[Sindarin] A Waterfall in the Jungle

Helsreach was gone.

Gone was its malevolent red sheen, infiltrating like lacquer into the ground. Gone were its fiends, with their mysteriously codified horn jewelry, for whom mountains were what mayflies might be for humans, gone were its otherworldly elves and the humans who had barely tasted freedom. Gone was their history of pain, of violence, their joy. The ground bore no trace of steps to remember them; the forest was silent.

At first, Nina had thought she had landed on the wrong shore. Yet her painter's eye recognised the same trees, the same rocky outcrops, looking naked and sharp without the red blanket of fiendstuff covering the land. As she moved through the forest, in her steps, in her cries, she heard reality breaking at the seams. For without fiendstuff, fiends could not live.

Gone were the Towers of Helsreach that pierced the sky, with their esthetic of blood and bone and as many skulls as one could possibly fit in a square yard, but not enough, Nina sniffed remembering, to build safety rails out of. All that was left of the nation was the moat surrounding the capital proper - but that was empty. The town hadn't been destroyed. It simply ceased to be. The land that would have held it was barren, flat, just starting to grow over with weeds. Gone were the people. The King, the princess, and all the others that Nina owed so much to. The traveler shouted until she grew hoarse, and then she got scared.

She circled around aimlessly, but there was not a single footstep trace to tell her what happened. She mourned, throwing alcohol into the fire before partaking (a bunch of overripe medlars from a nearby  tree, crushed in her hand). And she wondered if she was the one to blame for all of this, with her magic.

She hadn't wanted to visit the place of Elegastus's home - of what use would that be? - but she must. Disconcerted by the new landmarks, she followed a creek. To her shock, before long, Nina found herself in a familiar field of placidly growing cabbages and, atop a rocky outcrop jutting out from its center, with steps carved in rock, there was the house she well remembered. She stepped in. There was a message for her.

Helsreach was gone.

Elegastus's message spoke of old  tensions that had flared to the surface. Of the nature of fiends, and the complex webs of loyalties they carried. Of resentment and hurt. Helsreach was in civil strife. The King had moved the entirety of the land in a pocket dimension, as a last resort to help his people work out their problems without the pressure of the entire new world. Elegastus was out there, busy putting out fires, smoothing egos. He was the King's brother. His house remained the only connection between the two realms and, though he welcomed Nina (or other passing travelers) to use it for shelter, he pleaded her not to cross through on the other side. It was not safe.

Later that night as Nina lay in a feather bed, she stared at the ceiling. She thought of things not written. Of her actions precipitating all this, by asking for and receiving help for Isra's people. Perhaps the fiends, used to taking sins to their extreme, had felt compelled to do the same with their newfound goodness. And what would she do back in Isra now that her main political allies were gone?

The next two days, Nina worked in the garden. She set traps for the rabbits that had gotten too daring, harvested  cabbages and burned a few that had grown diseased. She stared at the Other-Door. She preserved rabbit meat and cabbage with most of her trade-salt, and worked hard to help quiet her mind. But by the end of the second day Elegastus had not yet returned home, and she left.

She wondered if her boat would carry her all the way back home. The oversized leaf had, through the end of the summer, become red and brittle. It crackled when she shifted her weight. Nina did not have it in her to care. She could not head back now, not yet. Not until she tried to find one of the hunters or trackers or skull artists of Helsreach and ask for an explanation of what in the world had happened. She sailed along the coasts and walked up creeks, but all that greeted her were the mocking cries of birds.

The leaf-boat had reached the sunrise-side extremity of the former Helsreach's island, when Nina found a river. Just the time - she had been growing thirsty. Not far from the shore, a stunning waterfall thundered down , weaving silver between a heavy brocade of red and gold leaves. As Nina approached, using a long stick to steer herself along the shallow river, she heard something else besides the river, a sound hard and rhythmic...a woodpecker?...no, it couldn't be-

Raising to her feet in order to better catch the sound, the girl promptly fell in the water as her boat sunk under her.

The only danger the river provided was to Nina's pride. It was about knee-height in most places, and chest-tall where she had fallen, though her splashing made it seem deeper. That danger was not something that the newly-appeared stranger could save her from. But at least she had help dragging the boat with her few soaked belongings onto the shore.

"My paintings!" Nina whispered. As if the other's words had reminded her how to speak.

She opened her backpack, and leafed through a few scenes of sea and sky on paper, but her drawing block seems to have remained unharmed under the waxed cloth. Other belongings were not so lucky. Her blanket - woolen, the good stuff, she had worked so hard for it - was as heavy as iron. Nina pressed out as much water as she could, and hung it to dry. Her fire-pot, the little ceramic vessel in which she kept embers, had been extinguished.

The young woman accepted the linen cloth with wide startled eyes, and dried off as much as she could. Looked up, following the sun. The air was humid under the trees. She was not quite sure whether her clothes might dry faster on her. She debated whether to take off the sheath for her needle-dagger, tied to her forearm, now obvious, but decided against it.

"Well-met," the girl spoke, sitting cross-legged on the log. She bowed her head in gratitude, and took a leg from the bird cooking in the fire. Bit in. "You can call me Nina." She mouthed. She had not realised how hungry she was. "Do you rescue people on the regular, or is that reserved for special occasions?" She grinned.

A snort escaped Nina's nose.

“I'm sorry,” and with a roll of the eyes, she added, “I don't think hell could be defined as a temperate climate.”

Her eyebrows raised, her eyes bright, she rambled on:

“Hell? Like, you know,” she gestured, “the freezing, sulphurous, sharp-shards-all-around sorta-place, no handrails-” Then it struck Nina. “You're not talking about Helsreach, are you.” The girl seemed to fold into herself. The talk about helpful people...had misled her. “There used to be some of my friends around. I think they...left.” The traveller spoke. Her eyes fixed the fire.

She forced herself to smile. To focus on the present.

“So you found ore.” She observed. She stared at Oisith without ever meeting his eyes. “Congratulations. Iron? Wait, you don't need to tell me.” Shook her head. “But be careful.” She added. “Now that the nation of Helsreach is no longer on this island, others may send scouts.”

Isran blacksmiths were still recycling old tools, to her knowledge. How far would a country go to ensure its access to raw resources? And still...was curiosity such a bad thing?

“What sort of things can you make?” Nina asked.

“Mhm,” Nina nodded. “Been diving for scraps. Nails, coins, th' occasional ring. Got them back at my haunt. Would you be interested in any of that?” Her eyes lit up.

Diving was one of her greatest strengths. And diving at the mouth of the Argentium River provided a rewarding, if generally modest bounty. There was a lot of less pleasant stuff in the water too, like the sweat and waste of an entire city, which is why she only dived there at high tide, when the water rung salty and clear. Salvaging wrecks from places too deep for most swimmers was another source. Often, Nina even gave things back to the Argentians.

But the source and usability of scrap metal slipped her mind as Oisith spoke on.

“Fey?!” Nina burst out, in her lilting accent. She gestured, in a manner that in retrospect may have been a touch irreverent. “A touch short, pointy ears, clothes of leaves, can talk to-” She gestured around at the many trees.

Nina bit her lip.

“I might know one.” She looked in the fire, and nearly chuckled. “She thought she was lost. Say.” Her eyes very carefully pinned Oisith in place.“Might've you heard of a girl called Sylvanie, or such?” There was no 'or such' about it – but Nina needed to remain ambiguous just in case the fey were sworn enemies to Sylvanie's people. “Think she was supposed to be nobility.” Nina shrugged. Princess, to be precise. “Has...dragonfly wings?”

“Usque,” Nina repeated, twirling a bead in her fingers.

Not Sylvanie's people. Maybe neighbours – ancestors – descendants – enemies - maybe not even in the same realm.

“Tell me more about it,” she asked. The plant-mage might enjoy meeting them, still – she'd been feeling so adrift. Certainly, Nina would need a better boat for that. “What do they value? What do they strive for? Do they have a faith?” Nina asked. Ah – too much, wasn't it?

Oisith was wary of her. She could tell by the way the 'few boats' morphed into 'a small fleet' as the conversation went on.

“Sorry.” She said. Gestured. And her magic flared, just a touch, just for her to see whether the blacksmith was not under the enchantment of 'those' kinds of fae. “Anything I can help with, here? I'm a travelling painter, so I uhm...paint...and travel, I guess, as well as general adventuring, feats of wizardry and sometimes just an extra pair of hands.” Nina paused. “I delivered a baby once.”

Nina nodded.

“Thank you for sharing.” She said. It sounded remarkable indeed.

And he was working on a kiln? “I can carry rocks,” she added, eyes brimming with enthusiasm.

Blacksmiths were...Well, she was a wizard, but blacksmiths were magical, weren't they? So Nina thought. There was something about the ringing, beating of hammers, as if one put their own heart into the metal. Nina felt more comfortable with rope and water in her own hands than metal and fire, but she could admire craft.

So she would offer to help, and help she would if at all allowed. Her clothes would dry, and her eyes would stay open to catch unsettlingly small details. Yet, as she figured that the local settlement didn't quite have the making of an invading horde, she would talk more at ease in her talking:

“If you go sunset-wards, that's where the towns are.” Nina explained, gesturing with a rock that just happened to be in her hand. “'bout a quarter-moon away, give or take, though you need to zigzag 'gainst the wind, get what I'm saying? Along the coast to midday, then follow the sunset, you'll see a bunch of hills across a strait, and then you need to cross. Keep going sunset-wards. For Port Argentium, follow the contours of the big tongue of land that's jutting out; when you see the white cliffs, you know you're close. For the Twin Cities, leave the jutting-out part to your left and keep going.”

Nina pointed up, to a place only she saw.

“In this season, I like to follow a star that looks it's atop a staircase.”