Feylings in Dragon's Keep

Chapter 3 ~Sunlight & Misty Eyes~

The next morning Lyrie awakes with the sun peaking over the horizon, eyes crusted with the day before. Her blond locks in knots. She reaches to the sky and pushes the covers off, slipping on her slippers, She skips down the marble hallways. Her white nightgown swishes with each skip. As Lyrie goes she realizes how her home often feels more like a museum than a home as her skips echo off the marble. Marble hallways, cold interior, and barely ever seeing her parents who are swept into the business of the Hucrele Wine Business. Her father runs the hard labor in the fields leading the town's men in how to care for the vines and harvest the grapes, while her ever-graceful mother sashes through the home office stamping letters, writing propositions, and agreeing to sales all across the known world as those from far and wide crave a taste of Hucrele wine. Lyrie longs for days together rather than days working. By this time, Lyrie's parents except for the most part her strange behavior. Although Lyrie does every now and again, she catches glimpses of her mother's disapproving stares and her father's concerned smile from the corner of her eye. As she breaks her train of thought, Lyrie heads out to her favorite place. She slides down the stairs railing to the first floor. Lyrie leans in the open doorway to the Library as Hops begins reorganizing the books. Lyrie observes for a while and figures out Hops is organizing the books by the second letter on the second page of each book and Lyrie shakes her head knowing this is going to be another interesting way to organize.

Lyrie leaves her friend to his work, she walks out her grand front door engraved with grape vines with luscious grapes hanging off the vines. Out on the front porch, Lyrie stares out at the early morning sun and the acres of grapes that are before her. Lyrie slips off her slippers on the porch and continues into the dew-kissed grass and she wiggles her toes in the fresh day dew. She continues to walk towards a small gazebo in the back of the Hucrele estate. As she walks she daydreams of days with her mother laying out on a blanket beneath the shade of the statue of Pelor where they would read fairy tales and spend hours wrapped in the warmth of the sun.

As Lyrie approaches, the rising sun hits the statue of Pelor with the soft light of a new day. Lyrie is not sure why she chose to worship Pelor over other gods, but Pelor always seemed right like an internal compass guiding her towards him. Now although Lyrie prays to Pelor they have a unique relationship. She prays to him, not in the common tongue, but rather in a language she learned from her teacher Mr. Periwinkle known as Abyssal. Abyssal is a language of witchcraft, a language forgotten by many, but Lyrie and a few of the dark creatures Lyrie has heard while in the Fey. She believes that Pelor appreciates her curious gesture of worship by speaking to him in a tongue forgotten by many and assumes that not many speak to him in this way.

Lyrie enters the small gazebo and approaches the statue of Pelor, Lyrie plucks a little yellow flower from the outside of the gazebo and places it in the open hands of the statue and smiles briefly. She loves the idea of giving the god of the sun a piece of sunshine. She sits on a bench she knows all too well and reaches underneath grasps for a book and pencil where Lyrie writes down little prayers and thoughts to Pelor just to keep her thoughts straight.

Lyrie has realized that each time she enters the Fey she leaves pieces of her and her mind has not been as sharp in recent years. Now you could blame her forgetfulness on aging, but Lyrie memories are often fuzzy and she gazes into dream realms far too often. Lyrie tells Pelor of all her adventures, and writes to him about her bunny friend who is too logical to pray, although he does so just to appease his friend. As she writes in the foreign tongue to others the sun rises over the horizon and sharpens like a spotlight on her and Lyrie smiles knowing that Pelor is smiling down on her and her peculiar relationship with him. Lyrie smiles and tucks her journal and charcoal pencil back under the bench.

As Lyrie stands and soaks in the sunshine she begins to sing one of her favorite songs she learned from the pixies to Pelor in Abyssal of course there is no other language to better bless her god's ears with. As the workers in the field hear her singing they look up with a slight twitch of fear, but the recognition that it is just Lyrie. Lyrie sings with a huge smile on her face in her loud and sometimes off-key Abyssal. Lyrie loves that when she speaks to Pelor it often feels like their own secret language that no one else can understand.

When she finishes the song, she collapses in the shadow of Pelor's statute and hears a brief knock, and Lyrie looks up to see a familiar face, Zelena, Zelena is a large sheep lady, and every morning she arrives at Lyrie's small sanctuary to bless the temple, although Lyrie knows that her parents do not understand her secret language with Pelor and have asked Zelena to cleanse the temple of the curses that Lyrie brings each morning. Zelena is tall, tall enough that her head almost hits the roof of the gazebo. She has dark skin with fluffy white hair, yet she is not much older than Lyrie in looks. Zelena is a cleric of Pelor which means that Zelena is gifted magic because she serves Pelor, but Lyrie likes to imagine when Zelena prays to Pelor in the simple tongue it shows Pelor her stiffness. While when Lyrie prays, dances and sings her morning prayers out of joy instead of the necessity to maintain some small amount of magic. Zelena says in her broken common,

"Done soon?" Zelena speaks in broken common tongue and her accent is thick and hard to understand sometimes, but Lyrie knows Zelena and has learned to overcome these setbacks so that they can become better friends. Lyrie smiles her bright, brilliant smile and nods at her strange new friend and responds to Zelena's question in Elvish,

"Of course, you have, my bad." and Lyrie skips out of the gazebo partially out of embarrassment, partially to let Zelena do her blessing. Zelena shakes her head and begins blessing the small temple. Lyrie skips back to the house to get ready for the day, the dew in the grass is now all dried and she runs up the steps to her home and slips back on her slippers.

Before she even crosses the threshold of her home she can hear her mother and father speaking in hushed tones with her aunt. Lyrie sneakily enters her home, not letting her footsteps echo on the marble floors. Lyrie has gotten fairly good at sneaking over the years in order to frighten teachers and sneak off into the Fey. Lyrie creeps to the door of her mother's office as her aunt weeps quietly,

"They have been gone for nearly a month, Tramaris," her voice cracking in desperation. Lyrie's aunt Kerowyn runs the local store and despite all the people who try to swindle the sharp woman out of goods Kerowyn is wise and smart as a whip. Lyrie watches as this strong, sun-kissed woman begins to weep into her palms over her missing children. Lyrie's cousins Sharwynn and Toft left about a month ago with Sir Seervax, a holy man with a mighty sword. They left on an adventure to find the dragon's hoard in the temple of dragons north of the city of Oakhurst. The dragon's temple is promised to be filled with wealthy from dragon's centuries ago. Promising to bring back riches to bless the town with.

"They will return, we must give them time, Kerowyn." Lyrie's mother responds in what sounds like an attempt at confidence but slips into desperation. Lyrie watches as her mother hugs her aunt around the shoulders and Lyrie's mother looks at Lyrie's father with a worried look and continues,

"Tramaris, we have to do something, if not we risk never knowing." Lyrie watches as her father's face falls from false confidence to a tired and grieved look as he takes a heavy breath,

"If they aren't home by now, they likely never will come home." Lyrie holds in a gasp as she leans up against the hallway wall. The three discuss options for a little while longer, but Lyrie's mind blurs and fuzzies as she processes the words her father just professed.

"If they aren't home by now, they likely never will come home." The phrase replaying in her mind. With what little energy she has she pushes herself off the wall and sneaks back towards the stairs and sprints up. She runs down the upper corridors towards her room. Lyrie slams her bedroom door shut. Lyrie feels her breath quicken with worry and fear. Her cousins are in danger, or dead. She remembers jealously watching them leave and wanting to go with them, but Lyrie is a Hucrele. She is the only heir to a massive fortune and vineyard. Adventuring is not for heiresses. Adventuring is for those without something to lose, yet Lyrie cannot sit around and do nothing to help her cousins. A single tear rolls down Lyrie's cheek when she realizes that she is mourning a loss that she has no idea if it is real. Lyrie wipes the tear from her cheek. She has to do something. She pushes herself off the wooden boards beneath her. She pulls open her bedroom door once more as she does Hops McGee stands outside her door with a stack of five books in his hands. She sees her friend and bolsters as much confidence as she can find within herself saying,

"You want to go on an adventure?"