I repeatedly cut through the forest of thorns, brambles and branches. I constantly got caught up in them, especially the thorns that nagged onto my clothes, as I chopped my way through the forest. I then found what appeared to be a large farmstead in ruins and its fields all but in ruins from its farmyards to its vineyards for there was no light that shun down within the fields of nature. However, within this ruined building I saw three beds and a campfire that I found to be rather odd for it appeared as if it was recently used. I then looked to the table where I saw three bowls and in the center a large jar filled with honey. There were three chairs that appeared to be large which surrounded the table and each of them read from left to right; Papa, Mama, Baby. The last chair was the smallest and human sized off them that faced the back of the ruined farmhouse. I looked back to see what it said and it read ‘Goldilocks’ that made me wonder. I looked to one side of the farmhouse where there were three beds and each of them read from left to right; Papa, Mama and Baby once again. There was another bed carved into a tree with a ledge and beneath it I saw a different name that read ‘Goldilocks’. It is then that I heard branches move through the forest and I reached for my pistol, stepping back into the shadows and waiting. It was then that a scarecrow kicked the door opened and walked in, snarling and growling at me with her scythes.
“Fuck…”, I said before shooting her in the shoulder and this only grazed her as she just stepped forward like she was struck by a rock. “Bugger…”, I said to myself before running into the opposite direction only for another scarecrow to drop from the ceiling, swinging her scythes at me as I backed away and my arm-blade struck her weapon.
They both then charged at me until one of them was struck by a bolt of white light that startled the other scarecrow that watched her friend burn before her eyes. The scarecrow ran around and fell into the fireplace that went ablaze the moment she landed into it. There were gale winds that moved throughout the room that knocked us all of balance and then large vines and roots that surrounded the house reached below for one of the scarecrows that it took hold off, pulling them and squeezing her against the wall as it began to choke her. I looked in horror and listened to the sound of voices of the scarecrows from the outside along with what sounded like an angry pack of bears that seemed to growl as the scarecrows grunted. The scarecrow that attacked me from the start then raised her scythes at me until her legs were entangled and she was grabbed hold off before being dragged over the ground. She dragged her claws over the ground, leaving marks from her own claws in desperation, and I watched her being dragged out of the door where I heard her choke and gurgle on her own blood after somebody had tore into her flesh. Her body dropped onto the ground and her claw into the door while her scythe dropped. I remained where I was until I heard the footsteps step in and there she was a malfhi with golden blonde hair. She has beaded hair-ties holding her hair up in two frilly parts that somewhat resembled bear ears, but you could barely seen it until she stepped closer to you for she wore a brown hood over her head and one could see the faint scar over her left eyebrow. She has gray eyes, fair skin, and wears a brown dress greatly resembling bear fur with a gown made of numerous mismatched strips of fabric. She is barefoot and both of her claws were razor sharp like a bears. She wore trinkets around her neck that seemed to be a collection of bear teeth and animal bones along with bone-like piercings that resembled the moon pierced in her long slender ears. She walked into the room with blood on her claws and three bears that followed behind her as she seemed to be looking down to my direction even though she was completely blind, and her tail moved and snarled at the three bears for that is how an elf communicated with her animal companions. The bears huff, chomped, woofed, growled, and barked to each other while her ears flickered to their sound. She stepped in front of me and I thought about reaching to my pistol until she spoke.
“You’re not among the dead.”, she said and I looked at her terrified, thinking she wanted to make be among the damned. “N-No, I am not…”, I replied. “Do you want to be?”, she asked. “No, I would pretty much prefer to be alive.”, I gave my response and she just coldly stepped away.
“You brought the scarecrows to my home, interloper, and your scent is not off this world. It just doesn’t feel…”, she paused while facing the fire and turned her head to face me. “Right.”, she added before her tail barked at the bears that looked away from me and walked outside.
“So, where do you come from, I wonder?”, she raised her right claw and licked her fingertips clean from the fresh blood she had just spilled, and I was deeply disturbed by her behavior.
The bears that walked out began to tear at the bodies of the deceased. They mauled and mangled their flesh, biting on the arms and legs that they began to drag into the house. I watched what they did and the elven tail seemed to notice me, paying close attention to what I was doing.
“I come from beyond the stars…”, I said to her and she then looked at me with an evil smile. “Beyond the stars?”, she asked as she continued to lick her fingertips. “Yes…”, I breathed heavily as the sound of the tears, mangles and mauls frightened me.
“From beyond the stars and from another world my path has lead. I am an explorer who has ran into some unfortunate series of events, truly I have not been fortunate at all.”, she kept licking her claws clean while facing me with an evil smile on her face. “Another one of Bloodstone’s explorers, hmm?”, she asked and the three bears turned their attention to me this time.
“No, no.”, I raised my hands immediately. “If I was a Bloodstone, why would the scarecrows be chasing after me?”, the elf then stopped licking her claws and focused her eyes towards me, implying that I made a fair and good point that made her reconsider what I was about.
“Rogues are often backstabbers, cutthroats, and thieves… So what did you do to upset her, I wonder?”, she suspected the worst out of me and I could not blame her. “I was never a part of the Bloodstones. In fact, my last encounter with them almost got me killed.”, I tried to explain and she seemed to roll her eyes while the three bears turned back to bodies of the scarecrows.
“Ever since your kind came to this world, it has been nothing but chaos for all that the eye can see and yet I cannot see it anymore all because of your kind. I can sense it, I can feel it, and I can breathe it in and accept it day after day. My beautiful forest, dark and damp, all because of a one who was abandoned by those she loved and she damned them all...”, it was the first time I heard about this and I just had to inquire more about it, of what had happened to this world.
“Who was this one that was abandoned?”, I asked. “Is she a sorceress, a witch?”, I asked and then Goldilocks immediately turned her head, shouting. “She’s a witch!”, the bears raised their heads for they felt her anger and her rage coming out, her gray eyes turned bloody red for a mere moment before she calmed down to which her eyes turned gray, lifeless, once more.
“The Kingdom of Rosamond was beautiful and it welcomed all, both the natives and the aliens that came from afar. There were beautiful vineyards, farmyards, and gardens all over this world for all that the eyes could see and then she came to ruin it all!”, Goldilocks was furious at just recalling this person whom I then knew was responsible for the forest I was in.
“Who?”, I asked and this angered Goldi that shouted back. “Talia Carabosse, the witch that cursed her brother’s child for not being invited to her christening!”, Goldilocks explained and I then asked yet another question. “Why?”, this frustrated Goldi that turned towards me, growling.
“Why don’t you ask one of your humans to tell you the tale?!”, she shouted at me and her eyes turned red before I stepped forward, stared directly into her eyes and said. “Because they’re trying to kill me!”, I shouted back. “I want to know what has happened here, Goldi, please!”, I begged her. “I need your help.”, I wanted her to know I was desperate.
“Please…”, I repeated. “Tell me everything.”, Goldilocks grunted and then turned around with her eyes closed before they opened again, facing the fire. “Talia, along with her brother Sigurd, were both abandoned by their parents and at the time Sigurd, the future King of Rosamond, was young and therefore all the responsibility fell on Talia’s shoulders that raised him not only as a loving sister but like a loving mother as well, a parent.”, Goldilocks elaborated on the story of Teyvat’s past and I listened carefully, my cybernetics recorded everything into data banks that would be sent to the TEC-9 for review and close study as everything else that I would do.
“Both brother and sister swore never to abandon each other but one day only one broke that promise.”, she explained. “Sigurd.”, I said his name and Goldilocks nodded. “Yes, the young future King that laid his eyes upon the fair maiden called Aurore Rosamond; it was love at first sight. Their relationship a prosperous kingdom aimed on uniting everyone under a common goal and that was the love and care of Teyvat and its people, elves and humans working together to create a prosperous world unlike any other. The seed of their hard work was beautiful, but every garden has its thorns.”, Goldilocks looked down in pain at the memory of the past.
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“On the day of their daughter’s christening, seven magi are invited and not Talia, each of them bestowed with a delicious banquet with a golden case that held their golden jeweled knifes and spoons while the witch got nothing, not even a mention of her existence, and upon a sudden it is mentioned by her very arrival that startles and unnerves them all.”, explained Goldilocks. “Talia walked into the throne room and the seven magi stood up, all of them knew that they would be unable to match her power and wits, as did the King and as did the Queen. The sister scorns her brother due to his abandonment of her and for not even acknowledging her presence. She then places a curse upon the child about to be christened in front of them all.”, this tale was surely long and Goldilocks was well familiar with it, which made me think she had some part in it.
“What kind of curse?”, I asked. “A curse of chance.”, said Goldilocks. “It was a curse of grace and beauty, and the princess would be beloved by all who greet and meet her.”, explained Goldi and I nudged my head on the side. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”, I explained and then she turned.
“However, before the sun would set on her fifteenth birthday, the child would prickle her finger on a spindle and fall into a sleep like death, a sleep from which she would never awaken.”, then the tale turned very dark, very quick, and I already didn’t like where it was going. “The seven magi then protested before mitigating the curse before Talia’s very eyes at the cost of their own lives and the battle of wits and sorcery soon ensued. They paid with their lives to save the child of roses with the last magi proclaiming that the child could indeed awaken but only by true love’s kiss, if you believe in such things.”, Goldilocks wasn’t a believer and neither was I.
“In their desperation, Sigurd and Aurore ordered all spindles to be banned, gathered and burned that began to cripple our economy. They forbid Briar from leaving their castle and kept a close watch on her, fearing the day when the sun would set on her fifteenth birthday and yet when that day came they could of not imagined what would happen. A boy who lived in the castle, her only friend and companion, held a bodkin in his own hand that belonged to his mother that was a spinning woman.”, once Goldilocks said this I knew what she was trying to say.
“She prickled her finger on a bodkin?”, Goldilocks nodded and confirmed. “And Briar fell into a deep like sleep unlike any other, never to awaken again. The King and Queen banished the child that was their daughter’s friend and his parents for they knew it was not his fault, he was just a youth, you see. They then summoned all druids from the far corners of the world to help them find a probable cure but the curse placed upon the child was one of nature, one of primal magic, and so it could not be reverted. Sigurd, in his fury and rage, gathered his knights to find his sister and upon finding her he had entered a battle from which he perished against her along with his men. In the end, Aurore remained alone and widowed, in tears with a broken heart, mourning her child as if she were dead and upon her death the throne bed of her daughter turned velvet with the forest that surrounded their kingdom became quiet and frozen in time, its denizens frozen to stone by the evil witch that would seize her brother’s kingdom for her own. And that is how the tale ends…”, she held onto her necklace, holding onto the teeth, and I stood there knowing there was something more to it that I just had to know.
“But where did yours begin and how did yours end?”, I asked her and Goldilocks stood there.
“My mothers were a part of the druids that sought to awaken the daughter from her sleep only to be killed by the witch that banished us all from the kingdom and I ran far, far away from home. I kept running through the forests that turned wild with tall brambles, thorns and branches that impaled the elves like me, raising them to the skies and cursing them into becoming the feral scarecrows that are charged to protect the fallen kingdom. I was one of the lucky ones to make it out alive after I happened about a farm, this farm.”, she opened her arms and gestured towards her surroundings before lowering them with deep sorrow in her heart.
“I lost everything that day, a loving family and all my friends that haunt me, and yet I happened into this cabin with three porridges. The large bowl was too hot for my taste, the medium bowl was too cold, and the third one, the smallest of them all, was just right. After I finished eating it I wanted to get warm beside the fire and saw a chair upon which I climbed over to sit on because it was closest to the fire. It was too tall and too rough for me. I tried the medium one but it was very hard and uncomfortable, and then I sat on the smallest one that was the most comfortable and yet it broke.”, she sighed and reached for the smallest of chairs in front of her, baby’s chair.
“It was then that I went towards the beds over there. One was too big for me and too hard. The second was a little bigger and also too soft, and the third was the smallest bed that was exactly my size. It was very comfortable, so comfortable that I fell asleep right away. And when I woke up my world would change forever for before my eyes the three bears waited patiently for me to wake from my deep sleep. I thought they would eat me and I begged them not to, but they told me not to worry and I told them about what happened to me. They told me I am welcome to stay here for as long as I’d like and so I did. The three bears took me in as one of their own, as their family, and here I am.”, she looked at me with a smile on her face and nodded her head.
“Could I make you some porridge?”, she asked and I smirked. “S-Sure, I would love that.”, I replied and so Goldilocks made her way to a small stone oven where she would begin to make me porridge, but little did I know what was going on elsewhere in the world of Teyvat.
“Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty black birds baked in a pie!”, sung Bloody Mary who was literally about to place living and chirping black birds within an oven. “When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing and wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before a king?”, she shut the pie’s top closed and placed them in the open, not closing the doors when another crow interrupted her by landing over her shoulder.
“What?”, she lifted the pie in her hands and the bird kept whispering to her ear. “They have?!”, she was overjoyed to hear what the bird had said and full of wonder. “She is making her way to the counting house?”, she looked aside in thought and then all the birds flew out of her pie as she shrugged her shoulders and placed the pie in the oven before shutting its door.
“No doubt she will run into that Goldilocks and her three fat and a lousy annoying little bears!”, she was well aware of everything that is happening on this world before another crow landed on her other shoulder, whispering and chirping into her ear. “What?!”, now she was furious.
“Goldilocks and her pack helped the outlander deal with the crows?!”, Bloody Mary turned and yelled out loud. “That’s it! First she frees the three blind mice and now she befriends Goldilocks and her pack?! I will not allow it!”, she raised her voice. “I will not allow it!”, she shouted.
She then kicked the door of her lair opened and walked out into the farmer fields where many scarecrows waited for her already as the crows let them know about what had happened. Big Boy Blue stood there with his scythes and waited for Bloody Mary that entered into her barn where Naomi Pharon was being reconstructed and remade into a more fitting image.
“Are you finished with Naomi?!”, she questioned her engineers that turned and one of the dwarves that worked on her bowed his head. “Aye, dame Bloodstone, she is ready.”, then the android rose up and towered the many that surrounded her much to Bloody Mary’s joy.
“Good!”, she raised her right hand and her main finger. “Fetch the zeppelin!”, she ordered. “It’s time to gather the cuckolds, the crows, the scarecrows and cyborgs. We’ve found them!”, she announced to her tribe that was very happy to hear that while back on the TEC-9.
“Bloody Mary is on the move, sir.”, said one of the gnomes. “Aye, I see it, lad.”, said Drakwa. “Pay attention for where she goes because trouble is sure to follow.”, and he was right.
“I thank you for the porridge, Goldilocks.”, I bowed my head to her. “You’re truly going trying to uncover the mystery of the lost Kingdom, huh?”, I shook my head, denying that statement.
“Not really, I already know the mystery of the lost kingdom. From now on my mission has changed.”, I explained and she raised her head, wondering what I meant. “I am going to find Briar Rose.”, I added and she looked down in thought, looking back to her home.
“Just remember, you are always welcome here.”, she said to me and she raised her claw to shake my hand as I looked uncomfortable for it was covered in dry blood. “Oh, right…”, she said before lowering it down. “Well, until next time then, right?”, I smiled and we both parted ways.
Goldilocks watched me leaving along with the three bears. The tallest one was the papa bear with a scar over his left eye, a red scarf around his neck and chipped tooth. The medium sized bear was mama bear with a purple scarf around her neck and the third was the smallest, baby bear, with a necklace of wooden spoons and forks around his neck. I reached for my weapons and wandered into the forest again while I was unaware off the watchful eyes of the crows that did not take kind to my presence. They watched over me and flew to the skies to find their dame, informing her of my whereabouts and what I was up to. I hacked, I slashed, I got caught up in thorns, I stepped in puddles and at one point I even eat my pie for there was no fruit or vegetables to find in this forest that I could get my hands on. I was thankful to have his beautiful and blessed pie with me to get me fed, and after days of traveling and finally awakening… I found what I sought from the start; the Lost Kingdom of Rosamond was before my very eyes.