Prologue. Pt. 1
Palace of the Summer Court
Primus Anera stood at her post aside the doors to the Queen’s chambers as she did every third day for the past 100 years. Sighing, she was proud of being the Primus of the Queen’s Guard. But it was about as boring and tedious as anything could get, akin to watching grass grow in a desert. But nonetheless, she enjoyed it.
Her Scutum[1] glanced over at her, she shook her head to let her know it was nothing to be concerned about. Turning her head back forward to look down the tree- enclosed hall leading away from the Queen’s chambers. As she returned her eyes and head forward, it caused some of her sunlight-colored hair to fall out from under her helmet and onto her face. In a move that was fast and efficient for someone who had done it hundreds of times, she used her off hand to stuff the hair back under her helmet. Such an innocuous act woke a Sprite, a vermini Fae as a lot of high Fae refereed to them. A view and term she did not care for. One who decided to sleep under her hair at the back of her head underneath helm.
The 15 cm tall blue and gold Sprite grumpily crawled from under her helm. Who then flew to a few cm from her face and began shaking her fist and saying things that one would never expect to come out of the mouth of something that she, in her opinion, thought was cute. The Sprite then grumpily turned away and flew down the hall, probably to look for somewhere else to sleep. These were by nature lazy creatures, at least from what she could see. She lost sight of the Sprite in the shadows of the hall. She knew that her scutum Centurion Myfi, understood she didn't look at the Sprites the same as a lot of High Fae did. Most High Fae saw them as a nuisance if they were being kind. Most of the time though they were just vermini to them.
The early morning sun had just begun filtering through the leaves of the trees that comprised the hall's structure, and Primus Anera had only turned her head a quarter of the way back when the same Sprite came shooting back up the hall like it had been shot out of a bow, and then, without saying a word, returning with the same speed right back to where it had been asleep not too long before. The two guards weren't able to react to this Sprite's strange behavior before they were inundated by a barrage of more than a half dozen Sprites, who proceeded to stuff themselves under various pieces of their armor. The guards glanced at each other, this time for a bit longer. Both giving each other a WTF look.
They were both highly trained, disciplined personally chosen by the Queen herself, they were the best troops the Summer Court had to offer. So, while this behavior from the Sprites was unsettling to them, they both recovered their wits quickly and realized that this sudden influx of Sprites did not bode well. The Sprites were normally not afraid of anything. Primus Anera had even seen one talk back to the Queen. That one, the same one under her helm was the only Fae she could ever recall getting away with such an act to not be turned into whatever species of plant that had caught her Queen’s fancy that day and then being ensconced in her garden for the next century or two if lucky. As a matter of due diligence and caution, they both readied their Glaives and began to scan the hall in front of them.
At first, they saw nothing, though they both heard what sounded like the flapping of the wings of a large bird echoing down the hall and getting louder. Primus Anera had a feeling that she was not going to be bored much longer. But then, the guards saw movement in the shadows toward the end of the hall, suddenly a large black raven flew out of the shadows and into their field of view, landing in front of them.
Primus Anera and the other guard instinctively lowered their Glaives at the Raven, yet it was only then that they noticed the Raven had a peculiar white eye, while the other was black like a normal Raven's. Unlike a normal Raven it stood over a meter tall. It cocked its head and looked at them. Looking at them with an intelligence that no mere Raven should possess. Primus Anera heard her scutum’s breathing heavily. As it’s gaze, it’s presence bore down on them making their spirit withdraw to the furthest part of their soul. Looking for a place to hide, where there was none.
They both watched as the Raven turned its back on them and flew a small distance away with no regard for the Glaives being pointed at it. As it turned back around facing the guards, the shadows thickened around it. The Raven then began to melt assuming a different shape, yet the guards could not tell what it was reforming into. Primus Anera’s heart began racing, she was a realist, and she was afraid, and was most certainly not ashamed to admit it. Any soldier who says they aren't afraid in situations like these, were either idiots, foolhardy, or both. It was best to stay as far away from Fae like them. She immediately tightened the grip on her Glaive, but just as quickly as the shadows formed, they vanished like they never had been there. Primus Anera breathed in deeply and heavily. The new form the Raven took struck fear in her. It was a figure out of myth and legend, out of stories that were told to young Fae children to bring them to heel. Primus Anera was over three hundred years old and she had heard the stories, as did her parents and their parents.
It was none other than a Daughter of Nox the One Mother.
“May the queen protect us” she muttered to herself. According to the stories, she would only be here if death itself was coming, the words of her soul strong enough to impose the will and judgment of Nox her mother. It could also hold a second meaning entirely, that was Nox herself was not far behind. And that was worse.
There stood what seemed to be a human female, a race which dominates the realm outside of Fae lands. She was human in form only, taller than she was, over 2 meters, her skin was white like bleached bone on one side and black as night on the other, split precisely down the middle from the top to the bottom of her body. Her left eye was black on white skin of that side, which starkly contrasted with the white eye on black skin on the right. Her face which had an avian symmetry to it minus a beak, her mouth being wider than one would expect held no expression, maintaining it's overwhelming alien beauty at the same time. Her raven-like wings extended all the way to the ground and almost touched the branches of the trees over 3 meters above their heads were folded against her back. Her wings one black the other white matching the color of the skin they were on. Her hair hung about half a meter off the floor split in the middle opposite to the color of the skin.*[2] She stood naked except for the hair that covered her breasts, which only seemingly did so by chance. In her left hand was a spear that looked to be made out of what appeared to be the large, elongated femur bone of some kind of animal unknown to the Fae her, while the half meter long wing shaped tip seemed to be made of shadows as it formed and re-formed, almost as if a wind dispersed the shadows only to reform seconds later.
When Primus Anera discerned the true, imposing nature of the spear, both she and her Scutum were instantly intimidated, and instantly took defensive stances. Primus Anera and Centurion Myfi both broke into a cold sweat, knowing there would be nothing they could do to stop her. They had a job to protect the Queen, even if that meant throwing their lives away in a futile effort to give her and her consort time to flee. Primus Anera, in the back of her mind, was not certain that she could keep the Queen safe for long. “This is not the reward I sought for my service to the Queen, not even in the slightest,” she thought.
The Daughter, holding out her hand, speaking in a deep harmonious voice in the language of the Fae, “Come out little ones, for I am not here to hurt you; you are innocent and bear no guilt or malice. If you stay where you are, you could be harmed in the events that proceed my Mother's arrival."
A moment later, the blue and gold Sprite sprung out and flew to her hand, asking in a soft, trembling voice, “Will you hurt my family?” “No, I will not,” the Daughter replied. “That is unless you bear the Mother ill. Do you?”
The Sprite shook its head so hard that its hair got caught in its wings. “Then come," she said. “It is not safe for you here at the moment.”
The Sprite turned to leave and looked behind at the female guard and turned back around to face the Daughter, asking in the same soft trembling voice, “Will you hurt her, too? She is our friend.”
The Daughter smiled with the teeth of a predator, “That will all depend on her actions toward our Mother.”
The Sprite turned around, and after making sure its hair was no longer tangled in its wings, suddenly flew right up to the female guard’s face and smacked her on the nose, the sound, of which was hard and loud enough to be heard.
The sprite, spoke in a high pitched yet serious voice that was normal for their kind, (well as serious as a Sprite could sound).
“Anera, don't go and get yourself killed, understand? I am getting too old to keep tricking new Fae into letting us move in. Alas, since Ble could not restrain himself, we have more little ones coming,” as she glared at the violet-colored sprite who had poked its head out at the mention of his name. And was met with glare like that could stop a runaway wagon.
Even in a moment where the security of her Queen and her life was not certain, Primus Anera smiled and said "Yes milady, I’ll do my best."
The sprite looked at her, “Perish the thought. Your best will not be enough,” the Sprite said. “You had better survive. If not, I will live long enough to see your Spirit come back around again and my entire family will move in with you, and you can just imagine how large it will be then!”
Primus Anera shuddered at the prospect. The sprite then whistled, and all of the sprites who had once been fearfully stuffed under the armor of the two guards flew away down the hall like a busy swarm of bees.
It was then that the Daughter fixed upon both of them a gaze that demanded complete and undivided attention. Speaking in the same deep melodic voice, this time though being more like a harsh, like a strong wind on a winter’s night, “My Mother comes, waste not her time, for she is not in a pleasant mood.”
Primus Anera, having worked up enough courage, meekly asked, “May I ask what she is here for?”
The daughter cocked her head to one side as if she were listening to a mouse toil in the grass and said, “For your Queens of course”
Acting on the reflexes and training drilled into them over the centuries, and with the tips of their Glaives the tips less than a meter or so from her the Daughter’s chest. Their life was to protect the Queen, even meant certain death.
The Daughter’s gaze suddenly grew cold. With her right hand she effortlessly brushed the Glaives aside, like one would do to swat an insect away. The Glaives disintegrated as her hand touched them, turning them white like dried bone, crumbling in their hands. They both stood there paralyzed with fear, their focus on the being in front of them.
Who then said, “When you see my Mother, you would be wise to fall on your face and thank her for your lives. She is eons wiser than I, and even in her wrathful mood she implored me to give you a chance, only because she had the wisdom to know you had no choice but to defend your Queen with your lives. That was your one and only chance, if you dare lift another hand to me or my Mother again, I will snuff you out like a candle in a gale. Do you understand?”
The guards both stood straight up and said at the same time. "Yes" was all either of them could utter.
She smiled at them showing teeth that would make them shudder if they could saying, "Behold, even the most unwise can learn.”
She then turned and dropped to her knees; her wings spread somehow not hitting the trees that made up the walls of the hall. Her arms out in front of her and her head touching the floor, her spear turning into shadow then nothingness. As she let go of it. Both of the guards took the cue and did the same.
She then exclaimed in that same melodious tone yet in a humble tone which should not fit with the begin she was, yet did. “Mother, the way has been prepared.”
In response, an old and soothing voice flowed out from seemingly nowhere like a deep and mighty river, “Thank you, my child, you do your me proud," the 'thank you' in the statement had left both of the guards wincing, as they both knew what could happen if you thanked a Fae, while the Daughter sighed at the praise as the feathers on her wings shivered the same way as when her younger sisters preened them for her.
The shadows began to thicken at the very end of the hall making it hard to discern shapes. A seemingly long uneasy silence took hold, then abruptly, a conspiracy of seven large black Ravens not much smaller than the first burst out and flew down the hall landing around, and on the kneeling Daughter. No one could see her smiling as they gently pecked her. “Welcome, my beloved sisters.”
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They then hopped over to the kneeling guards and started, as Ravens are prone do, to see if they could undo their buckles or untie the laces on their greaves trying dislodge anything shiny.
One of the ravens took notice of the dusty remains of the guards' Glaives and Kawed, “Someone was naughty!” another kawed, “the Mother is wise” and another “you should reflect on the wisdom of Mother in letting you keep your lives!” all of which accompanied a cacophony of calls from the amused Ravens.
The same voice they heard thanking the first Daughter was softer and closer now. Primus Anera thought it must be Nox, “Enough children, you will give your poor mother a headache. Leave the Fae alone, they are not there for your amusement.” The effect of their mother's admonishment was instant. They stopped making noises and hopped over to their kneeling sister.
“Rise, my child” Nox said, while also motioning to the guards, “and you two as well” as if almost relegating them to an afterthought. Heeding this command, the two guards sensed the presence and power behind this order; old, powerful, like touching the highest mountaintop, or watching in awe as the same mountain was weathered away by the slow, incessant march of a glacier. It was also gentle, but spoken with an authority that left no room but to simply listen, and only obey. Nox’s aura was so vast and all-encompassing, that the guards could not even feel aura of their Queen. They rose slowly to their feet, lifting their eyes as they did so. They were not prepared to gaze into the eyes of a being spoken of by their progenitors. One of myth who was spoken of both in awe and fear.
There, standing before them, was Nox herself. She stood a couple meters away and to the front of where the first Daughter had knelt, who had moved to her Mother's right side and had turned to face them. The conspiracy of Ravens hopped around her like a litter of puppies vying for their Mother’s attention. She looked down at them with a smile and cooed something, as she finished, they stopped and turned to look at the guards, who by this time were both on the verge of passing out.
Nox was over well over 2.5 meters tall, her jet-black wings almost brushing the 4-meter-tall ceiling, it was the same within the bounds of the floor. Her skin was white like bone, her eyes, hair, and nails all black like her colossal wings. Her hair was black so black that it seems to trap the light as it fell down her back to within a meter of the floor. Her fingers and toes were thin and elongated, her nails long and pointed like the talons of a raptor. She had long black feathers that ran from the inside of her arms from her shoulders to her wrists, which then ran from under her shoulders past her waist, stopping at her knees, from there they covered her ankles and tops of her feet entirely. Other than the feathers, she was completely naked, and her body just as striking as her face. Her face held an alien beauty that no Fae could match. It drew you in and trapped your graze.
POV Nox
The guards could do nothing but stare. Nox couldn't help but smile, as it was very pleasing to put the Fae in their place, though these two did not seem go give off that arrogant aura that most have. It had been so long since she visited them last. It was in her very nature to enjoy the feelings this brought.
She thought the curse would have been enough to get her message across not to tamper with the free-will of those in her realm, but it seemed they had forgotten.
“It was time to refresh their arrogant, self-serving minds.”
She allowed them to stay in her realm because they had nowhere else to go. And they seemed to have forgotten that it was her good will that let them stay. Along with the fact it was in her nature to care for children even those not of her creation.
She smiled at the guards and began to walk forward. At her approach, the guards obediently moved out of her way, even though they couldn't recall ever moving their feet to do so. The locked doors to the Queen's chamber suddenly and violently swung wide open with a loud and thunderous bang. From inside the chamber, a very angry and commanding female voice questioned, “Who dares enter my chambers and defile my privacy?"
Yet before the voice could say anything more, the Ravens, except the first, flew into the pitch-black room, uttering in the squawking raven language of theirs “Our mother does,” they replied. "Would you deny her?” Sounds of flapping wings pervaded the room as each Raven took a perch around the room.
Then came primal screams of anger. She could very much feel the depths and power of the magic being harnessed for an attack. Sensing this, she spoke in a menacing and aggravated voice:
"You presume to bear your fangs at my children, Titania? We both know you are not foolish enough to try to harm one of my Daughters; though, you are welcome to try."
With that, the Queen recognized the aura from who that menacing voice came and quickly stopped drawing in her magic.
Having sensed the magic abate, “Ah, such a good child to know her place. Yet it also tells me you have gained a wealth of wisdom since we last met.” "It also confounds me so," she continued as she made her way into the room, "as to why, with such wisdom, you would manage to commit an error so grievous, that it would garner my attention?" As she stopped at the foot of the Queen's bed, all the lights in the room, as one, sprung to life.
POV Queen’s Consort Janev
Janev had brought great honor and status to her family and self when she had been chosen as a consort to the Queen. It was supposed to be a safe, pleasurable, and fulfilling post within the Queen’s court, she had the best of everything and then some. Last night with the Queen had been enjoyable and her Majesty had been in a pleasant mood and energetic. Now though her world just got torn asunder, she had been half asleep as the Queen’s head rested on her shoulder with one arm wrapped around her. The locked doors to the chamber were violently thrown open and slammed against the wall. The sound woke her violently and she sat up and rudely dumped the Queen on the bed. Normally she would have been horrified at what she had just done, but with the Queen’s shouted challenge, and before the sound of that challenge had faded completely, she heard the flapping of wings and words being spoken in a way that one would expect Ravens to sound like if given the ability to speak, from a point in the darkness that seemed to get thicker “Our Mother does,” then another from another point in the darkness "Would you deny her?”
At this answer the Queen grew enraged and started to draw magic, almost as soon as she started there was a voice that held power and age with the undertones of anger made it even more powerful .Making her shudder and want to pull the cover over her head, as she tried there was wind on her face a then weight on her chest, she was having a hard time processing all that was going on. For as something landed on her chest, the Queen stopped her magic like a scolded child, and this shocked her more than anything else at this point in her life. The Summer Queen cowed. One of the most powerful Fae shut down.
At this point all the lights in the room sprang to life. Janev had the same thoughts and reaction as the guards as she saw someone to her was a myth that none of the High Fae took as real, the One Mother, or Nox as she had heard more commonly referred to in some of the tales. There were also several large Ravens around the room perched on different things and one on her chest preached on one of her breasts, and as she tried to hide under the covers not (something not very dignified for a High Fae. She like the guards this was not part of her job description.) What she now saw and felt was a larger than normal Raven was fighting her for the sheet. At this she squealed like a child. As it pecked at her nipple as it moved under the sheet.
She then heard the Queen utter almost too low to hear “Shit!!” And at the same time, she sprang up from the bed and knelt like the guards had. “Nox what brings you here?” the Queen asked not is her normal demanding and authoritative way, but meek almost subservient, Janev though knew her well enough she could even hear the stress and fear in it also
POV Titania
“Titania, face me as an equal, I gave you that privilege as one of the rulers of your realm, not as a scolded chick.” “Though at this point I am binging to think I had a lapse in judgment.”
Titania rose from the floor and grabbed a robe and donned it and stood facing Nox, who had moved over to stand in front of her, as well as what she knew was her first daughter Dindrane. Who Titania knew was her envoy, and problem solver. She racked her brain trying to figure out what she had done to not only get Dindrane, and her Mother as well. This was bad, she knew she was powerful, she also was not stupid. It then got worse at the next words the Nox spoke.
“As to why I am here, we must get the other guest to join the flock first.” “Dindrane, would you please get Mab for me? And you can get rough if she gives you lip. Just do not kill her, I have yet to figure out where the Fae’s Souls go so hatching her would be a pain.”
Dindrane smiled and showed the teeth of a predator, “Yes Mother, at once” And shadows begin to thicken around her she then changed into a Raven which flew out the door.
Things just went from bad to worse thought Titania, so whatever it was they were both involved. She caught herself biting her lip in thought like when did when a young girl. She looked up to see the Nox with an amused smile.
“You seem not to remember what you did to bring me out of my Nest” and at that the smile vanished, in its place was a look of anger that chilled Titania to the core, she feared for Janev’s mind. As she could barely stand and face the force of the aura and anger that was in front of her. And of the corner of her eye she looked at Janev and saw she had passed out and had fallen to the floor beside the bed, beside her stood the Daughter that had been bullying her. She looked almost like Dindrane had now having changed forms, the difference was her eyes were both black as well as her skin, hair and eyes. Her skin was not black though, more a dark gray. And like her Mother she hand feathers that ran down her arms, both sides of her torso, down her legs and covered her legs from the knee down. She carried a spear like her older sister did. What made Titania shudder even more if that was possible was that her feathers were ruffled and her wings were spread half way and vibrated in agitation, she glanced around the room and the other six were doing the exact same thing. And the look they were giving her was one of pure hatred, and malice. Titania knew that if she moved wrong, or said something wrong and if Nox did not stop them, she would be ripped apart and nothing would be left after they were finished. Gone were the tricksters, here now were predators.
When she first arrived in this realm, she left her lands to see where they ended up after being exiled from their home realm by another like the Nox, though she nor Mab could remember why the exile or much else of that realm. They encountered what they knew now as humans, a bit more primitive than were now. And several groups of Fae from her court as well as the Winter court found them amusing, and she nor Mab saw anything wrong with the humans being played with, they were High Fae and everything was beneath them, to do their bidding, whatever that was. What hubris that was.
About a day passed and they had taken a number of the glamoured humans with them. Something to keep the High Fae amused as was their right. When in her throne room one of the Daughters appeared out of the shadows, she as well as all the Fae there saw something never seen before, different, something beneath them to play with. Titania shuddered and was glad she had made a wise choice and not tried to glamor or attack the being they now knew as a Daughter,. They did not know then that they were no longer at the top of the food chain. They were to get their arrogance adjusted and shown the consequences of thinking they could do as they pleased here. The guards that moved to protect her were the first to fall though the Daughter looked at them intently for a moment smacked them aside with her wings with enough force to slam them into whatever hard surface that was convenient, the floor, a wall, the ceiling, it looked like the Daughter was making a game of it. And each one she said “innocent” when she got to a Nobilis[3] whom Titania had known all her life and been a consort at one time the Daughter said “guilty” and though the Fae tried his magic and even tried to defend himself with his sword to no a vale. What followed was not so much a killing but a butchering, the Daughter smiled and they saw the teeth of a predator, and for the first time she noticed her talons, the Daughter shrugged off a spell, blocked a sword blow with her wing and she then reached out with her left hand quicker than she thought possible and implied him through his armor and pulled him forward and folded her wings around him, he mostly disappeared from sight, there was an agonizing scream that died out in a what sounded almost like a whimper. Then a loud cracking sound and his head rolled out from under her wings and then a spray of blood shot up from inside her wings. This kind of scene, this brutally was not something the High Fae were used to. Killing yes, but not the sheer brutality of it, and what seemed to them the enjoyment the Daughter showed. It paralyzed the court as well as her. There was silence for what seemed like hours, Titania thought she heard blood hitting the floor, she could honestly say she could not comprehend what had just happened.
The Daughter said in the gurgling croak the Daughters talk in, “not tasty, shiny yes” as his breastplate was flung up over her shoulders to land behind her. The next sound Titania heard was bone cracking and an excited croak “Tasty!!” more blood hit the floor. Followed by flesh and bone being torn apart.
As this was happening no one seemed to notice the other six Daughters appearing as well as Dindrane. What followed was something that was almost impossible to put into words. Over 20 High Fae were slaughtered 18 of which were Nobilis other two in the chambers of their houses. Nothing was left behind but what they were wearing was torn apart, left is bloody piles around the room. Many of the Nobilis there had actually thrown up, and Titania herself was sick to her stomach.
All 7 of the Daughters were covered in blood when it was over, who were now picking through the armor, clothes and jewelry their victims had been wearing, every once in a while, one would make and excited gurgling croak of “Shiny, mine!” and they held up something that caught their fancy. The others would crowd around her and all making a gurgling croaking sound excitedly then when all of them had passed it around they went back to piles they claimed. (What they did not know was the “shiny” was being graded by all and given back. It was a game to them. Which if the Fae had known it would have added even more horror to the scene)
The only one that did not move from where she had appeared at was Dindrane, who just watched and tilted her head and smiled in approval when one of what they now knew was her younger sisters showed her their prize. Beyond that she showed nothing but indifference to the whole scene.
After this had gone on for a time, and the whole court did not move and stood in stunned silence, none believing what they were witnessing. Dindrane said “Sisters, enough.” “We have kept Mother waiting too long, yes?” They all stopped and at once made a Kraa-Kraa call several times.
Dindrane then dropped to her knees, her wings spread her arms out in front of her and her head touching the floor, and all the other sisters did the same at the same time.
Dindrane then said “Mother, all is ready, you will have their attention.”
And that was the first time Titania met the Nox One Mother and she had hoped it was the last.
********
Here is a link to calls of Ravens. If you are wondering how the sisters sounded. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/sounds#
[1] Latin for shield. In this context, a title given to a trusted partner. Used by Fae in order to denote the other member of a two-person team, often a close friend any Fae in either court military would trust with their life. This title was never bestowed lightly.
[2] Her contour feathers and that of her sisters as well as their body match that of their Mother’s expect hers where the contour feathers are opposed in color to the skin they are on.
[3] A High Fae who is considered a member of the Queens court. Used by both Courts. The title can be given and taken away by the Queen. Losing it also removes the High Fae house from the court.