A. Poison in the Blood

A.17. Intruders

"Stop!" Forest bursted into the boy's room. The boy lowered the book and unlit his fist. He looked at her confused.

Whiskers ran toward Forest from behind the desk. She bent down to pick him up and stroked him with her middle and index fingers.

The boy looked guilty. "Sorry, I didn't know that was your mouse." He said. "I swear I only wanted to scare him off."

Whiskers ranted some curses at the boy. Not that Forest was going to translate them.

They stared at each other for a minute. Forest silenly berated herself for her own awkwardness.

Whiskers wished her good luck and went to nap in her pocket. Part of her wished he could have had this converation instead of her, then again he'd just rant at the human.

"Who are you?" The boy asked finally. "I haven't seen you around before."

"Oh. I'm Forest. I'm just looking for someone." She paused nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. "I think that might be you."

He frowned at her. "You sound unsure."

"It's complicated. You have fire powers," she observed. "Are they by any chance stronger then normal?"

"Step away from him!"

Forest turned to see an elderly, plump faerie glaring at her. Her light gray hair was tied into a neat bun and she wore pink, loose-fitting robes.

"It's cool miss Miranda. She's doing no harm." The boy stood up, holding his hands out.

"No harm? She's here to kill you!"

"What are you talking about?" Forest tilted her head.

"Don't play dumb girl, I know why you're here." She through a small amount of pixie dust on her forehead.

Forest stumbled back. The dust working its magic to make her dazed. Faint hallucinations danced across her vision.

"Miss Miranda! What are you doing?" The boy shouted.

"Protecting you!"

"I'm not here to kill him!" Forest said trying to brush off the dust. She saw spiders crawl up her arms, though the fact that she couldn't understand them clued her in that they were an illusion.

"You're telling the truth," the faerie said confused. "But the dagger." She motioned to the knife in Forest's belt.

"That...looks like my dagger." He turned toward the faery. "What's going on?"

"Where did you get that?" she asked Forest.

The doors bursting open downstairs drew everyone's attention.

.....

Spinnerett and Arachnia got blasted into the wall by a gravity pulse.

"What exactly was our plan again?" Spinnerett grumbled.

"To sneak in I think." Arachnia rubbed her head.

"So that's obviously out the window."

Bliss hit Spinnerett in the jaw with her wand, knocking her out. Arachnia jumped out of reach. She felt dazed despite being fine just now.

Now that she thought about it, her sister usually had better reflexes as well.

She narrowly dodged Bliss's wand. She shot some webs and glued her boots to the ground.

Arachnia ran over to Spinnerett and looked for the healing ointment in her sister's bag as Bliss cut herself free.

"Where is it?" She could feel her own panic rising, much higher then it normally would be. It caused the flasks to fumble in her grasp.