Hurricane #37: The Bargain (Patreon)

As Queen Anu’s hand descended, it seemed like she might lift—or crush—the whole of the faerie village. But, somehow, she didn’t, even as the hand descended below the level of the trees, as it filled all of Serrano’s vision.

Then, all at once, she was in the Faerie Queen’s hand. The palm—pad?—looked big enough to comfortably hold both a football field and its surrounding stadium.

Serrano looked up, ears stubbornly insisting on staying flat against her head. The queen’s face looked distinctly feline now, far above, black eyes glittering as if they held distant bright stars, pale green fur and acres of deep pine-colored hair cascading down in waves.

“Tell me why you wish to see me.”

Serrano quivered at the voice. Her tone remained soft, not unkind, but it rattled her. Not just literally—although it did, physically vibrating through her—but in some way that left her gasping, ready to confess her deepest secrets and fears. She tried to say something, anything, that sounded calm and collected, like she was the equal to Anu she’d imagined herself to be mere minutes ago. But she wasn’t. Perhaps Ulohne was, but she was no goddess herself, and she’d lied every time she’d claimed to be, hadn’t she?

What came out was a half-sobbing plea. “I want you to save Sarah.”

“My Guardian has failed.”

Serrano looked up again. Now the queen looked different, her face more that of a mustelid. Weasel? No, otter. She glanced around, eyes wide. The enormous hand around her showed webbing between the fingers now. “S-she hasn’t. She put her life—”

“Her duty was to put a stop to the storms you have failed to control yourself, Serrano Layotl, with or without you. She chose to work with you, against both my wish and her own initial judgement.”

“That isn’t her fault!” Serrano shook her head, trying to meet the Queen’s immense eyes, then blinked rapidly. Anu was not an otter, she was a vixen, pale green fur replacing orange-red.

“Is it yours, then?”

“I didn’t—I don’t…” She swallowed. “I don’t know. But you had Sarah watching me even before I knew I had these powers, didn’t you? When the dreams had started.”

“When the storms started,” Anu corrected. “When they returned, now starting from you.”

“What do you mean, ‘returned?’”

The deer woman’s immense horned head lifted, looking away. “Your goddess and I are not enemies, Serrano Layotl, but neither are we friends. Across all her incarnations, across all the branches of the Great Tree, she has the power of the weather. And she insisted she had it here, in the Realm of Faerie, as well.” She looked down at the coyote, and curled her fingers until Serrano’s view became only the Queen’s hand, hoof-like nails far above yet still uncomfortably close. “But my realm is not a branch.”

“It’s…it’s the root?”

The hand opened again, and the dragon fixed the little coyote with her gaze, black eyes glittering. “It is the soil and the air and the water that surrounds the tree.”

“Oh.”

“Ulohne’s power is of a nature that can affect Faerie, because Faerie is of a nature that subjects it to that power. Do you see why that is so?”

Serrano swallowed. “I…uh.” She furrowed her brow. “The soil and the air and the water,” she repeated. “Subject to weather.”

The mouse nodded gravely, then frowned, just enough to show off teeth that could shear off mountains. “If she would respect my sovereignty, I would respect hers. That should be the way of our respective realms. But she will not listen to our needs or our wants; she does only as she pleases. She is too wild, too chaotic, too prone to storms. So I have had to take on the weather in Faerie myself. Truthfully, I am not as good at it as she would be, but I managed passably well. Until she found a way back in through you.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

Lifting her up closer to her face, the queen narrowed those night-black eyes. Now she looked almost human, flawless pale green skin, lips an even darker shade of green than her hair. The teeth remained brilliant white, too, subtly pointed, skyscraper-sized canines not quite fangs. She was more beautiful than Serrano had thought a human could be, and a thousand percent not a prey animal.

“Please, your h-highness,” Serrano stammered. “The storms are being pulled from my world through Faerie. Sarah found the world that’s been taking them, and we’ve been trying desperately to stop them—stop him, a human named Sark—because he’ll destroy our ecosystem. It might affect other worlds, too. And I know it’s affecting Faerie. But I don’t think it’s what Ulohne wants. She’d stop it if she could.” She swallowed. “I think I was supposed to. Like you said, I failed to control it. Something went wrong along the way and I didn’t get the message about what I was, what I could do, what I’m supposed to do. And I’m doing my best to learn it all before it’s too late.”

After several seconds, the faerie queen lowered her hand, and regarded the coyote. “If I could prune your world’s branch as well as the one your storms are being pulled to, you know I would do so.”

She nodded, swallowing. “But you can’t.”

“Your branch is…foundational, very close to Faerie itself. Removing it brings down many, many futures. And the far branch is entangling itself with others in ways that will do the same if it is removed.” She sighed. “Why you, Serrano Layotl?”

“No offense, your highness, but I wish people would stop asking me that.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know why Ulohne chose me in the first place. I don’t know why she didn’t prepare me after she chose me, either. I don’t think she even started trying to protect me until after…” She furrowed her brow.

“After?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “After somebody made me a drink and said it might stop the dreams I was having, the ones being caused by having Ulohne’s power drained away through me. She called it sympathetic magic.”

“And did it stop the dreams?”

“No.” She shook her head. “But it…changed them. It’s like it somehow let Ulohne connect with me.”

“I see.” The queen lifted her head, looking up at the sky in silence. When she looked back down, she had the face of a coyote. Serrano felt a momentary pang of jealousy, but couldn’t tell if it was more I want to be that impossibly beautiful or I want to be that impossibly big. “And perhaps that lack of connection is why this Sark tapped into your branch, attacked your incarnation of Ulohne.”

She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe I just got unlucky.”

“I fear there is more to it.”

Serrano looked up searchingly. What was she being told? “You…said you thought Ulohne found a way to influence Faerie again through me. You did something that blocked her out, to protect your domain. But my branch is foundational, close to Faerie. And you blocked her connection with me, too.”

The horizon-filling coyote queen closed her eyes for several seconds, then opened them again, fixing her gaze on the speck of a coyote goddess-avatar in her hand. “If it is within my power, I will do what you ask and restore Sarah, Serrano Layotl. Find a way to stop your runaway storms and restore your branch. If you succeed, you shall see her again on your chosen terms.”

Serrano ran a hand through her hair. With a faerie, the word choice was never casual, and surely doubly so for the Faerie Queen. She hadn’t made healing Sarah contingent on Serrano’s success—she’d made seeing Sarah contingent on it. “So Sarah will be all right either way?”

“If possible, I shall restore her, whether you succeed or fail.”

Not as reassuring as she’d have liked, but she strongly suspected that she shouldn’t press. If there was any being in the entire multiverse who would go to war with the storm goddess rather than back down, Queen Anu was that being.

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you, Queen Anu. I accept your offer. I’ll do everything that I can.”

The queen turned, and pointed with her other arm. Serrano tried not to gape stupidly; she’d only been concentrating on the queen’s face until now. The faerie coyote’s other shoulder looked like it was nearly a half-mile away, and the arm, slim in proportion, had to be about the same length.

Finally, she remembered to look where the giantess pointed: across the vast forest of Faerie, toward the sea. The ocean churned angrily, waves crashing against the shore, against what, even from this distance, Serrano could tell were fields of debris. The anvil clouds were deep greys, even black, obscuring the horizon.

“That is what the attacks on you become here in Faerie, Serrano Layotl. I cannot stop that storm, nor tame it, nor even gently deflect it. If it follows the path of the others, and it will, it will tear across the seas, over the forest, up to the highest mountains. The earlier storms were bad enough, but this one looks like nothing I have seen before.”

“I got this.” Serrano closed her eyes, feeling the storm, its currents, its eddies. Tug here, shape there—

All at once you’re in a river, flowing through the air, all around you, surrounding you, crushing you. You frantically paddle, try to howl, but just get a mouthful of water. The world is nothing but the storm, all-consuming, unmoved by your helplessness, driving you faster and faster—

Serrano screamed, pulling back from the shock of a dream she’d thought she’d left behind. She knew she hadn’t left Anu’s hand, but it felt like she’d been thrown back against the immense pad from a great height. She rolled over onto her back, panting.

Queen Anu’s tone remained as politely inscrutable as ever, but her words carried a distinct wryness. “You do not appear to have this yet.”

“Whatever Sark’s doing to bypass me is…I don’t know. Stronger than I expected.” She sat up. “So I have to do what I figured I would. Go to his world. Can you get me there? Send me to where the storms are going?”

“You can. Follow the storm.”

“I…” She swallowed. “But that’s a dream.”

“That is Faerie.” The queen fixed her gaze on the coyote again. “Serrano Layotl, pruning the branch this Sark is on will bring down countless other branches, likely including your own. But if you fail, I will have no choice.”

Serrano closed her eyes again and nodded, ears folding back. She steeled herself, and reached out again.

All at once you’re in a river—