#farenduil

Meryasek led his brother through a silent forest. It was quiet, similar to the one that used to surround his home in the Spring Court back when they had a realm for themselves. It was what he'd wanted, spring was for rebirth, and it was for death, as well. There was nothing reminiscent of Spring, however. It was a cruel attempt, one that Mery's song could mirage with green and pleasantries, but if the glamour faded, they'd see the hellfire in the background, feel heat coming from bark that was normally calm and covered in moss. He did it for Farenduil's sake, the hatred that he felt, the way he'd simply decided he'd create his own Court, one where those who wished to escape could come. Where the daemons could be unharmed; those who could not return to Arvandor.

The garden of remembrance was for those that they wished to remember, those that they deemed worthy enough to consider for the trees that Mery used to be able to carve so effortlessly. This was no different, he'd perfected the spell long ago, trees that would give memory to those that they held dear. Titania's stood in front of them now, Mery staying a few paces behind Farenduil. The air was dark, the sky was dark – the only light seemed to be coming from the tree itself. The fey'ri tilted his head now, staring at Faren, "What do you think?"

It was late when Emma found herself standing in the foyer of her father’s townhome. Simple, but elegant, the enchantments laid over it were not his own and despite the knowledge that he was there, it was jarring to not be able to feel him. She wasn’t sure who she’d be when she finally came face to face with him again, a fool’s hope had kept her earnest in her desire to simply put the man behind her and never return. It would be better if he thought that she was dead, Emma had been robbed of paradise but the man who was the architect of this fate happened to be her oldest friend. Selfish. Fiendish. Emory could not have known but that didn’t keep Emma from blaming him.

Farenduil was a good man. It had taken Emma a long time to admit that, but had he been give. The chance to be a father then he would have been a good one. 

“Hi dad.” The words were small, meeker than they should have been considering who was speaking them. Cursed, burdened by a bastard of a brother, cut down by circumstances, resurrected: despite all that Emma had been made to endure she couldn’t help the feeling of childhood that washed over it. Like all at once she was just a little girl again, whispering to the pages of a fairy tale that her father would walk through the door.

“I was a terrible mother,” Titania whispered, “I put everything I was into being Queen of a people that came to hate me. I wanted to be a mother, and I failed. I wanted to be Queen, and I failed at that too.” The archfey wasn’t the type to purposefully invoke sympathy or to petty self-pity, but the long years tethered to so many of her people had addled her mind alongside the spellplague. While the pharmakis had restored her and the Gods of Elysia had healed her, Titania wasn’t the woman who’d left the mortal realm behind. She’d promised so much to Zahrya, to Meryasek, but even in her resurgence she’d vowed vengeance and made them pledge the same. Everywhere she looked there was fault etched in the lines of all that she had written, Farenduil had not held back, she knew that he despised her: and he’d been right to. Titania despised her too. 

“I thought for so long that it was within my power to control everything, that if I just held on tight enough then we wouldn’t have to lose anymore than we already have.” Titania turned towards her son, worried hands wrung in front of her, “You and your friends came here seeking aid but you won’t find any: Corellon turned his back on the mortal realm long ago.” Farenduil, the son with whom Titania had expected the world and Meryasek, the son with whom Titania had never expected anything. How they’d both surprised her, and how she’d ruined them both. She could feel the pain of his broken soul as his magic ran keenly through her, the death of a warder was an insufferable loss. All because they had hoped to find aid in a hostile realm. Boons, perhaps, but nothing more: these elves sought worship, as all Gods did, nothing more. “As have I.” It was time for the eladrins to come home so they might at last be restored.

It had been months without any real contact, Yavie felt the other's grief and he heard the news - but until Farenduil called he kept his distance. The fall eladrin wasn't without his own feelings on how things had transpired, but because he knew the Prince was venturing out into the Otherworld - Yavie had to follow. Because he wanted to see for himself what was out here, with eyes unclouded by eladrin bias, and to protect the man he'd been warded to for so long.

They had settled in the cottage, the petrified face of the barbarian elf stared distantly into the firelight. Yavie watched it from the limb of a barren tree, his features glowed with a violet hue brought on by the purple fairy light that illuminated this space. He'd never been anywhere so dark, it made him wonder what was out there - waiting for them in the trees.

"Are you ever going to talk to me again?" They'd greeted one another at their reunion, had chatted as they wandered through the Otherworld, but nothing of substance. Nothing significant. His head tilted towards the barbarian, the stone face twisted in visceral rage. "It's true what they say, you know? That our kind can weep themselves to stone, petrify in place. It was like that when my father died." Naturally, Yavie's father had looked quite different when it happened, Yavie had been a child then, and his hands were too small to keep the sorrow and stone from overtaking his father's skin. "I kept waiting for it to happen to you."

This was the longest that Micah had been sober, by a stretch. His hair was thicker, his skin was better, he’d started exercising again, and he’d managed to hold down a job. Apparently he was cut out for the employment thing because it wasn’t half bad. Granted, Micah spent most of the time schmoozing with customers but that was generally a good thing because they bought a lot of shit. “Hey old man, interest you in a rose quarts?” Micah asked as he looked the man over, Farenduil looked rough. 

✿*° ‘° ･

Zahrya made a vow to Titania to look after her children. Both of her children. While Meryasek had ascended to kinghood, Farenduil hadn’t the same clarity of place within this new community they were trying to build. He was more than just a prince, more than his hardships and responsibilities. Faren was still an important piece in the eladrin’s present and future. There were few greater honors his children would experience than a private introduction to royalty. “Look at that, Highness! My daughter was spectacular even in her infancy. I’ll bet you’ve never seen a storm cloud so dark conjured by a child so young. She was throwing tantrums before she could even walk!” Zahrya gushes as his memory of Kára plays out in the pool in front of him and Faren. It’s a fond one for him, one from the brief moments she had before sprouting from infancy to spend her summer in Laer’s glow. “It irritates me to have her away from the gardens as Laer keeps the cloud palace out of sight of my trees, but our hands are full with the twins as you can see,” he says, actively trying to hold Asterion back from attacking Faren. The incessant way the gnarling tiefling fought against his father’s hold to sink his teeth into Faren’s face in told Zahrya that he must’ve passed on his love of the princes to the next generation. “Settle sweet boy, we don’t bite royalty until they give you permission...”

          location : after the vigil, somewhere deserted w/ @farenduil​.

            It was a brash decision. A brash decision stemming from built up anger and frustration at the rejection she felt from proper parental love, the division amongst supernatural species, and the need to tap more into the foundation of feys. Yet it remained a decision Èdelie cannot look back on, and that.. that petrified her. Distorted. Unkempt; the list of words were endless to describe her warped appearance and the confusion stemming from the former halfblood, now eladrin. From the soles of her feet blackened to strands of hair knotted, Èdelie blearily sat crouched in a deserted corner — the brunette slurring out,  “Non mi sono mai sentito così perso prima.” In the midst of fear, she still found the strength to verbalize her needs and wants, though barely audible. There stood him. Ren, she could recall. The built connection served a purpose, their previous conversation was an indication that their run-in was an astral influence.. or it could be the dazed state of Èdelie convincing herself of this.

Banal’ras. Shadow. That was the name deemed to the Obsidian bow that Meryasek had carried with him. The one that could kill whatever it was it aimed at, automatically assuming the weakness of its desired target. It’d served him well, at least, something that he maybe relied on too heavily. Spring grew around him as the lake remained still, deep within the heart of the Spring portion of their new home. It’d never be what he wanted it to be, but the time for grieving had come and gone too quickly for Meryasek. He had little time to do that, simply because he couldn’t. Not while their kind were dying out quicker, and while so many of them remained trapped within. 

“I can’t save Aurora,” he said quietly, Farenduil’s presence familiar and comforting. They hadn’t spoken since the wedding, since they’d been separated. All he knew was that his brother was alive and safe, until once more they’d regrouped in the fey forest. It’d been a brief reunion, but nothing said. And now he felt like a little brother once more, looking for some kind of reassurance from the one older sibling he had. “Are you upset with me?” It was a loaded question, the obvious of it all sitting between them now. The lake stirred, if only because of Mery’s emotions, but it was enough to make him feel normal for a few seconds, that he could relax and not have to worry about everyone looking at him.