Zelya & Elyane - HM - Repair Neala's Shrine

Dawn broke on the grasslands, light reflecting off the grass and exposing the golden-brown hue of the plains as winds gently swept across them. Zelya dismounted her steed, a black horse with crimson eyes and a flowing, untrimmed, black mane. She had been returning from a meeting when she felt a strong pull on her senses that called her to this specific area. It had happened several times before, each time leading to one of the many shrines dotting the area. It wasn't always the same god or goddess, sometimes it was Cary, other times Neala, and on occasion Duir or Ignis's shrines. Her ears twitched repeatedly while listening to the sounds of the leaves brustling against each other. The grass was up to her bust, meaning any predator could hide in them from snakes to large cats. Zelya had continued walking with her horse staying at the path. He didn't want to risk being attacked and from experience knew that if Zelya were in trouble she'd come back to him to make a quick escape.

Back at Solar Phoenix, a messanger had shown up at the bar with an urgent message from the High King of Tartaros. He moved through the guild base looking for anyone who might look like a five foot, six inch kitsune with firey hair and allegedly gorgeous eyes that could make even the most holy men sin. He entered the mess hall and looked around, spotting the barkeep and quickly running to her with the sack of mail on his back. "Miss, I have an urgent message for Miss Cisti!" he exclaimed and set the bag down, rummaging through it to withdraw a black envelop with the high king's seal in red wax on it. "I understand she's not here, if you know where she is I implore you to get this to her henceforth." he said, the look in his eyes implying that the matter was very high priority. Zelya had told her she'd be going to the meeting several days ago, and if Elyane remembered that, she'd know that Zelya was somewhere on her way back. If she did leave to take it to her, she'd find her horse on the side of the road. The horse would gesture in the direction Zelya headed if Elyane asked.

Total Word Count: 385

Elyane stared at the letter that she just received in steed of the lady who runs this guild and wonders why in the world would such an important letter would immediately go to her. The girl looks behind and sighed, probably the super huge cloth bag containing fan mail from various people, due bills and taxes from the good old higher ups, some letters from the people from the guild themselves writing back to report their mission completion or failure and may once in a while a letter talking about departure or the death of a loved one. The fairy sighed, she can imagine the problems Zelya must go through doing this. However the timing was, off.

Elyane checked the calendar on the bar, and tapped a square with a date and red circle around it. Elyane scratched the back of her head. Her boss is suppose to return sooner or later but it seems at the current circumstance and the fact it's a letter from the big man himself, it meant business required to be attended to immediately. So it meant intercepting Zelya's trip back. Closing up the bar and hiding the bag of mail, Elyane stepped out of her usual confinements and left to the road Zelya had taken on her way there.

And her gut's landed her in the right area, the sleek shine of her boss's horse idly standing by the road meant it's jaw dropper owner would probably be nearby. Elyane came up to the equine and gave his long face a pet and rub, stroking his mane with care before stepping away as the horse shakes it's mighty head and swung it towards what Elyane believes to be Zelya's current position or the direction she left off too. Elyane looked at the tall grass and gave a small cough. As if on some magical power of the fairies, the grass splits and leads her to a wandering red orange fox lady. Give one blade a kiss she calls out to her boss.

"Boss! I got an urgent letter from the King himself, and I mean High King if you are thinking there is a Low King," Elyane has no idea how human hierachy worked anyway. The fairy made it over and handed Zelya the letter, black envelope and all.

Word Count: 387

As Zelya arrived to a circular stone on the floor, she heard the grass behind her shifting and her glove glowed, a bow forming in the hand with an arrow drawn and aiming in the direction the sound came from. Upon seeing the indigo hair, her arrow was relaxed and the weapon vanished entirely when Elyane had come into view. She let out a sigh of relief and let her glove stop glowing, staring at the woman as she approached with a black envelope in her hand. "A letter from the king?" she asked rhetorically while taking the sealed item, breaking the seal and taking a look. She read over it, scanning the words and picking out the ones that were actually important. "Thanks for bringing this to me Ellie, I'll deal with it later." she said, folding the page and stuffing it inside a small leather pouch on her hip.

She then turned her attention to the circle shaped rock on the ground and tapped her foot on it, noticing how it sounded hollow on the other side. "First to deal with this..." she said and stepped back before kneeling down, digging her fingers under the stone and lifting to expose a hole that was large enough for a human to fit in with a ladder leading down. "Something drew me to this for some reason and I'd like to find out why." Zelya went down the ladder and landed in a completely dark tunnel where she blinked a couple time before holding her hand out, forming a white orb of fire in it and keeping it small to shine a light on the surrounding area. "Oh, look... a long, arbitrary tunnel that leads into the void. Why was I expecting anything else...?" she said sarcastically. Zelya moved forward, not paying attention to the dirt walls and only stopping once she got to a room with a shimmering pool in the middle. In the middle of that was a stone floor that had the symbol of Cary, the Goddess of Death, in the middle of it. Zelya looked around and noticed how the plants around the room were all burnt to a crisp and four men in black robes with the symbol of Cary were pinned to the walls with steaks through their hearts.

Zelya was used to seeing death, so she didn't flinch at all at the sight. She saw there were other tunnels leading throughout the shrine, likely going to where the servants of Cary had lived. She imagined that this place had a lot more light when they were alive. Zelya muttered "I can take care of the bodies, but the plants are toast..." under her breath and began moving towards the monks and tore the spikes from their chests, letting them drop to the floor. She pulled them to a pile and formed a ball of white flames that was four feet in diameter and let it consume the bodies, turning them to ash. Afterwards Zelya had walked off to see if there was a broom, dustpan, and maybe a spare urn or container of sorts within the shrine. If Elyane was still with her, she'd be left alone in the room.

Total WC: 923
DP: 76

Elyane found herself now following her boss. Elyane had no reason to do it, she could just head back home, maybe feed Zelya's horse on the way back and probably be singing on stage again by evening, however she decided to follow Zelya through a weird hole in the ground and found themselves in a place that smells like death.

While she is unfazed by the human's death, she gasped at the plants all withered up and dry like a desert. Elyane slowly looked down, and saw the symbol of Cary, though she herself does not know it's symbol. The Fairies knew of the gods, after all it was the Goddess of the Wind that created the Scar to protect the fairies, the God of Nature, the Earth and the Sea they respected and worshiped along with their fellow centaurs. After all while they may never truly have left the Enchanted Forest, they knew of the world outside through recollections and records.

Elyane shielded her eyes as Zelya did her work, reducing the bodies to ash with a pure white flame. When she put her hand down however, she found herself alone, Zelya's footsteps softly echoed. However it proved a good time to restore the plants, after all she never did tell Zelya about her Fae origins. Taking up her crossbow that she brought with her when she went out to find her boss, she converted it into it's lyre form and sat down in the center, clean of ash and debris. With a short breath, she played, her wings burst out and the patterns glowed softly as fairy dust spreads into the wind.

Elyane sung out, her voice soft so she does not alert Zelya, her fingers gracefully danced on the strings, energy flowed in rings around her, pulsing into the plants. Growth happened between cracks, nature slowly reclaiming the land and stone as the plants shook, growing green and bright, looking alive. Elyane quickly puts her wings down and stops singing as she puts her lyre away. Despite the short hymm, there was a small field of grass, thinner in areas where the ash has been, vines across the wall and small flowers growing between the cracks, innocent and beautiful. The shrine looks older than it already is. Standing up and dusting her clothes, Elyane looks around, hoping that Zelya has not seen her doing in before taking a squat by a pretty orange flower, tenderly touching its minute petals.

Zelya returned holding a broom and dustpan in one hand, and a quartet of jars in the other with a finger in the opening of each jar. They weren't exactly what she was thinking of when she was hoping to find a container, but they would be good enough for now. "Oh... oh my." she said upon entering the room and seeing the sudden growth of plant life. The sight was enough to make the pseudo kitsune stop in her tracks entirely, entranced by the beauty that the new look brought about. Vines were covering all the walls, grass and flowers everywhere on the ground except where the water flowed. It looked as though the shrine had been abandoned for years even though it had only been a week or two at the most. Zelya hadn't seen Elyane use her magic and from how far away she was, she hadn't heard anything either. However, Zelya was very adept at using magic since her very existence was a result of it. She didn't know that Elyane was a fae, but had assumed that her magic had something to do with plants on account of the ones all around her. Zelya couldn't exactly recall the last time they spoke of Elyane's magic, or if they ever did at all. She wasn't about to say anything about it since the way Zelya figured, if Elyane wanted to talk about her magic then she would.

Zelya had snapped herself back to the task at hand quickly enough and continued on her way back to the pile of ashes that had less grass growing in it than the rest of the room. She gently broke the broom to make it so she could kneel down and comfortable sweep most of their remains into the dustpan without needing help and gently distribute some to each of the four jars. The ashes were mixed with each of their remains, and Zelya didn't exactly feel like sifting through each and every individual speck to try and guess which ash belonged to which corpse. Once each jar was filled, Zelya used the top of the dust pan to swipe the top of each jar to get rid of the excess ashes before making her way to the symbol in the middle of the room. The rest of the ashes would remain where they were since there was nothing else that could be done with them.

Zelya took the broken broom and dust pan back where she got them from before returning to pick up the four jars and place them at the foot of the shrine neatly. She sat on her knees, closing her eyes while bowing her head. From what she knew of the divines, Neala was the one that this shrine belonged to. She was also supposed to be Cary's sister as well as the goddess of life. "Peace to the fallen, peace to the living." Zelya said calmly before beginning to stand up. The shrine released a gentle, golden glow before a set of coins had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Zelya didn't need payment for helping with one of Neala's shrines, she would always help the goddess of life since she was one of the ones who changed her destiny. Still, she took the money so as to not leave the goddess feeling indebted or offended and walked to Elyane, giving her some of it to pay her for having come to deliver the letter as well as for helping with the shrine. "We should return. The High King can wait for me to check in with my guild, take a show, eat, and get some rest." she would say calmly before heading towards the way they got in. Once out, she would ask if Elyane wanted to ride with her back to the guild's head quarters. If she accepted, Zelya would let her ride on the back of her steed. If she refused, Zelya would let her know that she'll meet her there.

Total WC: 923
DP: 132