In the shadowed vales of the Whispering Thorns, where moonlight drips like silver sap from ancient briars, DeLouise was born beneath a blood-red eclipse. Her parents—wandering herbalists sworn to the old ways—kept a hidden glade sacred to the fae. They brewed draughts that could mend a sparrow’s wing or unmake a tyrant’s crown.
The Zebians came at dusk, hunting “witch-blood” to feed their war-forges. They left the glade in cinders, nailing Del’s mother and father to the Heart-Oak as a warning. That night still haunts her dreams: a Zebians’ scarred face draped in enemy skins, eyes fixed on fae-touched bloodlines like hers to fuel their dark rituals.
Del was three winters old, small enough to hide inside a hollow root. The fae found her there, curled around her mother’s cracked alembic. They carried her to the Twilit Hollow, where the Court of Dew and Thorn raised her as their own.
From the forge-hearted goblins of the Hollow’s depths, she learned to wield a great maul—her weapon of choice. Simone, a hammer of petrified elderwood bound with fae-forged vines, heavy enough to shatter iron yet light in her hands, each swing channeling the earth’s deep strength. They named her DeLouise, after the moonflower that blooms only when an orphan weeps. She shortened it to Del; the fae warned that full names can be stolen by clever tongues. Simone she kept—for her mother.
For fifteen years, she wandered the Hollow’s shifting paths, learning alchemy from the living world. Her hands stay stained indigo from crushed berries; a faint scent of pasque and angelica lingers on her skin. The fae marked her Protector-in-Exile, tasked to stand between Zebian iron and fae wings, Simone ready to crush their abominations.
Duty brought her to Aven, a town of quiet enchantment in the kingdom of Kerys. Cobblestones hum with old ley lines; tavern signs creak with half-remembered runes. She arrived barefoot, her cloak woven from moth wings and regret, carrying:
The cracked alembic, still holding her mother’s last breath—it fogs when lies are spoken nearby.
Simone, slung across her back, its wards humming softly when Zebians draw near.
Del set up a small stall across from the Branded Table tavern, brewing tonics that ease hangovers and heartache alike, listening for whispers of Zebian scouts.
On her first night in Aven, a child pressed a wilted dandelion into her hand and asked, “Can you make my da come back?” Del stared until the flower turned to ash. That was the moment she knew: protector or not, some things even fae alchemy cannot mend. But she’ll try. Gods help her, she’ll try.