I Am Daphne
DAPHNE
Trielle takes off like a bullet and the sound of eight hooves following behind rages like a thunderstorm on her heels. I glance toward the end of the tunnel and what I see cannot be real, but... then again... this is Faery... so it is. It must be.
A tree-like being stands sentry at the mouth of the corridor, armed with what appears to be an axe.
The very brown man is heavy with muscles and skin grooved like the bark of an oak, his hair flowing behind him in shades of evergreen, the locks floating like silk in the wind, winding like ribbons that dance about his shoulders and drape about him like a bough. He wears faerie mail in a different shade than my own, copper or bronze, and it is my belief that he means to defend the entrance to the keep from the three of us all on his own when he suddenly kneels and slams the great steel hilt of his axe upon the earth.
The ground trembles, Trielle huffs, the trees on either side of us quake and I think... even gasp.
"Stop!" The man shouts, his black eyes flashing with a turbulent green and his fanged teeth barring over the cusp of a wooden lip as roots spike upward from the ground and make to grab me.
"Do not stop!" I whisper to Trielle and she heeds me, galloping toward this man with alarming speed.
"Daphne!" Klyesque shouts a warning and I hear the sound of her steel sing, echoing against my back as she draws her blade. "Wait!"
A glance behind me shows the roots twining together at my back, one after another they sprout from the ground, linking like arms and creating a barrier between my companions and myself. Trapping me within this tunnel even as Trielle's hooves sputter and skid, even as she neighs in revolt, distraught in her separation from her twin, Delago. Fire erupts from her clomping feet, spiralling up her legs as we come to halt in front of this nine foot guard who stands nearly a head taller than my mount to glare down on me.
All I can think to say as I pant there before him in the dark of a hastened shell built from thorned branches and angry roots is, "Hello... I am Daphne."
The creature's face is angry, but not grotesque. His nose is a twig of sharp knots and deep gouges, his cheeks are marked by divotted hollows and his chin, sprouted with tiny grass hairs. Bold, broad shoulders shake so suddenly I almost smile, and when he bellows an echo of laughter rises from his mouth into the tunnel, piercing my ears with its intensity.
"Hello, you are Daphne?" His voice is deep and resonating, as if it comes from the bottom of a hollowed trunk. "Is that all?"
The sound of swords hacking at the rooted fence that locked me within spurs Trielle into furious action and fire spurns from her nostrils toward the guard, which he sidesteps with a heckling chortle. Grassy knolls lay beyond him, speckled with waist high flowers the like of which I've never seen. Purples and golds, magentas and indigos, all interrupting my view of five beautifully spiked rooftops of midnight green towers that rise behind them and the curling stone pathway that gleams beneath the blue light of the moon, leading down what appears to be a narrow slope
The Woodland Keep, a voice seems to whisper, though I know not where from.
A nervous smile tugs at my lip as the creature stalks back into place, shielding my view of the magnificent garden and the keep, and bathing me in shaded darkness once again.
Shaded darkness... shadow...
Might I control such a thing as another's shadow?
Such is a question I'll certainly be asking Sylvan later, though I wish I might do so now.
"Damn it," I curse, taking in the hefty axe that the guard now has posed to sever my head.
"No need to curse, my lady," the creature replies, keeping the axe held high, "but I'll have you state your business as you are the only one the thorns allowed pass."
"Daphne!" Sylvan's voice rings out at the same time a heavy root shatters to splinters behind my head.
Trielle spins around, attacking the barricade with her flames, and for a moment I am able to see Sylvan's face through the shattered hole he created with his blade, but the Trielle's fire does not find spark and in the next moment another root explodes from the ground at our feet to fill in the gap.
"This place is protected," the guard says at my back, "and as of yet those two are not welcome. However-" he pauses as Trielle neighs and begins to chomp at the roots with her teeth "-for some unknown reason... you seem to be. So tell me... Daphne... what is your business here?"
Taking a deep breath, I lean forward and coo into Trielle's ear, "Settle down, my love. We will be with them again soon."
To my utter surprise, the wildfire in Trielle's eyes banks out and she huffs, curling back around so that we might face this guard as one. But the moment we face him again, I feel it... like a breeze on my skin, or a phantom caress, the trees on each side continue to whisper to me.
Speak your name girl.
Sliding off of Trielle's back, I throw the hood of my cloak down and step toward the guard. Something in the green of his eyes changes, the gaze he scrutinizes me with, becoming somewhat muddled and confused as he takes in my face.
He lowers his axe. "Daphne..." he whispers. "Should I know you? The trees seem to think so."
Do they now?
I stop directly in front of him, throwing a look right and left where I know these trees of his tower around the tunnel. I am suddenly wishing more than anything that I had found a way to bring that blasted book with me.
If there was ever a time for confidence, that time is now.
So be it.
Both my sister and Magda have said that I need to seat myself upon the Woodland Throne to seal my power, that the throne in the Hidden Realm is not the only mark of my magic, but that this one is as well, and I mean to have all that belongs to me.
With a tilt of my chin, I drown out the sound of Sylvan and Klyesque who remain shouting beyond the barrier and I say in the strongest voice I can muster, "I am Daphne, daughter of Clayeira, Queen of the hidden Fae and the rightful ruler here. Let me pass so that I might take seat upon the throne. Let me pass so that I might be reunited with my magic."