A Land of Flowers and Fae

The Cost

Lavan pushed past the door to see the approaching horde. Fungi were perched in nearby trees and covering the ground in a writhing blanket of bodies. Dryads filled the spaces in between. Their magic already alight as they approached. Firebirds we're already circling overhead. Pyrrah was curled back in a defensive stance. She hissed.

Though he wished he could put her out of harm's way too, there was no way to get her through the troll's door. He turned to the small firebird.

"Pyrrah. I'll make a hole for you so you can retreat. It's me they want"

The firebird drew back as if he slapped her. She hissed and wagged her beak back and forth. She turned back to the approaching birds in the skies, screeching a challenge.

He sighed "Fine, fighting it is then. Try to keep the firebirds off me. I don't want to hurt them and they'll burn down half the forest if they try to attack me"

Pyrrah chittered assent, coiling herself to shoot into the sky.

He took one final look behind him. The door was missing, and his thoughts stuttered as he tried to think of where it had been and what was behind it. A grim smile cut across his face. The trolls would keep their word. Dahlia wouldn't be able to find them.

He turned back outward, the line of dryads was almost on him now. He could see they had bows and arrows, nets and ropes. They'd come prepared to actually catch him this time.

He opened the floodgates of his magic, drawing forth as much as he could.

He couldn't win this fight. It wasn't even feasible. But they needed him alive and they wouldn't take him without paying for it.

"Lets go" he growled, then jumped into the air. Pyrrah screeched and a massive burst of heat blew beside him. Every one of her feathers alight. She didn't have passengers this time, so she set herself on fire.

He started with the dryads, urging vines to shoot up and knock a good portion of them out of the air. Pyrrah went straight for the nearest firebird, slamming into the larger creature and sending them both tumbling in a blur of feathers and fire.

Then it was chaos.

Lavan threw around so much magic his fingers started to go numb and his wings started to throb with the stress of it. He normally wouldn't push this hard at the start of the fight. He'd collapse with exhaustion soon. But endurance wasn't really the point. He played havoc with the lines of approaching enemies. He grounded the dryads, tangling them up in vines and shooting chips of bark at them like projectiles. He kept the fungi away from him, erecting lines of brush at the bases of the trees so that they couldn't climb up to him and shaking the branches of the trees they'd already scaled to send them tumbling to the ground.

Fungi could handle a lot of impact so he wasn't particularly gentle.

Pyrrah was doing well, what few flashes he saw of her. She was driving the firebirds into the waterlogged soil below. She'd already knocked three of them into water, sending them into hissing hysterics. She just brushed off the wetness and kept flying.

But they were nearing their limit. A few dryads wrested control of one of the trees from him and passed through it, charging with their weapons. He knocked arrows from the air. But missed a smaller projectile. It smacked him in the chest and exploded into a cloud of green dust.

Poison.

It went straight up his nose and left him coughing, trying to clear his eyes. Burning like fire and making it impossible to breath.

The dryads used that chance to charge, one came at him with a staff. He dodged a few strikes before on caught him in the gut. He rode the blow back, growling. He snatched the one that had hit him the arm of a tree and smashed him into another trunk.

Another challenger replaced the first, swinging with a club that thunked Lavan across the cheek. He saw stars for a moment and fell backward. His wings failing.

It took a second for him to right himself. Then it was a fight of tooth and nail. Punching and grabbing at whatever plant life he could to keep them away.

He felt a throbbing in his chest. The poison. He had the antidote already inside him. But he hadnt had much time to heal or recoup his energy. And he'd just had a big enough does to make another fairy comatose.

His vision started to double. Get fuzzy at the edges.

He landed on the surface of a tree. His left leg buckling and sending him to his knees.

He couldn't really feel his wings. His head was throbbing. He could taste blood in his mouth.

Dryads and fungi approached him slowly. Hesitantly, likely trying to figure out if he was really down. He had one push left in him. He had to make it count. He pulled on whatever scraps of magic he had left, drawing it into his hands. Then threw his arms wide.

The tree beneath them bucked. The leaf below them ripping itself into pieces, sending the fungi tumbling and knocking the dryads into each other.

But he fell too.

And he couldn't fly anymore.

His vision went dark for a moment.

Then arms grabbed him. The dryads had caught him in the air. One of them clubbed him across the face. Pain exploded through his head.

He lost the plot for a moment. he shook his head, trying to clear it.

He was on his knees, in the branches of a tree, someone had his arms.

He blinked to clear his vision as a figure approached.

"Dahlia" he growled, it was more a slur than anything else. His jaw felt almost disconnected. One of those hits had probably fractured it. His magic sputtered. With the sheer number of his injuries, it was likely struggling to prioritize.

She knelt in front of him. A satisfied smile on her face. Behind her, a flash of heat and dust exploded, then resolved itself into two firebirds holding a third. Pyrrah.

One had its jaws around the base of her neck. The other was holding her wings at the base with its claws. She was still struggling.

"There there little one" Dahlia cooed. She gathered deep green magic around her hand and tossed it at Pyrrah. The charm clamped around the firebird's head. It settled in her eyes, which began to glow. She squawked pitifully and went still. The other two birds let her up, she tried to stand unsteadily. Like she was a puppet getting used to her strings.

"You'll make a nice addition to my collection" Dahlia said with satisfaction. She went to pet Pyrrah on the side of the face. Who shivered. Then squawked, shaking her head back and forth madly, flapping her wings and bashing herself on the ground.

Dahlia extended a hand, trying to regain control of the mental charm.

Pyrrah let out an ear piercing shriek then took off. So fast none of Dahlia's forces had a chance to stop her.

Dahlia cursed "Stupid bird!"

Lavan let out a slurring laugh. Pyrrah couldn't be contained.

Dahlia looked back at him with a hateful expression.

"She cant break free from that charm on her own. She'll drive herself mad trying" the dryad threw back her shoulders and patted the bun she'd fixed her pink hair into. She knelt in front of Lavan, pasting a pleased smile back on her face.

"You're all out of allies master. How sad"

He struggled, trying to get a spark of his magic out to break her nose. She really needed a broken nose. But he didnt even have that much left.

Dahlia nodded and one of the dryads holding him clubbed him on the back of the head.

And it all went black.