They leave the maze, but Lux isn’t finished with the Valley

Unsteadily, Lux lets herself be led by Sylvia, as Sylvia follows Minn’s dancing light. The journey out of the maze seems to last an age – and in no time at all, it’s over. Lux feels her head start to clear as she finally steps free from that smothering tangle of darkness.

Sylvia still supports her, but Lux senses a change as the dryad gazes around at the forest they’ve emerged into; the thicket of dead, grey trees around the edge of this cursed place. In the time she’s known her, Lux has only seen Sylvia appearing calm and controlled. Now – now, true anger breaks on her face.

“My trees,” she whispers, her voice hot with fury. “My forest. This has gone on too long. This – this abomination shall stand no longer!”

Just like with Juniper, Lux sees Sylvia’s true form bleed through her glamour as she brings her full power to bear. But this is so much more than with Juniper. Lux can’t help but back away in fear and awe at the sight – the mother-protector of the forest rising up, towering, a great shape of bark and branch shining with truly ancient might –

Lightning flashes down from on high, briefly piercing the fog to reveal a glimpse of clear blue sky overhead. Somewhere in the middle of the maze, the thunder breaks, deafeningly loud for being so close. A shattering rumble that echoes in Lux’s bones. And when she can hear again, she realises she’s hearing a cascade of cracks and crashes as the dead mass of the maze collapses with the **** of the shock. Crumbling down, little by little, into a hillock of grey dust and debris.

She looks up to see that Sylvia has composed herself, returning to her comfortingly familiar form. Sylvia pauses to inhale, drawing in the fresh air for the first time in…a while, Lux can only guess.

“I let it go on too long,” Sylvia says. “Now that I am out here, I smell the corruption – the snake-creature you spoke of, the Naga, she is here. No doubt whispering her poison in the Erlking’s court.”

She sighs, and turns to Lux. “But this is not your concern, not your fight. I can open you a pathway out, if you choose – though I can make no promises as to whether you will be safe on the other side, if the Naga’s minions are still about. The choice is yours.”

Lux bites her lip. It is indeed very tempting to just leave now, while she can. Turn her back on this place and treat it all as a bad dream to be forgotten…

…but not all of it has been a bad dream. Are there things she would regret walking away from…?

She feels too weary to make that journey – alone, at any rate. She just wants to rest, in a way that she hasn’t been able to for all those days confined in the maze. And right now, there’s only one person whose arms she wants to fall into…

“I want to see Willow,” she says, quietly.

Sylvia stares at her for a moment, before her expression softens. “Very well, child,” she says. “Though we will have to walk. My ways of travel in these woods are not open to you.”

“I can walk,” Lux says, straightening herself up a little.

Sylvia nods, and moves to lead the way. Minn flits nearby, quietly hopeful. Lux looks up, and sighs.

“All right,” she says, “get in. Before I change my mind.”

Squealing with delight, Minn dives down and squirms into the warm confines of Lux’s bodice; a sensation that Lux finds oddly comforting, despite everything, a cosy embrace. “Mmff – they’re even bigger than before – !”

“Do not remind me about that!” Lux snaps. But she can’t find it in herself to be truly angry. Not at the light that guided her in her darkest hour, and the annoying little voice that kept her taking one step forward.