Rider of Decisions

Log Info

• Title: Rider of Decisions

• GM: Riptide

• Characters: Rune

• Place: A meadow outside of Alexandria / Glasina's residence in Quelynos

A letter arrived to Rune's abode only the night before, placed neatly into the crook of her door in a way that it could not be missed. In a fine Sildanyari hand, the message was brief: 'Meet me at the meadow at sunset.' There is a small map, with a circled area close to the Felwood, and then there's a single signature: a simple drawing of a butterfly.

Despite everything, Rune chooses to go. And it's a beautiful walk. The spring air is clear. The sun shines down on the roads that take Rune there. But the closer she gets, the closer she realizes that it's near the caves where she and Harkashan first met the Corpse-Eater--and also first met Blue, aka Glasina, the leanan sidhe. The meadow itself is not hard to find, however, and it's some distance away from the caves--where Rune is able to look at the mouth of that sordid place, but is a safe distance away. Nothing will hurt her.

Or at the very least, she'll hurt it first.

Sunset comes. The fading of the sun dyes the sky a brilliant violet-blue as the orange hues crawl into the horizon. And finally, the bluebells scattered throughout the field rustle with the wind... And they ring in a way that flowers should not ring.

Behind Rune, a familiar voice speaks.

"Hello, Leirune." It's Glasina. She's smiling gently, but she's dressed a bit differently compared to normal. A light gown of silver that fades to gold slowly over its length flaps gently behind her in the wind. "I was hoping you would come, and I was proven right."

It was nearly this time a year ago when Rune first stepped foot into this meadow. A year ago that her life abruptly changed. In that time, she has fallen deeply in love, formed strong friendships, nearly died a handful of times, and achieved something she thought impossible: brought her mother back from the dead. So, her fingertips touch over the grasses and flowers with a sort of fond familiarity.

Despite this feeling of returning to the beginning of a well worn path, Rune isn't quite as naive as she once was. She is fully armed, the silver glint of her chain shirt visible beneath the leathers. A year has changed a lot, though. There is confidence as she settles herself onto a large rock to wait out the sunset.

Then, as the flowers ring out, her pointed ears twitch and her head turns, following the sound until that voice has her looking in the direction of the familiar Fey woman. "Hello, Blue." Though she knows the Fey's other name, she still uses the first one they had been given. Perhaps it is the nostalgia of the moment. "I was wondering if the letter was from you. It... seems like we've come full circle." Her head tilts slightly.

"A year ago, when a blue butterfly saved our asses from the Corpse Eater, and set me on my path." She raises a brow. "Of course I would come."

"A year and almost a week," Glasina replies softly, smiling. There's an odd quality to her smile in this form and particularly in this lighting. Her rainbow eyes have a glint to them that hadn't been there before in most situations. "I'd hoped it would be a year and a day for storytelling reasons, but crossing back and forth between my realm and yours can result in small blips of time. Ah well."

She raises a hand and holds it out to Rune. "Come and walk with me," she says. "I will warn you that we will be crossing over into my realm--as there is a truth there that you must understand, and to understand it, you must see it and experience it with your own eyes. It must become part of your story, rather than to be a story you are told."

This is not the first time she has heard that particular time period be mentioned, although the last time it was in regards to far less pleasant company. "That amount of time... it's something special to the Fey, isn't it?" She asks. Despite walking this Fey-touched path for a year, there are still things she is coming to learn. "If it's just for the sake of weaving a good story, I won't tell if you won't." She offers with a quirk of her lips.

Then, as the hand is held out towards her, Rune shifts atop the rock and drops down onto her feet. Others might warn her from taking forays into the unknown along side the Fey, but Glasina has earned her trust over this past year. So, Rune clasps the hand and falls into step, willing enough to follow. "So long as you can offer me a way back. Unlike the Feathered One's kin, I don't have any such planar magic." Curiosity lights in her eyes, though. Rune has always been one who is pulled in by stories. Some might see it as a particular failing of hers, or a blessing.

It's an odd thing. Glasina's hand is cold to the touch, at least at first, warming quickly as she walks with Rune through the woods. "Do not worry," she says calmly. "You will be brought back to those you love, alive and well, as they are alive and well. Although I would ask you to be careful with mentioning the Feathered One until we are safe. You will understand when it is safe."

She gives a little smirk at Rune then. "A year and a day is three-hundred and sixty-six days. It is a number that can be divided by the number 'three'. Three is an important number among our kind."

They walk a short time, and Glasina lectures all the while. "I will tell you a story about that number," she says. "Long ago, there was a woman, born of three siblings. Her beloved father shone so brightly, and her beloved mother was a dazzling queen, but the woman herself was looking, or so it was said, for a place in all the world that could be hers. She spun into existence a beautiful realm. And she populated it with the first of her children, and in that realm grew the roots of a tree whose leaves and branches grew strong and beautiful. The woman's brothers loved her creation. And they gave to her two gifts: laughter and bounteous nature."

Glasina stops short of a circle of bluebells now, looking meaningfully at Rune. "You know this woman," she says. "Everyone does. You, a bit more than others."

Though the cold touch is unusual, Rune doesn't seem put off by it as some might be. It is, perhaps, her closeness to Skielstregar and his ever-present cold that makes her not quite so quick to judge. "I'm not worried." She explains, amusement playing on her lips, "I'm fairly certain that among those I love, they'd find a way to tear a hole into the planes if they had to, if I were lost beyond Ea." Rune has a great deal of faith in her friends.

And yet, she quiets on the matter of their relation to other Fey beings as she is lead forward by Glasina. "I see." Is her initial answer about the year and a day. "A friend of mine lost her name to a Fey I know little about. Thankfully, they haven't come to any harm for it." She knows all too well that just like people, there are both good and evil among the Fey.

However, as the story begins, Rune falls silent to listen. There is a wonder in her eyes that reflects the child she was long ago, listening to her mother's stories with rapt attention. It is a story that has pieces of familiarity to it, though there are aspects that are new. So, when they stop before the circle of bluebells, Rune looks over to her Fey companion, "It's... the Sky-singer, isn't it?" She asks. Her free hand reaches to touch the necklace at her throat. Even if its purpose is over, she still wears it as part of who she is. "You and she are connected somehow, aren't you?"

Glasina grins widely at Rune as the other woman guesses to their connection. "You could say that," she says. "I'll explain in a moment. Hold on tight."

The two walk into the circle of bluebells... And the world changes subtly about them. The twilight sky above them hasn't much changed, but there's no longer a sun peeking over the horizons. They're in... a meadow.

Except there's a house in the distance that most certainly was not there before. It overlooks a pond, where Rune can already spot fish swimming around in the clear waters. It's a bit chilly, but it's pleasant. It's peaceful. Even though there's very much the feeling in the air that Rune is no longer in 'her' home but in someone else's... It's a place that feels safe. Like the home of a friend.

"There," Glasina says as she begins to walk again, taking Rune up to the pond. "Pardon me a moment. This is a rather important duty of mine." She finally does let go of Rune's hand, but the space where Rune's hand once occupied Glasina's is replaced by a fishing net, and the butterfly-winged woman simply reaches into the pond with it, catching a few fish. "Are you familiar with the entity known as Tanithariairisixchel? You might best know her as 'Tanith'. She takes the form of a little golden dragon."

Any good story sometimes takes time to reveal all of its secrets, so Rune doesn't push for immediate answers. Instead, she just holds on as the two walk through the circle and into another realm.

The shift is not so abrupt as when it is done by sorcerous magic, and so there is only an inhale of breath, her senses taking in the different smells and sounds as the environment changes. Without that deeper connection to magic that many of her allies claim, Rune can't quite feel the difference in the same way. She can sense it, though. That sense of wonder lingers, even as her hand is released and she is left to step forward, looking at the pond and then to their surroundings.

"I've met Tanithariairisixchel." Her pronunciation isn't quite spot on, but it's closer than most manage. "I even went fishing for her once, as a thank you for bringing Telamon back when he was killed by a wish." That memory still lingers in her mind from time to time, despite the man being whole and healthy now. "I'll admit, I don't know much about her, though. Other than that she is quite powerful. Enough to bring the dead back from the halls."

Glasina gently nods to Rune's explanation as she continues to fish. It's an odd thing. She empties out the net into the air and the fish... Seem to go nowhere, disappearing into faerie dust well before the fish ever hit the ground. "Lady Tanith is a special person to me," she says softly. "I am her handmaiden. I have been employed as such for quite some time. It is a position that I am honored to have. Many in Quelynos would be envious of my position, were it more common knowledge."

Then abruptly, she stops fishing, the net dissolving away after she puts more fish into the air and watches it turn into sparkles. "There is an important truth you must learn," she says. "All in Quelynos... owe my Lady a great deal. Such as one would owe a debt to one who is the progenitor of their line." She smiles broadly. "For she knows the woman who is one of three siblings. Very well and very closely."

There's a moment before Glasina says, "Do you understand now... Why you know the Sky-singer so well?"

GAME: Rune rolls sense motive: (3)+9: 12

Watching the fish disappear into sparkling dust is enough to draw Rune's eyes time and again, as if she were trying to figure out a trick that she doesn't quite have insight into. "How are you..." She starts to ask, but then Glasina starts to explain her connection to Tanith and Rune's eyes snap towards her, instead. It's as if she knows how important the words are. Far more so than any curious questions about disappearing fish.

It is one of those moments where you can almost see the gears turning behind someone's eyes. Rune is not versed much in matters of the gods, likely an effect of her father's influence. But she is versed in listening to her mother's stories and piecing out bits of connection where they lie. "Lady Tanith and... the Sky-singer." She seems about to make that connection but then shakes her head in confusion. "I met the goddess once, in a dream. She wasn't..." There is a pause, and then, "I don't understand."

Even so, Rune's hand wraps around her necklace, the source of comfort for the many long years she's carried it. "Eluna... the Sky-singer. She is why I was brought back. She breathed life into my moldering corpse and gave me a second chance to make something right in this world. As much as I was afraid of it... what it might mean..."

Glasina smiles brightly, and there's mirth in those rainbow eyes of hers again. "A deity can take on many forms and many aspects," she explains gently. "Lady Tanith is but one. I have brought you all this way, here, to Quelynos, the land in which my Lady slumbers at the heart of the world, and I have told you that which is a secret that some of your friends and family have known for some time, for a reason."

Her eyes turn kind then. "For your mother knew that her salvation might lie in a future that she could not see, and the Sky-singer's domain is that of all possible futures--to glean them, to see them, to guide people toward the futures that they wish to see. It is why I knew of your locket. It is why your locket responded to Ni'essa's presence. Her prayers to the goddess were answered. And so, now that your mother is free--now that she is alive, and now that you have carried your burdens and hers--I approach you now with the truth and an offering."

She holds out her hand to Rune then. "I have long wondered about mortalkind. Alud'rigan spurned me in favor of a dalliance with the sildanyar woman who arrived at his doorstep, who one day withered of illness and passed on. I have long prized mortal stories and mortal songs--art is the domain that moves my very soul--yet I have found myself with a desire to better understand mortalkind. And I know of no better person than you. Should you accept, the marks on your body will become associated with me. Should you accept, you will take on a pact that joins us, blood to blood. I would protect you with our connection--and you would give me stories that I would tell to my lady, and come when I call you for aid."

Rune seems to take this in, her body uncommonly still other than the light graze of her thumb over her necklace as she has done so many times in the past. The connection of Lady Tanith, Eluna, to Quelynos, to Glasina, to her mother, to her. It is a connection that she feared and fought against in those early days after her ressurection. "When I first returned... I was afraid that acknowledging the role the Sky-singer had in everything meant that it wasn't my life to live anymore. That I would owe it to someone." She explains, without meeting the Fey's eyes.

"More and more... that presence became a comfort. And with it, I realized that part of having friends, lovers, people you care for, is that you do owe pieces of yourself to each of them. Your life becomes as much entwined with theirs as it is your own, and there's a kind of beauty in that." At some point, Rune had realized that if her mother's necklace was tied to the goddess, then so, too, was she in some way. When she came to understand that, the fear left with it.

Then, she looks over to Glasina, "Just as my life became entwined with yours, much the same." Rune admits, though some lingering sadness at Blue's words continues, "We mortals do have a way of messing things up, don't we?"

Then, as the offer is laid out in front of her, Rune reaches her hand up to touch along the markings that have been part of her skin for so long. Ones that never really belonged to her in the first place. Her fingers linger there, "These... never belonged to me. Not really. I don't need to wear them to honor my mother. She lives and breathes and can make her own future."

Letting her hand drop, Rune continues, "You... have helped make this real, even when you didn't have to. Even when I offered nothing in return. I'd... be a pretty poor friend if I wasn't willing to help you now." Others may have warned her about these pacts, but she has also seen them. The family that Cor'lana has found. The connection to his past that Harkashan carries.

Stepping forward, Rune bows her head slightly, "I trust you. We're alike in a lot of ways, you and I. You've given me a gift, I could never repay, but I'd like the chance to try."

"Just as you breathe and can make your own future," Glasina replies in kind, smiling, "the marks you bear can make their own meaning. They will remain the same, but their meaning will change. Just as you will change--just as you have already changed."

Her smile turns a little sad however. "Mortals are beautiful and strange," she says. "He loved that woman, Lana'lel. I cannot begrudge him his happiness, even if, for a brief moment, I hoped he and I could be more than a brief tryst. I also must warn you, before I take your hand..."

Rainbow eyes lock onto Rune's. "This will be intense. Listen to your heart. It will carry you through."

The moment Glasina takes Rune's hand, everything changes. Rune's world goes dark. She sees nothing but the ground underneath her. No, she's in a forest, lit dimly by a moon that she cannot see. She's in front of a massive tree. The biggest tree she has ever seen in her life, towering far and tall into the sky. The World Tree? Is it really that tree?

Snow begins to fall. The light filtering through the tree branches shifts rapidly, like the moon's moving across the sky. Rune suddenly becomes aware of her heartbeat. Pounding in her chest like the beat of a drum, it's in her ears, in her limbs, the pulse, pulse, pulse, a steady rhythm that picks up speed with the utterance of a voice. Glasina's voice.

It's Sylvan. But for the very first time, Leirune understands it. It's like it was the language she was born speaking; it feels like the tongue that a person thinks in first and foremost.

"The heart counsels

The rider of will,

The heart counsels

The rider of decisions;

That which costs deeply

Will reward you deeply."

Blood pours from Rune's mouth. She should be choking on it. She should be dying, but it feels like it's just... Running from her. As though she is merely the mouth of a river and the blood is its flow. Except when it falls to the ground, Rune sees it isn't red blood. It's black. Black like the color of blood she's seen some fae bleed before.

"The heart counsels

The rider of will,

The heart counsels

The rider of decisions;

I dance with the moon

And return to her light." <Sylvan>

Glasina's words bring Rune back to the present. No blood. No tree. Only holding a hand that feels like Rune's held this hand all of her life. Like it's her mother's hand. Everything feels different. Now... This place feels like home.

"How do you feel?" Glasina asks gently, a worried crease in her brows.

"If I were to ever stop changing... I think it would be terribly boring." The words are brought softly, with a faint sound of amusement on Rune's lips. "My mother taught me, that the best way to meet fate, is to walk bravely forward." She inclines her head.

Closing that distance, even as Glasina tells of her own love lost. So, Rune offers her own bit of hope in that, "There's still time. Maybe your lady knows the right path and you'll find that happiness in time." At least, she would like to think so. If nothing else, Rune would make sure that this Fey's existence would be one that isn't quite so lonely.

With the warning, Rune offers out her hand.

The world is darkness and light. The comfort of the evening sky and the light from a moon she cannot see. It echoes a memory of sitting in her mother's arms on her balcony, a few weeks before her death, cuddled beneath blankets as Kiira whispered stories into her daughter's ear under the light of a clear moon.

Then, the tree steals her breath, reflected in her blue eyes as she reaches her other hand out, letting a flake of snow fall into her palm. Then, when she breathes again, the sound of her heartbeat kicks up, sounding like a thousand Makari tribal drums in her ears. A sound accompanied by a familiar voice in a language that feels as much her own as her native tongue.

And then, the feeling of blood on her lips. She should be afraid. Twice now, she has drown in blood, gasping or air, reaching desperately for that next breath. Yet, there is no fear in this moment. She draws in a breath through her nose, so that when her lips part, it is with a harmony to Glasina's own. Though she may not know the words, she offers that reflection, that acceptance, that knowing with the song of her own heart.

And then, it is over. She returns in a blink to another moment and another place and Rune breathes deeply. "Like... the world has shifted." Her brows furrow a little. "It's... going to take some getting used to, I think."

Glasina smiles brightly at Rune then, mirth returning to her eyes, at least in a small measure. "It is different, I'm sure," she says, "but while some things have changed... You have... and have not."

She takes her hand back. Once again, there is a space that is between Rune and Glasina, but it's a physical space only. In the back of Rune's mind, there's still that connection. A conduit. "I apologize for how dark that was," she says. "It is the nature of the pact. Blood bound to blood."

Then she gestures to her house. "I'd like to invite you in, to teach you a bit of the songs I know--and a bit more about your new abilities--but that is solely up to you. I would not keep you over-long from those who love and cherish you." Glasina also offers a small chuckle as she says, "Plus, my Lady has a penchant for calling on me at somewhat inconvenient times, so perhaps it is better that, like a fish scooped up from the pond for fun, I should return you to the water."

When her hand is released, Rune flexes her fingers, as if she were waking into her body anew and needed to ensure everything still functioned the same as before. It doesn't take long before she is stretching her arms out over her head and letting them settle back down to her sides. "It's a sort of duality I think I'm becoming used to." She laughs softly, shaking her head and then brushing a few strands of dyed hair behind a pointed ear.

"It's... alright. Trust me, it's a far cry from having a gaping hole in your chest from dark magic, and even that, I've lived through twice now." And with that knowledge, comes a certain amount of strength.

The invitation is met with a thoughtful look from Rune, "I'm not sure exactly how time flows here against the lands of Ea, but I'm pretty sure I have a little time before they come looking for me. Enough for a few stories, at least?" Because one part of Leirune Theran that has never changed, is that she is still the daughter of a storyteller, and she still looks for every opportunity to hear a tale she has never heard before.

Though now, it seems, she will need to step into those shoes, herself. A small price to pay, especially for someone who already is so enthralled by stories.