The Vixen & the Fox II

The Secret & the Legacy: Chapter 3

Armillary Sphere.

Another Unknown Location...

A low groan escaped her lips.

Everything hurt. Her head, her back, her limbs, her fingers and feet, everything.

Peeling her eyes open, she found herself situated on the banks of what she sensed was a body of water. However, its magic felt nothing like the fjords she was used to. Through the light of the moon, she squinted at its inky black surface. Where a fjord was hot-tempered and forever on the move, this... Lagoon? Lake? Pond? Whatever it was, felt coiled and tense.

Like a nøkk lying in wait or a moose about to pounce.

Biting her lip, she slowly pushed herself up onto her elbows and began dragging herself backwards.

The foliage beneath her body was nothing like she had encountered before either. The dirt was spongy and tried to suck her in, while here and there tufts of what she could only describe as spiky moss tickled her skin. The air was different too. It was warmer, damper, and stuck to her skin. When she took a big breath in, her nose wrinkled at the smell of rotten eggs and decomposing trees.

If that wasn't strange enough, creatures she had never encountered before could be heard singing all around her. In the water, in the air, in the trees, and on the ground, they filled the darkness of the night with their eerie buzzing.

She was utterly unnerved.

Wherever she was, it was not home.

Once she felt she'd reached a safe distance away from the water, she let her body crash back onto the earth. Anxiety tried to make a reappearance, but she savagely pushed it back down. Right now, her first priority was to secure shelter. She could let herself fall apart when she was safe again.

Rolling onto her front, she pushed herself to her hands and knees. Next, she forced her screaming muscles to hold her weight as she rose to her feet. The moment she was fully upright, a wave of vertigo hit her full force.

Stumbling, she collided with the steady embrace of a tree.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she rode through the pain.

Every instinct in her blood urged her to stay still, to lie down and wait for rescue. But she knew she couldn't. If she stopped for even a second, she'd be dead. Even now, her magic could sense Theirs relentlessly searching the world for hers.

Her kneecaps bounced as she continued to inch further and further inwards.

Every step she took sounded agonizingly loud to her ears. She tried to lighten her footsteps and lock her jaw but despite her efforts, her teeth were chattering so hard she was honestly surprised they hadn't shattered already.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, her boots hit a stretch of bricks embedded in the ground. To her surprise, they were neither hand-made nor magic made. Side by side, one after another, they disappeared down a stretch of twisted trees. Each strangely thick trunk attempted to curl over the path, creating a rudimentary archway. It was nothing like the elaborate work of the Fae or Elves. But she supposed it held a crude kind of beauty.

Despite her dad's warning to never follow a road she didn't know the destination of, she began to walk down the path.

Soon, she exited the archway to the land at the foot of a massive man-made dwelling. Panic at being exposed and out in the open had her darting into the trees for cover.

Ever so carefully, she peered through the brush to survey the massive structure.

Again, the architecture was like nothing she had come across outside of old photographs and abandoned human dwellings. Like most man-made houses she had seen, the house was box shaped. It had a wrap-around walkway ringing the ground floor, wooden shutters abreast giant rectangular windows, and an overhanging roof that lined up with the edge of the walkway. To tie the whole thing together, massive alabaster man-made pillars were spaced along the front, implying that the roof was held up by said pillars.