Mythas' Return: The Lost Princess

Chapter Thirty One: Ficnam, Dear Ficnam

Chapter Thirty One: Ficnam, Dear Ficnam

As Reape watched the minotaur's labyrinth crumble and sink back into the earth, as if a void had swallowed it whole, she was struck with a most disturbing vision. A ringing in her ears forced her hands to grasp both sides of her head as she wailed with agony, the images forcing themselves to the forefront of her mind. Amber eyes, familiar and unsettling - matching the beast that they had just defeated, but another's as well: Garendryth. Could this monster have been an apparition, unreality, a figment of their imaginations?

Bodies littered the mire of B'jollr, the murky swamp hummed with the overpopulation of fae and bloated carcasses of her fallen brethren, laid in rows and covered in the mud to protect their rotting flesh from the sun's stern gaze. Most, she did not recognize more than their face - their names were absent to Vissandreape as she had only traveled with them for less than a fortnight before the Corps of the Mutant stormed Freyhedge's gates, but there was one face that was all too familiar: Ficnam. His freckles peaked through the grey film of mud that had been slathered over his full cheeks, and his firebrand mop of hair had also been slicked back with the muck; his eyes were covered with pieces of moist bracken and moss. He lay stiff, his skin blue in comparison to the rest, for he had been frozen in the Unmelting Ice - but no longer, her son's grave had been disturbed, and his body lay in the orcish swamp to bloat and rot; she could see the beginning of decay on the corners of his mouth and the tips of his fingers as they turned black. A pair of ebony jackboots stomped through the mud, leaving thick prints of horseshoes in their wake. The mirage faded and the ringing in her mind ceased; Nhymrin gripped her by the shoulders and stared at her with an intense red glare.

"Whatever is the matter with you? Have you gone into shock?" the vampire interrogated. "Wake up!"

"I have woken! I am here!" exhaled Reape. "I must return!" She struggled against the half-elf's grasp.

Nhymrin's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "What do you mean? You give up?"

"No, t'is not that!" the Redeemed cried. "My son, they have my son!"

"Your son is dead." the vampire concurred, her tone gentle but firm.

Reape shook her head violently, "You do not understand! They have moved him from the White Plains, from the ice...he is no longer preserved, he will not be able to be saved if I do not hurry!"

"You saw him?" fretted Nhymrin.

"Indeed, I did! It can be none other than that wretched black mage...and Deacon...he does this to hurt me, to lure me back." swallowed the deserter.

The vampire released Reape, "And he is succeeding."

Vissandreape huffed and smoothed her tunic, "It doth not matter. Ficnam's second chance at life is at stake. I will not, however, be ruled beneath his boot again. I will kill him if I must."

"What of our journey? Your promise...your duty to the princess?" Nhymrin pleaded.

The Redeemed sighed, "That is who I will approach first. They will help me...they must."

"They'll think it is a trap...which it very well could be." discerned the vampire.

Reape did not reply, she simply gave Nhymrin a look of sorrow before turning her back to the half-elf and sprinting back across the lush cliffs, rushing toward the treeline. The tears fell over her waterline as the cool night breeze whipped over her flushed cheeks, stained black with the warpaint that Fiel had given her days prior; ebony droplets fell from her chin and stained her cream tunic. Her thoughts were all but empty, Ficnam's sunken face flashed to the forefront of her mind - she cringed with pain each time she saw him in the mire. The Redeemed prayed for her son's redemption, for the faunish royals to show her son mercy, to show her mercy. A wave of guilt washed over her as she recalled the sinking feeling of her blade jutting into Pelleas' back as she dove into the courtyard during their battle in Freyhedge. An intrusive thought slashed past her eyes, what if they had upturned the elf's grave too - taken him and laid him in the swamps alongside Ficnam?