by Bainrigh Mab » Fri Jun 16, 2023 8:08 pm
The fae laughs. "Oh no, it's not me. I inherited a mere fragment of the power she once held. But I'm getting ahead of myself..."
"It all began a long time ago in a distant realm not too different from yours. A young Faerie fell for a mortal man but with her love spurned she fled deep into the woods. Stumbling and falling she descended deeper than anyone, man or fae had ever gone. It was there, deep within the heart of the world that she decided she would hold her court, all by her lonesome. Soon her broken heart grew dark and cold as ice and with it her thoughts became bitter and vengeful. For you see, she'd found power unrivaled this deep in the woods, able to shape not just the physical realm but dream, time and the very fabric of the world. But the price she paid for claiming this power for herself was that she would never again be able to leave her court. It had become her lonesome prison at the heart of the world.
In her stead she send changelings out into the mortal realm. Puppets through which she'd lash out at the mortals. The man who had spurned her had long since died but his... descendants, his bloodline and those of his friends remained. Echoes of a love long lost she would chase and seek out ways to break their hearts in turn. For a long, long time she would seek the mortal realms and sow pain until even that was no longer enough to sate the bitterness in her heart. And so, when she came across a realm with walls full of cracks she was able to spill her cosmic power into it just a little more. Just enough to create creatures of pure power she'd send to try and steal one of the man's descendants into the deep woods, but the man had friends who thought themselves mighty heroes and among them was your sister.
They set out to put an end to the Great and Terrible Faerie's machinations once and for all, but the woods were deep and dark indeed and so a young faerie offered to show them the way and lead them safely through the woods if she would, in return, be granted a single wish. And that faerie is the self-insert in this tale. They set out, fighting their path through the Mad Queen's monsters and I lead the ay for them, though I have to admit that at times even I became frightened and I'm not as brave a hero as your sister. I feared the Queen's wrath and at times wavered, leaving our heroes to fend for themselves. But in the end she made it look like she betrayed the heroes so she could slip them deep into the Queen's Court of gnarled and frozen wood. There they fought a great battle and the young man the Queen had sought to claim was prepared to sacrifice himself for his companions, but the Queen had one last trick up her sleeve. Her Changeling had accompanied the heroes and been an unwitting spy for the Queen, once merely a part of the Dark Queen the Changeling had grown to genuinely care for the young man and his companions.
And so the heroes revealed a trick of their own. They'd known about the Changeling and clever as I am I'd taught your sister secrets I'd found wandering the woods of how to weave the magic of body, mind and soul and your sister used all her might to stitch the Changeling and Mad Queen's heart back together once more and finally, after untold eons her heart was whole again. So relieved at the melting of her heart, she relinquished her power to go with the heroes to live happily ever after. And with the icy grip on her realm released the woods began to close around them for neither mortal nor fae were meant to be in this place. In a way, these woods were never meant to truly exist as a place to be walked on and the heroes fled the collapsing realm.
But I was not with them and through all of this my wish had still gone unfulfilled and I knew your sister had no reason to grant it now. And so, as I fled the fading realm I stopped to find my tree, for everyone had one growing somewhere in the woods. In fact these trees were the source of the Mad Queen's power to begin with. Their roots reached all the way into the mortal realm to touch those lucky enough to be deserving of a fraction of their power. And before the woods would disappear from anyone's reach forever I climbed my tree and I found a single sprouting bud so the secrets your sister and me had learned would not be lost. The secret magic of Mind, Body and Soul that binds and severs the roots of the trees from the hearts of mortals. Of how to bestow gifts to those who yearn for them."