Buckle!

The voice was in his head.

The forest sent the wind, pushing him deeper into his slumber. He did not want to wake up. He was in that state between sleep and wakefulness where sleep was the sweetest. The voice at the periphery of his mind was trying to drag him back to wakefulness, but he did not want that. There was nothing in the world anyway apart from heartbreak and suffering.

Buckle! The voice called again.

Buckle tried to drown the voice out, but it was persistent, insistent, and kept tugging him to wakefulness.

"Go away," he mumbled.

But the voice would simply not go away. It kept ringing in his head. Finally, his eyes sprung open and he saw the sun shining down on him.

He blinked. There was no sign of any of his companions. He wondered where they had gone to. Only last night, they had been together fighting off trolls. The way Tum behaved, he had jumped into the fight unthinkingly, striking with his sword rather than his gun. Buckle had set them straight when he found his sister who usually thought before she did anything joining in the sword fight.

Buckle looked around for his gun, only to discover that it was missing. The only thing that was there was his sword, lying in its sheath.

"Where are these people?" he mumbled, looking around. Even the princess was nowhere to be found. The events of last night had gotten blurry in his mind towards the end. When did the fight stop? When did they start sleeping? What happened? They were supposed to stay awake and keep watch in case the trolls came back with more of their kind. They had thought of continuing their journey that night but decided against it. None of them knew what lay ahead.

"Tum! Bonnie!" he called.

He did not want to mention the princess because he hated what her presence meant here. Not only was love blind but, love was also stupid, and he was not going to be a part of such stupidity.

He picked up the sword from where it lay and turned back quickly at the sound of ruffling leaves. Someone stepped through the foliage, coming onto the trail near where they had slept for the night. It was easy to place this person. There were the strong thighs that looked like pillars and the stiff walk as she strode towards him.

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"I have been looking for you," Aris said.

"Aris?" Buckle asked, unbelief in his voice. It was not possible. She could not be here.

"It is me," Aris replied.

"How are you here?" Buckle asked. "You left me at the palace."

"I am here now. Is that not all that matters?"

"You rejected me."

"Did I?"

"You did. You ran away from my proposal. You could have told me that you loved me too."

"But I do. You know that I love you too. I would have cut off your head if I did not."

"This is not real. Where are my companions?"

"I killed them for you."

"What?"

"They would not let me get close to you."

"You killed my friends?"

"Would you rather I kill you?"

Buckle noticed there was a knife in Aris' hand. It was a little hunting knife, but it looked terribly dangerous in Aris' hand when Buckle thought of the many things that she could do with the knife.

"Put the knife away, Aris," Buckle said, moving backward.

"Oh, do you now believe that it is real?"

"Don't come close to me," Buckle said. He pulled his sword out from his sheath.

"You want to fight me now?" Aris asked. She paused and watched Buckle with a mocking expression on her face.

"If you come further, I will strike you," Buckle warned.

"I would love to see you hurt me. Is that what you have been thinking of me?" Aris asked and started moving towards Buckle again.

Buckle continued moving backward.

"Kill me, Buckle!" she screamed and rushed towards Buckle.

Her eyes were turning all black and Buckle was knocked off by that before she knocked him off his feet. Buckle could not act as he was struck with a mixture of emotion. He was definitely not going to hurt his love interest, and he was struck dumb by the blackness spreading all over Aris' eyes.

He fell to the ground while Aris stood over him, his sword clattering to the side.

"You never loved me," Aris accused him, bending towards him, her hand raised with the short blade glinting in the sun.

"No!" Buckle screamed. "Don't do this!"

Even as he screamed, he knew that it was useless. The person bending over him was not the Aris that he knew. This person was something else, an enchantment set up by the magical forest to keep them back.

"Will you give me your heart?"

"This is not real! Get away from me!"

The knife came down. But Buckle reacted fast, scrambling away from the knife's path. He grabbed his sword quickly and ran it through Aris's heart without remorse.

Aris paused, looking at him.

"I said you never loved me," she said, then she started pulling the sword out of her chest.

Buckle was only confused for a little while before he reacted quickly. He pulled the sword out and it ran through Aris' hand injuring her. Squeezing his eyes shut, he thrust the sword into her head and pulled it out again. He had no idea why he acted that way. But as he watched, he saw Aris crumble to the ground. Before she fell, she began to disintegrate into dust. By the time she fell to the ground, there was nothing left of her. The forest was back with its sounds and emptiness.

Shaken, Buckle moved away from the disintegrating body, still clinging to his sword. If this was a nightmare he wanted to quickly wake up from it.