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The Salt Flatlands were at this point an infamously unyielding stretch of land the covered a decently sized expanse of the northern part of the continent. A distilling quiet that was etched into the very fabric of the air that was blanketed over the dark trees and scant population of fauna, which albeit unique was clearly a measure to how uninhabitable the land itself liked to be. Yet, there was life. It was in part a great effort of the ruler of these lands. A divine emissary, that was blessed and whole-hearted, who had a greater heart for even the most unfortunate amd unreasonable people.
There was seldom anyone who was unaware of the Salt of Solidarity, his barren lands that he had done his best to bring to life with his courageous acts, through his kindness, and of course, through his solidarity; no matter how the lands had a way of remaining stagnant and cold.
If you were a person in need, there was nary a chance your plea would be ignored by the generous Salt of Solidarity, nor would you be pushed away by his army that followed his virtue down to the very roots of their being. The rigorous training they subjected themselves to and the absolute loyalty they professed to their lord was nothing to scoff at either, the Kala Namak soldiers were one in the same as their leader, they wished so far as to be built in his image, to embody that solidarity and kindness and show that they were rightful in standing by his side.
"Good Morrow!" cried a short girl with shoulder length hair, "Is the Salt of Solidarity here?" she asked, holding tightly under her arm a satchel full of letters.
"No, I am afraid not." replied a stern-looking knight with intense eyebrows and a perfectly uniform braid, "The Lord Commander is away on his expeditions."
"I see..." The mail-girl sighed, "I suppose I should give this to you then?" she said, as she rummaged through her sack and produced a letter, a gold sheen shimmering on the envelope.
"Ah yes, thank you," The calm Kala Namak knight politely took the letter from the mail-girl's outstretched hand, "This is..?"
"Apologies, its correspondence from the Spire of Knowledge, this was ordered to be delivered post haste."
"I see, thank you." The calm Kala Namak knight nodded as she made her departure.
The mail-girl shivered. Her faerie wings trembling under her near-ragged cape. The Great Barren was anything but welcoming, with the coarse dirt under her feet, and the blackened, wilting trees, the lack of farmland and the dry air that felt as though it aimed to suffocate those who spent longer than necessary in the area. It was a marvel on it's own that an Emissary of the gods was the Lord of the land.
★
The Faerie Kingdom was boisterous and loud, where celebrations lasted months on end, no one day similar to the other. There was dance, music, romance, drink, anything your mind could imagine and the Faerie Kingdom had an abundance of it. Of food and drink unique to the rest of Crispia or the continent. The Faeries were an immortal sort of people, with lives so long there was little reason to form attachments to those unlike them.
They were magical, old. The King Elder Faerie, who ruled with a loose grip, the Faeries with too much time on their hands who were yet still assigned their roles. To be a soldier or a citizen, a craftsmen or a winemaker, a scholar or advisor.
Elder Faerie sighed. The unrest amongst the continent was only continuing to worsen, no sign of interference from any of the emissaries that were meant to stop such dire circumstances from developing in the first place. Bar the Salt of Solidarity who seemed somewhat unaware, as the Great Barren seemed to be in a state of perpetual unease that if something worse was afoot it would take too long to realise.
"Hullo, your Majesty." said the mail-girl, too colloquially to really be showing any true respect to someone who was her better.
"Pearl Jasmine," Elder Faerie sighed, voice gravelly with a slight disappointment, "I see you were away from your post, pray tell what have you messed with now?"
"Well, as your advisor, I thought I must get more information to regale you with." She grinned in reply, "You might even wish to know what I have heard. There's really no better way of finding out the happenings of several people and kingdoms," she gestured exaggeratedly with her hands, "than becoming a mailperson."
"I see." Elder Faerie replied, half-hearted interest causing his voice to become even more gravelly and low. He looked away from Pearl Jasmine, and took in the grand tree a few distance away from them. Pearl Jasmine continued her report before markedly getting distracted by the look in Elder Faerie's eyes as he focused on the Silver Tree.
"That man that you have taken a liking to..." Pearl Jasmine said, with a voice full of mirth, "Has he come to see you in recent?"
"No, it has been a while." answered Elder Faerie, honestly.
"This tree you two planted, it seems to have grown well." she said, smiling brightly, earnest in her praise. "The Fount of Knowledge has become corrupted." she said, her statement a whiplash to the previous.
"That is troubling indeed."
"To think that the emissaries are to become like this, what hope is remaining for the rest of us?" she said, in an uncharacteristic whisper of uncertainty.
"Yet we must move on." Elder Faerie nodded with resolve, "It will do us no good to despair because of people we can not control."
Just then, the rattling of a decorated horse, accompanied by struggling neighs interrupted their conversation. "I shall take my leave." Pearl Jasmine said to the King, privately amused by the concerned surprise on her King's usually unbothered face.
Later that night, the most exuberant light had bathed the Faerie Kingdom, the Silver Tree lighting up in a grand display of ancient, powerful magic, and so were the Emissaries of the gods sealed away, punished together by one of their own, and so had a loss cemented itself into Elder Faerie's soul, no longer his majesty but the Guardian of the Silver Tree.
Titles were fickle, especially to a Faerie, they lived to observe the change that occured all around them, all the time. So had everything changed.
★
White Lily looked uncomfortably around her, the Faeries cheering and raising several toasts in her honour, and normally she would be very falttered, however this was the fourth consecutive day of celebrations and it came to a point. Especially considering how introverted White Lily knew herself to be.
After much sneaking away, White Lily finally managed to seperate herself from her adoring audience and took a moment to simply breath and bask in the quiet.
"It is overwhelming, isn't it?" came a voice from behind her that she did not fully recognise.
"Yes..." White Lily replied, cautiously, taking in the young-looking faerie before her, her iridescent wings shimmering in the low light of the moon. "And you would be..?"
"Pearl Jasmine, at your behest." She bowed exaggeratedly.
"Ah, well, White Lily." she replied in kind, bowing slowly.
Pearl Jasmine let out a delighted laugh at the display, "So, you are the recipient of the soulblood of Freedom?"
"Oh!" White Lily cookie brought her staff ever slightly closer to her, "Yes."
Pearl Jasmine sipped from her glass of Elderberry wine, "Fascinating, then, that you managed your way here." she said wistfully.
"I'm sorry?" White Lily asked, in a somewhat defensive tone.
"White Lily." Elder Faerie emerged from her side, "There you are."
"Hullo, your Majesty." Pearl Jasmine said, her speech somewhat slurred.
"You are not of right mind, Pearl Jasmine, get some rest." Elder Faerie shook his head.
"Yes, yes." swatting her hand as she rolled her eyes, "Is this a way of your mourning? By any chance?" Pearl Jasmine said, haphazard in her words, leaning foreard with a lopsided smile.
Elder Faerie only narrowed his eyes.
The grin vanished as she sipped from her wine, "Well, I'll leave you." Pearl Jasmine shuffled away, stumbling slightly due the alcohol in her blood. Her vision blurred as she yawned.
Truly, titles were such fickle things. She made her way to her abode, moving with ease through her unchanging hallways, making her way to a canopy bed, exhausting herself onto the silken sheets, closing her eyes upon the impact.
Her friend still mourned, she understood. The man that he had known, the Salt of Solidarity, the title all but lost to time. The beasts as they were now known. Silent Salt now known by the masses; who did not even know the sacrifice that he had made for their sake. Who did not even care and contemptuously uttered his name along with the rest of the fallen emissaries.
Pearl Jasmine shuffled on her bed, moving to lay comfortably, allowing sleep to overtake her senses. Thoughts growing mellowed and quiet.
★
White Lily had been corrupted, her curiosity demonstrably leading her to her downfall. Dark Enchantress as she had begun to call herself now, committing acts of great cruelty, perhaps gone crazy from the knowledge she had revealed to herself.
Elder Faerie had reacted gravely to the news, no doubt the circumstances summoning old and burried memories he would rather not reminisce over.
"There is a similarity." Pearl Jasmine remarked, off-handedly.
"You are rather insensitive, I hope you realise." Elder Faerie stood facing away from the girl with viridian hair and knowing green eyes.
"What is sensitivity between people like us who have lived through countless moons?"
"I would appreciate some discretion at least." he sighed.
Pearl Jasmine only provided an uninterested hum. A comfortable silence hung between them, the Silver Tree shimmering devotedly a distance away from them. The tree beginning to sag in the way that only time could press in, as if time itself, once a distant breeze, had now worn it down, the most subtlest of cracks forming in the long-standing silver bark, the silk like leaves that hung like stars beginning to dwindle in the ferocity of their light. Like a star coming to the end of its life.
The beasts, the first to fall, who were jailed inside for crimes immeasurable, for the destruction they had seeked to inflict onto the continent and beyond. The people of now mistakenly believed that the ones behind their imprisonment were the godly creators themselves. As though, those who were so removed would bother to care what even their own blessed were attempting, if it was good or evil. It seemed to Pearl Jasmine that there really would be no real way that the Salt of Solidarity would be acknowledged for his great sacrifice with the current culture and nature of the people of this era.
Distractedly, Pearl Jasmine spoke, "Do you miss him?" It was a fair question, her dear friend and that man had been inexplicably close, when he had still been walking amongst them. It was to such a point that Pearl Jasmine could easily recollect several instances where she had teased Elder Faerie relentlessly about the emissary. She would delight at the uncharacteristic way he would quiet and look away, almost shy in the display. There was not really anyone else who had quite come close to receiving that reaction for the Guardian.
Elder Faerie only gazed at the Silver Tree, an unreadable expression settling in his features. "Time is a cruel mistress."
"That's not a no." she said, in a teasing way, smiling easily, reminiscing of the easy conversations she once had when they were younger and when the weight of the world wasn't as potent on Elder Faerie's shoulders.
Elder Faerie looked at her, then, "It could never be a no." He said, his voice almost quiet laced with a plethora of emotions unnamed, "My life has been long and full, there is so much to hold dear, to remember and yet." He paused, his voice straining, his gaze fixed upon the tree.
Pearl Jasmine did not dare breath too loud, the weight in the air shifting under Elder Faerie's confession.
"And yet, all I wish to remember; is his kindness." His voice cracked, uncharacteristically.
And if she felt the tree let out a gust of cold wind in response she could only believe that she was imagining it.
★
The Kingdom was uproarious and loud, but not in its usual way. There were blood-curdling screams and chaos not usual to the Faerie Kingdom. Pearl Jasmine stood motionless, a few ways away, observing quietly from afar. She had watched her dear friend die for the girl with the soulblood of Freedom.
The girl, miraculously revived without the taint of the knowledge that had corrupted yet still aware, had inherited his guardianship henceforth. The once Fount of Knowledge turned Beast of Deceit was causing havoc and destruction not unlike his fellow comrade Burning Spice. She had heard of the Spice Tribe and the absolute barbarians they were, subscribed to the will of ruination that their master boasted, attempting wildly to be a cog in the machine that would bring the world to its knees. If their methods were anything similar to that which she faced before her in the form of Shadow Milk, there was yet still more that the Guardian had yet to do.
Pearl Jasmine worried at her lower lip, her hands clammy as she took in the scene before her. The Beast of Deceit seemed almost drunk in his freedom, magic flowing off him in waves as he manipulated a circus around him using her fellow citizens. She felt repulsed and yet disassociated all the same.
Her magics had hidden a decent number of them, neverthless the soldiers were at his mercy and amusement.
No matter the insanity that was unfolding before her, her eyes remained almost transfixed on the unmoving body of her best friend.
There was so much left unsaid, so much she wished to help him with. A life lost, swift and careless, as though the life had been nothing but another in an indifferent statistic, as though the weight of the loss would not define every memory and thought she shared with him. She stood and mourned, the time around her slowing as her heart ached in her chest, there would be no tomorrow where she would wake late and he would look at her disappointedly for neglecting her post. There would be no tomorrow where he would get the chance to reunite with his beloved. She mourned not just him, but the fragile hope of a future they had never been allowed to share, two souls kept apart by a twisted fate, only to be cruelly denied at last by death’s embrace.
Pearl Jasmine took a deep, shaky breath, and turned her back on the Kingdom, making her way through the dense, deadly beast-yeast forest, making her way to a land almost forgotten.
Their cruel mistress, Lady Fate, had surely intended for the new guardian, White Lily, and her wouldbe adversary, Silent Salt, to participate in their clash of souls, with half of Silent Salt's soulblood now residing in and been accepted by the ancient hero.
She was certain that Elder Faerie would have wanted for her to guard White Lily.
★
White Lily and Pastry made their way cautiously through the decrepit ruins of the Kala Namak stronghold. They were accompanied by a descendent of a survivor family member of the purge that Silent Salt had unleashed upon his corruption.
"There is something we are missing." White Lily said, raising a hand to her chin in thought.
"Quiet all ye', I believe you have discovered all there is to discover." The descendant spoke in twos.
White Lily adamant about her theory and by virtue of her abundant and provably dangerous curiosity managed her way down into the lower level, where Elder Faerie had planted memories for the now Guardian to see.
Pearl Jasmine stood at an end of a hallway, iridescent wings trembling in the cold chill of the underground as she watched White Lily and her companions discover old events and what they had led to.
She was here by virtue of keeping White Lily safe. It felt uncomfortable to ignore the would-be wish of her dead friend, no matter how disconcerted she felt by looking at White Lily. She swallowed a hollow laugh, it seems now this is a way of her mourning.
"I recognise you." A deep, raspy voice growled at her. She jumped, her wings flapping as she whipped around, her feet hovering a few distance up in the air. "Who?"
The man came forth, he looked unrecognisable, the black armour heavy and matted, magic swirling around him. He scoffed, "Do you not recognise me then?"
"Salt of Solidarity?" She asked, still wary, her wings sharp and angled.
"I can no longer answer to that name." he said, voice strained. "Elder Faerie is no longer."
"No." she responded, her eyes glossing over with tears, as she made to continue to look upon the towering man before her.
"I could not have hoped he would live forever." Silent Salt remarked, his voice tinged with an emotion that Pearl Jasmine could not place.
"All things come to an end." she agreed. "Shame the way he went however."
"How did it occur?" Silent Salt asked, the most damning question of all.
Pearl Jasmine recognised the risk in telling him. That the Beast of Deceit had taken his life in an ill-advised attempt at vengeance. She knew there was nothing good that would come of it. In fact, there was only risk of terrible fates befalling the continent. Silent Salt was not above using ancient, forbidden magics after all. No matter how she wished for the beast to be damned to an eternity of imprisonment for what he had inflicted upon her friend. Pearl Jasmine also recognised that Elder Faerie would not wish to see the continent be overtaken by the destruction that Silent Salt would bring in the wake of his anger. She was certain that it was something Elder Faerie did not want him to experience ever again, the devastation. She took in a shallow breath and lied through her teeth.
"It was an uneventful affair." she spoke, almost too quiet.
Silent Salt tilted his head.
She felt as though she was to be smited down, before her was a powerful soul, blessed by the witches themselves in all their glory. Even at half his power, his very being oozed strength and magic unreachable by those of her level. To have lied to someone who detested dishonestly, she was just setting herself up for death. She did not even think it was a particularly good lie.
And yet, Silent Salt only looked upon her in, well, silence.
"You Faeries do love your entertainment." he said, after a long pause, entirely unamused. Pearl Jasmine could only cough a laugh in response.
"He was unlike you."
"He was." She affirmed. "If I may, did you see what was happening from inside the tree?"
Silent Salt shook his head, imperceptibly, "Not always."
"So, sometimes." She acknowledged.
"Indeed." he said, looking away, gazing solemnly at the inheritor of half his soulblood and her companions.
"Did you hear?" she asked, unable to stop herself.
"Yes." he replied, "It seems I will be the one to remember him instead."
"His kindness?"
"Yes." Silent Salt stated, breathlessly.