Noelle back on her fantasy bullshit.
Absently she twirls a golden leaf growing from her antlers. Bark and bone, they glow bright, reflecting the twilight sun’s light as if it was their own. Shadows catch in the spiraling channels carved by shamans long ago. The roots were hidden under a crown of copper hair laced with laurel. Pointed ears perk at the sound of a rustling leaf. The Guardian Queen flits to her feet at the snap of a twig, tearing the leaf off as she stands to face the sound. The delicate leaf withers in her hand, brittle and brown, detached from its font. She crushes it in her hand, and as it turns to crumbled ash, the air around ignites. Fire wreathes around her fingers like vines. Arm outstretched, she stands tall, firm in her stance, eyes piercing the dark around her.
“Leave, shadow.”
Between the trees that border the empty sylvan court, one luminous yellow orb appears, the black slit in the center dark as the novel night around it. Then another by its side.
“Oh princess, you know I mean no harm.”
“I am no longer a princess. You are no longer welcome.”
“To think, her majesty would greet an old friend like this.”
“Friend? Hah! You are a fiend. Leave now before I-“
“-slaughter me like the rest of your jesters?”
The yellow eyes shut. She takes a sharp breath.
“Those fools knew the consequences of following you, of defying this forest. I had no hand in their death.”
Leaves part as the Jester King swims through their shadows like water. The Queen catches the glint of one dim eye peeking through the fallen foliage.
“You had no hand in their death? You were the executioner of my kin. You murdered them for saving a dying god.”
“I punished them for desecrating the home of the god alive. Your panacea was the poison that killed our king, yet you still call yourself a healer. I cannot let you enter once again.”
The Guardian raises her flaming hand above her head and swiftly brushes both antlers. The carvings catch spark, infusing them with the purple tone of pure magic as they spiral down. Copper hair turns to violet flame slowly trailing down her back until it ignites her cloak of woven leaves. Ready, she stands at the entrance of her domain, eyes burning in tempered fury.