Healed, and hungry

“Better. Thank you.” Lux hesitates a little before she gratefully takes a tasty-looking green apple from the basket. Gifts from the fey can be notoriously dangerous things, after all, but she’s accepted so much already, and besides that – she’s hungry. She takes a bite, savouring the wonderful crispness and the tangy taste. Trust the dryads to know where to find something this delicious, or at least to magick it up.

As Lux eats, she shares the story of her ill-judged interplanar tumble into the Valley, and what little she knows of Athisz. Willow listens attentively, though subtly licking her lips as she watches Lux eat. Mid-way through her story, Lux realises that Juniper has silently joined them. It takes a little while to explain everything, but Lux doesn’t mind too much as long as she can keep working her way through the assortment of mouth-watering food on offer.

“So it looks like I have two choices,” she tells the dryads. “Either I try to reason with the Erlking…”

“Long shot, but it’s been a while since anyone tried,” Juniper says, with a shrug. “Maybe he’s cooled off a little, or he’s **** enough…”

“Or, I go looking for the Hamadryad.”

Willow shivers. “I dread to think what guards the Erlking might have put in place,” she says. “To keep our Queen from escaping, they’d have to be formidable.”

“Well, either way, I’m going to need a way to find where I’m going,” Lux says. “These woods all look the same to me, and the mist…”

“You’ll need a guide.” Juniper pauses, head tilted as if deep in thought – or listening for something. Then her arm shoots out to her side, her hand grabbing hold of something hidden in the foliage there.

“Hey – get off – ” A tiny, shrill voice squeaks in muffled protest.

“I’m sure you got off earlier, you little creep.” Juniper holds her hand up – a tiny, luminescent winged figure is struggling ineffectually to get free of her grasp. “I know how you like to watch.”

Lux, who is busy working to make sense of what’s happening, feels her cheeks grow warm for a moment as the implication dawns on her.

“Dunno what you’re talking about!” The captive creature does not relent in its futile fight. “Hey, Willow, you gonna let her hurt me…?”

“Hush, Minn,” Willow says. “This is Lux. She needs a guide through the forest. Will you help her?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Juniper says. “You will help her.”

“Or…else?” Minn’s words are defiant, but the wavering tone in which they’re spoken doesn’t back them up.

“Or else,” Juniper says, “you’ll miss out on the opportunity to see some of the nasties out there having fun with her.”

“Wait a minute,” Lux protests, still trying to keep up, “what – ?”

“Why not help Lux get to wherever she needs to go?” For an unsettling moment, Lux sees the glamour around Juniper waver, a glimpse of her true form filtering through as her fey power focuses on weaving a suggestion into the tiny sprite’s mind. Her skin like rough bark, her eyes aglow, her voice crackling with the authority of ancient, primal power. “Should be fun to see what happens, shouldn’t it?”

“Should be fun to see what happens.” Minn’s voice echoes Juniper’s, dreamily. “Ha! Sure, I’ll do it. Bet you weren’t expecting that!”

Juniper releases Minn from her grasp. Lux finally gets a clear view of the sprite – a few inches tall, with sharp, inquisitive green eyes and a mop of unruly red hair; a face and figure that are both firmly androgynous, all surrounded in a nimbus of light that flickers through different colours from moment to moment. At the same time, bright wings flitting as she hovers safely out of Juniper’s reach, Minn looks Lux up and down with an air of appraisal.

“So…‘Lux’.” Minn nods slowly. “Where’re we going?”