It was a miraculously sunny day in the Firerose Forest as Corabelle began her morning chores. There hadn’t been a day this pleasant for years now.

As she emerged from her cobblestone cottage, hand woven basket in hand, she was thankful to take her first breath of clear air in seven winters. It had been several decades now since she’d woken up trapped in the labyrinth of scorching flowers that made up what she not-so-affectionately referred to as the Firerose Forest. Of course, she could only approximate how long she’d been here. It was hard to keep count when one was unable to age. The unnatural forest kept everything young. She’d been friends with the same baby birds and poor old turtle for at least 50 years now. They were trapped here too. Either wandered in or had been unfortunately born here. She was the only human.

At the least the curse didn’t stop the adult birds from laying eggs and the singular goat from producing milk, or she would have starved. The plants, thankfully, didn’t seem as affected by the curse as the creatures. The apple trees and berry bushes still produced fruit and new trees grew up, though nothing ever died. Unfortunately, this meant she had to be diligent about making sure stray vines didn’t tear apart her little home.

She got to work on the weeds first, ripping the tendrils of the Fireroses away from her hard earned, painstakingly homemade house, while the vines did scorch and shred her hands, they were nothing compared to the blooms. The vine burns healed quickly, but the flower burns never did. That's why she had to be sure to clear away the vines before anything could sprout. She had a nasty burn on the side of her ribs from the only time she’d mistakenly bumped a rose. The raw, barely scabbed burns were still there, so many years later.

She tucked the withering vines into the small inlet in her house that kept it warm on cold nights. The vines burned hot as they died and took several weeks to burn out. The main bodies of the towering rose hedges weren't close enough to her home to keep it warm.

Once that task was completed, she rounded her house to the small pond where she could often find Neve, her goat friend.

“Good morning, Neve!” She called to the small white goat who was grazing lazily on some watercress.

Neve raised her head slowly, bleating a short greeting before returning to her breakfast.

Corabelle headed to the water's edge, scooping up a Bubble Lily so she could milk Neve. She sliced off the top of the spherical bloom with her flint knife she carried in her basket and poured the sickeningly sweet sap out. While delicious, it would make one violently sick in large quantities. This information was unfortunately learned firsthand in her early days in this grove.

She tucked the blade back into her basket and approached Neve, “I just want a little milk, okay?” She said soothingly as Neve backed off. 

They’d come a far way from Neve charging Corabelle violently whenever she got close but this didn’t stop Neve from hating being milked and trying to run off.

Corabelle grabbed the new collar made of woven grass she’d affixed to Neve a week ago. She had to replace it frequently, and it was already beginning to wear thin. She held it firmly with one hand while setting the Bubble Lily beneath the struggling goat. She reached into her bag and pulled out a scrap of fabric from the dress she’d arrived in that she now used for a leash. She didn’t wear that dress anymore. It had fallen to shreds ages ago. Regardless, there were no other people here so there was no reason to wear anything in the warm months. In the colder months, she wrapped herself in large leaves insulated with molted feathers and tended to stay closer to the roses when she dared to leave the house.

She wrapped the scrap around Neve’s collar and stepped on the other end so she could get to milking. As usual Neve sprinted off the moment as she was untethered, almost knocking over the small basin of milk Corabelle had collected.

Once she’d put the top on the Bubble Lily and tucked both it and the leash back into her basket, Corabelle went in search of some eggs and fruit. The air was beginning to get cooler and the days shorter, soon, the berries would be gone for the year and she'd have to go without them. So today she’d have to begin the tedious process of preparing her yearly preserves. She didn’t much like this time of year. It kept her cooped up in her home for a solid week, and this was such a lovely day. Nothing too big and been singed by the labyrinth of fire and pain that kept her trapped. The air didn’t smell like death, for once. Many years ago she’d attempted to find her way out, but was always returned to her grove. Eventually she’d given up.

She cautiously gathered wild Starberries, recalling the correct amount of time she must cook them or else lose her wits for a few days and not be able to complete her work. She’d never had it happen personally, but Starberries grew near her old home and her baby sister had gotten into the patch while her parents were gone back when they were little. Her parents hadn’t found her sister’s uncontrollable laughter nearly as funny as Corabelle had.

She collected every edible, ripe berry she could get her hands on. She’d be out here every day collecting the ones that still managed to ripen before their season was over.

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With her basket nearly full, she headed to the biggest tree, the one that could see over even the evil Roses, though there was so much smoke that she couldn’t see to the end. Of the maze. Though one clear day, less clear than this one, she was able to map out farther than she ever could before. She wondered if today she’d be able to see more. More importantly, however, this tree is where the majority of the birds laid their eggs. It was the only one big enough to shield them from the haze and smoke, and most days they would even be higher than  the largest clouds of it. There was something special about this tree. Her grandmother would tell her stories of magic trees that would protect the select few they chose to be their family. They were said to be magic, whose rings would hold the secrets to making wishes come true and whose sap would reveal the deepest truths. Fate’s Ash, her grandmother would call them. Though no such tree existed, at least not anymore, Corabella would like to believe this was one of them. It was a good tree; whose bird's nests had fed here these many years, whose large and windproof leaves kept her warm in the winter and dry in storms, and whose pliable bark lined the inside of her house and helped keep the smoke out.

Corabelle hung her basket from a low branch to keep the rabbits out of it while she was climbing the tree before pulling out a small woven satchel from underneath the mountain of berries so she’d be able to bring some eggs down.

She carefully began ascending, while the tree was a great gift, its bark was rather slick on her bare feet. More than once she’d fallen out of this tree and, while the mossy ground of her grove was soft, it wasn’t soft enough to keep her from breaking her arm one fateful day and several fingers on another. At least she healed quickly. Whatever curse kept her young also liked to preserve her body and would heal her in half the time it’d take normally.

She gripped branch after branch, climbing to the highest branches where she knew the bird species with no male partner would lay their eggs. She didn’t feel bad taking these ones, they’d never hatch.

She reached the branch with the best view of the maze that surrounded her grove. She could see for miles. Miles and miles of blazing flowers and thorny vines, but no sign of a way out. She knew it was a long shot. What she could see, however, were storm clouds on the horizon. She didn’t have long before the prismatic lighting reached her. The storms in the forest were very strange and beautiful but very dangerous. The energy in the air often left her with crippling headaches. In her house, the bark discharged some of it, enough to leave her in working shape. But if she were caught outside in the lighting then she’d be out of commission for at least a day.

She scooped up as many eggs as she could, apologizing to the perturbed birds before climbing down as fast as she safely could.

She snatched her basket and sprinted for her house as she heard thunder rumbling on the horizon. The storms approached fast. She began to feel the rain start to come down. She just hoped the lighting was a ways off. She flung open her door and flew inside before slamming it behind her.

Setting the basket down on the table she’d built, SHE began unpacking. Sorting the various berries. She cursed silently as she realized she had neglected to grab more Bubble Lilies to store the preserves she had to make. She would have to get them when the storm let up. She took the milk out of her basket and set it on the table along with her satchel of eggs before flinging the berries into the basket and opening the hatch that led to the pit she’d dug to store the extra food she’d gathered in the cool earth. It wasn’t very wide, just a bit bigger across than she on either side, but was about 10 feet deep and she expanded it every few years. She hollowed out grooves in the side which she slid bark pieces into as makeshift shelving. She climbed down the ladder she’d made of fallen branches and shoveled out the berries onto one of the lower shelves where it was coolest.

She climbed back up with her basket, closing the hatch behind her before getting to work on her lunch. She fried up her eggs in a hollowed out piece of stone she chipped and carved into some semblance of a pot. Making the pot was hard work and it was the third she’d had to craft since she was stranded, but it was useful. Her meal cooked over a little stove she’d crafted, fueled by the invasive vines. Though in all honesty it was so much a stove as a thin rock propped up on smaller stones, the roots burning below it. 

She poured the steaming egg out onto a leaf that she used a plate and grabbed the milk she’d collected today.

Corabelle ate her lunch as the storm raged outside, rattling the stones of her house. It wouldn’t fall, it’d seen worse, but it still made her nervous.

She felt the electricity through the walls as thunder boomed deafeningly right above her. After lunch, she curled up in her leaf sheets on her moss mattress covering her head as she waited for the storm to pass. She heard her pulse in her ears as her head pounded, her head throbbing. This was the least of it. This was a fairly calm storm. She even managed to fall asleep amidst the crashing and booming.

When she awoke, the only sound was a faint dripping through a small hole in her roof. Her headache was gone, the storm was over, and she had work to do.

She grabbed her basket and swung open her door to the smell of dewy moss and grass and a shimmering rainbow overhead. The roses still blazed. She wished the rain would put them out, but no matter how violent the storm, they never so much as wavered.

She headed toward the pond to collect more Bubble Lilies. Neve was nowhere to be found, probably still hiding from the storm herself. Corabelle stooped next to the water, quickly harvesting lilies and draining them of their sickening sap with her little blade.

Corabelle flew to her feet as a sudden, but weak, voice rang out through the quiet grove, “I wondered who owned the house.”