Dusk fell upon Imore, crickets heralding in the approaching dark with a concerto of chirps. Samhir and Korins home sat quaintly before the two. A shadow could be seen projected across lit windows, moving about. Nimara stood just off to the side of Mikhail. She'd appeared briefly after and had waited silently behind him as he had stood quiet at the edge of the ward.
When Mikhail did finally walk through it, his ward collapsed. With a silent breath of defeat it fell and the iron dog spikes that had held its edge in place sank into the earth, their metals becoming one with the dirt and soil and rock once more. It was no longer needed.
As it fell a bubble of sound popped in Nimaras ears and the chatter of plants greeted her. Despite its absence the first step into the dismantled boundary had her clenching her fists. When nothing happened she continued on behind him.
Soon they were at the door and Mikahil was knocking on hits chipping surface. The heavy thuds of his fist on the wood echoed into the house and a moment later Samhir opened the door. "Mikhail!" The man said, red cheeked and heavy lidded. "Korin hasn't returned yet- What's going on?"
It took only a few words for the unease that now sat sourly in Mikhail to be noticed. He was not quite so glowy. His lips did not curl at their ends. A fast, quite rush of air whistled through his nose, then he opened his mouth, the sound of his voice a little hoarse. "Korin was taken. I- I-" He looked ashamed. His eyes made contacts with Samhirs, watched as his expression widened and his pupils began to dilate. "I figured I'd come to you before anyone else knew. Well," a familiar face flashed through his mind, "Talis- Talis saw. She might tell someone."
Mikhail was attempting his best to stay calm and look as collected as possible. The demon was anxiously pacing beneath the surface. It kept threatening to jump forward, rise across his skin, visible for all. Talis' reaction earlier had been a good indicator that that was a bad idea.
Samhir, features morphed hard and warry, gave a swift nod. He scoured the yard, gaze fell to Nimara for a brief second who he afforded a momentary quizzical expression, then stepped to the side. "Inside, the two of you. Quickly."
Mikhail crossed through the threshold and then Nimara when a small and tired voice called out from down the path. "Wait!" It was Talis, Elly balanced on the girls shoulders. She huffed as she solidered her way forward, the giant waterworld dwarfing her figure. Blackened vines of smoke still encompassed the slumbering animal.
Mikhail slid past, did a light jog to meet Talis where he took the Elly into his own arms.
"Th-Thank you." Huffed Talis.
"Thank you for not leaving her." He replied, his usually chipper and charming demeanor now bleak and dim.
Her next words had everyone grinding their teeth and shuffling awkwardly. "Is Korin okay?" When the silence rang on too long, Talis' hands flew to cover her mouth with round and watery eyes. "Did they kill her?" she squeaked.
"No." Mikhail quipped in a hushed voice. "Let's step inside with Samhir." He scanned the yard and the treeline eyes aglow, looking for threats. "We do not know who may be watching or listening."
Talis nodded, and headed into the house. Though she was now even more wary of Mikhail and the dark entity that he wore like a glove, she was much calmer without Korins energy driving her to insanity. Now that the insidious feeling wasn't coursing through her she took a moment to look fully upon the creature. It was scary yet beautiful in its little features- the iridescent flash from its scales in the dusk, the soft rattle of blackened exoskeleton chipping and flaking in a frothing broil, playing for those with the ears to hear it. And when she looked at it, it looked back, saw that she saw it, and with chartreuse eyes aglow gave a blink and a nod. Gooseflesh rose across her skin and with a yelp and a skip in her step she hurried inside.
Samhir had cleared the kitchen table of a hundred parts, pieces and tools to make room for everyone to sit. He did so quietly only letting out a single grunt when he hoisted up a heavy looking piece of metal and not-so-gracefully set it on the floor.
Everyone had been quiet when they had entered his home. No one was really sure where to begin a hard conversation. Only once they were seated and a kettle was nearly whistling on the stove did someone speak up. It was Nimara who had enough of the uncomfortable silence. Her voice filled the kitchen. "Well this is uncomfortable."
Samhir let out a dreary scoff of laughter. "Indeed it is, fae."
Three sets of eyes snapped to Samhir. One in shock, one intrigued-eyebrow raised, and the last confused. "Fae?" Talis questioned.
"The boy said that someone would come someday for her. He gave me the ability to see past your disguises that way I would know it was he who had sent for her."
"Who?"
"Yuen." Samhir wrung his hands in his lap and the kettle began to scream.. Mikhail, who was not entirely a stranger to the kitchen, rose to attend to the tea as Samhir continued. "He was in the forest when we were searching for Korin. I'd split off to search a valley on my own. It's where he found me, or I guess I should say he was waiting for me, said he knew I'd enter the valley alone and had been waiting there for me. He gave me instructions to find my daughter, and-and," Samhirs lips were trembling as he stared into his lap. Mikhail placed a steaming cup of tea next to him. With a shaky hand he reached into the vest he always wore, pulled out a silver flask then doused his tea with an amber liquor. His beverage now threatened to breach the cup's edge. Samhir took a few greedy gulps of the steaming liquid. The burn did very little to quell the desolate and heavy feeling of his chest and when he did look up from his lap tears flowed from his eyes. It was a silent heavy cry. No sniffling, heaving or hysterics, just pure untainted sadness. With a gulp and a heavy breath he kept talking. "He informed me that Korin would be different once she awoke. He reassured me that she would still be my daughter but she would not be the same. I was already scared and I remember his words had made me so angry I wanted to scream at the boy but I couldn't. I couldn't do anything but listen to him. It was some kind of spell he had, it floated around him and I think some of it got on me or I inhaled some of it or something." Samhir rubbed his face with one hand then took another drink.
"He gave me rules to follow and what to expect Korin to be like. I don't think anything he said would have prepared me for what was going to come or just how different my daughter would be." The tears rained from his eyes now. It was a confessional session which he had never had with anyone before and it came off his conscience through a mouth that didn't want to quite moving. The man and his daughter were spitting images of each other and Mikhail was certain that they even wept the same, silently with their pain etched deep into their features. It pulled at the heart- incited a helpless sympathy. "She used to be this bright, lively, kind of mouthy girl with the drive of a bull. Always off playing and chatting with whoever would listen to whatever she was interested in that day. When she finally woke up she was the exact opposite of everything she'd ever been. And everyone was terrified of her, even Ama." It'd been years since Samhir had voluntarily brought up his wife. He worried into his teacup with his thumbs. "At first I thought it was weird how everyone seemed to become paranoid around her when I felt no such thing. Even my wife was terrified of her. She did her best to hide it, but it ate at her and one day…" Samhir paused, unpleasant memories playing in his head.
The room listened, caught in his words. Only the occasional lifting and setting down of cups replied to his story.
He shook his head, an attempt to expel his reminiscing. "I wanted to believe that I wasn't afraid of her because she was my daughter but sometimes, I'd have that guilty thought that the boy had made me not afraid of her with his weird magic. Some weird messed up, shitty thought that I may not even like my daughter at all." A depressing calm followed. He drowned the rest of his loaded tea. The warmth of liquor smoldered in his belly yet did nothing to quell the turmoil boiling inside him. The room sat unmoving with him. Talis and Mikhail were full of questions-too afraid to ask- while Nimara had growing anxieties of her own and the consequences for losing the objective.
"So the fae have finally taken her then?" Samhir folded his hands in his lap, a slight quiver to his lips.
"No," replied Nimara and Mikhail in unison.
.
"What?"
"I'm sorry Samhir. I was too late getting there." Mikhail was shaking his head, voice shaking, not heavy with emotion but from effort to contain the panicking demon. Mikhail could guess at this point that if the demon truly wanted to he would have simply taken control. Even the demon was limiting itself.
The energy in the room shifted as Samhir rose. Panic now more prominent in his hollowed expression. "What?" He asked again before rubbing at his puffy eyes. "What- What is my daughter to you?" His confusion circled around to annoyance as he finally looked at the foreigner who had suspiciously befriended his daughter and had just happened to be around when she was taken. The man was so at ease with the fae while Talis looked shocked, big eyes rolling anxiously between the two.
Mikhail nervously repositioned himself, wiped his hands along his skirts. "I'm from the Tellan Kingdom. An ambassador to the crown from the Maaroi family. A couple years ago I began to receive oracle readings about an individual whose destiny would be intertwined with mine. As the readings and visions progressed and became more on theme, my mother pushed me to search out this destiny."
"And you believed that was Korin?" Her father looked at the young ambassador quizzically.
Mikhail nodded. "It's become more obvious every day."
Samhir rubbed at his eyes again. "So who took my damn daughter then?"
"The priests of Eeno."
"Those religious men who came into town with the caravan? The bald ones?"
Mikhail nodded.
"They attacked Korin." Talis' soft voice spoke from behind a tilted teacup which shook ever so slightly in her hands. "Those men and that monster."
"Monster?" Came three replies from those who had not witnessed the battle.
Talis nodded. "It was horrible. Korin was pretty scary too but that thing was awful. Its limbs were all bent and long. Like someone took a man and stretched him out like rubber."
"What all did you see?" Mikhail asked, his curiosity ridden by the demon who wanted to know what had transpired.
Talis took a sip from her tea, already going cold. "Not a lot. I felt that horrible energy leaking down the mountain and I-" She looked at Samhir who stared at her intently, and felt a smidge of guilt. "I knew it was Korin. It felt just like her. I didn't know if she was in trouble or not so I found her. She was already fighting that monster when I got there, while the priest-three of them- watched. There was some magic barrier that muffled all the sound and I couldn't pass through. Then one of the men took out a syringe and needle. I'm assuming it was some kind of sedative. I warned her by punching at the barrier and screamed like crazy until she noticed me."
"And then?" The demon bled into his voice, hollowing it out.
Talis' eye rounded before she continued with a little stutter. "A-And then the priests saw me and whatever they said seemed to scare Korin and she told me to leave. No- she ordered me to leave- commanded it." Gooseflesh rose across her arms at how she had had no choice but to run.
"Command?" Nimaras question was quick and her head tilted to the side.
"Uh- yeah." Talis had yet to interact with the fae after being choke slammed into the dirt by the woman. She didn't necessarily give the being the soft tone she had used with her two community members. "It was like a demand I couldn't refuse. It was soothsaid."
"What do you know, Nimara?" Mikhail and the demon asked simultaneously.
Nimara shook her head, one hand thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "Yuen probably knows. There are not many beings capable of 'soothsaying', as the little witch put it. Fae are among the few."
"You think she's one of the fae?" Samhir asked. His flask now sat next to his empty tea cup. He picked it up and took a swig.
Nimara bit her lip. "No..?" She said hesitantly. "I'm not sure but she didn't smell like fae nor do the plants seem to recognize her as such."
"What's a fae anyways?" Talis said in her stern tone, rolling a lip at Nimara.
Nimara returned the attitude with a flip of her fair and her own raised lip. "We are the numen of plants."
"Oooooo, fancy. So like magical farmers?" Talis surmised rudely.
"No." Snapped Nimara who let her glamour fade. Her large eyes narrowed at the other woman and her pointed ears pushed down with hostility. So far she did not like the snooty little witch. "Just as you have gods, so do the plants. We are their gods." She spat the word 'gods' like it was filthy.
Talis took on a quizzical expression. "Plants have gods?"
"What?" Nimara scoffed. "Did you think humans are the only sentient beings on this planet? Even the birds and the bugs have their gods. But they do not call them that just as the fae are not called that."
A very undignified snort was followed by, "Well you must be the god of some rude little weed then." Talis muttered and crossed her arms
"I am the fae of white night kudzu. I am a renowned and feared assassin. So you should watch that waggling little tongue of yours, witch" She hissed.
Talis didn't yield. Perhaps Korins energy had commanded away her common sense too. "Oh so a noxious weed then. And aren't assassins supposed to be discrete? If everyone knows who you are 'cause you blab about it then you're just a sellsword." Talis had heard of kudzu before. A vining plant that grew in temperate to tropical climates. Most of its subspecies were known for their catastrophically invasive nature, some varieties even poisoning the ground and choking out the landscape.
Nimara let forth a vibrating growl as her teeth began to serrate and her pupil blew out.
"That's enough." Samhir snapped. "Do any of you know where they may have taken her?"
Talis huffed and crossed her arms, Nimara shook her head, and Mikhail spoke. "No. We only arrived after they had disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Mm." Mikhail nodded. "Into thin air. Their trails, their scents. All gone."
Samhir cursed under his breath, his flask empty alongside his tea cup. After a stream of profanity he stood abruptly. "I'll inform Ulias she has been taken. The elder has always had a soft spot for her. He'll know best how to approach the local council."
"You're going to tell them?!" Talis interjected, reminded of her sister's words of Korins fate should she be handed over to the state. "But she's your daughter!"
"They may very well already know. We all heard the screaming," pointed out Mikhail.
"The screaming?" Samhir asked.
"When Korin engaged in battle her energy, her magic, flooded the valley. When it reached the village we could hear everyone howling and moaning."
"Samhir mustn't have noticed because of your ward." Commented Nimara.
"No, I didn't hear any screaming." The man was pale now. Blanched radish white. "I guess…," he paused for a few breaths and contemplated what to do. "I should head into the village and see what has happened. Mikhail you should come with me." He lifted himself to his feet. Like a seasoned alcoholic he did not stutter, sway, or stumble. He stood firm, looking more confident than he felt. "Talis, I think it best that you head home and check on your sister and Ms.Menia."
"What do you want me to tell them?" Talis whined a little panicky. She was handing the reins to Samhir, giving him an opportunity to create a lie so they could protect Korin.
Samhir did his best to smile at the young woman. She and her sister moved to the village not long after Korins accident. In so many ways the young Aasai had reminded him of his daughter. Under better circumstances, in another reality, he had imagined and hoped the two would have become amazing friends. However, that had not been in Korins stars and Talis was not free of her sinister influence. Aware enough to see it and wade nervously through her presence yet incapable of overcoming its force. And yet she had found empathy in her heart. Tried to save Korin and now sat in his kitchen ready to scheme with him to protect her. "I'm going to leave that up to you kid."
A knot formed in her stomach and her voice came out weak and timid. "I don't know if I want that responsibility, Samhir. I want to protect Korin but I don't know what to say. If I knew it was her they'd definitely know."
"Then tell them the truth." He let out a deep sigh. There wouldn't be hiding anything from the more perceptive of his community members. He was already certain the elders were aware of the commotion on the mountain. He suspected that they may even be headed to check on him and his daughter at this very moment. "Ask them to please keep it a secret until I've had a chance to talk to them…"
Talis did not necessarily like the answer but regardless she gave a stiff nod before mechanically arising from her position.
"You should hurry back now. If your sister knows I'm sure she is worried about you."
Talis gave another single nod, curls bouncing with the mechanical movement.
The front door quietly creaked open and shut as Telis left to return home.
Samhir turned to the fae then, a practical stranger. "Make yourself at home." He swept his arm across the room, giving stage to a hundred mechanical parts and pieces of projects. It was neither a welcoming tone or gesture, but Nimara was not insulted. In fact, she thought the human man was taking the news of his kidnapped daughter rather well. Guzzling down that entire flask of booze probably helped quite a bit. "I'm assuming Yuen will be making an appearance soon."
"That is what he told me."
"Good." Another deep sigh. "Let's get this over with. If my hunch is right we might meet with the elders before we even make it to the village."