Forever Forest

Chapter 14

Terra awoke early.

She could only tell the sun had risen by the lightness to her dark blindfold. Birds began to titter and sing.

Though bird calls were not the thing she listened for.

Reuel.

He was still quiet though she strained her new fae ears to listen to his heartbeat.

It was slow enough to indicate he was still asleep. So, Terra slowly lifted her head from his knee until she was sitting up beside him. Slowly but surely, she raised her cuffed hands above her head and reached back, brushing aside a few curls to grab an arrow from her quiver. She drew the arrow from her quiver and fiddled with it between her cuffed hands to get the right angle of the pointed arrowhead for her to cut through the vine wrapped around her wrists.

Her hands were cold and flimsy. She clumsily dropped the arrow in her attempt and froze, eyebrows knit with frustration.

Quickly, Terra dropped to the floor and felt around for the arrow.

Where on earth had it gone!

Surely it hadn't gone far, she knew for sure it dropped no more than a foot or two away from her though it was nowhere to be found.

Oh what would she do, she had to find that blasted arrow...

"Looking for something?"

She whipped her head towards the noise. Her blindfold flew up as Reuel snagged it with the tip of her arrow. Blinding light that was the forest around them revealed itself to her eyes. He did the same for the vine around her mouth until it was hanging loose around her neck.

Jaw clenched, she spoke for the first time since he captured her.

"Fuck you."

He raised her chin with the tip of the arrow. "I can always put the vines back on if you'd prefer it. Though I'm sure you wouldn't want to be refused the privilege of seeing my charming face."

She stood up. "Untie my wrists as well and I can show you the charm that is my fists." She retorted with a growl.

He smiled. "We have much traveling and not enough time for play-fighting."

"About that... where exactly are you taking me?"

"You'll see." He winked.

"My father might be upset if he finds I've run off with a strange blue haired boy."

"Your father repents you from falling in love?"

"That's not what I meant whatsoever Reuel and you know it." She glared, fingers curling in fury.

"But it's true, you just won't admit it yet. Just like you won't admit who you are, what this place is. You won't question such ideas that brought you to this Forever Forest in the first place."

She trailed his gaze to where they sat through the night, the once lush grass they slept on was brown and sagging to the floor.

She looked to the vines around her wrists which were still green and healthy.

Strange vines which would not die.

Wonderful.

"Never mind." he pressed two fingers to her cheek and angled her head back toward him. "No use contemplating it now, we're late to the dance after all."

Reuel was a mad man. A mad man she grudgingly followed as they departed back deep into the woods.

Despite her fury, she had to admit the forest, forever or not, was quite beautiful.

Light illuminated the trees. Trees which displayed far more color than the ones by her and her father's cabin. Strange fuzzy and textured funguses in yellows red and oranges climbed up trees. Lime shades of moss dispersed across the floor. Mushrooms became bigger, broader.

"Why are the mushrooms here so big..." She at last questioned as they passed one that rose up as tall as her knees. It was red and spotted in pinks and cream yellows with a few identical smaller mushrooms growing up and around its base.

"Well they should be for the villagers." He glanced back at her with a smile.

"Villagers?"

"Ah it seems we are here already."

He paused abruptly and to his delight, she crashed directly into his back and sturdy shoulder blades. She let out a hiss of annoyance and looked around him to see what had caught his attention. There was nothing and no one but more woods and colors. Light flickered through the trees and Terra squinted, trying to see what he did. 

They stood upon a wide cleared path lined with the same beautiful trees which led straight for as far as she could see.

"Is this the path to your home?"

"Not just a path, it's the village."

"What on earth do you mean, there's nothing and no one here at all!" She cried in exasperation.

 She took a sudden step back, away from him.

As she did so, for the first time, she noticed a slight panicked twinge in Reuel's clear crystal eyes, gone nearly the second it came and replaced with a grin. He briskly looped her arms up and over his head so that her cuffed wrists lay neatly behind his neck.

"No more questions. You will see all only after the waltz of the woe." He whispered into her ear, a nervous thrill running through her skin.

 Though she wanted to question the current state of his mind further, she could say no more as he slowly re-tied the thick strand of vine around her mouth, and dropped his hands to the small of her back.

She flinched away instinctively, though before she could find a way to free herself from his grasp, they began to dance.

First it was a step across the forest floor, a few drastic turns.

Then she was twirled and swayed across the clearing. He waltzed them forward, her feet obeying his every command once again. Her eyes were wide with shock at how her feet swayed and moved.

Though something else soon caught her attention, music. her eyes roved to the forest around them; the path. It had shifted while they danced, transformed and lengthened, heightened and saturated.

The world was becoming bigger, the quiet whispers of the forests became louder, until they were surrounded by a crowd of unnatural unearthly beings she'd dare say were straight from a folk tale.

Gnomes with pointed hats, crisp winged creatures with colorful silky skin and dead bug-like eyes, warted angry looking ogre aliens with uneven noses. Weapons and jewelry, perhaps both were the same to them. Fae and fairies.

Dancing, shouting, and clapping along to their drastic and chaotic waltz of music and joy. Her greatest fears surrounded her.

The blue haired boy; beaming and nodding his head in unfazed greeting to the others around them. They danced forward down the path now lined with not just trees but mushrooms grown to house size with windows and doorways. Small children ran and poked their heads out of mushroom and tree homes to watch the festivities. As Reuel slowed their dance she saw more playing amongst the small stone roads.

A fairytale festival; a welcoming entrance into a forest that perhaps really was forever. Forever real, and forever magical.

Her worst nightmare.