I've never met a hag that could break the Rules. But I've never met a Rule a hag couldn't break. - The Bastard of Crow and Spider (Banesgrowth's Dictums of War).
-Two years prior-
Rubinin and Akkana stood opposite each other, old eyes locked fiercely against each other as they clutched their dowskin satchels in their hands. The magic of Venthrey had been gauging them, reading them for the majority of the last hour. The intense winds were sweeping the long grass of the plains they stood within.
Finally the winds stopped, and a short pillar of earth rose from the ground between them invitingly. Along the pillar, carved into the dirt in runic fey, were the Rules. The sisters were versed in the Rules, Venthrey's immutable laws.
1. The challenge will not end until the mockingbird is caught.
2. No contestant may leave the forest before the challenge ends.
3. No help may be brought into the realm.
Every challenge in Venthrey has three Rules, which cannot be broken. These rules extend beyond what is merely written, each Rule has several if not dozens of caveats and clarifications that are innately known by the reader.
Upon the pedestal, each sister placed upon it something within their satchel. Rubinin drew from hers a jar of fireflies, which was placed upon the pillar, which cracked open and swallowed the jar with an earthen tongue. Next, Akkan drew a young snake from hers, and placed it upon the pillar as well. Rather than being swallowed, the snake descended into the pillar through the crack now opened by the jar.
Rubinin offered a curious look to her sister who simply shrugged in response. Within moments, the ground beneath them begun to shake as Akkana smiled knowingly. Unlike her sister, Akkana was a taller Hag, she had gaunt, blue-tinted skin and bright red eyes. She wore patchwork pelt clothing, a loincloth and skull pauldrons. She held within her hands a tall staff made of perpetually rotting wood.
Over the next several minutes, the two watched as the expansive plains before them erupted into a dark-leaved forest, filled with fey-warped sycamore trees. Echoing louder than would otherwise be possible came the birdsong of a Elecid mockingbord.
As Rubinin began to sprint into the forest before her, Akkan swung her staff, tripping her up and sending her into the grass before sprinting off herself.
It was just three hours past when Akkana found a spot she knew her sister would not find her, and surveiled her surroundings. Satisfied, she sank to her knees and laid her staff against the ground. She began to pull components, herbs and animal parts, from her pouch and gingerly lay them against the grass.
She began to hear the light hiss of a serpent approaching from behind her.
No thank you, my dear. I am not food. She spoke over her shoulder in fey beastspeech. An angered snapping of the snake's jaws were the only response before it retreated to its previous resting place.
"But you, lovey. You can step forward." She called as she returned her gaze to the assortment before her.
From behind a nearby rotting sycamore tree stepped Evan, his rusted spear drawn. He looked towards the hag with a frenzied gaze, his face gaunt and pale from hunger. His spear, if you could call it that, shook in his hands. He was already leaning against the tree he was hiding behind.
"Oh, lovey," the hag muttered in a condescending tone, "looks like someone is very hungry."
Evan responded with nothing more than a narrowing of his gaze.
"Settle down," the hag reassured him, reaching into her bag once more. Throughout this exchange, the hag's eyes still had not turned to meet his own. Evan questioned how she could even see his gaunt physique. "There, will this help." She produced a steaming bundle wrapped in large leaves from her bag, from it game a vapor and intoxicating smell that caused Evan to unintentionally step forward.
As his stable hand left the tree, he caught himself and stopped his approach.
"Poisoned? Enchanted?" He asked sceptically.
"Conditional," Akkana responded.
"What is the condition?"
By this point, a perimeter of components had been assembled by the hag around a snake's skull, ash dropped over it to form a fey rune. As it was completed, she rose to her feet, to her incredibly large height. She turned to face Evan, who recoiled slightly at the sight of the deep red of her eyes.
"My dear sister and I are playing a game," Evan's eyebrow cocked out of frustration that the hag assumed he did not understand the Rules, he waved his hand to coax more from the hag, "and only I will walk away." She continued insidiously.
Evan's eyes widened slightly, more from surprise than disapproval, Akkana assumed.
"My sister has mocked me for too long, tarnished my reputation, my capacity, for too long. Never invite family into a coven, lovey." Akkana tutted.
"I'm not much of a killer," Evan responded, "especially not against a Hag."
Akkana's wicked grin stretched her skin taught as the ends curled against the very ends of her cheeks.
"I don't need a killer, lovey. I need a hunter." She had now grabbed the steaming bundle and now proffered it before Evan.
"I just need the mockingbird out of the way, I can't have my sister find it before I'm done with her." Had he not been so desperate, or if the damned spitfires had not taken his only source of food, Evan would have walked away in that moment. But the aroma of the food within the bundle was far too intoxicating, vice-like in the way it kept him in place.
"Here's the deal, lovey: catch the mockingbird and keep it hidden, then return it to me afterwards." Evan gave a cold stare at the Hag, but digressed, he took the bundle from her hand and tore into the steaming, seasoned meat within. In his fury, he did not know what kind of meat it was. He did not die so he knew it was not poisonous.
It was as he ate greedily that the Hag engaged with her second piece of trickery. She then drew a runed cloth from her dowskin satchel and held it aloft in the air. Beginning as a murmur, she began speaking in a fey incantation Evan didn't recognise. As the incantation grew slowly louder, the space under the cloth began to expand, inflating as though it were inhaling. This continued for several minutes as Evan engulfed the meat within the bundle and drank the juices from the wrapping leaves.
After the incantation subsided, she released the cloth and a brilliant, polished silver cage was within the space beneath it. Akkana used the cloth to grab at it from above and carefully held it out towards Evan, who grasped it hesitantly.
"You conjured this?" He asked, sceptical.
"Of course, lovey. A parlour trick for my kind."
"The Rules prohibit this, I read them myself."
"No, they prohibit the conjuring of help. This won't help me in the challenge, I can hardly touch it. And if I catch the mockingbird in that the challenge won't end. For the purposes of the challenge, lovey, this is just a hindrance." Akkana smiled with a horrible, toothy grin as she returned the cloth to the satchel from which she pulled it and returned to her assembly of components.
Evan had heard tales of a Hag's technical prowess, few youths hadn't growing up. But this felt like a placid example. There was no great loss, no trick worthy of particular distaste, just a half-truth stoked by malice.
The next few hours were beyond the scope of Evan's recollection. He did not know precisely what Akkana's earlier spellcraft was made for, but he had many theories. He simply left the hag to her devices and set out into the newly conjured forest. In his years of Venthrey, finding prey had become second nature to him, especially when unopposed.
It was no small feat to find the mockingbird and wrench it into the cage Akkana had conjured, yet it was no large feat either. As soon as the cage closed with the bird trapped within, the hinge disappeared and the door became a just like the rest of the cage.
Those inexperienced with Venthrey would assume the challenge had ended there. However, the Rules extended beyond their plain text. Within Venthrey, those who read, or otherwise comprehended the Rules to a game innately know all the rules beyond. In this game, the mockingbird is only considered caught when a participant has it in their grasp. As such, Evan could not end the game.
Evan had found a fallen trunk in which he hid the birdcage. Almost an hour had passed with Evan in painful wait. His mouth grimaced and fists clenched at the memory of making a deal with a hag. The deal had been simple at the very least, or it merely seemed to be. Once the sister is dead, Evan thought, what will she do with me?
It was when he was stewing in the worst-case scenarios that he heard the shrill screaming coming from deeper within the forest. Sprinting with an energy he had not had in days, he eventually came across the scene.
The lifeless, massive body of a black-scaled snake lay limp against the trunk of the tree opposite Evan, it's deep red eyes open and dim. Collapsed across the next tree along was a screaming form. The sister, Evan gathered. Fresh scratch marks covered her face, which were peeling off skin sizzling from the acidic venom that covered her eyes. An exposed leg was turning deathly pale as the veins became visible and dark black, spreading from two large puncture marks along the calf. Similar vein marks were beginning to spread across the wrinkled face.
Evan rushed to the sight of the screaming figure, trying to pull her scratching hands from her face.
"Who are you?!" She yelled as her flailing arms batted Evan away.
"It's ok, I can help you." Evan responded, maintaining a safe distance from the frenzy.
"Is it dead?" The hag wept, feeling around the ground for the dowskin satchel that had been flung far from the scene. "Did my sister send it?"
The limp body of the snake occupied Evan's vision, and his thoughts. The truth hung from the tip of his tongue before he recoiled it. This was a magic user, this forest was a haven, and this hag was a companion.
"No," he answered, "it's gone."
The hag's hyperventilation finally put an end to the screaming but made the searching for her satchel only more frantic. Evan quickly stepped forward, grabbing the satchel and placing it in the hag's hands.
"Let's get you out of here, it's not safe." He said as the hag finally let him take her arm and through it around his shoulder. The hag limped as Evan ushered them away from the scene, looking back at the deep red eyes of the corpse.
-Current day-
Rubinin had not spoken a word since the end of Evan recollection. She had merely swallowed dryly a couple of times just before she seemed like she was about to speak. She held the serpent's head in her lap, stroking it absentmindedly with her knuckles.
"The cage, it is locked?" She spoke hoarsely, finally breaking the silence.
"Yes," Evan responded quietly, "or, I think so. The door disappeared." Rubinin let out a weak snort, the smile disappeared in an instant.
"It is an old fey trick," she explained, "it is still there, it just looks different."
Evan gingerly felt where he recalled the hatch had been. Surely enough, what the eye could not see, the finger could feel; the slight crack between what seemed a single bar of the cage. He felt along the bar to undo the invisible latch, and the hinge squeaked open for the first time in years.
The mockingbird watched Evan's expectant hand for several moments, twittering softly before hopping onto it. Evan caught the gasp of Rubinin as the bird finally sounded.
"This is it?" Ruby asked, a decided venom in her voice.
"Yes." Evan responded coldly. He knew that his questions, his pleas would be in vain.
Rubinin hesitantly extended her hand, palm upright.
"I'll miss you, Ruby." Evan said. He waited for a response that did not come and brought the mockingbird before her hand. The bird happily jumped upon it. Once it resided in her palm, Rubinin clenched her fist as fast as a hunting trap as the bird cried instantaneously. The feathers that dropped from the fist disappeared as soon as they hit the floor.
The earth rumbled momentarily before a stone pillar shot from the ground. Written upon it were fey runes and a common translation.
Victor: Rubinin Harecourt. That was all it said.
The light that filtered into the crook began brighter and more apparent, and through the curtain Evan could see the leaves fall from the trees as the trunks began to rot.
Rubinin became surrounded by a vortex of leaves and variegated fey energy. In two years he had tried all he could to become a participant, to be able to join Ruby as she prepared to return to her home. It had been in vain, but now he could finally give her this. No, now he was willing to give her this.
"And I you, Calweather." Evan wasn't sure if he imagined the hushed words before Ruby was completely engulfed by the energy, which quickly dissipated without her within it.