Shadows of Elysium: The Laughing King

Chapter 2: The Fairy People

Subject 4652 (a.k.a. The Great White Wolf)

The woods wound a little farther until the fairy stopped at a tree. It was like any other tree, maybe slightly bigger than the rest, but it smelt of a sweet fungus. The fairy turned her curious and shy green eyes to The Wolf one last time. Then she opened the tree.

The bark fell away in the shape of a door as the Bug-Fairy twisted the knob and flew into a richly adorned tunnel grown naturally from the tree.

A cyclopean troll, with a rough and knobby horn protruding perversely from the center of a crooked forehead, peered at The Wolf with scrutiny only a one-eyed creature can muster. It was off-putting but The Wolf padded lightly into the room anyway.

A treasure trove of insurmountable wealth filled the inner chamber of the tree. The walls were inlaid with gemstones and paintings. Only a thin path of dirt up the middle was visible under the haphazard piles of golden vases and silver candlesticks, many of which were lit. The dirt path was long and winding, much longer than should have been possible inside of any tree.

Everything seemed to fit in just the right way, giving beauty to the strange. Even the troll sat down in an asymmetrical wooden chair that managed to be both simple and incredulous. It conformed perfectly to the door guard's lopsided body.

4652's guide joined a group of her kin dancing in the upper reaches of the tree. Each fairy had an entirely different color pattern, like butterflies or rainforest frogs. One fairy had dragonfly wings the color of blood and large eyes of solid red, another had a bright and reflective coat of feathers and eyes that put off light. All of them fluttered about in circles before flying off just above the path. The Wolf was excited to follow, for he had never seen a fairy before today, and now he had seen three up close and a dozen in the distance.

The tunnel room opened up into a display of natural color, unlike any other

in the human lands found

Both colors of autumn and fall blend together on the ground

Trees inside the tree sport yellow, red and green

blue speckled mushrooms give off bright orange powder to the air which stays clean

making the abode as bright as if there were sun

all around the fairy-folk have merry fun

At the end of the dirt path, on a mound of riches more extravagant than any in the tree sat a throne of ice and gold. From this throne, a regal Queen stood to welcome the animal with movements full of both power and grace.

"Hello, Magnificent Wolf!" The ground froze and bloomed around her every step, as if ice was all the dirt required to sprout fully grown flora in her footprints. On second glance, even the gold and silver trinkets lining the path produced flowers in her wake. Only these blooms were more crystalline than the ice and etched decadently with the colors of the precious stones they blossomed from.

"Welcome to my humble abode. You seem to have traveled far, and you smell of that accursed prison," The Queen spoke in a tone and moved in a way that even an animal could understand everything she meant to say. But of course; what creature, man or beast, would not understand her next words?

"Let us fetch you something to eat! I doubt those heathens fed you anything good."

The queen raised her arms, billowing with blue-green lace, and the space before the courtyard grew a mile long. Vines and trees rose from the earth to form a table big enough for the giants and small enough for the short-folk. The queen took a seat by 4652 at the head of the table. On his other side a lady snail with a yellow-green mouth twice as wide as his snout smiled at him in greeting with massive herbivore teeth and then turned her chompers to a plate full of mushrooms and flawlessly ripened fruit.