2412, Xavem 25, Kindreth

Elred sniffed, scrunching her nose at the stale smell of earth and damp air assaulting her senses. She had been underground for so long she felt the mud had lodged itself at the back of her throat and would be there to stay. She cleared her throat by pure instinct and dusted her loose trousers. It must have belonged to a renegade with the same height as her but not the same build. It hung too big for her waist, and being starved like a prisoner on the road to execution wasn't helping either.

Still, fairies were tenacious creatures. That much Elred realized as she refused to keel over and curl herself to sleep while hunger devoured every shred of her being. Among the creatures in Umazure, or by a stretch, Fantasilia, fairies were the only people she knew of to not want to die in vain, and to do it with honor and glory.

It's their downfall, not just as a set of scattered individuals, but as a race.

Before her thoughts could divert into a philosophical road of no return, she swung her stolen satchel around to peer into its contents. The bag of fairy potions had long been smoothed to the last vial, and now's the time of reckoning. Her stomach growled in protest when she thought of saving it for tomorrow. No. She wouldn't last until then.

With hesitant fingers and weak grip, she plucked the only potion left and dwindled on the cork stopper. The pale pink liquid sloshing inside couldn't have been an indicator of freshness, but the situation didn't call for her to complain. While the flavor wasn't to her liking, it was enough to quell the demands of her form.

Was there a way to get rid of all bodily functions altogether? By being dead, perhaps; summoned only as a fleeting essence by banshees. Not the way Elred wanted to go. With such fear in mind, she pulled the stopper out and dunked the potion, tilting her head back. The pink sludge traveled down her throat in slinky smoothness, disappearing down her gut in a flash. A few hours—that's how much time she bought herself.

She had to find a proper source of meals soon—a forest or a town—and being stuck under the ground wasn't helping. So, with her wounded feet and worn legs, she stumbled forward, running her hands against the crumbling walls of soil and, occasionally, of uncut stone. Her synnavaim thrummed inside her—the only companion she had in the dim caverns. If not for the steady hum in her soul, she would have gone mad from the sheer emptiness of it all.

Whether she wasted away in the tunnels or emerged out of it and into the real world waiting for her, a good chance was she'd meet her end. Through the sword or through the natural way of passing, Elred would start praying to the gods of Calaris if she ever made it out of this war in one piece. The same condition applied to her family. Savel and Reza—let them find happiness in the simplicity of things without the burden of being a prince or the Queen consort. Her friends, Reeca and, by extension, Xanthy—let them be free of the expectations of what their fate dictated for them. And...fine, her mother, the Queen of Helinfirth—let her find what she's looking for. May she survive this temporary but cruel onslaught as well. The same went for her father.

A strained laugh bled from Elred's lips and echoed in empty waves against the tunnel walls. The darkness ate away the last slivers within a second or two. It looked like being stuck in this place had forced her to forgive her mother for the things she held against the Queen for just doing what she was born to do.

Elred had no clue why she antagonized her mother all these years. Was it for forcing her to uphold a standard she chafed under? Was it for developing policies that pleased the plump-assed nobles more than it did good for the common people? Or was it for believing Helinfirth could stand on its own without proper armies?

Whatever it was, Elred couldn't understand how her mother could still stand in her arrogance and unappalled belief in her own strength. But now that Elred had gone off on a limb and depended on other people to grant her what she wanted, she had just doomed the people she was set to save.

Either way, it's like fate was setting her up to fail whichever path she took.

The tunnels stayed level, showing no sign of ever leading her to the upper cities. It couldn't have been a few minutes but her gut was already growling. Her teeth ground against each other, forcing the rising bile back to where it came from. Not now. She couldn't afford to get hungry now.

She turned a corner and walked some more. At some point, the rumbling became urgent, and the pain, stabbing. A hiss followed by a soft curse flitted from her mind as well as her mouth. Her entire instincts focused only on finding something she could stuff into her gut. Would rocks and dirt be enough?

Her footsteps lengthened, urging her forward and faster. Her vision sharpened. It's like being in battle, but for food. Indeed, how the mighty have fallen.

At the new corridor she arrived at, her nose caught something sweet and inviting. As if someone had started baking bread in the middle of nowhere. The rational part of her mind informed her of the possibility it might be a trap, but the primitive half won over and brought her form to where she sensed it.

Stuck to the walls were glowing plants she had never seen before. Broad, purple leaves stuck out in fans, waving at her with a nonexistent breeze. Splotches of dark blue fruits hung from among the bushes, dangling low. She only had to reach up and they would be in her palms. The roots were nowhere to be seen. It's like they scurried down here, where there's pockets of air for them to grow into, and developed a way to glow. How come she hasn't found these before? It would have helped her conserve her potion stash longer.

Never mind. No use clinging to the past. She plucked one. Two. Brought them to her nose for a quick sniff. The sweet odor hit her senses at full throttle. Huh. Should be good. She popped one to her mouth after wiping ground water and sap off its skin on her trousers. The saccharine juice coated her tongue and the fleshy bit underneath the stretchy peel melted and disappeared down her throat in an instant.

That's when it kicked.

Her head started spinning, her knees turning into a mountain of crushed glass. She fell back against the wall. Fire rose up from her gut and threatened to leak from her mouth, her nose, her eyes. Tears clouded her vision, and she felt herself tumble to the ground. Her fingers twitched—the last embers of a fight she could muster.

As her breaths flattened out into dry wheezes, she had one last word to utter to the world.

Elred cursed.

The Land of Wonders was full of pans and utensils clattering against stone.

A groan escaped her throat as she attempted to swipe the noise away. Make it stop. Cloth rustled and a patter of frantic footsteps rose. Was the afterlife full of solid things? Why did it feel like she's lying on a bed? And what was that draped over her legs? A blanket?

"She's waking up," a voice rang through her ears albeit a bit distorted and distant. She groaned again, and the footsteps multiplied. More pots clambered as if in a hurry. Okay, then. This wasn't the Land of Wonders.

Somehow, Elred survived whatever poison berry she ate and was now found by another group of people. That was, if these voices and footsteps weren't the Peltran renegades, the Synketrian soldiers, or the Entobern clans. Then again, why would the Entobern clans want to pursue her? Was it because of the satchel she stole?

Damned tunnels and underground civilizations. This was the last time Elred would dare venture to these nethers. She'd stay put in a corset and endure the mind-numbing talk of the nobles about their latest forsaga harvests and whose son would be attending the Academy soon.

She started sitting up when a weight pressed against her shoulders, forcing her back down. A mattress molded against the curves of her form. The down it's made of bit against her skin. It's too old.

"You are not fit to move around after the amount you consumed," another voice, this one gentler and more gravelly than the other one, said. This man was older too. "Stay here. We will help you recover."

If there was one thing Elred was growing more tired of than being chased around, it's receiving help from strangers who would be better off having nothing to do with her. She clenched her jaw and wrenched her eyes open. The first thing to greet her was the dark ceiling of earth. Right. She's still underground. Figures.

She turned her hazy gaze towards a silver blob to her right. Sitting by her bedside was an old man. As her vision sharpened to a focus, getting rid of its sleepy veil, she found herself looking at a graying beard filled with isolated braids, a dusty beige tunic, and a dark ocher cloak with its hood pulled down.

"Where am I?" she croaked out. Stabbing pain prickled in her throat. The poison, right. Nobody told her it's going to burn everything in its path.

The old man handed her a cup, filled with water collected from the drips scattered around the cave system. She took it and lifted her head a bit to gulp it down. When she finished, she handed the cup back to the man, noting how wrinkled his brown skin was. One glance at the side of his head told her enough.

He was human.

Which meant...

A younger man slipped into her periphery, offering her a warm smile. "You're with the Ionarai," he said in Keijula, making Elred arch an eyebrow. A fairy? "We hate to bother you while you recuperate, so we must be on our way."

Weren't they playing an ensemble with the pans earlier? "Ionarai?" Elred prompted instead. She'd take having company over staring at the ceiling on her own while running her idiocy in her head in a loop. "I have never heard of that. Is it a place?"

The older man grunted on his way up. He regarded her from his looming height. Even for a human, he was quite tall. His back was still straight. "The Ionarai is not a place," he said on his way out the arched entrance to the cavern. "They are the people."

With that, she was left alone with the younger fairy who seemed sprightlier than her son. She turned to him and he gave her an apologetic shrug before she could say anything. "You have to forgive Ranet. He's not the chatty type."

Elred stared after the direction the man had gone. "I noticed," she said. "Do you know the quickest way to the upper cities?"

As if spooked by the idea, the boy's eyebrows creased. "Why would you want to go up there? It's dangerous," he said. "The Elders said so."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. As if being down here was any safer. Should she tell him about the war? She should tell him about the war. "What's your name?" she asked instead. She'd bide her time to get him to start spilling secrets. Time, after all, was Synketros' main gamble.

"Argyll," the boy answered. "Argyll Glaflin."

Elred bobbed her head. "A beautiful name," she said. "Somewhere north?"

"More like west," he corrected. Not that she was really trying. She merely threw a random direction and let his desire to be right reveal the truth. He pointed to his mop of hair as if it explained everything. The strands were gray from the roots before slowly morphing to a blue hue. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? "Banshee."

She faked an interested nod and, despite Ranet's warning, sat up. Her head wasn't pounding and she breathed more easily, so it's good. Argyll, too, didn't try to stop her. "Tell me about the...Ionarai," she said. "It's my first time hearing about it."

"As you should. We make sure to stay out of the territories' way as much as possible," the banshee answered, picking at the frayed ends on the hem of his trousers. He had sunk to the floor opposite her and crossed his legs. "Like Ranet said, the Ionarai are the people. It's a community where everyone is welcome so long as they are inhabitants of Umazure."

Elred blinked. "It's a mixed-race community? Is that what you're saying?"

A wince twisted Argyll's face. "We'd rather you not call us that."

"What should I call you, then?" Elred inclined her head to one side.

"The Ionarai."

She pursed her lips. "Ah."

Argyll leaned over. "Can you stand?"

With a muted nod and poor attempt on her part, she braced the walls and hefted her weight up. She counted to three to see if her knees would shake or if her legs would throw her forward. Neither did. They followed her silent orders to take her to the nearby table. Whoever lived here had made this cave quite the home. A fire even burned in a hole poked into the endless rock wall, the ashes of random vines and sticks charring the sides. The cup they gave her sat in its lonesome atop the splintering wood of the table.

"I'd show you the rest of the camp, but we need to verify your intent first," the banshee tapped a hand on the table in a discordant rhythm. "How did you end up here?"

Elred snorted. "That's a long story."

"We have time."

They're not going to let this go, were they? A sigh flew out of her nose and leaned forward. Her bandaged wings thankfully haven't come undone for everyone to see. Did they even notice it? Argyll's expression betrayed no such information. Nor did Ranet's, now that Elred thought about it.

"I'm from Helinfirth, in the upper cities. Through a series of misfortunes, I found myself in the underground caverns," she said, condensing her entire tale into a string of meaningless words. "My stash of potions ran out, and I was forced to rely on Dhavo's blessings."

"Is that why you ate the wild poremas?" Argyll interjected.

She stuck her lip out. "Is that what it's called?" she said, to which he nodded. "Tasted good until it started burning. What in Crintine's name was that?"

"You just named two goddesses in a span of minutes," Argyll commented, holding up fingers of the same manner. "I'm guessing shard fairy?"

Elred frowned. "I just said I'm from Helinfirth," she said. "Of course, I'm a shard fairy."

A confused look passed across the banshee's face. He looked away. "Sorry," he ran a hand against the back of his neck. "I forget the world above us is still divided that way."

"As for your question about the poremas," Argyll pivoted to another subject as the previous thread ran its course. "Their counterparts on the surface are cultivated to be edible. But without proper tools and maintenance, the wild ones which have eventually made their way here, have retained most of their poisonous qualities. The fruit—which you shoved into your system without a sliver of dread—contains the largest concentration."

"Why did you heal me if you're not sure of my intentions?" Elred ventured.

Argyll glanced at the fire crackling a few steps away. He didn't seem thrilled to be asked questions that would require him to think. "The Ionarai welcomes everyone regardless of their race, origin, story, and by extension, their intentions," he said. "We just wanted to stay discrete from the affairs of the surface, hence we need to make sure you are too."

Of course. Elred understood that. The renegades and the Entobern leaders were probably that way too. And for her to have been in both camps, the constant fear of her blabbing about their existence to other people might have been the driving force behind the pursuit.

Still, the Ionarai didn't need to know how her affairs had intertwined into tight knots behind her. She'd be gone in a few hours anyway. By the time they woke up, she'd be nothing but a trail passing by in their territory. That way, no one could harm them once they came for her.

So, summoning every bit of being a shard fairy in her, she arranged her face to be a combination of solemnity and regret. "I have been casted aside by my own family. The world above is burning to the ground. There's no place for me there. That's why I fled underground, just to disappear. To forget everything I have lost there," she said. Not all lies, but not all were the truth either. The most convincing stories always were both. "I would never wish to bring harm to the Ionarai. I have nothing left over there."

Argyll sighed. "Very well," he said. "I'll let you rest for a while. After that, we'll talk to the Elders about your welcoming."

Before Elred could ask what in Crintine's name a welcoming was, the banshee strode out of the cave and disappeared into a corner. Nice talk, then.