My name is Sovereth Lightwand, 3rd Leaf of the Silver Maple of the Summer Court of King Oberyn XXIII. It is the year 11573 by the old reckoning if such things have meaning to you, the reader. I am writing this account to record the events that have transpired so that it will make its way back to the Summer Court and my liege. Words upon the page, page in the hand, words spoken, read, sung…move upon the wind, the wind that someday reaches the court to be sung once more. I beg forbearance for the brevity of these words. The lack of poetry and consideration pains me, as it pains you the reader. However, my time with pen and paper needs must be brief, and taken with stealth, for my captors will surely make ash of this account should the mischance occur.
The 3rd Leaf was commanded by our liege to make expedition to the Midga Reverie. Rumors drifted through the court as leaves fall from the tree that a certain Lord Brek of the Fomorian Slag within the Winter Court would make war there. The 3rd Leaf would go and see if this wind had bite, and deal with it as must be done.
Our journey was one of 52 seasons, haste indeed! When we arrived at the Reverie, all was indeed as it should not be. The snow and ice of that Unseelie court was thick upon the ground, indicating that they had been there for yet many more seasons than we had thought. Much scouting and contemplation was done by the 3rd Leaf, and it was decided that the summer sun must melt this ice. It pains me to exclude all the heroics of our scouts, and the eloquent speeches describing what was found and how the decision must be made. Let it be said that General Vethlias considered long and heard many words before her commands were issued.
My Blade’s task was to assault the fortress of Warlord Graat of the Hobgoblins, blue-nosed and so-called noble in Lord Brek’s forces. This fortress had many goblinoids and had been built within the Reverie upon a low hill surrounded by jungle. This jungle made our approach easy, or so we thought. We fell upon them like a summer storm, wrath in our hearts. But they, like the patient lake, were frozen deep and our fire was quenched easily.
How I wish I had time to put to poem the deeds of my Blade. They fought hard and well but were sent to the great song beyond. The few that remained, I among them, were captured. I will spare you, dear reader, the atrocities Warlord Graat visited upon us these past 4 seasons. If I am able, I will pen a suitable lament for each of the fallen, for I am the last, witness to it all. My bandore would be suitable accompaniment, should I recover it from the Warlord’s grasp.
No, I must put pen to paper to laugh at fickle fate and what she delivered to the good Warlord and his odoriferous brood. The glaive of justice cuts deep! The day was young, and I had much to look forward to from the rusty blades of the Warlord’s torturer this fine morning. When there came upon the Fortress a great shaking and groaning. I could hear the winds howl and the entirety of this place settle with a whump like a man who misses the chair he attempts to sit upon. What had befallen us? The days tortures were set aside as I heard all manner of disturbance and panic from my captors.
This went on for some days before they could tear themselves away from this wonder and return to me. Ah, days of reprieve indeed! I must have penned 3 songs in my head, oh happy day!
It was some weeks later and still their puzzlement was clear. At last, the good High Shaman Blard (what poetry in a name!), took me out to the sunlight to show me and demand that I explain it. It was as clear as a mountain spring to me, once I saw that we were no longer in the jungles of the Midga Reverie. No longer did the snow cover the ground, which was now as far as the eye could see a plain of gently drifting grasses and winsome wheat. We were now upon the Material Plane and no longer in the lands of the Summer and Winter courts.
How was such a thing accomplished, I wondered? Did I share these insights with these hairy cretins? Nay. I just shrugged my shoulders and gave them no help. It did not matter to them, these single-minded savages anyway that the fabric of reality has been warped by powers heretofore unknown. To prove my point, they had found some helpless town to subjugate. The poor wretches therein, my prayers are sung upon the wind for their swift deliverance.
Ah, deliverance. A luxury I’m sure I’ll never experience. But I lay these words like a wreath upon my own grave so that they may be seen by eyes other than the optics of pigs that would rather wallow in the mud of the blood of innocents upon the earth.
As to how we came to be in this place now of a sudden overnight, I do not know. I speculate, casting my own dice upon the board in the off-chance that fate will smile. I am reminded of the days in my youth when the sun did not rise for three days. When the very fabric of reality was changed by the whims of that goddess of existence, Elysenika. Meanderings from plane to plane are her purview, is it not? Who else but She could be responsible? Or, could it be her absence instead that causes reality to wither like a lover yearning for her lifetime partner? Does she choose to neglect?
I do not know.
I can only giggle with glee at how in losing our mission, I bore witness to its ultimate fruition. Graat and his ilk would no longer serve Brek. I can only hope as the slumbering bear hopes for spring’s wakening, that the other leafs were victorious in their missions and the Winter Court was given swift rebuke for their savagery in the Midga Reverie.
I send gentle regards to my liege. Think of me well as I sleep my last sleep and dream.