Familiar Failure - Part Three
10 May 2024 - Transcribed by Paul Turner
Artist depiction of the underground stairway.
The leaves and branches began to blur as Elara dragged Fwanklin through the forest. A trio of bandits dropped from the trees just before they reached the edge, brandishing swords and daggers with dangerous intent. Elara Taloneye, eyes red and her face cut from the vegetation she pushed past, immediately threw three knives before the men could utter a demand. Two of them dropped dead instantly, while the third managed to crawl to safety with a knife handle sticking out of his left butt meat. Before bleeding out from his injuries, he told his friends of a demon elf with fiery eyes in the woods who ambushed them while carrying off an ugly, mewling child it had kidnapped. Being bandits, no one cared.
At the forest’s edge, Elara collapsed. Her tank was running on fumes, and she had committed the most disgusting and vile act for a high elf. She had begun sweating. The heavy scents of lavender and rosemary made her nauseated and the musky smell she had cultivated for months was disappearing at a rapid rate. Fwanklin edged closer to her while shaking in fear a little, at least for him.
“I think my ankle is still swelling from the run,” he whined to himself.
Elara laughed. It was a terrible and mournful sound. She still had to get Fwanklin to The Far Plains to fulfill her father’s idiotic promise, and now she felt all but sure that something terrible had happened to her best friend, Ironclaw.
“Well, I didn’t think it was funny,” said Fwanklin.
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m just trying to figure out something,” Elara replied.
“What?”
“Whether or not the promise my father made requires you to be alive for it to be fulfilled,” she said icily. “Maybe I could just sever your finger and take it with me. A hand perhaps, just to be safe.”
She did not mean her words, but they made her feel better nonetheless. The two sat in silence for a time and looked out to the path ahead of them. Between the forest of Barrad and The Far Plains sat a festering swamp. They watched as a robin swooped too low and immediately fell into a fetid puddle of water which belched out a small plume of acrid smoke. The swamp was considered unpassable on foot due to the many sinkholes, poisonous fog clouds, and Harold the Foot Chopper. Harold had whatever the opposite of a foot fetish is, and as such took it upon himself to relieve any passerby of their own fleshy walking implements. Some said the fog gas made him crazy after he lost his own feet to a hungry gator in dire need of a snack. Others said he made some really salient points if you read his pamphlets.
“I’m sure Mister… I mean, I’m sure Ironclaw is fine,” said Fwanklin.
Elara turned to him and though she was still exhausted, she imagined his eyes popping as she glared at his soft, plain face.
“Sorry,” said Fwanklin.
“I just have to know something. Why? Why would a familiar pick you? Who would pick a useless garbage creature? A stupid, ugly, useless, stupid thing like you?”
“I don’t know,” Fwanklin offered. “I never wanted to be a druid.”
“You mean you wouldn’t have cut it as one.”
“No.”
“Couldn’t cut it as one. Whatever.”
“No, I wanted to be a weaver.”
“Weaving spells and arcane magic?” Elara snorted at the thought.
“Like with a loom. Blankets and tapestries. My parents encouraged me to try a bunch of jobs, and that was the one where I didn’t get any allergies. Plus one of the old ladies was always really nice and would make cookies. I couldn’t eat them because of my stomach problems, but it was nice. Then I started having these strange dreams and suddenly I was a druid initiate after my parents passed and-”
“Gods, it’s like you’re trying to kill me with boredom. This isn’t answering anything. I’m losing sanity points just from listening to you. Let’s go.”
Elara stood and rubbed some dirt on her arms and legs to soak up the sweat. Once she was satisfied, she looked to Fwanklin. He was looking nervously towards the belching pools of the swamp. She could hear his questions pierce through her head before he even had to say them.
How would they get across? What about my leg? Can you just kill me and get this over with?
Fwanklin limped over to the edge of the swamp after Elara. She found a path ahead which seemed at least somewhat unlikely to outright kill them. The two tread carefully, with Elara doing her best to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. The ground shifted under their every step, letting them know it could give way to the foul waters whose depth they would only know once their corpse reached the bottom. Fwanklin sneezed and his foot fell under a thick layer of the mucus-like earth.
“Oh! Why is it so warm?” He cried.
Elara stepped back to him and covered his mouth. It was still wet. She looked around their immediate surroundings and dove behind a dead bush nearby, landing gracefully. Fwanklin was startled, and the two of them heard a great commotion as something else approached where he sat. Still stuck, he began to sob softly.
From the path in front of them, Harold the Foot Chopper stomped towards Fwanklin. Well, stomped is not the best word here. He hobbled. Yeah, Harold hobbled towards the cowering little elf while holding a sickle high above his head. It slid through any foliage it came into contact with and a bee even accidentally committed suicide by flying right into the edge. At last he reached Fwanklin and Elara pulled out her bow, readying her shot. Just before she jumped out to release a volley, she heard something unexpected. The two were talking. Cautiously, she crept from behind the bush while keeping her arrow notched. Harold spotted her instantly and to her surprise, stepped in front of Fwanklin.
“Hey! Leave the dude alone! He’s just expressing himself in the way we’re all meant to.”
“Fwanklin? What is he talking about?”
“I d-don’t really know,” Fwanklin admitted while cowering.
“Look lady, this little man is doing the most beautiful thing to return himself to a right form,” said Harold as he pointed his sickle point towards Elara. “I won’t let you stop him.”
“I’m really not in the mood for this right now. What the bark are you talking about?”
Harold slowly reached into his bag with his free hand and pulled out a wet, moldy looking pamphlet. Elara could make out the cover even from the distance between them. It featured a crude stick figure leaping into the air, leaving his legs behind. The page was titled Feet Freedom.
“Not interested,” said Elara as she drew the arrow back and let it fly.
With shocking speed Harold brought down the sickle, splitting the arrow in two. The two ends flew apart, and found their target on either side of Harold’s chest. His arms fell as pools of blood began to collect across his tunic.
“Shit,” he said before dropping to the swamp. His body was enveloped quickly and within a few seconds it was as if no one had stood there at all.
Fwanklin, realizing Harold was gone, stood as upright as his scoliosis spine would allow and wrenched his foot from the muck of the ground. “You didn’t have to kill him. I don’t think he wanted to hurt us.”
“I really thought he’d be able to take more than one shot,” said Elara. “Oh well. I’ll take any victory we can get.”
Elara wrenched Fwanklin’s foot from the muck and the two set out to cross the swamp.
On the other side of the swamp, Elara and Fwanklin stepped out into a small clearing. Elara had several gashes which were only superficial and made her seem even more dangerous despite clearly having lost a fair amount of blood. Fwanklin on the other hand, had some pretty distinct tear tracks in the dirt and muck covering his face. His broken foot on the other hand, had swollen to nearly three times its original size.
“I always heard the swamp was unpassable,” he commented.
“Yeah, well here we are.”
“But how did we even get across? I don’t remember any of it.”
Elara shrugged. “Me either. Guess it was some weird swamp gas that made us lose our memory.”
At that moment, a dark cloud hovered over the clearing for a brief moment, a foreboding sign of discontent to come. Elara cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted to it.
“I said, I guess it was some weird swamp gas that made us lose our memory!”
The cloud, though just a collection of water vapor, let out a grumble of thunder and moved on to pester some horror writer who overused the word viscera in his body-horror tales. Clearly a better use of its time.
Elara and Fwanklin had done it. They had reached The Far Plains. It had taken far more work than she ever wanted to do without being paid handsomely. She got to kill a few people though, so maybe it would even out in the end. More importantly, she was eager to find her friend. The golden reeds of the plains danced in front of them as the winds pushed the two of them forward. They left the clearing and walked among the reeds towards a lone stalk of a large flower, the only marker either could see. Well, the only marker Elara could see. Fwanklin had to take her word for it since the reeds towered over him and battered his limbs with their bodies as he tried to push past them. He began to sneeze profusely, not even bothering to cover his mouth after a while. He complained the entire way about barely being able to breathe, but Elara ignored him.
When they reached the flower, it stood much taller than Elara had anticipated. It was not one she recognized, though to be fair she mostly studied flowers with toxic properties. Its stalk branched in odd directions and the flower itself had colors which shimmered in the light. The closest thing in shape she could assign to it was a sunflower, but the color was off. The face of the flower seemed to follow them as the two approached. Elara felt the weight of the last few days in her bones as they reached the base of the stalk. Just as she turned to make sure Fwanklin had not skewered himself on a reed or anything, a shower of pollen fell over them. Elara’s vision grew dark and she passed out.
When she awoke, Elara found herself in a dark, square room. It was cold, and the walls were made of a stone more smooth and straight than any masonry she had ever encountered. On one side sat a stairway. As she looked up, she was temporarily blinded. When her eyes adjusted, she saw a golden light bathing the steps. With care, she walked up, feeling lighter somehow. At the top, she gasped.
She had reached the Land of Dreams, just as her father had described to her when she was a child. Much like the flower she had found in the plains, the vegetation, sky, and even stone were all shimmering in a multitude of colors as though they had been painted by a thin film of oil. She found a brook nearby and dipped her hands into it carefully. The water was cool, and she drank it. She felt better for a time, realizing she had barely eaten or had anything to drink since she began this dumb journey.
The journey. It dawned on Elara that Fwanklin was not with her. She felt panic return, thinking of her father’s idiotic promise. She rushed back to the room’s location, but could not find any sign of a passage. She tried climbing the trees, but their strange surfaces would not let her find purchase. Eventually, she grew desperate and began to call his name. It was carried on the winds ahead of her, but instead of an echo in reply, a deep rumble resonated back to her.
Dread enveloped her heart as the rumble continued to grow from a low drone to a tumultuous cacophony. The sky darkened above her, and as she peered up, she saw a large black cloud descend. It grew larger by the second. She wanted to run, but there was no cover. She wanted to fight, but she had no weapons. For the first time in a long time, Elara Taloneye felt truly and utterly scared. She cowered to the ground.
A thunderous slam hit just a few feet from her, knocking Elara to her knees. She coughed from the dirt kicked up from the ground. As it settled, she got ready to run. Then she saw him.
Ironclaw, the sickest giant black raven and her closest friend stood over her. He held his wings out wide and let out a screech which shook the air. His shape shifted and shimmered as he moved, like liquid moving over the surface of his form. He had returned to her. Found her in this strange land. She smiled weakly and ran towards him. Elara held open her arms and leapt up to grab onto her old friend’s neck. Instead though, she landed on the ground behind him. Confused, she turned back. Ironclaw was still there, looking at her quizzically.
“I… I don’t understand,” said Elara.
Ironclaw screeched in reply.
“What? What do you mean gone?”
Her hand trembled as she reached out to touch Ironclaw’s feathers. The edges of her fingers slid through his form, and she felt warmth exude from her old friend. She pulled back her hand.
“No…,” she whispered to herself. Her voice choked and cracked as she continued. “That’s not right. We came here for that stupid little twerp. He was supposed to find his familiar. You can’t be one. I’m not even a druid!”
Ironclaw sidled up next to Elara and held a wing over her frame, blocking the light of the Land of Dreams. She looked up past his outstretched wing, seeing the clouds above through his translucent form. She collapsed and sobbed. She could hear Ironclaw breathing. She could feel his warmth, yet she could not bear the thought of trying to reach out to him again and failing. Time passed, and she shivered from a combination of grief and cold rage. This was cruel, she thought. She would get revenge on whoever had done this to her. She dug her fist into the ground, and sat up.
Then Elara started choking.
“Wake up! Wake up! You have to get up!” Fwanklin said while shaking Elara’s shoulders.
As he did, globs of mucus fell upon Elara’s face. The same mucus which had prevented him from passing out from the flower’s pollen. She was covered in his snot and choking on it. She turned over and retched, annoyed that this was becoming a habit for her. She took in a deep breath and finally sat up. Fwanklin looked at her, a small sense of calm moving over his permanently anxious face.
“Thank the Gods, you’re awa-”
Elara’s hands had found his throat. She was tired and her body screamed, but she had enough strength for this one act. It would be a mercy compared to what she would do to her home. They had pushed her into a path she never wanted. She would reject it. She would burn it. Fwanklin struggled weakly against her arms as she continued to choke the life from him.
Elara thought of setting fire to her home, razing the entire city of Barrad, and watching the horror on her father’s face as she did everything she could to desecrate anything he once thought sacred. A breeze blew by, and she looked up. Fwanklin coughed, and turned to his side as Elara let go of his throat. After a few moments, he sat up and followed Elara’s eyeline while backing away in fear.
Ironclaw, or rather the familiar of Ironclaw, was flying overhead. It swooped through the air and landed gracefully near Elara. With a shaking hand, she reached out to touch his wing. For a moment it seemed to reach something solid, but her hand slipped through his form into the inky blackness of his form. He let out a screech and as he did, Ironclaw shrank in size, becoming closer to that of a regular raven. Once he stopped shrinking, he hopped onto Elara’s shoulder. She smiled at him weakly before turning to Fwanklin.
“Tell my father his promise was kept, though I imagine he knows already” she said before turning away.
Fwanklin sat bewildered for a second before calling out to her. “Wait, where are you going?”
Looking back, Elara responded. “Elara Taloneye is done doing the work of the druids. Elara Ravenseye will make her own path.”
Ironclaw screeched and the winds of The Far Plains died. The noise of the reeds abated. Fwanklin watched as she walked through them into the distance. He considered the path behind him, the one back home.
“How would I even get home?” He asked himself.
As he considered his options, a small breeze returned and blew towards Elara’s path. Fwanklin turned towards it and after a copious amount of sneezing, limped along to follow her, wherever she was going.
THE END