[29] Not Another Fucking Elf!
The tiny pebble lodged deep in the works of the machine, crushed on all sides by the overwhelming pressure of every accumulated gear and cog, finally launched out like a bullet, ricocheted ten thousand times, and fell still. The machine groaned a moment, loosed a pent-up breath, and continued its ceaseless churn.
Jay Waringcrane stood on a cliff.
Sheer, high, it stared straight down into a frothing slice of sea set in perpetual grinding motion against the rock. Even so tall the sound of the crashing waves reached its apex, alongside the cold ocean air numbing his cheeks.
From here he saw everything. Not solely the water fanning out, but behind him the whole of the continent he'd traversed these two weeks: The forests, the mountains, even—seeming hardly so far away—Castle Whitecrosse and the monastery beyond it. The same feeling as from the tower in the academy where he once stood with Viviendre: that this world was not so large, that its entire expanse could fit within the palm of his hand. But his eyes turned beyond the sea.
"What's that." He pointed.
Olliebollen, on his shoulder, muttered something obscene under her breath. Lalum, without anywhere to hide on this barren outcropping, and who after two weeks had started to slowly emerge from her shell, to the point that she would at least allow Jay to see her downturned head from time to time, shivered and fumbled with her webbing to compose a few words. After one, two, three botched attempts Olliebollen finally decided to answer:
"California."
"I thought California was south of Whitecrosse."
"It is."
"I'm not that turned around. We're on the northern coast. That direction is north."
"It's a round planet you idiot. What happens if you go north enough?"
"We'd have to pass the north pole, go all the way down the planet, pass the south pole. Then we'd be south of Whitecrosse."
Lalum put forward a helpful addendum: CALIPH-URNIA IS A LONG LANDMASSE...
"Waste land at its southern end," said Olliebollen. She'd been in a foul mood since the incident with Temporary, but of course she'd been in a foul mood before that too. "Desert upon desert. You're right. We'd be traveling all the way down the other side of the world before we reached the civilized part of the continent. But I guess that's what we'll do next huh? We've tromped all over this continent, gone in circles, seen nothing, because there's nothing to see. John Coke killed half the things of interest years ago and the elves killed everything else. So you'll just keep us going huh, to California, simply to see it I guess. Right?"
Jay did not answer. The wind whipped his jacket and he held one hand atop his hat to keep it down. In that moment, at this edge of the world still looking beyond it at yet-unknown territory, he cut a dashing figure. This was a moment, a precipice much like the one they stood upon, a focal point of curvature where something fundamentally shifted, where north became south and so forth. Lalum understood simply from the look he gave; she understood his looks now, had observed them in great detail in lieu of any other activity, could discern subtle differences in the arrangement of his features.
"No—no wait! Not simply to see it. Of course not. You gotta make this world into paradise, right right right. I remember. Yep! Olliebollen Pandelirium never forgets. Paradise, paradise. Mhmm. Gotta go to California. Your little girlfriend's from there and her brother's mighty wicked so gotta get rid of him. I bet there's relics there too! After all Viviendre had one or two on her, so surely her brother's got more. That's the plan huh hero? That's the track to paradise yeah?"
"Paradise," Jay muttered.
Paradise. That goal of his; that goal fit for a hero. Olliebollen didn't believe. Nor had Shannon Waringcrane, nor Viviendre de Califerne. Lalum, lurking, heard them all, the way they scoffed, implying with their condescending smiles he was incapable of it, either physically or morally.
Wasn't it a nice thought, though? Paradise in this world. Paradise for all these poor, suffering sinners, these fools who could do nothing to stop themselves from slipping into a deeper morass of decrepitude. These decayed and corrupted creatures, unworthy of any love, and yet for no seeming reason protected by him.
Lalum knew. Lalum knew he could do it. She had seen it, in Flanz-le-Flore's court. He had not needed to say a word for her; she'd been attempting to abduct him, after all. Yet he said the word anyway that stayed those wolves chomping at her flesh—then he'd outwitted a fae queen. Was that not the stuff of a true hero? And a true hero could do it; could make paradise. These two weeks, since Temporary, Lalum had been able to think, first thinking on herself, and her corruption, and the constant threat of Mayfair lurking (though Mayfair had gone deathly silent)—then she thought of Jay. No—that was a lie—she thought of herself even more. She thought: Isn't it so pathetic of me, to cling to this man who speaks barely a word to me, and whom I fear to let see my face? Thoughts of herself in the context of him. Self-gazing... Loathsome pride even in her wretchedness. Not simply enough to be wretched; to be the most wretched, around whom all horrors of the world revolve...
Then she thought: No. There was something else. Something that drew her to him despite his apathy. That dream. That dream to make this world better. It'd been the dream of Astrophicus. The dream of Mayfair. Yet in the end both failed. Mayfair, even, had become something worse than failure.
Jay could still succeed. In the castle Viviendre tempted him and he threw her off. As he had thrown off Flanz-le-Flore. What figures within this world could stand against his will? Perhaps he could do it. Perhaps he could achieve his dream, create his paradise, and perhaps she could assist him in that endeavor, and in so doing truly, actually atone for the wounds she inflicted upon her own soul.
She envisioned it: A brave and treacherous trek over this small ocean before them, waves hurling a wooden bark as thunder struck overhead. Yet he forged ahead.
A landfall. A desert waste, a beating sun. No oasis, no shelter. Their throats parched, their skin burnt. Yet he forged ahead.
Palm trees, a city of hardened clay. A pyramid rising beyond the surface of a long reflecting pool. Men of dark complexion sharpening curved swords; lascivious odalisques tempting toward interior delights. Yet he forged ahead.
The court of the Mad King of California. A cold reception, an ominous pallor. Sudden rage: threats, ravings, stark and suspicious lunacy. Calls for a hero's beating heart upon a platter. Yet he forged ahead.
A duel, man to man, the throne unseated, the court officials amazed. He stands victorious, his metal bat raised high, a despot overthrown. The brown faces are not horrified. It's relief on their features, relief to be free from the thumb of a man who might behead any of them on a whim. They hail: a new king, a hero, they present to him the treasured relics of California...
What a pleasant tale. It could happen that way, Lalum told herself. It truly could. She would die for him if she had to make it so. Dying in such a tale would be a worthy end for one such as her.
But she read his face. As he stared across the ocean at the continent of California, his thoughts weren't of the distant pyramid capital or the mad king on its throne. It was someone else he associated with that distant, dusty land; his thoughts turned to her.
When he opened his mouth and spoke those terse words, Lalum already knew. He could have said them silently and she would have known. Her whole body sank within itself; she became a folding, crumbling thing. He said:
"Let's go back. Let's go back to Whitecrosse."
—
In the monastery, nine nuns remained. Though there was also a tenth among them. In some manner of definition a tenth. She often went unmoving for long stretches of time; when she did move it was with stilted, uncanny grace. She spoke to them in strange sentences unlike any that particular nun would've spoken when they knew her to be alive. Yet she did not putrefy, no matter how much time passed.
Eight of the nine avoided her. Only her sister kept by her side. In secluded rooms, often in the portions of the monastery blackened by the fire, they kept together. Sister Cinquefoil, the ferret, and boldest among them, once sniffed close to their door and listened awhile, but reported only sobbing. Constant sobbing.
One morning, the eight were gathered in the mess hall to take their breakfast as was their custom. They sent Cinquefoil with a bowl for Sister Charm, but no sooner had she stepped outside did she return, a hollow look in her eyes accentuated by the black band of fur that spanned them. Behind her was Sister Charm—and Sister Charisma.
The minimal conversation died. All heads turned as Cinquefoil and Charm slipped out of the way and Charisma approached the fore. Each click of her stiff talons bristled the backs of their necks. They watched her; they waited.
Charisma's mouth opened. Her eyes, which looked at nothing, went limpid in their brilliant blankness. A voice emerged, a voice they recognized as once belonging to their former friend:
"Speak to the archbishop."
Nothing else. Finished, the remnant of Charisma went inert within the arms of her twin ready to clasp her.
For a time: silence. Then—
"NO!"
The scream rebounded the high arches of the mess hall, returned to them a ghostly echo to rivet their eyes to the one who screamed. It was Sister Theovora, the mantis, leader among them, or at least leader before the fire, the one who kept them organized and orderly. Unlike the others, she had never been a woman of ill repute, or a waif, or some other brand of human refuse. They understood her to be some niece or similar relation to the archbishop, and she had assisted him in his experiments from the beginning, before the transformation of either.
"What's the matter, Theo," asked Cinquefoil.
Theovora slumped. "I cannot—not again. Not after all hope has been snatched from us. Let us linger as we are in peaceful solitude at least. Do not draw us back in. Let no more horrors fall upon our heads from her meddling!"
And who was this "her"? They all knew. They knew whose words were really coming from Charisma's mouth.
"It's all gone so wrong," Theovora said. "So, so, so wrong. It was never supposed to be this cruel, this violent. We weren't supposed to have to bury so many. Let us not bury any more! My sisters, I love you all. May we not simply enjoy a simple, humble bliss? May we cease all this needless striving? We saw where it brought us. Let us now negate ourselves—eternal negation—and be removed quietly from this farce."
A murmur. Charisma offered no counterargument.
From one table a rough sound emerged of a bowl being pushed aside as the woman seated there slowly and carefully rose with meticulous effort of her four legs and long cervid body. Sister Demny, the deer. In contrast to Theovora, in contrast to the murmuring nuns, in contrast to Charm with her face soaked by black tears, Demny was calm. Serene. Almost to the point of apathy. Perhaps indeed to the point of apathy, and yet in her placid demeanor came a gentle pulse that stilled the activity of the others.
"Let's not devote ourselves to uselessness," Demny said. "We've a part still to play; let us play it. Do any of you wish to linger with your bodies as they are now? Your souls either. I do not. In silence I have only my own thoughts and my thoughts terrify me more than any fire."
Another murmur, cut short as Cinquefoil gave a curt "Aye!" and that was all that was needed. This consensus of two swayed the others and they rose, and once they had all risen even Theovora spat out a lachrymose sigh and rose too without further complaint.
They went to the archbishop.
Through the efforts of nearly all gathered, and those of many buried in the courtyard beside the prince, the fire had not penetrated the archbishop's sanctum. Nonetheless since that night his flower had dwindled, so that the petals lay gigantic around his roots; in its place was a large red bulb, pulsing with a faint light deep inside. The head drooped, and the stem was drained white. An affliction—one none of them knew the cause nor cure of. Theovora alone had tended to him, watering him and so forth, and he had spoken to none but Theovora in that time, if he even spoke to her. The sun, transformed into every imaginable color, streamed through the stained glass of his octagonal chamber and gave him although wilting—perhaps because of the wilting—a somber, holy grace.
They gathered in two lines as they typically did, Theovora and Demny at the front, Charm and Charisma at the back, and stopped before him. He made no notion of awareness and after a too-pregnant pause Demny nodded to Theovora and Theovora broke the formation to approach. Leaning close, she whispered something inaudible to the plant, then turned and faced her sisters. Slowly, a root detached from the ground and, trembling, injected itself into the back of Theovora's head.
Her eyes went blank.
"Oh... oh good... oh very good," Theovora said, though like Charisma it was no longer her who spoke. "My brave women... my courageous sisters of the faith... No, I cannot... I cannot waste words. I grow weak... but it is all for you... all for you. Our wonderful... vision... our vision for Whitecrosse... to bring it to God... to bring us all salvation..."
"We know the vision," Demny said. The other sisters went tense; it was irregular for any to interrupt the archbishop. "Tell us why you summoned us. Or why she summoned us for you."
Theovora's blank face belied any reaction; certainly, the plant itself gave none. After a pause, words continued to crawl out Theovora's throat:
"I have little time... My deep roots... are pulling from the soil... absorbing what is buried there. Your deceased sisters... that poor prince... even something deeper... that dread lizard... Devereux. It takes... all of my energy... I am draining my own vitality. I do it... I do it for you... I do it... to create... a fruit."
The sisters looked up. At the bulb growing where the flower had once been, red and veiny and throbbing and faintly luminescent. A fruit? It looked more like an egg, or a womb encased in tightly-strained skin; then again, what else was a fruit than the egg of a plant, filled with its seed? Unease electrified the sisters. Some of them lost the discipline of their formation and stepped backward, postures defensive as though they expected an attack. A palpable heartbeat thrummed among them: Duum... duum... da-duum. In the silence they realized it was not their own heart beating but the fleshy egg perched atop the archbishop.
How long had it been there? None of the sisters remembered seeing it before now. They exchanged furtive, frightened glances, but those whose hearts left them entirely and turned to retreat back to the safety of the mess hall, to the blissful irrelevance that Theovora promised, saw the grim visage of Sister Charisma blocking their path and ceased their egress with a shudder.
"How is this fruit supposed to help us," Demny asked.
"The fruit's flesh... you must devour it... all of you. It is filled with... potent power... concentrated animus. You will... be filled with the hopes and wishes of your fallen sisters... you will... grow beyond what you are now. Strong enough... to save this world... and yourselves."
"You mean it'll corrupt us further!" Cinquefoil said.
"We're already this far gone," said Demny. "My only question is why. What will strength serve us now? What are we to do?"
The plant shuddered and a sharp, pained groan emitted out Theovora's mouth as two more petals came loose and floated like feathers to the floor.
Panting heavily, Theovora continued, even more halting than before: "I... I... my dear soldiers. You must... inside the fruit... there is... Nnnrrggaaaah... Never mind what it is. You'll see for yourself... soon. You must take... you must take what is inside... take it to Whitecrosse Castle. Take it to... the vault... the vault of relics. My dear Theovora... she'll know the way. Ah... there shall be violence... terrible violence there. But you must... you must persevere... Ah! Nhuuaaa!"
A violent tremor wracked the plant; another petal fell. The tall stalk stooped, and the fruit atop it seemed to grow larger even as the archbishop shriveled and turned a bilious brittle white. Theovora fell to her knees but continued:
"Princess Mayfair... our dear ally... she is Master now. Have faith in her... she will set all aright. You must... do your part... my dear girls. Oh... I'm sorry. I'm sorry what I did to you all... I'm sorry. But there is no greater... purpose... than striving to know God... all was for that purpose. All was for..."
The root attached to the back of Theovora's head crumbled. Theovora herself flopped forward, jerking spasmodically in the throes of a falling fit. Demny quickly stooped to her aid and held her steady. The massive structure of the archbishop began to come apart. Sinew and filament snapped, sap oozed out only to immediately go dry and leave a dusty white residue, and the main stalk curled forward, shedding its last few petals as the heavy fruit, now larger than the size of a person, lowered itself slowly to the floor and came to rest before them. Demny reached out and touched the stalk and a swath of it came apart as powder that drifted stagnant in the tinted sunlight. Some of the other sisters let out cries of dismay, some near the back even sobbed—or was it simply Charm, sobbing enough for them all? Among the commotion remained that constant throbbing heartbeat, louder now, a palpable pulse along the floor that rose up through their feet, and the fruit despite the death of the plant that produced it bulging with an excess of life; swollen, over-full.
It burst.
A seam split in response to the welling pressure within, emerging like a gash on the skin, and from it flowed a hissing deluge of pinkish fluid that splattered the ground and spread in a fan that caused the nuns—even Demny—to step back. The liquid smelled sweet, like juice.
Even broken, the egg continued to beat, to throb, each heaved in- and exhalation spurting a further spew of sweetly-smelling amniotic fluid. Within the draining sac a shadow emerged, at first too indistinct to determine any clear form, but the widening gash let out yet more of the juice and soon the figure inside was clear, a humanoid form in fetal self-embrace. Humanoid—it was not human. Or not fully human. Even so occluded they could see.
The gash increased until the full front of the egg was split and the rounded nub at its apex came apart in two halves, and the form inside uncoiling slid out on the final rush of liquid enshrouded by the rising steam of its sizzling heat.
By now the nuns were cleaved to the walls, all save Charisma who stood in the back unflinching, and Theovora still draped across the floor only now returning to self-awareness and wiping foam from her mouth with the back of her scythe-like hand, her head supported by the kneeling Demny. The creature born of the egg remained half-curled on its side in a lake of pink liquid, motionless, motionless long enough for the rapt attention of the nuns to waver and for a few to exchange glances with one another, motionless long enough for Demny to nod to Cinquefoil and the latter to start tepidly on a forward creep, one ragged claw outstretched as though to tap the newborn on the shoulder. The claw did not come close. The thing shook itself alive with one sharp arch of its back as its head tilted to suck a heavy breath; Cinquefoil danced back eeping as motion came to the extremities, then the limbs, then the hips and torso, and finally the long, scaly, spike-studded tail.
Darkly incandescent scales covered its clawed hands and arms nearly up to the shoulders; likewise were its legs, which flexed and stretched before digging the sharp nails of the feet into the floor to stabilize itself as it pulled into position to rise. The pink fluid ran off its smooth body in rivers, trickling in streams from the long golden hair that hung around its face and the two knobby horns jutting backward from its head. From its back, casting off a further runny mess, wings unfolded and extended to their full breadth, long enough to cast a dark shadow on all before it, while the stained glass sunlight struck from behind and cast it aglow in immaculate rainbow.
"A dragon," Demny muttered under her breath. A dragon—and yet a human too. The admixture of all the things buried beneath the monastery.
The dragon lifted its claws and pushed aside strands of hair from its face. An altogether too lovely face, a face of uncanny perfection that somehow even bathed in birth-fluid tugged at the nuns with its angelic allure. Then it opened its eyes—and they were the yellow slitted eyes of a reptile.
Theovora clasped her scythes together and prayed in silence. Several other nuns followed suit and perhaps they all would have continued staring in holy dread if not for Demny rising and clip-clopping forward. "Someone," she said, "fetch a rag to dry her. Someone else, find a spare habit."
The nuns blinked.
"She won't have to go nude, will she?" Demny said. "Cinquefoil, Pythette."
"Ah—erm—yes!" Cinquefoil saluted smartly and shot off on all fours, her long body and tail undulating with each bound. Pythette, the hare, hesitated a moment longer, but the slam of a distant door roused her and she bounded away.
"Now then." Demny touched a cloven hoof carefully to the edge of the fluid, found it to have quickly cooled, and approached the dragon girl, who for someone just born seemed hardly younger than the other nuns. "The archbishop's final request was for us to take her to the Whitecrosse vault. We—"
"Absurd," Theovora said. "This is all so absurd! We can never make it to the vault. Even if we could, it's sealed. Won't open for any but royal blood."
"Prince Makepeace was among those buried," said Demny. "If this child is born of what the archbishop absorbed from the corpses—"
"Never, never in a thousand years would that be sufficient, the blood so strained and diluted. No—None of this makes the least sense. Why would the archbishop want us to take her there? She's only just now opened her eyes for the first time. We shall care for her as we would any, here in the safety of the monastery. That is all. No more, no more, let us bring upon ourselves no more suffering!"
Demny, with casual disinterest as footsteps heralded the return of Cinquefoil and Pythette, prepared to make her response, but before she could the dragon opened its mouth and spoke a single word:
"Mademerry."
All looked at her, uncertain what she just said, whether it were speech or simply sound. Yet her voice was as her face: heavenly, with only a slight strain of sharpness to mar it.
"Mademerry," she said. "My name is Mademerry."
Mademerry. They processed the name. Cinquefoil and Pythette slowed to a halt, holding bundled cloth. Mademerry. It was a familiar name, though none had heard it before. Mademerry, with the fair face and golden hair. Who else possessed a similar name? A similar appearance too, if one ignored the scales?
Eyes turned back, toward the silent Charisma; Charisma stared unflinching in return.
"Thank you most kindly." Mademerry reached out, took the rag from Cinquefoil, and dried herself with it, retaining as she did her posture. "You need not bother yourselves with explaining anything; in my egg I dreamed, and my dreams revealed much to me. Sister Theovora, fret not. The vault will be open when we arrive. All will follow a design. No harm shall befall any of you."
Theovora started to protest but stopped when Mademerry smiled. That smile—it pierced the heart. Several of the nuns wilted with a melancholic "Oh," and even Demny found herself weakened by its simple charm before Mademerry put her towel to her face and rubbed it clean enough to reveal an even greater luster.
"I am so glad to finally meet you all," Mademerry continued. "It could be said that Archbishop Astrophicus was my father, and you and your sisters risked your lives to keep him safe from the flame. I owe my life to you; my very existence. If you bring me to the vault, I shall be able to repay your kindness tenfold, with a gift so precious it cannot be found anywhere in this world." She smiled again, and its force was such that the weaker nuns knelt spontaneously.
Still, Theovora managed a curdling groan as she resisted. "The archbishop... He's dead because of you..."
"He was willing to sacrifice himself for this vision. He did nothing that he did for himself; it was for you, my sisters, for you and everyone else in this world. This was his desire. Is that desire one not worth celebrating?"
The voice. It wasn't the exact same. But how could they not think of her when they heard it?
"Even if the vault's open, it's suicide to go there," Theovora said. "We'll be caught and executed before we even reach the wall. It's—we—we cannot—"
"Dear Theovora," Mademerry taking a single step forward, extending her arms as Cinquefoil helped dress her in the nun's habit, then carrying forward with a second step as though she intended to take Theovora in those same arms, "we must simply have faith. Do you remember what else the archbishop spoke through you? The fruit from which I was born. It is brimming with the reclaimed animus of your fallen sisters. It contains their wishes and their hopes for you, the only family those unfortunate women ever truly had. Is there not something beautiful in that? Eat of the fruit and gain strength, strength so that none may ever hurt you again..."
For a moment Theovora wavered; Mademerry approached, her arms closing for the embrace; then with a lurch Theovora tore away and danced back. "No. No! What you ask is hideous, what you ask is an affront to all that is holy. Cannibalism! Cannibalism is what you ask, and for what? So that we may suffer and die? No. No. I refuse. I refuse! I'll not play a part in it. I resign myself from this horrific plot! I excise myself from it entirely, and if any of you retain your senses, I advise you follow!"
She waited for no rebuttal, did not bother to look at her sisters. She turned and ran, her steps shaky and awkward but irreversible. A second sister, watching her go, bit her lip hard enough to draw a bead of blood, seized the sleeve of the sister beside her, and dragged her enough steps until both their legs resumed their function and they could disappear down the corridor after Theovora.
That left six. Six—and the corpse of Charisma—gathered still around Mademerry. The dragon's eyes narrowed and an instant of displeasure distorted her features enough to momentarily break the charm that imbued her; then her face returned to its typical beauty and she shrugged. "Even now some will not listen... Princess Mayfair spoke sooth."
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
"You know the princess," Demny said.
"Indeed. She kept me such pleasant company in my dreams. She is a wonderful girl. She is worthy of all love. I hope to meet her some day. I hope that we may become friends... But we have work to do. Please, my sisters. You must eat of the fruit. You must!"
She stepped aside, revealing the split halves of the egg from which she emerged. Her claws were held out to it, offering it to the sisters who remained. Those who remained, however, mainly did so because it was impossible for them to muster the clarity of mind to break away. Though the fruit smelled sweet, it was nonetheless unappetizing for numerous reasons. An impasse may have stalled matters, Mademerry unable to convince them despite all her charm to take that final step, if not for Demny. With a stony face she clopped forward, pulled a glob of the fruit's flesh from one half, sniffed it, and then bit into it. The juice ran down her chin; she swallowed.
"It tastes... amazing," she said, and her blank face for a moment blazed with rapture.
The other sisters tiptoed forward and followed suit, while Demny grabbed another handful to feast upon.
Sounds of smacking lips filled the chamber where the desiccated corpse of the archbishop still lay. Mademerry watched with a kindly smile, turning her head only to face the final sister who still hesitated.
"Go ahead, Charm. This is what your sister wants for you..."
Charm, face a mask of illimitable sorrow, glanced over her shoulder at the body of her twin. Charisma's mouth twitched into something more akin to a sneer than a smile on account of the natural character of her face, but the sentiment was conveyed clearly enough by the nod that followed. That was enough. Sobbing, Charm went to the fruit and joined her sisters.
—
Avery Waringcrane woke up to the sound of vomit.
Rubbing sleep from her eyes she plodded in pajamas to her home's central hallway, where the door to the bathroom hung open and yellow light flooded out. Sansaime curled around the toilet, heaving another wet splatter into the basin before casting a moribund grimace over her shoulder.
"Maybe let's have you eat something other than Froot Loops," Avery said.
Instantly something cracked in the face looking up at her, Sansaime's head tilted, tears streamed out the corners. Tears—real tears. A fountain of emotion that melted something out of Avery's somnolence...
"It's—it's not that." Emerging as a rasp. Choked with a sob. "It's not that. It's not that."
If you went to another country, you could get sick from a disease you didn't have any immunity against, or something like that. Sansaime came from another world... could she have gotten sick like the Native Americans? That was Avery's first thought, but the tragedy wreaking havoc on Sansaime's face, messing it up far worse than any of those scars, something hidden there became known. Avery didn't know how she knew it, but she knew—call it intuition.
"Um," she said, "when was... when was your last... uh..." She wondered if people from a fantasy world knew the word "period." "When was the last time you bled...?"
"I can't. I can't. No, I can't. Not this way. Not like this. Not like how it happened to me. No, no, no, no, no. It was one time. It was only one time."
Instantly Avery transported back in time, back to when she was eighteen and found herself where Sansaime was now, of course she hadn't known so quickly, she passed it off as just a stomach bug, she didn't know the signs to look for then. It'd been a few months before she realized. What then? She remembered no fear. She'd received the news with a distant tranquility, a single spoken exclamation: "Ah." It'd been Daniel who reacted, Daniel who wanted her to go in for an operation...
Maybe it was because Avery had never been good at anything, not at school—limping into a cheap public university on barely above a 2.0 GPA—not at sports, not even at love. The boys she went with in high school played such mean tricks on her, used her the way they liked and then left her. With Daniel, she'd thought... Well, no, her first thought had been maybe she could be a good mother. A child depends on their mother, they can't abandon her the way those boys did, and she could shower them with affection... so she thought. It turned out she wasn't a good mother either, was she? And they did abandon her. They grew cold first, then they left.
(Was that the reason though? Were you really thinking about being a mother at that moment? Or maybe you thought... with Daniel... maybe you thought you could keep him from leaving. For a time it worked. But he found a way to escape alright. Yes he did.)
None of that—none of that now mattered. What mattered was this young woman before her, Sansaime, face fraught with all sorts of nasty emotions unalike those Avery herself once felt. That was okay. One didn't have to have lived the exact same things to connect to another person. Maybe all those failures of the past could in this moment be repaired...
"And the father," Avery said. "Is he...?"
"He's DEAD," Sansaime said. "He's fucking DEAD."
Oh. Oh... now there was a connection. Avery moved forward, kneeling, to place her hands on Sansaime's shoulders, but an icy glare unseamed her and Sansaime shot up so abruptly that her woozy wobble afterward caused the towels on the rack to flop to the floor. "I'm fine now." She wiped at her tears. "I'm fine. I got it all out of me. I'm fine."
She strode past Avery into the hall and glanced toward Jay's room, where through the door Avery could see paused the fantasy video game she'd been playing before her flight to the bathroom. Into that room was solitude, the door an iron bulwark Avery could rarely hope to pierce, and seeing Sansaime look that way caused her to stammer useless words. Meaningless babble. But it worked, or maybe Sansaime had her own reasons, because she turned and went the other way, to the living room.
Maybe something in her needed to connect, despite her gruffness. Maybe...
Sansaime plucked a box of Froot Loops from the kitchen counter and scooped a handful into her mouth before dropping onto the sofa and clicking the remote.
"I want you to know," Avery said, "that you're not alone, okay Sansaime? I'm here for you. I'll help you through this, with anything you need." She'd thought about what to say in a situation like this before. Not Sansaime, of course, but Shannon. Shannon was popular with the boys... and although she was so fastidious about everything, sometimes accidents happen. "I don't know much, but I, ha-ha, I have experience, you know? We'll figure it out. It's not the end of the world. No—maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Maybe—"
"A blessing."
"I can see how it'd be difficult to think that now. But when you hold that child in your arms, then you might feel differently..."
"I'm such an idiot." Sansaime balled one hand into a fist and rammed it hard against her forehead. "I'm so stupid. I'm so, so, so STUPID! In that inn I thought it was what I needed. Just one moment... to be held like that, cared for like that... Ugh! What am I saying!" She hit herself again, again.
"Please, please don't do that." Avery sat on the other end of the sofa, careful about distance. She could tell—Sansaime wanted to say something. When they spoke earlier, before Sansaime retreated into Jay's video games, there had been a precipice, something Avery touched close to and could tell was sensitive, but at that time she'd felt it would be too much to pry further. Now, though, things were different. Sansaime had spoken more in the last five minutes than she had in the past two weeks, her taciturn nature was cracking, the emotion was simply too much. Something buried deep was being dredged to the surface. She only needed a gentle push... "You're worried because your own mother wasn't able to care for you as much as she should, aren't you? You're worried you'll be like her."
Avery wasn't sure how exactly she reached that conclusion. From tatters, maybe... there was no logical process. It was what she said, and it produced an effect.
"As much as she should." Sansaime scoffed. "Yea. You could say that, couldn't you?"
Avery inched closer. Her hand rested on the sofa cushion between them. "You can talk to me about it, Sansaime. I don't know how you feel about me, but... I care about you. I can tell this is something you've locked away. But you can be open with me, okay...?"
For a time Sansaime said nothing. Her bleary eyes dissected Avery, and although they gave her a shiver, Avery held strong, held the connection as she leaned forward. Perhaps they always left her because she was so persistent about delving into their hearts... But Jay and Shannon left even without that, didn't they?
Finally Sansaime pointed to her own face and said, "My mother gave me these scars."
Avery said nothing. It was time for Sansaime's story.
"I told you before about John Coke yea? How he fucked the elf queen. The Effervescent Elf-Queen, they call her." A meanspirited snicker. "That's why elves are so close to humans. They all descend from her and him. Well. That mixed blood is why elves are hated by both fae and human. Cast out, y'might say. You'd think that'd be something to be ashamed of, but oh, the Effervescent Elf-Queen's ashamed of nothing. If she did it, it must be good. So to her, to all my kind, that blood's a point of pride. Or maybe it has to be, since it's all we've left to take pride in. Ha, ha, ha.
"The purity of our impure blood must be maintained. The quotients cannot shift. If your blood is in any way diluted from that which the Elf-Queen herself produced, any more or any less human, then you're not an elf. If you're not an elf, you're an enemy, and if you're an enemy—well, then you're better off dead, heh? All marriages must be sanctioned by the queen herself. She creates most elves still and is suspicious of those she did not create, so she controls it all to ensure every specimen of our kind is exactly alike: fair of skin, blonde of hair, and possessed of immaculate beauty. Aye, and I've got all of those traits in spades, don't I now?"
Another spiteful chuckle. Avery made no reaction; she only watched attentively, letting Sansaime know someone was there to listen.
"My mother, though a purebred elf like any other, wished to see the world outside the queen's iron rule. A bohemian nature, y'might say. She slipped away and went on her adventure and saw the world and encountered a human from California who claimed he loved her. Oh, my mother truly believed it, she believed it her whole damn life, she believed it although the morning after he put me in her he vanished without a trace and was never seen again.
"A child was an inconvenient end to my dear mum's wanderlust, eh-heh-heh. But how to raise a newborn, hm? She'd forsaken the only society that would accept her. Alone, she might survive on forage, but with me? My earliest memories are her taking me to the Californian capital"—which wasn't Los Angeles, Avery remembered that from school at least, it was San Francisco—"and nearly getting us both murdered by the guards. Oh, she wailed, the child's father is surely inside that pyramid! They hurled spears at her. Begone, fae whore! Hahahaha!
"Driven by desperation, she at last decided to return to the elfin court. Suppose I oughtta be grateful she never got the notion to leave me out in the desert sands for the wolves to feast on, heh? Nay, she loved her dear child. She stroked my face and told me so, told me stories about my father who she knew for a single night, told tales of the elves and the Elf-Queen. Told me it was an enchanted land where none knew sorrow or fear or hunger, told me that to quiet me as I sobbed because my stomach felt like it was about to compress and compress me with it. Faerie Land, she called it. How do we get to Faerie Land mummy? Well my sweet, any elf can go there, they only need to know the way. There's only one thing, okay my bonny child? Your skin must be fair as snow, and your hair like golden wheat in the field... But mummy, my skin's dark, and so's my hair. You won't go to Faerie Land without me, will you mummy? Nay my sweet, mummy's got something, a maaaaagic ointment, you see? It'll change the color of your skin to be just like mummy's. Wouldn't you like that? W-will it hurt, mummy? Yes my sweet, it may sting a little, but you'll be brave for mummy won't you? Mummy had to sell something very precious to get this. You'll need to hold very, very still so that not a single drop is wasted..."
Sansaime's voice trailed off. She stared at the television, blank in the eyes. Her scars shone white as the first rays of dawn pierced the curtains.
"She must've already been far gone, watching me waste away from hunger, to think such a ridiculous thing would work. She poured that vile water all over me, and here's the result, hahahaha. For a time she pretended, to me or herself who knows, that all was fine, that I'd be able to enter Faerie Land, even though my skin burned and I writhed in agony whenever I tried to sleep. We made it as far as the forest outskirts before she cracked. She sobbed, she told me how sorry she was, how so very sorry, and that there was one last thing to do before we could go to Faerie Land, we had to drink a magic potion, and this time she'd drink it with me. I'd had my fill of magic potions and spat mine out when she wasn't looking. She drank hers and died."
The whole story she spoke with a mean, ironical smile. Maybe the story continued after that. In fact it probably did... But Sansaime said nothing more, her lips moved like she might explain what happened next, how she survived in the wilderness on her own so young, how she wound up where she was now.
Instead she burst into heavy, ugly tears.
Avery was there. Her arms around her shoulders, holding her tight, holding the back of her head, pressing her face into her shoulder as she sobbed with gigantic, spasmodic hefts of her torso.
"There, there," Avery said. "There, there. It's okay."
"I can't—I can't be like her. I can't—oh God, why did he have to die? Why, why, why did he have to die?!"
"You're not going to be like her, Sansaime. I'm here for you. You're not alone." Words of comfort. Someone was leaning on her, someone shared with her the secret of her life, for the first time in a long time—maybe ever—Avery was let into another's private world... She grew teary-eyed too.
"Why didn't he leave me in that room to burn," Sansaime said after a long time, after her sobs finally started to slow.
"Don't say things like that. Never like that. It'll be okay. It'll be... Oh! We really should make sure about things first." Avery pulled back from Sansaime, keeping her arms around her shoulders. Sansaime's face was a mask of wet tears and shame. "Let's run to the store together. I'll get you a test. Then we'll know for certain, okay? It'd be really funny if we made such a hullabaloo and it turned out it really was just the Froot Loops, wouldn't it? Ha, ha!"
Sansaime, coming down from such sorrow, actually managed a smile. She had a very pretty smile despite all her scars. "...Yeah..." But she was smiling. She was really smiling. She wasn't withdrawing, wasn't trying to flee from her own emotions or the person with whom she shared them. They were... together. In that moment they were connected, truly.
They looked at each other in silence, smiling. That was the moment the TV, which had been on the whole time, decided to say:
"WITNESS A TRUE MIRACLE!"
Their heads, together, still shakily smiling, turned toward the screen.
"The Reverend Dwight J. Styles of the Cuyahoga Baptist Church invites you and yours to see with your own eyes THE MIRACLE OF LAZARUS!"
Dwight J. Styles. Dwight J. Styles. Why did that name sound familiar... Then they showed him on the screen.
Sansaime's smile was fading fast.
"The faithful Mayfair R.L. Coke shall RAISE THE DEAD. It is not a trick! It is not a fantasy! GOD IS ALWAYS AMONG US. SEE IT PROVEN ON CABLE TELEVISION! OR see for your own eyes—only in Cleveland, Ohio!"
Then there was a date—that very same day—a time, a channel, and a place.
The commercial ended.
Sansaime's eyes fell down to her stomach. She touched her hands to it, rubbed it gently. Then she whispered: "Where's that place they said."
"I... I don't remember what it was."
Sansaime recited the exact address from the commercial. "Where is it," she said.
Avery, still smiling like a fool, shook her head. "Sansaime. Sansaime. You don't have to—you don't have to go. You don't..."
"They'll have the Door. Isn't that what you want."
Avery's eyes closed. Yes, they would have the Door. The Door through which her children disappeared. Jay, Shannon. Yet a horrible dark hand clasped her heart.
"I... I don't want you to go, Sansaime. Even knowing that. What about you? You can't... You..."
Her voice trailed off. Because she knew... there'd be no convincing. The connection was cut. The tears on Sansaime's face were drying, her smile was gone. It was over. Like with Jay, like with Shannon, there was no more hope for Avery to draw close. Like with them, only distance remained.
"Take me there," Sansaime said.
"Sansaime... Why are you doing this?" Because it wasn't about revenge anymore, was it. Sansaime had reached a peace. She spent the past two weeks playing video games and watching TV. Not striving for anything. Quiet, peaceful, safe, removed entirely from any danger. What changed? Was it simply the memory? Did she feel like she needed to slay her lover's murderer—for what else could her history with this Mayfair be, had they not talked about it at the office building and Avery simply forgot? Or did Sansaime simply want to die, in a more guiltless way than her mother.
Sansaime said only, "Take me there. Or I go alone."
What else could Avery do? Sansaime would find the address one way or another. And shouldn't Avery want to go herself? For the Door. For Jay and Shannon...
Mainly though, she didn't want to be abandoned again. "Okay. We'll go together."
—
The hero Wendell Noh flicked the switch on the small device, but other than a clicking sound like the snap of Flanz-le-Flore's fingertips nothing was produced. He turned the device over, inspected it through the thick lenses of his glasses, and shook his head.
"Not right."
Flanz-le-Flore's face turned crestfallen. "I did it exactly as you specified, dear hero. If you had an example, even a broken one, of this 'lighter,' it would be far simpler to replicate."
"Liquid butane turns into gas when depressurized. The wheel releases a small stream of gas and ignites it with a spark. It's about pressure and friction."
He would speak like this, in sudden spurts, explaining in detail the ingenious devices of his world, and then settle once more into his torpor. Already they had spent a long stretch of time synthesizing this material called "butane" from various more elementary matter. Creating butane had been far less difficult, as Flanz-le-Flore was familiar with the constituent parts. Indeed, it had been somewhat revelatory that using her powers she could transform and combine such basic particles into complex concoctions capable of unexpected effects. Fire, for instance, was ordinarily so wild, so untamed, and therefore so frightful even to one such as her. But with butane, it could be more easily controlled, produced in the form of a tiny flickering flame rather than a raging pyre.
(Prior to her encounter with Jay Waringcrane many of the world's basic materials, being metal, were prohibited her. Was it not grandest serendipity that such a hero would open her eyes to her true potential so shortly after the other hero maimed her so thoroughly?)
The reason Wendell desired the fire was for his 'cigarette,' which Flanz-le-Flore had already created for him with tobacco and other simple materials. The cigarette needed to be lighted to work properly, however, hence their current process of trial-and-error. Despite her aversion to flame, Flanz-le-Flore did possess other ways of creating and controlling it: candles, stone-circled firepits, and so forth. She did not proffer these as suggestions and Wendell did not grow impatient and request them though he was surely aware of the possibility. He wished for his lighter.
She would give it to him; she would prove useful to him. In this way she would endear herself to him, and he and her would become one.
She snapped her fingers to transform the failed lighter into one of somewhat different dimensions. At the same time, something scurried up to the throne. A squirrel, ordinary as any other, though it bowed and gave proper obeisance before her while nibbling the nut it clutched between its paws. She bid it permission with a motion of her finger and it scampered up the throne and onto her shoulder, where it quietly chattered into her ear.
Given her focus remained on Wendell, who shook his head again and muttered some more technical details as to the lighter's intended construction, the squirrel's words at first bounced insensibly off her. After she snapped her finger and adjusted the lighter once more, she asked it to repeat itself.
Squeakity-squeak, chitter-chatter, said the squirrel.
Instantly she riveted her eyes on it. "An elf? An elf you say?"
The squirrel chittered.
"You saw it at the gates of Whitecrosse? Truly you did? You yourself, not some other squirrel who told you—you yourself?"
Wendell, who had been flicking the wheel of the lighter for the past few seconds, flicked it once more with aplomb and a tiny orange flame arose from the opening. The squirrel asserted what he had seen.
"It was the scarred one, was it not? Sansaime. She's known to go there often, though we last saw her heading the opposite direction, for the Door. It was her, yes? Dark skin and scars."
The squirrel shook its head. Chitter, it said, chatter.
"Fair skin? Blonde hair? You're certain. Tell me truthfully, are you certain?"
The squirrel was certain. He added: She told the men at the gate she was an ambassador from the elfin race.
Flanz-le-Flore's strained exhale accompanied the long drag Wendell made on his freshly-lit cigarette. The smoke bloomed out noxious to her senses and yet the odious image of the elf conjured by the squirrel's terse description infected her far worse.
An elf. A true elf, not that mongrel half-breed. The latter, though she'd taken part in Flanz-le-Flore's disfigurement, was acceptable. Nay, more than that. She was a mockery of that Elf-Queen's lineage, a twisted and corrupted instance of it, and for that purpose Flanz-le-Flore enjoyed her presence despite her activities.
Oh that wretched Elf-Queen. Oh that lascivious wench. How, how, how did she sink her talons into John Coke all those years ago, what did she offer him that Flanz-le-Flore failed to provide? Well, Flanz-le-Flore had gotten her back for that business, yes indeed. Brought to the fae council's attention the human blood injected into the Elf-Queen's offspring, spearheaded the vote that ejected that degenerate race from their noble kind. Despite it the fury still burned, that horrid green feeling: Envy! Envy, envy, envy, why did she still feel it though she had her own hero now within her arms who even managed to smile now that he had his cigarette, why did it still stab a shard into her heart the same as when she thought of Jay Waringcrane, why did it still pull her to pieces?
That was not the worst of it though. It had been four hundred years but Flanz-le-Flore knew the Elf-Queen's mind. Damnation! She should have realized the moment she saw Olliebollen Pandelirium so far from home. Ominous tidings were afoot—for what possible purpose could an elf ambassador seek to establish ties with the human nation of Whitecrosse? What possible purpose indeed. The Elf-Queen was tricky, sly, and clever. No good would come of this, none whatsoever.
That elf—Flanz-le-Flore would stake anything upon it—that elf was no mere ambassador.
Her eyes shifted to the barrel of Wendell's rifle, which he kept propped against the side of the throne.
"My hero," she said, "would you like to go on an adventure?"
Wendell Noh did not look at her as he exhaled smoke. His eyes closed. "An adventure."
"A grand adventure. One fit for a true hero: To wage battle against a wicked queen."
"Hm..." He sounded unconvinced.
"You will be able to wield your might to its fullest potential, my hero. You will be able to achieve feats no man has achieved in centuries. Your armaments shall be amplified past the peak of their current construction. None shall stand before you that you cannot cut down. I shall make sure it is so; I shall provide for you all the strength you could desire in wildest fantasy."
The smile from before, when he first lit the cigarette, twinged again. "Hm. Will you make me more cigarettes too?"
"Yes, my hero. Yes, as many as you desire!"
"Sure then. Let's see what this is all about." His head tilted. "Might head home after, though."
Flanz-le-Flore disliked the sound of that, though he spoke it so casually, so unconcernedly, like his conception of a grand adventure ended at suppertime. Nonetheless she possessed his acquiescence. Once he drank from her elixir, she would ensnare him—and bring to ruin her archest foe in the process.
"Attendants," she said to her court. "Unstable the prince's horse. We ride for Whitecrosse."
—
The guards boggled their eyes at the wreck of a woman standing before them, and only partly because she was an elf. Caked filth covered her, her hair went askew in all possible directions, scrapes dotted her face, her cloak was rent in several places. Nonetheless she was beautiful.
"Hi! Sorry about dropping in like this," she said, placing a fist atop her head and sticking out her tongue, "but I'm an ambassador from elf-land. Sent by the Effervescent Elf-Queen herself! May I speak to whoever's in charge here?"
They took her, with some hesitation, to the castle.
In the throne room they were all gathered: Duke Meretryce and his nephew Gonzago, Duke Mordac, Archbishop Tintzel, the Fool, a sickly-seeming Viviendre de Califerne, Prime Astrologer DeWint, knights and attendants and maidservants and dignitaries and courtiers and Shannon Waringcrane and lastly, leastly, Queen Mallory empty on her throne. The third and final duke, Malleus, was on his way to the capital and would be there soon, but none intended to wait for him.
"Elf-land," said Mordac. "Pah. Are we certain such a place truly exists?"
"While not listed under that name," DeWint said, "the chronicles of John Coke describe a Forest of Elf, where the Effervescent Elf-Queen gave him succor during his long journey to slay the western dragons and claim their relics for Whitecrosse. While Cokian history is somewhat outside my interest, these facts are rudimentary enough that even a neophyte can—"
"I am aware of Coke's tale." Mordac pulled his black robes closer around himself and glowered at the so-called elf ambassador. "Yet I find this figure dubious. Dubious indeed."
Some of the queen's maidservants had, at least, made the ambassador presentable before she entered the throne room. They could not, however, scrub the foolish smile she wore.
"Any relation to the elf with the scars," Viviendre muttered. "What was that one's name again? I forgot."
"Sansaime." Shannon rubbed her neck.
"These questions are indeed quite trivial," said Archbishop Tintzel, "quite trivial indeed. Know we little of the elves, yet know we they are inhuman; being inhuman, they are ungodly; being ungodly, they are not to be trusted, yes quite untrustworthy! It is true their queen once aided John Coke, true it is, but I have always stood staunchly against our allowing that Sansaime to peddle her wares here and it was only the corruption of my predecessor that permitted it! Repeat not his mistakes, indeed do not repeat them! Send her away now—now I say!"
"Fee, fae, foe, fum, I smell the blood of a spineless one," sang the Fool.
"And yet," said Meretryce, striding to the fore, extending his arms, "and yet has not the Kingdom of Whitecrosse enjoyed peace with the fae nation of Flanz-le-Flore in all this time? An uneasy peace, to be sure, but peace nonetheless. It was through the great King John Coke's alliance with Flanz-le-Flore that we were allowed to build a road through her forest. Though well I understand old prejudices and suspicions, and most assuredly we must remain on our guard and leave no reasonable precaution unattended, I believe we ought to hear out this earnest ambassador and discern whether there is any profit to made via treaty or otherwise."
"Fae are creatures of the devil, devil's creatures indeed they are!" Tintzel shouted.
"If the devil has a hand anywhere in Whitecrosse, frock," said the Fool, "it's in your windbag sermons, which so irresistibly tempt me to slothful sleep!"
"Will someone behead that Fool already," said Mordac.
"Please, please, please everyone." Meretryce smiled good-naturedly even as he raised his voice above the hubbub. "Let us at least hear what the ambassador has to say before we claw each others' throats out. Lady Ambassador, please. Why don't you assuage some of the worries of the court. Explain to us what your Kingdom of Elf-land may offer us, and what you expect us to provide in return."
Meretryce's force of personality bade them fall quiet and allow at least this small concession. They all looked at this unlikely ambassador, and for a few seconds she only looked back with the same sluggish smile.
Then she blinked. "Oh. It's my turn? Okay!"
Her mouth remained open, she lifted a finger and tapped her chin, she nodded.
"Um..."
"On with it," said Mordac.
"I... forgot what I was supposed to say."
A palpable groan shuddered the audience.
"Wait! Wait! I have it written down. I have it written down somewhere." She rummaged through her cloak, pulled out a few various doodads of no particular importance, and finally under constant verbal blows by the more impatient of the audience produced a letter sealed by wax. Proudly showing the seal to those gathered, she split it open and read:
"Ahem! To the most splendid and stupendous Queen Mallory Tivania Coke.—I should mention this letter was written by the Effervescent Elf-Queen, not me! Anyway. To the most splendid and stupid—stupendous Queen Mallory Tivania Coke. I have dispatched this humble ambassador—that's me!—to your court to make a simple request of you. That request is thus: Please allow the elf army safe passage through your lands. Our intention is to strike against the Kingdom of Fwanz-le-Fwore. Flanz-le-Flore, sorry, sorry, my tongue got a little tied up. Anyway! It is my intention to redress ancient wrongs done to me and my race by Queen... Flanz, Flanz-le-Flore in the time of John Coke. Do know that I make this request of you only out of respect for the late King John, for whom I harbor some affection. If you refuse my request, I shall have no choice but to see you as an ally of Flanz-le-Flore; in that case, to your kingdom I shall swiftly, and I do mean swiftly, bring... war."
"War," said Mallory, looking up from her throne, her eyes a brilliant twinkle.
"Signed, the Effervescent Elf-Queen. See I told you she wrote it. And that's the whole letter! What do you think, everybody?"
The elf ambassador lifted her eyes from the letter and, still smiling sheepishly, took in the thirty faces glaring death at her.
—
Needless to say, Mordac, Tintzel, and several of the other dignitaries wanted the ambassador executed right then and there for bringing to them such an absurd threat. The cooler heads of Meretryce, DeWint, and—when those two were not enough to persuade—Shannon Waringcrane prevailed with the common adage: Don't shoot the messenger.
Queen Mallory, meanwhile, became disconcertedly excited, and soon her rambunctious declarations to have the soldiers armored for war required more attention from the courtiers than the ambassador, who was quietly shown to a room in the castle to rest the night before she returned from whence she came.
That ambassador, Temporary, sat on the bed and sighed for the bit of rest she'd finally earned after such a long journey. She undid the clasp on her cloak and let it fall off her shoulders, revealing the bright red and tight-fitting uniform all elves in service of the queen wore. She regarded herself in the mirror and thought: it'd been tough, but the job was done.
The smile staring back at her turned wan. The job wasn't done. She needed to report back to the Effervescent Elf-Queen.
From her pocket she produced the sleeping faerie. The pin in the back of its neck kept it sedate but alive, which was essential for it to retain its magical potency—or so everyone told her. Temporary knew nothing about it herself. She wanted only to serve the Elf-Queen faithfully! Why wouldn't she? The Effervescent Elf-Queen was everything: life, love, happiness, peace, and beauty. It was simple joy to obey her. Simple... joy.
Yet Temporary, knowing what she must do, hesitated.
Why should she hesitate? No reason. No real reason... Nothing compared to the joy of obeying the Effervescent Elf-Queen. Every second she waited to perform her task was another failure, another failure of the constantly failing Temporary—No! Don't fall into that sort of thinking again, it only hurts. Just do the thing you're supposed to do and smile about it.
Do it!
"Okay, I'll do it," she said to the empty room.
Closing her eyes, she lifted the sleeping faerie to her mouth and bit into it.
This is the reason they sent you after all. As her teeth dragged strips and sinews away from the whole, a greasy splatter of glittery blood turned crimson the front of her red uniform. It tasted sugary, sweet, like candy, one bite made you want to bite again, and she did, although a muffled whimper escaped her. This is why they sent you. You, who always makes mistakes, who always fails. Who's no good at anything, who's always getting into trouble. Who's always getting hurt. You, who all your friends laugh at. They sent you because despite all that only you can do this. Not even the ones the Elf-Queen creates can do this. Only you.
Bones crunched like peanut brittle. Moaning, she swallowed the first mouthful. Another swallow. Another, the pieces not fully chewed so she choked on some of them. The faerie's tiny skull burst between her gnashing teeth, its unicorn horn dissolving in her saliva. Her friends told her faeries were monsters, foul things, far beneath the exalted race of elves. Her friends—and the Effervescent Elf-Queen—told her faeries deserved to die. But the angry men in the court said the same about Temporary, just because she was an elf. So who was to say who was right...
(The Effervescent Elf-Queen was right. She was always right.)
"Yes, I know," Temporary gagged out after the final swallow. She wiped her mouth with her cloak and then wiped her tears. Best not to look terrible for them.
She lifted herself off the bed and staggered to the mirror, nearly tripping over a ruffle in the rug but stopping herself in time. She plucked a glove off one hand and pressed the bare palm to the mirror's surface. The way her friends told her to do it. It'd come naturally—one's animus was an extension of their self, or something like that.
The mirror rippled. What was once solid glass became a liquid thing. And what was once shown within it—Temporary herself, still covered in that loathsomely sweet-tasting gore—turned into something else entirely. A familiar place. Home—the court of the Effervescent Elf-Queen.
From the other side the voice spoke to her: "Temporary, my child. I am so, so happy to see you alive and well. We've all been so worried about you, away on your own like that."
"Th, thank you—Your Majesty."
"What have you to report, my child? What did they say to my proposal?"
"They... they rejected it, Your Majesty. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"
"Oh, there there my child. It's alright. There's nothing you could have done. No need for tears. I'm so proud of you."
"Thank you..."
"I expected they would reject it anyway. Those humans... They are nothing like John, even the ones they say descend from him. They prefer that boot-wearing troglodyte. Hmph!"
"What should I do now, Your Majesty?"
"Nothing. Your role in this is over, my child. Simply keep the portal open. Your friends shall do the rest."
Her friends... There they were. All of them. Arrayed in neat rows in the Elf-Queen's court, wearing the same red uniform as her, with their weapons in their hands. The Effervescent Elf-Queen made a gesture, and in perfect lockstep with one another they marched toward the mirror, shuffling their formation neatly and cleanly from multiple columns to a single line.
"Go! Go, my children," said the Effervescent Elf-Queen. "Seize control of the vault under the castle and capture the royal family. We will shall acquire the relics of Whitecrosse—then no other force in this world shall stand before us!"
Temporary staggered to the side as the first of the elf soldiers stepped through the mirror's surface and into the room. Unimpressed by their surroundings, they continued on as the next soldier stepped through, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next...