Take Me Somewhere Better | IC

B

Bee

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Welcome to Lysteria. We are a country of two courts, dividing the ownership of the land. There's the Seelie court, which is the court of summer. Along with the Unseelie court, home to winter. Between these two courts, there has been a treaty of peace for around a century, but that ends now. An outbreak of a lethal disease has spread through Lysteria land, first being encountered by the dwarves in the mines of Ephah. This disease counters the immortality of the fey and speeds it up by a triple of the normal time. Taking this into consideration would mean a fey being of 1000, only aging after 100 years, would then begin to age every five days. Or at least that is what is understood.

This epidemic has caused a craze throughout the land, until the Unseelie court had found a way to change it to every ten days, and then twenty, and soon the drug was strong enough to counter the disease all together. By now the word had spread to the Seelie court, which brings us to the present.

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Deidre sighed as she cleaned up after an angry troll that had decided it was fun to throw around the royal court rooms furniture. He had been enraged because the king would not allow him to go after a few sprites for displaying unkindly manners. The king was not in the mood for frivolous entertainment and left after his reply, the troll had then taken the chance to trash the place. Deidre being a slave had to clean up after all the destruction had taken place. Her face cringed as she picked up the crown of the queen, placing it back on the toadstool that was nearly about to break. Another slave she had known for a while laughed at the room as he walked in. He wasn't all that pleasant, giving into the feys mannerisms and emotions. He could have been misinterpreted as a fey but his ears and clearly human eyes told differently.

Deidre turned to look at him and scoffed, "If it's so funny, why don't you clean it than?" Her voice had changed to disgust as she turned back to the broken chair, lugging the torn legs towards a window. She threw them outside and turned back to the archway the boy had been leaning against. He was gone, probably to tell on her indecent behaviour. She wasn't very happy with the ordeal she had been born into. Had her grandfather not owed to the King of the Seelie court, she would not have been born in the court. Her family lived in the court for two generations so far. Her parents had been murdered for an attempt at freedom, and she was was too cowardly to avenge their death or try and escape. What a life, eh?


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Blythe cackled as the tiny sprite crunched in her finger tips. She needed a snack and the thing had been pestering her nearly all day. She tried giving it signs to stop but the thing would not budge. It was then decided that it was in her best interest to stop it from bothering anyone else and fulfil her hunger at the same time. She smiled pleasantly as the wings moved past her lips and into her mouth. The taste was not satisfying but it was more in her stomach than previous to the killing. She slowly stepped back near to the shore. A kelpie was neighing underneath the waves and seemed excited, it had probably just caught some food as well. It seemed as if most aquatic fey were of malicious nature... but in actuality, all fey were.

The sand felt soft and familiar between her webbed toes. A soft groan escaped Blythe's lips as the water reached her feet... the feeling of the tide making her feel at ease. She was stressed and it was only because she had heard of a few deaths in the Ephah caves. Her dwarf friend had sent word that a few of their relatives had undergone a suspicious process of un-aging and she was trying to figure out the nonsense of his words. Un-aging? What did that even mean? She now sat down, pushing her slender fingers into the moist earth. It helped to relieve her but she was still worried, what would become of this odd occurrence, maybe it would go away?
 
The black dog opened it's eyes to the brightening of the sky as reds and yellows filled the sky and reflected off of the pond he slept by. Most nights he would rest by water in remembrance of his nix, but stay far enough away to be safe from any unfriendlies. His fur was surreal in the way it fanned out, how perfect and clean it was, not dulled by the normal wear a normal dog might have as it aged. But this dog, this dog was no normal dog. In fact, he wasn't a dog at all. He was a dog, a lion, a horse, a goat and a bull. Because, you see, this "dog" was a phooka, a shape-shifting creature of mischievous nature and often of malignant nature. It was rare one would grow to truly love someone or something, and yet this phooka had. Unfortunately, all he loved had died, and with it had his heart.

With the dawn of a new day should have come a sense of hope, but for this phooka it did not. He did not lust for the new tricks he might pull on someone today, he only felt the empty hole in his heart. In the only way a phooka truly knew how he would attempt to fill it up this day, just as he had all other days, and would likely continued to go on doing. He would trick people, lead them to their deaths, but stay far away enough to not be recognized. For, you see, this phooka had his name written on his back, and he couldn't let others recognize him to try and hunt him down again. Because he had been hunted down before from the Seelie court, and thus had moved on to the Unseelies, finding them much more... welcoming.

Once, a long time ago, this phooka had loved. First it was his parents, but he watched them die at the hands of a troll. He thought he would harden forever, that he would grow stronger and learn not to cry. But then he met the nix, his greatest friend. She had taken him in after drying to drown him, had cared for him, and then they grew closer. When she died at the hands of the Seelie people for her crimes against them, for her act of slaughtering the poor passerby's. Though this phooka knew of her flaws, of these crimes, he had loved her all the same. He had loved her for who she was, but the Seelie had not. They had slaughtered her as he watched, and then came after him for associating with her. Against everything he wanted to do, he ran, leaving behind her body, not looking back. The Seelie people were told to kill any beast that had his name upon it's back. And so he fled the land of summer to go to the land of winter.

As the phooka stood, he looked around him and mused on his past. With that act of leaving her body, leaving her land and leaving everything he had known and loved, he supposed he had also left himself. For now he was hollow, and desperate to fill this longing inside of him. It hurt, not even just a little bit, but by an unbelievable amount. He had moved on, that wasn't it, it was just he felt himself getting distant from this world. He wasn't sure he wanted that, but perhaps feeling nothing at all would be better than feeling pain.

What had he become? How had he redefined himself? Who was he now? Could he even trust what he thought anymore? Or where his thoughts betrayed by the corruption of feelings he had felt? Could the name he had even decribe himself anymore, or was that phooka long dead, along with his nix?

"No, no, I am still me. I am Nuvariin."
 
The sea was calm, gently stroking the barely-submerged rocks and weaving tendrils of clear foam up the beach to touch Sumatra's toes before running away again. It was a clear day- not a cloud in sight yet she knew different.
Rain was coming. It would pour down and encase the sea in its downpour of glittering tears, becoming one with the sea. How Sumatra wished this to be so for her.
Aye, she could swim in the sea and feel its soothing coolness but she wished that she could wear her skin again and dance with the other Selkie on th waves and-
No, Sumatra almost growled aloud at herself. She would not think of such things. It only caused a longing and deep agony in her gut that would refuse to subside and would claw for hours on end if she let it.
Instead she bathed in the cool air, not wanting to get up from the ground, wanting only to feel the sand against the skin of her back and thighs. She lay like this until she lost count of time her mind going blank. Eventually she dozed into a light slumber the world about her forgotten for now.

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King Milamber Dmitri Loklart Aestate of the Seelie Court was not a happy King; did he not have enough to worry about without that troll destroying his royal court rooms. The servant had come rushing with the news and Milamber had only the enery to snap at him, 'get someone to clean it then, you stupid oaf.'
"My oh my, what a day this'n been," he muttered. He pressed a cool hand against his forehead and leaned back against the bench.
Here, in the palace's gardens, he was now getting- oh! what a miracle- peace. Quiet. No one talking, no one nattering on and on about this problem and that. Just himself.
He thought about the good old days, the times when he was a boy and all his problems lay in fighting the wicked ghosts lurking in the corridors and sneaking past the guards at night to be dragged back through the gates by an enraged mother. Running barefoot with his friends in these gardens and-
"Ahem."
"What?" snapped Milamber, jumping up from the bench. A servant boy stood there and Milmaber had to fight hard to keep back the snarl at this diruption of his peace. "Speak boy!"
"There seems to be some trouble in the court rooms, Your Majesty," the boy smirked.
Milamber nearly let out a groan.
With a curt nod at the boy, he swept past him with regal silence and strode away, appearing affront and, well, kingly. Something ruined by a damn
"Chair leg?! I tripped on a chair leg?!"
Could this day get any worse? he thought as he hobbled into the court rooms.
 
Dahlia sat in a forest grove. It was the last grove that sat directly in between both courts. The weather here mingled and so did the lights, casting a rainbow like reflection on the trees and grass with the mixing of the silver and gold lights. This was her favorite spot to be, right on the outskirts of both great kingdoms, from here she could see the great halls and some of the cities and know to a certain degree what was going on. She herself had heard of this great outbreak and spent much time out in the forest glades where only the outsiders now walked looking for an answer to the problem.

She leaned back against a tree and stared into the small pool in front of her, slowly drifting off to sleep as she pondered where there could be a cure to this disease.