Elies wiped the sweat from his brow, huffing and puffing while tightening his grip around the staff in his hands.

Yarrow stood across from him, tapping his staff impatiently. “More ferocity!” he demanded.

Elies slacked his jaw at him. His arms were stiff as stone, and as were his legs; what nerve the old man had to expect more from him. At least he’s not kicking my arse, he thought.

The young man twirled his staff, ready to strike the air again before it fell to his feet. He bent and lifted his head mid-reach at the sound of approaching footsteps, lowering his brow when the shadowy outline burst from the brush.

He looks familiar, Elies thought as the figure stepped closer.

Blue armor, brown hair tied back in a bun, a jaw sharp enough to cut a man in half, and cobalt eyes that held a dangerous light. Another man stepped out behind him, one garbed in red steel from head to toe with two behemoth-sized blades on his back.

“Chestplate!” Elies gasped. “Yarrow!” He looked upon the old adventurer with wide eyes. “Those men, they’re—”

“Shadowhands,” Yarrow said, his voice even, but the look on his face was black. “So Reina’s song hadn’t hexed me that night. I had hoped it had.”

Elies cocked an eyebrow at him. “Shadowhands?” he asked. “Why would Shadowhands be…?”

“Naranin!” Chestplate strutted as if walking on air, a smug grin lifting his face. “How I’ve missed you!”

Elies frowned. His brow twitched. “Naranin?”

“His real name, Lightweight!” Chestplate smiled fondly at him like he was an old friend, but the glint in his eyes made him shiver. “The old man loves his secrets, didn’t you know? You could say I’m their biggest secret–a shadow of his past if you will.”

“You’re a plague! A disease and nothing more!” Ashencrane took her place at Yarrow’s side, affixing the auburn-haired adventurer with a cold stare.

Chestplate snorted. “Ashencrane,” he said warmly. “Even in your old age, you’re still a bitch.” A scowl replaced his smile. “Honestly, Naranin…how long did you think you could hide behind her?” He shot Elies and Ilta a quick glance. “Behind these insects before I found you?”

Lightning zipped across the night sky when Chestplate unsheathed his sword, lighting up the sky like fireworks. “I have to commend that boy and that knife-eared girlfriend of his,” he began. “Keeping those two around led me here like I thought it would. And this time, old friend, I’ll be taking more than an arm and an eye.”

Elies’ stomach turned to knots, and he widened his eyes. He had hoped that boy and girl weren’t who he thought they were, but he knew better. Flames lapped at his fingers and palms, heating the staff in his hands. “Where are they?” he blurted out.

Chestplate looked him up and down as if he had no right to speak. “Who cares? Perhaps they met the same fate as your village.”

Elies followed Chestplate’s gaze as he turned his head. The flames’ roaring was faint, but towers of smoke rose from behind the trees, staining the horizon red. His heart raced, and a lump formed in his throat.

“Bastard!” Elies roared. He lunged forward only for a set of hands to clamp around his waist and freeze him in place.

“Idiot!” Ilta huffed. She yanked him by the back of his tunic and he didn’t resist, though he shot Chestplate a look fiery enough to blind him.

Yarrow tapped his staff furiously, water coiling around it. He clenched his jaw and looked at Elies from the corner of his eye. “Gods damn it all, I should’ve known your fool brother would do such a thing…” His eye met Ashencrane’s next. “But does Haze not know a devil when she sees one?”

“The gods are the real devils,” Amarant scoffed. He twirled his sword and cut his eyes at Elies and Ilta. “Lightweight! Harlot! Step away from him now!”

“Ashencrane, grab them and go!” Yarrow demanded.

Elies and Ilta gasped in unison when Ashencrane dropped her cane and bundled them in her arms like sacks of clothes. With a nod, she turned on her heel and ran.

Lightning, ice shards, and rain fell upon them, following the layered uttering of spells. Burning the horizon were violet, ice blue, and prismatic flashes of light that faded from Elies’ view when Ashencrane scurried into the trees.

The old crone’s gait didn’t slow, nor did she loosen her grip even as towers of lightning shot from the charcoal-colored clouds overhead. Rows of trees split into two with each strike while the wind scattered bits of flames at their feet.

The sky roared, and another violet-colored bolt of lightning rained before them, splitting the ground in two.

“Bollocks!” Ashencrane spat, skidding to a stop.

The ground cracked and shifted, causing Ashencrane to fall, the woman dropping Elies and Ilta.

Elies rolled away, digging his hands into the earth only to fall to his knees. Ilta was just across from him, her eyes wide as she called his name.

“Damn!” Elies grunted, his legs straining as he tried to move towards her.

He stretched out his hand to grab hers, only for an abyss to crack the ground again. He slid out of reach as Ilta did with him and Ashencrane, too. The raven-haired woman’s screams filled the air, as did the cries of the ground quaking beneath him. Another lightning bolt fell from the sky, and the ground shifted again, launching him into the air.

Elies skidded atop the snow, further into the forest’s bowels, trees zipping in and out of his view and Ilta’s shouting for him fading away.

**********

Elies scrunched away the growing concern spreading across his freckled face. No Ilta, no Ashencrane or Yarrow, either; this was turning out to be a shitty night, indeed. Perhaps he could find them again soon enough; that also went for Ayko and Hazelmere. While Maywood was no more, Elies knew Ayko better than anyone else—his brother was too bullheaded to die and Hazelmere, too. In that regard, as much as he hated to admit it, the two were meant for one another.

He squinted his eyes to see through the rainbow-colored mist filling the air, the silhouettes of trees slowly moving past as he walked. Trees were all he saw; no foxes and Coyolopes skittering past, no snowflakes dusting his view, and certainly no men or women. Did Chestplate kill the fauna, too? He couldn’t hear crickets singing, even when cupping his ears.

Strange, Elies thought.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He flicked his wrist, and the mist thickened, shortening his breath and turning to droplets that stuck to his skin. “My flames don’t work,” the young man griped. “This is a spell, then?” Elies wondered aloud. He stopped and cupped his chin. “Chestplate’s doing, maybe?”

Elies sucked his teeth and pressed onward, his frustration growing with each step. Even through the fog, he could see the same silhouettes as the first hundred times he’d slogged past—a Peppergrape sapling that had yet to bear leaves, whose thin trunk was forked in the middle, bunches of Peppergrape clusters that he mashed into green and purple stains from when he stepped on them, and the very same obtruding stump that he’d tripped over for the third time.

“Makes no sense!” he hissed, rubbing his scuffed knee.

He stomped through the brush next, scraping his arms and legs against thorns and overgrown roots, stumbling onto the forest floor to see the same sight. Upon uttering a curse, he took it upon himself to walk the other way next, only to yield the same result.

Elies shut his eyes and sucked in his lips. “I’m damn cursed,” he said, folding his arms.

He looked one of the many trees’ shadows up and down. “But maybe I could try…”

Elies clung to a low-hanging branch and hoisted himself up, jumping onto the next one and the next. The angry-looking clouds blanketing the sky thinned slightly—a sign that he was doing something right. The stars would show him the way to somewhere, assuming he could reach the crown.

The air grew colder the higher he climbed, the branches turning thin and brittle, and the pearlescent forest floor turning to a blur. His arms trembled, and the back of his throat burned with each breath of the freezing air. Hanging over the young man’s head was the leafed parasol itself.

Just one more, Elies thought.

The branch he dangled from was slippery with ice, but he tightened his grip and bent his knees. With a final leap, Elies wrapped his hands around bunches of leaves and heaved himself up, his eyes glinting with excitement as clusters of lights flickered faintly from behind the overcast.

Elies lifted himself up with a final grunt, grimacing as leaves rustled and branches snapped beneath his feet. Plopping himself down, he flashed the sky a sheepish grin and praised himself, lacing his fingers atop his head as he sat.

Clouds swam across the smoke-stained sky, obscuring his view of the stars save for one. It burned a hole through the near-opaque wall of clouds, illuminating the river half-shrouded by mist. He squinted, watching it snake and branch into the distance, vanishing behind herds of tree-shaped silhouettes.

“South it is,” Elies said. “Assuming the mist clears. I can only hope Ilta’s smart enough to do the same.”

Slowly crawling to the canopy’s edge, Elies climbed back down. The branches snapped beneath his feet, and he clung to the bark. Pain contorted his face as he slid down to the forest floor, his palms growing shiny and raw.

He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in his lips while burying his hands in the snow. No time to feel pain, he thought while loudly exhaling from his nose. I’m also going nowhere anytime soon.

Pain seared his hands as he ripped bunches of leaves from the trees overhead, allowing the Peppergrapes to crash to the ground. With them, he then wrapped up his raw, glistening palms.

“Hope it clears soon,” Elies said, the mist closing around him. He sat against a tree and wrapped his arms around his legs.

********

Elies hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for it: the feeling of warm air caressing his face, the angelic melody making his bones quiver, and autumn-hued trees whose leaves seemed to dance to the enthralling notes. Above him was a night sky glittering with clusters of stars. Around him, golden flecks of light drifted down, vanishing upon hitting the ground.

A smile lifted Elies’ lips. So warm…so divine; his dreams of late were a canvas, a painting he’d gladly remain trapped within.

A goblet sat in his hand, crystal clear with a handle bejeweled with diamonds. Filling it to the brim was a honey-like liquid that smelled of perfume and tasted like roses and sugar. It was enough to make him smack his lips. Was it ale? If so, it was none he’d ever tasted.

A dumb grin split his face as he sat and watched women dance atop the meadow. Their clothes consisted of nothing but leaves, and white paint streaked their cheeks and the bridges of their noses. Crowning each of their heads was a floral wreath.

They sang and twirled around, locking arms and clapping their hands. Elies’ cheeks burned when two women grabbed his hands, and they smiled as they lifted him from his chair. The other revelers beckoned him forward and twirled ahead while pulling at his hands; their mouths moved, but the flute music drowned out their voices.

Elies’ eyes remained rooted ahead, the young man unable to pry his gaze away from their dance. The forestry shuffled aside, lining his sides and revealing what lay before him: a crystalline and crumbling castle sitting atop the horizon.

The music faded away while the revelers huddled behind him, their eyes wide with terror. They pointed to the horizon as dark clouds rolled their way. “Hurry, Oberon.”

*******

The squelching of a Peppergrape landing on his face startled Elies awake, but he did nothing to wipe away the juice dripping down the tip of his nose.

“Another dream again,” Elies said with a sigh. “Wish my brain would stop with that shit.” He glowered. “And I wish they’d stop calling me that!”

He yawned and rubbed his eyes. His lips twitched with a frown as he eyed his surroundings—the mist was still there, as thick and irksome as ever. Not even the thinnest strand of light passed through it, and as such, Elies could no longer tell whether it was night or day.

With nothing better to do but sleep and pray that it cleared, Elies prepared to do just that. “Err.” He sat on his knees and clapped his hands together, only to blink. “How do I pray again?” The old crones of his village had taught him once, but he’d tuned them out.

What do I need to pray for? If the gods were all-knowing, they would know his every need, he had said back then. Of course, his thoughts hadn’t changed much since, but damn it, it was worth a shot.

Elies tapped his temple. “Now, which God?” He scrunched up his face. “Why should it even matter?” He groaned. They all were singers at the end of the day. Couldn’t he just pray to them all and get on with it? He grimaced as the thought crossed his mind. He imagined that wouldn’t do him any good because, of course, it wouldn’t.

“Let’s see…there’s two that I remember,” he muttered. “The goddess of chance…Vale was her name, I think?” He said, tilting his head. “And then there’s Erina…the goddess of…” He threw up his hands. “I don’t remember—Vale it is!” He declared.

Clasping his hands and lowering his head, he shut his eyes. “Oh Vale…your…greatness,” he grimaced with each word. “Give me the strength to—”

He clutched his stomach mid-sentence, his gut roaring and twisting into knots. “I suppose prayer can wait,” he grunted.

Rising to his feet, Elies scanned his surroundings—nothing but the silhouettes of Peppergrape trees as far as his gray eyes could see.

He sucked in his lips. “Fuck.” The damned fruits were sour as balls unless he roasted them first. “No fire,” he huffed, snapping his fingers only for his flames to peter out. “And still no sign of anything living…”

The young man slogged forward. “I wonder what would happen if I walked long enough,” he grumbled. “Maybe the gods will take pity and bless me with a banquet.”

He slogged onwards, walking in circles just as he did before. The same tree stump, crushed fruits, and juice stains filled his every waking moment, the young man eventually blurring them from his sight altogether. He dragged his feet behind him, muttering incoherently to drown out his stomach’s wailing.

“I must’ve been bad in a past life,” Elies grumbled. “It’s the only reason I’d deserve this.”

He stumbled along, unable to tell if seconds or hours had passed, the young man’s dull expression lighting up when a new silhouette appeared, tall and feminine with hair that flowed to its ankles.

Elies gave a small chuckle. “I’m seeing shit,” he said flatly. Either that or the reaper had come to spirit him away. “Lady death,” he said, stepping closer. “Did I die of starvation or boredom?”

He reached out, surprise lifting his face when he could touch its hand. Pain shot through his palm, but he grit his teeth and listened as the silhouette spoke.

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

The silhouette stepped closer towards him, her voice as soft as clouds. “I’m sure you’ll have had a good run when it’s your time.”

The shadowed woman stepped even closer until they stood only inches apart. Her hair was blonde and a strand away from touching the ground, and she wore a red dress. Her mossy eyes stared back at Elies while her lips formed a thin smile.

Elies flinched away, his cheeks flushing at the sight of her. “Hazelmere?” His lips twitched with a smile. Perhaps the Gods loved him, after all.