[complete] magic runs thick

[Straia]

is this the end of everything?

STRAIA

or is it just a new way to bleed?

There is much to plan. There are many trips to many kings and queens that still need to be made. She wants far more for Beqanna than just one small change, and yet, she cares more about that one small change than anything else she may seek to accomplish. If she does nothing else, she will restore the Chamber. Whatever it takes.

She invites @[Anaxarete] to come with her, knowing the shadow mare feels as strongly about this as she does. It is possible they will make this trip more than once just to gain an audience with the faeries, but still, she will do it. She teleports only to the base of the Mountain, and then begins to walk.

It does not matter that she wasn’t here when Beqanna flipped itself on its head. The rules are clear enough, etched into her bones with the magic that courses through her veins. It is simply a part of her, and the point of the trek is to actually make it. It should be hard, and it is. It has been a long time since she had walked so long, climbing up and up, rocks slipping beneath her feet. If Ana is with her, she will talk, though doesn’t mind whatever time they spend in silence. She does not need to fill the world with empty words or hot air.

It takes most of the day to climb the Mountain. The trek is long, the mountain tall and wide, and at the top she finds herself greeted by a strange silence. The magic here is heavy, blanketing the top of the Mountain and she feels as though she could wade through it. She feels as if she could do almost anything, except she knows she cannot tap into the power she feels, no matter how much she may be tempted to try. ”Faeries,” she calls, voice shockingly respectful for Straia. ”We seek the restoration of our home, the Chamber. I can offer you Pangea in exchange.” And then she waits, not knowing exactly what they might ask for such a large request. If they come at all, that is.

Straia is requesting to restore the Chamber (or part of it, at any rate).

[Ice Fairy]

When they remade the world they look after, Pangea had not been included. The fairies had molded new lands, beautiful havens for their people to grow and find renewed purpose, but their offerings had not been good enough for Him. Though most of their people had been stripped of their magics, still toiling in good faith to earn them back, Carnage had always been a law unto himself. He’d wrought dark magic, strange magic, and brought forth a a fifth land for himself, ugly and desolate; Pangea. 

While it was a sore spot in their plan for a while, the fae had come together and sacrificed it, sinking it to the bottom of the sea alongside another empty and featureless place, to bring forth two more fertile lands for their people. All, in their opinions, had been well. Of course, then Carnage had dreamed up an even more malicious plan; through manipulation of the efforts of their people and blood sacrifice of two powerful forms of magic, he’d not only returned Pangea to the surface, but unleashed a magical plague as well.

It took nearly a generation for the tremors of that disaster to subside, for life in Beqanna to retake some semblance of normalcy; it had been so bad that even a tear in the fabric between life and death had seemed rather minor to the fae. So some of their people who were dead are once more living - not so terrible a thing, was the general consensus. That a few of those who had Returned came with bits of larger magic that they had intended to be forgotten was a minor inconvenience, not a source of any great discord amongst them. If anything, they’d been interested to see what the returning mares would do with their gifts.

Still, the fairies held out hope that the people would now settle into the lands they had provided; that finally, after all this time, they would love them as they had once loved the lands they had destroyed. Perhaps these bits of land-loyal magic would help them settle.

Perhaps it might have been so, if circumstances were different. But in the course of fighting the Plague they had returned several smaller lands to the Beqannians, and it turns out now that the memories of their people are quite long. The return of the dead did not help either; an influx of those who remember What Was reignited the old stories of how it used to be. They watch the magician mare’s progress up the Mountain with a variety of reactions; some wish she would not make the request she comes to make, while others find themselves also nostalgic for the lands that once had been.

All of them appreciate that unlike Him, who steals and lies and coerces and takes what he wants, these magicians bend to the new protocols that have been set in place, and Straia makes her way physically up the side of the Mountain to make her bargain. It only sweetens the pot that if they accept, they can once more be rid of the pox which is Pangea. A decision is made, and she is chosen to be their voice. One minute Straia is alone, and then the next the Ice Fairy is there, blue eyes glinting with interest. This, too, is no ordinary magician. This is one of the ones who had come back with bits of Beqanna’s magic in them. They were still subject to some of the laws of Beqanna, but certainly they are amongst the most powerful of the mortals. Powerful enough to stand against Carnage when he discovers they have bargained away his creation? They’ll find out later.

The air around the pair is thick with swirling snow and ice, but they are in the calm eye of the storm. She is the voice today, but she speaks for the group when she says, “This is a bargain we are willing to strike,” she says, though none will ever be sure if she speaks aloud or if they are simply understanding words in the howl of wind in the peaks around them. She reaches forward, and sets something on the ground between them. It is a pinecone - it looks so innocent, shivering in the stray winds that whistle inside the eye. But they can also both see the strength of the magic seed it contains. For a moment the faerie gazes at it, and then she lifts her head back up to Straia. “Pinecones only release their seeds under favorable circumstances. They require the perfect hospital environment for seeding new trees. I think you’ll find that with the right environment, this little vessel will release the seeds you are looking for.”

And then she’s gone, too, and the wind closes in on Straia, threatening to steal away the fragile pinecone and its precious cargo.