Silver eyes gazed at the entrance to what she was certain was the Fay Court. Her heartbeat in her chest like a wild bird in a cage. She could feel her vision tunneling and her breathe coming in gasps. Walking away seemed like the best option at first but the further she got the more she knew she was being a coward. This wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. Fomher and Nyx would be embarrassed by her right now. Fomher had stood against the first god of his aspect, Nyx had stood against the Nine Hells and walked away. She couldn’t claim kinship with either of them while running from what she knew to be her path.
Knowing that it was part of her path made it that much harder and walking back to those doors hurt, with every single step. At least she got to figure this out on her own. That was something. Them all getting to see this and adapt to it without everyone else there for the freak out. She’d done enough of that around the others as it was.
Of course she should have realized as soon as she thought it things wouldn’t go according to the usual pattern. She looked the same as she always did except for seeming to be a little brighter, though her horns had been wrong. Then the forest surrounding this place wouldn’t let her go to the Outlands. Just one more thing to add to a growing list of frustrations.
Shortly after that she’d heard Take and then found out that Zildath was there. Next came Tali. Could she not have five minutes to herself to just panic and be angry? Gods why did she even bother opening her mouth. She just kept saying the stupidest things and threatening people that didn’t deserve it. Just because she didn’t mean the threats didn’t make it alright.
This entire fucking situation was too much. She knew she kept whining about going back to the life she’d had before. Her mind flashed back to a burning tavern and Fomher trapped under a beam that had been meant for her. Trying to push it off him, knowing that none of her fire abilities would help. Hands grabbing her, fighting them to get back to her father.
Screaming and coughing and choking as she tried to force the person off of her. The pain hadn’t registered until later. After she’d stopped fighting and screaming at someone whose face, she couldn’t remember that they should have just let her die if they weren’t willing to help her. Trying to run back into the building when the roof to the building had collapsed in front of her and screaming for entirely different reasons until she couldn’t even whisper.
She felt even more trapped in this situation than she had in that building. It didn’t matter though because she had a job to do. She’d managed to survive living on the streets for six years. There were some new things to get used to and she would. So, she had some odd affinity for ice now. Big deal that she had a dream that seemed more like a memory about a golden city in an icy realm. That didn’t mean it was actually a part of the Frostfell, even if that’s apparently where she was now.
Why even bother with all of these questions? Her past didn’t really matter in terms of the current situation. Fomher was her father, Nyx was her uncle and the rest of who she’d been before she’d been given the spellbook with Loki in it was irrelevant. If the information connected fine but she wasn’t going to poke at this anymore. It wasn’t worth it. She needed to finish translating the book and find some way to learn this stupid language that kept popping up at the worst times.
Maybe she’d get lucky and remember something of what she’d tried to write down in this whole…dream visit. It would be great if she could figure out where the hell the wards were and study them a little. Well, really she might be able to help Vash study them because studying magical weirdness was more her territory than Nethrali’s anyway, but she could at least answer a few questions if Vash had any. Either way they needed to see if they could learn more about the wards and figure out this language.
None of this made any sense at all. Maybe she was still dead? That was possible. This could just be her final step to heading to a demi-plane. That had to be it. She wasn’t sure why the test for her involved so many others but who was she to question the gods?
