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Forest's Edge Vines Apparel Twisting vines ward the forest's edge, and protect those who honor the way of the wood. 0

Current Status: Indeterminate Current Age: Appears Middle Aged Time of Birth: Unknown Mate: none Relatives: none Friends: none Charge: The fertile soil of Ever-Autumn, formerly.

Gene Plans: Complete Occupation: Wanderer, Walking Garden Likes: ? Dislikes: ? Hobbies: Following the sunlight

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One more awakening, one more rebirth.
There is life in her yet, but it is no longer her own.
Walking with shaking steps, taking ragged, unnatural breaths.

The Forest grows behind her eyes, in her lungs, through her skin.

She is in bloom.

- Long ago

In the beginning, she was a roaming guardian out on her Search, barely into adulthood.
Her Search brought her to Amberspire's borders, though she found herself unable to hone in on it before she was captured for trespassing.

Lord Spice happened to see her awaiting judgment, and - finding her rather beautiful and caring of nothing else - chose her as his mate. Thus she avoided imprisonment in the castle's dungeons, and lived in the lap of luxury in one of Amberspire's highest towers.
Spice did grow to love her dearly, though only as one does an object. She was precious to him, but not in any meaningful way.
She felt no semblance of fondness, instead growing to hate him more by the day. She thought she could control him due to his feelings - and she was right. Jewellery and silks were delivered by the cartload upon her request, with the lord doing anything he could to keep her placid.
It worked for a time, but she began to thirst for influence beyond that, and so she procured poison, and slipped it into her husband's food and drink every day.

He grew extremely ill, but Lady Pepper grew suspicious. Althea's ploy was soon uncovered.

This had her removed from her place of royalty, and she was to face execution. Always opportunistic, she managed to flee whilst being escorted to the castle's dungeons.
Her panicked running led her to the Ever-Autumn Forest, where she immediately attempted to hide in the modest village within.

But she was soon found by Heron, who initially barred her from staying there, sensing she was... considerably less than of pure intentions. Nonetheless, he was swayed by her breaking down to tears and throwing herself at his feet, begging for a safe place to stay.

Soon after being permitted entry, she found Jacquara's abandoned farm. Unaware of what exact hardship befell it, and the whereabouts of its previous owners, Althea moved in and took over its maintenance. Over time, she realized that the farm was in fact the charge she'd spent her earliest years so desperately searching for.

Nonetheless, when Jacquara eventually returned - with an Amberspirian soldier in tow, no less - Althea was forced to flee once more.

- Excerpt 1

“It’s in so much better shape that I thought it would be!”

The distant exclamation jolted Althea from her work within the cottage, and she quickly got to her feet, leaving the mess of half-ground bone meal for later as she made her way to peer out the window.

“With how long I’d been gone, I expected everything to have gone to… ruin, really. I thought I’d have to work for months to just get it back in shape!” the voice continued - Althea still couldn’t see just who was talking, but the words alone were enough to make her blood boil.

So this is the one who left my charge to rot, she thought furiously, turning to march toward the front door. This was her home, her garden, and her right! How dare this dragon come sauntering back in and expect to take it all away from her!

She reached for the doorknob, prepared to wrench it open and give her unwelcome guest a piece of her mind.

“You are… surprised.”

Althea froze.

That voice. She recognized it.

Nihil.

He was one of Lady Pepper’s knights - one of the more unsavory ones, at that.
She’d always been unnerved by him.

Tentatively, she leaned forward, looking through the door’s peephole. She could see him now, alongside a pearlcatcher girl she didn’t recognize.

No. No.

Althea bolted away from the door, running for the kitchen.

She’d never intended to stay so close to Amberspire, of course - but she couldn’t just leave her charge behind after finally finding it! She couldn’t -

She had to, now.

She slid the window open and hoisted herself out, taking care not to step on any of her plants even in her desperation to escape. Once she cleared the gardens, she bolted for the deep forest, blinking back frustrated tears.

This was all so unfair.

She’d worked so hard.

She kept running until the forest was too thick to continue through, and her lungs seized with each attempt to breathe in the frigid air. She sat on the frosted ground, trying to take proper breaths - and failing - until the searing in her chest eased.

What do I do now? she asked herself. The anger that had fueled her faded away, leaving an aching emptiness.

She was back to having nothing. No food, no home, no…

No shelter.

A realization, and a panicked look upwards.

It was difficult to judge the sky through such thick trees, but it didn’t matter much. It was the afternoon when she was still in the cottage.

She wasn’t going to be able to get out of the forest before nightfall.

She hurried to her feet, once more pushing her way through the thick undergrowth. She needed to find someplace to wait out the night and everything that came with it.

Heron.

She had to find Heron.
He knew what she’d done and still helped her - his morals were so easily bent by a pretty face and appealing offer.

He’d help her again - all she had to do was find him.

With renewed purpose, she turned, heading back toward Ever-Autumn’s borders.

When morning came, she would leave. She would find a place to hole up and plan.

Perhaps she could… change her appearance? Pay for a glamour?
She’d do something - something so Nihil couldn’t recognize her.

And then she’d return.

It was her charge. It was her home.

She’d find a way to take it back.

- Excerpt 2

She’d remembered how it felt the first time she’d transformed,

the first time the symbols on the scroll grew to cut through like razors, the nerves in her extremities shooting one last white-hot flash of pain before receding and sloughing away alongside the bulk of her body mass

Feeling the agonizing pull of her muscles, a brief snap, and then her severed flesh becoming like body-warm clay that she had to claw her way out of the moment her hands had reformed enough to do so.

Grimacing, she recalled the blind panic she felt at the thought of drowning in her own viscera.

Gazing down at the new scroll she held tightly in her claws, the pearlcatcher tried to assure herself it wouldn’t be the same this time.

That it couldn’t be.

She knew better, and she actually got to make the choice this time.

Pearlcatcher to skydancer would be nothing like guardian to pearlcatcher, surely.

Sweat began to stain the scroll where she held it, and she recoiled, wiping her hands on the grass and letting the damned thing just sit in her lap.

It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to. It didn’t matter.

She had to, she reminded herself bitterly.

She had to.

---

“I’m alright,” she stated breathlessly. “It’s alright. It’s alright.”

She tried to sit up, but immediately regretted the action. White-hot pain shot through her body and she crumpled back against the rocks with a weak expletive.

Her head lolled to the side, and she grimaced at the sight that surrounded her.

It wasn’t as gory as the last time, but still grotesque; her horn and an assortment of teeth scattered the ground, blood and bits of flesh still clinging to a few of them. Peppered around them were scales and shreds of skin that she had, mere minutes before, been desperately tearing at as feathers began to sprout beneath.

The itch had been beyond anything she could have imagined.

She was grateful it was raining then, the heavy droplets at once soothing her skin and washing away the sweat and blood.

But she’d catch a chill soon.

Slowly and agonizingly, she dragged herself along the forest floor and to the tree she’d left her clothes under. Their pristine nature was lost the moment she put them back on, the blood that still clung to her quickly seeped into the fabric, and the moment she forced herself upright and staggered back into the rain, mud began to saturate it as well.

Each step set the muscles in her legs aflame, and it only became more difficult as mud clung to the fabric of her dress and weighed her down.

Each step was hell, and it wasn’t long before she was weeping as she moved.

Real pain, real tears.

Good.

That was exactly what she needed.

It wasn’t a quick walk, but she forced herself on.

The sun was once more setting by the time she could hear the distant music of Ever-Autumn, and only then did she let herself collapse.
“Help me! Somebody, please!”

She screamed, voice cracking with exhaustion. She shut her eyes as she heard alarmed shouts and approaching footsteps.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know - I’ve never seen her before. Gods, she’s cold as ice - “

Before letting herself slip away, Althea smiled weakly.

It worked.

- Excerpt 3

Her blade struck his arm, his pierced her stomach.
His was a sword; well cared for and sharp to the molecule.
Hers was a dagger; old, rusted, and poisoned.

Jacquara lay completely still in the mud.

The rain pounded down on them all, the only proof that time hadn't stopped.
The Forest was weeping.

Althea was beyond proper thought or comprehension. She was numb. Her mind rapidly slipping to fog, her only certainty was she was going to die.

Their stillness was broken as Nihil suddenly staggered, reeling as the poison took hold. He collapsed, and she was pulled down with him.

Sinking, contorted, into the mud, she found herself wrenched in such a fashion that the two were staring directly into each other's eyes. She gazed upon the face of the male she despised so.

The skydancer's mouth twisted into something close to a smile.
At least I'm taking you with me, was her final thought.

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