So as I mentioned before, I comissioned my buddy Sam @istehlurvz to make this portrait of a character of mine I really liked from a d&d game that never quite took off. The result you see was so inspiring that I ended up making a little narrative for her. I took a crack at the lyrical prose of Middle English faerie tales but who knows how that'll go. Anyway, what follows is the account of how Oré came to be an adventurer outside the Feywild. (warning, it is long)
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Oré Peachblossom, Last of the Paladins
She stepped forth, the iridescence of her
Gripping her Greatsword by the blade;
Her only consession to peace.
Titania, before whom she now kneeled
Archfey, and Queen of the Seelie Court,
knew her vow, had been there at its making.
Oré kneeled before the Briar Throne
And as Titania stood so did all
Attendant; most towering over
Oré's eight inches of height.
Whispers rose and fell when Titania's
I know you've counted the passing
Time, must unusual in our lands
Where the sun stands like a beacon
Over the Duskward horizon.
I sheath this sword when I sleep
I've done this since we burned
Naming the Dracolich of ancient power
Befouled the entropic wilds
One thousand years and no soul
Has met your blade, she said.
Whispered admonitions from
The shadowed corners came,
Crashing from one speaker to the next,
Shaming each other for refusing to stand
As her foe. But who would not fear
The only survivor of the Last War,
The Claw Scarred, the Tyrant's Fall?
None wish to deal, said she, None
Live who do not fear the arc
Titania waved a golden hand,
Her mass of tangled curls tossing
In moments they were alone.
To hear, but she only stood
And because she had promised
I don't know. I must look for it.
To your grave and hold your vow
Like a sword. She turned.
Fluttering into iridescent blurs,Â
The sword, longer than she was tall
Trailing behind like a banner.Â
The Scar, ruinous and black
into the corner of her smiles,
cracking the smooth shape
of her nose and deforming the bow
Her hair, mother-of-pearl
hung over her unsteady brow as she flew
One thousand years of peace
True there had been battles
promises and punishment, many deaths.Â
But none wanted her word now;
That might require her death,
And her tricks drew no ire,
for what should any fey do?
felled Ro’al the Once-Gold,
that tyrant who sought ot tame
She was a legend to the young,
Oré landed in a tree she knew well,
since the courts had joined
with a sprite, centaur and dryad.Â
One thousand and six since
she became the first pixie to call a spriteÂ
In her first six hundred years aliveÂ
coming and going with the whims
and most beautiful battlefields,
those which once had cast
romantic backdrops to the fierce and lovely
black and barren. No flowers, nor grass
disrupted the ashen earth
It had been in his castle,
where Springbloom, that sprite cleric
The wind muttered in the leaves,
as Oré heard for the thousandth time
the slice of Springbloom’s axe
into the throat of the undying dragon,
her howling screams as the fire
in his belly cascaded down onto her,
the call of the warrior centaur,
   He can’t breathe! Now!Â
Mare’sgift had called, andÂ
into the maw of the beast,
swinging her sword more like a staff,Â
from within, bringing herself back
heaves had grown still around her,
she, bleeding, wings asunder had cut
her way out, onto a silent battlefield,
she had not seen her friends alive since she
flew into what should have been
next to the charred body ofÂ
who had revealed her Name to Oré, and slept.
like the legions before had done,
Oré stood, was cheered, hailed
for not being the one to cut the throat
open for that black flame to spill
and picked up, like a fallen leaf,
heavily gilded with autumn’s light,
Thank you again to @istehlurvz for bringing this character to life in such a way that I could just not let her go. And thank you to @ghostering for letting this lil weirdo pixie into your world of Ritt!Â
