The Faerie Ring [Rhiannon]

[Winters-Feather]

"Oooh," Adis breathed upon seeing the interior of the temple. The temples halls were narrow, but did not have the effect of  shrinking. Light spilled in from the sun that beamed down from above. Silver-white walls were decorated with lore, a love story. Beautiful figures seemed to be dancing.
"The queen's face," she said upon realization. "He carved his story with the queen..."
Adis grabbed Iris' hand and slowly walked down the empty hall, her footsteps echoing.
"It's like we're in a forest," she observed. The shrine had many pillars and halls.
"There are so many walls, I don't know where to go," she confessed, now growing angry. "This is a labyrinth!"

[Rhindeer]

There were some times Iris was disappointed that she had never seen what the world looked like, and never would.

As Adis described the place as labyrinthine, this was definitely not one of those times! Though Iris often talked about her lack of vision in the most mystical, mysterious sense for the sake of entertaining people, there was some truth to her words; being blind was a disadvantage in many areas, but also an advantage. Where people with sight might get lost in the details, Iris didn't have that distraction. So while Adis marveled, Iris focused.

She focused on what she knew about labyrinths...well, at least, what she knew of them from the stories and lore she'd consumed.

"Pay attention ta the carvin's, an' describe 'em ta me," Iris said as they walked, placing her feet carefully so she didn't trip. "Might be somethin' important there. Somethin' we can use. Which way's th' wall? I've heard if ya put yer left hand on a wall an' jus' follow it, ya can find yer way through a maze."

Turning her head in Adis's direction, she cracked a crooked smile. "Course, that's jus' normal mazes. Dunno if th' rules are th' same with faerie mazes...they don' like ta play by our rules."

[Winters-Feather]

OOC: so i started writing this post thinking  we were still at the door LOL
IC:


"Uhhh," Adis muttered as she tried to interpret the carvings.
"Well there's a man with the sun as a crown," she said slowly. " He's being followed by banners and trumpets. I think he's a prince or a king. He's leading a hunt after a deer... but now he's searching through a wood alone. Is he lost? There's a storm..."
Her heart skipped a beat at the next image.
"There's the queen. It's her very likeliness. She's watching him sleep.  They're dancing and... ooooh a kiss. He looks older, he has a longer beard and the seasons change. When they were dancing, it looked like spring, but snow's falling. The queen looks like she's offering him a cup, I think it's magic, and  - AAAAAGGH!"

Adis screamed bloody murder as a small dark figure scurried across her feet. She hugged Iris for dear life. Realizing she wasn't eaten, Adis watched dumbfounded as a mouse  passed by them.
"Justamouse," she breathed, panting heavily. "Oh, Iris, this mouse came out of no where!"

Standing on one side of the arch, Adis watched as the mouse scurried to something she had not noticed before. She gasped at the sight of bones, dusty and small, curled against a pillar. It was clutching something.
Thank goodness she cannot see, Adis thought.
Horrified at the sight, Adis buried her head into Iris' shoulder.

"Iris," she said in a haunted voice. "There's a skeleton. It's holding something. I think it might be important, but I don't want to touch it. I have to touch it, don't I? Shit."

[Rhindeer]

Iris just about jumped out of her skin when Adis screamed, and she let out an unholy shriek of her own and latched onto the other woman tightly. Her heart pounded in her chest, her breath caught in her throat, and her mind raced in a panic as for a moment she was too terrified to speak because what was going on?! Just when she thought she had the sense again to form words, Adis spoke up before she could ask what happened, and she let out her held breath in a loud whoosh.

"O-oh...jus' a mouse..." She laughed shakily and relaxed her death-grip on Adis, but she still kept a tight grip on the other woman's arm just in case. She flashed Adis a grin that was meant to be confident but looked more nervous than anything. "How terrifyin'. But oh, my dear, brave protector! Ya surely scared it off with tha' mighty roar of yers, eh?" The girl would have frightened the dead with that scream, much less a harmless mouse!

Dear gods, that was one way to get the blood flowing and the senses alert! She gave Adis another smile, and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze, and had been about to steer the topic back to the carving and what it could mean when Adis spoke first.

Her words made Iris grimace.

Oh dear...

"Ah...well," she said, biting her bottom lip. "One of us has gotta touch it, I s'ppose. Unless it's a thing we ain't s'pposed ta touch, then we might be in trouble if we do. Course, there's only one way ta know!"

And then, after a deep breath, she added, "I could touch it if ya don't wanna. I, uh, I read bones 'n' things anyway. Maybe it won't be so bad, if I jus', y'know...think of it like tha'. Right?"

[Winters-Feather]

Adis took in a hiss of a breath.
"Um," she started to say, crossing her arms. Well, what could they do? The skeleton HAD something in its hand. Adis pouted.
"Wait!" she said with a boost of courage. "Let me... try."

Adis quickly bent down by the skeleton and reached a hand out... The skeleton's dark, empty eyes stared at her, its teeth like polished stone. Her finger tips hovered over the clutched hand, the bones dusty and brittle. It smelled... well, it didn't smell much like anything, Adis had to admit that. Just dust and stone. It was weird, a body not having a proper scent. Adis gritted her teeth. She had never seen a dead body, not like this before, and she had heard stories... This was most unnatural! She took in a breath and said a pray and tried again, but her fingers refused to touch the skeleton's hand.

Adis hissed and rose to her feet, thoroughly ashamed.
"Damn it. I can't do it. I can't. I'm such a coward," Adis moaned, her face in her hands. "You do it. Please..."

[Rhindeer]

Iris waited, and waited some more. She didn't know what Adis was doing, because of course she couldn't see her, so all she could do was wait, squirming with anticipation because what if what that skeleton was holding was significant?

But then she heard Adis's hiss, right before she admitted that she couldn't do it.

Iris couldn't help but smile at that, and she reached out to pat what she hoped was Adis's arm, but turned out to be her face. "Oh! Sorry!" She lowered her hand to Adis's shoulder and gave it a pat. "Ya ain't a coward, doll. Ya tried. A coward wouldn't even try! Alright now, let's see here..."

Kneeling down, Iris held her hands out carefully and felt along the ground until her fingers brushed the smooth, familiar surface of...dusty bone. She grimaced, but pushed onward.

Just pretend it's animal bones, she thought, and not human. Nope. Not a dead person here, just...just like reading bones...

Her fingers brushed over ribs and her face scrunched up in disgust, but it helped her find the skeleton's shoulders, and she let her hands travel down each of the skeleton's arms before setting, finally, on its hands--and the thing it grasped.

Scrunching up her forehead, Iris pried at its fingers and then CRACK! They broke, and whatever it held pulled free--fingers still attached. Iris sucked in a breath and quickly thrust the thing out toward Adis for her to take.

"Takeittakeittakeit!" she said. "What's it got?"

[Winters-Feather]

Adis cringed at the crunching sound of bones.
"Ugh," she moaned in disgust.
She shook her head as Iris held the concealed thing out for her, hr hands clutched to her chest as she stared at Iris' hand with suspicion. It gleamed in the light, though it was hard to tell what it was. Adis took a quick breath and snatched the item from Iris' hand.  It was cold to the touch, yet smooth.  Adis dared to look.

"It's a key," she said, with wonder. "It's made of silver."
A silver key, with a delicate star design, and writing.
Wonder what that says, she thought, though she was more interested in the design, and, more importantly, its function.
"I think it might be the key to a room or a chest or whatever that witchy queen wants," Adis continued earnestly.

[Rhindeer]

"Silver, so it don't burn them. Makes sense," Iris remarked as she brushed her hands off onto her dress, cringing. Yeah, pretending it was animal bones hadn't helped much; her fingers felt tainted.

"Welp. Now we've got a key! Guess we oughta start lookin' fer locks, then! An' fast. Who knows how much time we've got. See anythin' near? Though I doubt it'll be tha' easy. If every myth 'bout labyrinths is anythin' ta go by..."

Iris chewed her lip, then let out a sigh. "What we seek'll be at th' heart of th' labyrinth. We'll hafta solve th' maze." And then, after another uneasy pause, she added, "An' there might be a beastie at th' center. If this fae labyrinth follows human legend."

[Winters-Feather]

Adis  wasn't one for swooning, but she could've at those words. Instead, she settled on squealing.
"Don't say that!" she cried as she clung to Iris.  "Fighting off wolves in the winter is scary enough as it is. I don't wanna think about magic beasts!"
She examined the key one last time before putting it carefully in a pocket.
"I put it away," she told Iris before taking her friend's hands in hers. "Let's go."
And so Adis lead the march through the maze, searching for key holes. She didn't find any , and said so outloud, until she found a hall with light pouring in from an open door.
"I found a path!" she told Iris, quickening her pace.

The hall was a circle coutyard of pillars, tall figures, most with grotesque faces.  Their arms reached up, their hands supporting a dazzling crystal cealing. The sunlight shone so brightly, it almost made Adis' eyes hurt. Adis described the place to her friend, her eyes scanning the walls.
"No locks," she said, confused.

[Rhindeer]

"No locks, huh...?" Iris repeated with a frown, rubbing her chin with her free hand. She scrunched up her face in thought.

"I know lotsa legends an' whatnot, but I ain't sure I know any tha' say nothin' about keys with no holes...unless..."

She tilted her head. "Didja try th' statues? Like, maybe their mouths? Jus' like some fancy doors have those lion locks, where ya stick in their roarin' mouths."

[Winters-Feather]

"Lion's heads? Where'd you learn that ?" Adis asked.
She looked around at the faces, their mouths twisted in despair, fear, anger, or joy. It was frightful. She didn't much care for how lifelike they seemed, despite being charactatures. She could feel their stone eyes piercing through her, though that was a dream - they were stone, nothing else.

"Who... can I reach?" she wondered outloud.
It seemed ridiculously impractical for the door to be unlocked by some of the tallest figures, even impractical and silly for fairy standards.
She looked around doors approximently their height. Seven were lined up in a row, each representing a different stage in a woman's life. Except, they werent' human. Their stone bodies, as the figures aged,became more strange and fae like. Roots and flowers started to bud from the abdolesense, where as the old woman was covered in withering bushes.  In none of their mouths Adis found a keyhole, and she had excepted every tooth. Two of the figures didn't even have their mouths open.

About to turn away to continue her search, she noticed that one of the flowers growing on the pregnet woman's figure was different. She was covered inn apple blossoms, but for a single lily in her hands, the flower facing outward. Curious, Adis stuck her finger inside. She laughed, relieved when she felt a crack where a key hole ought to be.
"I found it!" she shouted, eagerly sticking the key in and giving it a twist.

[Rhindeer]

Iris waited while Adis inspected the statues, feeling--once again--a little woefully useless. If only her lies were real, and she really did have The Sight! Perhaps this was her punishment for telling such fibs, though it seemed a rather disproportionate punishment, and had been inflicted on the wrong person? The stolen girl certainly didn't deserve this.

But then, abruptly, Adis laughed and announced her victory, and Iris crowded closer to her. "Open it slowly," she said. "Jus' in case there's somethin' bad behind it..."

[Winters-Feather]

"Oh,"Adis thought, her celebration cut short. The womb of the mother swung open, though Adis could not see clearly what was on the other side.
What a strange door, she thought. She had heard men who slept with fay go mad. this had to be the case. She heard a faint hum that she could feel within her body. Though it made her nervous, it gave her hope, too.
"It's dark, though I think this is the right way," she whispered as she held Iris' hand. With her free hand she gently held a hand behind Iris' head to guide her.
" Keep your head low," she instructed Iris as she led her trhough the threshold of the womb.