OC Lucy: Short Stories

A warm feeling

With Meri leading the way Lucy follows through the forest on their way to Farin, a great medicine expert and sister to Fadno. The elderly chief of the fae's village in this magical forest.
Their goal is to bring Lucy to Farin and stay at her place to be examined and find out why she is changing from human, to something else.
Years ago she suddenly had her ears grow into pointy long elf-like ears.
After being brought from the post-apocalyptic human realm to this fantasy-like world by Meri, she is now on a mission to find out what is wrong with her… Well sort of. That's what it seems like. But deep inside Lucy hopes to stay and sees it as an escape from her boring dead world.
Anything that makes her stay last a little longer she will use to her advantage.

Whilst taking rest in Fadno's village, small dark and feathery wings appeared on her back but disappeared right after they noticed them.
Hopefully Farin, this medicine Woman will find out what is happening to Lucy.

“Come on hurry up! We've got a long way ahead of us.”, shouts Meri as she floats fast before Lucy.
“I'm on it! I know you really wanna see your aunt again- but do we really need to rush like this? You didn't even give me time to think.”, she replies quickly whilst trying to concentrate on her breathing and not tripping over rouge roots like last time.
Meri, having a hard time containing her excitement and impatience to finally meet up with Farin after a seemingly long time, begins to laugh and keeps on being as fast and does not show any remorse whatsoever in slowing down as Lucy requested.
Weirdly enough, although Lucy had such a hard time keeping up with Meri, she now seems to be able to keep up with her pace and moves rather swiftly. As if this magical forest gives her abnormal stamina.
[Maybe it was the weird food?], she thinks to herself.
Passing ruins and a lot of trees she notices something…

“Haven't we passed this way on our way to your village?”, wonders Lucy as they come to a halt next to the hollow tree she spent her coma like sleep in when she first came here.
Meri nods and points out to the puddles on the muddy ground next to them: “You fell in there. That's why you are wearing potato bags.”
Lucy annoyingly glances at the Demi-Fox.
“Nooo I am wearing this because YOU let them be taken over by THEM!”, she points up to the tree's branches where her old clothes still move around in the wind with spiders crawling all over them.
She shudders at the thought of it.
“Yeahhh- Sorry about that again.”, Meri apologizes.
“Buuuut we aren't here to grief over old friends. We are here to pass this nifty portal”, as she points behind her.
Lucy tilts her head, as she can only see a branchy bushy wall: “What portal?”
Meri seems appalled: “You already forgot?” , as she places her small hand on it and the watery wall reappears. “That's how we got here!”

Lucy's mouth wide open and her lower jaw hanging down baffled: “You've got to be kidding me…”
She steps forwards and sticks her hand into it. Expecting to feel more water behind it, since the last time they came through this they were almost drowning in an ocean with magical glowing whale-like creatures!
Instead she is greeted with a flowy breeze of air on the other side of the watery layer.
As she is trying to make sense of it she finds herself stumbling ahead of it and going right in, because Meri likes to taunt her of course and pushed her in.
“Can you be a little more patient? Please?”, Lucy shouts behind her and into Meri's face as she suddenly comes through right in front of her.
With Meri floating into Lucy's face and them making a ‘bonk’ sound as their foreheads collided.
“Agh- you really had to stay still didn't you?”, Meri claims as she gets another teasing head bonk by Lucy:
“Not my fault you can't stop rushing me all the time and expecting me to know how these weird things work!”
In the meantime of them arguing the watery portal wall disappears again and falls into dust amongst Lucy's feet.
Finally looking around she gets hit with amazement and enchantment once again.
They are on top of a cliffside by the ocean, with loud waves hitting the rocky coast below.
She turns around and is greeted by a woman almost as tall as she is waving right into her face.
Being jump scared like this, Lucy begins to lose her footing and gets caught by Meri pushing her back.
The old lady chuckles in a warm tone and smiles at them.
Dressed in a big cloak made out of gray-ish wool.
“Auntie Farin!!”, Meri shouts and floats into the woman's arms in a jumping motion snuggling into her.
“I missed you too you little rascal, my, have you become big!”
Lucy snorts and laughs ironically:
“Yeah right her and big…”

The old lady reaches out her hand and rests it on Lucy's shoulder, streaking through one of her side front bang hair thingies and pushing them towards her and letting them go.
“And you must be the human, Fadno told me all about you!”
Lucy nods, a little weirded out by the soft but intimate gesture and steps a little back.
Something tells her she can trust Farin, but this was a little too much.
“You could say that, yeah- Although I'm not very sure if I still am…”
Farin lets out a small warm laughter and places Meri on her shoulder.
Pointing towards her ears with an facial expression:
“Oh you certainly aren't really a human anymore. That I can tell you.”, she ruffles her nose.
“But you still smell like one…”, Farin claims.
Lucy seems a little triggered by this statement…
“Excuse me, I- SMELL like a human? Besides- I thought you guys almost never meet humans!”
“Oh but of course we know their smell, the things we gather and find in the human realm all have that same smell sticking to them.”
“Seems about right…”, concludes Lucy, a bit confused.

Having Farin in front of her she notices something she did before with Fadno. Although they are both a little smaller than Lucy, the other fae are all way smaller!
Almost like a mixture of fairies and little people.
And these older siblings don't seem to have anything common visually with Meri either, which is claimed to be family.
These things getting a bit much for her head, Farin holds out her arm and slowly waves it behind her as she turns in a showing manner.
“Let's go to my place. Shall we?” , she walks ahead with a walking cane in the other hand and Meri on her shoulder, gesturing Lucy to follow.
Ahead of them are beautiful hill-like structures, with sheep like creatures roaming along and grazing.
Further back you can vaguely see the silhouette of a building with a thatched roof, surrounded by almost fully dried out wheat fields.

A refreshing breeze running through her and making her every step feel much lighter, she follows Farin and Meri.
Taking in the beautiful scenery she begins to feel a weirdly warm feeling inside of her and begins to smile a little.
She hasn't felt this light and free in so long!
Wondering what is still to come and explore in this magical world as the Fae are helping her figure out her overwhelming changes.
“Maybe this isn't so bad…”, she mumbles to herself and picks up the pace.