When one is flying through the Fae Lands, one doesn't usually pay attention to the notion of fun.
Yet, here we are.
To say there was just a smidgen of fun happening would be a lie.
The cannons on my ship roared to life, releasing several bombardments. The flares of fire and the crackling of lightning that erupted from their barrels carried with it a rather surprisingly entertaining melody.
Or maybe we just liked hearing fairies of this place getting blasted.
It was probably the latter, if I were to be honest.
It was also easy to forget that not all Faeries were, you know, humanoids. Not all of them were intelligent, nor were they all what you would call sapient.
Every living thing in this place was a Faerie by definition…sort of. Obviously, humans who wandered in and then had children weren't Faeries, and the same goes for other species. But the natives here, those who were born of the realm, they were all faeries.
The ship vibrated, and more cannons from the front fired, searing holes through what stood in our way.
It hadn't even been long since we took this route originally, yet it was almost unrecognizable the second time.
Yasaka at my side, along with Artoria and Jinn.
A few Pendragon family members, some youkai, and some others came along.
In front of us, there were these wild upside-down trees that hung down from the sky.
Their roots seemed to curl and burrow through the stars that dotted the sky of this place.
It would have been beautiful if the trees also didn't have teeth and mouths that were using branches and vines to try and grab us like prey.
Maybe, if it was before, we would have been more careful.
But there was a difference between marching an army and clearing the way and what we were currently doing.
We simply had a destination; how we got there was irrelevant. And we didn't have to care about those behind us or the logistics of moving an entire army across this strange place.
And there were a lot of its…limbs trying to get us.
Jinn and I were doing our best to stop them from actually damaging the ship.
There were perhaps hundreds of spell circles floating around the ship, cast by either of us, releasing spells or shields to keep them off as we continued onwards.
Could we stop and fight?
Sure, but did we want to?
It was more annoying than anything.
But, also, it was fun to fire the ship's cannons on an acceptable target.
And it seemed like Artoria was enjoying 'driving.'
A lot of our passengers looked on with wonder as Jinn also called out hundreds of individual magic staffs that all began to coordinate a defense and offense at her behest.
They were all enchanted with the magics of Skyrim, something she had been collecting for a while.
Some of them cast wards to deflect a physical attack of a vine that was thicker than the ship itself.
Another one cast a stream of fire, burning several branches and forcing them back.
On the opposite side, a bolt of lightning was released, shearing through one vine that was winding up.
Below, a few of the staves coordinated to release a poisonous mist that decayed branches that tried to come from below.
She was always good at this. Even better than I was, if I were to be honest. The multitasking ability she possessed was just breathtaking.
And it probably got even better or easier since becoming a goddess of magic.
Despite the flurry of spells being discharged every second, the deck remained peaceful. The shields around the ship held firm, almost like all the chaos existed in another world.
Even so, we continued to pick up speed.
Artoria's riding skill apparently transferred to my magical ship; she was, frankly, driving it better than I do.
One might say that you steer a ship, not drive it, but that was most certainly not the case here.
The ship was apparently drifting—in a manner that involves flying—from side to side to avoid some of that thing's attacks.
I was honestly almost tempted to get a sample of this creature to see how it works.
The foliage in general in this realm was…interesting, from a certain point of view.
Imagine if you could make something like this docile and plant it somewhere to act as a defense that gets triggered during an attack or invasion.
It would be a neat addition to the ship.
If the wood just grew out into vines and started attacking things.
Honestly, I just kind of want to upgrade my ship in general.
More guns.
Oh! Didn't Jeanne mention that Asgard in that world over there had spaceships that looked like regular ships?
I need to make my ship space ready!
That should keep me entertained for a bit, when I find time for it at least.
I need to tell Jeanne to steal their secrets!
Actually, I haven't seen Jeanne in several days now, and I miss her. But I also don't want to bother her too; she's clearly having fun and doing her own thing, which is important.
"Penny for your thoughts." Jinn brushed up against me, smiling happily despite also mentally commanding the majority of the spells around us.
"I want to make my boat a spaceship." I told her, gazing towards the horizon.
"I was the Spirit of Knowledge, and now I'm the Goddess of Knowledge, but I don't think I'll ever be able to know what goes inside the heads of men." Jinn gave me a deadpan. "Except for one thing, of course."
Little did she know, I was now thinking about nibbling her ears.
Cute pointy ears.
"Truly, my mind is a labyrinth of unknowable secrets." I pulled her into my arms. "Like, would our children have red hair or blue hair?"
"Kya~ Don't say something like that while I'm focusing on something else." She covered her face. "Now that's going to distract me!"
She gave me a cute pout, but it was ruined by the equally cute blush creeping on her cheeks.
It was rare to get a genuine blush from her.
It usually only happened when she wasn't expecting it.
Unfortunately, the playing had to stop for now. "Tell our guests to hold on tight."
Pendragons, Youkai, but there was another group onboard.
A group of people from the Church.
A small group, mind you. But all the same.
That is, it was a decision by the group gathered to send their small little 'delegation' to help smooth things over. Yasaka didn't really care if it meant that the arguing would stop and she could finally settle things.
I think the logic was, Youkai and I have no good relationship with the Church; therefore, the Church could act like a neutral party?
And it helped that a significant portion of the humans trapped here were different flavors of the Christian variety.
The goal was to convince them to come 'home,' so it would help.
Yasaka heard me, and she quickly shouted at everyone else. People grabbed onto something sturdy or braced themselves.
And while I wasn't actively 'steering,' I still had control over the ship if I wanted.
I was the captain!
When Sir Wiggles wasn't present, of course.
The eldritch Faerie trees in the sky twisted unnaturally, and massive mouths made of wood and nightmares seemed to emerge from the main bodies.
Frankly, it reminded me of the vampire tree back on the tree.
I was definitely going to have nightmares about this kind of thing in the future.
"Punch it." I ordered the ship to accelerate.
The speed of the ship increased probably four or five times, enough that even I nearly fell over at the sudden burst of speed as it shot through the emergence of whatever fresh hell those things wanted to deliver.
The mass of vines and branches couldn't keep up as they tried to grab hold, but we just flew right through their grasp before they could close around us.
Realistically, we could have just killed those things, but that would have taken awhile.
I give it a 95% chance they have stupid amounts of regeneration like every other tree-based enemy or entity I've ever run into.
At this point, I'm pretty genre savvy when it comes to tree monsters.
The ship began to slow down once we got far enough away that those weird tree faeries were just a distant speck, cruising back at a moderate speed that was still fast but not enough to make the people on board have to hold on for dear life.
"Wilhelm." Yasaka's voice reached me.
I gave Jinn's hand a squeeze as I shifted focus. "Yes, dear?"
It was easy to tell when Yasaka was happy; her ears ever so slightly twitched, even when she was doing her best to remain professional in front of others.
She liked being called that.
"Father Eligio here wants to know how much longer." She gestured to the priest, the head of their little group.
There were only a handful of them, but they didn't appear all that enthused to be here. Perhaps because they were with a group of 'heathens.'
But from what Yasaka told me, they were part of the moderate faction. The faction that wouldn't ruin a mission just because of their beliefs or ideals.
So…yeah, that's a thing.
I was keeping my distance.
They hate Youkai and other heathens, but a devil was a whole different game. Apparently, it didn't matter if I could turn into an angel to some people. I was fairly sure that if Big G himself resurrected on the spot and told them to stop being idiots, they would twist themselves into a pretzel to argue.
I also still felt kind of bad for what happened in the Vatican, so I was playing nice by not intentionally riling them up.
I feel like, as a devil, I have a responsibility to annoy church people.
But alas, my devil ancestors weep, for I must play nice.
"We're approaching the ocean now." I pointed ahead, seeing the beam of light from the 'Lighthouse' showing on the horizon.
"Ocean, what ocean?"
"There is no water in sight?"
"A metaphor?"
The church people whispered between themselves.
Well, I couldn't blame them; it really is really freaky here.
But…I could explain….
Or not.
Full steam ahead.
The boat wasted no time plunging right into the beam of light as it whisked us away. Now that I've experienced it, this thing sort of worked similarly to the Bifrost back where Jeanne is.
Obviously, the Bifrost worked on a much larger and grander scale, but the underlining concepts were at least similar.
The aurora of colors passed us by, as did stars and the universe within this realm. As someone who has traveled through time and space so many times, my eyesight was able to pick it up better than others.
If nothing else, it was a strangely beautiful sight.
Though, perhaps it was better that the others couldn't make out the details, because I could also see things that really shouldn't be spoken about in polite company.
With a jerk the ship slammed into the waves of the newly appeared ocean that existed in the sky.
I hated being back in this realm, but it was hard to pass up on an opportunity to sail again.
Though…we weren't going to be playing in the water. We didn't have to play according to the rules here since there was no marching army to follow behind.
That being said.
We weren't alone.
"Hail!" A voice called out a ship with a bright sun for a flag not far to our right. Not, like, a flag with a sun, but it seemed a miniature sun replaced the flag in this case.
It didn't seem to give off any exorbitant amounts of heat, so it appeared to just be meant for display?
I looked at who was talking, a small man, some kind of faerie, like a dwarf but stubbier and less muscular.
"Hearken! Hearken and behold, and also do not blink, lest the moment pass you by unrecorded!"
The little faerie puffed out his chest, standing atop a crate that was absolutely not meant to be a podium.
"You stand now in the reflected wake, the borrowed glow, the twice-blessed shadow of one who stands approved—nay, acknowledged—nay, tolerated upon formal review—by Her Most Resplendent, Most Capricious, Most Patient-Until-She-Isn't Majesty!"
We were all kind of silently staring.
I looked to Yasaka, and she gave me a look.
Like, 'Are you going to do something?'
I shot her a look back with a few gestures: 'What do you want me to do?'
"Behold! The Forty-Third Bearer of the Title That Cannot Be Repeated Twice in the Same Season Without Proper Documentation! The One Who Rides Beneath the Sun But Is Not the Sun, For the Sun Is Borrowed, Leased, and Returned Upon Death or Disgrace!"
She tilted her head sort of aggressively at me. 'Anything!'
"Warden of the Fourth Watch Between Dusk and Whatever Comes After!
Guardian of Routes That Should Not Exist!
"—Knight of That Which Has Been Declared Important Without Explanation!"
'Anything?'
He leaned forward, voice dropping to a reverent hush.
"Kneel, bow, incline your head, or acknowledge internally, according to rank, comfort, or personal survival strategy."
'I literally do not care at this point.' She sort of mouthed with a shrug.
"The Orange Knight!"
The Faerie finally finished, and a man…presumedly, or maybe I'm making an assumption. But a Faerie probably a couple inches taller than his…hype man? His hype man walked to the edge of the ship as if to proclaim his arrival upon announcement.
As his name implied, he was wearing all orange armor.
Like, painfully orange.
I glanced at Artoria, and even she had a look of barely hidden disgust on her face.
There was a pause, like they were waiting for a response from us. And no one on our side was really answering.
I took out my dragon bone staff. "Nice to meet you, and this is my dragon." Ddraig and I spoke in the Dragon Language together as I chanted the following spell, and the spell circles emerged as he pushed himself out.
He head-butted their boat on arrival, or more like, there was no real room for his summons, and he sort of just collided with it.
A dragon cannonball, as it were.
They started screaming as Ddraig used his claws to brace himself on the ship.
"Hi, I'm the shitty dragon Níðhöggr." He cautiously stopped their boat rocking with his sharp claws.
"A dragon!?" The Orange Knight's voice was…a far higher pitch than I anticipated. "A splendid addition to my conquests. Have at thee!" He jumped at Ddraig.
Ddraig raised his hand off the ship and flicked him.
The Orange Knight went flying overboard.
"Alright, have fun with that." I waved goodbye to them. "We'll be going."
Ddraig gave a silent wave as he looked like he wanted to play around.
I quickly made sure to sail away because I feared losing brain cells more than any actual harm coming to anyone I cared about.
Yasaka was face-palming while the church people looked absolutely confused at what just happened.
"Jinn, can you call out our friend?" I asked.
Jinn shot me a thumbs up as she ran below deck.
We were carrying a certain VIP as well.
It was only moments later that she returned with Unnulf, the Viking warrior who had left this realm with us in the first place.
A sort of 'trustworthy' source for when we came back.
I couldn't fault the man for wanting to stay below deck for most of the trip. Having escaped, returned to the human world where he belongs, and then come back to the wrongness was certainly debilitating on the psyche.
"Unnulf." I greeted him.
Jinn was acting like a mother hen, much to his reluctant acceptance.
I'm sure it was odd for him, having one of his 'gods' hovering over him like a protective mother.
He nodded to me. "I see we have returned to this accursed place."
"Only for a brief moment." I reassured him. I could tell he was nervous, anxious, and maybe feeling many more emotions.
"Don't worry, you'll never have to stay here again, I promise." Jinn's reassurance seemed to be more calming to him.
Her warm presence, her divinity, seemed to alleviate his concerns.
The Goddess of the Homestead.
"Do you know where we are?" I asked him, knowing he had lived in these waters for hundreds of years. He probably knew this place like the back of his hand.
Unnulf clicked his tongue. "We're in the sea of monsters."
"The sea of monsters?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Tis the name we gave it, for many sea monsters live in these waters. We are far east from this area." He said lightly. "But I fear caution is needed, friend. Many mysterious and deadly monsters roam these waters."
It was like his words called them.
The waters all around us vibrated, and things began to emerge.
I admit, I expected like…krakens, or something like that. But many of the things that popped out, well, they had many appendages, but I wouldn't call them tentacles.
Like weird mutated forms of sea creatures I was familiar with
A salmon mixed with a shark.
A massive shrimp with a serpent's tail.
Some kind of seahorse with claws that wouldn't be out of place on a gecko.
"Ah." I acknowledged what he meant by that.
They were looking at us like a meal, weren't they?
Some of them weren't weak either.
High Class, the lot of them mostly, maybe a few Ultimate Class monsters in there, just by sheer physical might. I doubt they had any kind of esoteric abilities beyond anything water-related.
My lips pulled back into a scowl as I crossed my arms.
I think one of my biggest peeves is something looking at me like an easy meal.
I let out a breath, and with it my Reiatsu exploded outwards.
It was like the weight of the world descended on the ocean around us. All the sea creatures buckled, their bodies went stiff, and then their eyes rolled back, and blood seeped from their orifices as they collapsed into the water, unmoving.
I was getting better at controlling it too.
The boat barely rocked from the force of my Reiatsu spreading out.
Jinn leaned in and kissed my cheek.
No need to spend any more effort on these things.
Eh, fuck it in general.
The boat raised up a few feet out of the water and shot forward at flying speeds rather than sailing speeds.
We passed islands in a blink of an eye. Any monsters that popped their heads out of the water, looking like they wanted to take a bite? They were met with an unassailable pressure all the way down to their souls.
It made it rather clean.
Unnulf perked up when it finally came into view.
The Red Tree marked the only human territory we know about in this wretched place.
It looked unmolested; that's good.
I didn't want to have to go kill anyone responsible for attacking them while we were away.
We politely landed not far away and slowly drifted towards their docks.
Immediately, from a distance, we could see their people running around in excitement. Crowds began to form, bigger and bigger, and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone on the island had run over to come welcome us.
Unnulf ran to the front and waved at everyone; I could hear the cheers from me.
"Unnulf!"
"Unnulf!"
"Unnulf!"
They chanted loud enough to be heard before we even reached the docks.
I remembered a few of the faces, some of their leaders.
Unnulf ran out, embracing his brothers with smiling faces. Even turning to do the same to those from other regions and religions.
I recognized the cardinal.
His clothes showed very clear signs of having been fixed and touched up over the long years. It could be said that almost all of his clothing had been resown and sewn up from whatever deterioration happened.
It was almost comical, if you ignored the circumstances.
Yet, the people we brought with us didn't laugh.
The cardinal, perhaps a touch on the older side of everyone here, collapsed to his knees as Father Eligio caught him, and they fell to their knees together, foreheads pressed in an act of compassion as the elderly man began to cry.
Artoria and her fellow Pendragon family disembarked and greeted the displaced people, introducing themselves, with some recognizing the name.
Yasaka approached an elder wearing Greek attire with a man clad in samurai armor at his side with a warm smile as they both performed a polite bow to her despite the differences of race and creed.
Jinn ran off the boat, and Unnulf barely had time to introduce her with various gasps from the crowd before she began to hug every single Nordic there, much to their chagrin.
Having a big, burly, bearded Nordic man with arms almost as big as her waist get forced into a hug and flush in embarrassment isn't something I thought I would see.
I anticipated another round of interrogation, demands of truths, and what not again. Meeting with each of their leaders, convincing them that it wasn't a lie.
But…yeah, that wasn't going to be necessary anymore.
I think as soon as they saw Unnulf returned, they knew it wasn't just false hope anymore.
I didn't want to ruin the mood; I disappeared in a burst of Shunpo.
[Line Break]
It was easy to sneak away when everyone on the island was preoccupied with the arrival.
I walked past the trees that grew the life fruits until I found her again.
I wasted no time taking out the Branch she gave me. I had yet to find a use for it, but like all treasures, I would not ever give it up or lose it.
With its help, I gently placed a hand on the trunk of the Mother Faerie Tree, and there was no resistance as she seemed to accept me inside.
Innuendos aside.
The same figure greeted me again from a while ago, in the mental or spiritual realm; perhaps one could call it the Faerie Tree's inner world.
"Hello again." She smiled. "You kept your promise."
"That's right, I'm here to bring all your children home." I didn't beat around the bush.
Happiness mixed with melancholy.
"Do you still not regret it?" I asked her.
Though, I probably already knew the answer.
She giggled looking rather calm. "Did you know that we Faeries have inherited memories?"
"Oh?"
"I don't know where they come from. Maybe it's from my own 'mother,' the previous tree that withered away, and I grew upon its remains. Maybe it's just something all of us are 'born' with. I knew what I was when I opened my 'eyes' for the first time. I knew how to survive, and I knew where I was—albeit in this remote region. But…I knew everything I needed to know to survive in this world. I knew what my purpose was."
"Inherited memories aren't anything strange. Many different races have the same concept, even in the human world."
She shook her head lightly. "It's because of the inherited memories that I know that there's something wrong with me. I know how my brethren act, how they exist, and how they think and behave. I know I deviated from that."
I was silent, not knowing what to say.
My opinion on Faeries was not a positive one, and I didn't want to be rude.
"My brethren love a lot. Things that catch their interest, things that are pretty, and things they enjoy. They call that [love]. But, that's not really true, I've come to find out. It's a human word, something we picked up some time in the past. And my brethren seem to think it means the same as simply appreciating something to a higher degree. A word to say how much more you like something than an ordinary like. Even when they marry, they still use the word wrong. Desire—that's what they think it means. How much you desire something. But it's hollow and empty."
She was rambling, but I didn't interrupt her; she was putting her thoughts into words that she was probably unfamiliar with speaking.
She looked at me. "I was corrupted by the word [love]."
She stepped up to me and gave me a hug, an affectionate one, not one born of any romantic or sexual intentions.
"This is affection, isn't it? The missing piece, what my kind never understood. That's what [Love] Means."
"Yeah, that's what love means." I said gently.
"I love my children, and I'm glad they can finally go home where they belong." As soon as she said that, the mental world around us began to collapse.
Not just that, her actual form, the tree, began to whittle away.
She had been holding on for a long time; she was probably running on fumes for a while at this point, and she could finally let it go.
But as soon as the metal world collapsed, I realized that we weren't alone.
Hundreds of different people all spread around us.
She looked up even as her body deteriorated.
The faces of all her children watching her.
Many of them cried as they understood what was happening. Maybe Yasaka told them, or maybe they already knew the truth from long ago.
But despite that, she just waved at them and smiled with nothing but warmth.
A mother was saying goodbye to her children one last time.
Hmph.
One last time, my ass.
I grabbed the wisp of her consciousness, what could be her 'soul,' before it could disappear, letting out a sigh. I wish she had given me a chance to tell her that she didn't have to disappear.
Granted, I didn't know how much she had been holding on, so she probably felt like she could finally rest.
I gently guided it into the branch wooden sword of mine. Made from the branch she gave me. For now, it was the perfect home for her soul so it wouldn't deteriorate.
And wordlessly, maybe it responded to my own thoughts and feelings; the nascent world tree inside of me responded, enveloping her protectively in a shell, binding her to her last healthy branch despite the new form it took.
I felt her wisp of soul go to sleep, but it was far from death.
It made me sigh in annoyance again.
But I hate sad endings.
[Line Break]
A/N
Faerie Tree momma Not disappearing on Wilhelm's watch, you're getting planted again whether you like it or not :V.
If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / astoryforone
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