Chapter Text
The Harvest Lord’s wail of despair could have been heard in every corner of the Unknown if one had the right kind of ears to hear it.
It was an awful, wretched wail that rooted itself in your bones.
It quaked through the ground and turned the air into something toxic and hard to breathe. It made small plants wither and made great oaks groan. Small animals covered their ears, and wolves whimpered, snapping and snarling at nothing.
Horses reared up, throwing aside riders, and cats mewled like frightened kittens. Young men began to weep, and young women were struck by grief so deep they could not bring themselves to do anything more than sitting dejectedly where they were. Married couples clutched each other close even as loss hollowed out their hearts. Elderly residents of the Unknown hung their heads sadly and sighed as waves of pain rippled through them.
Witches could not shoulder through their spells, so overcome with grief that was not their own, it soured their enchantments and clung to their magic.
His sorrow filled all those who could hear it. His grief held in them for only a fragment of a moment.
The Queen of the Clouds is dragged by the winds to the borders of Pottsfeild. They desire nothing more than to soothe such sadness with their cool embrace.
She scowls as the winds rip away from her hands to tousle the ribbons of the Harvest Lord’s maypole skin.
He lets them toss his ribbons to and fro.
Perhaps the Harvest Lord does not notice her presence because he does not turn to address her.
He howls, voice filled with broken pain.
His ribbons skirt forward, treacherous and dangerous, giving body to his pain.
He wraps his ribbons around a section of the fence between him and the border and yanks it, unearthing it from the ground and clenching it to splinters between his ribbons. He tosses the fragments of them to the wind, his pained howl buffeted up by the winds.
He storms forward, his ribbons ripping themselves into tatters and digging gouges in the soft earth. His mouth of sharp teeth flickers as fabric and flesh jostle across his form, choking rot and plenty makes all of the flora his vicinity bloom and wither in rapid succession.
He shrieks and turns his rage on the nearest tree of the winter wood, ribbons wrapping around its great boughs, lacing over its bark and around its trunk.
He yanks, and the great tree, one that has stood for well over 400 years, groans. It bends and flexes in his iron grip, creaking its protest. With a sickening snap, the old tree gives way and clatters to the ground, but that is not enough for the inconsolable Harvest Lord.
He flings the great tree so far it disappears over the trees and comes crashing down somewhere in the winter wood.
The Queen of the Clouds sneers.
She’s never seen Lord Autumn so overwrought.
How embarrassing.
“Calm yourself, Harvest Lord.” She calls to him, and he whirls, ribbons tearing at each other with a violent passion.
He snarls at her.
“Do not tell me to calm down as if I am some petulant child.” His voice is monstrous, distorted by his mouthpiece and his anger.
“You are the Lord of the Peaceful Dead. Act as you should.” She admonishes him, disdain framing her voice.
His ribbons fall deathly still, and the world goes abruptly silent, his song and his angered snarling snuffed out as easily and quickly as one snuffs out a candle. His mouth slowly closes, needle-like teeth interlocking as fabric stitched itself shut over it.
At last, he is still and quiet, his emotion and true face veiled to her, though the ground around him continued to wither.
“Very good.” She says, her voice clipped. “Now, we must begin to call a meeting so that a decision can be made about what we shall do about his forests. I imagine you’ll have the greatest say in how it will be divided up considering yours is the only realm his entwines with, directly that is”
His ribbons shift, and she falls silent, waiting.
Silence spans like eternity between them.
“The Beast has died,” His voice is deep and fathomless, anger simmering below its surface. “My ally, my confidante,” He grasps for words. “My friend, my beloved has died,” His rage is sharp in his words, and the world begins to churn as reality warps around the Harvest Lord’s presence.
Everything goes sharp, the edges too harsh lined all at once, and things begin to blur as they warp.
Pottsfeild’s crooked lines of pumpkins ripple, roots shoot up from the ground, and writhe through the air like angered vines. The earth cracks, and the Harvest Lord’s presence billows up, choking and cloying and dangerous.
He snarls, and the world ripples with his voice.
“And all you care to think of,” His ribbons dart forward, tatters and shreds of what they once were. “Is what will happen to his forest.”
He lunges forward, and she flutters back, his ribbons and roots reaching, tearing at her wings and yanking her dress.
“Vile Winged Mistress.” He snarls.
His once inviting façade turned hostile in an instant, soured by grief and sorrow.
“I ought to tear your wings off for your insolence!”
“How dare you!” She cries, and he laughs, humorless and angry.
“How dare I? How dare you! Your very presence is an insult to his memory!”
His ribbons and roots attack with renewed vengeance.
She dissipates into cloud, slipping between his appendages that seek to rend and tear, choosing wisely to hide herself far overhead.
He throws back his head and howls, his sorrow poisoning the world around him.
She watches horrified as parts of her own domain begin to quake and wilt, clouds turning angry shades of gray, sending soothing rains to Pottsfeild’s borders.
The fabric of the Unknown twists and warps as for the first time in an age, the Harvest Lord gathers himself.
This world and so many others bend to suit him, and the Queen of the Clouds flares her wings.
She had not realized how widely spread and deeply rooted the Harvest Lord was.
She watches as he rips up his carefully curated crops of pumpkins and corn in his anger, tearing sections of the fence up and flinging them to the winds, which tore around the maypole skin tossing the debris back and forth.
The earth trembles and splits and howls at the Harvest Lord’s grief.
The maypole is less fabric than flesh now as writhing angered parts of the Harvest Lord overfill and warp it. He quivers as the world churns, ripped apart by ribbons.
Crops that so neatly line Pottsfeild’s border begin to wither, shriveling under a dangerous amount of plenty.
The Queen of the Clouds watched tensely as autumn twined itself through winter, his anger reflected throughout any place he was rooted.
The Queen of the Clouds presses her lips into a fine line and decides it would be wise to seek refuge in a place untouched by death.
She retreats, the heartbroken howl of the tormented Autumn Warden ringing in her ears.