108

106 - Meet the Feiju

'Girls!' Ulric barked out loud when the sudden image of all his loved ones and friends calling out to him startled him from his dizzy spell. He shook his head to clear the last fog from his senses, and thought back to what happened while he almost fainted. The fairy girls giggled as they hovered a little away from him, and he growled in anger because their pranks crossed the line of merely innocent childish teasing. 'What's the meaning of sedating me!?'

The red haired girl beamed. 'Oh, Lehti, we can understand him now.'

The other girl looked a little thoughtful at Ulric. 'That does make things easier, Tera. If it can understand us just as well.'

Tera flew quickly around Ulric's head and pulled on his ears. 'I wonder how clever and quick it is.'

Ulric spun around as he tried to grab her ankle, but missed. "Either they're too fast, or something is hampering my abilities." he thought as he failed to do any of his transformations. Tera giggled and flew around him once more, and pulled on his tail, and he failed to grab her once again.

Lehti booped his nose quickly with a toe. 'It's not good enough to catch us.' she said as she hovered above him.

'We'll see about that.' Ulric growled, and jumped up at her at once.

She evaded him and twirled around with Tera as they flew away and giggled.

Ulric growled more as he ran after them. 'I am so going to spank you when I catch you.'

He chased them through the trees and barely avoided entanglement when they flew across a deep ditch with brambles. It was at the last moment that he realised it and jumped over them. Unable to jump as far as he usually could confirmed to him that something in the environment slowed him down. As if the air became much thicker.

The two disappeared into thick and high bushes rich with flowers in different shapes and colours, and he stopped in the middle of it when he lost track of the girls. He pricked up his ears and listened intently for any giggle or sound of their wings. The soft and gentle babbling of water in the distance became disturbed by some splashing, and he sneaked as quickly and silently as he could towards it.

A gentle giggle and melodic hum came from the other side of shrubbery next to the stream he had heard, and he burst through the green barrier. The young woman standing up to her knees in the stream covered her naked front with her arms and cried out in surprise.

Ulric looked away immediately. 'Sorry! I didn't mean to frighten you or assault you! I was looking for two brats who harassed me!'

The woman pointed with the hand covering her breasts into direction of the thicket on the other side of the stream. 'I saw them flying that way.'

Ulric gave her a quick salute. 'Thank you.' he said, hurried through the water, and dove into the wall of leaves and flowers.

The woman stared after him for a moment, then giggled. 'Definitely not smart enough.' she said, and waded to the bank where she weaved a dress of leaves and yellow flowers around herself with a few gestures of her hands, and smirked in amusement. She gasped when two strong and furry arms grabbed her from behind and growling filled her ears.

Ulric held her tight despite her struggling. 'Thought you could fool me with this disguise, eh?'

She pulled on his arms. 'What disguise!? What are you talking about!?'

Ulric grinned. 'You two can't hide your distinct scents from me, even when you are what you are now. My nose doesn't lie and seeing how you grew wings and all earlier, I thought anything is possible.'

She stopped her squirming. 'Our scents!? You smelled we're us!?'

He chuckled. 'And now you confirmed it.'

'You demon!' she said and wrestled him again, but he pulled her down onto the ground with him and across his lap.

'This is for teasing me and trying to knock me out.' he growled, and smacked her behind hard.

'Let me go!' she cried out with every hit while trying to pull free from his grasp. 'You have to obey me!' She startled him by emanating bright light from her body, and turning into Tera and Lehti.

'Stop! Why don't you stop!' they cried while they tried to squirm their way out again and the light faded and the dress fell apart, but Ulric didn't loosen his grip on them. 'Don't think you can escape like this either.' he growled, and spanked each of their bare behinds in turn. 'Bad kids shall receive their punishment.'

The two wept as their behinds turned redder, until Ulric stopped at the wooden spears surrounding his neck, held by fairies of the size he expected fairies to be. One, dressed in petals of various shades of blue and an air of authority, hovered in front of him. 'Release them at once, demonic beast!'

Ulric though her golden hair up to her waist looked lovely with the crown of tiny white flower petals. 'Might you be the queen of these parts?'

Her voice rang with the same faint tingling of tiny bells as those of the two girls. 'I am Diseria, Queen of the Feiju, and I demand you release Tera and Lehti.'

Ulric glanced at the bright red rears of the girls contrasting their otherwise fair skin. 'Well, I suppose they have received their just desserts.' he said, and loosened his hold on them. 'You two better cool your bottoms off in the cold water for a while.'

They crawled quickly from his lap and sat down with relieved expressions in the numbing cool water of the stream. Diseria looked back at them, then turned her attention to Ulric again. 'How did you arrive here? What did you do?'

He shrugged. 'I have no idea. One moment I walked through a courtyard, the next I found myself in this cheerful place.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'No one can pass the spell barrier without permission. Did the trolls use a transfer spell on you?'

Ulric chuckled. 'If they did, I don't know about it. We put them all to sleep before we went into the ruins, and we only conducted a search without magic or anything.'

She softened her expression with curiosity. 'You're not a pet of the trolls?'

'Hah!' he said. 'Aside from my looks, do I even sound like I'm a troll pet?' He chuckled. 'If anything, you could say I'm kind of a pet for my loved ones.'

Diseria froze. 'Someone broke through the barrier! Everyone prepare for battle!'

***

Tipper indulged herself in the energy the bright environment gave her. 'I've seen some beautiful gardens in my time, but the sight of this pristine nature beats it all.'

Valdys inhaled the air. 'It's full of magical power. This is no ordinary piece of land.'

Elzbieta examined the flora around her. 'I don't recognise everything, but it feels like home to me.'

Caylais giggled. 'It sounds silly, but I feel like frolicking.'

Iphigenia laughed. 'I know what you mean.' she said and sighed. 'It has me wanting to be with Wolfie even more.'

Valdys put her hand on Iphigenia's shoulder. 'Let's search for him at once. I think I sense his presence.' she said, and the others followed her.

Valdys was spot on, and they quickly stumbled upon Ulric and a large amount of armed fairies surrounding him. 'Wolfie!' said Iphigenia, and dashed towards him. The surprised fairies watched her pounce and kiss him while the other intruders followed quickly.

Diseria cleared her throat while the girls were all over Ulric. 'Excuse me!'

They looked up at her, and Valdys took a step towards her. 'You are the one in control of all the magic here.'

The queen raised her eyebrows. 'You know?'

Valdys gave her a nod. 'I can sense it.'

Diseria hummed. 'You broke the spell of the gateway.'

Valdys glanced back at the others. 'Actually, we all did it together. Nothing can keep us and our beloved apart.'

Diseria hoped her impression of the girls was correct. 'Is that why you're here? You're not aiding the trolls?'

Valdys chuckled. 'We're not on friendly terms with them. All we cared about was finding Ulric when he disappeared, and we concluded from the little information we found with the trolls, that he went though some hidden gateway they've tried to open.'

A female fairy wearing a red flower in her hair approached Diseria. 'We can't trust them, your majesty. No one should be able to cross the gateway when it's closed.'

Valdys smiled knowingly. 'I can't say anything about that, but with our beloved here, that gateway was already pierced with the familiar link we share. We only leveraged it to enable us to pass through.'

Diseria pondered and gazed at Ulric. 'I can see the logic in that, but that doesn't explain how he arrived here in the first place.'

'Someone let him pass, maybe?'

Diseria looked at Valdys, then over her shoulder at Tera and Lehti, who carefully nursed their gently glowing behinds. They sensed a stern gaze upon them, and looked away. 'Tera? Lehti?' The two girls glanced at their queen while her icy voice chilled their spines. 'Care to fill in the details of this mystery?'

Tera and Lehti exchanged a look, and shuffled their feet. 'Well,' began Tera. 'We thought we could find out more about the trolls when we saw him walking around outside the gateway, without the risk of bringing a troll here or going out there.'

Ulric leaned back on his paws. 'Oh, so you interrogate by dancing and singing around me, and playing hide and seek?'

Diseria's angry gaze leaned heavy on Lehti. 'We thought we could find out what he knew via the familiar bond!'

Ulric blinked when he realised he had forgotten something. 'Wait. You did do something as I was losing conscious.' he said, and pulled up his status with a gesture. His eyes went wide when he checked the link. 'You fools! Why did you do something so reckless!?'

Tera looked up at Diseria. 'We were going to break it and send him back after we knew what he knows!'

The girls checked the familiar bond status, and groaned and sighed at the expected outcome. Iphigenia shook her head with a dry chuckle. 'At least Kaui doesn't have to feel guilty about being the only one to have done this.'

Ulric groaned and grumbled. 'I can't have these kids caught up in our link. This is so wrong.'

Diseria looked a little puzzled at the distressed party, then gasped and shivered when great dread filled her. 'Oh no. They're here.'

***

The small troll returned to his king and jumped up excitedly. 'They're gone! They're gone!'

The king opened one eye. 'What do you mean, they're gone?'

The troll pointed into the direction of the courtyard. 'They entered the gateway! They passed through!'

The king sat up at full attention. 'They what!?'

The small troll swelled up in pride at his next revelation. 'And the gateway is still open! Green lands on the other side!'

The king stood up at once. 'Call the wizard and everyone arm themselves! We have new territory to conquer!'

In no time at all, every troll stood around the gateway and its soothing view, armed with anything that could cause the most bodily harm. Damaged and rusty swords, hammers, clubs with embedded shards of metal, hooks, being lethal was their secondary goal, the primary one was to provide as much entertainment as possible while applying them with great prejudice to enemies. The king could already taste fresh blood and relish in the sounds of women to be raped, and bellowed his order. 'Kill!'

The trolls swarmed the gateway and poured out on the other end with delighted bloodlust.

***

The feiju gathered in large numbers, armed with spears of wood with black thorns, and similar bows and arrows. Ulric looked left and right, amazed at how many still arrived. 'Wow. There really are a lot of you.'

A dark skinned feiju dressed in dark leaves arrived with great haste before the queen. 'More than a hundred trolls, your majesty.' he said. 'All terribly armed and destroying everything within reach.'

The queen gestured at the fairy with the red flower in her hair. 'Tellania, surround them and attack from all sides.'

Tellania saluted, and led the feiju towards the battleground. Ulric flexed his body. 'Looks like we're still in for a fight.'

Remaining feiju aimed their spears at him and the girls, and Diseria hovered in front of him. 'You're not going anywhere until we're sure you're not an enemy.'

'What!?' said Ulric and gestured at the feiju flying to the trolls. 'We're not with the trolls. You could use our help in defeating them.'

She frowned at him. 'The words of strangers carry no weight, demon spawn. Try to leave and we will strike you down.'

Ulric groaned as he turned to the girls. 'Can anyone convince her we're the good guys?'

Iphigenia glanced at Tera and Lehti, who stood quiet to the side. 'Well, you were caught turning their behinds red as tomatoes.'

Valdys stepped forward to Diseria. 'I know we're an unlikely collection of people, with half of us considered dangerous demon races, but shouldn't that prove we're friendly enough to form a party together?'

Diseria looked them over. 'I do admit I've never seen a group like yours, but that doesn't mean you didn't band together for a common evil goal.'

Another dark feiju appeared quickly. 'Majesty! The trolls are crushing us! The king and wizard are impervious to any attack!'

She stiffened. 'What about the lower trolls?'

'We have only defeated a handful. It seems they're protected by the wizard.'

'Tell Tellania to concentrate all attacks on the wizard.' Diseria said, and the dark feiju flew away at once.

Ulric turned to her again. 'Seems to me you have a choice of being slaughtered by the trolls, or trusting us to fight alongside you. Even if we were to betray you, it would end in your death anyway, so why not risk ending up alive instead?'

She looked at him with shock in her eyes at his words, but also understood he was correct. 'You are very blunt.'

He shrugged. 'We don't have time for pleasantries while your people are dying.'

She sighed in defeat. 'Very well. I will put my life in your hands.' she said, and gestured for the stunned feiju to stand down.

Valdys probed her powers. 'You'll have to lift the restraints, otherwise we can't fight with all our might and it'll just drag on.'

Diseria nodded, and the pressure everyone had felt the whole time lifted from them. Ulric stretched his legs and sniggered. 'I feel so light suddenly.'

Elzbieta drew her sword. 'I sense everyone through the link again. You should call out to Conchi and Ying to aid us.'

He strode resolutely towards the battle. 'Will do.'

Diseria followed the party to the battleground, and watched in awe when they clashed head first with the trolls. The undead sorceress attacked the troll wizard indiscriminately with every kind of magic she had, and it disrupted his protection of the regular trolls. They were now decimated by the others, but her greatest shock came when a harpy and dragon rushed through the gateway and attacked the trolls from behind, followed mere moments later by a stone figure joining them.

While the girls took on the trolls and the wizard, Ulric worked his way toward the king. The large troll laughed harshly when he spotted the strange bloodwolf coming for him. 'You desire to feel my sword cutting you open that much!?' he bellowed, and lifted the sword with a sawtooth pattern on both sides of the blade up high. He swept it down onto his attacker.

Ulric grinned while he clamped the blade between his paws above his head. 'You know, I've always wanted to do this trick once.' he said, then pulled and forced the king into a forward stumble.

The king raged as he stood up again, and lashed out at Ulric, killing trolls close by in the process. Ulric parried with his armoured and spiked fists, landing hits wherever he could, but the king didn't falter in his attack, despite the increase in wounds. Ulric growled at his tenacity. 'This guy doesn't give up.'

Elzbieta moved closer while she skewered another troll. 'King trolls are very resilient because of their big bodies, darling. There's a reason why they are kings after all.'

Ulric dodged a swipe from the sword. 'I can see why now.' he said. 'Time to change tactics.' He jumped away from another slash, feinted a move away from the king, then dove at his feet and unleashed a volley of blows against one ankle.

The king roared in pain and lost his balance when his foot no longer supported him. He still tried to hit Ulric as he fell down, and raged even more when he tried to move around on one arm and one leg. Ulric rushed behind him and drove the long spike on his fist into the flabby back of the king's neck. The king let out a garbled cry and spat out blood, then slumped down onto the blood soaked dirt.

Valdys finished off the wizard with several long spears of ice thrust trough his weakened barrier spell, and the remaining trolls scattered in panic. Few managed to flee the scene before losing their lives at the hands of the girls, and Diseria stopped her new allies from pursuing them. 'Wait! We will take care of those ourselves.' she said while many feiju chased the trolls. 'You won the fight for us.'

Ulric wiped his paws and fur as he approached her. 'A fight with them was probably inevitable, although we kind of hoped we could have killed them peacefully in their sleep.'

'I understand.' she said. 'We too hoped we could avoid fighting after we secluded ourselves here many generations ago, but when the trolls came and tried to break through the gateway, we knew this day would come sooner or later.' She gave him a thankful smile. 'I'm glad it came the same day as you did, even if you were involved in the cause.'

He chuckled. 'I'm glad we didn't came later when the trolls succeeded on their own.'

She looked at Valdys. 'I gather you came here to obtain a certain item, yes?'

Valdys pulled out one of the artefacts, and Diseria gestured for them to follow. 'I suggest you freshen up with a bath before we eat.'

***

The small troll witnessed the crushing defeat from a distance far enough to be unnoticed, and hurried back to the camp. He scribbled down the events on a small note, took one of the black messenger birds, and sent it away. He watched the bird disappear in the distance, then looked around him. Excitement filled him at the thought all of it belonging to him now, but dread replaced it at the thought of the party returning from the feiju realm and finding him alive. He gathered essentials quickly, and left with as many valuables and coins as he could carry.

107 - Unlucky, or Not?

After a thorough sweep of the troll camp, the whole party joined the feiju in a small celebration of the victory over the trolls. The meal consisted of every kind of fruit, root, and edible leaf and flower that grew in the forests and on the meadows, and Diseria sat down with them after talking to a group of feiju. 'The last troll has been killed, and its carcass will be added to the pyre.'

'I read a little about your kind in a book,' said Valdys. 'although I don't know how much of it is true, but it said you plant your dead, and the flowering plants that grow from them give birth to new feiju.'

'It's true.' said the queen. 'We don't need to grieve for our dead, because they will be reborn in time. It's only those we can't plant which we mourn the loss of.'

Ulric hummed. 'That's practically eternal life. You could be of an ancient age, even though you never stop looking youthful.'

She gave him a knowing smile. 'It is an advantage for us, but it's also difficult to bring new feiju into the world. If we can't save enough of us, we will die out all the same.'

Caylais examined a slender pink fruit the length of her finger. 'I guess if it was easy for you, we'd see a lot more feiju in the world.'

'There used to be more of us, but since we need specific soil to plant in, there are only a few places we can do that. Other races gradually encroached on those lands, or invaded them, and thus this is the place we created a long time ago, where no one can't enter. Or at least, shouldn't have.'