The Mistress and the Maiden

As told by Kali Oberian

Somewhere in Valen, on a cold Xojalt night, a mother sits with her child in her arms. The child is not feeling well and refuses to sleep no matter the instructions of clerics. As the child cries and bemoans the rest she needs the mother makes an offer, a story in exchange for quiet. The child contemplates, then agrees, and the mother begins to speak, her child wrapped in her arms.
“Long before the mistress had a name and the Master had a wife, the Lady was a goddess of youth and beauty and not of home and love. She was young, as eternal creatures often at one point or another are, and unsure of herself or her surroundings. As the story goes, there were only the creatures of the forest that surrounded her, and the Goddess did not know yet for who she was goddess of.”
“A young girl, it is said, not sixteen years of age had been wandering in the wood and had come to harm. The goddess had felt the pull of the young girl and been drawn to the place where she first appeared to find and care for the girl. The goddess followed the sounds of broken-hearted tears until at last she found the girl sitting beneath the branches and brambles of one of the tallest oaks in the Fel.”
“What brings you to tears, little one?” the goddess asked the girl, “Who brings you to tears? Tell me so that I may heal your injury to either body or person.”
The girl looked up at the goddess of youth and wiped her nose and through ugly tears she spat in the face of the young goddess asking to help, “You do not know me! Why do you over to help someone you do not know! Are you daft and do not understand that people do not do that?”
The goddess was confused. She knew the girl had pain and that she could remedy it. The girl did not want her help, despite the goddess’ abilities. So, she tried a different tact, “And if we were known to one another? Could we be friends and then you would accept my help?”
The girl sighed with mocking exasperation, “Of course! If we were friends, then I would have no choice but to accept your help. It would only be polite.” With a sour look she turned away from the goddess, even as the goddess’ face lit with thrilling possibility.
“Then that is the cure for the beginning of our troubles! May I have your name, little one?”
The girl once again turned to the goddess as if to spit some retort or slur to cause the Lady to shy away. Instead, she saw the purity of the goddess’s intent and paused. Almost without realizing she replied, “Robin.
“Hello, friend Robin! For that is what we are, friends-Robin!” The Lady stood at her full height and at last Robin noticed that this woman she had so rudely spurned was no woman at all but some other creature of larger authority.
“Who are you?”, Robin asked with awe and fear.
“Your Friend, and Lady” said the Lady, smiling at her first and newest friend. “Now tell me, friend-Robin, why do you cry?”
Again, Robin was struck dumb by the question, but not out of venom but revere. “I was hunted Lady, by the men who walk between the trees and think of themselves as the master of all by their love of killing.”
The Lady frowned. She understood the Hunt, for it was something held in reverence by the oldest of the creatures in the Fel, and though she was young her wisdom was old already and growing by the moment. But the hunt did not allow for the hunting of girls, much less ones as young as Robin.
“And why do they hunt you, little Robin? Why do these men find sport in chasing you?”
“Because, Lady, I was not born a child of man but a child of the Fel. My mother and father are of the village just outside the bounds of the tree line, but when I was born my eyes were olive and my ears pointed. As a young child my father clipped my ears with shears and my mother dyed my eyes with honey and tepid water until they were as light as the other children’s.”
The Lady boiled to anger quickly, showing all at once the full power of the wrath of a god. “These men hunt you because they think you a beast and not woman born?” Cowering, Robin cried out with her eyes to the floor, “Yes Lady!”
The Lady looked out at the horizon and saw the men, still on the hunt for the Robin. “Friend Robin, if you ask, I will smite them where they stand. They shall never know peace and I shall banish them to another plane where they will burn.”
Robin dared to look up at the Lady and surprised her. “I do not wish them dead. They have never shown me ill will till today. They are cruel but they have been good to me before. If your power is so great, can they know some other punishment for pursuing me?”
The Lady pondered and then with a word to the breeze, her curse was carried to the three hunters walking through the woods.
The three hunters themselves were named Nerian, Ornen, and Dryden and were brothers. Nerian the oldest, heard a beautiful voice calling out to him, beckoning him away from his brothers. He held up a hand to signal his brothers stop and told them to wait while he scouted ahead. The two brothers grumbled, and then agreed.
Nerian crept through the trees for many minutes following the voice until her arrived at the outskirts of a clearing. The voice was coming from a woman sitting in a pool in the center of the clearing, her tunic hanging upon a branch. She called out to him that a wild creature had been prowling around her and if he would be so chivalrous as to bring her her cloak, she would be ever so grateful. The lecherous Nerian grabbed the cloak and gown from where they hung and brought them towards the water, unable to look away from the woman’s beautiful form. But as he did not watch where he stepped, the slick rocks around the pool caused him to sleep and the Lady leapt from the pool and dragged him into the water where she held him until he longer resisted.
“Over rivers, rock, and through the trees you and your brothers have chased my poor Robin. For every tear she shed, you shall drink a hundred thousand more. I banish you and your descendants to the pools and rivers of the Fel until at last you are forgiven for the hurt you have done to my Robin.”
Nerian’s skin began to change, becoming hard and scaled like that of a fish but translucent as if he was made up of a million shimmering tears. “No longer shall you be Nerian, a name for a man, but the first of the Nereid who shall always owe me favor.”
The Nereid looked in unspeaking horror at the Lady and as they opened their mouth to protest the Lady waved a hand and they were scattered into the brooks and pools of the Fel for all of time.
As Ornen and Dryden sat and waited for their brothers return. Even as they waited, Ornen began to become bored and looking for entertainment. It was then he saw the most exquisite white doe that he had ever seen. He grabbed his bow and fired at the doe who was struck in the side and leapt away. Ornen called out to his brother to stay put as he rushed after the White Doe. He chased the Doe for many minutes until at last he tracked the red trail it left to a cave. As Ornen walked into the cave, his bow drawn he felt a hard kick to his head and crashed into the cave, his head splitting as it hit the ground.
As the Lady returned from her form of a Doe and stood over him, she said, “Over rivers, rock, and through the trees you and your brothers have chased my poor Robin. I found her cowering in fear in a shelter such as this, and until the last echo of her tears has faded from the last fearful maiden that follows her path, these rocks will be your prison and your charge to protect those seeking shelter in them. I banish you are your descendants to the rocks and hills of the Fel until at last you are forgiven for the fear you have caused my Robin.”
Ornen’s skin began to crack and grown as if chiseled from marble even as he moved, and his voice became scratchy and gravely. “No longer shall you be Ornen, a name for a man, but the first of the Oread who shall always owe me fealty.”
The Oread looked up in horror at the Lady and she took no pity on his pleading eye and the Lady waved a hand and they were scattered into stones and pebbles into the caves and roads of the Fel for all time.
And last there was Dryden, left alone in the quickly darkening Fel. He stood in the dark for hours waiting for his brothers until at last all light had disappeared, save a lantern he held in his shaking hands. A whisper on the wind caused him to turn in fear and the force of it caused the lantern to snuff out. There he continued to stand for fear of leaving would cause his brothers to be unable to find him, their youngest brother left in the dark.
A coolness settled on his neck as he heard a voice behind him. When he turned to see it, he found that his legs were rooted in place, his legs hard like oak and his breathing becoming harder. The Lady appeared, taking the unlit lantern from the boy, and giving it her own light.
As the bark covered his face and his breathing ceased, she said, “Over rivers, rock, and through the trees you and your brothers have chased my poor Robin. For every tree she touched, you shall feel the cut of creatures making food from your flesh a hundred thousand times. Your fruit shall fill their bellies, your limbs the fuel for the flames, and your back will be given freely for their beds. I banish you and your descendants to live within the trees of the Fel until at last you are forgiven for the pain you have caused my Robin.”
Dryden eyes looked in horror as what little skin he still had became coarse and rough and he choked on his word as his tongue turned to wood. “No longer shall you be Dryden, a name for a man, but the first of the Dryad who shall always owe me servitude.”
The Dryad’s eye in its final unblinking moment did not move the Lady and she waved a hand and they scattered into branches and splinter into the nests and dens of the Fel for all time.
When her task was done and she felt that Robin had been avenged, the Lady returned to her and informed her of the task. Robin, still in awe, thanked the Lady for the gift of her tormenter’s punishments. Then the Lady asked Robin if she would like to be brought back to her home, as it would now be safe for Robin to return. Robin thought and instead asked the Lady for a final boon. The Lady of course was all the willing to hear a boon from her oldest friend, and Robin asked if instead she could travel with the Lady and assist the goddess as her Lady-in-Waiting. Sitting back to contemplate it, the Lady at last decided that yes, she would delight in Robin’s company. Robin bowed deeply and thanked the goddess for her patronage. It was here, that the first time the Lady was called Mistress, for in taking her in she became the mistress of Robin, who in turn became the first of the Order of the Lady, and the Saint of the Lost and Found.