If You Play Too Hard
Darya had always worn her name with pride. After all — she was the proudest fairy of her kin. Beloved of the gods, the youngest daughter of the Fairy King — from childhood, she knew no refusal, no harsh word, no bounds.
And so — for more than one century — she had been imprisoned in the Sphere. Her curse upon someone's bloodline was the final drop in someone’s cup of patience…and she fell straight through the Portal that tore open in the sky.
She screamed. Raged. Smashed and shattered everything around her. But to leave the Sphere, one had to solve their own riddle — and even that riddle first had to be found.
Darya tried to press with her name, with her wings — even with threats. She did not reckon that the company gathered here was her equal. The Sphere had become a kind of limbo — for all those whose deeds had brought too much pain to mortal hearts.
And truly — Darya could wreak no great destruction. The Mistress of this place watched her serpentarium closely.
Darya had knocked on these doors before. The doors of Winter’s House. But, as always — in vain. Only once had she seen Winter’s eyes up close — icy, fathomless — and heard her voice, woven from blizzards and frost:
“Look into your heart. Find it — and look inside. Only you know the answer.”
But Darya, too desperately, refused to admit: she even had such a thing as a heart.
So year after year, she searched for the Portal. This year — again, she failed to find it.
Yet, she discovered something far more intriguing: a thin crack in the Sphere’s glass.