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[Solanaceae]

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The man was smiling. Through her half-mast eyes and thick green lashes Solanaceae saw him. He was staring at her, his finger lightly encircling the iron post that supported the glass display case as his gaze moved from her face to take in the rest of her. She smoothed the dark green fabric of her silk dress, allowing her slender fingers to pull the cloth around her thigh, revealing just enough of her shape to feed his desire, but still allowing the long dress to hide her tattoos. As intentional as her movements might be, she made it appear innocent, simply an absentminded, nervous gesture. Solanaceae raised her head and met his gaze. She allowed a tentative smile to play across her lips, hiding her disdain with the doe-eyed expression of a shy child. A bitter laugh danced silently inside her. Though much of her power had been taken when she was banished from the Fae Courts, she still retained a few of her natural gifts, such as a connection to her people’s glamour. Using this tool of multi-sensory illusion, Solanaceae bathed herself in the scent of tender youth and vulnerability. The man smile tightened as hunger crept into his eyes.

Solanaceae dropped her gaze in an air of faux modesty and turned to face the display case. She deftly slipped the stuffed mongbat Lady Ceinwyn had given her when she first joined the order, when they both were no more than slaves, under her arm. A quiet sigh fluttered in her chest. Now Solanaceae was a supplicant searching for her true place among the Skull, and Ceinwym was openly consort of the Herald himself. How nice it had been when she’d been honored to share their secret, when she’d been able to play watcher over their intimate meetings, making sure no one who might betray their secret to the Lich Lord might stubble across the two. She’d never admitted to doing this, unsure such powerful magi like they would take to the idea of someone weaker in power protecting them in anyway. Solanaceae didn’t even know for certain why she’d done it, why she’d taken the risk. Perhaps because it was all so romantic, so thrilling, but more likely there was a third reason for her gamble. It was just nice to be needed, to have a chance at finding people she belonged with, people who wanted her around.

The scent of stale pipe smoke and overused cologne assaulted her. Solanaceae glanced down and saw the man reflected in the glass, just over her left shoulder. Yes, that was right. For a moment she'd forgotten him. She’d come here with a purpose. No time for distraction or doubt. Suppressing a chuckle Solanaceae hugged the stuffed toy under her arm, and was rewarded for her dramatic addition as the man’s scent shifted, his pungent fragrance overtaken by the smell of his heightened need. She lazily tilted her head, and her vibrant green hair slipped over her right shoulder to drape there, leaving the skin of her neck exposed to him. A sound escaped his lips and his breathing quickened. “Yes”, she thought. “He’ll do fine.”

Pretending not to notice his closeness, Solanaceae purchased a few pieces of overpriced chocolate and a small, pink silk hanker chief, careful to keep her movement casual, but innocently sensual. After she paid the shopkeeper what she owed, she followed the counter to the side door, careful to keep her back to the man. As she closed the shop door and stepped onto the cobblestones her anticipation grew. Patience. Patience. Her trap was set. Soon her prey would willingly follow her to his rightful punishment.

[Solanaceae]

---

Punishment. Vengeance. Justice.

The humans, non-humans, those that lived as parasites upon the land, those who butchered the innocence of childhood for their own selfish desires and greed. Their crimes were intolerable, and for this they needed to be punished. The Fae didn’t understand this. Her people didn’t see how the mortals tainted everything they touched. Even the oldest Fae scholars didn’t seemed to be able to fully grasp the damage that had and was still yet to be done. They did not understand until the humans’ filth tainted the sacred waters, not until the humans’ greed led them to over tax the life the land could create, leaving areas so barren and violated there was little hope of renewal, not until the human children’s suffering haunted the Fae’s minds, tearing at their spirits until many of Solanaceae’s kin simply gave up any will to go on and faded into nothing. Not truly did her people understand what was happening until it was too late. Fae elders and children fell pray to illness none of the healers had ever seen, the women became sterile, and those that could bear children often didn’t survive to repeat the act. No one was willing to take a stand. No one was able to leave behind the ways of the past, and do what was needed for their people to survive.

No one, but Solanaceae.

For the second time that evening Solanaceae was pulled out of her thoughts, this time by the sound of boots on the stones behind her. She chided herself for allowing distraction to claim her once again, and determinedly she refocused her mind on the task. She listened to the rhythm of his steps. They almost matched but not quite. His rhythm was off, as if he was trying to hide his footfalls with the sound of her own, but didn’t have the grace or the control to manage it. Taking a purposeful turn into a deserted side street she picked up her pace, signaling an added element of fear to urge on her pursuer. Just a bit further.

“Wait!” he called out, just as Solanaceae reached a set of stone steps leading down into a tavern cellar. A strip of black ribbon dangled from the iron railing, and she glanced back over her shoulder at him to see if he noticed it. He didn’t. “I just want to talk to you.”

Solanaceae’s eyes met his, and she forced her breathing hard against her chest, allowing a wild-eyed expression to complete the illusion of panic. “Leave me alone,” she simpered. “Just go away.”

He held his hands out to her. “I’m not going to hurt you, lovely. I promise.”

Behind the curtain of innocence and fear, the true predator studied her prey. The hunger had claimed his eyes entirely, and the shaky stiffness of his body told her his hold on his self-control was tenuous at best. In a moment, she thought with grim satisfaction, that control would vanish entirely.

He stood there, his body tensed, and his eyes followed the rapid expanding and contracting of her small bosom. Then, as she had been expecting, he took a step forward. At her cue, Solanaceae turned and bolted down the stairs, seemly trapped at the bottom, no way out. She huddled in corner, appearing to pull desperately on the door handle to the cellar, though in truth really not asserting any force at all.

The man gripped her shoulder, his fingers tightened, and then he spun her around to face him. “I said I wanted to talk to you. I promised I wouldn’t hurt you.” He licked his lips and his fingers dug into her shoulder. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Solanaceae’s glamour fell away, and she sneered as confusion crept into the man’s eyes. “How unfortunate for you that hurting you is exactly what I had in mind”

Her blade flashed, cutting into his arm and neck, forcing him to release her. Anger twisted his face, but only for an instant. Soon surprise replaced the rage, followed by fear as the venom slipped into his blood through the cuts. Paralysis claimed his voice before he could scream, but he face marked clearly the depth of the man’s terror. He crashed to the ground, and his body jerked and writhed in involuntary spasms.

Solanaceae removed a bag from under the stairs and turned back to the man. He was still. No breath in his chest. She crouched next to the body and removed a stone, imbedding it into the wound at the man’s neck. She muttered familiar words, and the stairwell melted away, soon to be replaced by the lush swamp that served at the rood of her home. The first part of her task was complete. Now the real work began.

[Solanaceae]

---

On the rooftop of Kardak’kesa Gholand rivulets of blood merged with swamp water, death feeding life in a spiral of creation. Wiping her hands clean in the damp grass Solanaceae considered this, as she often did, considered the path her campaign had taken, and everything she had done to reach this moment. That was the essence of life. It was a limited series of moments, something that even those with minimal life spans, like the humans and the orcs for example, had trouble understanding or appreciating. Her people were different, even with their extreme longevity they not only understood the important of these moments, but the Fae had developed celebrating each moment of life into an art form.

Solanaceae turned her gaze to the black reed basket on which wet blood still clung around the rim. Not quite a final resting place, he had one more journey to take before she was done with him. Nothing would be wasted. That was the way of nature, the way of harmony. She lifted the basket and let it rest on her left hip, and then with her free hand picked up the white stone bowl from the grass. Careful to keep the bowl level, she set it gently on the altar facing northeast. Heartblood, the most precious and powerful blood for magical workings, as least that could be harvested from a adult male at any rate. What was contained in this blood would be the key to search for her answers.

But first, she had one last job to take care of.

She stepped onto the rune etched in the stone floor and with a flash of light she’d arrived in the nursery. Solanaceae glanced wistfully at the pile of bowls and rich dirt that waited for her nurturing hands, before turning her gaze to the opposite corner of the room. Where the two walls met a silvery white web stretched out like a delicate jeweled net, reaching mid-wall at its highest point. Movement near the top peek drew her eyes. A slender black spider with a body the size of a man’s fist, and reed thin legs four times the length of the spider’s body, looked up at her with an endless sea of black eyes.

“No, little one. This is not for you. You must grow big and strong before I bring you such treats.” She smiled at the spider fondly, and setting the basket on the dirt floor she removed a box from her belt pouch. “But no worries, I haven’t forgotten you.”

The white morning dove struggled as Solanaceae grasped the bird and gently pulled it from the box. The web trembled in response to the spider’s anticipation, and the bird’s panic increased. Ignoring the sensation of the beak digging onto the flesh of her hand in the creature’s last desperate attempts to free itself, Solanaceae reached for the calligraphy brush on the bookshelf. She dragged the goat hair bristles through the black ink cup, and painted an image across the feathers of the bird’s chest.

It had taken most of the evening and part of the early morning digging through books in the Scholomance library, as well as Magus Izem's personal collection, but she’d finally found the seal for the Cappadocian vampire clan. There it glistened upon the dusty white feathers. It was true, this curse she prepared was far more akin to the gypsy magic her father had been obsessively fascinated with, than the magic of the Fae, but considering who had been wronged by the vampire clan as of late, the deviation seemed appropriate. The curse was extremely simplistic. Until their leader did right by the gypsy’s, bad fortune would follow the woman and her kin in everything they did.

She released the dove into the net of webbing, where it quickly tangled itself in its fight for freedom. The spider was on the prey in an instant, swiftly entombing the bird in her sticky thread. Satisfied, Solanaceae knelt next to an ivory trunk just beyond the webbing, and unlatched it. She lifted the basket to the edge, and dumped what was left of the man inside. Setting the basket behind her, Solanaceae dropped a section of cloth that had once been a part of one of her shirts, and relatched the box. She’d come across the teleportation box just a few days after she discovered the nest of giant cave spiders up north, and then had decided to use to box as a safe way to convince the creatures she could be trusted. Every few days for the past two weeks she’d sent an offering of blood encased in flesh along with something that carried her scent. Hopefully the fact her smell and that of the prey was dramatically different would help the inhabitants of the nest identify her as an ally, rather than as food. They were truely fascinating creatures. She could only imagine what she might learn given the chance to get close enough to study them.

Retrieving a hand scythe and a small basket from her box of gardening tools, Solanaceae made her way outside to gather the wild plants she would need for her ritual. The yellow button mushrooms and the delicate nightshade flowers huddled together just beyond her front steps. She gazed lovingly at the graceful purple blossoms of the plant she and her name were so deeply connected to, before plucking a few and adding them to her basket, along with the small fungus.

“Hello, Fae!”

Solanaceae jumped at the sound of the cheerfully musical voice and looked up from where she knelt to see an elven woman astride and ethereal steed. Everything about the woman’s face has a sharp shape to it, from her upturned almond-shaped eyes, to her long, slender ears that came to a point just beyond her white hair. Moonlight shimmered off the woman’s luminescent white skin, the illumination giving her face and hair a silvery cast, as if the she was a part of the moon herself. This woman seemed so out of place here, in the land of necromancers and entropy. Not knowing what else to do in the face of this stranger, Solanaceae tentatively waved.

“Tell me,” the elven woman said, leaning forward on her horse and meeting Solanaceae’s gaze. “Are you not angered at what has happened to these woods? The very land screams in pain.”

The question caught Solanaceae by surprise, and for a moment she simply stood there, held in the gentle embrace of emerald eyes, eyes that danced with flecks that ebbed and flowed from one color to the next, like twinkling stars in the night sky. Yes, she know the pain of the land, felt it constantly, barely slept or ate most days for the suffering she shared with the slowly dying world. It was like that with her people, but they ignored the truth of their suffering, drank their awareness of the pain away with mystic wine and many lovers. Not Solanaceae. She would use the pain, channel her suffering. Her silent primal screams would give her the power to make all crumble to dust, so that in the ashes of the old, a new world could be born.

“Yes, very angry,” Solanaceae stood. She pulled her gaze away and stared at the hoof worn path. “The pain fills me. There is no solace from it. No respite.”

“Take these.” The woman took hold of Solanaceae’s hand and slipped something into her palm. It was hot against Solanaceae’s skin, but not unbearably hot. “And breathe new life into the land.”

Solanaceae could feel the vibration of the elf’s magic as their hands touched, and the sensation remained even after the woman pulled her hand away. There was little doubt the elf processed powerful magics. A pang of regret gripped Solanaceae, regret from her estrangement from her people, regret for the the loss of the touch. Because of her natural gifts touch was a rare experience for her. Even as a child her people refrained from touching her. Now, here was this stranger, someone who had touched her without fear or revulsion. Solanaceae didn’t know what to say, or how to react, so she did simply what millennia of etiquette had trained her to do.

“Thank you,” Solanaceae muttered, and bowed her head. She opened her palm and there, glowing bright orange like flames against her dark purple skin, were three seeds.

“May their warmth stir life into the flora.” The elf said. Solanaceae glanced up to see the woman smiling down at her. “And thank you, friend. If you ever dream to do more, let me know.”

Solanaceae watched as the elf rode away, and held the seeds gently in her hand. Their warmth filled her.

Then slowly, the pain returned, chasing away all feelings of comfort. There was not beauty for her any more, no laughter, nothing but the path before her, a path that tonight, her goddess willing, she would come to fully understand. She clutched the seeds in her closed fist to her chest, and carried her basket and blade inside. Misery and grief clouded her vision as Solanaceae filled three pots with dirt, and put each seed to bed within the cool soil. She watered the seeds with the tears that fell despite her, tears that could no longer be held at bay. She hadn’t felt such a strong force of life in another being, of the land, since she left the home realm of her people. The memory of the woman’s touch gripped her spirit, reawaking the sadness she had been able to bury for so long.

After a time her tears dried, and Solanaceae rose from off her knees to gather the basket that waited patiently for her. She again buried her grief, pushing away the memory of the warmth. Her control returned, and she swore she would not let her control falter like that again. Emotion was a liability, love and hate, fury and joy, these things would only distract her from her task. With slow, purposeful steps Solanaceae climbed the stone steps to the roof. Yes, the answers would come soon and then…

Then her path would become clear.

[Solanaceae]

---

Crimson runes glistened in the pale orange and gold glow of the waking dawn, surrounding the edges of the grey stone altar. Solanaceae lifted the half-empty bowl from the center of the stone table and dipped her finger into the heart’s blood. With her slender index finger she traced the tattoos covering her body, softly humming a song steeped in the old magics of the Faekin. The morning air caressed her skin, and Solanaceae shivered as the chill mixed with the moist blood. Once the cold would have been of no consequence to her, but that was long ago, another life it seemed.

Dropping the now empty bowl to the grass Solanaceae danced. As the pitch of her song rose and her dancing intensified the blood grew warm. Faster and faster she moved, and the heat increased, the pain combining with the familiar suffering that had become her constant companion. Images swirled in her mind, and Solanaceae stumbled, overwhelmed as the world around her faded away and she was cast into an eternally cold blackness.

The Void gripped her tightly, and she fell into it, giving herself over completely. Laughter echoed there, a deep woman’s voice, and the blackness changed as it filled with stars, the Abyss. A figure appeared before her. Her skin was black as the Void itself and the body of a serpent, glistening with venous green and yellow scales. Her six arms rose together and reached toward Solanaceae, razor sharp talons shining in the light of the woman’s eyes, eyes filled with the Abyss.

The air became like ice as black and grey swirls of entropic magic filled the skies. The goddess swallowed the entropy, and Solanaceae fell to her knees and watched in horrified fascination as the belly of the dark goddess expanded. Cries of pain and ecstasy came from the goddess’ lips. Oily yellowish-clear liquid seeped from the goddess’ breasts and coated the ground beneath her as the sounds of labor intensified. One by one they appeared, not infants but women wearing skull helms and donned in black robes trimmed with crimson red. One woman carried a red leather book with red pages, the woman beside her cradled a massive black egg in her hands.

The women held the book and the egg case toward Solanaceae, but when she reached forward, the women disappeared, leaving her once again in the Void. She looked up into the eyes of the goddess, and knew at once who her guide, her mistress had been all along. Solanaceae’s lips trembled with the force of her emotions as she knelt there, locked in the gaze of the Dark Mother herself, speechless in her presence.

Lilith smiled. Abyss filled eyes transformed to emptiness, eyes long torn from their master by a cruel hand. Solanaceae shook, held in the familiar stare of the Herald himself. His sightless eyes reached into her, tearing at her mind like brittle rice paper under the feet of careless dancers. Again, the eyes changed, the blackness claimed by rich amber that glistened with blues and greens, the colors shifting with the turmoil that was contained within. Solanaceae’s eyes.

In that moment she knew, knew the path head of her, knew what her goddess demanded, the gifts she’d been given. Solanaceae closed her eyes tight, but still she saw, she knew, she understood it all. The truth was clear.

Solanaceae screamed.

Her voice hoarse, and her bare body chilled beyond feeling, Solanaceae opened her eyes to find herself once again on her roof on Charnel Hill, knelling in the damp grass. She looked closer through her tear clouded eyes. The image of a pentagram covered the ground all around her, formed from a mixture of the bright green leaves and small, glossy-black berries of her beloved nightshade, the same nightshade that surrounded the pentagram in clusters.

She wiped the moisture from her face, and looked at her palms, surprised to find the glimmer of yellowish clear liquid upon her pale purple skin. She Held her hands to her face, but smelled nothing unusual. She watched as drops fell from her fingertips, thick, like venom. She thought back to the Dark Mother, the women, everything she’d seen. The scent of death filled her, and her body trembled, her muscles twitching, beyond her control. Solanaceae gasped as more images claimed her mind, a cave, crystals, a moonlit sky, ivory eggs swirling with black.

The vision passed, leaving her shaken, her body aching. Solanaceae stumbled to a teleporter and fell into her bed, barely aware of the journey. A cold nose nudged her face, as her cat Hemlock nudged her arm, urging attention. She reached to absently pet the soft black fur. The cat made no sound as it crumpled, dead the instant her tear soaked hand touched its flesh. Solanaceae stared at the body, numbness claiming what was left of her spirit.

Evening would come soon enough, with Task the Herald bade her to complete for the Ceremony. With a last release of her will, she closed her eyes and let sleep take her. She had what she wanted, her answer, her place, and through that knowledge her fate, the fate of all was sealed. Her path was set before her...

The Path of Oblivion.