“No, Cashel. You’re not listening to me. This isn’t some ‘it’s all in my head’ nonsense. I am telling you the elixir didn’t work. I’ve begun relapsing and it’s slowly getting worse.” Frustration radiated from the woman as she paced the stone floor of the great hall. It was one of the rooms that could lull one into thinking the entire, sprawling castle, was a well-maintained structure. Love had been doted upon the building, and many places were in tip-top form, but others still lacked. A single person could only do so much and needed very little room. So, the more important of the liveable areas had been the priorities. Of course, a lot of that had been put on the back-burner since her stasis. The Knight had more pressing matters to attend to. Her continued sanity being the top-most priority.
An older man with a grayed beard and hair watched his fiery red-headed successor as she practically stomped from one end of the room to the other. The benched tables acted to contain the anxious energy of the Knight in straight-lined paths. “I am not saying you’re making it up, child. I am just saying that perhaps this is a normal thing and you’re perceiving that you’re falling back onto old habits because of it.” Cashel stroked at his beard, his ghostly form shimmering within the warm sun rays that bled through a nearby window.
“No. No. There’s no way this is something that’s supposed to happen. I can’t sleep again, I’ve been getting nightmares that keep me up all night. I’ve been nervous and anxious for no reason. I had finally been having good days. Good days, Cashel where I had no dark thoughts, but now, it’s back to a daily occurrence. And recently, I’ve begun to see shadows again. You know as well as I do how quickly I started falling when the shadows started last time.” It was the shadows, quickly followed by the ‘voices’ that led her down a path to find ways to cope and black everything else out. “I’ve only just begun to feel normal again, Cashel. I don’t crave my coping mechanisms anymore.” She still thought of them. Knew that a few small pills could float her away for a few short hours, but that need to escape had disappeared. Until recently. More than once she had mentally cursed herself for dumping the bottle she’d had down the toilet.
“I can’t go back to what I was. I honestly don’t know if I’ll survive it again.” She stopped her relentless back-and-forth as she turned to the man.
“I’ve not run into anything else that could help you.” Cashel stated. “Perhaps another dose is what you need? For all we know it requires a consistent intake.”
Hy waved a hand. “I’ve already tried that. It seems to push back the advancement for a little while but things eventually ramp up again.” She was concerned. Incredibly concerned over this. She had thought the tincture she’d worked so hard to gather the ingredients for would have done the trick. It felt like all of the time spent gathering each individual piece had been nothing more than a way to steal some time. Hy was very certain that if this chaotic energy took hold of her again, she wouldn’t make it. Whether it was her own hands or an enemies, Hy was damned certain it would bring her demise. “We have to do something Cashel. Are there any books, scrolls, or even random bits of parchment that we haven’t looked at yet?”
Cashel had been the one to do most of the research. The books were all in a language that was completely foreign to the modern-age Knight. She’d spent time with the old man taking notes and even fully transcribing what she could with him reading aloud to her, but it was a slow, tedious process. So Cashel had been the one to spend some time just looking.
Her predecessor looked at her with saddened eyes. “There was nothing else. You know that. Anything else we found were old rituals with no evidence to back them up. They’re likely just speculation or old supersitions put onto pages. You know how little faith there can be in any of those.”
“I don’t even care at this point. I am willing to try anything Cashel. It’s better than waiting around for my mind to turn on me again.” Hy flung her arms up in exasperation before turning to pacing again.
A heavy sigh escaped Cashel. “There was one ritual that we could try.” He said, though the tone in his voice said he had very little faith anything would come of these attempts. “If you’re dead certain on trying it then I can prepare it.”
She stopped dead and turned quickly. “Only one?”
A nod. “It’s an old scroll. One of the ones you found tucked away in the root cellar. The smaller of the group.”
Hy remembered it. She’d found her way down there one day while cleaning. The whole room was quite large. It sat back far under the floor of the cooking space. She’d stumbled upon it by chance, to be honest. A hole in the floor that perked her interest led to a panel that pulled away and revealed a dubious wooden ladder. While the ladder barely held her weight as she descended, all she found in that room was plenty of dirt, dust, grime, and several scrolls tucked away in a wooden box on a shelf in the back. “Let me go get it.”
She hurried off to the room that she’d spent most of her time in. A small circular room up one of the towers. It served as a library and work-room now and likely, with the amount of shelves in there, had served as such for centuries. The room had been stuffed to the brim with items, but much of it had been ruined by years of decay and mold. What could be salvaged was what she had spent time studying with Cashel and was where they’d found the tincture recipe.
Hy returned swiftly with the scroll and carefully rolled it out on the table. Four small rocks, which she’d also grabbed from the work-room, were placed on the four corners to to keep the fragile paper from rolling in on itself. The text was…well, Hy was surprised Cashel could even read it. It looked smudged and faded. Parts of the scroll looked completely blank.
The old man moved towards her and pointed at a few things. “Here. It says something along the lines of ‘purification of the soul’ and down here there’s a list of supplies. This section here…’ He pointed a neat, but extremely faded box of tightly written text. “This, I believe, is a prayer.”
“You can’t decipher it all?” She questioned, a bit of her fire of hope put out.
“I can make most of it out and I can piece together the rest. That’s the thing about rituals, as long as the pieces are there and the intent is the same, it should be good enough.” He paused and looked at Hy intently. His eyes wandered her face as if studying her with intent. As if he’d never seen her before. “Child, don’t get too hopeful with this? It’s likely just a bunch of nonsense. These sorts of things never lead to any real results.” But Cashel was willing to do something, even if the ritual would only help ease some of the anxiety he could see brewing in those blue eyes.
Hy offered the old man a kind, if sad smile. “I am willing to give it a shot. The worst thing that could happen is nothing.”
—---
Gathering the necessary ingredients for the ritual was easy enough. Some of the delicate red flowers that grew on the rolling hills of the island were ground down in a morter and pestal. All that was needed was the ritual Hy would need to speak along with some water from the sea. While Hy-Brasil Wonder had many cliffs that dropped off into the ocean, there was one area where a stony beach slipped down into the water. It was here that the fog surrounding the island was the most eerie for how the water seemed to roll onto the shore from seemingly no where.
Cashel joined the younger Knight on the shore as sea water was collected within a bowl. “You’ll need to be careful to not add too much water to the crushed flowers. You want a red paste.” Hy returned to where Cashel was watching from furhter up. He gave the foggy boundaries of the Wonder a wide berth, forcing Hy-Brasil back up from the shore and onto the hill just beyond the shore.
“We’re lucky that there were some flowers dried in the study.” She remarked. Hy had combined the fresh and the dried to cover her bases. “I imagine the dried ones will help most with making a paste.” Sitting down in the grass,Hy retrieved the second bowl now containing the crushed flowers and carefully began to dump small portions of the sea water into the flowers. She’d pause a moment to stir, putting the water bowl down next to her before repeating the process. Eventually, she had a chunky, sticky paste that had a salty floral scent to it.
Cashel stepped in and studied the paste with interest before nodding. “That will do. Now, swipe a line across the bridge of your nose, under your eyes, down your chin, on your collar bone and on the backs of both hands.
Hy wrinkled her nose as she globed some of the paste onto a finger. “I hope this doesn’t stain.” A legit concern for someone with such a pale complexion as Hy had. But, she placed her bowl of paste down to make sure her hair was away from her face before painting the red mixture onto her face per Cashel’s instructions. When she was finally finished, she cleaned her fingers off in the tall grass, careful not to smudge the paste off that actually needed to stay on. “Ok. Now what?” She looked to the bearded old man who was, in all intents and purposes, conducting this event.
“Now, we have the prayer. From what I can gather, you need ground yourself and open yourself up to the wonder as you speak. Let your conciousness connect with the energies of the island and be open to whatever the Wonder wishes to grant you.” It was obvious by his tone that Cashel honestly felt this whole attempt was a complete waste of time. But alas, here they were.
Despite his warnings, the green-clad Knight had her hopes high that this would work. The thought of having to go back to the drawing board to figure out her issues with the Sidhe was a more terrible thing to focus on. Her hopes helped keep that despair at bay. Hope was about all she had left to cling to, otherwise she knew she’d spiral into a deep dark place at a startling rate. The Sidhe would make sure of that. Already, as she stood from where she sat, a darkness crept on the edges of her vision, causing her to pause and look around with racing heart, sure that something had walked up on them attack, but nothing was there.
Taking a deep breath, Hy stood with her feet slightly spead to give her a good base. She could feel the heels of her boot sinking into the ground as she rocked her weight back onto them. Blue eyes closed against the brightness of the day. She took another deep breath and forced her pounding heart to relax and reduce the noisy thump-thump within her ears. It took some time, but Hy eventually hit a point where she felt relaxed and wasn’t being easily distracted bythe sounds of the waves down the hill or the way the grass sounded when the wind ruffled it. It all began to blend together into it’s own little symphony. “I think I am ready.” She finally said, her voice just above a whisper as if she feared her own voice would ruin the calm she’d situated herself within.
Alright child. Make sure to listen carefully and respond just as I say it.” Cashel looked down at the scroll.
Tabhair tusa dún do chroí leis an draíocht fiáin,
Chun an Tiarna agus an Mhuire Dúlra,
Beyond aon bhreithniú an tsaoil seo.
Ná covet mór nó beag,
Ná ghrain weakling nó lag,
Semblance olc ní féidir in aice dhuit,
Ná tabhair ná a thuilleamh thou náire.
An Harmonies Ársa Tugtar dhuit,
iad a thuiscint go luath agus a chruthú,
Bheith ar cheann leis an cumhacht ag na heilimintí,
A chur taobh thiar dhuit easonóra agus luíonn.
Bí dílis don Tiarna an Adhmaid Fiáin,
Bí fíor chun an Mhuire na Réaltaí,
A bheith dílis do thine féin féin seachas,
Fíor chun an draíocht an Dúlra thar aon ní eile.
Dhuit taistil farraige agus talamh,
Lean an céim an-na conairí ársa.
They moved slowly through the prayer. Cashel making sure to enunciate each and every syllable with care so Hy could mimic him.
At first the words were…difficult. A language that Hy had never heard spoken before. But, as they continued, a sense of knowing enveloped her as the calm in her mind seeped down into her body and through muscles that still clenched unconciously. While she didn’t know exactly the words she spoke, Hy somehow knew that the prayer was more pledge than prayer. A promise to the Wonder and the Earth to follow through with the expectations expected of her. To open herself to the healing of others, the earth and universe itself. By the end of the prayer, she and Cashel were speaking together, the words flowing from the Earth Knight with incredible ease. A surge of energy filled her as a warmth spread where the red paste lay upon her skin.
It wasn’t anything flashy. No grand announcement to what she had done, but when Hy-Brasil opened her blue eyes she knew. Something had changed. A weight that had been sitting on her heart and soul for s long had been lifted and the hum of something else could be felt within herself. That sense of calm hadn’t diminished, even as her eyes found Cashel’s own which were wide with surprise.
“Child…” He said softly as the Knight glanced down at herself. She say no discernable difference, but where the red stain had been on the tops of her hands, now were glowing green marks. She could only assume her face also bore them.
She glanced back to her predecessor and smiled. “It worked. I feel…better than I have in years. And somehow…somehow I know what we need to do to rid the island of the Sidhe.” Her smile didn’t fade even as she caught sight of dark figured beginning to crest the far knoll. It wasn’t until the dark figure was joined by more and more did the worry begin to sit heavy in her stomach. There were just so many How was she going to deal with all of them at once.
Her staff materializing to her hand, Hy hhurried up the hill to intercept the Sidhe. Her summons appeared at her side before taking off in an attempt to herd the entitied and push them down to the shore, but they fought. They dodged and moved out of the white stags way, all the while cotninuing their projectory to the Transcended Knight. “s**t.” She cursed. Eyes widening as they grew closer.
In a wild attempt, Hy channeled her healing magic towards the creatures and those caught in it stopped. A shrieking sound filled the air and the sidhe targeted moved away and merged together creating a large entity that was nearly double the size of the Knight. “Ohhhh…that was a bad idea.” She dodged out of it’s way as it went at her again, stopping just short of where the stones began to break up the growth of grass, marking the beginning of the shoreline.
The rest of the Sidhe swarmed forward, Hy barreling her a** out of their way, but surprisingly they didn’t go after her but instead the larged merged Sidhe.
They all converged and were one-by-one merged into one singular form. Growing into some sort of abomination that was clearly still Sidhe even with it’s large girth and height. Another shriek and Hy covered her ears against it, only to realize it she wasn’t really ‘hearing’ it as feeling it within her mind and body.
“You can’t fight it alone, child!” She could hear Cashel yelling to her, wherever her was she hoped he was safe. But, Cashel was right. There was no way she could take on the 20ish foot thing herself. So, the Knight sent out a call for help with the hope that even a few would heed and come to her aid.
Translation of prayer: (Note: This is an old celtic prayer. I take no credit for this..)
Give thou thine heart to the wild magic,
To the Lord and the Lady of Nature,
Beyond any consideration of this world.
Do not covet large or small,
Do not despise weakling or poor,
Semblance of evil allow not near thee,
Never give nor earn thou shame.
The Ancient Harmonies are given thee,
Understand them early and prove,
Be one with the power of the elements,
Put behind thee dishonour and lies.
Be loyal to the Lord of the Wild Wood,
Be true to the Lady of the Stars,
Be true to thine own self besides,
True to the magic of Nature above all else.
Shouldst thou travel ocean and earth,
Follow the very step of the ancient trackways.
Quote:
This RP leads into Until The Fog Is Lifted
