Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 257: Underhill on Derva

Permissions set, King Teigh took his leave, too busy to stay away from his own duties to enjoy the rest of the day in lazy contemplation of nature and peace that this place and the pagoda he had gifted me with afforded. I wasn't surprised, the real surprise was that he had made the trip here in the first place. The help he offered could have been done using holographic video conferencing, but by making the trip he demonstrated concretely that I had his support.

That demonstration might not have been needed if he hadn't had to banish me from Talahm, assigning me to work for the Embassy on Derva as a last resort. There would be questions, Sidhe whispering because of that banishment. I had been on Derva less than a month and the Sithern had chosen me. People would wonder if my banishment had been real, and if so why was everything suddenly forgiven.

It hadn't been. King Teigh made it clear before he departed that he was happy for me. That he could tell that I had finally restored my equilibrium. But that didn't excuse my actions nor his earlier edict. I was Plenipotentiary on Derva despite King Teigh's expectations not because of them.

I was still enjoined from returning to Talahm.

Finding myself a father and Host of a Sithern all within a matter of a single night had left me to face thoughts and emotions I had thought beyond my reach. Mab had been exhaustive while torturing me, making sure there would never be a child. The torture she had inflicted on me had been more than horrendous mutilation. She had left wounds that resonated within my soul, scares so deep I thought never to be free of them.

To wake up after a night of revel to find myself healed, my reproductive organs restored and functional as well as a new father was a blessing, I didn't believe I would ever enjoy.

Teigh had shown an unseemly amount of compassion and understanding as he held me, waiting for the worst of my tears and sobs to fade. My tears, the knowledge that I was whole, had completed the healing that Teigh had proscribed by sending me to this planet.

Derva was claimed by the Hindu Pantheon, but the Sithern changed that slightly. Technically, the Sithern was located in a fracture in space and time. It existed in a separate dimension, but it was rooted on Derva.

The slice of Fairy that took advantage of the rift in space during the ritual would endure as long as the Sithern lived. I would see to it.

This was the place where the Tuatha de Danaan had gifted me a daughter.

The place Fairy had restored my path and calling to become a Peace-maker.

The place where the Wild Magic sang with such potency that the Divine touch of Belisama blessed the Revel and made the impotent, potent.

This was where the first changelings had been created.

And on this world, the only world other than Talahm, a Sithern had woken completely.

Belisama was not known as a trickster God, she had always been more about creating life than playing pranks. Her gifts of life were a benediction, as well as a warning. I had lost faith in Her, but the spark of the Divine that had blessed me during Revel, gifted to all who participate, even while She was trapped in Sleep, was proof that she hadn't lost faith in me.

I probably would have spent the next day or so watching the lake lap the shore as fish jumped if it weren't for the birth of my daughter. Where the fish came from wasn't much of a mystery. If the Sithern could create fields, lakes, and cities, why wouldn't it be able to supply wildlife? But as I was watching the lake ripple, water moving as the wind created gentle waves, I remembered my parents were with my daughter, and that was a frightening proposition.

I had probably already left it too long to have any input in naming the child. I was sure my mother had proclaimed my daughter's name the moment she entered the creche. I just hoped she had only named my daughter and not the rest of the babies that I had left sleeping.

The Sithern shifted as I began walking, the fields and lake folding and receding as the laws of space and time moved to facilitate my progress. It would take me time to get used to this aspect of Host, even as convenient as it was. And even as I found myself hijacked and delivered to the Sithern entrance, instead of the creche that had been my destination, I thought it convenient.

The reason the Sithern had redirected my destination was made clear when I saw the guards posted at the entrance to the embassy being accosted.

"If they won't move, kill them," Rajah Indrajit, the man that had molested and persecuted Saanvi, was even more of an ass now that it was obvious, she had escaped his clutches. His demands to attack were aimed at his own guards. I doubted his demands could be accomplished. The Sidhe do not have protection details that have not been battle-tested, but it might be interesting to watch.

There were ten steps leading into the embassy, with a pair of guards posted on each step. They created a corridor of death anyone foolish enough to test their resolve, or battle preparedness would discover. If they were not enough, two Redcaps and two Slaugh had been stationed at the doors themselves.

Once the vanguard of the Unseelie, they were now Tuatha de Danaan. The change in faction did nothing to diminish the carnage they would unleash if tested. These two races, along with the Goblins, had almost succeeded in winning the war between Seelie and Unseelie long ago.

It was only through Seelie trickery and guile that their advances had been stymied, treachery and deceit that had seen the most monstrous of the Unseelie relegated to nothing more than foot soldiers. Even so, they had been powerful enough to force the Seelie to meet the Unseelie at the bargaining table.

"If you attack," I said, noticing the guards prepared to respond, "the guards will not hold back. If that happens, pray that you are killed, because if you survive, if you become a prisoner of the Sidhe, what we will do to you will be the stuff of nightmare."

"Brave talk," Indrajit proclaimed, "but you forget you are on our world. The Hindu Gods hold sway here. Something beyond your simple minds to understand. Exactly what I would expect, bluster and empty threats from a people that steal Hindu architecture and artistry to build their embassy.

"This monstrosity you have reproduced is an affront to our Gods, a pale imitation of our genius. You insult our people by using a Hindu temple to hide behind."

"You believe Cuan Sabhailte offensive?" I asked in disbelief.

"I wonder if your supreme Rajah would feel the same?" I taunted. "But maybe you are right," I mused as I turned to examine the building that served as a front for the Embassy, shielding the Sithern and a pocket dimension.

The building was beautiful, no matter how he insulted it, but it did nothing to represent Sidhe. Aside from the art that had been placed inside, art that depicted the Tuatha de Danaan frolicking and fucking, art that would be insulting in truth for the people of Derva, there was nothing that represented Sidhe in the building before me.

"I will accept your words as truth. We meant to pay honor to the Gods; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, perhaps we were wrong. Since you say the building, we have based our embassy on, an edifice constructed using Hindu architecture and techniques to be offensive, there is a simple solution."

I sent my desires and ideas through the Host bond, nudging the Sithern to change, to destroy the Hindu facade it had chosen for the embassy, and to replace it with Sidhe aesthetics.

The Sithern responded immediately, the walls, stairs, and doors that had existed collapsing into a black hole as Cuan Sabhailte re-claimed that part of itself that it had manifested as a bridge between and betwixt.

The Sidhe weren't immured to any particular architecture style. We built our homes and cities with the natural world as focus. Each Sithern was started using seedstock that had could be traced from a gift of the original World Tree.

It was called by many names. Yggdrasil for the Norse. Jian-mu the builder tree for those that followed Taoist or Buddhist Pantheons. Ashvattha for the Hindu.

And for the Sidhe, the Oak. Part of a duality, Oak and Hawthorne blended together to serve as a bridge between earth and heaven. The acorns from that World Tree, the kernel and seeds that gave the first Sithern life.

Cuan Sabhailte wove something new, a place of Power imbued with the magic of the Oak and Hawthorne World Tree. Each Sithern a minor offshoot from that first seed gifted to the Sidhe. Each able to access the dimensional space that connected to Oak prime, the tree that protected all life, that served to separate the living and the dead as eternity spooled out over billions and trillions of years.

The Hindu temple vanished as Cuan Sabhailte reacted to my request. In its place, an Oak grew and put down roots. As it grew, the ground reformed, surging, creating a small hill giving the tree purchase and height. A tree that reached to the sky, anchored with roots that tapped into an underground ley-line, filled with the vitality and power of Fairy.

The embassy changed. The rift between took shape. And a ring of mushrooms surrounded the hill formed.

[A true Fairy Ring has been created on Derva. Cuan Sabhailte Sithern has linked with Underhill, both protected by treaty. (Note: rules of protection dealing with treaties as they apply to Embassies still apply.)]