Jacinta scrambled to her feet, jumping back. River beyond, mud beside. The space where she was dropped onto, vine-covered tentacles had broken out from the mud, thrashing around. Beneath the soil was something between a venus flytrap and an octopus; instead of the rounded head, it was an endless series of spiked mouths, row after row after row. Instead of eight tentacles, it had easily more than twenty—Jacinta glanced back, but a thorny tentacle whacked her across face with enough force to fling her backward. She slammed into a tree, hard—her head rattled. Sap peeled from the gash where the tentacle hit.
“What the fuck?!”
She stared up, around. She couldn’t run fast. There were trees, tall trees. She could climb up, out of the monster's way, and throw branches down to distract it.
Jacinta huffed and flipped over, digging her fingers into the bark, trying to vault herself up. She pushed, jumped—two hands around a thick branch. Pull up, up—
The monster behind her was spitting, snarling; trying to pull her back. Tentacles slammed against the tree, taking chunks of bark with it. Jacinta pushed herself up, again—she was on a thick branch. For now, it held.
Another. She needed to get up. But this monster—
She grabbed a small section of the branch apart and flung it into the monster’s mouth. The rows of teeth spun like a wood shredder—oh, God…
Okay, focus. Up. She screamed and ducked under another limb, narrowly avoiding getting her head lopped off. Her balance was unsteady; fuck—she held onto the bark and rose further, edging around the tree, hugging it for support.
“Jump onto the next tree and climb!” A voice called. She glared up. Edge of the ravine, Silas, hands cupped over his mouth. She looked back down at the floor—
Nope, nope. It’d climbed out from the ground and was headed right torwards her perch…nope.
Next tree. She eyed it—it’d be a jump. There were more branches, higher; she could climb that, then the ravine…
The tree shuddered. She yelped. The monster was starting to eat the tree; it stuck its limbs against its side. Whirring, wood shards flying—
She stumbled. She had to jump. Jacinta prayed and leapt to the next tree over, managing to narrowly make it, grabbing onto the above branches for dear life. She thought of the New York subway, the shake; handlebars—these branches were just handlebars. She was just a kid back on the playground…
That wasn’t reassuring. She barely passed her phys-ed classes.
Up. Either she’d try or get shredded, and not the fun, gym kind. She grabbed on the next branches, climbing, pushing herself up. One arm on either side to pull her body upwards; third arm against the tree bark, steadying her, holding—
Up. Up. Up.
The tree she was on before collapsed into mulch. Fuck. Okay. Up. She kept climbing. The leaves and branches were thinning. She couldn’t look down anymore; it’d get her dizzy. So, up. Silas was kneeling, bent over the edge, doing something with his hands. Her eyes widened.
He was making a sort of rope out of vines, braiding them together. Good; she had nowhere else to go…
“Hurry up!” she screamed. The branch swiveled—she cursed, held on tighter. The monster was latching onto her tree; she had seconds.
“Grab on!” Silas dropped the rope. Jacinta faced it, then tree—alright, she had to jump. If she missed, she’d crash to the ground and die. Then double-die from the monster.
Inhale. Exhale.
The tree rattled; she stared down. It was starting to snap, wood pulled apart, shit—
Jacinta spun, wobbling, and jumped. All three hands out, extended—
Two latched on. Third followed. Her hooves curled, slammed against the rocks at the end of the cliff. She didn’t have far to go; she held on, pulling herself up, climbing like she’d seen rock climbers do. Her pulse was back in her fingertips, rattling into the tips of her antlers. She just had to hold on…
The other tree slammed to the ground. The monster roared. Jacinta’s grip tightened. She pulled on the rope as she walked across the side of the ravine, breath stored in her chest. Just a little higher—
There. Silas was gripping the vine-rope in two hands, but he’d tied it to a tree. Good. He dropped the rope and helped her up.
Jacinta ran away from the edge and fell face-first onto the soil, hugging it.
“Thank god…” She felt like she wanted to cry. Or sit in the sun, not this little…alcove, the hidden, covered spot. No, focus, focus—
“So, uh—sorry about slipping. And having you fall off a little cliff. And having you nearly get eaten by a—”
“Sap-gnaw. Active in warmer seasons—summer, spring.” she stated, slipping her hands along the mud. The name came to mind. Natural predators to the Arborem. Clustered around the village tree in the mud, sapping nutrients from the edge roots, waiting for Arborem to come and—
Right.
Jacinta pushed herself up, sitting upright. She wiped the dirt off herself, shaking her head. “Don’t pretend you’re sorry—I’m just a damn witch you need to tag or whatever. First.” She held up a finger. Anger was building; no, focus, calm—Arborem were calm, but she wasn’t.
“Mind explaining to me what the fuck’s going on?!” She hissed, voice wobbling. Jacinta wasn’t a crier, but this childish brain, this being, was. She wiped her eyes, sucking in a sharp, thorned breath, shoulders rising.
“First, I recognize you’re a person. I’m not heartless. Second, no, I’m obviously not planning on killing you. If I had, you would’ve been eaten by the sap-gnaw! It would’ve done the job for me. And third, yeah. I have access to tech that can transpose our consciousnesses, inner selves, souls, whatever you want to call it, across dimensions. It shoots us into babies that are either just born, or about to be; reset button, clean slate, alternate selves, whatever—it’s complicated I was going to—” Silas stopped himself, eyes narrowing, flowers closing along his head—also Crabapple. Here, he looked so different—a little older than she was here; sixteen seasons, maybe, from the growth in his antlers, with longer limbs and broader shoulders. His frame was more angular, less willowy; but still, he looked…awkward. Maybe in the too-large hands, all four of them, and feet, the mismatch of it all. Like a human, they grew with puberty; by twenty seasons, they were considered adults.
And more importantly, he was an alien…thing. Cross between the orc, with the green skin and all; then the naiad in the nature, leaves; and the satyr—hooves, antlers. They both were.
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Another universe. Alternate dimension. Transporting selves across…existences. New starts, every time.
Not the kind of fresh start she wanted.
She waited for more of an explanation. He paced, debated, before waving a hand. “Ugh, it doesn’t matter what I planned to do. Either way, I must’ve flipped on the wrong location or something. You’d think they’d be more careful with technology that transports people across dimensions…But long story short, we need to get my transposition device back or we’re stuck here.”
“…you’re kidding.” Jacinta breathed. She looked down, up, pinched herself again—no. Not kidding. This was as real as anything. “You seriously…pressed the wrong button?”
“Yes.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have a near-perfect track record. I’ve never screwed up this badly.”
“You screwed up when you decided to be a SEE agent.”
He glared at her. Jacinta might’ve smirked if their situation was different.
“Look, I need you to work with me here. I’m not the enemy.” He told her, eyes narrowing.
“Yes, you are! You just transported us to—to a new world? You work for SEE? You are the definition of my enemy! How—how am I…this? And you’re…that? And—”
Tears were welling in her eyes; her vision became a blur. She stepped back, away from him, and sat at the base of a smaller tree. She folded her arms across her chest and glared up, swiping off tears with her fingers. The squeeze of her lungs and the emotions in her head and the feelings, all the newness, everything, everything, everything was too much; she sobbed a little, covering her face in her hands.
Silas was pacing in front of her; she heard his hooves crunch against the leaves. He sighed. Loudly.
What a way to make her feel better.
“Look. I get it that you’re freaking out; I probably would, too…but you need to snap out of it and help me, now, before the rest of the tribe comes and takes us to more classes, alright? I’ve been doing their stupid hunting stuff for days…” He kicked at a stone, huffing, before stopping. His ears perked up, gaze rising.
Jacinta gave herself a few moments. She hadn’t had a damn second to breathe; and now this…still, she wiped her face and squinted at him, leaves pressed against her antlers in a look of suspicion and annoyance. “Wh—what are you looking at?”
“I…hear something. It’s…” He rubbed his face. “There’s currently a war between our tribe and the next one over; probably some…something with that. My memory’s all jumbled, look—can we just go? Please? I’ll give you an extra-nice tip when we get back. Promise. Twenty-one percent.” His eyes curled like he was about to smirk, or maybe actually smile again.
Jacinta stood and moved to shove him back once more.
He grabbed her hands again. Well, two of them—the third dangled at her side.
“You really should stop trying, Jacinta—you’re still just a sapling.” His tone had slid back into that ease, control. Jacinta used the third to shove him back, and she managed. His leaves curled in anger, but he just brushed himself off, readjusting his stance, shoulders rolling back, chin raised.
“Good job; you’d probably pass their early training. I guess I deserved that. Anyway.” He glanced around, pulling a flower from the ground. It grew in his fingers, petals curling. “I believe the tech’s in the top of the tree. It’s where they guard and protect everything, and have sentinels. They’re these cool, rudimentary airplane-like things that are made from giant helicopter seeds—anyway.” He cleared his throat, looking down. “We need a reason to be there. And…as saplings, we’re still basically in school. Which sucks.” He slapped himself in the face. “And I’m talking like emo early teen me…great. It’s not even bad in this universe, y’know; I’m hardly getting this guy’s thoughts and instincts. Lucky us.”
Jacinta was trying to focus, but memories were still trickling in. Images, knowledge—magic. Magic was all connected to nature; not spells, but yes, potions, the plants themselves; using them to help, to work, to fix.
And now Silas was apparently emo.
“Well, I was a crybaby as a teen. I’d rather be emo than that.” She mumbled, rubbing her eyes, smoothing her fingers along the smooth panel of her mask-like face. This all was so weird…but he was right. They just needed to fix it…and be out. She calmed her breathing, herself, and faced him, setting all of her hands on her hips. “So…how are we going to actually get up the tree?”
Silas gave her an even stare. “Great question.”
“You don’t even know?” Jacinta slapped herself in the face with two of her hands. “Great. Great—”
“Stop complaining and maybe try to help? And anyway, you’re lucky we ended up in this world, and that we’re both together. You’d be waking up as a baby in any other; at least here, we have to grow a bit first before we can leave the garden. Guess they don’t want seeds rolling around…”
She tilted her head to the side. “Yeah, I realized I’m…not exactly myself. We’re reborn as…babies? I guess the whole…rebirth thing…” her gaze skated the ground. Huh…yeah, that made sense. Calm. She needed to be calm.
She was in a new universe, new body, new self, no magic—at least, not her magic. She’d just need to…focus. And work with him.
And get back home.
“Will all the time that’s spent here pass back…uh, in our…realm? This is a whole…multiverse thing, right?”
Silas chuckled and nodded, leaves rustling. “Multiverse, yes. Time…it depends. Luckily our home Earth is very slow-moving compared to other dimensions; it’s likely that a year here’s…a few seconds back there. Or just hope that it is. I don’t know a thing about this place…but it’s the most different from home I’ve seen. The way I was told was that the multiverse is like a giant, endless tapestry. Each universe is one thread among the larger piece. Some threads are closer together; maybe there’s one thing that separates them—JFK or MLK not being assassinated, for example, or even something so small and simple, like a person picking a ham and swiss sandwich from the local bodega instead of ham and gouda. Those strings would be close together, probably crossing. While a universe like this is…far off. But once I get ahold of my device—granted, it’s still working—we get back home.”
“I’ll kill you here if you don’t.”
He smirked. “I’ve been working in alternate universes for what’d be hundreds of years, Jacinta. A little hiccup won’t stop me.”
Hundreds of years?
“When we return home, we won’t have aged however long we spent here. Just so you know. And no, I’m not, like, a hundred-year-old man. I’m still mentally whatever I was, or currently am.”
Good to know, she supposed. Jacinta didn’t want to fly through her twenties in a second.
He faced away and grabbed a stone from the ground, turning it over in his hands. The flowers along his antlers opened, closed; the stone sharpened, warped, into something like an arrowhead. The air smelled floral.
He was using this species' version of…magic.
Traitor.
“I thought you hated magic.” She growled.
Silas chuckled and pointed it to her with an extended arm. “I do. But when it’s my biggest asset here…I need to use what I can. And anyway, these Arborem things, we—they center their whole lives around it. I’ve heard all about it in training.” He tossed the sharpened stone to her with an eye-roll. The stone slid right through her fingertips—she had to bend to grab it. She bent, held it, turned it over, thinking.
He had the technology to transport them back. Maybe she was extra-trusting because of the stupid sapling, this world, this being, this body, this mind…but she had no alternatives. She couldn’t tell if her own magic was still there, and even then, transporting oneself across dimensions was…far out of her wheelhouse.
He helped save her…so at the very least, he did want to bring them both back to their home world. She'd rather face whatever challenges were there, than to be stuck in their current universe.
“Any ideas on how to get up, then? Should we just…walk up and ask nicely?” Jacinta asked after a pause. “Apparently you like to pretend you’re charming…so maybe you’ll just, uh, say that we need to go in. As a research project or something. For…class?”
“More like some individual tutoring as a school-adjacent thing until we hit a certain age, but close enough.” Silas exhaled, rubbed his temples. “And we may as well try it. It’s not like we have any other options…”
She nodded. “Do we make a run for it? I don’t even see our garden-parents…”
“I think they went the opposite way. Apparently the whole tribe gets really excited when a sapling wakes up, so…try to lay low.” He looked up, around, plucking a strip of ivy off the side of a tree, wrapping it around her antlers. Jacinta glared, moved to get away—but he seemed to be knowing what he was doing.
He was practiced here. Cool. Even in another parallel universe, world, whatever.
“This’ll hide your scent enough to...disguise you a bit. Hold on.” He followed suit with his own antlers, focused. “Looks good. Alright, so. Just follow my lead; I’ll do the talking.”
With that, he spun around and headed in the direction of the tree.