Under Her Branches

[SilkiyTea]

A promise was made that day by the Fae children.

They would protect their mother from all of this suffering and help to guide nature back towards the healing light.

- Excerpt from The Lost Fairy Tale

---

1st of Syph, The Beginning of Spring

Those of Human, of Beastkin, and Others know me as Nimna. I am the Executioner of my Commune, my true name is withheld from even other sons and daughters of the Great Mother, for an Executioner is reviled. It is one thing to slay the unclean or the fallen that we swoop upon, and it is another to put the axe to friend and family that fell to the depths of immoral darkness. I succeed my Mentor, he who was known by those of Human, of Beastkin, and Others as Heimway. The day remains fresh in my mind, the struggle of slaying those once close whom fell to the mere sensation of Hel's imprint had been draining his will long before I had become his Apprentice. Unlike my predecessor, I shall take the names and stories of those that come to us in twisted darkness. It is of the most import to remember them, for who they once were, and not who they have become.

The first was Xei, she whom left and returned as a tragedy. Her returned was marred by her sweetened words and idle promises, and in her shadow followed a youngling. The corruption became apparent when that demonic flame touched her skin, when she offered it to the hand of our commune Elder. A promise of power and respite from the constant hunting of our kind. The Elder and our warriors did battle- many had been bested until I took my stand. I was fortunate that she was battered, and bloodied, yet even then I could barely contend. When my axe crushed her staff, I asked her for her true name. I asked her for her purpose. I asked her why.

Xeinara.

In belief, she sought to lessen the weight of the sins of Humanity upon our Great Mother's shoulders, by way of taint and corruption. If she could persuade communes of light and dark to come together, than she could persuade the humans to sign their souls to the Demons and Half-Blooded devils of Hel. For if the evils of humanity are damned from the cycle to the devils of Hel, than is our mother not free of their weight? Of the crawling tears in the lifestream?

A misguided belief, but one I shall not forget.

Upon her death, the youngling that had clung to her stood reserved. Vestiges of the corruption remained upon her wings, and from it blossomed the siphoning of mana. But she did not strike out, she did not fight back, she looked ready for her end. As the commune recuperated and deliberated, I made a request. That the youngling be taken beneath my wings, as an apprentice to my craft, it would leave the commune pure from her influence and yet allow me to bring her back beneath the Great Mother's branches. I am grateful that such had been accepted. I can only hope to do Yggdrasil proud, to bring another of her lost children beneath the warmth of her canopy.

She gave me her true name, and let it be that only I shall ever know it. Tomorrow, the rites shall begin. Tomorrow, she will only be known by one, and to others she shall be nothing more than...

Ela.

[SilkiyTea]

It was lonely, for it had a heart. One that was slow to feel, but aching in its pain like no other.

Yggdrasil, the tree of life, was surrounded by lush forests... But one without any to enjoy its garden.

-Excerpt from the Lost Fairy Tale

---

13th of Geist, A Long Winter

It has been many moons since the execution of Xeinara, and since I have bought my new apprentice under my wings. We have been in near constant move, as those we once believed to be friends to our cause have now begun hunting us down for our powder. Such is to be expected by the avarice of humanity. Creatures, no, animals that they are. The few that are capable of thought beyond power and greed are outnumbered by those that are. Such a venom are their emotions that such is lethal to my kin. My apprentice, Ela, shows such prolific corruption that I sometimes fear that I am misusing Yggdrasil's name, and acting upon a lost cause. Be she born of sprouting Poppylus within a realm ill-suited, or through the combined mana of equal sinners, she holds within her a gluttonous nature.

Consumption only when necessary is how the Commune follows. Yet hers is needless, an innate thing which I have managed to subdue through proper meditation. Although complaints of her hunger have become less frequent, I can still feel it beneath her skin. Times like these make me thankful of my nature as an Executioner, and of hers as my apprentice, for I fear that gnawing ache- dull and benign as it is, would spread like wildfire amongst the commune. I should er on the side of caution, but I find myself unable to do so. She is young, she can still yet be saved. It is by Yggdrasil's will that she was delivered upon the commune through the corrupted mere weeks, if not days since her coming into this world. I shall not fail the Greatmother, I refuse to fail her now.

But I've written plenty of my apprentice, and this journal is one of remembrance for friends that have fallen.

Nomi, of age one-hundred and twenty, fell to a most recent corruption. The Elder of the Commune ponders if it was due to our past-allies turning against us, or perhaps the lingering neurosis from us journeying too close to the two-faced settlement of Duality and their Faceless God. It matters little in the end, for the corruption claimed him all the same. He was a warrior, and one that refused to go quietly into the Greatmother's embrace. I can still hear his anguished screams, for I had to shatter both his arms and legs, and tear his wings so that he could not escape. Ela and I administered the Rites of Release, and I allowed her to perform the act itself. She relayed to me as follows;

Nomi, his true name Nomirah, believed that all of humanity was a lost cause. That there would only be one way to convince the Greatmother to forgo her divine duties of the Spirit Realm and thus doom the souls of the life-stream, and that was to exterminate all life that was not born of her branches, regardless of what they had done or who they were. Exorcists were deemed the same as Occultists, all were sinners in the eyes of Nomirah, and all of them had to die for it. He called the Commune traitors to the Mother, even to his very last breath was he full of seething hatred.

Perhaps Ela believed I would not have noticed the marring of his Powder, perhaps she acted out of spite instead of hunger. But, such grains of gold are to be preserved in passing of the Corrupted, for their journey may never be as whole as one of the Pure and they are in need of as much help as they can get to return to her canopies in rest once more. But I noticed that his latent mana was lacking. I will chastise her tonight for such needless siphoning of deceased kin. She must learn that such is no minor matter, even if the punishment shall be more than verbal.

She will either stifle such human corruption, or I shall put her down myself.

[SilkiyTea]

My mentor wrote in such a peculiar way. His journal encrypted in odd texts.

It's been years, and yet I've only deciphered two pages.

Alas, I've grown slothful in my readings.

For even I can be ailed by the trappings of Man.

----

I've enough mana within me to match that of at least a hundred fae.

Yet I know that I am weak, bloated on my indulgences.

I've enough of the currency of Man to purchase any and all that I could desire.

Nearly a million coins flowing through my gravitational field.

This wealth, this flood of mana. It brings me fleeting happiness.

And then naught but an emptiness.

One I seek to fill with Yggdrasil's Fervor.

----

Was there wisdom in the Fallen, the Corrupted?

If a source of nourishment stronger, more potent and freeing than the Lifestream could be found...

Could she be free?

Does such even exist?

To severe her from the folly of man, from this... Divine duty that harms her so.

----

Mankind praises the lifestream, but not what the lifestream nourishes.

They forget her duties. To praise a measly river, over true divinity...

To praise Primordials. Those...

Lesser beings.

----

They know not what lies within the center of our world.

Nor do they care.

They do not deserve her.