweating, as he was told. “The hell are you soaking wet for?”

“Jus… Jus’ swam ‘cross the river,” the man panted, barely able to stand. “I was runnin’ ‘round this damn forest all damn day, bloody giant monsters following me- got the rest o’ the men I stumbled into this hellhole with! - then I found this city jus’ now and swam ‘cross the river.”

The two guards exchanged a glance. One of them looked back at the newcomer and said, “We’ll have to bring you in, just to ask you a few questions.”

An interruption. A necessary one, however.

***

“…And then she kissed me. She-!” Nalea interrupted herself to take another long swig out of the dented iron goblet gripped white-knuckled in her hand. She was distraught, distressed, discombobulated- nearly any sort of “dis-“, really. She could already smell the ale on her own breath. “She fuckin’ kissed me!” Another swig. “And of course, she wouldn’t tell me this before she starts to have a mental breakdown or something because of it! She always does this shit; if something’s wrong or if something’s bothering her, she never tells me about it! I always have to find out for my bloody self!”

“Alright, calm down,” Trent replied, sitting next to her and listening to her intently. Nalea did as he said as best she could; this was his home, and it was rude of her to raise her voice and lose control of her emotions as she had there. Of course, it would have been most polite of her not to bring her problems to his doorstep in the first place. However, she needed someone to talk to, and Trent was always willing to listen. Issa and Aiden were playing cards in the kitchen; if Nalea had to judge, she’d guess Issa was winning, judging from the torrent of obscenities Aiden unleashed every now and then. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal, honestly. You really hadn’t noticed before now? You’ve lived with Erin for nearly ten years, and you never once suspected she was a lesbian?”

“I… Had suspected it a few times,” Nalea confessed. “Never having any boyfriends looking as good as she does is suspicious, I guess. I’d thought about it every now and then. I didn’t bloody think she actually was, though! I sure the hell didn’t think she fancied me!” She stopped herself to take another swing, and reminded herself to lower her voice again. “And there had to be a better way for her to come out than to start making out with me.”

“Am I seriously hearing prejudice like this from Nalea?”

“Yes, Trent, yes you bleeding are. Could I get some more ale? I’m nearly out here.”

“You’ve had enough, I’d say.”

Just then, Issa poked her head around the corner, equal parts uncertainty and concern on her face. “Do you mind if I step in for a second?” she asked. “I’ve… seen this kind of thing happen before.”

Without waiting for any sign of consent from Nalea, Trent replied, a bit frustrated, “Go right ahead.”

The little hazel inu stepped into the living room. “Nalea, stop and think about this from Erin’s perspective,” she said gently. “That was a very difficult thing she did tonight- it took a lot of courage to do it at all, and she did it the best she did. If she came out to you, she must have trusted that, even if you didn’t reciprocate it, you’d at least accept it.”

Nalea said nothing. Her eyes were lowered.

“Okay, well… Think of it like this: she’s always been like this. She can’t help it; it’s just always been a part of her. She’s still Erin, you just found out something new about her.”

Nalea remained silent. She mulled the words over in her head, processed them, and contemplated them, for a long while. Finally, she sighed and said, her heavy heart weighing down her words with it, “You’re right. Dammit, how could I- You’re right! Oh, creators, what must she think of me? I have to go talk to her.” With that, she stood, and turned to leave.

“Woah, wait up, you really ought to stay and sober up,” Trent protested. “Maybe wait until-“

Nalea was already gone.

***

The man was asked his name, world of origin, who he was, who was with him, if any predators followed him to Negav’s border, and how or why he came to Felarya. He answered, “Davis Arriv, Aezir, cartographer, the thugs I hired to keep interlopers off of my site, they left me alone long before I got here, and it was all complete accident.” The guard questioning him was a bit incredulous, but his story seemed to check out. He was allowed into the city.

Negav was a labyrinth. The Lower Tier alone was a pain to navigate. Anastasia knew her quarry well enough to know that she wouldn’t be there, though. She moved her pawn up into the Middle Tier, keeping him moving quickly and warily; she had learned from her catches that once the sun went down, Negav was only marginally safer than the jungle outside its walls. She could see through his eyes, hear through his ears, smell through his nose. She was him, only more so. Her eyes were sharper, hearing more sensitive, nose better tuned than this man’s unhoned senses. Under her control, his reflexes were quicker. Her control did not make him superhuman, but it did give him the peak possible human ability.

She thought back to the time the girl was under her care; what were her interests? What did she like? Immediately, Anastasia remembered her love of literature. Look for libraries and book stores, then. The pawn began his search, making his way down road after road, through row after row and ring after ring of buildings but avoiding the alleys. He stopped for none of the few people he encountered.

Wait, this building here. Stop.

It was a pleasant but not out-standing building, no bigger than the houses around it but better furbished, with a brick walkway leading through a garden of carved wooden figures and shapes. On a hand-carved wooden sign next to the doorstep was written, “Johannsen’s Books and Carvings.”

Johannsen. Erin Johannsen. That was her.

There were lights on in the windows. Anastasia’s pawn moved to the front door and knocked on it. It took a moment, but she heard footsteps approaching. A girl sniffled inside, before inhaling sharply and opening the door.

And there she was.

Anastasia had to stop for a moment to admire her prize. That tall, slender figure, a picture of grace and poise. That long, wavy cascade of gold. That gentle, perfectly proportionate face, like a statue carved by a nameless god of craftsmanship and beauty. Those deep brown eyes that shimmered in the moonlight. That song bird voice with its exotic accent, sending a shiver up her fae spine as the girl said, “I’m sorry, we’re closed.” Her face was reddened, and tears still welled in her eyes. She was struggling to keep her emotions in check. She had been crying.

You will rejoice soon, love.

This was the part Anastasia was worried wouldn’t work. But she had come this far; no setback could stop her now. Her pawn ran his fingers down his forehead- she was hoping this would this would pick up the residual arcane energy, since the liquid had long since washed off. The liquid was only a means of transferring the magic onto a target; the energy soaked into the victim, and they would fall under her control until she released them herself. However, having one pawn transfer the magic from itself to another was a process that only seemed to work half the time. She hoped to whatever gods would listen that it worked now.

The man lurched forward and pressed his fingers to the girl’s forehead. She stumbled back, letting out a yelp, and she began to say, “What the hell are you-?!”

Suddenly, she stopped. She became very still.

It worked.

***

By the time Nalea had stumbled back home, she found the front door open, all the lights on inside, with no trace of Erin. She entered, too inebriated to immediately be alarmed, calling out her friend’s name and throwing in an apology every now and then, as she searched the entirety of the house.

Erin was nowhere to be found. Even Nalea’s drunken mind registered this as being very wrong. She stopped in the bedroom, throwing open her bedside table and grabbing her pistol and a clip of ammunition. Loading and cocking the weapon, she went back outside, slamming the door behind her, and sniffed the air.

She caught the scents. Someone else was with Erin.

Someone’s taken her.

Stuffing the gun into her back pocket, the inu wasted no time beginning her pursuit. She raced through the streets, running as fast as her legs would carry her, following the trail like a guided missile. Every now and then, someone would ask her what the hurry was, or someone would be too slow to get out of her way. They were ignored, or shoved out of the way. No time to stop. Faster. Hurry. She was down in the Lower Tier in minutes, then at the gates not long afterwards. The gates were open. The guards protecting it had been knocked unconscious. Nalea didn’t stop to see how they were. She raced out into the trees, following the scents. She could pick up only Erin’s, but it was strong; she wasn’t far behind. I’m still behind, though. Faster, dammit, hurry.

Before long, she was in one of the predator villages, where the snake-men or whatever lived in these hovels now slept. Their stink now filled her nose, but she could still pick out Erin among it. Oddly enough, she hadn’t smelled her captor since the gates. She made nothing of it; Erin’s smell led to the river. She could hear the water gently flowing, and soon could see it as well. Erin, what the hell are you doing?

The dark obscured her vision beyond the far side of the river, but the inu could still make out shadows moving in the dark trees on the other side. Creators, Erin, please don’t be over there. The Isolon Eye’s protective aura, so far as Nalea knew, ended just on the other side of the river. Other scents began to fill the air as she approached the river bank. The figures in the shadows on the other side began to take shape. One of them was massive, standing up so high that its head was almost in the mountainous trees. A giant. A pred. There was another figure at its feet, this one about the size of a person.

No.
Nalea could see well enough to make out who the smaller figure was. It was Erin.

No, creators, no no NO!

Nalea did the first thing she could think of: she pulled her gun from her pocket, and fired at the giant. She heard grunts of pain from it and saw it stumble back a little as she unloaded the entire clip into it.

“ERIN!” the inu screamed as loud as she could as she began to reload, “ERIN, HURRY! COME BACK!”

Erin didn’t move. Her figure began to fall out of view, rapidly decreasing in size, as did the giant.

“You fucking freak, GET AWAY FROM HER!” Nalea roared, opening fire again on the pred, screaming a madwoman’s grief and fury as she pulled the trigger until the bullets ceased coming and all she heard was clicking. It only took a few moments, but it felt like an eternity; as she fired on the shrinking monster, the thing took flight on moth-like wings, fluttering back and forth to evade the incoming fire. However, once it was approximately human-sized, it let out a scream of agony as one shot- just one, or it wouldn’t have kept moving, Nalea was sure- hit what seemed to be its left shoulder. Soon, however, it and Erin became so small that they disappeared into the shadow.

“NO!” It was all Nalea could think, and all she could say. She tossed the gun away and dove into the river, swimming across to the other side and dragging herself, panting and growling and weeping, out of the other side. But she was too late; they were both gone.

No. No, no, this can’t be happening, this isn’t possible.

It had happened. It took Nalea several moments, standing there cold and alone, shaking from not only said cold but also in rage and from her uncontrollable sobs, to comprehend it. Once she had, she fell to her knees, and became silent. She stared into the dark for what must have been eternity. For a moment, she felt as though she wanted the dark to pounce upon her and consume her as well.

Then, her gaze wandered down, and fell upon a dark stain in the grass, shimmering red in the moonlight. She dipped her finger into it and smelled it.

She knew that scent. She smelled it on some of Erin’s clothes when she first met her. She remembered when Erin told of her of her first year in Felarya, as the prisoner of a fairy called Anastasia.

Anastasia.

No collector would eat the pride of their collection. Erin wasn’t dead.

But there was no force, no god or guardian, in this world or any other, that would save Anastasia.

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Don't worry, this isn't going in the ham-fisted and cliched direction you probably think it is. I've got some twists in mind.

And so the threads of the story come together.

A very enjoyable, interesting continuation. Emotional in an effective, realistic way.

Just spent a while catching up with your story and I love it! Such elegant descriptions of places and happenings. So am very eager to find out what happens next

Great chapter! More than worth the wait!
And there's no need to apologize, I'm sure everyone knows how summer is, I'm terribly behind on mine as well, friends, family, job, vacations etc etc... and RL > Everything else!
Glad you're writing again though, I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next!

It's really great to see the different pieces of the puzzles slowly clicking together. You definitely thought that one a lot
And go Nalea !

Well, things certainly are coming together... This was interesting. I am intrigued by where you plan to take this.

However, there is something I picked up as not being quite right.

Quote :

They locked gazes again, and Erin saw the zeitgeist of emotion in Nalea’s pale eyes;

I don't see zeitgeist used much, but I'm pretty sure what you've got there is not really a correct usage.
Zeitgeist, directly translated is "time-spirit." What it actually means is 'spirit of the age.' That is; The overall spirit or mood of a particular period of time (usually for a given population or area.)

Anime-Junkie wrote:

I don't see zeitgeist used much, but I'm pretty sure what you've got there is not really a correct usage.
Zeitgeist, directly translated is "time-spirit." What it actually means is 'spirit of the age.' That is; The overall spirit or mood of a particular period of time (usually for a given population or area.)

Okay, I didn't realize that. I'd seen it used in contexts where it seemed to mean sort of like a big immaculate mixture of things. I'll go fix that now.

Anyway, thanks so much for the comments everyone! I promise the next chapter will not take several months to show up.

Here's chapter six. This is a rather short and uneventful one, giving a break from the action while continuing another plot thread. Enjoy!

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Malka was inconsolable.

Of course, it had scarcely been a day since the news, but whatever condolences or comforts the rest of Nekomura offered, she would not have. Alvis wouldn’t soon forget it; once she had heard Hallo had been taken, she only stared a moment, as if she didn’t understand. She only stood there, like she was petrified, giving no response to anything said to her. Then, she turned around, and went home. Alvis followed her, and called out to her, but she was numb even to him.

Now, he sat outside of her locked bedroom door in a lightless hallway, listening to her cry.

It had been like this all the previous afternoon and last night. Many Nekomurans knocked on their door to offer consoling, but only Alvis answered them. Every now and again, she would stop for an hour or so. When that happened, he tried to speak to her, to at least offer her something to drink or eat. She wouldn’t answer, or would answer in a voice so quiet and choked that it was little more than a mumble. It seemed a little ironic, he thought, but whenever she finally did answer with said mumbling, he left her alone; she still wasn’t ready to talk.

Finally, her cries began to taper off again. They died to a snivel, before she inhaled deeply and sounded to regain her composure. Still, Alvis was careful to give her a few moments before speaking. “Malka?” he called out gently.

It took a few moments for a reply to come. “Are you still out there?” Her voice was still hushed and choked, but it was understandable again.

“How could I leave you?”

She gave something resembling a giggle- even that felt good to hear. It took a moment longer for her to manage a “Thank you.”

Alvis smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. “Not a problem,” he replied tenderly. He allowed her a moment. “Can I get you anything?”

“No. No, thank you…” Her voice tapered off. She murmured something in a voice too quiet even for his acute ears.

Alvis hesitated- should he press a conversation? Was she well enough for that? He decided for it. “I’m sorry?” he asked gently. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said of course this would happen,” she answered, bitterness tainting her every syllable. “He always wanted to be an adventurer. And in this place… Of course this would happen.”

Alvis forced his smile to stay in place, as if that would comfort her somehow when his words did nothing. “Malka, you can’t think that. You know it isn’t true.”

“It is. Of all the places we could have gone… We had to come here, didn’t we? We had to come to this Bastet-forsaken death hole. We had to be sent here.” Malka’s words were as venomous as a serpent’s bite. She was past crying now.

“It’s like… like we’d guessed before, Malka, that seer couldn’t have known where he’d be sending you. He had a gun to his head in the midst of a warzone.”

“Even so? Even left up to chance? We still came here. Why does Bastet forsake our family? Why birth us into a war which only Hallo and I escape, and then leave me alone in this hell?”

“Malka…”

“Please, Alvis, don’t waste your breath telling me that this is nature’s course. There is nothing natural about those Sethspawn, damn them all back to the pits that spat them out. You should know; you’ve spent enough time watching them. You should know there is nothing good or natural about this entire world; damn it all, it should all burn! What do I care if I am still here when the fire rains? I’ve lost all I had anyway!”

She raged like this for a long time. Alvis did not stop her; while he had never heard wrath or hatred like this before, he knew well that it would be futile to try and stop her. Some of the things she said, he knew she didn’t mean. Other things she said, however, doubtlessly reflected her true feelings. Finally, the fires began to burn out; her raging degraded back into sobbing, and finally back into silence. At long last, she called out to him, “Alvis?” Her voice was smaller and meeker than he had ever imagined hearing from her.

“Yes?” Alvis was only faintly aware of how small his own voice had become in his own grief.

“Please come in.”

“You locked me out, remember?”

“…That’s right. One moment.”

***

Malka’s was the only neko bedroom Alvis had ever seen, but it was enough to incite his curiosity once, in a happier time. A happier time- it only ended a day ago. And yet, it already felt like a month ago. Still, the bedroom was curious, because it was just that: a small and windowless room with a large bed- of sorts- in the center of it. “Bed” was not an accurate term, Alvis decided after a bit of internal controversy. It was a circular nest, rather, made of a soft yellowish moss Malka and Hallo cultivated in their cellar- Hallo had once referred to it as “Bastet’s Arms”, which led Alvis to assume that the cultivation and use of this moss as bedding was native to only their world and not something done among nekos in general. Hall had also described its properties; no fungus or parasites could grow or live in Bastet’s Arms, yet it was perfectly harmless to curl up and sleep in. It kept in heat very well, and so was often used as a cheap but reliable insulation for buildings. Evidently, it could also make a very flavorful stew, which explained what was done with it once it became too ragged to sleep in. It was arranged in a wide circle with a high wall around the perimeter. A neko could easily leap over the wall into the center without trouble; Alvis, however, was not a neko. Malka was careful to keep the wall of her nest low, so he could clamber over it to join her in bed.

Now, he laid there with her, arms around her in a gentle embrace. She had buried her face in his chest- perhaps to hide any more tears that fell, although if she did cry any more, she did it too softly for him to notice. She had tried not to let him see her eyes, raw and bloodshot, but she could do little to keep him from glimpsing her face, still twisted with sorrow and damp with tears. There was no place for words here yet. He knew that she would need them sooner or later, but for now, she wanted the embrace more.

He laid there with her for several hours- he assumed they had both fallen asleep, because by the time had finally left the room to fetch them both something to eat, the sun had set. While he was there with her, he had time to do little else but think. He recalled what Izrel had said about the predator’s attack on their group; he hadn’t specified exactly what species of predator attacked them, and his reference to the creature as “it” obscured whether it was a hybrid with an easily discernible gender.

“We were going along, keeping our heads down, keeping to cover, fast and quiet,” Izrel had said, “When suddenly it was on us, coming down at us again and again!”

Coming down again and again- that suggested it could fly, so a fairy was a likely suspect. It would have to be a particularly fearsome one, however, to be able to single-handedly end an experienced expedition like that. It was possible that there was more than one, but in their panic the group was only aware of one.

“It got three of us,” Izrel added quietly, haggard and solemn.

“I thought it had taken Hallo, as well,” Alvis interjected. Malka had long since run home by now, but Alvis just wanted to hear the account, as if he needed confirmation that this had actually happened.

“It did, but… How do I say this? It didn’t eat him, like it did the others; it just grabbed him and left.”

Perhaps it had eaten its fill, then, and meant to save him for later- a ghoulish thought, but not implausible.

Just then, the possibility struck Alvis. This was implausible, but not impossible.

Perhaps- just perhaps- Hallo was still alive.

“Alvis,” Malka finally said to him there in the bedroom. “Does… Does the offer for something to eat still stand?”

“Of course,” he answered. Both of their voices were very hushed. “I’m afraid tomthumbs will not be on the menu, however.”

Malka half-giggled again. “I wouldn’t expect so.”

“Would you like me to get you something?”

“Yes, just… Something small, please. Other than a tomthumb, of course.”

Alvis smiled, and laid a kiss atop her head. “Of course.” He added after a moment, “Do you mind if I get some air as well? I won’t be gone long either way.”

“No, please, go ahead.” She unwrapped her arms from around him and rolled away, giving him space to stand.

As he stood, he said gently, “I’ll be back soon.”

Very nice chapter! You conveyed both of their emotions extremely well here.
Heh, I figured Hallo was the neko in the terrarium near the beginning.
It's a little disturbing that Malka seemed to be ready to eat a tomthumb right after losing a loved one in (what she thinks is) exactly that way, still completely unable to empathize with them. But hey, that's Felarya for you...

I spotted a little typo!
Finally, he cries began to taper off again.

TheArchvile wrote:

Very nice chapter! You conveyed both of their emotions extremely well here.
Heh, I figured Hallo was the neko in the terrarium near the beginning.
It's a little disturbing that Malka seemed to be ready to eat a tomthumb right after losing a loved one in (what she thinks is) exactly that way, still completely unable to empathize with them. But hey, that's Felarya for you...

I spotted a little typo!
Finally, he cries began to taper off again.

Thanks! I'll get on fixing that in a second here.

As for the tomthumb hypocrisy, it's absolutely a bit disturbing, and that's actually intentional. These stages of predator empathy, as I think of them, are one of the most (morbidly) fascinating things about Felarya to me. Giant preds can empathize with each other, but not with the much smaller but no less sapient beings they eat. Human-sized preds empathize with each other but not with giants or their prey, be they tiny or similiar sized. And then you have human-sized nekos, who will empathize with similar sized non-preds, but not with the tinies they love to eat. And then finally you have the non-pred human-sized races and tinies, who have their own levels as well. The way these mould a character's mind and how they create ideologies that tend to clash when they meet, and how some characters can form relationships exempting them (within their own relationship, anyway) from this divide, is one my favorite narrative explorations in this setting, and something I intend to play with in this story and others.

So I was working on my novel when I hit a monster case of writer's block. Unable to work on that, I languished in creative sterility for a few days before I realized I had to write SOMETHING or I'd go insane. I was right about to start work on a gritty reboot of Digimon when I remembered I already had this on my plate.

Yeah. You know the drill.

Here's chapter seven. Enjoy!
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Negav was frenzied. The Isolon Fist was now scouring the city, questioning civilians and guards and checking on the defenses. They’d been at it since late last night, just a short while after the incident. There were not as many witnesses as one might have thought, and so few people really knew what had happened. Nalea did, however. When two agents came to her home to question her, she told them everything.

“So,” one of her inquirers, a tall and dark-skinned elvish man, said, “To summarize, a fairy somehow creates a spell to turn people into her puppets, which isn't like any kind of magic I’ve ever heard of and I know my magic, uses them to infiltrate the city and take your friend, and is now keeping like her a pet or something in the Forest of Whispers.” He sounded incredulous, but this had to have been their best lead.

Nalea nodded. “What can you do about it?”

“Well,” the other agent, a thickly-muscled and bald-headed neko answered, “We can dig up some dirt on what kind of magic the pred might have been using to get in here and look into some ways to detect it to keep this from happening again.”

Not enough. “What about Erin?”

The elf frowned. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but Negav’s security is our priority. If you want your friend back, you’re going to have to take that into your own hands.”

That was all they would say about it. They thanked her for her time and went on their way. Nalea sat in silence for a short while after they left- contemplating how best to take this into her own hands.

***

The Lower Tier was especially maddened. City guard and the Fist were everywhere, looking over all the walls and turrets, examining the gates, questioning civilians, while said civilians went to and fro, asking both the guard and Fist and their friends what was going on. Apparently, the Fist wasn’t releasing to the populace what had happened- again, because they likely weren’t convinced of it themselves. Nalea overheard what had happened to the gates and the guards around it- “…I swear, he just… Blew up! Just like that, into this big cloud of red smoke!” a man frantically told a guard. “Took out the gate and the guards but didn’t hurt the girl. He was just gone after that, too! No trace of ‘im left!”

Soon, Nalea reached her destination: Trent’s home. She knocked hard and methodically on the door, and waited only a few moments before knocking again. Before too long, the door opened and there was Trent, looking tired. “Nalea,” he said, a bit hoarsely.

“You mind if I come in?” the inu asked.

Trent looked at her a bit strangely for a second, but then said, “Sure, of course,” and stepped aside to allow her in. He led her to the living room, asking if she wanted anything to drink. She declined the offer as they both took their seats. They were both silent for a long moment. The air felt very heavy.

“How’re you holding up?” Trent asked.

“How do you think?” The redness in and around Nalea’s eyes clarified her words. Another silence. “You?”

“About the same.”

The damned silence again. Then, Trent sighed. “I’m sorry about Erin,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be,” Nalea answered, despondently.

“Nalea, you do understand that if someone goes missing in Negav, they…”

“I know exactly what took her and where it took her,” she cut him off, “And it’s not going to hurt her.”

Trent was quiet for several moments, staring at her a bit dumbstruck. “Nalea, what are you talking about?”

“You’ve still got some ears in the fairy hunting business, right?” the inu asked.

Trent caught on immediately after that. “Nalea, no.”

“Yes, Trent. I spent all night reading about those sparkling little bastards, and I just went out and bought a shotgun. I hear the hunters worth their salt use an enchantment to silence their weapons. Is that right?”

Trent shook his head. “What the hell are you doing, Nalea? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I don’t think, I know what I’m doing. I’m trying to get Erin back. Will you help me or not?”

He leaned forward, and said, voice somehow both scolding and pleading, “If you go out there, Nalea, if you leave these walls, it won’t matter how many spells you put on your gun or how many hunters you bring with you, odds are you will not come back. Don’t do this. Please.”

Nalea leaned forward as well. She had been numb all this morning, but now anger was rising in her. “And what about Erin?”

“You said it’s not going to kill her, didn’t you?”

“No, but it’s going to keep her locked in a cage for the rest of her life. Like a fucking hamster, Trent, she deserves better than that.”

“But it could have killed her. Everything out there could have killed her. I’m not saying I wouldn’t love to have her back, but at least she’s still alive, Nalea. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

Nalea could no longer keep her voice down. “But the bastard thing’s keeping her as a pet, Trent, that’s no way for someone to live!”

Trent was also losing his patience. His voice was rising as well as he said, “Nalea, what part of what I’m telling you are you not understanding? If you go after Erin, whether or not she’s alive, chances are that you will die.” He paused. His voice was angry but his eyes were grieving. When he finally spoke again, his tone was far softer. “You’re not the only one who’ll miss Erin. But we couldn’t stand to lose you both.”

Nalea heard the pain in his voice, the same rage and sorrow she felt. She saw it coursing in his eyes and written on his face. And all she said to it was, “So you won’t help me.”

Trent was quiet again. Then he answered, “No. I’m not going to help you get yourself killed.”

***

Nalea was on her way back home. Her pace was slow, but the way was not especially far. Before long, she was nearly back to the Middle Tier. She was nearly back to hopelessness. She was nearly back to her darkened bedroom; to the emptiness; to crying until her eyes were dry and her throat burned and her entire body was wracking.

“Nalea?” said a little voice behind her. The inu stopped. She recognized the voice, and an instant later, the scent- even her senses were numbed in her current state- as Issa.

Nalea turned around and looked down at the smaller inu. “What?”

Issa looked worse than Nalea had ever seen her. There were bags under her red and swollen eyes. Her hair, normally so carefully groomed, was in disarray. She was normally so nicely dressed, and yet here she was, clad in a colorless sweater and baggy jeans. She looked older somehow. Even her voice was hoarse. She did not smile as she almost always did. “I overheard one of the guards talking about what you told them happened,” she said. “Is it… Is it true? That Erin is still alive?”

Nalea nodded. “She’s alive. I know it.”

“But you need someone to help you find the fairy that took her, right?”

“That’s been the hard part so far.”

Issa’s eyes stared deeply, intently, desperately into Nalea’s. “I know someone in Nekomura who can help; an elf.” She described him, gave his name. “He’s been studying fairies for a long time. He might not be the one to help, but he’s a good place to start.”

Nalea mulled this over in her mind a moment, taking the information to heart. Then, she nodded. “Thank you.”

Issa did not smile. Instead, she said, voice small even for her, “Please bring Erin back.”

This gave Nalea pause for a moment. Then, it gave her the strength she felt she was losing. “I’ll get her back,” she replied, fire in her words as there was in her heart. “I promise.”

A great chapter ! Lot of emotion and you managed really well the character's reactions at that situation, with Trent being pragmatic and trying to dissuade Nalea the best he can, and Issa doing the opposite. I can see also the pieces clicking together from a story to another.
Great job