Arc 1: Chapter 9: Onsolain
When I woke, I wasn’t feeling any pain. That was my first clue that something was off.
The scent of flowers drew me from a dream whose details scattered to dust even as I was pulled from it. I heard birdsong, the flow of water over rock, and a woman’s voice humming a quiet, nostalgic tune I was certain I’d never heard before.
I opened my eyes and found myself in a forest glade. The ground beneath me was soft, and the air was pleasantly cool. I didn’t want to stand. I felt too good. For that reason more than any other I forced myself to get up and inspect my surroundings in more detail. I didn’t trust anything that wanted me to be at peace.
My eyes were met by a scene out of an ancient dream. Which, I suppose, it was. Everything in the grove was tinted in shades of emerald and sun-dappled gold, though the sky — where I could see it through the dome of a thick canopy — was utterly black and starless, the light within the grove seeming to have no discernible source. The sound of water came from a low waterfall which fed into a gleaming silver stream. Grass and moss covered nearly every surface, including the trunks of the ancient trees. All shone vibrant, abundant with growth, and untouched by rot.
Put simply, it was a scene beautiful enough to make an artist weep and a poet grow tongue-tied. I closed my eyes and took shallow breaths, trying not to take in the heady scent of the flowers blooming across the grass. My body and mind were telling me I was safe, that this was a clean place, a refuge.
I knew in my gut that it was dangerous.
Instead of drinking in the fey-lit grove, I turned my eyes to the figure kneeling by the stream. She was as beautiful as the setting within which she was enthroned. In a way, it was her throne. She hadn’t spoken as I’d woken and stumbled to my feet, and I had time to take in details as I cautiously approached.
She was dressed in a gown fashioned in shades of forest green and moon-silver. Flowers were woven into her midnight black hair, and her skin a shade of pale nothing in the natural world could replicate. Even kneeling, she was tall. Taller than me. Taller than any human. She was athletically built, her round shoulders displayed by the sleeveless cut of her dress, her long neck dappled with spray from the waterfall which glinted like beads of crystal. She exuded a very faint light.
She was the source of the grove’s light.
The woman bowed her head over the form of a slumbering creature. It looked like a war chimera, though I knew that no mortal alchemist had crafted this beast. Its body was that of a wolf, all course gray fur and lean, muscular limbs, and its head had a distinctly canine aspect as well. Shining antlers grew from its head, and its back legs ended in cloven hooves. Its tail was long and bushy, like a fox. Its chest rose and fell in long, deliberate breaths, and its jaws hung slightly open to reveal long teeth sharp as any blade. It was larger than most bears.
I approached to stand near the beautiful woman and the creature which was, in its own way, also striking. I studied it for a while longer and then said, “it’s dying.”