"Look around you," the little girl had said. "Does this look cursed to you?" The words stuck with me for the hours our group walked down the twisted path that led deeper into the Red Forest. The scarred sellsword Nicolas may have brushed off a comment like that as the delusions of a young woman; but something about them, something about her tone... It didn't sit well with me.
Cellar had been acting oddly since we broke the tree line. More than once, I caught her starting to stray from the rest of us, her eyes filled with wonder, her emotions distant, her mind distracted. At first, I thought it might have been just a sheltered young girl's naiveté and curiosity--she was in a foreign land now, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
But those words struck a chord with me. "Does this look cursed to you?"
They had been on my mind for a while now, even as I led our ragtag group of adventurers and murderers towards whatever horrors awaited them deep in the woods. We had the good fortune to not have come across any of the predatory beasts or shapeshifters that populated Lindequalmë; I was sure that Martin (the bearded adventurer), Nicolas, and Elthas could handle themselves in a fight with the monsters that lurked in the bushes, but Sulla and Cellar I was far less confident about.
My mind wandered to my conversation with Podë before I arrived in Raiaera. The Red Witch said that she had many others she was going to visit before the High Bard Council gave us the orders to storm the heart of her power. It was not a decision I was terribly happy with. I'm more that worthy of carrying on her legacy myself. But, I understood. She was worried that I might fall, that I might fail. That I might not be able to stop the Raiaerans and their conscripts from loosening her grip on the world.
Tactically, it was a reasonable decision. I get that. I get what she's trying to do here. But there was doubt in my heart. She knows what I'm capable of; she knows of the atrocities that I've committed. She knows that I would be willing to commit many more for her if it would give me a fucking purpose in this world.
I felt betrayed. I felt cast aside. I felt like she didn't trust me.
She knew that she was going to die soon, and she wouldn't let me save her.
It hurt.
But, I would still follow her orders. I would simply watch events unfold, keep tabs on the others who she granted her power to, and learn the names of those that ultimately killed her. I would be the supporting character in the last act of her life's story that she saw me fit to be.
And it made me angry.
Cellar's words echoed in my mind again. "Does this look cursed to you?"
In my conversations with Podë and my own interactions with the power she granted me, I learned that her gifts manifested themselves in different ways in everyone. The way the curse interacted with every life form was different, dependent entirely on the strength of their soul and the memories and experiences they've endured. For someone like myself, it allowed me to mutate those that I touch into horrible monsters very much like the one that the world saw me as. But for others...
I didn't finish my thought before things started falling in place. Someone like Cellar, an innocent, sheltered, inexperienced, unskilled, helpless little child...
And then the lack of vicious creatures that normally met those unlucky enough to find themselves deep within the crimson curse-tainted woods...
..."Does this look cursed to you?"
Could it be... That... that wretch is one of Podë's chosen ones?
I raised a briar-knit hand, immediately bringing the others to a halt on the rough dirt path we were ordered to go down. Nicolas cocked his head slightly, confused. "Is something wrong?" I ignored him as I spun around and made straight for Cellar, who had taken up a spot a few paces back from the group. I could feel the piercing gazes of Sulla and Elthas as I approached her, kneeling down slightly to match her height. I looked her square in her sapphire eyes. She returned my gaze, but also seemed to be looking past me. That damned smile continued to adorn her face; that mocking, knowing smile.
"Cellar," I asked her softly. "Is everything alright?"
"Yes, Madison, of course it is." The smile never left her face as she spoke the words.
I took a deep breath. "I'm going to ask you again, dear." I reached up with my vine-weft hands, lightly touching the sides of her face. "Is everything alright?"
She spoke again, just above a whisper, with a voice that was not her own. A voice that I recognized. "Yes, everything is fine, my little mon--"
The rustling of bushes interrupted her. I spun around to find that Martin was falling to the forest floor, a fresh wound adorning his neck and spurting blood that got caught in his salt and pepper beard as he hit the ground. A vicious-looking brute in black cloth armor stood above him, a crimson-stained dagger gripped tightly in his right hand. One by one, more of his friends emerged from the forest that surrounded us. They circled our little party, weapons drawn and bloodlust in their eyes.