“It feels like I’ve been kidnapped,” Flickerpuff said softly.

“You know, I’m technically the kid here,” Joan said.

“I’ve never been kidnapped by a child,” Flickerpuff said.

“I’ve never kidnapped a…” Joan said before trailing off. “Okay, I’ve kidnapped a few fae but that’s not really important. I always had a good reason. Come on, just trust me.”

“How could I possibly trust you?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Fair enough,” Joan said. “Trust in your Forgotten One.”

“You seem to know where the Forgotten One is,” Flickerpuff said. “How?”

“Met them,” Joan said. “Or will. Long story. Kind of a seer. Kind of from the future. Listen, I get out of this? Survive? I’ll tell you where they are. Right now? All I’m going to tell you is that they’re in our world and doing pretty well for themselves, all things considered.”

“Impossible,” Flickerpuff said. “If they were able, they would have returned by--”

“I said well for themselves,” Joan said. “I never said aware of themselves.”

“What does that mean?” Flickerpuff asked.

“There was just this whole thing,” Joan said with a shrug. “Elven lands, this kind of plant dragon thing.” She wondered if she really should give him all the details, but shoved it aside. He obviously had really, really big expectations for the Forgotten One. It might hurt him to find out they didn’t quite live up to the hype. That they’d been ‘awoken’ on a kind of accident, freeing their memories while doing something else. Sure, the Forgotten One had been grateful, as had Flickerpuff, but it didn’t make it any more lackluster.

Then again, she supposed it was only really lackluster because they’d often ended up doing that particular quest right in the midst of the Inferno God awakening. Having giant obsidian trolls appearing all over the lands and threatening to wipe out all of civilization that remained had kind of made the whole ‘hey, this dragon is actually an ancient fae’ thing seem rather mild in comparison.

It had been a bit obnoxious, though. Eat the blue berry, then go through the blue vines so she could get to the yellow berry, which let her go through the yellow fog, which allowed her to eat the red berry and swim through the red river and the entire thing had just been a headache filled with back tracking and obnoxious puzzles. She bet it was only a thing at all because the dragon had been bored.

“A dragon?” Flickerpuff asked. “The Forgotten One’s symbol was said to have been a great, green dragon. One that seemed to be filled with the life of the land, who with a single flap of its wings could turn a barren wasteland into a lush garden. Who--”

“Shhhh,” Joan whispered before she ducked behind a tree, yanking him behind her. She swore she had heard something, but try as she might, she didn’t see anything.

But every instinct she had told her something was wrong. There was something here, something she was missing. She scanned the area, trying to figure out what it was. Why would it--

She saw movement out of the corner of her eyes and barely shoved herself off the tree in time. A spike of ice impaled it where her head had been.

“Awwww, I missed,” a small, blue orb of glowing light said.

“Here, let me try!” a second orb, this one red, said. A moment later the ground rumbled slightly and a spike of stone rose out from below, threatening to impale her. Joan barely managed to sidestep it, letting go of Flickerpuff’s hand.

“A little help?” Joan asked, glaring at him.

“What? What do you want me to do?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Something! Help me!” Joan said.

“Oh… well, okay,” Flickerpuff said. He then snapped his fingers.

With a puff, Joan was suddenly no longer besides him. Instead, she had traveled the entire distance across the leaf covered ground and was now standing directly behind the pair of pixies. Well, she couldn’t deny it was ‘help’, though even she hadn’t expected it. Fortunately, neither did the pixies and she quickly reached out and grabbed the pair. Held so close it was easy to see their small, strange little humanoid-bodies, albeit glowing like some kind of small lanterns. “Got you!” Joan said.

A moment later she remembered that was, really, not a good idea. The one in her left hand gripped her hand and cold began to flow up it, while the one in her right hand stabbed her with an incredibly tiny sword. “Ow ow ow!” Joan said, but didn’t let go. “Stop or I’ll electrocute both of you!”

Unfortunately, they didn’t listen and so, with a quick incantation, electricity flowed into her hands and both the pixies went still. After a moment, the now much dimmer creatures gave soft little whines.

“Owwwwwie,” the blue one said.

“That’s not nice, you’re mean!” the red one said.

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“My hands are bleeding thanks to you two. Do you want me to do it again?” Joan asked.

“You’re not supposed to be able to move,” the blue one said.

“I’m very durable,” Joan said. The two hadn’t tried to stab or freeze her again, at least. But she could feel the amulet’s magic washing over and protecting her from their poisons, likely from the tiny sword.

“You cheated,” the red one said. “We know you did. Flickerpuff, you can’t help her! That’s not a part of the rules!”

“There’s no rule against getting help in a wild hunt,” Joan said. “In fact…” She glanced down at the one in her right hand and the blood from her palm. She starting casting a small incantation, a moment before the red one disappeared in a flurry of red sparkles, leaving only a small, red stone in its place. She then turned towards the blue one. As bright as it was now glowing, she suspected it was preparing another spell. She ignored it and instead flicked her blood onto it before recasting the spell again. A moment later it disappeared in a flurry of blue sparkles. “That was a lot easier than I thought it would-- grk!”

“What did you do to them?” Flickerpuff asked, the fear evident in his voice.

Joan could feel the pair of them inside her, their magic conflicting with her own. She struggled to bury it, to bind them properly in her magic. Oh, how she missed being the Hero. He could have bound a thousand little pixies like that, easily. She was struggling to just hold these two. Even as it was, she crumbled to her knees, panting with exertion while she worked to bind their power.

“What are you doing?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Binding them,” Joan said, though her voice was so low even she could barely hear it. Oh, she felt like she was going to throw up. Binding both of them at once was really not a good idea. Bit by bit, they began to calm down however and she then took a long, slow, deep breath. “Okay. I think I’ve got it settled. Okay. Okay? I’m okay. Oh that is nauseating.”

“How did you know how to bind them?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Practice,” Joan said. “You’d be amazed at the number of binding spells I know. It was a bad idea, though. Don’t worry. They’ll get out of here once I’m out. I’m definitely not risking maintaining this bind after I leave the realm of the fae. That’d just be asking for trouble. Just gonna use it for a trap.”

“I think asking for trouble is what you do most,” Flickerpuff said.

“Do you want my help or not?” Joan asked.

“Do you want mine?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Yes, it’s why I asked for it. Well. Extorted you for it,” Joan said. “Listen. Just trust me, okay? You’ll get what you want, all we need to do is buy some--” She quickly covered her mouth with her arm and suppressed the sudden retching. No, two pixies at once was not a smart idea.

A howl off in the distance made her head shoot up. “And that’s our signal to go. Help me up, will you?” Joan asked before holding her hand out to him.

Flickerpuff reached out and took it, gently pulling her to her feet. “You are a very strange human.”

“You are not the first to say that,” Joan said with a small smile before she started running, kicking aside the leaves as she went. The piles of them were getting smaller, though. She hoped that meant she was going the right way. Or a right way.

------

Well, they were at least no longer slogging through knee height leaves, she supposed that was a positive. What wasn’t as much of a positive was the fact she was utterly drenched, the rain having started to come down in a wild torrent, like she was traveling through a waterfall or worse.

She wondered if Neverdale was behind it, but that was unlikely. She was in the realm of autumn, so to speak. Rain, falling leaves, harvest time. There was a lot that could happen here and the weather was likely not under his control.

It did mean that she was easier to track, though. As opposed to the leaves, when she glanced back now she could see her footprints not disappearing in the wet grass, instead leaving a trail right behind herself. “I hate the rain,” she said.

“I like it,” Flickerpuff said.

“You don’t get sick from it,” Joan said. At least the two bound pixies weren’t causing her any more trouble. Worse, it was getting darker now. She did not like the idea of walking through the night. Did this place even really have a night? She wondered if it was nighttime in her home world now. She might have been here for hours, an hour or twenty minutes with the weird way that time moved.

Out of the corner of her vision she could occasionally make out movement now, as well. But she suspected they weren’t part of the hunt. No, the ones from the hunt were likely coming from the hounds in pursuit, who she could occasionally hear behind them giving off loud, excited howls.

“Are you truly human?” Flickerpuff asked.

“Why do people keep asking me that?” Joan asked. “Do I not look human?”

“Not particularly,” Flickerpuff said. “Not anymore. You don’t look not-human. But you don’t look human, either. It’s more like you’re a thing inside a human skin, but not actually one.”

“Close enough,” Joan said. Suddenly everything went wild inside her and she almost threw up. She collapsed to her hands and knees, one hand over her mouth to hold back the retching. “Calm down,” Joan said quickly. “Why are you two freaking out so much?”

“We’re nearing the edge of our realm,” Flickerpuff said. “We should turn back.”

“Why?” Joan asked.

“I won’t travel with you into another realm,” Flickerpuff said with a shiver. “Never.”

“Why would--” Another howl cut Joan off and she cringed. “Right. Important things first. You two want out? Fine. Here.” She started drawing a few small symbols in the mud, suppressing the urge to throw up again. “Patient, please. Just a few more…” Once she finished the symbols glowed red and blue for a few moments before disappearing entirely, even the marks in the mud gone.

Unfortunately, Joan now felt like her body had been hollowed out and filled up with ice. The rain flowing over her really wasn’t helping, either. “Okay. Which way?” she asked before looking to Flickerpuff.

“Ummm…” he said.

“How about somewhere less muddy. More stone?” Joan asked.

“Right, follow me,” Flickerpuff said before he started lightly jogging away.

Joan nodded and followed after him, struggling to suppress the exhaustion beginning to gnaw at her. Just a few more seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months or years, who knew? She hated the way time worked here.

She did smile, though, once she heard the hounds howling again behind them, only to be cut off by a strange explosion. Oh, the pixies weren’t going to be happy, but they’d fly it off and maybe think better about it next time they tried to chase her.