#dreaming

"This is different" Angela says. SHe had always felt separate from her family. Now they're lost too, it's something in common

"Don't go ANYWHERE" Ethan orders.

"But dad," Carola whimpers a bit, "We have to go somewhere"

All about them, this patch of the dreaming is a mess. Not they understand it ist he dreaming. A bookwyrm flies by carrying a book as chasing after it shoots a firebug hoping to burn that cargo.

River spirits hiss as they chase after the river that just got relocated!

A large Glome , the size of a hilltop, looks at the dusty wreckage of what was one smaller member of his kind now swept away, and says "They look like big, good, strong hands, don't they?"

Angela pauses "What happened?"

"Gone" the glome says "swept in a flood.,.. the flood is over, but theyr'e still gone. I held on as long as I could. The little ones, the pebbles... they slipped through my fingers. I thought they were big, good, strong hands."

Angela bites her lips , this reminds her of something, someone, an image important to her inner child she thought dead, "I'm very sorry for you."

"You shoul stay on the si..." THe glome starts to warn her.

But Daphne calls out "Angela, way from the scary Rock monster NOW"

THe others had started to walk furrther up the trod when they realized she was falling behind

"He's not a mo.." THen there is the sound of hooves. A steed made of silver and twilight, ridden by the most beautiful woman they've ever seen. For even in their ejection, they never saw a sidhe. Her hair is as silver as her steed. Her eyes are like storm clouds sparking. She wears an elegant dress of crimson and rides side saddle, a silver clasp about her neck with a lioness with head bowed, as if grieving.

Ethan gawks, feeling himself almost forget his wife right next to him. That's all right, Daphne gapes with a smiliar desire... lust, true, but also a wish to serve. THey all feel that.

The Glome mutters "The wounded one. " ANd looks to Angela "Let me hide you. Quickly."

"But she's so beautiful" Angela gazes, then finds focus as a rocky hand blocks her view, "I mean, why?"

"Fiona are oft kind, but not that one," The Glome says "Let me hide you. I must ask"

"Y.. yes?" Angela says. ANd finds herself pocketed by the giant

"Ah," Says the Fiona, for that is what she is, born of that house fearless, passionate, and romantic beyond any mortal's ken, "Mortals traded in such a number? Did you see the banners of the Shining Host what took your forms on thier arival, mortals no more?"

"Shining host?" Carola says forgetting to close her mouth

"Sidhe, like me" the Wounded Lioness says "THey would favor colors most likely. Red and Silver mayhaps?"

"None like you" Brandy swallows

"Mine. mine had horns" Daphne mutters

"A tail.. and claws" Carola throws in

At this, the Sidhe looks confused, then, curious, nay, intense "non sidhe TOOK your bodies? Rare.. almost unheard of these days. Tell me more of them. Tell me, because you want to please me" She shows her neck, the flash of her throat somehow more sensual than anything they've witnessed in the autumn lands.

"Mine was a monster, a big brute... all teeth and hunger" Ethan knows that sounds like nonsense.

"When leprehcaun came at me out of the urn..." Brandy starts to say, eager to please.

But one word hits the Fiona hardest "Urn? The souls came out of an urn?"

They don't answer right away, and the wounded Lioness roars "ANSWER ME, bits of mortal clay or I shall transform the into grubs and let the birds above dine"

"Y-Yes!" More than one answers "It was an urn" Another says "About so big..>" "There were patterns"

And the Glome slowly backs away with cargo just as besmitten as her family, but not yet noticed, careful and slow. You must never run from anything immortal, it attracts their attention

"The thieves, the killers, they're free, they're free and my love remains gone thanks to their theft?!!" A shriek too lovely to be called a shriek, a hiss too pleasing to be serpentine. The Wounded LIoness 's horse stamps... "I would hunt them and kill them myself I had means... but I know not where I might land, who I might take. Yes.. I 'll go. No Daireann I, but I will have my vengance due. They stole my heart's passage to safety for their own greedy ends! " A thought as she looks on the shivering mortals "But that could take years, and I do so long to destroy them now. Yes. You'll do. Fear not mere mortals, you will go back.. and I will allow you on trod. But you'll have no body, just dreams, nightmares enough to kill a commoner, each of you. You want to be molded by me, don't you? Be useful to me?"

Somewhere In Ethan's brain, there's a realzation he has a family to protect. "I... molded? I don't ..."

Daphne barely holds as well, suddenly realzing however beautiful this woman is, she is not human, and maybe not sane

"Don't hurt us..." Brandy swallows finding discipline not to beg but not sure they should agree to anything

And then, Carola already lost once, calls out "Yes, please, we do so want to help you"

"One speaks for all, and all suffer as one" The Fiona declares, as the weak link breaks in the group, as it does. "All serve as well" Unaware that a 5th is being carried away

The sidhe works her magic, "For he who was lost and replaced, who held my heart like the night holds up the stars, for him who I twined with on clover bed, and writhed against liquid love was spread, for my own shattered self, and hate of criminals despised, I bid new forms, Arise, Arise! Mortal souls go fully to dreams! Find the criminals, make them scream! Hunt them down in Autumn Lands, and snap and break them , by my command! For a love gone emptyh hollow, rise, my pets, my vengeance follow!"

And each one, already more devoid of humanity than they knew by the ejection, finds themselves altered, and transformed. Such is the power of the wounded LIoness on such malleble souls, that there is little resistence now. Indeed, they welcome their new natures.

Ethan bellows as he grows, and grows, a second head bursting next to the first. A brute to kill the redcap. Should the redcap kill it only in part, the other head carry on the fight!

Daphne gasps as her form shifts and tears, and feathers burst about her, breasts bared , for what does a Harpy care for modesty? Her talons long to rip satyress hide.

Carola, the weak link who some might be tempted to blame, warps and twists as well, serpents fangs replacing normal teeth, eyes grown serpentine, and below her torso a serpent's body an tail. It would appear she is rewarded as she is a lovely thing, shimmering scales and all.

As for Brandy, she is the only one to get smaller, no more than a foot tall is she, full of mischief and spite , one might confuse her for a sprite, but what sprite has wasp wings? A tiny whip curls at her side, one that seems made of vine and bars.

"We serve" "Yes, we serve" The Ettin echoes himself./"We hunt and fly" The harpy grins eagerly// "We kill for thee, mistress" Assures what some might call a Naga but others would not. //"ANd maybe we can cause pain too?" The horrid litle spite sprite asks

"Back to the Silver with you , my permission granted. Baack to the Autumn world. Find, find those who took your place, and kill them one and all.. but yes, make it hurt. It will buy me time to make sure the dead is done"

The Fiona declares, and the four, once five, shoot down the silver to obey. THey do not regret being ousted anymore. They do not lament their old lives taken now twice. They rejoice to be nightmares with a purpose. They rejoice to be weapons of the beloved shining one's revenge!

****

The spell of sidhe beauty wore off long ago for a horrified Angela "What.. why?"

"Her love was lost, and the lack turned to hate and madness" The Glome says "Come, I take you to those of your own kind"

"My family.." She starts to say