Aurelia watches the Hoarder's retreating back with a burdened mind and a calm heart. She is glad to be left alone, but also, mortified to be left alone. Who does that?! Let a stranger wander around enemy territory with free reins?!
Aurelia looks away, before her staring could get too creepy, and tip toes to check which way to go now. Surely, she couldn't see past the long hallway but she could pretend that she was trying.
She heaves a sigh before taking a bold first step. The castle doesn't provide her with a cushion of petals anymore and her wooden sandal clicks against the floor. The sound ricochet's off the walls and hits all of her nerves.
Aurelia feels unworthy to take another step.
What if the sound is too loud? Loud noises are embarassing! What if she walks and someone stops her— what is she supposed to say? Is she supposed to stay where she is? Is she even allowed to walk further?
She presses her palms together, a thin layer of sweat covering them. She'd rather choose a prison where she knew her place than than an empty castle where she didn't.
At least she wouldn't be overwhelmed by the discomfort of having —
A strange sound makes her breath hitch. Ivy green vines slither across the walls and make their way to her, blooming white flowers in greeting. Aurelia sucks in a grateful breath, "Finally, a folk!"
She kneels on the floor to touch the vine but it slithers over her boney hands and sucks the faux emperor's blood away. The white flowers mesh together, impersonating a human form before their pollen bursts and in a blink of an eye, Aurelia sees a spirit floating around her.
She has hair like the dawny rays of the sun, cascading down to her ankles, tied with a few tendrils around her waist. Her white dress twirls and flows with her brisk movements as she eyes Aurelia with curious ivy eyes and a bright smile.
"Spirit Lili, guardian of the Fae— well, now Fae ruins."
"Aurelia, Mossbloom?" Aurelia utters, quite surprised by the spirit's sudden existence and confused in her own identity. Lili doesn't seem to mind Aurelia's horrible greeting skills as she waves her delicate pale wrist and drenches Aurelia in gold specks.
"We're so excited to have you!!" Lili claps, circling around Aurelia with excitement. "You cannot believe how long we have waited for someone who isn't downright powerthirsty!" She drags out an unfamiliar tune, taking Aurelia's now clean hands in hers and twirling her around the hallway.
"Woah- Woah!" Goes the mushroom, "I understand your excitement but can you please let go of me?! What if someone sees us?!" Aurelia freezes on her heels and Lili, who hadn't given up, owning to her lightweight and momentum, is thrown away. She zooms through a wall with loud giggles and Aurelia is momentarily worried if she caused some harm.
"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" She runs up the wall, in which Lili crashed and disappeared, and knocks a knuckle against it.
There's a moment of grim silence.
Someone blows in Aurelia's right ear.
She freaks out into a shout.
"Why I'm terrific!" The voice exclaims in her other ear.
Aurelia jumps and backs away into the wall. It feels hard and cold against her back as silence surrounds her again. "Lili...?" Aurelia questions, right when a wisp of silver zooms past her.
"You called me?"
Suddenly, vines branch out of the wall and wrap around Aurelia's torso, creeping over her neck and face, sucking the blood off her.
Her heart thunders in its cavity, spores bursting a cloud of deep pink around her head. "S-stop it, let go- please!"
"But I've been waiting for you~"
Lili's face pops into perspective, upside-down, right in front of Aurelia's face, as if she were hanging off her shoulders. "Well I don't like this and I need you to stop it and leave me!" Aurelia protests against the vines, twisting and rubbing her hands and neck to make them let go.
"Why you hurt me~" it sounds like a whine and Aurelia is finally let go of. She falls to the ground, scrambling to the centre, looking left and right for any other surprises.
"I'm here," Lili breaths as her head pops between Aurelia's ankles, body hidden away from perspective.
Aurelia had heard that the Fae were a mischievous species but experiencing it first hand was something she did not want, like or expect. How did the world survive with a whole kingdom of these folks giving heart attacks for rots and giggles?!
Suddenly, Aurelia was glad that the Hoarder had destroyed the Fae in war.
"I'd rather you not be here," Aurelia chokes out, folding her feet and eventually standing up. Lili's head floats on the ground as Aurelia tries to evade it's pestering presence.
"But I thought you were happy to see me!"
"I was happy to see you—" she stomps her foot as Lili tries to pinch her feet, "— when you weren't using me for your entertainment!"
Lili's pretty face wears a frown as she rises up, her head reaching Aurelia's height with her elongated dress flowing all around them. "So you can use me as a residence but I cannot even entertain myself?" She questions hoarsely. There is an indescribable glint in her eyes as she leans impossibly close to Aurelia.
"I- uh, I'm sorry. I'm sure we can come to an agreement, surely?" The fungi girl gulps, raising her hands to bring some distance between them. The flowy dress wraps itself around Aurelia's feet and drags her down. Her cap crashes the ground and a sharp pain renders her breathless for a second. Vines and twigs creep towards her, crackling and churning to restrain her hands and feet.
Aurelia resists but in vain. She shouts but a leaf holds her mouth hostage.
"An agreement —?!" Lili laughs a hollow laugh, "As an enchanted, you held a loyalty towards the Fae. But what did you do? Abandon us in a war!!" she spits, looming over Aurelia's writhing figure with spite in her eyes.
"The ephemerals not turning up was a given, no one gives a goblin's arse about their promises but betrayed by your own race! Do you know how my Queen suffers?!" Her pupils narrow into slits and the pressure around Aurelia's neck tightens. She wheezes for air, spores bursting, twisting her hands to get a grip of the dagger she keeps in her pocket. Or even a lumia. Anything.
"She saw her family defeated before her eyes, sucked into hollow orbs of magic, confined forever. She dessicates in a cellar, MY QUEEN! IN A CELLAR! All because of a wretched, goblinforsaken, Ephemeral!!"
Aurelia's spores erupt cloud after cloud in pink, dispersing all over the vines and twigs trapping her. She had never had much spirit essence ever since she was born so her spores were never really anything but an unwanted medium to express her feelings. Though, in theory, Aurelia knew that spores helped to reproduce, in turn feed on the environment they were left on. And because the vines were a plant, there was a chance that Aurelia's spores could feed on its energy and weaken even a little bit of her restrains so she could reach the dagger.
"And now that he is bonded," Lili's hands cut through the spore clouds to witness the distress on Aurelia's face, "to a dust puffing little sapling like you," she seethes in her face, "I can finally kill him."
Aurelia twists her hand and the vine lets go for a split second. Aurelia is quick to pull out her dagger and slash through the restraint. With one hand free, she charges the dagger to Lili's heart—
—but it passes through her.
Ah yes, of course. Going for a Lumia would have been a better choice considering Lili was a SPIRIT. Unfortunately, Aurelia isn't known for her better choices and it was too late to redeem herself now.
"Ouch," Lili slaps across Aurelia's face, "but cute." The slap stings and Aurelia doesn't understand how she can feel Lili but not stab her in the back. This is nature's treachery at its finest.
Stronger vines zoom in and grip Aurelia's hand to the ground again. The dagger falls on her chest, going through Lili, and in consequence, the vines around her neck feel tighter.
"The Hoarder is so dead now," Lili bursts into laughter, circling around Aurelia's shaking and choking body. "And oh, just so you don't wonder in afterlife, he cannot hear you or feel you right now. I control what folks see and hear in this castle," Lili grins an evil grin.
'Ah,' Aurelia thinks calmly while being choked to death, 'that explains why I couldn't stab her. Which means—'
Her thoughts die out as air refuses to reach her lungs anymore. She cannot transform back into a mushroom because of the restraints so, she understands that this is the end.
Being killed in the Hoarder's castle. Too quick, too soon. Her favour to the World is done now. Maybe her next life would be better.
Darkness fogs her vision as Lili's laughs resonates in her ears. At least she was killed by a pretty girl.