#eld fen

The mission was relatively easy on paper, and one Parker had been looking forward to. A possible genius loci popped up in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and she was to go and observe. It was surprisingly hard to stumble across accidentally, but five people have still gone missing. Parker double checked her map and sighed in frustration- she had been out in the woods two days already, hiked majority of the western portion, and was no closer to stumbling upon the eldritch location than when she started. She glanced up at the sky, deciding it wasn’t too early to set up camp and transmit back her report. “Agent Hood reporting. End of day two concerning the mission, code: green-pnw. Still no sign of the target, designation ‘Eld fen’. I’ll wait another day and then try the east half. It’s frustrating,” She started. “It’s almost like the location is hiding. I’d say it sounds silly but... maybe not.” She confirmed the transmission was received and turned in early. She awoke with a strangled gasp, eyes shooting awake and body jolting in shock. For once, the first time since her incident, her slumber had been blank. No memories relived that she then had to catalog in excruciating detail, no lingering aches and pains from injuries outside this reality, just rest and slumber. Even more disorienting was that the environment around her was dark. Almost overwhelmingly so, except it was vivid as well. She could see every tree that surrounded her, every leaf on it, every star in the sky above. Two things were wrong with this: one- she had absolutely fallen asleep inside her tent (three hours ago according to her watch, but the level of pitch-black the sky was suggested it had actually been much longer) and was now outside and free of her camping accoutrements, and two- the sky was wrong. She didn’t hold the same fascination with the cosmos as Ellie did, but she was familiar enough with it to recognize that this sky was not of her world’s. There was not a familiar constellation above her, and any that could be discerned were drowned out by the overcrowded multitude of stars that seemed to blink and ripple as if they were breathing. This meant she had found the target. She was in Eld Fen. She rose to her feet slowly, feeling as sore and tired as if she ran a mile. Her walk was sluggish, but that allowed her the opportunity to take in more of her surroundings. The trees were a brackish brown, nearly red in hue, with bark soft and powdery to the touch. The leaves were an iridescent, deep purple that seemed to curl and shudder at her touch. She walked for what seemed like miles, only coming to a stop after tripping over a tree branch and getting her ankles tangled in it. “So pathetic.” A voice sneered. Parker couldn’t place it at first, not until the person came into view, which only confused her more as she had been the only one on this mission. “Morgan what’re you doing here?” “Lookin’ at the sorriest shit-show I’ve seen since the *last* time I had to bail you out of your mission.” “Morgan please, help me up I-“ “No.” Parker lowered her hand in disbelief. Morgan never had an unkind word for her, even when Parker deserved it most, so to hear her comforting drawl sound so curt was jarring. “Got a few things to say to you that’ve been jumpin’ to get out.” Parker groaned and fought to get up, more constrained by the roots than initially thought; but it was Morgan talking so she still listened intently- sure that it was important to the mission. “I shoulda left you in that ditch. Hell- I shoulda done us all a favor and slit your throat right there, saved us all the embarrassment. No one woulda found you. No one woulda cared.” The words stopped Parker. Oh god... she had always thought- but she never believed someone would have actually agreed with her. “You really think you’re so clever that we can’t see through your little act?” Ellie said. Parker tried to ask where she came from, but found herself growing too tired to question it too much. Besides she had to focus her energy on getting up. “You’re practically screaming for attention; every new conversation, every nice gesture, every. Single. Insipid. Smile. It’s all so selfish.” Parker screwed her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the words, but they only drew closer. “You don’t actually care about us,” Raphaelle sneered, voice heavy with disdain. “It’s all some pathetic effort to be missed.” Parker wanted to get up and leave, argue, anything- but she was held fast in place, muscles asleep and weak. Plus... everything they were saying wasn’t exactly wrong. “You won’t be though.” It was now Ivar, staring down at her as if she were so small and pathetic. Like something to avoid on the sidewalk. ‘Not him,’ she thought desperately to herself, tears now leaking out in spite of her efforts to maintain composure. “Who could miss someone like you.” His deep voice enunciated, friendly accent gone and only sneering judgement in its place. “Cold, broken, judgmental. a little know-it-all who knows nothing. And you jumped into bed so easy- all it took was the slightest bit of affection. What does that say about you? You really think  I’m going to stay with someone who spreads her legs for a smile?” If her body held anything other than an exhausting hollowness, she’d apologize- beg for any sort of forgiveness, because they were right. Everything said was right. “You’re a blight on this agency,” Lilith said, as if she were stating a well known fact. “and you drag your mother’s legacy through the mud. So useless- you think I couldn’t have brought you back at any point? Why wouldn’t you stay gone?” “There’s a reason no one looked for you.” Kieran hissed, deep voice a twisting knife in her gut. “Dad...” She whimpered, squeezing her eyes tighter, not wanting to see how his face would twist and contort like the others. It was one continuous string of horrific familiarity; recognizable but too many eyes and teeth to be comfortable. “Any one of us could’ve went out and found you, but we didn’t. You were finally off our hands and then you had to come back. Ruined everything since- put your brother in danger because you’re such a child you need him like a safety blanket. At least until he does something you don’t like, then he’s discarded like an old toy.” His shadowy figure, blurred and amorphous but still recognizable, reached down and wrenched her face forward, fingers digging in to make sure she saw the hatred in his expression. “That’s my son.” He spat out in a whisper filled with the lethal intent she knew he was capable of when pushed to his limit. “The only reason I acknowledge you, is because he feels sorry that you’d be left out. Powerless and boring as you are, I’m ashamed.” Parker whimpered, unable to do much more than that. She saw Kieran change to Cthylla and she wanted to reach out, selfishly wanting him to stay despite all the times she told him contrary. “How dare you,” The Archivist hissed, face streaked with heartbreak. “You, a mere human, dare tread where I cannot. And dying where I cannot touch. How dare you take my love and spit in my face.” Wait... something was wrong. “You know what?” Carter started. “I’m glad you’re here, dying alone and far away from me! Maybe now I’ll finally get my own life and stop living under your fucking shadow!” “You’re not Carter.” Parker said definitively, voice weak and barely audible above a whisper, but it cut through the creature’s ranting. “That’s not how Carter feels. That’s how I feel that Carter should feel... this is all fake.” And as she said it out loud, her surroundings became clearer. Like a fog lifting, she was able to focus on more than the procession of hatred. She indeed was still in Eld Fen, alone underneath a strange sky, but she was tucked further into the roots against the horrid red tree. It seemed to exude a body-like temperature, and as She tried to pull herself free she found her body was practically caged. Entangled in it roots and covered in small, ghostly moss and luminous mushrooms ; Unsure if it was just blanketing her or growing from her. Further inspection showed that her body was emaciated, like she hadn’t eaten in two weeks, using the tree as a sort of life support with twigs digging deep into her body like IVs. That was impossible though, she hadn’t been here that long,... had she? So this was how she was going to die- fed on by a parasitic forest. This time she hoped she’d disappear with no trace, that no other agent would investigate and fall prey to this place. She would have been surprised at her calmness when faced with her imminent death but... she really couldn’t feel anything, even calm took effort. She closed her eyes in an attempt to slip away when she heard a frantic snuffling beside her. She managed to smile and whisper out Hampton’s name, having forgotten that he would be the last thing she sees when he comes for her. Always a good boy. Hampton began digging and pawing at the plants and lichen that enveloped her, pushing most of it away. Soon her body was free of most of its entrapments and enough of her strength returned to grasp onto his fur so he could drag her away. The farther she got from the tree the better she felt... to a point. She was definitely weak and drained, but now that she had her emotional and mental facilities back, she was pissed. She searched her pockets and was gratified to find her lighter. Normally she held a bit more reverence for nature and the delicate balance it held, which had only been reinforced by her training and dealings with the fae. But this forest needed to fuck right off. Despite the unsettling wetness of the tree, She successfully managed to start a solid fire underneath the roots, in the make-shift cradle where it caged her. Satisfied it would catch and spread, her only clue to this being a high-pitched shriek coming from... somewhere. she clung tightly to her wonderful, beautiful dog and allowed herself to rest, trusting him to take her where he may. ~ She came-to to heavy, comforting weights pinning her down. Hampton was dutifully laid across her feet, keeping her warm, and Carter was wrapped carefully around her, gangly limbs arranged so as not to disturb the various IVs and machines she was hooked up to. Ivar was on her other side- clinging to her as much as he could while still being confined to his chair- which meant he had been here long enough to not visit his main charging station. The walls were lined with chairs and shelves full of differing balloons and bouquets, all wishing her a speedy recovery. She couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across her face, fueled by a re-invigoration she hadn’t realized she had been so missing. Unhooking herself as quietly as she could, she snuck out of the medical bay, only alerting Hampton (who immediately and silently stuck by her side) to the fact she was now up and about. It must have been in the earliest hours of the morning, as the hallways of the manor were dark and quiet. She slowly, still exhausted and worn to her limit, made her way up to Lilith’s office, hoping to get her debriefing done while it was still fresh, but stopped short at the sound of arguing. “-the ever-loving fuck was I not called in for backup when she failed to report for 48 hours?" A voice (clearly Kieran’s) rang out, “Just because you are related to her does not-“ “Hey guys,” Parker interrupted, keeping her voice casual in an attempt to break the heated argument between her father and Lilith. “Sorry to interrupt.” “What are you doing up luv? You need to get back to-“ Kieran flustered, immediately rushing to her side to (needlessly) help prop her up. Parker interrupted him, putting a temporary stop to his worry. “I’m fine right now, I just needed to debrief- Lilith, I think there’s more to that place than we initially thought.” “Ms. Jensen surely this can wait until you’re out-processed from medical.” “No I’ll forget something and lose it by then. I’ll fill out form 87-b(103) later, promise.” The grand matriarch of Roanoke seemed flabbergasted by Parker’s insistence, having never seen the smaller woman show any measure that resembled assertiveness. She sat in the nearest chair, almost surprised she did so, and listened intently. “Ok so we thought ‘Eld Fen’ was some sort of genius loci, a part of the land that held residual energy or intelligence, but when I was being fed off of- by the way it feeds on people, it would generate hallucinations to manipulate my emotions, so maybe it feeds on those specific chemicals in the brain?” Parker shook her head and continued. “Anyways it made me hallucinate that all of you were there, not all at once, it would just pick a person and say something, really dug into my insecurities, but when it formed to Cthylla, I think it recognized her. Like, more than who she was in my life- it said something about ‘going where she could not’, so I think it knew what* she was.” “Hmm, we’ll have to ask her to see if the Ry’lethians had any sort of place known to them that was forbidden. Or persons.” Lilith agreed, already coming to the conclusion Parker had clumsily hinted at. “Kieran, do wait outside for a moment. I have some private words to impart on our Agent Hood.” He left, reluctantly, and let Parker know that he’d be right outside if she needed. “You mentioned that it made you hallucinate people you knew, I’m assuming the visions said horrible things.” “Yes ma’am. I’m not sure exactly what, but I think it fed on things like ‘deepest insecurities’ so having people you know tell you what you’ve always feared they thought would be the best way to get that.” “...May I ask if I was one of the figures you saw?” “You were ma’am.” Lillith’s face fell imperceptibly, if Parker knew better she would have guessed she was hurt by this information. “I cannot imagine what that mirage told you, but I can guarantee it was false.” Parker bit her lip and thought carefully. She could have railed against her, demanding to know about all the things the vision brought up; it was clearly weighing on her. But hearing each and every hurt she held out loud, it made it seem so much smaller than it felt. “It doesn’t really matter if it is or not ma’am. Or at least it doesn’t matter anymore, not to me.” Lilith nodded then, and in a graceful measured show of affection, took Parker’s hands in her own and squeezed them. She punctuated the gesture with a soft kiss, brushing her knuckles with firm lips and clemency. But if she was granting or asking for it, Parker didn’t know. It wasn’t her place to.