Her fear was palpable, her panic near-animalistic. Kelsea clung to Roland's arm with a drowning man's grip, her palpitating breath and wide eyes speaking to the unqualified dread that the hooded figure standing amongst the crowd of ecstatic parishioners instilled in her.
He's here
! She cried in his head.
He's here! Oh merciful Gods, keep me safe!
Maybe the terrified Succubus did not grasp that her thoughts were now known to him, or perhaps she simply did not mean it as a command. Regardless, Roland tightened his protective grip about her, his right hand threading down her back and to his hip, tugging gently at the hilt of his dagger. He lifted it experimentally out of its holster, satisfied that it could be drawn at a moment's notice. He shoved the thing back into his belt, but kept his palm upon the pommel.
"Loriel!" The Cultists kept chanting, mobbing in a group towards the strange, slender figure and their even stranger steed. The horse that was not a horse lifted its head, turning this way and that with its slitted eyes to look across the crowd. Roland momentarily locked eyes with the thing and it did a double take, snorting loudly before turning its head to stare at him with both eyes. Roland felt a hardness come to his expression. The horse tossed its snow-white mane and began to scan the crowd once more.
"Loriel!" They shouted, laughing and raising their arms to the sky. Their adulation was unrestrained and unabating; It was as if a beloved war hero had returned to the village of their youth after years of absence. Hands reached out, but they did not touch. Cheers fell to whispers as they came to the fore of the crowd. Despite Kelsea's mind screaming at him to keep back Roland hustled her closer, holding to the edgeline of the flock yet holding back from falling directly into it. Almost the whole of the village had turned out to see the rider. Roland caught sight of Almyra pushing through the throng of cheering people. She emerged into the narrow circle in which the rider stood alongside their steed.
The rider's gloved hands reached up, pulling back the edges of their heavy hood. The multicolored fur fell away, revealing a feminine face of astounding contrast. Exposed in the light of the deepening sun, she was as dazzling as she was strange and offputting. Warm cheeks of rosy countenance, hair the texture of woven matted moss, eyes elongated and rounded to a geometric perfection. Her hair was long, colored as the dead leaves of fall: crimson, with hints of yellowed strands running through them like roots through the yielding earth. Her lips were full, yet her face was that of a young woman, barely beyond the throes of adolescence. She was thin, narrower in scale and slimmer in body than any human had a right to be.
"An Elf." Roland blurted out, and Kelsea's eyes turned worriedly to his. He lifted his hand to point above the heads of the gawking Cultists. "Look at the ears: they're shaped like a knife's blade." Strangest of all, however was the odd disfiguration on the Elf's otherwise stunningly gorgeous face. While her left eye was a normal enough blue, her right eye socket was...
It almost looked like tree bark. Pitted and gritted like an ancient oak's scabbed, brown skin. It chipped away to flesh by the time it reached her thin, reddish brow, yet Roland could see what almost looked like vines curling beneath the skin, extending outwards into an unseen root network across her face. Set in the center of this cancerous patch was her right eye; it was amber green, the color of sap. The odd eye shone with a strange, reflective quality, as if from glass or the surface of a pond.
Upon catching sight of Almyra, a wondrous thing happened: the Elf smiled. Roland felt his heart leap. It was such a splendid thing to behold! He could not have described the feeling had he tried. It was as if he had seen the grey curtain of clouds roll back after a vicious rainstorm, only to reveal the dazzling sun behind. Her simple, honest smile seemed to herald a new time of endless horizons and boundless possibilities. There was no sexual attraction in it, only a feeling of childlike delight, a sense of the impossible.
"Loriel!" Almyra exclaimed, her own face breaking out into a child's foolish grin. She rushed forward to the smaller figure with haste. "Gosvin be good: you've returned to us!"
Loriel laughed. It was as soft as a falling feather, fresher than an icy mountain stream. "Almyra. Dearest Sister." Her voice was measured, more flat and detached than a human's more expressive outbursts. Yet it was filled with its own, peculiar emotiveness. "It is as if an aeon has passed since I laid eyes upon you last."
Crossing the distance, the two women embraced. Roland watched as Almyra lowered her forehead into the smaller Elf's shoulder, burying her face into her neck. She began to sob.
"Gods, I-I thought you'd-" Almyra pulled back, wiping at her face as she grimaced through her tears. "So much has happened since you've gone, Sister. So many new graves have been filled."
"-Though not Bogdan's, I see." Loriel remarked in an arid tone.
Despite herself, Almyra laughed. She acted for all the world like she was conversing with a returned ghost. "No. He yet remains amongst the living."
"Pity." Loriel said, reaching out and gently stroking Almyra's tear-stained cheek. "Like as not he is annoyed to have been once more denied a chance to meet his feckless deity." Loriel's half-smile faded. "...What has become of us, Almyra?" The Priestess of Gosvin's hand instinctively reached up to clutch at Loriel's.
"We are-" Almyra began, but her mouth snapped shut. She glanced around at the searching eyes of the crowd that surrounded them, as if embarrassed by something. "The Cult remains intact, but we have bled for it.The Inner Cloister remains ours, but the Outer Cloister is a ruin. Half the town has burned, our crops are destroyed and we are feasting on our dwindling winter stores."
"Captain Guyles led a spirited defense, but we lost many of our warriors in the last raid. We..." She swallowed, "We only just held out. A chance meeting with some adventurers tipped the scales, but..." Tears drifted down her patrician features, her braided tresses fell about her face as she looked at the ground.
"Loriel, Emilde is gone."
The color faded from the Elven Priestess' pale skin. A woeful melancholy entered her eyes. Loriel's slender shoulders sagged, her body hunching forward as she shook her head from side to side. "So my dream was true, then. I had a figment enter my thoughts a few days ago, a whisper of wind, words threading through the boughs of my mind as I slept." She sighed. "So falls another pillar that holds the Cloister above the trammeled earth. Must we be so sorely tested?"
"She saved many lives." Almyra whispered.
"Not nearly enough." Loriel replied, pulling Almyra close to her again, "She neglected to concern herself with her own. My heart-roots ache and my shoulder-branches shudder at her passing."
Almyra allowed herself a long moment of embrace, before stepping away and raising her voice so that the crowd could hear her proclamation. "You came. That is all that matters; you were successful in your task, and brought forth the men who will exterminate the evil that we could not overcome ourselves!"
"It has been a prolonged journey." Loriel agreed. "My path has been a harsh one. The Children of Amphara stalk the woods freely now; I have been waylaying their kind for days. They infest the whole of the plateau, from the mountain's summit to the High Road." An angry color filled her eyes. "They found no respite from my wrath."
"Nor did they fare any better against ours." Almyra agreed. "Come: you must be weary. Let us retire to the Verdant Temple, your flowers have been wilting without you to sing to them." The human Priestess glanced about at the awed parishioners. A soft smile grew upon her face. "-And I'd expect you have many others who would like to join you in chorus."
A deep-throated cheer arose from the assorted townsfolk. There was a true sense of wonder in the air. Loriel nodded, and together she walked arm in arm with Almyra towards the overturned oak that functioned as her sanctuary. As a group, most of the villagers followed. Roland took Kelsea by the arm, steering her in the opposite direction of the Elven Temple. The half-panicked Succubus craned her neck around to try to catch a glimpse of the retreating pair.
"Roland! That was the-!"
The red maned mercenary grunted. "I know who it was, Kelsea. Nothin' we can do about it right now."
She turned to look at him, "What do you
mean
there's 'nothing we can do?' She's the one who gave me the hex!"
Roland dragged Kelsea along by the arm towards the Inner gate. Despite her harried protests, he could see she was no more eager to confront her Elven assailant than he was. "Aye, she was. And what d'you think she'll say when you meet and have a heart to heart? 'Gods,
sorry
fer turnin' ya into a human watercolor painting! Here, please fuck my fellow Priestess on top of her altar!'"
"It'd make for a more spirited sermon..." Kelsea grumbled. "The hex is getting worse, Roland. I can feel it."
