Art-Play

The aggressive lighting would assault their senses, eyes blinking awake in an attempt to adjust, unforgiving sharp light persistent in the vision of all the characters being gathered there. It was made clear however, that it was not simply the senses of all those there which were at fault, the scenery lacking in that, there was none; just a vast white nothing in each direction all around.

(Is it working now?)
Even covering his ears wasn't enough to protect him from the deafening snap of the sky being cleaved in half by jagged veins of light. Everything was bathed in an electric glow so radiant that all thought was banished from the mind, only leaving room for the urge to cower and wait for the storm to pass. It was like having your mind pierced by the bolts as well as your body. Each successive flash sprung to life right after its predecessor fizzled out, turning it into a monotonous attack of the senses. The stark whiteness offered no shelter.

His fingers groped numbly for his shield. It was an effort to pry those shaking hands away from his face for even an instant. The bolts were getting closer. They singed his hair and showered the nearby vicinity in sparks and particles of dirt.

Where was she? There was that blinding light, deafening snap, before she knew where she was. The white seemed to last a eternity and no time at all, as hard as that was to fully grasp, the length of time the little sprite thought she was blinded not ending until another appeared in that place.

"Hey..." There was something there- a someone there! The sprite was not blinded there was someone else there as well.

"H- HEY!" The tiny lady called out again, oddly proportioned by a human's standards even for her diminutive size, barely as tall as a pinky finger and still she tried to get the other person's attention. That was the only thing she saw other than impossible white light EVERYWHERE she looked!

"Hey hey hey listen" The sprite said again, glowing tiny thing that she was, though the sprite was afraid to get closer just yet. Best see who the distressed stranger was first...

He was suddenly aware that he wasn't alone. A small black dot, contrasting heavily to the whitewashed chaotic background, appeared as a pinprick in the distance. The speed at which it was expanding was no small matter. The thing was fast. Fast enough to be threatening. He didn't like that.

The boy ground his teeth and got his feet underneath him in a crouch. The face of his shield turned outwards. He leaned on the glaive for support, ready to defend himself. This proved to be his ultimate mistake. A metal pole pointed up at the sky filled with lightning. He was back on the ground in an instant. Wispy strands of smoke undulated from his now spasming form.

A bolt had broken through him, attracted by the blade of his glaive. The shock went right into his bones before sinking downwards. His heart shuddered and then clenched. The world turned whiter than his surroundings and then he blacked out.

"Oh! Oh NO!" Seeing the lightning strike the stranger, the little sprite covered her lips in shock, approaching as fast as the glassy wings would carry the tiny creature.




"Hey.. wake up... Hey." She tried to rouse the blacked out individual, spied his armour and weapons, considered how dangerous this persona surely was but - she couldn't just LEAVE him, what would happen to this lighting-struck person in armour if Neivee left him blacked-out and alone?

"Hey! Listen!!!" She shouted the words to try and get him up! Poking and tugging and prodding at the armoured lightning-struck person.





"Ugh, get. UP!" She said pulling at a tuft of hair, little wings fluttering with all the sprite's diminutive might.

"Hello, are you awake?" Naivee zipped through the air and gave the person a slap to the face, lightly trying to get a reaction.

"Are you even alive?" Momentarily landing she prodded his fingers with her foot, trying to make sure he wasn't dead, before taking off and zipping through the air once more!

"Come on quit playing dead!" she shouted, zip!

"Wake up wake up wake UP!" ZIP!

"I wonder if pulling something will wake him?" Her wings and yammering worked non stop, the tiny sprite zipping about until the stranger's eyes would come to focus....





Waspish, she was disproportionate by human standards even for her size, with overly large pupils and eyes and elongated fingers and ears. A glassy pair of wings kept the small sprite aloft and billowing her pixy-cut hair, a ribon that was quite big relative to her size tied into a bow behind her shoulders while gloves and stockings adorned her spindly, long limbs.

"Are you okay?" The optimistic, but high-pitched voice asked as soon as the stranger was awake and opened their eyes.

A dream? No, a memory. The image was a bit fuzzy at first. Turbid. But it began to clear and sharpen.

"This dagger was used by my mother before me. She inherited it from her father. It traces a path of blood all the way back to the earliest roots of our lineage. The blood of our enemies. Now it is yours, dear one. This blade is only to be unsheathed as a point against any who threaten our beloved family. If one dares to cause harm, cut them to the bone. Bury it to the hilt and do not pull it out until you see the light fade from their eyes. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, grandmother."

The weapon was heavier than it looked. In the hands of the small boy it bore a closer resemblance to a sword than a dagger. He sucked in a breath and held his head high. Determined eyes flashed with a single thought: I will make you proud. The grizzled old woman was nearing sixty four. She was old, but far from a weakling. Even so, his grandmother fell victim to the urge to tousle his hair and grin.

Cool, wet grass.
Earth.
Water.
Soil.
It was comforting against his back. What was this? Who was he? He wanted to stay a while. Rest. Very, very tired. Too tired to ask all these unanswerable questions. Just wanted sleep. He would wake up and try to remember after some sleep. Just for a little.
A noise from the darkness. Then silence. Then another noise, this time even closer.
No, he seemed to say. Let me sleep.
Wake up…
Why did that sound so familiar?

“Hey!”
Leave me alone.
It was no use. Something shook him. Against his own will, he felt himself being dragged upward within the deep dark recesses of his mind. Up higher and higher through the folds and layers.
Then all of it came flooding in. Lights. Shapes. Sounds. Movement. And pain. Lots and lots of pain.

"Y- YOU'RE ALIVE!?" The little sprite exclaimed, ironically to being asked to be left alone. She zoomed about once again to give this stranger a bit of room, having only just been tugging at him and trying to force open one of his eyelids.




"Ah! I am so glad - I thought you were DEAD for SURE!" Energetically the tiny creature flitted about and clutched her fists tightly to herself, rather worried still, happy as she was that this stranger was alive and well.

"My name is Neivee, what's your name? And what is this place... Do you know how you arrived !?" The sprite who introduced herself practically screamed she was so enthusiastic, hoped that she was heard; despite her waspish and diminutive stature!

Alive, he was. But not well. The molten iron rod that had broken into his skull had also hit the vertebrae beneath. It had traveled down the length of his spine before radiating white-hot excruciating energy that tore through every corner of the stranger's body. It was like having one of the twin suns inside you. He'd been broken apart; his atoms scattered and then hurled back together with incalculable force. With the screaming of his ears, it was impossible to hear his own as he clutched his head. It was impossible to breathe or even think. He rolled to his side. The pain subsided by a minuscule amount, giving his mind just enough leeway to grope at the canteen. Pure mechanical instinct was what wrapped the boy's fingers around the neck of the flask and brought it to his lips.

Water. Finally. Thick and oily, but water nonetheless. His parched throat accepted the cool liquid in grateful gulps and he drank greedily. It couldn't do much to quell the painful droning. A couple days passed. Then a few years. An eternity. There was not a lot of movement from the boy at all besides from the pumping of his throat as he guzzled.

Hands beneath him, the stranger struggled into a sitting position. It took all of his concentration to keep his head upright. His sense of balance was virtually nonexistent at the moment. So focused he was on righting himself that it took yet another eternity for him to notice a small darting object weaving around him. At first the rusty gears in his head dismissed it as a leaf. A loose scrap of cloth. How funny. He didn't recall either one making such unusual noises. His eyes were bleary and refused to focus. The stranger blinked forcefully and they lurched back into motion. The picture cleared and he could make out a silhouette. A bit murky. The speed and randomness of its movements didn't help at all. Two arms. Two legs. Wild hair. And were those...wings? The creature before him sparked something in his mind.

Memories came back like a rush of water storming through a thirsty gorge. A faerie. An Inokan. That's what they were called in the New Tongue, right? She - for it did appear to be female - did not resemble any of the faeries he'd seen. He couldn't understand anything she was saying. Her rapid trills and chitters caused his head even more agony. The stranger clapped his hands over his ears and grumbled through clenched teeth.

"Nn...what. Do.. You. Want."

Really. What did she want? Repayment perhaps? In retrospect, she had probably saved his life. Or had at least taken part in it. Had his body never received any external stimulation, he'd probably be brain-dead by now. Had she also used magic on him? The salve pouches in his bags would have been useless. But they were also useless in the few coming seconds as well.

The noxious fluid had been churning in the stranger's gut for quite a while. He'd been too agonized to notice. Now the armored figure doubled over and convulsed violently. His arms threatened to give in as he retched. After some more gurgles and spasms he threw himself back onto a protruding boulder, exhausted. The itinerant was persistent as always. With the roiling clouds inside his skull receding, he could make out some of the words. She was talking to him in the Old Speech. He hadn't spoken it in years. Ayut opened his mout--- Ayut! Of course! That's who he was. More memories came flooding back in a torrent. He would have loved to revel in them but now his main goal was to communicate to his rescuer. Delicately picking out some scattered phrases in the language, he deduced that she was asking if he was alright and also for his name. There was a scratch in Ayut's voice despite the water he'd had.

"Kieyar," he rasped, pointing to himself. Ayut used his guarded name instead of his true title. Even if he had helped him somewhat, the boy knew better than to trust immediately. He rested a hand on the dagger just in case and waited for her response.

Well she hadn't expected THAT. When the stranger drank the little sprite had thought it was a good sign! Even if it seemed, from her perspective, to take just a moment too long for him to put down the canteen he drank from. How was she to know that the person she was so worried over thought she was a leaf and inconsequential, or that the language she talked on in was to the stranger a foreign one. This meant that she had no consoling words to give or any way to say "there there it'll be okay", a fact which bothered the little sprite; but she tried to help without words anyway.




Waving away anything that was sticky, soggy, or stinky with a simple bit of magic, the fairy mage sat on the shoulder of the very strange person, patting his head quietly as though to help his disorientation pass quickly. It did occur to the fae that the use of magic, may have been scary for this parson, but in the end the little mage decided that it was safer to use magic than to let something so messy left around if he was indeed sick... where did that boulder come from? Oh how odd! Something had cropped up in the white wasteland they'd been summoned to! She wondered what might have caused it to do so-

"Kieyar," the stranger rasped, interrupting the fae from her inquisitive thoughts, bringing a little smile to her tiny features.

"Oh! Oh alright." With realisation as to what he meant to do, while at the same time not aware of the mild deception, the little fae fluttered up off of the armoured man's shoulder and zipped through the air until she hovered in front of him. She pointed a far-too-long thumb at herself, speaking as clearly and calmly as her racing thoughts allowed of the sprite.

"Nahvee!" She said, grinning and nodding, putting her arms out as though in greeting. That was when she noticed the dagger, frowned, then backed up some.

"Hey!" She placed her fists on those waspish hips, glaring at the armoured man, what was the big idea, she thought.

"What's that about! Get your hand off your weapon before I- oooh you don't know why I'm yelling do you!?" With a huff she waved her hands about - carefully keeping out of range of the man as best she could - some of the glimmering from those glassy wings appearing in front of them both to make an illusion.

"Your weapon! WE-A-PON! Cut that out!" A see-through image of a dagger appeared in the air, before a big 'X' formed on top of it, Nahvee trying to get her point across with the crude illusion.

(I tried putting the original image through a filter before editing it on my computer. Either way I'd intended for Ayut's hair to be scruffy. Instead he ended up looking like some emo femboy cosplayer.)

He'd felt the air grow fuzzy with the static resonance of magic when 'Nahvee' had removed the soggy remnants from the corner of his mouth. It made him wary. Faeries where he came from were able to wield devastating amounts of mana despite their small delicate frames. You wouldn't want to get on the bad side of even a minor class faerie. This was what caused him to jolt when he felt her alight on his pauldron. The boy had never even ventured within an arm's length of a faerie, let alone have one sit on his shoulder. He froze - not that he'd have been able to move much - and tried not to gasp at the warmth of her contact. Nahvee reassuring tone did not help to soothe his nerves. The hand that rested on the hilt of his grandmother's dagger trembled, either from apprehension or from the lightning he was unsure.

The movement was too obvious. She noticed and rapidly increased her distance. She began to chitter once more, gesturing emphatically towards a bewildered Ayut. What was she doing, chanting a spell? At this rate he wouldn't even be able to defend himself. The air began to fill with the same fuzzy energy as grains of mana gathered.

But nothing happened. He looked up to see a grainy cloud with the dagger crossed out by an X. He decided to remove his hands from his belt and show empty palms to the faerie. Being Kitari, his ability to direct energy flow was heavily restricted.

Suddenly his vision blinded by a strange bright light, and then when Hari opened his eyes again…

“Where am I?”

He found himself in this strange white place. He looked around at his surrounding. Nothing, there’s nothing here. He began to walk, to find the exit to this weird place, sadly he can’t find anything.

But, finally he saw two figure. He wasn’t alone here? A man with a knight costume? And… is that Tinker Bell?



“Oh… I understand,” Hari smiled. “This is a dream. What I need to do is just wait until I wake up, and then everything will make sense again.”