Emma

It was a gorgeous day on Tuatha Dé Danann, a perfect day with birds singing and flowers blooming. Sparkling dust swirled on the upper air currents, coloring the afternoon sky with a brush of purple.

Tyler inhaled the energy-laced air of rich faerie dust, savoring the refreshing scent of late spring. Humming a tune under his breath, he glanced around the grove of trees and sighed with resignation. The gorgeous day was not destined to be fun, not when he was tromping through a fruit orchard, northeast of Capital City, following the obvious trail Professor Morgan left behind.

Morgan taught Natural Observation, a required class at Academy. The test was not about tracking. No, taking a test that measured his tracking ability would have been a breeze to pass for a wér-dragon like Tyler.

The observation test was about seeing the environment around him.

School wasn’t even in session. That was what really irritated him. The whole test was a pre-term exam that placed each student in the proper learning level.

He was determined to pass the test on his first attempt and get high marks.

Between one heartbeat and the next, storm clouds burst across the sky. Darkest of black clouds, spiked with swirls of purplish-red faerie dust, covered the sky with an ominous forewarning.

Lightning burst in jagged spears through the clouds. Thunder boomed. The world as he knew it disappeared, abruptly changing from normal to wacked-out crazy.

In the distance, he heard a faint scream. Ignoring the sound wasn’t a problem, not when a brown branch covered with green needles swayed an inch from his nose, a branch that had not been there a second ago. Fearing an attack, his muscles tensed, preparing to shift into wér-dragon, an in-between shape that wasn’t quite human, but not quite dragon either. A moment ticked by, nothing attacked.

Dual hearts racing, he quickly searched the area for a hint of what happened. Eerie looking green trees filled the forest. Here and there, he spotted the light blue leaves of a fat pomona tree; the fruit orchard stood intermingled with the weird green trees. Some of the alien looking trees were taller than the tallest of shroum trees and covered with broad fluttering leaves where shroum heads should be sprouting.

He carefully touched the branch swaying less than an inch away from his startled face. Green needles sprouted along each branch. He flexed a needle-shaped leaf between his fingers, bending it in half. A sharp smell drifted to him. He knew no druid created the unique tree.

The druids of the Celtic Nations tinkered with every living object they managed to get their grasping hands on, willy-nilly changing plants and beasts into unique works of art.

Working with dorcha energy was an ability that came natural to druids but when druids manipulated the dorcha within plants, changing a plant’s color or shape, it left a scent behind. The pungent smell coming from the bent green needle was different. The tree didn’t have the clean underlying scent of something changed by dark energy.

The missing scent could only mean one thing. The tree was natural. The freakish concept shook his world.

He’d never seen a naturally growing green plant, no one younger than a thousand years had, not since the last gateway between Earth and Tuatha collapsed for lack of dorcha energy on Earth.

Faerie tales were the only thing remaining from Earth. Most of those were silly stories created by The Brothers Grimm. Only those two elves could have created eerie stories about mortals killing dragons or about a Tuathan mating with an Earthling and living happily ever after. Just thinking about those strange faerie tales, he shuddered.

The sudden appearance of the forest had to be some kind of pre-attack by the Southerners, the people who lived west and south of the Gulf of Life on the continent of Wormwood.

He heard another cry, a very feminine sound filled with fear. He growled, knowing his return home was about to be delayed. 

He inhaled the warm breeze. Searching for the girl’s scent, he tasted each individual smell. A sickening odor reached him. Vampires!