Big Barbarian FEELINGS

[lydamorehouse]

 When Ave reads this letter, she's going to be muttering to herself, "Drama king, much, brother??" Idyril is the perfect barbarian because all his feelings are so very, very BIG.

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March 16

The Sloshing Boot

Brendlefort, Kingdom of Shira

Ave, my sister--

Where am I meant to send these letters now? I suppose I might as well continue to direct them to our home in The Beech Wood. Mother has spies everywhere, after all. Once she or her secretary scans our personal correspondence for secrets that she can later use to manipulate us, my notes can be sent to your hidden monastery of the assassins of Lesh. Perhaps Mother is even capable enough to track down your wandering drunkard of a master. I would put none of it past her.

It seems typical of my luck lately that we were both adventuring in different parts of the FeyWild and yet managed to miss each other completely. I’m particularly saddened to have missed your hug. 

I could sorely use it.

In fact, if I could, I’d move heaven and earth only to see your face again, Ave, to watch your dancing eyes, and to bemusedly listen to your chaotic spill of delightful conversation. I, too, fear that when next we meet, I’ll be counted among the dead.  That feeling has only been heightened by recent events. 

The news of Chittering Lucy’s death has already spread like wildfire among the Fey. We were scarce hours returned to Prime Material and already confronted by an ice-wielding FeyWild spy intent on killing me, it seems, in particular. 

Apparently, the information about Lucy’s death is incomplete. While I may have struck the final blow that ended her life, I’m in no way capable of countering such a powerful hag on my own. It took the combined forces of the Caravan, of course, but in specific it was the massive power of our cleric, Theophina, and the fire she could call down from the realm of the gods themselves that lay the witch low. 

Yet, I understand how it is that I came to be the sole target of their ire.

They see me as a traitor to our race.

Ironically, despite my once divided loyalties, I can hardly deny such an accusation. Its truth is born out by the fact that as my companions shopped for new wares and sold off the spoils of war to various apothecaries, alchemists, and witches in town, I was called upon by the town guard to act as translator for a FeyWild captive--the very cartographer turned assassin who had attacked me.

I suspect that because I’m quick to anger and the fact that his man did me grievous bodily harm, Thompkins' guard presumed me a good bet, an ally. I was wounded by this IceFey, after all. Perhaps I had a beef with him? 

But, everyone misunderstands what fuels my fury. I hold no grudge against anyone who raises a hand to me. Or, perhaps, it’s more accurate to say that I feel there is no blame when a soldier fulfills their duty.

No, what lit the unquenchable fire in my belly was that I was asked to stand in a room while they tortured a man who looked very much like me, who cried out for mercy in the language of my heart- a language shared by no one in the room but him and me.

And even as I grew angrier and angrier at this cruel twist of fate, the gods betrayed me by sending out dark tentacles of Wild Magic, causing dancing Faerie lights to encircle my form and, Ave, even the floor of the stone prison itself erupted, briefly, into gnarled, ancient roots of oak and ash.  And to what end? Why do the gods curse me so? Do they delight in the irony? Is it some fine trick to them that it was my very Fey ancestry that so perfectly served to terrify the Faerie captive that he spilled every secret he’d sworn to keep for the Queen Below and laid them at my new masters’ feet.

For surely my fate is sealed and bound by force to the Humans now.

Where once I might have turned my gaze toward our most ancient of homelands, I have no choice but to stand firm where I am, here on the Prime Material.  I’ve done too much for them now, Ave. I have served them far too well. There’s no going back.

So rejoice, my sister. If I fall in battle now, it will be from a Fey arrow, aimed true, cutting straight through my heart.

Your brother,

Idyril