Hen Wlad (Solo)

[Jennifer Oakley]

Hen Wlad (http://www.youtube.com/user/brokenbellsSME#p/a/u/1/uX6OFFypM_8)

The old land of my fathers is dear to me,
Land of poets and singers, famous men of renown;

Her brave warriors, very splendid patriots,
For freedom shed their blood.

Nation, Nation, I am faithful to my Nation.
While the sea is a wall to the pure, most loved land,
O may the old language endure.

Old mountainous Corone, paradise of the bard,
Every valley, every cliff, to me is beautiful.
Through patriotic feeling, so charming is the murmur
Of her brooks, rivers, to me.

If the enemy oppresses my land under his foot,
The old language of the Nina is as alive as ever.
The muse is not hindered by the hideous hand of treason,
Nor is the melodious harp of my country.*


1938



*
Altered version of the Welsh National Anthem.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Time was a curious thing.

It had no power over nature, for at every season's turn rebirth took stock of servitude and served judgement against the gods.

Nature thrived, regardless of the days and the years.

Jennifer watched the birds flock overhead and ran her fingers along the moss tainted branches of the sycamore glades that ran in a great concentric circle around the temple ziggurat she called her home.

Since her encounter in the Dansdel and the riotous fallout in the Rootwalker's branches, where she had encountered the sickening scent of humans and 'Y'edda' herself, her world had turned on it's head.

"What am I to do?" She asked her animus, the faun warrior Faustus.

With keen and inquisitive eyes her guardian pushed himself away from the trunk of the tree he had leant against whilst he waited and shrugged. It was a definite, defeated sort of motion that told Jennifer all she needed to know without long words and excuses.

"I did not think you would help," she snapped.

"I cannot."

"No...I do not suppose you can and I understand - there is much to do and no answers in sight. The clans of the Nina are divided in this matter. I do not have the strength to unite them in common ground."

She returned to her daydream with her head in the clouds. Even this deep in the forest the Sycamore Glades of the Liviol Cross gave the priests of the forest opportunity to gaze at the stars. If one were to stand anywhere else in Concordia, one would see nothing but knotted canopy and shadows.

She took a deep breath and turned back to the faun. With a slow and focussed effort she exasperatingly begged. A fae did not beg, unless the tithes of life and Spring itself were weighed against the options.

"You make it out as if I alone shall defeat this conundrum. I ask you once more, I beg of you Faustus...what can we do to slay Brachia?" She leant on her staff and let the lethargy of the midday sun loosen her muscles and drain the energy from her.

With a wry smile, the faun unsheathed his blade and turned to the sycamore. They were thousands of years old, spaced equidistantly apart in a circle around a central tree at the heart of the open meadow. He pulled his arm back, looked over his shoulder at the priestess and smiled.

"We conjure her, and bind her to you."

With a flash of bright white light he drove his blade into the first way stone.

A thousand years ago, the Ancients and the Mothers had bound a powerful nymph in the central tree trunk and sealed the monstrosity away for an eternity.

Jennifer frowned, too scared to consider any other option. She steeled her heart against the darkness she felt encroach on the world, and turned to look at the giant sycamore that loomed overhead. With the second strike it wavered, as if it were a mirage.

"I trust you..." she admitted quietly.

[Jennifer Oakley]

The words of Y'edda had been nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It had taken Jennifer almost a month of meditation to arrive at that simple and revelatory conclusion. The seasons had turned over and a new cycle of life had begun before she realised what it was that she must do.

All across Concordia spirits resided, powerful creatures that were born long before the Thayne and long before the forest itself came to be known as Concordia. The Ancients, as they were called, were long lost to sanity and myth. All the anger in the world resided in their hearts, all the sorrow of a thousand summers misspent weighed on their minds.

Man had mined their homelands for far too long for the Nina to simply ask for forgiveness. As Faustus cut deeper into the bark of the sycamore, Jennifer began to feel an aura emanate from the central tree. The eight trees that surrounded it were inscribed with ancient runes that acted both as a warning and a binding circle.

In the branches of the Rootwalker, she had discovered a truth so powerful it had shed her anger and hatred towards the humans all at once. Her own animus had once been the serpent of Y'edda. Coincidences like that were only part of legend, only part of a fable. She had been shown a glimpse of a prophecy, a vision foul of something 'great' in her life.

Slowly, Jennifer had realised that she had been tricked.

"I can feel her!" She roared, suddenly sickened by a roiling mire of sorrow in the meadow.

The faun stopped hesitantly, his ears bristling and his nose twitching. He looked for a silent moment at the tomb of the Autumnal Regret and regretted taking the decision to confront her.

"She will be angered by my presence, it has been too long since I saw her last..."

Jennifer remained unappeased. Faustus was centuries old, perhaps millennia. She had half expected him to have been one of the Ancients himself. Perhaps he is...

"I will bind this witch to my soul myself - I defeated you, and the Soil Warlock Quickalli... What difference is there to this encounter?" As she spoke her words of folly and innocence she cast aside her masque and unveiled her thorny figure and horned mantle in all of it's temptemtuous terror.

The faun drove the blade into the tree one last time and was greeted with an explosion of light and a thunderous clap. The waystone failed, and darkness fell in the clearing as if the sun had been snuffed from existence.

"You have no idea..." Faustus mumbled, just as the central tree burst into life.

[Jennifer Oakley]

With a shimmering ring of light, the tree at the centre of the tomb cast a glow across Jennifer and Faustus and illuminated the remaining ward stones. Whatever magic contained the spirit in the tree also contained all the light within the clearing, and held it's challengers in an ethereal and otherworldly prison.

In reality, the sun continued to shine and tantalised the leaves of the woods with heat and life. In the prison, dusk and an azure glow filled the sky and fireflies danced in the shadows. Jennifer looked nervously over her shoulder and beckoned her guardian closer. She felt afraid, but not so much as to cause terror or doubt.

The Binding Ritual was a trial she would no doubt encounter many times in her life. She had to overcome it, she had to defeat it, she had to become stronger.

"How long until the ward fails?" She enquired, half whispering as if fearful of being overheard.

They crossed the clearing, unaware that their footsteps made no impression in the thick grass, not bent the flowers beneath their toes as they moved. A deep hum grew in intensity as they approached.

"With one stone, perhaps an hour - it is certain now however that it will fail. Brachia will rise from the roots of the tomb. We will face her wrath." The faun twitched his nose and held his sword steadily by his sword.

A crack of light appeared in the sycamore tree that held their prey. It stretched from the floor to the start of the diverging branches and shimmering as if light or life moved beyond the unearthly veil.

Jennifer remembered her tutelage as a child and frowned. When a ward stone broke, it tore the object that it protected or sealed apart. Whatever this spirit was she realised, was not entombed in the tree itself.

She took a deep breath and took stock of the scents in the air. Lavender, jasmine, lilly and ash. They were the instruments of binding, or possibly, if the priestess who wielded them broke her oath, instruments of death, torture and forbidden lore. She felt sick, and turned to Faustus nervously.

"Something is wrong...do you smell it?" She pointed at the crack as she realised that the two were connected.

The faun rested his hand on the priestess's shoulder to stay her advance and stepped bravely in front of her. With cautious advances he crept towards the tree. With great care he leant forwards and sniffed at the crack. The light cast his features in a golden glow.

"Death."

That single word sent a shiver down Jennifer's spine and her head span.

[Jennifer Oakley]

With powerful instincts, Jennifer brought her staff up and slammed it's tip into the ground with a powerful strike she did not know she was capable of. As in the Dansdel, a single white lilly of phantasmal light sprouted from the ground and then died. Her nerves and adrenaline powered the bonds she shared with the summons of the woods and sent the message out across Concordia with a riotous roar.

Urgency, she cried, her heart trembling.

Faustus stepped back from the tree with great care, his sword levelled towards the crack and his free arm cut across his chest as if sub-consciously wielding a shield.

With fire in her eyes, Jennifer glared hard at the crack. It did not make sense at all.

"I cannot understand what this means."

They stood side by side in silence for several minutes, each uncertain of what action to take or which path to tread. The hum in the ground and the air grew steadily louder until they both heard it clearly. It was no longer a figment of their imagination or an arcane radix.

"Is she alive?"

"I can no longer sense her. There is something darker in the tree's roots however, I am certain of it."

"Darker?"

"Deadlier."

Jennifer rolled her eyes, her nerves turning into bemusement and saving her the trouble of paranoia. She ran her finger along a thorn on her chest and seductively lulled her senses into a false sense of security. She tricked her mind into thinking that the crack was a part of the unbinding, and wallowed in the comfort it brought long enough to regain her senses.

"I understand."

A white light flowed from nothing and seemed to seal the crack.

Silence.

The tree was whole once more, but it continued to move as if touched and battered by an invisible wind. It grew in intensity over several minutes, and Faustus tensed and lowered his stance and looked up at the leaves as they shuffled and rustled.

"I see it now." Jennifer said calmly.

"What - pray tell, what assails us?"

Jennifer jumped back as the uppermost branches of the tree man Brachia slammed downwards and broke the earth's back.

[Jennifer Oakley]

The deafening impact drowned out the world. Jennifer landed on her feet and calmly set her staff down and leant on it. She stared intently up at the tree and smiled with a wry satisfaction. She had seen it in the nick of time. Her intuition it seemed was ablaze.

The tree man's voice boomed through the tomb glade and seemed to deafen the faun with a supernatural power.

"WHO AWAKENS ME?"

She waited.

The entire bulk of the tree morphed and twisted and broke apart. It's lower trunk turned into two shifting legs and it's upper trunk turned into the vestige of an ancient and wise and spiteful creature. Arms whipped down from the branches and a second vine lash cracked down before the faun, as if to assert it's authority and strength over the congregation.

It's unsettling eyes levelled at the priestess.

"A WHORE OF THE FOREST?"

She rolled her eyes, and Faustus roared his pitiful defiance.

Brachia swung an arm down towards the petulant spirit and did so with such speed defiling it's cumbersome bulk he had no chance to dodge. Jennifer flinched and felt the feedback from their bond as the faun flew through the ear like a rag doll.

"THE THAYNE PITY ME SO TO SEND YOU TO END ME?" Brachia's words crackled with a deep and hidden sorrow and carried so much weight Jennifer troubled herself to stay awake beneath the drone.

Jennifer flinched a second time as her animus struck the ward stone barrier. The crackle of lightning shimmered out across the forcefield that contained them and Faustus slumped to the grass defeated.

Alone, Jennifer stepped forwards with her staff held high and her heart racing.

"I am the Heart of Y'edda, and you shall not harm me!"

[Jennifer Oakley]

The tree man leant back and roared. It's wizened face told Jennifer he considered time in millennia, not days, and she knew she was dealing with a verdant force of nature. A relic, an ancient, a mortal god. Her bluff, by all means, was a powerful one. She bantered with myths and legends and tallied her lies with the ancient fears of the fae of the Concordia.

If he was wise, he lacked clarity, and if he was enraged, he lacked reason. She had all the weapons she needed to reason with the unreasonable.

"THE HEART?" Brachia questioned. He tilted his lumbering height forward and peered at the minuscule girl with curiosity.

"WHAT POWER DO YOU HOLD OVER ME? YOU ARE NOTHING!" He chuckled, each laugh rocked the ribs in her chest, threatening to shatter her without a thought.

"You shall not question me, for you are a criminal to nature - bound and entombed for eternity. Bow before me, or succumb to the cycling of the seasons!" She extended the tip of her staff to it's fullest extension, so that the crystal tip was as close to the tree man as it could be.

Brachia cracked his withered lips as if to mock her once more, but something turned in his mind to stay his lichen covered tongue. As he took his true form and the masque that had kept him trapped in a true tree's form failed, a beard took shape and an intricate inlay of glowing symbols appeared between the cracks in his bark.

"I BOW BEFORE NO ONE CHILD." His voice seemed more placated, but still untrustworthy and hateful.

She rolled her eyes and chattered her teeth. On the ground behind her a white lotus blossomed from beneath the peat and the moss of the tomb. It unfurled it's delicate leaves slowly and purposefully, as if its growth was the catalyst of time itself.

Jennifer felt the rush of energy wash over her and she smiled wearily at the tree man.

"I am entrusted with the Heart of the Forest, and I command it's citizens with sovereignity uncontested." Her voice was calm and decisive.

Brachia's eyebrows, if they could be called such moved and he drove his fist into the ground. His figners whittled through the arid ground and vines in their tenfold burst up around the priestess. They lashed and whippedand cut the air, but made no cut on her skin or mark on her dress.

He is afraid... She thought, with a deep satisfaction growing in her heart as the vines withdrew and he stood upright once more. He creaked and cracked.

"PROVE YOUR CLAIM!"

She bowed politely, acknowledging his right to such claim in the regal dance that was fae lore. She stepped to one side and turned to watch as her companion appeared.

Quickalli sprang from the ground in a wreath of vines. The moss of the tomb clearing rose slowly but surely, and two faces smiled kindly and manically up at their old friend. The white mask nodded at Jennifer with a cackle, and the lumbering beast slung it's head low with a grumble.

Jennifer bowed a courtesy at the ancient spirit and turned back to face Brachia. The Court convened it's session.

[Jennifer Oakley]

The silence cracked the dome of energy swirling over the meadow and woke Faustus from his slumber. Slowly and painfully he pushed himself upright, scooped up his blade and wandered back to his mistress's side. A crack of light ran across his chest and a lattice of wounds smothered his left arm where the magic of the ancients had collided with the magic of the fae.

"Stay calm, my good friend, there will be no need for your blade here." Jennifer said calmly to her animus. As commanded, he sheathed it, and fell to his knees panting heavily and ears twitching.

"I AM SORRY." Brachia stared with remorse in his eyes at the broken beast.

The conversation had gone on for fifteen minutes before the faun had awoken, and the exchange of rhetoric and dreary lies and promises had tired Jennifer out completely. She too sat, cross legged and fingers running along the moss as her summons stood on either side and the tree man deliberated on their request.

"YOU WOULD HAVE ME BURDEN MY SOUL ON YOURS? FALL TO SERVITUDE ONCE MORE?"

She nodded.

"WHAT GOOD WOULD I BRING TO THE WORLD, I AM NOUGHT BUT DESTRUCTION!"

"Destruction beset by anger at your confinement, no doubt. You have born anew in the depths of this glade, the seasons have changed and you are not the wicked trickster you once were. Y'edda has bidden you free and you can repay your wrong doings by committing to the Binding."

"NO." His voice echoed in Jennifer's soul. She had expected as much, but she half hoped she could avoid the Riddles.

"YOU MUST ANSWER THREE RIDDLES. ASK ONE QUESTION. SHOW ME THE TRUTH." Brachia shifted it's bulk and crouched, as if shrinking before their eyes. It appeared to be getting comfortable, and crossed its lanky arms across it's gnarled chest.

Jennifer rolled her eyes and very calmly said "Yes."

[Jennifer Oakley]

"THE FIRST RIDDLE."

Long ago, the fae courts had written a constitution of sorts. It bound humans and fae and spirits together in a cycle of servitude, command and nobility, so that any co-operation between the two races was only sought in the most dire of circumstances. Surmounting the ancient ways was a task unto itself, and it had only become more difficult in the centuries that followed.

The Ancients after all had slept for millennia, and they had dreamt of more and more complicated questions with more impossible answers.

"THE MORE YOU TAKE. THE MORE YOU LEAVE BEHIND. WHAT ARE THEY?"

Jennifer looked at Faustus, and then at Quickalli, and resigned herself to completing this task alone. She thought to herself for a moment and closed her eyes. She heard nothing other than the slow crack of bark and ancient dry wood joints moving under it's own weight.

More you take...more you leave behind...there is nothing...nuts? Flowers? Liberties?

"I should know better, but dare I ask for a clue?" She questioned without opening her eyes, knowing the tree man's expression would scare her. "I thought as much," she sighed.

"THREE ATTEMPTS. ONE FOR EACH CIRCLE OF BINDING."

The crack rising from the broken way stone grew larger in the silence. Eventually it reached the top of the energy dome above their heads and the sun from the hazy afternoon beyond pierced the glade. Whilst breaking a single way stone did not allow any immediate release from the binding power of the tomb glade, it was only a matter of time before the tree man would be free and able to enact his rampage. She had time, but not enough to ponder.

"Footprints," she said with a flash of fire in her eyes and she stood upright, half jumping with a eureka moment. "Footprints! Every step you take leaves one behind!" She cackled with joy.

"YOU REMEMBER THE FABLES OF YOUR CHILDHOOD WELL."

Faustus nodded appreciatively, before pleading with his eyes to be sent away into the mists of the ether. Jennifer stopped her celebration with a glum expression and looked at Brachia, "Forgive me, I must tend to my companions - consider your next riddle."

She waved her hands over the faun and bid him farewell.

He vanished in a spiralling maelstrom of golden tendrils and a shimmering chorus of vibrant notes.

She instantly felt more whole and complete, as if her heart had been returned to her.

Silence.

"THE SECOND RIDDLE." She turned back to the tree man and stood defiantly before his might, ready for the wisdom of the forest itself to test her.

[Jennifer Oakley]

"WHAT IS ETERNAL, BUT DIES EACH SPRING?"

Jennifer questioned her instincts for a moment but answered resolutely and clearly without much thought beyond a few seconds of bemusement. "You."

Brachia laughed, a noise which rocked the priestess on her feet and caused the masked beast to step backwards from the ruck.

"GOOD."

"I thought these were tests, trials of a sort?" She raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"THEY ARE TESTS OF YOUR INTEGRITY. I WILL SERVE NO-ONE WHO KNOWS NOT THE WAYS OF THE ANCIENTS."

"But they are mere fables, lessons learnt in childhood and burnt into the skull with repetition and hatred for authority. What good can they serve now?"

"YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHEN THE TRUTH IS REVEALED."

She rolled her eyes again.

"THE THIRD RIDDLE."

Scents and sounds from outside the tomb glade began to drift down through the crack. She took stock of them and used the memories they kindled in her to anchor her to reality. The longer she had been in the tomb, the greater the sense of anger and pain she had come to feel. She knew it was not her own emotion, but that of Brachia clawing at her skull. For all his joviality, she knew that Binding him to her heart and soul would be the true test, not this circus of conundrums.

"WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE EAT YOU. A BASILISK, OR A MARMADON?"

Jennifer chuckled. Another fable and a childhood joke. The fearful basilisk did not dwell anywhere near the villages of the Nina but the elders had conjured a fearful tale and a simple lesson to chide their children to bed at night without complaint. She had never discovered what the dreadful Marmadon of Myrdia was, and she supposed, if the tree man knew of it, she did not want to find out.

"Again with the childhood memories. It is as if you wish to recoil me in shock for my terrible youth. Your riddle is no riddle, for the most sane of men or fae would prefer neither."

"WHY IS THAT?" Brachia smiled and it's oaken teeth glinted in the growing sunlight from the crack above. It sparkled and shone down through his great mane of withered leaves and cast him in a new light. Slowly, his brown bark and foliage were coming back to life in a tapestry of jade and olive.

She tapped her staff into the moss and felt the new found life beneath her feet. The death they had smelt from the crack in Brachia's then corpse was all but faded from the glade. Something, or someone, had given the tree man a new life, and the seasons were turning before their eyes. He had missed a thousand years of the sun, and it's dominance over life took hold of him with even the faintest of rays glimmering through the smallest of slivers.

"I would much rather the Basilisk eat the Marmadon." She said wryly, content at having bested the riddles, but scared of the question to come.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Quickalli looked at Brachia with both of it's heads with a sudden realisation. It spoke in unison, and it's voice tore at mind and heart alike. Jennifer had never heard the two agree, never mind speak calmly. She cast a curious glance over them as they asked their medley of inquiries.

"We remember."

"You are not Brachia."

"You are not a tree."

"You are an unspeakable evil."

"Quickalli! State your reasoning for this outrage?"

"SILENCE."

She looked up at the tree man with anger on her face. Her horns grew by several inches at the mere thought of being tricked. They began to curl at the tips like a ram's crest of honour.

"YOU SPEAK OUT OF TERMS, CREATURE."

"No!" Shouted the mask, it's head twitching back and forth on it's tendril. "We remember!"

The lumbering beast spoke alone, in a deep baritone. "You...are the one called Dumlaught."

Jennifer's mind shattered.

Dumlaught.

The Chided One - the Tree of Infinite Winters.

The Fimble Winter King.

He had many names, but all of them were terror in the hearts of the fae. Y'edda had concealed his true identity and bidden her slay him whilst he slumbered beneath the tomb tree. She had denied the thayne her glory and simple victory over an ancient enemy, and set him free like a foolish child.

"Why did you trick me? Why not tear me apart and shatter this mind cage?" She roared in defiance, her arms out to her sides with staff brandished as a feeble weapon. She knew she could not suffer even one of his mighty fists, but she had nowhere to run.

"HAHA-HAAAA. I AM DUMLAUGHT INDEED. BUT I AM NOT THE HORROR YOU HAVE BEEN LEAD TO BELIEVE."

"ANSWER ME!" She roared beyond her own voice, speaking with the fae temper she held back in fear of succumbing to her true self utterly.

"I AM A TRICKSTER. A BENIGN, BUT TWISTED SCHEMER. I AM THE FURTIVE GLANCE OF A WISE OLD MAN, I AM HIS UNDOING, HIS END, HIS NIGHTMARE."

"You...are toying with me?" She felt exasperated at the mere thought. Sickened in fact. She cried in her mind for answers.

"YOU ARE...AMUSEMENT. OCCUPYING MY TALENT UNTIL THIS CHAMBER FALLS AND THE FOREST BURNS ONCE MORE!"

Jennifer snarled and bore her teeth at the spirit. She arced her back and brought her staff into both hands. She would not suffer this transgression. "Not whilst I hold the forest dear!"

The tree man stood suddenly and violently, shaking the ground with heavy footfalls and thundering fists. He pummelled the moss and Jennifer steadied herself.

"THIS EARTH SHALL PERISH BEFORE YOUR EYES, YOU SHALL CRY FOR IT'S SALVATION - DIE, AS SACRIFICE TO THE ANCIENTS!"

He brought his fist up into the air and ran it along the dome in a flurry of sparks. It fell towards Jennifer with a forward lunge, like a comet descending from the heavens, like a hammer swung to a life's gong.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Jennifer's eyes glimmered with fire and time seemed to stop. It was a slow collage of regrets, but it colluded her into a feeling of safety and protection. The great bulk of the tree man slowly weighed down onto her, and she seemed for a brief moment to move quicker than the lightning that arced over their heads as the barrier weakened.

When the fist collided with the ground and split the earth itself, the priestess was already mid-air and rolling through the sky with a grace and finesse she did not know she possessed.

Silence.

Eruption.

Chaos.

She landed with a heavy thud and was half buried beneath clods and dirt. She did not hear the call of her summons as they rallied to her defence, her hearing was pounding with the war drums of pain.

In her agony, she thought of one thing, and one thing alone.

What carried me on wings of light...what deemed me worthy of a miracle?

[Jennifer Oakley]

One Day Ago

The road north from the Rootwalker's Hallowed Ground was long and hard. The simple path climbed out of the caldera at the heart of the forest and wound it's way through thorny thicket and tranquil glade with a serene indifference. With every step, Y'edda's words and Faustus's revelation echoed in the summoner's mind and she found herself stunned to silence.

Her world was falling apart, and all she could do was bow in servitude. All she could do was fall into line and take her oath once more to the gods and monsters she served.

"Why did you do it?" She stopped, and looked up at the sun's rays as they shone through the dense canopy overhead.

The faun stopped behind her and sighed resolutely. He had expected the question for two days as they had walked in almost perpetual silence. He had not been given enough time to consider his answer.

"I do not know..."

"That is not good enough."

The silence continued as the forest path widened and the floor beneath their hustling feet turned from mud to a light covering of sycamore leaves and dry twigs. The sun grew in intensity between the canopy breaks and bird song returned as they left the wake of the storm and found themselves in the great swathe of forest called Caledonia by the Ancients.

"I did not presume that it would be. What can I say?" He bridled his anger and frustration at her stubbornness. He reflected in turn that it was his own heart staring back at him, preventing the change that needed to happen to turn the seasons between them.

"You could tell me the truth, no matter how horrific!" She glanced sassily over her shoulder and continued her advanced, her staff acting as a third limb to steady her advance through the forest.

"Horrific? Oh please, the truth cannot be managed by a mortal mind."

"Oona betrayed you."

Silence.

They walked on for almost a mile before Faustus snarled and spat out what she wanted to hear. "I loved her!"

She turned on a heel and smiled. "You loved her so much you followed her to the ends of the earth and sacrificed the bond with the Ancients?"

"Yes." He hung his head in shame. His ears twitched.

"I will not disobey Y'edda's wishes, but at the same time, I will not transgress the Ancients by killing them in their sleep."

"What do you wish to do?" He looked at her hopefully, a glimmer of promise in his eyes.

She cleared her through and bridled her emotions so that they solidified her masque to a brilliant and impenetrable lie. Her horns shone in the sun light, "I wish to bind this 'Ancient' to me, as I did you, and as I will do to the beasts of the wood who do the Nina wrong."

Her words spiralled up into the air and mingled with the midges and moths.

Faustus smiled and nodded.

[Jennifer Oakley]

She spoke with such confidence that even she began to believe it possible. The power of the Ancients, as clichéd a tale and bridled with legacy as they were were unanimously behest with greatness. One did not simply ask, one had to walk into the tomb, and fight to the very last breath.

"Tell me," her tone went from friendly to stolidly aggressive, a passive edge that many a woman had mastered over the years. "Why her? Why love a woman beyond your means when there were so many other spirits - so many other passionate beings?"

They walked on along the path as it sloped downwards and upwards and lead them into and out of a ravine. No answer came beyond the sound of leaves scrunched under-hoof and foot, and no calming of nerves made the question any less hurtful. Behind his master's back, Faustus scowled. She did not need to see his face to feel his distrust and resentment, but their bond was universal and ultimate - she smiled and took his silence to mean what she thought.

"She tricked you, did she not?"

"That is, according to your people, what we fae do, is it not?"

"No, not at all," she dug the tip of her staff into the ground and looked over her shoulder. The faun stopped, nearly crashing into her absent mindedly. The smell of sweat crossed their paths and they stared at one another at close quarters, like two bulls staring before a reckless charge.

"Pretend not to care, it matters not."

"Why ask, if not to find out the truth?"

"I was curious; a history is a terrible burden to carry alone."

She turned and walked on. Her stride quickened, for she knew that the journey was long and time was of the essence. She felt the coursing drain of fatigue begin to take its first measurable toll on her bones and muscles, and prayed for some strength to remain by the time they arrived at the tomb glade. Each step was made worse by the emotional spirals which circled around her head and heart; she concentrated on understanding, and as the birds fluttered in the canopy overhead and the green and brown blanket of nature around them turned to gold and fiery ochre, the seasons progressed as quickly as they did; affluent, fleeting, misunderstood.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Present Day

Jennifer opened her eyes, and the world span around her like a vortex of confusion. The strength and force of the dislodging blow might have saved her life, but it was only a temporary exchange of fate. She stared up at the cracking dome of the tomb glade and slowly came to realise that the pounding and throbbing was not her aching head, but the encroaching advance of her adversary.

"Ugh, Faustus?" She mumbled, groggily pushing herself into a seated position to try and survey the scene. Quickalli's connection had been severed when she had been struck, but the faun had to be killed or vanquished to fade from the world - she hoped neither fate had been delivered to her soul kin.

The treeman loomed over her and roared, a bellow that sundered the cracks far above even more. Sunlight began to creep into the hallow of sorrow and cast it's life giving glow over the dry, arid and dying grasses below. "Make it quick, cursed one!" The priestess shouted up as the moss-laden spirit knelt, and rested it's tumultuous fists either side of her. The ground felt as if it had given way beneath the sheer weight and strength of the Ancient's presence.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" It raised an eyebrow, or what she assumed was an eyebrow inquisitively.

"What was...what was what?" She rubbed her temple and scrabbled around in the moss to reach for her staff with blind abandon. If she could just reach it...

"THE LIGHT." The tree-spirit's voice changed in pitch and strength and resonance as it's confusion waxed and waned. The very colour of his words changed, adding blemishes of emotion to a dull monotone.

Jennifer frowned, but recalled a brilliant burst of light and a wave of heat springing from her chest in the split second before she had been tossed around like a ragdoll. Had it been Faustus, or some other hidden vestige of power in her soul?

"I know not what you speak of charlatan, grant my dying wish and make it quick!"

"IT WAS HER."

"Whom?"

"YEDDA, OONA, IT WAS THE LIGHT OF CREATION."

So it was Faustus after-all.

"What know you of such things?"

"YOU BARE OONA'S CURSE AS MUCH AS THE REST OF US - YOU ARE FAE, YOU ARE GODDESS, YOU ARE BOUND TO THE CURSE OF THE TREES."

"Curse?" She mumbled feebly, the iron in the blood on her tongue and the headache combining into a potent poultice of fear. The Tomb Glade began to resonate with primal power that was hard to avoid, and she knew that the ward stones would not be able to contain them for much longer.

"The Ancient's Foley - that which was given to the First Born Spirits of these woods when the Thayne of Nature fell from grace."

Jennifer snapped her head to her left and Dumlaught followed, moss mangled lips and dry, parched and elvin skin pursed in shock.

"When Oona fell in love with me."

Faustus stood where Jennifer had been moments before, glowing in a cascading fountain of a light so unnaturally holy it defied belief. His brown and matted fur and gnarled horns of agid learning were repealed, and his true-form, white fur and ivory curls of ramtop dignity were on display.

[Jennifer Oakley]

The tomb glade hummed with a radix and power unheard in the forests of the world for a thousand years. It was not the treeman's, nor was it Jennifer's, as bitter and corrupting as both aura's were. The summoner looked to Dumlaght, and Dumlaught to the summoner, both in shock.

Faustus chuckled, a hollow echo rang through the clearing, bringing the dead tree's bark to life and causing yellow blooms to peek up through the thick carpet of reeds and grass that had grow and died and refused to fade away in the cage of the ancient, the cage of nature.

"When Oona fell...for you?" Jennifer muttered meekly.

"I was her summon, as I am to you now, and she could not hide her joy at my sight. I am guilty of many things in this world, and many sins has slowed my blade and mind through the ages. This deed, however, shall never be regretted, for it was perfection in emotion, a union of like minded souls."

The glowing light rolled from the faun's horns and fur and slowly formed an after-image, a small white orb that pulsated and fluctuated. With a click of his fingers, Faustus sent it to the crack in the tomb glade's magical dome which had widened and widened as he had struck it like a rag doll. With a magnesium flare of light, it sealed and hid the spirits away from the world and it's woes.

"Kill him, Jennifer, end it."

The summoner paused for thought, still shocked and stunned. As she stumbled, the tree-man saw his opportunity and brought his fist up into the air like a dead weight comet. He roared, and pummelled it downwards to the feeble, mortal form of his would be assassin. She cowered, presuming her life to be over, and brought her arms up over her head feebly.

"You cannot defeat him with stave or servant."

She opened her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat.

"How am I to kill him?"

"Use the knowledge in you, passed on from Oona!" Faustus began to fade from view, his time in the material world spent as Jennifer's energy faded. She glared up at Dumlaught, who did nothing but glare back at her, and then she clasped her staff firmly in both hands and stomped its tip into the grass.

"Memories and dust, whispers of the old world, conjure the spheres of power to seal away this sinner - yr hen wlad, yr hen iaith, clymych yr Dumlaught!"*

The fae tongue slipped from her lips despite never having spoken it in her life. She felt a distant warmth fill her, like a wave of sunlight cresting the horizon as it dissipated in the evening to distant shores. It was a simple, satisfying fulfilment, that came with the knowledge that all would be well. The words snapped Dumlaught to attention, and a circle of light appeared in the grass around the summoner's feet.


* The old language, the old world, with these, bind Dumlaught!

[Jennifer Oakley]

"She speaks our mistresses' tongue, hark a new horizon!" Quickalli's twin heads fused into a single, rasping proponent of the obvious, the sharp tongue of the mask adding to the deep rumble of the oxen's rambling. It faded in a flurry of leaves, and was gone.

She rolled her eyes and glared at the treeman with every ounce of hate in her body. Her masque was long faded, and the thorny visage burnt brightly in the darkness of the glade. The only light now, as if it were suddenly drained away, came from the circle at her feet and the malice in the treeman's eyes.

"You were sealed here not in lies, but in crimes. You turned against Oona when Oona and these forests needed you. You sided with the Rebellion when the Kami tricked Oona's first love into rage!"

"AND SO I CAME TO HARBOUR THIS POWER!" Dumlaught roared in answer.

"You fixated all that loathing for your mother on crushing the forests and defeating her sons, your own bretheren in war. You slayed countless ancients, until your rage was sated at last by Oona herself."

"SHE TRICKED ME!"

"So it is often said the Queen of the Fae, but you deserved this solitude and the slumber within."

"I DESERVE NOTHING MORE THAN THE KINGDOM DUE! I AM THE KING OF THE FOREST, SHE IS A RELIC, SHE IS TO DIE!"

"You are guilty of murder, or silence, of tyranny and wrath. You are charged with these crimes, and are to be sentenced. How do you plead?"

"NO MORT-"

"HOW DO YOU PLEAD?" Jennifer's voice shattered Dumlaught's objection with a mighty and tumultuous roar. She did not half belief her own strength and conviction in interrupting an Ancient, and felt as if she were possessed; if not by spirits, by a new found pride in life. She heard the words echo in the air for several minutes, and for a moment, she could have sworn the world was tinted with magenta.

The bulk of the treeman shifted in the gloom, a moving, tangled mass of lichen beard and gnarled bark. For a moment, Jennifer expected some display of rage or an attempt to crush the defensive ward which Oona's Heart had gifted to her. The ritual of binding, just perhaps, was already too embedded and entrenched in the very fabric of the tomb to be broken by even an Ancient's prominence.

"GUILTY," said Dumlaught, with a whispered breath laden with admission.

[Jennifer Oakley]

"Then the sentence, which can be only death, shall be carried out."

A deep drumming filled the tomb as Jennifer lifted her staff from the ground and let it hover over the radiant point it had made in the ground, as it if had pierced the ether. The beat grew louder as she levelled the long oaken length to the treeman's chest and smiled weakly.

The scent of lavender and thyme filled her nostrils as ancient magic shifted through the glade and poured out of the ward stones into the crystal of her summoner's rod. Transfixed by the lights, Dumlaught could do nothing but await his death. He felt nothing as the bolt of energy struck his forehead and shattered his bark with a thousand dry cracks and thunderous orbs of flame.

"So it shall pass," Jennifer began the right of death that all the Druids of the Nina learnt as children, "a spirit for a spirit, an eye for an eye, a soul to the end of the world for a new birth at the beginning."

The glowing embers of dead wood and leaves fluttered to the ground for several minutes, illuminating the glade even as the darkness absconded back into the way-stones and the shield that contained the treeman broke away and faded.

"What is done is done, what shall be shall be, blessed be the remains of our fathered spirit." She bowed, but then snapped her bad back to the pile of ash where the Ancient had been minutes before.

She glared at the small bundled form that protruded from the hearth of the flames and understood, at long last, the treachery she had stumbled into.

Slowly but surely the spirit at the heart of the ruins stood, shaking the ash from it's figure as it rose with vigorous rustles and stomping. Looking at the newcomer with any limited observation would allow an observer, and Jennifer to arrive at the same conclusion.

"Hello, sister," both summoner and sinner said in unison.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Long ago, the Nina had been forest spirits bound to the will of Oona.

Longer ago still, they had been her attendants, her concubines and servants.

When the forest was young, and the Ancients were nothing but animals scrabbling in the dirt of the world, a prophecy foretold of a sisterhood that would break the old ways.

Jennifer looked into Brachia's eyes with a deep and fearful realisation. Whilst she shone in victory, and Faustus had discovered his true heart, the ancient malefic creature before had had defeated her still.

"Did you not know?" The forest spirit said, a delicate honey dripping from her tongue in stark contrast to the ravaging boom she had possessed as her Winter Form.

"I did not, although there is much I do not know in my age and neglect."

"I am Brachia, Dumlaught is Brachia, and in many ways, I am Dumlaught."

The Ancients had been seasonal beings, mimicking the Sun God and Moon Goddess in their eternal cycle between peace and war. As the autumn equinox came, Brachia, and even Oona, would succumb to the hunger and die, to be reborn as their feral, wild and empassioned selves come Spring folley and death alike.

"You must suspect I have come to kill you?"

"No."

"Then you are as wise as the daughter of Nina you once were." Jennifer smiled wryly, tracing the runes and emblems of the nymphs past form beneath her rippling bark. She wondered how powerful and influential she must have become within her people's political tangents to have grown so...dangerous.

The Fae persona could, or so she had been told, grow so strong that the human heart in a Priestess and Summoner would fade into nothing, turn into a saprophyte and give birth to a true spirit - an Ancient new and young. Was this, this decrepit and angered witch what she might become one day?

She swallowed the dryness in her throat, clasped her staff tighter, and bowed her head.

"Then you know what we must do, and with much haste!"

[Jennifer Oakley]

"I command."

The largest of the way stones shattered.

"Thee."

A second broke, sundered by the primal energy of Althanas.

"To ME!"

The rest of the tomb's stones crumbled, and a blast of energy formed over them and imploded with a gush of air like the loss of a soul to the flames of a cannon fusillade. The grass, arid and dry moments ago sprang to life as if water had rushed over it and turned the tide of death. The scent of age faded, and the smell of lavender filled the forest along with bird song and sunshine from unseen spheres in heaven.

The lithe dryad, flickering between humanoid and ravaged soul stepped forwards towards the binding power of the circle about Jennifer's feet. History began to repeat itself, as once more an Ancient was bound to a Nina, a summoner, a woman who commanded the earth.

"I bind thee to honour, the ancient ways and the wood!"

A flash of lightning racked the sky and then, without word or pomp, the forest fell once more into silence, leaving no trace of magic in the air lights burnt into the ground. The grass bobbed as if delicate feet had passed over it harmlessly, and the rubble of the way stone faded beneath encroaching bracken and brambles, hidden from the memory of the living like so many relics in the Concordia Wilds.

Brachia extended her hand as she grew near, and touched Jennifer's forehead with a delicate digit.

A heart broke in the depths of Oona's Temple at the betrayal.

[Jennifer Oakley]

Jennifer and Faustus strolled along the hauberk ridge that rose above the tree line between the Tomb Glades and the Temple City the Nina called home. The sun shone, and the birds sang and between the fettered leaves bound in age and majesty, birds and butterflies twirled in an endless melee of colour.

It had been two days since the Binding Ritual in the heart of the forest, and the effects of the spell had slowly started to fade with each step away from the scar on the earth. For many hours, no sound had slipped from either traveller's lips, for fear of ruining the epic occasion with hollow words and false promises. Neither wished to recall the truths spoken and the ignorances muttered on all accounts.

Like in nature's grand scheme, there was an appropriate moment and well placed reason for everything in life. Jennifer had chosen this moment to betray her senses, and her reasons would remain her own until she was certain of her actions. Something was amiss in Concordia, something haggard with age and left unsaid - in her mind, in her heart, with the prominent dedication of Faustus binding her will, she knew she was doing the right thing, the just thing, the honoured thing.

They walked towards their home, their deed behind them, and a new dawn of possibility cresting on the same wave of uncertainty that carried them along the dusty path and the vine wreathed highway to tomorrow. With every step, Brachia's last words had resounded like a bell in her mind.

You are my daughter. You are Fae.


Spoils:

The Soul of the Matter: Faustus has acquired his memories, and his heart, and has awakened his true form. This will manifest as upgrades to his ability in the next update to Jennifer's profile. Their connection runs deep and is bound by Fae religion, and is still misunderstood.

Brachia, The Autumnal Regret: Jennifer has bound the spirit of Brachia/Dumlaught to her will. This is a far cry from being able to summer her freely as she can Faustus, and to a lesser extent still than the rogue spirit Quickalli - it will require another thread, if not two, before she can call herself a summoner, and thus commander of this ancient dryad.

[Zerith]

Hen Wlad.

No small talk here, I'm just going to get straight to the rubric.


STORY – 18

CHARACTER - 18

WRITING STYLE - 18

WILD CARD- 7


Final Score – 61!!



Rewards:

Jennifer Oakley receives 910 EXP and 256 GP!

Both spoils are rewarded, pending the approval of a RoG Mod of course.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added via the Workshop.