12-29-2017, 06:40 PM
She was sitting on a little stone bench beside the crocuses, watching confused fireflies weave strange patterns above the glowing water when the two tiny women intruded on her sanctuary.
The strangers appeared from behind the silver willow, each barely six inches tall, with deeply pale vaguely olive-colored skin, large almond-shaped eyes, and shiny black hair. They wore soiled red-and-orange dresses, the stains and dyes appearing wild and strange in the blue-and-violet organic light, and little dirty white caps that resembled the stamens of flowers. Their faces were identical, round and sincere and smudged with grime, and as they picked their way daintily across the softly glowing turf their movements followed each other almost exactly.
The sight was so unexpected that it took a moment for Isolda to process what she was seeing; her eyes widened raising old worry-lines in her forehead, and when the miniature moving shapes and colors finally resolved themselves into a coherent idea in her mind her first reaction was an instant of unthinking fear. The young noblewoman's pulse quickened. Unquiet spirits cried out in her mind, and she jerked upright. Tension and the relaxed potential for violence sang at odds in her slender frame as she reached to her side for a weapon that wasn't there, the instincts of a previous lifetime flaring, drawn out by the fulfillment of a paranoid expectation for the surreal which she'd never managed to shake.
Finding herself unarmed, however, her grasping hand catching only the folds of her plain muslin nightgown, the momentum of panic was broken; Isolda closed her eyes and forced herself to breath, clenching her fists and counting backwards from ten as her pulse slowed. The rumblings of the dead subsided, albeit grudgingly - and all around her pale feet, pebbles and bits of florescent moss tumbled back to earth.
Her ghosts were quiet most of the time these days, but always restless, murmuring softly in the back of her mind - and Isolda's spectral passengers were never entirely safe, still filled with all of the old rage and confusion, ready to lash out at the first sign of anger or frustration or sorrow.
Whoever these tiny people were, Isolda thought, they'd certainly done nothing to deserve any of that; This wasn't Aurelios - it wasn't even the Pale Moors, for gods' sake.
She opened her eyes to discover that the two little women had halted their progress and were standing ramrod-straight and stock-still, back-lit by the pond. They regarded her with extremely worried expression on their faces and their hands over their tiny mouths. Subdued and languid, ghosts curled invisibly around them, sampling their thoughts and emotions. Isolda could taste it: The miniature twins were scared, but they were also very worried about her.
The heiress of Castle Harnburg sighed, reaching up self-consciously to fix her hair: She'd kept it long since first coming to Camelot as a sort of declaration of intent, but that meant that if she didn't have it braided the auburn locks always went a little crazy when something surprised her. They'd tumbled down across her bony shoulders and were threatening to get in her face.
In perfect unison, the tiny women spoke, their voices high and quiet.
"We are sorry! We did not mean to frighten you!"
With sartorial order restored, Isolda shook her head, stepping forward and crouching low on the gravel path in order to better address them, smiling with her eyes. The bright, pure luminescence of the crocuses and the pond cast shades of soft, competing brilliance across her colorless gown and raised strange shadows on her proud, narrow face. "You don't need to apologize," she said. "I just don't usually meet anyone else in my garden, is all. Who are you? I would guess you came in through the storm drains?"
The twins bowed once, flawlessly in-synch. "We are the servants of Mothra - and we do not mean to intrude, though we like your garden very much! But it was vitally important that we speak with you!"
Isolda realized she mas smiling. The tiny people were incredibly earnest - you couldn't help but like them. The smile faded quickly, however, as the implications sank in: The noblewoman knew about Mothra; She was standing in the room when her uncle's court wizard had first described the 'bug lady' to the Duke, though neither man had been able to see her. If these twin fairies served Mothra, then this was almost certainly something that the heiress didn't want anything to do with.
"Well," she said, swallowing her sense of foreboding, "you've certainly got my attention, and nobody will disturb us here. What was so urgent that you had to crawl through a storm-drain?"
The strangers appeared from behind the silver willow, each barely six inches tall, with deeply pale vaguely olive-colored skin, large almond-shaped eyes, and shiny black hair. They wore soiled red-and-orange dresses, the stains and dyes appearing wild and strange in the blue-and-violet organic light, and little dirty white caps that resembled the stamens of flowers. Their faces were identical, round and sincere and smudged with grime, and as they picked their way daintily across the softly glowing turf their movements followed each other almost exactly.
The sight was so unexpected that it took a moment for Isolda to process what she was seeing; her eyes widened raising old worry-lines in her forehead, and when the miniature moving shapes and colors finally resolved themselves into a coherent idea in her mind her first reaction was an instant of unthinking fear. The young noblewoman's pulse quickened. Unquiet spirits cried out in her mind, and she jerked upright. Tension and the relaxed potential for violence sang at odds in her slender frame as she reached to her side for a weapon that wasn't there, the instincts of a previous lifetime flaring, drawn out by the fulfillment of a paranoid expectation for the surreal which she'd never managed to shake.
Finding herself unarmed, however, her grasping hand catching only the folds of her plain muslin nightgown, the momentum of panic was broken; Isolda closed her eyes and forced herself to breath, clenching her fists and counting backwards from ten as her pulse slowed. The rumblings of the dead subsided, albeit grudgingly - and all around her pale feet, pebbles and bits of florescent moss tumbled back to earth.
Her ghosts were quiet most of the time these days, but always restless, murmuring softly in the back of her mind - and Isolda's spectral passengers were never entirely safe, still filled with all of the old rage and confusion, ready to lash out at the first sign of anger or frustration or sorrow.
Whoever these tiny people were, Isolda thought, they'd certainly done nothing to deserve any of that; This wasn't Aurelios - it wasn't even the Pale Moors, for gods' sake.
She opened her eyes to discover that the two little women had halted their progress and were standing ramrod-straight and stock-still, back-lit by the pond. They regarded her with extremely worried expression on their faces and their hands over their tiny mouths. Subdued and languid, ghosts curled invisibly around them, sampling their thoughts and emotions. Isolda could taste it: The miniature twins were scared, but they were also very worried about her.
The heiress of Castle Harnburg sighed, reaching up self-consciously to fix her hair: She'd kept it long since first coming to Camelot as a sort of declaration of intent, but that meant that if she didn't have it braided the auburn locks always went a little crazy when something surprised her. They'd tumbled down across her bony shoulders and were threatening to get in her face.
In perfect unison, the tiny women spoke, their voices high and quiet.
"We are sorry! We did not mean to frighten you!"
With sartorial order restored, Isolda shook her head, stepping forward and crouching low on the gravel path in order to better address them, smiling with her eyes. The bright, pure luminescence of the crocuses and the pond cast shades of soft, competing brilliance across her colorless gown and raised strange shadows on her proud, narrow face. "You don't need to apologize," she said. "I just don't usually meet anyone else in my garden, is all. Who are you? I would guess you came in through the storm drains?"
The twins bowed once, flawlessly in-synch. "We are the servants of Mothra - and we do not mean to intrude, though we like your garden very much! But it was vitally important that we speak with you!"
Isolda realized she mas smiling. The tiny people were incredibly earnest - you couldn't help but like them. The smile faded quickly, however, as the implications sank in: The noblewoman knew about Mothra; She was standing in the room when her uncle's court wizard had first described the 'bug lady' to the Duke, though neither man had been able to see her. If these twin fairies served Mothra, then this was almost certainly something that the heiress didn't want anything to do with.
"Well," she said, swallowing her sense of foreboding, "you've certainly got my attention, and nobody will disturb us here. What was so urgent that you had to crawl through a storm-drain?"