Sera’s hut wasn’t just too short for Roxie to stand properly, but too small for her to really move around in either, if she wasn’t squatting or lying down on the bed—which had actually been a large chest with some padding on top of it—then she was banging into something or someone. The most obvious was the numerous plants that Sera had growing throughout her modest domain; in many ways, the plants were even alive, grabbing onto whatever was touching them and holding on tight.

They seemed to have an affinity for Roxie’s hair, often getting tangled in a vine or finding that a twig that glowed a slight blue had been wedged into her thick locks.

Despite the obstacles in her way, Roxie managed to get much of her unmangled armor on. Most of the damage was on her chest piece and left pauldron where it looked like the metal had been twisted and torn by the Tri-horn’s claw. Her helmet was especially twisted, so much so that it looked like it would have been impossible to get out of.

“How’d you get my head out of this thing?” Roxie asked, ducking below the various hanging plants to spot Sera still running around through the small hut, stuffing her bags full of random herbs and other bits that changed color as the fading light of day passed over them. She touched her head where the largest of the dents actually was.

Come to think of it, how was her head even in one piece? Was her head now a funny shape? Well, funnier?

“Oh, I had to shrink your head a bit.” Sera’s answer was so off-handed that it almost made sense. After all, why wouldn’t the Witch of the Woods be able to shrink someone’s head? That wasn’t much different than the rumors that she turned people into trees or fed them to the spirits that lived in the woods. Or how she stole faces.

Roxie furrowed her brow and touched her face a few times before determining that everything felt the same, from the scar along her left eye to her large, flat nose. “Well, as long as everything is back to normal now.”

Sera’s light hum did not fill her with the most confidence.

“So, umm,” Roxie leaned to the side, stealing a glance out of the window to the fading light that still filled the forest. “Is it safe for us to travel now? I mean, don’t the spirits eat people that wander in during the night? And then there was that Tri-horn thing.”

Sera let out a snort that turned into a laugh as she walked over to Roxie. A rather large wooden mask with various feathers sticking out of it was in her hands, which she presented to Roxie. Much like everything in the woods, the colors on the mask seemed to shift vibrantly depending on how little light was actually available at the time. “We’ll be fine if we wait until it’s properly dark. Tri-horns are crepuscular, and they won’t wander into the forest past dusk.”

Crapulcalar? That sounded like one of those bookish words that meant something specific.

“And the mask?” Roxie ran her fingers over the glowing texture. It felt like painted wood, the kind that a shop maker might have on a sign, not like the hard plaster that insulated homes.

“It should…” Sera gestured with her hands for a moment, wincing as though the words were fighting amongst themselves for the right to be spoken. “Uhh, It should make it so that magical creatures won’t bother you.”

“A mask will do that?” Roxie shrugged, flipped the mask over, and pulled the springy strap behind her head. She couldn’t see anything. Breathing was a nightmare.

“Yep! It’s a good thing you had your helmet on when you came running through.” Sera whacked her knuckles on the metal, causing a hollow ding to echo through the hut.

“And you don’t need one?” Roxie asked. She recalled Sera only wearing her hood through the woods when she had come to her aid.

“Nope,” Sera said with a pop.

She had a feeling that was all she was going to get out of Sera when it came to the mask. Still, so far she had no reason to assume that the witch was going to trick her. She had saved her life and was even understanding, friendly even.

“So, there are a lot of creatures at night, and they all have their own rules.” Sera pulled out a knotted rope that had hung from the doorframe and started to tie it around her own waist. She handed one end to Roxie. “So, I need you to keep a firm grip on this. And make sure that you keep your eyes on my feet unless I say otherwise. That way we don’t make any mistakes if we bump into anything that’s too unfriendly to humans.”

“Oh, uhh, okay.” Roxie gripped the rope tight. “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to just travel during the day then?”

“For you, maybe.”

Roxie couldn’t help but sigh. Then again, she did just blindly charge into the forest. “Alright, lead the way.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

XXXX

Time seemed to move differently after nightfall.

Despite the feeling of darkness, there was a light that was different from that of the sun or its torches. In a way it was similar to that of the orange glow that would come from a furnace, although it was neither orange nor did it have the same heat.

But there was a heat, a heat that felt like the warmth of a solid wool blanket during an early winter morning when the fire was just barely still flickering.

In some ways it was almost comforting.

In others, it was worrying.

This, Roxie decided, this was what magic felt like.

She followed closely behind Sera, the sound of her own breathing more or less drowning out the sound of everything else around her, though she could still hear what could only be considered the sounds of magic. It was the sounds of chimes, boiling water, tearing of bread, crunching of strawberries, whispers of the wind, and the howling of the runt of the litter, all mixed into one harmonious sound.

“We’re here.” Sera’s whisper was loud enough to snap Roxie out of her thoughts.

She glanced around frantically, looking for the soft green fields that she had entered from, only to be greeted by a forest that was glowing in the moonlight. The first thing she saw was a school of fish swimming through the air and then diving into a tree as a glowing deer with trees for antlers chased after them.

“This isn’t out of the forest.”

“Oh,” Sera almost sounded ashamed, “right.” She pointed towards a vaguely familiar and large tree. “I meant we’re at your sword. You asked where it was.” There was an awkward pause and then Sera shrugged “I’ll try to be more clear in the future.”

Roxie let her shoulders slump for a moment before she looked towards the vaguely-familiar tree. It certainly was a tree. It wasn’t some magical horror tree with a human face on it. It was just a normal big tree, one that just so happened to have an oversized cat stuck to it suspended only by her sword.

The corpse was somehow mostly intact; she would have expected any number of beasts to stumble upon it and start eating the easy meal, but instead, there were just some strange markings on it that looked something like the drawing of a child but a hundred times more elaborate, as though skill was applied to chaos.

Roxie grabbed the hilt of her sword and gave it a small tug. The blade barely even budged. She must have really put all her might into taking this thing down. She braced her foot against the tree and took in a breath.

She caught a glimpse of the beast’s face.

Or rather, its lack of a face.

With a noise that was half grunt, half scream, and all confused, she ripped the sword from the tree and let the beast drop to the ground. She managed to catch herself before she fell, and then looked back at the Tri-horn. Its face was still there, dead, and with eyes that were swollen, but the complete lack of features she had seen was nowhere to be seen.

It took a few moments before her heart stopped pounding in her chest before she turned and found Sera standing there with a perplexed look on her face.

She needed to get out of the forest.

“Well,” she took the end of the rope again and gripped it tight,”lead the way.”

“You okay?” Sera asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just uhh, I remember it being smaller.” Roxie let out a slight laugh as she looked back at the beast, checking its face once more. “You did return me to normal size after you shrunk me, right?”

Sera’s silence drowned out the noise of magic.

“Right?”

The snort into laughter that Sera let out after that somehow put Roxie at ease. “Honestly, if you were any bigger, I’d accuse you of being a giant.”

“I’m not that tall!”

“You’re the tallest person I know!”

“How many is that?”

“By name?”

“Yes?”

Sera hummed before she shrugged into her answer. “Like six.”

“That’s not a lot.” Roxie almost felt bad for Sera. Then again, she seemed happy with her current life. And it wasn’t like Roxie was in the position to really try and change that. “Wait, does that include me?”

“Well, I do know your name.”

“Does that include yourself?”

“I certainly hope I know my own name.”

So she knew the names of four other people. Roxie felt her brow furrow and she looked up from Sera’s feet to the back of the girl’s head. The magical light seemed to play with her hair, turning the red locks into a deeper, richer, purple color that was somehow captivating. “Is one of them Oriana?”

“Yep,” again Sera let the p pop loudly.

The sound of magic flowed into the silence like water bursting through a dam. So far, Sera hadn’t chided her for the conversation; if anything, she seemed to be more than willing to talk.

“But, I’m not the tallest in the palace, two other knights are taller than me, and I’ve even met some farm hands that made me feel small.” Roxie blurted out. “We tried to recruit them, but they didn’t seem interested in learning how to fight.”

Sera let out an amused hum. “I see.”

How was she supposed to follow that up? What would Oriana do? Oriana was great at conversations. Probably because she read so much. That made talking easy when there were a lot of things that could actually be talked about. All Roxie knew was Oriana, fighting, being a knight, and how to make things worse but then making them not worse later.

“So, uhh,” she muttered into the forest, her eyes still locked on the back of Sera’s head. She saw the tips of the girl’s pointed ears twitch. “How do you know about all this? I mean the forest, and I guess magic.”

“I read a lot of books.” Sera answered quickly. She paused for a moment and looked around their path before she continued. “I also had a good teacher.”

“Oh.” She glanced around, taking a moment to truly look at the magical forest she found herself in. In a way, it was honestly quite pretty. The fear she felt was still there, and it still told her that she shouldn’t be here. But she had rarely listened to that fear before. Especially not when it mattered.

She caught a glimpse of something, something that went beyond a simple glowing plant or spirit-like fish.

She focused back on Sera’s hair. She was a good knight, one that knew when to follow orders. Like right now.

Wait, she was supposed to look at Sera’s feet right?

“And you?”

“Come again?”

“How did you get so strong?”

“Oh!” Roxie felt her breath splash against the mask, it felt cool on her cheeks. “Well, I train every day, and I’ve always been pretty strong since I had to do a lot of hard work and—”

The sound of magic grew around her, and a white blue fog washed over her, mixing with the glowing colors of magic that she had almost gotten used to. They were almost pretty; some of the colors reminded her of Oriana’s hair or how her eyes twinkled whenever she had a burst of energy.

The colors swirled, blending around her and shifting in every single direction. They split, colidied, and combined over and over again until she found herself barely able to stand, the area she was in was now completely different from where she had been a moment ago.

And the rope was now slack in her hand.