The 2 Story Tavern

Oh, that's why I'm here. There's a meeting in a few days, and I decided I wanted to be early.

"A meetin'? Guess I wasn't invited to this one." He shrugs and pulls from his cigar again, "No matter. Never liked that sorta thing much anyway. Besides, I have a sneakin' suspicion yer meetin' isn't connected to the coming nightmare I am warnin' ya about." 

Well the higher-ups don't tell me everything. That's to be expected, seeming that I'm the newest.

"I don't think the higher-ups know or care about this threat. Ain't really their thing. They are too busy bein' all aloof and fair to concern themselves with mortal affairs." He puffs on his cigar, "I find mortals much more interestin' than most of those fey courts. Besides, mortals lives are too short for me to let them be gobbled up without warnin'." 

Then It'll surprise you that some of the said "higher-ups" were mortals at some point. And If you're fond of mortal endeavors, then do I have a tale for you.

Quote from DoodleCrisp >>

Then It'll surprise you that some of the said "higher-ups" were mortals at some point. And If you're fond of mortal endeavors, then do I have a tale for you.

 "Oh I know that some of the bein's in power got their seats through ascension." Another cloud of smoke blows in your face, "Go ahead. Tell me a tale, let's see if I've heard of it before."

*I have to go but I will probably be back soon.*

*alrighty*

Our story begins in a mortal city. In that city, there was a princess. She was the youngest of three daughters, so the pressure was off of her shoulders to marry rich. She should have had a perfect life. But in stories like this, nothing ever adheres to "Should". Even from a young age, she had unparalleled magical power, and when she was a teenager, people were constantly asking her for magical acts. By the time she was 19, the townsfolk worshipped her like a goddess. Despite all of this undue praise, all the princess really wanted was for someone to care about her as a person, not as a means to an end.

One day, she consulted the second-most powerful magician in the town, a fortune-teller named Verett. Desperate, she asked him if she would ever find love. After consulting the future, he told her (in poetry as was accustomed for fortunes)

Oh lonely princess of mystic power                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            With a gift that others sour                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          True love, though it shall appear                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Is Aimed for one even Gods fear...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             find such being dark renowned                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 On spire far from solid ground                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     There the winds will carry thee                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    To subject of your destiny

The princess, though distraught at the fact she was fated to marry someone feared by gods, decided to follow the instructions. Soon she found herself on the highest rock spire in the land where she heard a voice calling her in the winds. Steeling her nerves, she jumped off the tower, and was caught by a swirling wind spirit, who carried her to a large house in the feywilds.

The giant in the tree sits and smokes as he listens to your story. “And then what? She find her lover?”

Almost. You see, the inhabitant of this palace was invisible. He greeted the princess at the door, startling her as he appeared to be a voice from nowhere. He introduced himself as her new husband in a kind, still noncorporeal voice. He told her the palace would be theirs, and he would respect her accordingly. The only caveat was that she couldn't see him or know his true name. Things went great around the palace, until a passing fey, extremely jealous of this human girl, enters the palace. She managed to convince the princess that her husband was a monster and to see his true form. That night, the princess snuck into his room with a candle, and when she held it up to her sleeping husband, she finds that it was the fey deity of love itself. It made sense to the princess that her husband was Love, being something everyone, even gods feared. However, some of the candle wax dripped onto his shoulder, awakening him.

He puffs on his cigar as he listens.

Estor, the love deity, hurt more emotionally than physically, proceeded to explain that now that the princess could see him, there were much bigger problems. His mother, Ashra, the deity of love, magic, and beauty, sent him to kill her because she was furious at people worshipping the princess instead of her. Betrayed, Estor flew away on his dove wings and made the palace disappear, sending the princess plummeting as they were on the second floor. When the princess fell, there were no mystic winds to catch her now, and she landed on her arm. The princess, even though her arm was now definitely very broken, was filled with resolve to find Estor and apologize. And so she went off journeying. One night, she stopped at a statue of Alle, the fey deity of families. She was sad to see the status in disarray, so she brushed off the moss and dirt and left an offering with apples from a nearby tree. Unbeknownst to her, this earned her Alle's favor. The princess did the same thing to a statue of the fey deity of crops, Kipo, gaining the favor of Kipo as well. 

“Sounds like she has some friends in high places,” the smoking tree giant observes.

The princess didn't know that at this point. She just kept journeying. Eventually, she realized that the only way to make up with Ashra is to confront her, so she arrives at Ashra's palace. For a love deity, Ashra loved vengeance and at this point was overjoyed that the girl she was trying to kill showed up at her doorstep. She welcomed the princess in and told her two handmaidens to help our hero get ready. Unfortunately, Ashra's twisted definition of "get ready" was to strip the princess of her magic in the most painful way possible, with a little extra bodily torture on the side. And she calls herself a Love goddess!  But no, Ashra wasn't done with the princess yet...

“This love goddess seems like a mean piece of work.” He continues to listen.

Her biggest flaw is envy. The princess was her competition, so she tried to eliminate her. She set the princess to impossible tasks, the first of which being to sort a large pile of jewels in an hour, and if she fails she gets killed. Just as the princess is about to run out of time, Alle shows up and sorts all of the jewels with magic. Ashra is infuriated by this and sets the princess on a harder task: To get the golden scales of the dragons nearby. However, these dragons are extremely violent and would eat her if she ever got close. Luckily, Kipo appears and tells the princess to just pick the scales out of the bushes the dragons scratch their backs on. When Ashra sees the princess, arms full of scales, she drops her thin veneer of kindness and tells the princess to go into the shadow realm and retrieve a box of pure magic from the fey who lives there, Pirsa. By now, the princess thinks she's good as doomed.

He continues to puff on his cigar silently as he listens.

That's when Estor sends her a box to hold the magic in, along with a note telling her he still loves her, Ashra just prevented him from coming to her aid, as well as a magic seal that takes her into the shadow plane, directly to Pirsa's garden. For a shadow fey, Pirsa's really nice and invites the princess for tea as she fills up the box. Pirsa casts a spell into the box, filling it with black mist. Most importantly, she tells the princess not to open the box, and that the contents are ONLY for Ashra, then sets her on her way. Back on the subject of flaws, the princess's flaw was self-doubt. That's why she took the passing fey's advice. That's why she obeyed Ashra. That's why she opened the box. 

The tree giant shakes his hairy head, “They always open the box.”

So turns out Pirsa hated Ashra and filled the box with not magic, but pure shadow sleep. If an immortal is exposed to this, they're knocked out for a while. If a mortal is, they fall asleep and slowly die. Somehow, Estor knew when the princess was enveloped by the sleep, and rushed to her side. He took her all the way to the hall of deities, where the king was delivering a speech. Estor interrupted the king's monologue and begged him to save the life of his love. At first, Ashra opposed him, scaring the king onto her side. Slowly, more deities stood with Estor. Alle, then Kipo, then Pirsa, then the entire hall except for Ashra. The king had no choice, but he told Estor that no amount of godly magic could save a mortal from the sleep. Alle suggested they make her a deity as well, so she would only deal with the immortal effects. With all the power of the entire hall of deities, they enveloped her in mystic light, transforming her into a fey goddess. When she came to in Estor's arms, her heart beat with the strength of an immortal, and she instantly knew what had happened. She looked almost exactly the same, excluding her large, shimmering butterfly wings and fey ears. The two were properly wed and they lived happily ever after.