Word Comic Archives

"What? How am I supposed to return this purse if nobody knows where I'm supposed to take it?" I asked. "It led me here; surely it knows where it must go."

The faerie hesitated before answering. "Well... wizards are looking for it here. It has to be subtle about how it guides you. I wouldn't doubt that someone was watching to see when you'd acquire it back when you came from. They'd probably have to be subtle, too." My mind drifted back to my past (the future).

"Are you even listening?" The faerie was glaring at me.

"Ah... I was thinking about who might have been interested in the purse."

"Well fine! I'll repeat only one part. The Queen probably knows what to do with the purse. Take it to her, that way." I nodded, thanked her, and headed off through the forest.

Following a course is fairly easy, if one knows how to do it. I kept to the direction the faerie had pointed. Many of the trees looked the same, but enough were unique that I could head from one to the other with reasonable certainty I wasn't headed in circles.

Everything here was so different. Forests are mentioned in passing in history texts, a relic of the Old Times when primitive Earth-worshippers walked the land. Now in those times myself, I could hear, smell, and touch everything the books left out. The "chickadeedeedee" call of some unseen monsters occasionally pierced the sleepy ambience. A pungent scent hung in the air, but somehow I thought it was better than the traces of cleaner that permeated my world.

A sharp voice startled me from my thoughts. "Go no further," it said.

I whirled. I faced a man slightly shorter than me, with pointed ears and a somewhat sharp chin. He was holding a contraption involving a stick tipped with stone, a curved piece of wood, and a string. Perhaps it was the current equivalent of a c-pistol. I wasn't about to find out by experiment. I'd try diplomacy, to find out something about this person.

"By whose orders, for what reason?" I asked. In my futuristic clothing, I could probably pass as an ignorant traveler from a distant land.

"By the Elvish Law. You were foolish enough to blunder into our lands during the Kuun. Now you will come with us, or face death." Three other elves appeared, coming down from trees and out from brush in uncanny silence.

One of them spoke to the first. "Nyrrin, there's something odd about her. The Queen should see."

He nodded. "Alright. Come, strange human." The elves clustered around me, escorting me into their land. I went with them, thoroughly confused. Why had they said "her" instead of "him"?

I took advantage of the break in events to watch the elves. I was searching for what they found dangerous, what they avoided, and where they were looking for dangerous things. They seemed mostly unafraid. Soon enough, I started watching them more than where they were looking.

The apparent leader, Nyrrin, was ahead of me. His blond hair was trimmed to a little above shoulder level, just short enough to avoid getting in the way. His companions were also blond-haired brown-eyed men, but their hair was long enough to pull back into a short ponytail. All were wearing the same attire, a nondescript green tunic and brown pants, colored much like the predominant shades of the forest.

Though they didn't seem at all edgy, Nyrrin kept his contraption handy. The stick could obviously move, because he kept it pressed against the arched wood with a finger. I noticed now that he was holding a leather grip. There was also a notch in the back of the stick, behind feathers, where it rested against the string. More sticks were carried in a leather tube along his back. I concluded they must be launched by the string device somehow. Little did I know, I was about to see I was right.

I did not see what caused them to startle, but in the blink of an eye, the three I could see were staring at a bush. Nyrrin had pulled his device taut, causing the wood to flex, and I felt sure it was going to break. The other two had pulled out long double-edged knives from hidden sheaths, edging away from me, never taking their eyes off that bush.

There was the slightest rustle of leaves, then a purple streak burst out from under it, heading straight for us. Nyrrin cried out in surprise, fired, missed, and leapt aside. The two with knives were also getting away from it. The fourth elf at my back tried to jump aside and carry me with him, but not expecting the push, I clumsily toppled over in the path of the thing.

The thing thudded to a stop against my chest, chattering in a high-pitched babble that nonetheless had meaning to me.

"Mommy I'm so glad to see you I've been looking all over I'm so happy Mommy!!" I got a good chance to look at the creature now that it was stopped. It was quadrupedal, a little bigger than a kitten, with brilliant violet scales, tiny wings, and blazing blue eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said to it once it finally paused for breath. "Who are you, and why am I 'Mommy'?"

The creature blinked at me. Its eyes shifted to green a moment, then back to blue. "You have Mommy's spirit!" it said. "I'm so happy! Let me stay with you!!"

I had no idea how to care for it, but I doubted I wanted to be on its bad side. "Alright," I agreed, "you may travel with me if you can tell me more about yourself."

"I'm a drake!" it exclaimed and leapt on my shoulder. I stood up. "I help Mommy do firemagic!"

I noticed the elves had recovered from the shock and were talking amongst themselves. "That thing could be dangerous!" "But she can talk to it!" "She remains a trespasser during Kuun. She should be sacrificed according to the Law." "She is clearly not what she seems. The Queen must see." "We can't bring a critter into the Royal Hall!" "Perhaps the Queen will permit it, in this most unusual circumstance." "Look, she stands!"

At once, the elves seemed more guarded. Nyrrin retrieved the stick he'd fired, setting it back against the string as before, and turned to me. "Come, we must continue our journey. But we wish you would have told us you had a familiar." They returned to their earlier positions around me, and the journey to the Queen continued.

Soon I heard the voice of the firedrake inside my head. It sounded a lot like imagining a symphony; I could hear it faintly even while I knew there was no actual voice. "Can you do magic like Mommy?" it asked.

I imagined speaking back to it. "No, I was just a normal person until a little while ago."

"Maybe you can do magic now! It's really easy! Go into space, make what you want, and bring it back out here!"

"Space?" I asked.

"Magic space! It's where your spirit knows."

"That's... here?" I focused my mind on the image of the place where the Lady had sent me through the portal. A soft warmth washed over me, and I felt myself there with a very large, stately dragon.

"Yes, here," it purred. "But go back; we're arriving at the palace."

I returned to reality. I didn't see anything but more forest.

"Above you," the firedrake said. "We're still at the edge of the village yet." I looked up. Above and ahead, the trees were filled with a number of small shacks, secured by lengths of vine to nearby limbs. Ahead, I could see one about twice the size of the others, with a steep, narrow staircase spiraling down to the ground.

That one turned out to be the palace; Nyrrin whistled for a messenger, explained the situation, and waited while the messenger took the news up to the Queen. There was an uneasiness in the air, and then a guard came down to escort me up. I wondered what lay in store for me as I ascended the staircase.

The Queen's chamber itself was quite spartan. Several pillows lay on the floor for visitors to kneel on while talking to her. She sat on a small pile of pillows on a circular dais opposite the entrance. Behind her hung a woven tapestry picturing a nature scene. All of the colors in the room, besides the raw wood, were various shades of green. The Queen herself was wearing light green robes, and had short white hair.

I knelt on one of the pillows. "So that's where she's been hiding," said the Queen. "As for you, you're probably quite confused as to why you're here."

"Not really," I said. "I'm on a mission to return this purse to Shai Krra."

The Queen looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, I do believe she could help. But the spirit of Kaiana is within you." She smiled. "That's quite lucky for you, or else Nyrrin's band would have killed on sight."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Kuun is the festival of the spirits," she explained. "Not so long ago, the Law mandated harsh punishments for intruders. Men could be killed on sight, but the festival was supposedly thrice blessed if a woman was brought to the ceremony and sacrificed. Though we don't officially observe that part of the Law anymore, there are some on the borderlands that do."

"So how did I end up seeing you instead of being sacrificed?" I asked, remembering that one elf had said there was something odd about me.

"Your garish hair is one reason. You should really put an illusion on that so the wizards can't find you by it." She paused. "At any rate, you need to be finding Shai. You can eat and sleep here tonight, but in the morning you have to go on to the dragon lands."