A series of one-shot crossover competitions between Felurian from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, Rachael Aaron's Shepherdess from The Legend of Eli Monpress, and Garth Nix's Old Kingdom characters Sabriel and Mogget. I wrote this during last year's Suvudu fantasy cage match March Madness thingy (google it). Yes, I am commenter Rose on the Suvudu website.
None of these characters are mine, clearly.
1:
Felurian stepped towards the silver white glow, like a piece of the moon fallen down to earth again. She rounded a corner in the trail, and stopped before a beautiful vision. It was a woman, tall and lovely and naked, as she was, but radiant white, from her skin, to her lips, to her hair, to her eyes. This was a treat-a partner that she would keep for months.
The spirits were right, the white woman said, mind to mind. You are beautiful, Felurian.
Felurian's smile blossomed at the compliment, but she did not speak. It was not the way of things with this Woman…Shepherdess.
The Shepherdess smiled. I see you know me, Daughter, Queen, Love. She stepped forward and took Felurian's hands, soft white melting smoothly and sweetly into soft tan. Will you be mine, Darling? You would be my star, my Favorite, cherished forever. Just loving, forever. You would like that.
Felurian smiled more broadly. Perfection. Simply perfection, this Union. A sweet treat to last eternal. This one would never fade. Her delicate fingers closed around those of the Shepherdess, and she released the flood of her magic aura, longing and lust flowing into their twined hands. The Shepherdess slowly tightened her grip, then drew the Fae creature in sharply, strongly, mouth pressing down on hers with a ruthless firmness. Felurian's arms wrapped around her Shepherdess as the White Lady's mark burned deep into her soul, branding her, owning her forever.
The pair disappeared into the Between. The Lady no more heeded the Lord of Storms and his endless mission, her former favorites, her spirits, the Dark. The world turned on without her, plunging to sleep beneath a cracking dome, still riddled with black seeds from within. In another world, where the Shapers were not forgotten, the Creator not forever lost, a Twilight glade slumbered without a queen. A giant, solitary tree snickered to itself in the silence. Men and women walked a moonless night together, and were not sundered.
2:
Mogget was rather irritated by this latest task set upon him by the latest lazy Abhorsen. "Find the magic lust fairy and subdue her. Then bring her back in a bottle so I can stick her in the fall." It was so demeaning. The small white cat padded disdainfully through the charming romantic grove. He hopped up onto the soft bed, digging his claws into it with relish. Felurian was there, just waking up. She turned her lovely butterfly-lidded eyes to the small smug feline, and frowned.
"A cat? No. There is more to you than that!" She reached out a hand to stroke his ears. Mogget purred, and his form flickered into that of a small man, albino, with green eyes, red belt, and sharp teeth. Felurian cooed.
Mogget looked her in the eye. "I'm only interested in your renowned thousand hands if they come with a thousand fishes." He turned back into a cat. "Pet me some more. I'm itchy under my collar."
Felurian smiled, pulled him onto her lap, and unbuckled the collar. A smell of ozone. The cat purred, then blurred, then grew to a blinding white with claws like knives. Felurian shrieked and shoved him from her. She called her shaed down to clothe the writhing white before her, but it was too late. The light laughed terribly, cruelly, crackling like a wild fire, and leaped for her. Felurian was engulfed in white flame. The Thing that was Mogget flew back to the Abhorsen as he had been bound. But he was not resigned. The collar was loose. He had a chance before Sabriel bound him again. Freed even just once a generation, he would eventually win. He had all the time in the world.
3:
She was a lovely waif, so different from the other mortals Felurian met in the dark of the moon. Tall and pale and cold, like the void of death waiting to fall away, yet iron bound to Life. The blade of a knife, alluring but dangerous. Almost as seductive as the boys she normally found.
The woman turned to her with cold, dark eyes, sensing power and immediately suspicious of it. They appraised each other silently. Felurian saw a magnificent sweet fruit in a prickly shell, iron sword bound with unfamiliar magics and bells of a metal far worse than iron. What did the woman see?
"You are not of the Charter, but there is a power in you. What are you?"
The sweet thing had a voice of music! Felurian laughed, a delicate, tinkling sound that set the moonless wood alive like day. The woman shrank from her and assumed a fighter's stance. How rude! The woman drew a bell, a large one, a strong one, a threatening one. But she did not let it sound. "How now, fair one, that is not a friendly greeting! Put away your bell and sword! We should have a joyous meeting! Won't you come into my parlor? Come into my forest glade! You have never known the ardor two can have, maid and maid." The lilting words were wrapped in compulsion, in lust, in joy. Felurian would have her fun, once the bells were gone, at least.
The sword lowered slightly, but then golden light poured from a symbol on the pale woman's forehead as she flipped her bell and rang it once with steady motion. A clear, strong, deep note, casting off all other thought. Felurian's spell splintered. She was bewildered. She didn't know this magic! But she was not beaten, and the treat would be all the sweeter for the struggle. Felurian fought back the binding in the bell with ease–it was not cemented with her Name–and sent forth her own power. Death's maid flinched from the Compulsion, but held firm, strengthened by her own spell woven through the continuing echoes of the bell's voice. So that was it. Felurian barely noticed as the woman tucked the first bell away and drew the smallest instead: she knew what to do. Smiling beatifically, Felurian opened her mouth and let out a scream. It was a wild thing that spoke of summer twilight and abandonment. Just the thing to break the solemn command of that dreadful still-sounding bell. It worked splendidly, and Felurian followed the harsh note with a leap. She would take this marvelous, deadly creature for her own.
But she was distracted. This was exhausting. A tiny, high note sang her a lullaby, a song of comfort in the warmth of the night, a sleeping embrace. This new moon was nearly done, and she had yet to sleep. She must return to Faerie and wait until the next time… A golden mantle fell about her shoulders, cocooning her in a warm shroud she felt she could simply melt into. A new voice joined the first, a slow waltz that led the way to bed. Felurian turned into the Fae wind to greet her sleepy grove, curled into her feather bed, snuggled into her Golden Fleece, and dreamed of a tall, thin, elegantly pale woman, who sang to her a wordless song, forever. A charming smile played across her lovely face. Why need she ever wake again?
Sabriel didn't know where the creature had gone. It was a kind of free magic she had never met before, that she did not recall from the Book of the Dead or any other tome In her father's house. It had a stronger will than even most of the Greater Dead, to break the bond of Saraneth so easily. But so hard as it had been to command, so easy had it succumbed to the lure of sweet Ranna's seductive call. Sabriel smiled softly as she walked on through the silent wood. She was a pretty thing, soft with sleep, begging to be held, and soothed,and kissed… And even as the creature had swayed into the trees, called by Ranna to sleep but by Kibeth to walk, Sabriel had longed to still Ranna's voice, let Kibeth ring alone, and clasp that strange, exotic, magic woman to her in a heady dance. But she didn't. She was Abhorsen now. Hers was not the path of light, and gaiety, and pleasure in the wood,and no magic construct, no matter how lovely, could change that now. But she would see those butterfly eyes forever now, and wonder. How would it have been to follow the thing along that rosy path?
Sabriel sighed. Did the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?