Fae Knight: Willow Style

This couldn’t be happening. This was impossible. Like the sun rising from the west or a tree growing backwards into a seed. Monsters born from that corrupting miasma ran rampant, shrieking and roaring and tearing. The branches of Mimameith quivered and shook but that gentle touch of Her presence, the whispers in her mind like leaves in the breeze, was gone. Still. Not like a breath taken before the storm but a terrible stillness. A wrongness as foul as the monsters before her.

Her comrades were already fighting. Squires in training gallantly falling to the sheer numbers, power, and miasmatic sickness. Her fellow Knights, all devout and empowered protectors of Mimameith, were being driven back. They were falling. Under Her Canopy, at Her Roots, they were falling!

“Please, Mimameith! Please answer!”

Silence. The shrieks of the monsters echoed from far below. Mimameith didn’t speak. But the warmth of Her Blessings, the strength of Her Favor still hummed beneath her skin. She drew her swords, the matched blades curved slightly like an arc of wind captured in a painting. Her shoulders twitched and the Blessing of Flight granted to her by Mimameith manifested as gleaming Sylph wings. The wind stirred at her back, a silent approval and nudge toward the battle. She took a breath and announced herself. To draw attention, to bolster the spirits of her comrades.

“I am Aoife Sailech, The Knight of Willow! And I will banish you from this holy place!”

Several monsters below sprouted grotesque wings and leapt into the air to meet her as she dove down. She held her swords out to her side and…let them go. They spun through the air, impossibly accelerating down to meet the enemy as if guided by Mimameith’s Wrath directly. They carved and cut through the miasmatic monsters, scattering them to dissolving wisps in the blink of an eye. More rose into the sky and her swords returned on divine wings to her hands only for her to descend into the mass of monsters in a whirlwind of fury.

Her holy blades sang as they bit deep, as they sliced clean through. As they scattered the vile blood and miasma of these creatures to the ground. In her hands or not, her blades reaped a terrible harvest. Every moment she swung them, she ended a monster. Every time they were spinning through a fiend, she was searing away another with Mimameith’s Divine Light. For a fleeting, desperate moment, it was almost enough. 

She had slain dozens in minutes but there were dozens more to replace them, each stronger than the last. Or maybe she was growing weaker.

Suddenly, she was unwillingly airborne, tumbling through the air until she stabilized herself. Blood dripped down her fingers and she was grateful Mimameith could hold her sword for her because she couldn’t do it with that arm now. Not with the rent in her armor and the gash that had crippled her shoulder. The sun was setting or…or the miasma was getting thicker? It was unsettlingly quiet beneath the boughs of Mimameith, the sounds of her fellows having fallen silent at some point. That…that didn’t matter. She was still standing. Mimameith was at her back and no matter the silence of Her presence, Aoife knew She was with her.

A dozen…two dozen…or was it three? It didn’t matter. The enemy was in front of her and they wouldn’t get past her. Her eyes flared with that determination and with power.

“Mimameith’s Blessing…Verdant Shatterbelt!”

The gentle warmth of Mimameith became a torrent rushing through her eyes. First five, then ten, then fifteen and more and more copies of her swords blinked into existence around her. A forest of spinning holy steel. Her eyes burned and her vision blurred but she didn’t need to see clearly. Her Guidance was all she needed and Her Hands were on the hilts of her swords. These monsters were but leaves before the gale of Mimameith’s Might.

It all ended with her on her knees, her blades fallen beside her and the divine illusions dissipating into motes around her. She coughed, splattering the root beneath her with black blood. That miasma, the thick corruption in the air, pressed down on her.

That’s strange…isn’t blood supposed to be red?

Aoife laughed weakly. What a strange thing. It couldn’t be blood. Blood meant she was hurt. Wounded. But she didn’t feel hurt. She felt fine. She felt…hungry…