#ritt

Oré Peachblossom, Last of the Paladins

Announced the page.

She stepped forth, the iridescence of her

Wings unnervingly still,

Gripping her Greatsword by the blade;

Her only consession to peace.

Titania, before whom she now kneeled

Archfey, and Queen of the Seelie Court,

knew her vow, had been there at its making.

Oré kneeled before the Briar Throne

And as Titania stood so did all

Attendant; most towering over

Oré's eight inches of height.

Whispers rose and fell when Titania's

Lyrical voice broke

Over them like water

Crashing from above

How long has it been?

Very long said Oré

I know you've counted the passing

Time, must unusual in our lands

Where the sun stands like a beacon

Over the Duskward horizon.

I sheath this sword when I sleep

Oré said

I draw it when I wake.

I've done this since we burned

Our foe

One thousand years ago.

Ro'al the Life Drinker

Said the Queen,

Naming the Dracolich of ancient power

Who of had mired and

Befouled the entropic wilds

Of the Fey.

One thousand years and no soul

Has met your blade, she said.

None, said Oré.

Whispered admonitions from

The shadowed corners came,

Crashing from one speaker to the next,

Shaming each other for refusing to stand

As her foe. But who would not fear

The only survivor of the Last War,

The Claw Scarred, the Tyrant's Fall?

None wish to deal, said she, None

Live who do not fear the arc

Of my blade,

The retribution of the

Gifts you granted me

Or the wiles by which

I lived.

So you would take

Those gifts

And leave our wild land?

Yes, my queen, said she.

Titania waved a golden hand,

Her mass of tangled curls tossing

Like clouds caught in

A mighty wind.

In moments they were alone.

Glimmerdust,

Said Titania.

The name, her True Name

Should have arrested her

To hear, but she only stood

And because she had promised

To be honest, said

I have a new name.

Which?

Asked Titania

I don't know. I must look for it.

Titania's eyes narrowed

Then closed as she sang

Then keep your name

And go. Carry my gift

To your grave and hold your vow

Like a sword. She turned.

Oré left.

Her dragon-fly wings

Fluttering into iridescent blurs, 

The sword, longer than she was tall

Trailing behind like a banner. 

The Scar, ruinous and black

Still, hanging gazes 

upon itself. 

It ran from one temple

across her face

into the corner of her smiles,

cracking the smooth shape

of her nose and deforming the bow

of her lip. 

Her hair, mother-of-pearl

in sheen 

hung over her unsteady brow as she flew

duskward.

One thousand years of peace

to the day.

The Queen had known. 

True there had been battles

between the courts,

the wilderfolk,

deals broken, 

promises and punishment, many deaths. 

That was life 

in the Feywild. 

But none wanted her word now;

what if she broke it? 

That might require her death,

ad she was a hero.

And her tricks drew no ire,

for what should any fey do?

challenge the pixie who

felled Ro’al the Once-Gold,

that tyrant who sought ot tame

the chaotic Wilds?

She was a legend to the young,

a treasure to the old. 

Oré landed in a tree she knew well,

and wept. 

One thousand and eight

since the courts had joined

against a common foe,

since she stood 

with a sprite, centaur and dryad. 

against undead armies.

One thousand and six since

she became the first pixie to call a sprite 

a friend,

since she felt love. 

In her first six hundred years alive 

there had been new wars

every fery days,

coming and going with the whims

of Queens.

But now all the best 

and most beautiful battlefields,

those which once had cast

romantic backdrops to the fierce and lovely

battles of fae

were still scarred

by Ro’al’s rule,

black and barren. No flowers, nor grass

disrupted the ashen earth

anymore. 

It had been in his castle,

not one of these fields

where Springbloom, that sprite cleric

of the Gloaming court

won the war,

not Oré. 

The wind muttered in the leaves,

the tree said nothing

as Oré heard for the thousandth time

the slice of Springbloom’s axe

into the throat of the undying dragon,

her howling screams as the fire

in his belly cascaded down onto her,

the call of the warrior centaur,

     He can’t breathe! Now! 

Mare’sgift had called, and 

she had dove

into the maw of the beast,

swinging her sword more like a staff, 

striking a hundred times

from within, bringing herself back

from the edge of death

to strike a hundred more

with the smiting fervor 

of her holy gift.

And when the breathless

heaves had grown still around her,

she, bleeding, wings asunder had cut

her way out, onto a silent battlefield,

still with bodies;

she had not seen her friends alive since she

flew into what should have been

her own demise. 

She lay

next to the charred body of 

the only sprite

who had revealed her Name to Oré, and slept.

Awoke to be prepared 

for the pyre,

lest they all rise

like the legions before had done,

Oré stood, was cheered, hailed

as a hero

for not being the one to cut the throat

open for that black flame to spill

like a waterfall. 

Oré breathed still,

and picked up, like a fallen leaf,

heavily gilded with autumn’s light,

a name that had died

that day. 

Peaceveil.