>>6044078You guide her sword to her thin arm and, with great care, cut open the skin and squeeze the wound. Bajaaban holds the Unseelie Star beneath her, while Oncyth holds the shuddering Queen upright and keeps the injured arm over the opening. You take a step back, joining Izirina, who is practically vibrating.
“This is it,” she mutters to herself—no, to you, as she garbs at your arm. “This is IT! Tips, Ezreal, we’re… We’re going to power an entire <Demiplane>! We’re going to re-enchant and re-attune an entire RACE! Do you understand what… What this all means, for the future of, of EVERYTHING??”
“Uh,” you say, caught off-guard by her sheer enthusiasm.
“Absolute, total self-sufficiency!” she says. “Freedom from… From control, domination, judgement, from ALL of it! The Gods.. The Dark Gods, or the ones on the moon… They will never have to hold power over us again, if this works, and if we can replicate it!”
You look at her beaming face, almost crazed with longing for this outcome she has foreseen: for freedom from her past, and the unseen machinations of great and ancient powers and their earthly and unearthly factions.
“One thing at a time,” you tell her, placing a hand softly upon hers, and stroking a stray, wind-swept lock of her hair back under her pointed, black cap.
“R-right,” she agrees. “Let’s dance.”
And so you do: the two of you dance, and one by one you take the hands of one Unseelie, and then another, and gather ‘round their bleeding queen. You perform the <Rite of Attunement>, just as you first did years ago, singing the ancient verse of your people:
“Belbau nossta ulu uns'aa ghil!
Ori'gato uns'aa el lu'tlu rosin 'sohna, 'sovah, xondyerna lu'k'olah.
Ori'gato uns'aa dro ghil lu'nin; ori'gato nindol k'lar lu'draeval dro wun uns'aa, mziln.
Ori'gato uns'aa ssinssrigg, lu'tlu 'che, erl'eleeus 'zil l'dalhar wun nind ilhar, lu'tlu rosin natha seke ligah
d'nindol sel thac'zil, dalninuk ulu nindel vel'bolen dron lu'dalninil ulu nindel vel'bolen elar!”
As the song reaches it crescendo, you and Izirina raise your hands—yours clutching your staff, her well-hewn wand—and shout above the rasping, pleading voices of the Unseelie:
“<DAYLIGHT!>”
