The Storm Recedes

by the Crisses

Not so very long afterwards, Celee returned to his body, and found the battle finally turned in his favor. There were no more Xaron-avatars to fight, no new corpses or controlled humans mindlessly encroaching on his lands. And that was a good thing, because the last things that were keeping Xaron out of Kerri had crumbled, and a greatly disheartened, shaken, elven nation remained to take care of the remainder of the battle and lick their collective wounds.

Some things about Celee were different though. He knew Nightwind was fighting to get back to her body. She could visit him in spirit, and they had finally met in body, just not in their elvish bodies, on another world. Nightwind was a resident in the body of a young channeler who had invited in the spirit of Drendel as well, upon hearing Celee lamenting her. So he got to ask Drendel if she had been pregnant that day on the battlefield, and knew that he had lost his fiancée and child that day, a sobering thought.

He had killed himself on that world to free his spirit to return to his people and continue the battle, only to return to find the battle was half as hard as it was, that the new battle was to find the heart of Kerri again. He wasn't sure he could find his own heart. He was not as much Sidhe as his parents were, the Between being ripped from the world and thus he'd lost some greater portion of his own heritage. The part of war that Drendel would have been best at -- healing, comforting, maintaining peace, was now laid in his lap, where all he wanted to do was rage and call down lightning on the objects of his anger, which had disappear. Celeglas regretfully took up the armor and sword and went to sweep the fields clean of foes and halfheartedly search the horizon for the dark figure he wanted to slay.

Perhaps if Nightwind, Warren and the others returned to the diminutive comatose elven lass nestled in a wolf's den, perhaps then Warren could perform another Making. After all, Warren was one of the Ancient Ones. That was as good a reason to go on as any, wasn't it? To see the splendor of the Sidhe renewed and give Kerri back it's heart. So Celee ruled on and fought enemies and healed his people to the best of his ability. That's what good kings and queens do.

Nightwind

Dreal