"I figured the fae would send someone for the woman just as they did the last time." The being had said, deep voice echoing in the throat of its host.
The moment she had discovered him lurking in the shadows she could tell that two individuals occupied the one body. Tanned skin rippled as muscles twisted and knotted, glowing eyes flashing, the shadows of his features becoming confused. One being was clearly less aware than the other.
"It is a bit saddening to see that it is you though. I suppose we have lessons to learn from each other that transcend lifetimes. Cycles to break. I imagine we will encounter many more familiar souls."
His words had caught her off guard. He was sad to see that it was her? Nimara went to open her mouth, but the being held up a hand.
"Please, let us discuss this no more. Access the memories of your past selves if you wish for answers."
"I've lived for a long time, sorting through all those memories could take years." She said with a blunt snarl.
He bobbed his head side to side, a dizzying array of emotions rolling across his face. "Time can be so messy but I'd say it would have been around thirty thousand years ago. Give or take"
Nimara had found herself tensing a bit at his words. The casualty in which he had expressed such a substantial amount of time was concerning. Thirty thousand years ago would have been close to her first cycle. Whatever he was was probably ancient, and beings that old were often frighteningly powerful.
And as if to drive her unspoken thoughts home, he casually lifted an arm and with a graceful roll of his wrist a warped ribbon shot forward, only seen as it blended the navy light of the night. It hit the dancing ward with a deafening silence that rang in her ears. Tendrils of his power wove themself into the gaps in the tune of his ward, solidifying its barrier further, dampening its buzzing until even the littlest hints of its existence were untraceable. Morphing with the particles of air around it.
If the being had done so before Nimara had a chance to discover it she would have walked right into it.
Having watched it form brought about a stinging awareness and she shuddered as its silence. Its lack of presence seemed to leave a void in its circle, the plants along its border moaned, unable to hear their brethren inside.
"The fae did not mean her harm the first time they came for her. I imagine they do not this time as well?" He looked in the direction of the home, silent and dark inside.
"I know very little, but I do not believe so."
With a firm nod his body snapped into a mist of smoke and scales, clinging onto essence trails she could barely see and disappeared in a flash.
He could travel trails, the second fastest form of travel next to blatant teleportation, like the old gate she had used to enter midworld. It took a bit of know-how and effort to see the trails so one could follow them by sight, but to dive into them was rare, even in the higher realms. Within seconds one could traverse miles if they could harness the ability.
Nimara had narrowed her eyes at the spot he'd been standing a moment ago. The body itself carried the scents of youth but the scales that had shed from his skin were drenched in the crisp musks of the passage of time. Like moth chewed fur, rotting ink, attics cracked open in the dawn, and a plague of locusts beating down on thin glass windows. He'd instilled inside her that which she had rarely felt before. It sent a thrill up her center. An excitement mixed with the anxiety of failure and the stink of the fear of death.
It was so pliable it was distracting her from her meditation.
The grass had coiled around her in the early dawn. Long blades laying in snaking spirals that traced their way across the meadow to cup her seated body. The plants eagerly lent her their energy, attempting to aid her inner search. Not just the grass but the entire meadow leaned into the fae. Fauna and foliage thrilled.
There was a longing in their thrill that left the bitter taste of sadness on Nimara's tongue. Midworld had been cut off from the twilight realm more than seventy-two thousand years ago, gates destroyed and fae kind forbidden from entering. And still the plants remembered their counterparts.
The humans had their gods. The animals, elusive and carnal, had beings like the vypnyr and the wyrr. But the plants had been left alone. Imperial decree had the fae abandon a realm they had originated from, abandoning their flora. Seeds were taken and most was preserved within the twilight. The fae decorated the higher realm in all that they could bring, but some were still left behind. Flowers and trees and shrubs left to the weathering of time- left to the act of slow extinction. Only those with links and ancestry connecting them to the flora of the new fae realm survived. Still so the forest had welcomed her. Began to subtly aid her from the moment she entered midworld. Recognized her and lent her their very lives. Not a single ounce of animosity in their will.
Their unconditional and ever long faith had Nimara sinking away from thoughts of the scaled man, falling into the sapping thrum of vegetative mana.
It spread around her, an advanced network that netted further than her perception. All the plants of the world communicating. Towering pines on mountains stood suddenly taller, rigid, proud. Thickets of willows rustled along river banks with glee. Old oak groves groaned yet perked up, veterans too proud to admit their sapling like excitement. Palms turned fronds towards the sun, beating steady on the drum of the breeze. The undergrowth of the world thrummed as the trees spread word. Not even deserts or tundra separating their grasp. And it sat all atop a bed of cottony energy created by the fungi, ancient ancestors to plants and fae alike. The very foundation of the forest of life.
When the fungi finally learned of her presence, its wispy energy dampened around her, musky and earthen. Mushrooms, thick stalked and fat capped, burrowed up from the soil, pushing through blades of grass, crowning all around her. Caps spreading large and shiny, blue spores dusting from their gills in visible clouds.
News of her presence accelerated, almost instantly the greenery of the world knew of the ancient being. Their awareness warmed the blood in her veins and the blue cloud of spores circled around her, dusting her skin and clothes. She glistened in the sun, her sage skin accented in jewel blue.
The energy the fungi connected her to was almost overwhelming. With no division among other fae, the world lent her its power. The softness of the mycelial energy and the effects of their spores pulled her down.
Her mind folded into itself as the plants led her towards the past.