Perhaps it was the innate awareness of where she was going - of the things which occurred there and the people who made it possible - that had her breath catching in her throat. Magic was a familiar coat around her senses, flooding her veins and constricting her skin. The ambient energy of the Feywild had a particular tang, different from the material plane. It beaded through the air like blood from pricked skin, leaking and seeping into being, oxidizing in the air, becoming something darker, something deadly.
She came to a stop, jaw clenched, and forced herself to breathe.
Orange eyes darted around, hypervigilant and wary. The sky was bright enough, though no sun hung overhead. There was not yet a moon spinning in the sky. The glow of day clung to the horizon to her left, and she wracked her memory for any indication of placement. Coming up empty - her thoughts too frantic and muddled to pinpoint the precise arrangement of directions - she deemed it either dawn or dusk. Time would tell eventually, she assured herself. And then following that revelation, she could orient herself further.
Torbek had not been at the carnival. She ignored the twinge of panic at the thought, pushing it aside to utilize later. Instead of her beloved, her best friend, her bugbear, there had been shackles and cages, friends who refused to meet her eye but had directed her inwards, deeper into the back halls. The lines of cells had been as expected as they were chilling, but the largest one in the back had knocked her breath from her in an instant. There were tiny claw marks in the metal, a scrap of fabric against the jagged plane of the back flooring, and a familiar energy soaking into the pores of the steel and iron.
Torbek's fear had always carried a unique blend of tastes, difficult to describe but alarmingly filling to her baser instincts. Finding it there - and so very potent - has her own terror spiking alongside her ravenous urge to devour.
The hunger lingered, even now, even as she crept deeper into the woodlands of the Feywild, the place she'd vowed to never step foot into again. Even then, she could feel the arcane tendrils in her core stirring with the recognition of their homeland. With extreme prejudice, she pushed them down as tightly as she dared, delving onwards into the woods until she finally found a place offering suitable shelter.
With a strangled sigh, she gingerly sat down at the cliff side, the trickle of a stream to her right and the woods around her in plain view. With no dangers in sight - nor within range of her other senses after a brief moment to assure herself - Clementine folded her legs, then her hands. She breathed deeply, gingerly pulling up the irritated, lashing wists of magic from her marrow. Her nails immediately began to lengthen, claws dotting her fingertips as her mouth and scalp tingled, the semipermanent glamor hiding her serrated maw and curling horns falling away as the magic was guided to better use elsewhere.
Slowly, orange sparkling mist escaped her mouth with each exhale, magenta glitter dancing among the plumes. With careful intention, she visualized the smoky magic condensing, compacting, until several little pixie-like beings hovered before her, curled into balls and cast in the same citrusy color of her own magic. With one final, delicate blow, she cupped her hands, raising to cradle the small bodies.
One by one, their eyes fluttered over, bodies like polished citrine and carnelian, stiff and solid before there was a crackle, hairline fractures as each joint. The crystalline coatings around each seemed to implode with a swirling shimmer of brightly colored dust, coalescing into coverings over their bodies. All six tilted their heads, looking around, at the woods and each other, before turning, as one, to the creature holding them.
Pale, beads of sweat on her brow, Clementine smiled. "Hello, my dears," she rasped fondly, working to even out her breathing. It had been entirely too long since she'd dabbled in anything approaching this level of magic. She'd need to work on that.
The little pixie constructs beamed at her, squeaking their greetings and darting up to pepper kisses, hugs, and zip excited around her head. One immediately dove to nestled into her tight coils of hair, popping his head up with a giggle. Another perched atop one of her horns. The rest, following suit, seemed to make a game of finding a place on her body to play, rest, or explore.
She chuckled fondly, tiredly, at their antics. "I have a job for you," she told them softly. "I'm looking for someone very important to me. Can I trust you to help?"
Half a dozen little agreements echoed in response. One in particular drifted over to her line of immediate sight. This pixie, the shorted but plumpest of the bunch, tilted her head, a flower tucked behind her pointed ear. "Who are we searching for, Your Shiftiness?"
Clementine took a slow breath in. She held it a moment. She let it out. And then she began telling the constructs in her care all about her beloved. She warned them of the dangers - of her own kind, of the foes lurking in plain sight, of everything and anything she could recall. And then, heart aching, she held up the tattered cloth from the accursed cage. It was less cloth and more woven thread, akin to a tapestry. Its twin rested around her own ankle, though the one in her hand seemed more unraveled than her own messy one. The edges were frayed, the knots barely secure - despite it all, both seemed to glow with love.
Torbek's torn bracelet still carried his scent, both physical and magical, with decent confidence.
"Find him," she begged, breath hitching. "Please, find my Torbek."
The little pixies nodded resolutely, accepting a strand of her hair with solemn little faces. Mission given, they gave a small salute before zipping away into the waning light as night approached.
Clementine sighed, leaning back against the rocky surface at her back.
She closed her eyes, sending a skeptical but desperate prayer to the heavens. Let him be safe; let the doctors never touch him; let him be whole and hearty; let the same poison in her cells never touch his sweet soul...
She had the horrid feeling that these prayers were far too little, far too late.
[Clementine and her Constructs are Open to Asks]