Bladeshire 24

By David C. Daoust

Chantilles breathed a sigh of relief once the pacing ‘Dark elf’ finally turned and left the room. She was pretty sure the moody elfess had been waiting for Chantilles burns to fully heal. Where she’d slipped off to now, was beyond her. Chantilles was feeling fully healed, full of energy really. She felt different, possibly just hungry. Hungrier than ever before.

The young peasant in the elf-queen’s body was up, on her feet —pacing herself. She needed to collect her thoughts; make a plan! There was not much in the room to help her… The image in the magical pool really did not offer her very much information anymore; Khadory and her body-thief were just chatting, tending to the elders. The door only led out to the sun, well, and to more elves… Honestly, Chantilles really did not know the difference between high elves and dark elves, the fact that her Sprite-friend feared one far over the other was daunting. Fae were the scariest thing Chantilles knew of!

The Sprite suddenly flittered out of her hiding spot under her borrowed blond elven tresses.

“We have to get you out of here,” she whispered, Chantilles noted the wide-eyed Sprite was not smiling anymore. “Both of us really!” The small fairy miraculously shifted into a full-grown woman, though where the little fairy wings usually were, were two massive angelic white wings.

Chantilles’ jaw dropped in wonder. “You’re an Angel?” she was ecstatic. She knew about angels! They served the one God in the Chambers; the only part of the whole religion that ever interested her.

“What??” the Sprite was shocked and appalled at the same time. “Of course not!” She protested vehemently. With a sudden flutter of her wings they shimmered into bright rainbow patterns, more like a parrot wings. This was clearly enough to satisfy the fairy, that she did not look like an angel any longer. Chantilles was still on the fence. “I needed stronger wings to fly us both out of here…” the sprite explained. “Honestly, if anyone else called me such a thing… I would scald them, horribly.”

Chantilles was amused. She was pretty sure the oversized Sprite meant ‘scold’ but had said scald instead… she tumbled it over in her mind a moment. On second thought, after reassessing what the fae being might mean, “Please, no scalding,” Chantilles pressed and then insisted, “Promise me you won’t scald anyone —ever.”

“Fine,” the pretty little face seemed exasperated, “I promise I will never, ever, scald anyone.”

With that promise given, two more super tiny Sprites suddenly flittered into reality. The first looked defeated as she suddenly shifted back into a tiny little fairy and flew over to join the two newcomers.

“Thanks for that,” the short-haired blond with yellow and green wings said directly to Chantilles.

“Yes, Doisna has been threatening to scald us for years,” a serious brunette with blue wings explained.

“Ever since she learned what the word meant, really,” the blond interjected.

Chantilles put together that her friends name was Doisna, kind of felt like that should have come up earlier.

“Ha’rin, Rosalba…” Doisna named the two newcomers, before accusing, “I told you two not to interfere with my new friend!”

“Yes, but what are you going to do now?” the blonde, Ha’rin, asked defiantly.

“You’ve run out of words to threaten us with!” The other, Rosalba, pointed out with a laugh.

They were both delighted by the turn of events.

Doisna was a bit miffed.

Another Sprite, with red hair, flitted into the group; smiling and happy. Just as the tiny being was about to say something… they all turned on her.

“Get out of here, Digsy!” Ha’rin shouted abruptly.

The smile vanished, and the tiny sprite’s jaw hung open a little. Hurt.

“Yeah, we already have a red-head,” Rosalba said pointing to Chantilles.

“Honestly, are you blind, Digsy?” Doisna asked with a roll of her eyes.

The little red-headed Sprite seethed silently, yet threw Chantilles a threatening glare before disappearing again.

“I wish you had not done that on account of me…” Chantilles expressed softly as she fiddle with her elven blonde locks. She took a quick peek that it was all still blonde.

“Don’t worry about her,” Doisna explained. “Not everyone respects tradition.”

The trio of fairies all nodded in agreement.

“Oh, and look how beautiful she is,” Rosalba changed the subject, abruptly calling everyone’s attention to Chantilles herself.

“As promised!” Ha’rin added, smiling appreciatively at Doisna.

Chantilles was flattered, she was hesitant to admit that she was not actually who she normally was.

“Oh, we know you’re not who you normally are, sweetheart,” Rosalba explained, “that is simply not what we are looking at.”

Apparently, she did not have to– they seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

“Yes, your essence is really very…” Doisna, in agreement with Rosalba’s explanation, searched for the right word, “…pretty.”

They all seemed to agree as they fluttered about.

“Don’t worry, we will be sure to fuss about how beautiful you look once you’re back in your natural body again,” Ha’rin promised.

Chantilles had a lot to take in. She was effectively surrounded by fae. They were all very agreeable and they all seemed to want to be her friend, which was good– she hoped. Truth was, Digsy’s glare would probably haunt her the rest of her days.

From what Chantilles learned, she was pretty sure they were all terrified of Dark Elves. One of which may duck back into the room at any moment. Yet, her friend had shifted back to her normal size, with her normal fairy-wings, Chantilles wondered where the plan had gone. Something about flying her out of there… which really just had her worrying about the sun burning her flesh again.

“Oh, I won’t need to fly you out of here anymore,” it was Doisna’s turn to answer her unspoken thoughts. “Now that we have a full circle, we can just pop into the Everwold.”

“The Ever Wold?” Chantilles asked apprehensively. She had never actually heard of an Everwold. After a moment she had a horrible thought register, “Wait, the Fairy Realms?” This was not much better. A lot of very scary stories started with peasants being brought there. Especially the stories about abducted children, being trapped in such realms… replaced by Changelings.

“Try not to worry so,” Rosalba advised.

Chantilles assumed the brunette addressed her current thoughts, yet failed to dispute the thoughts in any way, shape, or form. This left Chantilles thinking there were captured humans in there, and goblinoid monsters living out their lives in Light’s Reach.

“Or that’s just what we’d prefer you think,” Ha’rin winked and with a gesture, and a strange pop, the oppressive high elven chamber was gone.

They were all somewhere else.

The air felt different, the light dimmer… the ground beneath her feet was uneven, lined with deep grooves that flowed a straight path forward. Wavered like a river, yet all so solid and rigid… It was bark. She was standing on bark. The curve of the surface was barely noticeable, but Chantilles realized she was standing on an oversized bough… like of a tree.

Branches twisted off into the distance. She felt as though she was standing high-up within a great oak, about the size of her fae-friends, only they were just as tiny as ever. It was the tree. The tree was massively huge. So large, she could neither see nor comprehend where it started or ended. Just a massive twist of branch growing among other massive twisting branches. The leaves blotted out anything that might not be a limb, clusters of foliage cluttered the distance, replacing the very skies.

Chantilles knew, even as her stomach growled louder than ever before, this was surely the Everwold.