I was so surprised to see faeries that I forgot, momentarily, that I was really made at all faeries and wanted to make every single one of them suffer, but I stopped myself as I was motioned forward.

“We are the council,” the bear rumbled. Bears can be and are often hard to understand because of the growling and grunting, but this bear was clearly trying hard to be perfectly understood. He was already fat for winter and looked as though he might prefer to return to his den and sleep through the coming cold months. Instead, he motioned me toward what had clearly been put together as a seat.

“My name is Borrowind,” the bear said. “These are the leading members of the council. The gnomes are Farsight and Fallinwater. The elves are Gad and Bal, the faeries are Mighty, Mortal, and Moment.”

I was a bit surprised that any of these creatures were giving me their names. While clearly overused in some contexts, names do have power, just not the kind of power some people like to claim they have. Knowing my name, Flora Rose, thank you very much, will get my attention if used correctly, but do you really want my attention? I didn’t think so.

“You are the one,” Borrowind said.

“Do you actually know who I am or are you asserting something because I just appeared?” I asked.

“You are the one,” Borrowind repeated.

“I’m not sure I get what that means,” I said.

“It means,” one of the elves said (I had no idea which one was who), “that you are the one who will fix this mess of a problem and get rid of that thing.” She, the elf was a she, was pointing directly at the camp even though from where we were there was no way to see it.

“But do you know my name?” I asked.

Which was when one of the faeries took off from where it had been sitting, faeries are small, maybe 7 or 8 centimeters tall. Faeries are an interesting lot, they are actualy led by the female of their species and it’s pretty rare, as in almost never, to see a male faerie.

“My name is Moment,” Moment said. She flew right up to me and I could see that Moment was a very attractive matriarch. I mean her tits and ratio were to die for. But really, it was her fiery black and blue hair that seemed to set her apart. “And you are Flora Rose.”

“Ding ding ding, you win a prize,” I said. “You’re also part of the problem.”

Okay, I had no idea whether or not Moment or the faeries were actually part of the problem or, for that matter, what the problem even was. But it seemed pretty safe to blame them given the problem only happened after I was trapped.

“That is true,” Moment said. “Though I’d suggest we leave that for another time. Right now we need you and I believe you need us as well.”

“What do I need you for?”

“To regain full possession of your natural powers and abilities,” Moment said. “Yes, I know more than just your name, Flora Rose, I also know your reputation and the things you did. I was there. I was very young, but I was there.”

“As was I,” said the second of the faeries, this one was Mighty.

“Mortal was not yet born,” Moment said and bowed her head toward the third faerie, who’d not lifted off or approached me. “Your highness,” Moment said and somehow executed a perfect curtsy in midair.

“Ah, the queen,” I said and smiled at her.

“Princess, heir to the queen,” Moment said.

With my smile, Mighty leaped higher in the air, produced a rather nasty looking sword, and positioned herself between me and Princess Mortal.

“I don’t have access to my powers,” I said in Princess Mortal’s direction.

Mighty didn’t shift position and I returned my attention to Moment.

“And what do you need me to do?” I asked. “My services, though necessary and mutually beneficial, do not come cheaply or for free.”

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There was a deep chuckle and I noted that Borrowind was smiling, as much as a bear could smile, behind Moment. He turned to one of the woodchucks, Olga was now sitting with them, and said, “I told you.”

“You did,” Olga said.

“Yes, certainly,” another woodchuck affirmed. The squirrels seemed to flow over each other in affirmation of what Borrowind had said.

The only ones who didn’t seem keen to respond were the faeries and elves. I had no idea what was going on with the gnomes. None of them were saying anything. It was almost as though their voices didn’t exist. Which, itself, was odd as the gnomes I’d known in the past wouldn’t shut up to save their own lives.

It didn’t take long for the head elf to stand up and leave. The other one, the one who’d indicated my purpose, continued to sit and watch and listen. Mostly listen as the faeries, Moment specifically, were the ones who seemed to be doing most of the talking and negotiating.

“What is it you want?” Moment asked.

“What’s my price,” I corrected. “I want the name of the person who paid you to trap me.”

“No,” Moment said. “That is not something we are in a position to give.”

“This is bigger than that,” Borrowind said and looked at the elf expectantly.

The elf looked back. There was a silent conversation between them after which the elf looked at me and said, “I am Bal,” Bal said. Male and delicious.

“And?”

“You are needed such that we are willing to negotiate many things. There are some, as Moment is trying not to point out, that we are incapable of providing by way of payment or otherwise. Many names are not permitted. However, in good faith, we are willing to negotiate with you for something else.”

“You know what,” I said. “I’m bad at knowing what I want until after I’ve gotten it. You know what I mean, right? I go somewhere and I see something and next thing you know I’m making a queen perform the duties of a chamber pot maid. It’s quite fun. Or I make the king dance naked in front of his men and the men enjoy it as though the most attractive and fuckable woman in the world was in front of them.

“Things like that, you know.”

“We have no control over things like that,” Bal said. “The best any of us can offer is not to interfere in your activities in the future.”

“How would that look?” I asked and for the briefest of moments thought about trying my latent powers, my sexuality, on Bal but decided against it.

Borrowind made a noise and I looked at him. “We need your help,” he said.

“I like bears,” I said, “they aren’t like people, which is the best compliment I can offer.”

Borrowind nodded his head.

“But I don’t know what it is you need me to do and you’re asking me to negotiate in good faith for something I have no knowledge of for a price I cannot possibly predict.”

Once again, there seemed to be a nonverbal conference happening between Borrowind and Bal. I couldn’t tell what, but I did know that Borrowind, regardless of anything else, wasn’t going to do anything or agree to anything that wasn’t in the best interests of the forest and all who lived in it, in his opinion and according to his understanding.

Bal, on the other hand, I knew nothing of. Elves were elves. They did as they wanted, when they wanted, and for whatever reason seemed most in line with whatever it was they wanted to accomplish. For elves, the ends often justified whatever it took to get the desired outcome. Even if that meant people, elves, getting hurt or dying or being killed. They were kind of hard core, if you know what I mean.

I could guess she was asserting the elven position and wanted to try to use force on me. Which seemed impossibly misguided to me as I suspected, even now, without my powers, I was still pretty impossible to injure, harm, or otherwise intimidate. Plus, if they tried any of that I’m a firm believer in retribution for retributions sake and I think knowing who I was would encourage them to avoid coming at me.

“We want you to destroy that thing,” Borrowind said.

I wasn’t expecting the request to come from Borrowind. That’s typically not an elven or faerie thing to do, let someone else take charge. Yet, Borrowind was some kind of a leader in this forest and as such he was the one who told me what they wanted.

“What thing?” I asked.

“That thing,” Moment said, suddenly back in the picture. “You are practically living with it.”

“Ethan?”

“I don’t care what it goes by,” Bal said, and the faeries all said, more or less, the same thing in unison. “It needs to be destroyed.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, even though these creatures were absolutely reinforcing my suspicions regarding Ethan. He just wasn’t right, and it was almost impossible to put a finger on why or what made him wrong.

There was a lot of noise and chittering going on all around me. I turned to look at the clearing and noticed that there were more animal and other creatures gathered. Taking stock of who all was there wasn’t my primary goal, though I could see elves and gnomes and faeries flittering about. There were more animals, bears and elk and moose, rabbits and squirrels, all kinds of creatures including snakes and salamanders and lizards, which seemed a bit out of place as I knew those creatures didn’t often come out at night and on this night, as it was a bit cold, they were really out of their element.

Moment approached me, slowly, and said, “Whatever you call that thing, it’s not alive. It’s a simulacrum. A non-living entity that has been inhabiting our homes for hundreds of years. It blocks our magic. It stops us from growing and thriving. It has created barriers all around us that we cannot get past and it forces us to live sad, shallow lives compared to what we could be living.”