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Post by Belladonna Crane on Jun 13, 2017 6:52:28 GMT
This was not the greatest position. She had been in worst ones before, probably. She didn't know why she thought that but Bella was pretttty sure it was true.
Although she was pretty sure this was the most humiliating situation she had ever been in before.
Bella wasn't sure HOW it had happened exactly. She was pretty sure the game trail she had been walking along didn't have any low hanging branches. It had been made by elk, surely they had to be taller than she was! But she had been walking with her head down and it seemed as though out of nowhere she almost broke her neck as her head stopped moving and her body didn't. It had taken a lot of squirming before she found that her tall antlers had been snagged tight in the branches of a peach tree.
It was too high up for her to reach with her hands, her neck wasn't strong enough to pull away and every time she twisted around it felt like the branches tightened and tried to break her antlers off her head. Technically it would be fine if she lost one getting out but that would hurt and it would hurt a lot. And while her memories were fuzzy she had a decent enough grasp on her biology to know that Shadow antlers weren't meant to shed. They would grow and continue to grow but one would be shorter than the other and her head would be unbalanced and that would just be embarrassing.
For whatever reason, while all the trees had seemed to push back away from her this one seemed intent upon holding her in place. And it wasn't even in sunlight! She could actually starve like this, she hoped the tree knew.
So, nothing for it.
Only one way to get out of this particular pickle.
“Uh . . . Hello? Excuse me anyone there? Can I get a little help please?” She called out as loud as she could.
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Post by Thorn on Jun 15, 2017 8:05:52 GMT
Thorn was on the chase.
He had recently just dropped off his most recent and complete journals at the Mound and was heading on his was to Spirit. First most, he had to get through the Forest of the Fae and it was taking ages. Every time he saw a small bird here or a tiny dragon there, he had to stop to admire and watch them. Now he was certain he was on to something new. As he was chasing after a brightly colored dragon fly, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It flashed, like a nickel, and he was instantly curious. Thorn had dug through the grass to find whatever it was and when he did find it, it bit him and ran off.
At first glance it looked like a small lizard with metal plates. He didn’t have the chance to really take it all in, but it was super easy to follow. Thorn had sprinted after the critter, following its bright, shiny gleam. With small lizards like it, the best way to catch it was just to out run it. There was too much debris for him to fly comfortably, so running would have to suffice.
There he was, sprinting at full speed, practically on top of the little lizard. Floating and swimming in the air happily with him was Shin, the big, lobbed fin fish whose whole body was a charcoal black, besides the bright red tail. He was kept afloat by Thorn’s magic, as was the water he was hydrating in. The magic was quite easy for Thorn, so he could easily channel it and chase after the metal lizard.
Each step was carefully calculated. He tended to be rather klutzy, at least for a fae, and he had to focus on where his feet were. There were pockets of roots and plants here and there; Perfect opportunities to trip. He zoomed past a tree with low hanging branches, flinching as some of them scratched against his face, bare chest, and legs. All he was wearing was a white and gold loin cloth that rapped completely around his waist and fell just above his knees. To anyone else in the forest, he no doubt looked like a shining beacon with his bright, white skin and ash white hair pulled pack into a long pony tail. Following a ways behind him was a small pack pony loaded with sacks, all of which were filled with empty journals, food, water, and writing utensils. The pony was well trained and, after doing this so often, happily followed after Thorn.
Shin made some bubbles in the water, something he did when he was happy. He flipped around a few times and quickly swam through Thorn’s legs, making him stumble. The lizard took that as an opportunity to boost forward, gaining a lead on Thorn. He kept on running though, determined to catch the cretin. He was running out of breath though!
Sweat gleamed off of Thorn’s skin as he used one last burst of energy to increase his speed, sprinting in full. He was right on the bugger’s tail! The only way to get him would be to jump. The fae had not realized that the lizard was headed towards a large bush until the last second at which Thorn jumped; Straight through the bush and…
BAM
Right into someone!
Thorn fell onto his butt, dazed from the impact. The woman he bumped into was a good deal taller than him. His eyesight was blury for just a moment, and he shook his head to help clear it. He looked up at her questioningly, still dazed from the impact. Who? What?
The lizard!
He shot up, looking around for any shiny glimmers, but there were none. The lizard, whatever it was, left. “Aw damnit,” he exclaimed in frustration. Thorn scratched his head, which was starting to throb a little. For just a second, he completely forgot about the person he ran into and looked around for Shin. The fish was out of the bubble; Thorn’s magic had dispelled after he ran into the girl. Thankfully the large, ten foot fish was fine. He was circling the woman, wobbling along by using his fins as feet. He was merely curious, but was also wary and did not try to touch her leg with one of his small whiskers.
Thorn brushed the dust off of himself and finally realized; The woman hadn’t budged! Why was that? He looked up and saw the large antlers she had, all entangled within the tree.
She was stuck. The trees would not let her go, which had to have meant she was not fae. That, or the trees just did not like her.
“Oh sorry! Uh…let me uh…try to help with that?”
By that time, the cargo pony finally caught up and was happily trying to find something to graze on the forest floor. "Er uh...you wouldn't have happened to see a really, really, really shiny lizard run past, did you?"
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Post by Rosalind on Jun 17, 2017 6:59:53 GMT
Rosalind was sitting with her bare feet dangling in the slow, burbling brook that looped around her house in the Forest of the Fae. Elegant willows on the far bank dipped their leaves into the water to cool off in the summer heat, but on her side there were no trees growing and therefore, little shade. The grass was soft and warm, the air full of droning insects and fluffy dandelion seeds drifting by on a slow breeze. It was peaceful in that hazy, summery way that she loved...until the air was punctuated with a shrill yell.
"Zayn, you're horrid! Rosalind, make him stop!"
"It's just a toad, you big baby!"
Rosalind watched as Amira flicked water at her brother, nose wrinkled, while Zayn dangled an affronted toad by its leg to taunt her. It managed to wriggle out of his grasp and plop back into the water before Rosalind could chastise him, so she only smiled. Both children were dripping wet from head to toe, diving happily through the water and swimming with ease. No wonder, with their early upbringing in the Marshes. The eldest of Rosalind's adopted brood, Hamza, was sitting in the water where it came up to his shoulders, watching his siblings play with quiet dignity. The boy considered himself a young man, now, and was less apt to play, though he was only eleven really. Ramla, younger than Zayn and Amira, was entertaining the two youngest of Rosalind's charges in the shallows - Suhail, their biological sibling now turned Daemon, and Rosalind's own son D'artagnen, still a pudgy baby at just two years old. Rosalind was relaxed, peaceful, and utterly happy - who wouldn't be, surrounded by the laughter and joy of their children on a lazy summer afternoon?
But a yell, distant yet audible, caught her attention. The Shifter woman cocked her head and sure enough, it came again. Close enough that the person making it would be only a short walk from the clearing she had negotiated with the Forest of the Fae as her home, where the trees had offered her land and the forest had retreated.
"Suhail, come here darling. You too Dart." She slipped down the bank and picked D'artagnen up, perching him in his usual place on her hip. Suhail took her free hand, looking up at her with those striking Daemon eyes of his, ringed with green-black scales, a friendly smile showing off ridged Daemon fangs.
"Amira, Zayn, stay here and keep swimming, or go inside if you get tired of it. Hamza, you're in charge. Ramla, go sit with Hamza, dear. And all of you, stay out of the forest. I'll be back soon." She hardly needed to tell the children to stay out of the forest - all of them except for Suhail and Dart were scared of it. The trees were not friendly to Humans, and although they wouldn't hurt children and understood Rosalind's connection to these four, the children could feel something of the tree's dislike for them. Rosalind didn't fear the trees should the children wander into the forest but it was safest for everyone that they didn't go into the woods without her. And as for right now, she needed to go and see who was yelling and why, and she didn't want all of them with her until she knew who it was.
It was easy to follow the yelling to the orchard grove just beyond her clearing. The trees were wild, not tended by Rosalind or anyone else, but she came here sometimes to pick fruit - with the tree's blessing, naturally. She didn't think the woman she found had the tree's blessing, though. The Shifter trailed to a stop as she emerged from the undergrowth to find a pretty woman with beautiful antlers tangled in a tree, trapped. A young Fae had found her already but she remained bound up in the tree's branches. Rosalind suspected the tree had done it on purpose, and the reason was clear - there was something odd and unsettling about the woman. Not the way she looked - Shifters saw far stranger things than antlers amongst their own kind all the time, and Rosalind herself could shift into a Centauress. No, it was something more subtle than that. A feeling. Rosalind wondered if her judgement magic was picking something up, but usually the signals were clearer than what she was getting now.
Anyway, someone would have to be actively trying to murder her before Rosalind would walk away and leave them in trouble, odd vibe or not. She trailed closer, readjusting D'artagnen on her hip. The baby was staring wide-eyed at the antlered woman, gaze partially obscured by a mop of nearly-black hair. Suhail, too, was staring, though thankfully despite being able to talk like any four year old, he still often chose not to.
"Afternoon! You're in rather a pickle. Can I help? I might be able to talk to the tree, convince it to let you go. Or this young man could, being a citizen of the Forest?" She smiled at the Fae, who no doubt was thinking of freeing the woman already, but who appeared to have gotten distracted.
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Post by Belladonna Crane on Jul 7, 2017 21:56:54 GMT
Bella could hear someone getting closer but she couldn't turn her head enough to see. She didn't even have the chance to figure something out, think of any way to defend herself before someone ran right into her and cursed.
Almost in the same second the tree reacted, protecting the fae by wrenching on Bella's antlers hard, forcing her to scramble on tip-toes as tears formed in her eyes. “No!” She cried out when whoever it was offered to help, “you're making it worse, don't touch me!” It felt like her antlers were going to be ripped right off her head and it hurt so much her chest tightened and it got harder to breathe. Even so much as moving her shoulders made a horrible pain rip through her forehead and spine and she struggled not to tremble since that only made the pain worse.
“I can't see the ground,” she said through gritted teeth, each breath making more pain twist up through her antlers. “Please just – I can't see what's got me tangled. Can you see a way for me to get out?”
As if it understood she was asking something of the forest's residence the tree tensed ever so slightly and Bella was forced even higher on her toes.
She let out a ragged gasp, in both relief and pain as another voice rang out. The woman she could almost see, just in the corner of her eye, and that alone came as a great comfort.
“Y-yes! Please, if either of you can get this thing to let go of me I would really, really appreciate it!” Her voice was panicked and taking on a hysterical edge.
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Post by Thorn on Jul 7, 2017 22:53:09 GMT
Thorn felt absolutely awful when the tree decided to take things into its own hands and make things worse for the weird antler lady that was stuck in them."Oh gosh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." He studied the branches for a bit and was just about to speak when another lady came into the area. She scared Thorn and he jumped like three feet back. Shin, the fish walking on the ground, made some weird trill noise which Thorn recognized as excitement. It happily wobbled over to the other lady and the children with her. The fish brushed its whiskers against the legs of the grown woman, and then against the small child’s legs. Happily, it began to circle the child, trilling and chirping and making weird noises that one wouldn’t think would come from a fish out of water.
Thorn wiped the small bead of sweat off his head from the startle. He awkwardly laughed at the woman’s suggestion. Even for a fae, he wasn’t good at socializing with people. They were way more scary than any beasts of the wood, way more unpredictable to him. “Uh er, yeah sure. I can uh, do that.”
Gently he approached the woman stuck in the trees. The close her got, the more he felt uneasy around her. There was just something so…off, so unnatural. That had to be why the trees were harassing her. Something seemed unnatural, and the forest of the fae didn’t really like unnatural things, especially when it came to sentient beings.
He reached up and touched one of the branches clinging on. Thorn flashed a smile with the sheer bright glee he seemed to emit with all his being. He was a very lively, young fae, who was always enthusiastic about anything and everything ever. “Please let her go,” he asked the trees with such kindness. “She’s not hurting anyone. I promise I won’t let her hurt any of you or the denizens here, kay?” Thorn couldn’t actually stop her if she tried. He couldn’t hurt a fly, much less a person, but she didn’t seem all that bad besides the weird off feeling she gave off. The trees were just really paranoid, that’s all.
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Post by Rosalind on Jul 8, 2017 2:56:48 GMT
Rosalind froze when she realised the tree was getting more upset, tangling its branches even further through the woman's antlers and almost lifting her from the ground. She was at serious risk of suffering permanent damage if the tree really lashed out, and the longer Rosalind stayed near the stranger the more she could feel something was off about her. Something wrong. This was what the Forest was reacting to, she thought, but Rosalind could hear the genuine fear in the woman's voice as she strained against the tree.
The child had some kind of fish with him, which instantly drew Suhail's attention. The Daemon child had never seen a fish that lived on land and he pounced at it when it tickled Rosalind's legs with friendly whiskers.
"Don't hurt it, Suhail. It belongs to that boy."
"I won't, Rosalind." Crouching he peered at it with reptilian eyes, turning his head this way and that as he tried to puzzle out this new thing. Near-black scales around his eyes glittered in the filtered light of the grove as he did so and he looked so perfectly at home in this ethereal, enchanted place that Rosalind smiled. She never took her eyes from the distraught woman, though. Rosalind knew all about panic - she knew that it usually made things worse, knew it was the first step in a chain that led to shock, which all too often made the treatment of any resultant injuries difficult. She stooped to put Dart on the ground, leaving the baby's pudgy fist clutching Suhail's long thin tail. Walking slowly, hands raised in front of her to indicate she wasn't a threat, Rosalind approached the antlered stranger.
"Hey, hey, look at me okay? The Fae child is talking to the trees, convincing them to let you go, but if you struggle they think they need to hold on tighter." Even more slowly, Rosalind reached out both hands and took the woman's hands in her own, trying hard to keep their gazes locked. The diminutive healer was dwarfed by the striking-looking woman but and she craned her neck to try and keep their eyes on each other despite the tree's pulling her head up painfully.
"Try your best to relax and we'll have you out in no time. What's your name?"
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Post by Belladonna Crane on Aug 19, 2017 5:22:49 GMT
Bella had been pulled up to the tips of her toes and she held on to her antlers to try to brace herself as best as she could. She followed the boy with her eyes until he moved into a position she couldn't fully see before her eyes snapped up to meet the other woman.
“It's hard to relax when my brain's being pulled out,” she hissed from between her teeth. Her plump lips were shaking a little and her breathing was getting more and more strained as the little Fae spoke to the tree holding her. She still let the small woman take her hands from her antlers and she looked down at her, only briefly thinking how odd it was everyone here had no horns and seemed so diminutive in stature. Bella's pointed ears flicked in the direction of the fae boy before angling downwards to the shifter woman.
“I'm Crane,” Bella said, “Belladonna Crane.”
In that moment, she felt the branches that had been curled around her antler loosen a little – just enough for her to pull free when her exhausted legs turned to jelly and she sank down to all fours. Only for a moment before she skittered back out of range of the tree and she raised her hands to touch her antlers proper. “Oh,” she said weakly as she felt the wide swathes where her antler velvet had been rubbed away. That was okay. There were no cracks or breaks, and velvet was meant to peel off anyway. Bella sighed before she looked up at the two people who had helped her and pulled back her hot-pink lips into a shy smile.
Bella had no clothes, she had been in this world for such a short time that she hadn't actually encountered anyone else. No clothes and no weapons, but they seemed nice enough. “U-uhm, thank you.” She got to her feet again, brushing moss and dirt off her skin as she drew herself up to her full height. “Sorry, I don't know what happened,” Bella said sheepishly. Her memories felt sluggish and gray and she had a lot of questions. But there was no real way to ask without sounding like an absolute lunatic. “Who are you?” She settled for.
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Post by Thorn on Aug 20, 2017 5:06:53 GMT
Thorn gave out a sigh of relief when the girl was finally free. He knew the trees were just trying to protect themselves and the fae, but sometimes…well, they were too protective. Even with the unsettling vibe she gave off, she didn’t seem aggressive. Thorn was known for going to conclusions too fast though, and for all he knew she may have been a danger. The thought never crossed his mind however.
The other lady that was there, the one with the kid, also seemed to be super nice. The child seemed mildly interested in the fish, Shin, who was continuing to waddle and vocalize his excitement. Moving on the ground made the fish too prone to injury however, so soon he’d need to fine water so that he could let the fish hover and swim in the air again.
When she fell to the ground, the fae boy had moved to help her up, but she instead moved herself away from the trees. As she seemed to study her antlers, he took a moment to study her. What was she? Not a fae, that was for sure. Thorn wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a fae like her before, nor one that ever given off the weird, unsettling feeling he couldn’t seem to shake. Maybe a shifter of some kind? Thorn wasn’t really good with figuring out what people were. Animals were a different story.
Her nudity wasn’t offputing to the fae boy. They were an open race, and many fae back at his home preferred to not wear clothes at all, or even wear fully shear ones. But, he wondered, if she was possibly cold? There wasn’t anything he could offer to help. And even if he did, he doubted his clothes would fit her.
He cocked his head at her. Belladona seemed…confused, maybe even uneasy? It’d make sense, considering the trees had been hostile towards her, but still. He was deep in thought when it finally registered that she’d thanked him and the other lady, as well as asked a question.
This was so odd, meeting people in the middle of the forest that weren’t fae, suddenly asking who was who. Well, to Thorn this seemed odd anyways. Socializing was not his strong point, but he took a deep breath and decided to at least introduce himself before deciding to maybe just walk away and return to looking for that lizard.
“Oh it’s no problem! Happy to help. Just uh, don’t make the trees mad or they’ll do it again.” He spoke as if they were sentient beings, and to him and his people, the forest was. “I’m Thorn. Sorry about uh, running into you.” He almost added that it was in the pursuit of research, but decided against it. “And that’s Shin!” Thorn pointed to the lobe-finned fish, who seemed to be uneasy about the girl, swaying from left to right, then right to left, watching her careful. Maybe to the others it wouldn’t seem out of place, but Thorn had been with the fish long enough to know otherwise. Did it feel the same thing that Thorn felt about the girl? Maybe…. “I promise he’s friendly. Not like he can do any damage if he ain’t though.”
“What broughtchya out here?” The question was to both the woman with kids, and Belladona. “Can’t say I’ve seen many folks that willingly come here who aren’t fae.”
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Post by Rosalind on Aug 26, 2017 7:31:33 GMT
Rosalind let out a sigh of relief when the woman was freed, quite suddenly, the tree appearing to pause for a moment and listen to the Fae child before relaxing and letting go all at once. The healer moved quickly away from the tree also - frequent travel through the Forest of the Fae, and decades of helping the denizens within, had given Rosalind a good reputation with the trees. But she never forgot that she was not a native, and here only by their leave, as their guest. She remained wary of offending the trees and careful in her interactions with them.
"I'm Rosalind. Pleasure to meet you both."
"I'm Suhail!" The Daemon child was suddenly at Rosalind's side, peering up at the two new people with inquisitive crocodilian eyes. Rosalind ran her fingers through the boy's wavy hair and he leaned against her, tail winding around her ankle. His locks were drying all in a mess and she absentmindedly worked the tangles out as she spoke. Suhail stared at Bella for a while, entranced by how brightly coloured she was, but he was even more interested in Thorn. The boy was older than him but younger than Rosalind and the woman who'd called herself Bella, and therefore more interesting by default.
"Is Shin your pet?" Rosalind knew Suhail asked this out of envy - she wouldn't allow any of the children to get pets. There were six of them, all with animal influences, and it was chaotic enough already to travel with the lot of them, without adding a bunch of lizards and whatnot into the mix.
"I have a house nearby. Well, I use a house nearby. The trees let me build it a while ago now, and really it belongs to them, but they let me live there sometimes because I'm a healer. Speaking of, you're both welcome to come back there with me if you like. I can check your antlers for damage, or perhaps give you something for the discomfort, if you think it would help. I should think you might end up with a headache. And the rest of my children are there, they like meeting new people." She scooped up the baby again as she spoke, smiling as Dart reached out to grasp a lock of hair. She hoped that both Thorn and Bella would agree to spend a little time with her. Thorn would delight the kids - they loved meeting other children - and Rosalind was very intrigued about Bella. She suspected the woman might be a Shadow and she'd met so few Outcasts.
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