Kobalt

A story/background inspired on Changeling: the Dreaming, the RPG by Jorge Arredondo

"Keep yelling at me and I'll smash your feet with my hammer till your toes look like an sluagh's!" shouted Kobalt.

"Would you? You couldn't hit your arse even if you were wielding a troll heavy hammer!" replied Faffnir the nocker to his companion chimera.

"Try me!" the small chimera replied, while it knocked its master's work with its tool-like warhammer.

"Stop doing that, you gnarleduglyrat!" the nocker yelled. "You're gonna break it, damnit!"

"It would work better that way, sucker!" it replied.

Kobalt was a child-sized chimera, though its small frame hid a chimerical strength of a full grown adult. It looked thin and its members were perhaps a bit too long, with brown skin with tuffs of brown hair at elbows, shoulders and calfs. Its angry face looked quite goblinesque with a great dose of animal on it, with whiskers, black nose-tip and big sized golden eyes, and some kind of facial marks covered it like a nocker's, a pattern of circles and designs rivaling with a map of Arcadia. Its ears were long and pointy and also hairy at their tips.

Faffnir tossed a dirty piece of cloth at the chimera, but it quickly dodged it and sticked its tongue out at the nocker. "Nyahnyah you're too slow for me!"

"Someday I'll grab you and I'll forge a wonderful sword with your bones, and its tongue will be less edged than yours!" he shouted angrily.

"You will not, or I'll give you a beating you'll think a troll took you as a chair, you son-of-a-pooka!"

Faffnir couldn't help but smile briefly at the insult, though he quickly hid it behind his rough features. Also short, but not as short as the chimera, he was one of the fae, a full dream in a world filled with magic and wonder, for the mortals hadn't yet learnt how to control and suppress their fears... and their dreams.

Later that night, after one or two hours more of yelling and cursing, they finally left the forge. The chimera quickly fell asleep near Faffnir's bed. Chimera were so brief and shortlived in that time... They spawned out of thin air and almost as quickly dissapeared returning to the Dreaming. It was just due to Faffnir's dedication and work with the chimera that it had survived for so long. In the dark, he looked at it because darkness didn't hamper in the slightliest his tunnel vision, and wrapped Kobalt up softly. They argued any and every moment, but Kobalt was his only friend. He was lost without the chimera...

...then again, some time later.

"You're free to go..." Faffnir said, without looking at Kobalt's eyes.

"What? Are you kicking me out?" replied Kobalt, a hint of surprise and pain in its voice.

"I've joined what will be called the nockers' greatest project, a gargantuan machine of incredible power and beauty which shall have terrible importance in the future... and I won't have time to dedicate to you, so you'd better go and not look back..."

"So you're dismissing me!" Kobalt said, more to himself than to Faffnir.

"Well... in a way, yes... I won't be able to play with you in the long days that will follow. We'll work without rest for day and night, you would be a distraction and we can't afford a delay in our project" Faffnir replied to the chimera, frowning deeply.

"I thought we were friends, but I see now I was but a toy with which you used to play. So be it!" he yelled "Go ahead and play with your friends the nockers, I don't need you anymore, sucker!". The chimera turned his back on the nocker and ran away, tears falling from his eyes.

Faffnir watched it go, resisting the urge to call it back and let it stay. He shook his head "No, if he stays he'll die, Many of us will die in this project, as nothing like this have been built before, and if I die, nothing could avoid he became a piece in the machine, for there will be nockers a plenty willing to reforge him and use it as a spare part... no, my friend. It hurts me much more than you think, but that's the only way to make sure you live... goodbye" he thought. Taking his tool-filled backpack, he left as well, heading to the depths of the Dreaming, where the Great Machine would be built...

Lady Aleera ni Eiluned was running as fast as she could towards the crumbling gate of a trod to Arcadia, followed by Kobalt, her small chimera, who though small ran as fast as her.

Kobalt was a child-sized chimera, though its small frame hid a chimerical strength of a full grown adult. It looked thin and its members were perhaps a bit too long, with brown skin with tuffs of brown hair at elbows, shoulders and calfs. Its face looked goblinesque with a great dose of animal on it, with whiskers, black nose-tip and big sized golden eyes, but its features were soft and regal, with some kind of nobility on them. Its ears were long and pointy and also hairy at their tips.

It worn some kind of bronze armor, actually it was part of it. A big helm, chest, shoulders and thigh plates, and chainmail elsewhere. It also carried a small masterwork sword, already unsheated and stained with the blood of many chimerical nightmares Kobalt had fought with in the past hours.

"We've lost them, my lady! All the other members of our party, gone! I haven't seen them since the battle at the hill, after we ran from the fight!" Kobalt said with a slight tone of dissapointment in its mistress's behaviour.

Aleera nodded but didn't stop. She bit her perfect lip "I know, I know... I didn't have the courage to join them in the fray. I'm a sorceress, not a warrior, Kobalt!"

"I know, my lady... don't worry, I'll stay with you for as long as you wish, for I am your friend. I won't speak ill about your deeds and choices, no matter if I like them or not". It smiled to Aleera, trying to reassure her in those desperate moments.

"Thanks, Kobalt... but we must hurry! We've lost too much time avoiding the battle, we might not reach the gate in time, the tide of cold poison is too near, don't you feel it in your bones?" she said, still running as fast as she could, tired as she was.

She was a delicate sidhe woman, more skilled at magic than at sword fighting, as she had said, though over her silken clothes she worn some plates of light armor, for she knew the road would be plenty of perils. Her hair, darker than the darkest night, and her violet eyes, were the mark of her house, though now her eyes were filled with fear and dissapointment at her own lack of courage.

She kept her thoughts to herself, not sharing them with Kobalt. "I should have joined my friends in the battle, give them the help of my magic... where the sword may not succeed, there is always a way with magic... oh Dana, will you forgive my betrayal? How many of them may have perished at the beasts' claws in my place?"

Soon, the sounds and cries of battle reached their ears, not letting Aleera think anymore about her fears. Their friends, the other members of their court, they had reached the Gate some time ago, but they had had to fight the living nigthmare of a full army of panicked chimera, trying to escape to the Dreaming through the crumbling gate. In the chaos, the creatures stepped over each other, shredded to pieces each other, blasted with magic each other, and the fae of their court were in the middle of the carnage.

Aleera stopped, as Kobalt did, as Aleera was its friend and it would stay with her till the end. As he had said.

Aleera was filled again with fear, the battle was bloody and brutal, and the gray courtain was every second closer to them, the gate seemed but a sand castle, getting blown by the cold wind. She looked at Kobalt's eyes and it smiled to her, taking her hand in its own "Together we may triumph or fall. Alone, we shall fall. It's been an honor being your companion, Aleera".

It never had called her by her name. She smiled at Kobalt, and unsheated her sword, still on its sheat since they started the race against time. "I'm not afraid anymore, my friend. We'll help them and we'll all leave, ot we'll die trying. Let the Dreaming never forget this battle... let the battle clean my dishonor" she finished, blinking to fight back tears.

"There is no dissapointment in my heart, my friend" Kobalt said "I'm proud of your courage, facing your fears. Shall we go?".

Aleera nodded, and intoning a war cry she joined the battle, with Kobalt by her side. She burnt a few chimera to ashes, and Kobalt chopped some of them apart before reaching the center of the fray, where her fellow sidhe were outnumbered badly. But when they saw her, someone of their court thought lost, fighting with so much bravery, they cheered and fought with redoubled courage. Magic and steel cleaned a way to the Gate, where the less wounded fae helped the others to reach the summer lands. Then...

...some kind of nightmare broke the circle of warriors and trampled Aleera before neither Kobalt nor any of the knights' blades could kill the monster.

Kobalt knelt by Aleera's side, ignoring the fight around them. Large tears were running over its cheeks "Aleera... no!"

But she wasn't dead. Not yet... badly wounded, many of her bones broken, but still some spark of life hadn't been quenched on her. She painfully raised a hand and touched Kobalt's cheek.

Kobalt couldn't believe it, she was alive after all! If they only had time for a healing cantrip... but no, the fight wasn't over. It had to make a choice, and it did.

"Go away, my friend. Return to Arcadia, I'll stay here for as long as needed to keep the gate safe. I'll give your friends time to heal you on the other side, away from the army of chaos, then I'll try to cross the gate... please do as I ask you, you have to live!"

Aleera was crying, both tears of pain, sadness and pride, and nodded to Kobalt.

Kobalt shouted at the knights around, who were still fighting the wall of claws and teeth "Take her! She's still alive, bring her to the Summer Lands, and heal her! The spark of her life is fading away, HURRY!"

A wounded Liam librarian heard Kobalt and looked at the broken body of Aleera for a few eternal seconds. He nodded and took her in his arms. "I shall do as you ask, noble chimera".

"Wait" coughed Aleera, and with her only unbroken arm she attracted Kobalt to her. She kissed Kobalt's forehead, infussing the chimera with glamour. "I shall not forget you, Kobalt", were the last words it heard from her.

"I shall not forget you, my friend" it replied... then the fire of glamour became true, as Kobalt became a being of pure flame, a rampant volcano, the true son of Prometheus, a star incarnated! The blast of glamour made all stop and watch the flameing chimera, who shouted at the four winds: "I AM Kobalt, FRIEND OF ALEERA NI EILUNED FOR SUMMERS OF SUN AND STARS, NO ONE OF YOU SHALL CROSS THE GATE WITHOUT TASTING MY WRATH! I SO SWEAR FOR GLAMOUR AND FLAME!"

The sidhe managed to cross the gate while the army of chimera were transfixed and scared to death at the starbodied Kobalt, but as soon as the last sidhe crossed the gate, they charged, more scared of the autumn world than of the power of glamour.

They were wrong, for no chimera managed to cross the gate, and since that day nothing has ever grown in that place of true fire. Though Kobalt couldn't cross either, the gate broke in one and a thousand pieces of silver before the last enemy fell under the mighty blows of its avenger blade of fire... as the cantrip fade away, leaving Kobalt again small and weak, he only managed to say "I shall not forget you, Aleera..."

He had to wait 600 years, but what's time to a dream? He had given his word to his last companion, and his word was as sacred to him as it was to the Dreaming. He managed to survive all that time hiding in places not yet crushed under the gray mist of banality, visiting the few places of power that still existed, exchanging glamour for services from the commoner who had remined in the autumn world, etc. But he hadn't forgotten his promise. It was an oath to him.

And then, 600 years later, it happened. A wave of glamour covered the whole world, and the gates begun to burn as if they never had been quenched, and they did burst open with the strength of a thousand summers, proclaming the return of the sidhe to the autumn world.

And there he was, waiting on the other side for Lady Aleera ni Eiluned to return. It didn't took very long to see fulfilled his hope, for in the first group of nobles he saw her. She hadn't changed any, though her wounds had healed centuries ago, she looked as beautiful and noble as always, though at first she seemed quite confused at her first steps in the mortal world.

He approached the dreamstruck sidhe slowly, and tugged softly at Aleera's sleeve. She looked at him for a while, at first she didn't even seem to notice the chimera, but then she smiled and her smile was enough to make the sun pale with envy.

"Hello, Kobalt, my savior. I've missed you so much all this time, more painful than the wounds I received was seeing the gate crumble with you in the other side. How long have you had to wait for me, my friend?" she said, taking the chimera's hand on hers.

"I think around six centuries, my friend" Kobalt replied, who, as the Sidhe, had a problem measuring the pass of time. "It was hard, but I had given you my word, I wouldn't leave you unless you wanted me to go, so here I am".

"My friend, I'm afraid I'll need your help quite soon... there is so much we don't know, and this world seems so hostile now...".

"Here is my arm and my blade for you to use as you see fit..." then he added, smiling "it is so good to see you again".

Kobalt was running avoiding trashcans in the dark alleys of a suburb in New York, hunting the fleeing sluagh assassin who had killed Aleera with a cold iron blade, two nights ago.

Though thin, the sluagh proved he could run as fast as a night breeze, but Kobalt ran faster than his size should allow. Hearing the armored chimera, the sluagh tried to run faster, but he was tired and had started to pant for breath a few minutes ago.

Finally, the sluagh found himself in an alley with no exits, a dead end in more than one sense, and Kobalt knew that. But he wouldn't just let the chimera slay him without fighting. He opened a small metallic box he carried and took a thin cold iron dagger. It felt cold as the winter, ignoring the thick leather glove he worn on his hand, numbing his senses and filling him with banality.

"A single hit and you'll be history, slave" he whispered.

"Do you think that scares me, assassin?" Kobalt yelled with ire, unsheating his chimerical blade. "You killed my friend, forever! And now you're gonna pay for that".

"She and her kind had doomed all the kithain, only after their fall shall the fae find peace" was his reply, while he took a defensive stance.

"I don't believe you, she was the noblest sidhe I've ever met" he said, getting close to the sluagh and his lethal dagger "Actually it doesn't matter to me if you lie or not, you killed her and I had sworn to protect her, so I'll see you die for that".

"You've been a damned slave for too long, it is time someone teaches you something about freedom!" the sluagh tried to yell.

Kobalt threw a blow to the sluagh's side, but the assassin put his dagger on the sword's trajectory. The chimerical blade melted when it hit the cold iron dagger, breaking Kobalt's sword in half and letting him off guard against the sluagh.

"Cold death to the sidhe and all who serve them!" the sluagh whispered, his cadaveric face a fanatical mask of death as he raised the dagger to kill Kobalt forever. It lasted but a heartbeat, but time seemed to slow to minutes... Kobalt used the broken remaining of his sword to impale the sluagh's abdomen as deep as the broken blade allowed him, the sluagh's dark red blood spilling over his hands and armor, his cries of pain a mere whisper.

The cold iron dagger was already going down, seeking its target on Kobalt's neck.

Kobalt felt the lethal banality of the dagger, but also a greater influx of banality not too far away... more cold iron? Where?

He managed to dodge the lethal blow that finally fell where he had been, by stepping back. The sluagh was wounded, though not too seriously, and now the pain, fear and cold iron made him much more dangerous.

Kobalt felt more cold iron in the surroundings, it felt like a near icestorm of the coldest artic rain, though the menace he was fighting was far more dangerous... for now. He couldn't keep fighting against the cold iron dagger, the lucky blow that had wounded the sluagh wouldn't be followed by a second. Perhaps he could lead the sluagh to the icestorm... he invoked one of the powers the Dreaming had gifted him with, and his eyes burned with fire spawned in the darkest depths of the nightmare realms, his visage became terrible to stare at, his face deformed as a mockery of life... terror personified made from the stuff of nightmares!

The sluagh couldn't withstand the face of terror and seemed to shrink in utter terror. Waving the dagger to keep the monstrosity at bay he ran down the alley to the only exit it had. Not looking back, the sluagh ran and ran to the main street, where he stumbled on a marching group of fae, breaking their formation. His eyes opened up with terror watching the cold iron weapons of the Iron Legion, and the fear that the redcaps who formed it exuded from every pore. One of them took his pike firmly and nailed the sluagh from part to part, piercing its heart and soul. As his fae soul fade away in a cold blue flame, the redcap sergeant yelled at the soldier "Stupid sack o'entrails! It'was a commoner!"

The soldier shrugged and licked the blood that was flowing on the polearm and to his hands, after having pulled off the dead fae from it "just one less freakish sluagh, sir...". The sergeant seemed to find the soldier's excuses valid, because he shrugged as well, and they all left letting the empty corpse on the street.

"You're now avenged, my friend..." Kobalt said from his hiding place on the corner of the alley. "I just wish you can find peace wherever you are, now" he finished, rubbing his eyes with his little fists...

"I know it's been a long time" Kobalt begun, with its softened german accent "but perhaps forever may not be long enough". The little chimera turned round to avoid looking at Baron Gilles' eyes.

Kobalt was a child-sized chimera, though its small frame hid a chimerical strength of a full grown adult. It looked thin and its members were perhaps a bit too long, with brown skin with tuffs of brown hair at elbows, shoulders and calfs. Its face looked goblinesque with a great dose of animal on it, with whiskers, black nose-tip and big sized golden eyes, but its features were strong and serious, filled with determination, with some kind of hidden power on them. Its ears were long and pointy and also hairy at their tips.

"You know, we've been together for quite a long time, but I've been alive for much longer. In the past, all that time in the Summer Lands of Arcadia, and since I came to the Autumn World. Later I've been brought once and again to the realm of existance, every time my companions were reborn. And they also have forgotten me every time they were undone". The chimera kept talking while it walked around the room at Gilles' court, the bronze armor it had worn for centuries jingling softly and musically.

"I don't regret having adopted you when you chrysalized. We played together in your childling years, I kept your room and dreams safe from nervosa and wild chimera, I scared the parents and brothers you had anytime they wanted to hurt you. Later we fought together enemy after enemy, we made more than one enemy bite the dust but... I'm getting tired of being fired every time my companions get closer to their greybeard years, and sadly, this would be the case once again". Kobalt stared right at Gilles' eyes. "Yes, you would, in just some time... no longer you do need me, you are much stronger than me, your magic is stronger, and you have friends of your own, who don't just exist in the realms of imagination. Your promises get hollow, and I've noticed that as the years pass by you get more and more unseelie. All what we learned together mean nothing for you now, any new year things get worse... I'm dissapointed".

The troll baron got up from his oversized chair, his face a mask of wrath at the daring words of his companion chimera "How do you dare to talk to me that way, you lowly dreamthing!" he shouted, the very walls of the freehold shaking at fear at his ire.

Kobalt sought refuge behind a chair "I do dare because I also dared to call you friend, though that's not the case anymore. I've needed a long time to break the chains you've impossed to me, though I know they were tokens of love and friendship when we got together... now they are like cold iron chains, and I have to break free".

Gilles took his huge maul, anger driving his thoughts, his only desire making the chimera shut up forever.

"Goodbye my friend, I wish you good luck" were Kobalt's last words, for it dissapeared before Gilles' maul reached its small body...

...

Outside of Gilles' freehold, it became visible again in the enchanted world. Gilles' yells of anger could be heard even outside of the freehold. Kobalt shook its head and sighed "I'm getting older, even for a chimera, my friend. But you didn't know or didn't want to know that the older I get the more things I learn, the more dreampowers I get... I was sincere, good luck my friend".

Then it left, to never return, looking for someone who truly needed it, or somewhere where it were truly needed, looking for a dream of its own.

Note: the origin of the word cobalt is actually kobold. The miners of the Middle Ages found sometimes minerals with cobalt, which lacked valuable metals, so they thought the evil kobolds (mine faeries?) had left those minerals as a practical joke for them to find and lose time and effort gahering them.

Dedicated to Miss Ick :)

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