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nenilein · 3 months

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Drama CD #1-4: A Little Disaster in a Moonlit Night (ENG)

Summary:

A spell cast in the full moon curses Arle with the gradual loss of her magic, memories and identity. Can her old friends break the curse before it is too late?

Translation of the Audio Track:

[DISCLAIMER: This translation was made by @PinkGeekNeni (Nenilein) on twitter! Feel free to repost parts of it or the entire text wherever you want as long as you credit the translator correctly!]

INTRO

Witch: Howdy! A very pleasant day to y’all! It is me, Witch. So, anyway, have you ever heard talk about how our moon hanging up in the sky might actually have mystical powers? They say that especially on full moon nights the accumulated influence of the moon can amplify one’s magic prowess… Kinda mysterious to think about, huh~? So, today’s story is about a tiny bout of huge turmoil that happened on a full moon night just like that…

STORY

[nighty soundscape, cicadas]

Arle: Ah, nothing better about autumn than some good old moon-viewing. Right, Carby?

Carbuncle: Gu, gugu~

Arle: The full moon is so beautiful tonight. So mysterious… If you keep looking at it for long enough, it’s kind of enchanting, huh…?

Arle: That reminds me, I’ve heard somewhere that the full moon has special powers. Now I wonder if that’s true.

Carbuncle: (cheerfully) Gu-gugu! Gu-gugu!

Arle: ARGH! Carby, what gives!? You ate all of our dumplings!!

Carbuncle: (happily) Gugugu-gu!

Arle: Hmpf… Oh well. I guess they DO call autumn the “season of good appetite”, huh?

[Suddenly, there are magical sparkle SFXs. A new voice, with a heavy echo and distortion on it.]

???: Ahahaha! Hahaha! Haha!

Arle: Huh? What was that just now? Sounds like somebody’s laughing over there…

SFX: Arle and Carbuncle’s footsteps

Arle: Hmm… I think it was around… here… Ah! There they are!

???: Huh? Hey, big girl! Who’re you?

Arle: The name’s Arle! You were dancing, huh? Looks like you are having a lot of fun!

???: Yeah! Dancing when the moon’s so beautiful is the best. It feels sooooo nice~!

Arle: Hmm… Say, you’re not just some regular kid, are you? So, what’re you called?

Puck: I’m a faerie! The name’s Puck! I’m biiiig cutie who loves to dance and play little pranks~!

Arle: That last part’s not something you might want to say out loud…

Carbuncle: Gu, gu…

Puck: Hey, big girl, wanna dance with me?

Arle: Huh? Um… Sorry, but this is kinda giving me déjà vu to an old acquaintance who liked forcing me to dance against my will, so… I’m gonna pass!

Puck: HUH? You won’t dance? Well, then… you’re in for it now!

SFX: *magic sounds*

Arle: U-URGH! What is this!?

Puck: The spell of forgetfulness! You’re gonna forget every- and any whichever thing~!

SFX: *more magic sounds*

Arle: UWHAAAAAA!!!

Carbuncle: Gugugu!! (<spoken in the cadence of “Arle!!”)

Puck: Ahahaha! Buh-bye~!

Arle: …Huh? What was I… doing just now?

Carbuncle: Gu…

Arle: I feel like something happened just now… Something I should remember, but…

Arle: Oh no, I almost forgot! I promised Witch I’d Puyo battle her tonight!

Carbuncle: Gugu!

Arle: I’d better get a move on. You know how Witch gets when something upsets her. Alright, let’s go, Carby!

Carbuncle: (happily) Gu-gugu!

SFX: *Arle and Carbuncle running*

[Later. Theme of Puyo Puyo is playing. Puyo popping and casting noises.]

Witch: Oh-HOHOHO! I’m getting started, Arle~! METEO!

SFX: *impact*

Arle: You’ll have to try better than that, Witch! Aaaaalright! HAH!

Witch: I know right which spell’s coming up from your end!

Arle: HA-! …Uh? Huh… HATCHUU!!

Witch: GAH!

Carbuncle: Gu-gu!

[Arle’s sneeze knocked her off-balance. Her board collapses on top of her and Witch.]

Witch: Hmpf… HEY! What’s the big idea! You completely ruined the moment!

Arle: (awkwardly) Ahahaha… Sorry, sorry~! I kinda forgot the incantation for a second there, I think…

Witch: It’s not like you to let down your guard in the middle of a battle like that, y’know.

Arle: Yeah… I’ve kinda had brainfog for a while now.

Witch: You sure you haven’t caught a cold or something? Tell ya what, I’ll give you some of my special cold medicine, so go home and catch some rest, ‘kay?

Arle: Yeah, you’re right. Thanks. But, uh… There’s kinda smoke coming out of that bottle, and it sorta looks like goo, so, no thanks…

Witch: Hmpf! Well, I was just trying to help!

Arle: A-Anyway, I’m gonna call it a night here. See ya!

[Music fades out]

Carbuncle: (worried) Gugugu…

Arle: This is weird… How could I just forget the incantation? I’ve been using that spell on the daily for ages…

Carbuncle: Gugu?

Arle: Huh? Carby, what’s up?

Carbuncle: Gugu! Gugugu!

Arle: Are you wondering about something?

[Suddenly, Schezo.]

Schezo: ARLE!

Arle: Huh!? Wait, huh…

Schezo: What a coincidence to encounter you out here. Once again we meet in the dark of the night, broken by the bloom of the full moon. Tonight shall be the night I…!

Arle: Sheh… Sché…Ah, right! You’re Schezo!

Schezo: (completely thrown off his game) Wha… What in the world is THAT supposed to mean!? Are you trying to make fun of me, perhaps!?

Arle: (awkwardly) Hahaha… No, sorry, sorry! I just kinda… couldn’t get your name out for a moment there… Anyway, what’cha need from me?

Schezo: Hmpf! You know very well what I need! YOU! Are all I need!!

Arle: Huh…? (pause) (screaming) WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?

Schezo Heh?

Arle: Wh… Wha… What the heck is your problem!? CREEPER! Get away from me!!

Schezo: N-No, wait… I slipped up… I meant to say that I need your “magic power”, but… Really, why are you acting like this is the first time that’s happened!? Screaming like you think this is serious… How am I even supposed to take that…?

Arle: Uh-! R… R-Right… You always slip up like that, right… Hah… What’s going on… with me…?

[Arle sounds like she’s shaking.]

Schezo: Hey… Are you… sure you are alright…?

Carbuncle: Gugu, gugu… Gugu-gugu!

Schezo: What is it, Carbuncle? Are you trying to tell me something? -Wait… Arle… You…?

Arle: What?

Schezo: This is strange… You are definitely the real Arle… But, your aura… The magic you usually exude… I can’t sense it anymore.

Arle: Huh? What do you mean?

Schezo: It seems as if something essential is leaking out of you rapidly…

Arle: Ahahah, stop saying weird stuff like that, that’s creepy… I’m… going home! Carby, let’s go.

Carbuncle: Gugugu! GU! (-> To me this sounds like “Arle! WAIT!”)

Schezo: Wait!

SFX: *Arle and Carbuncle’s footsteps*

Schezo: What is going on… What is this sense of foreboding…?

SFX: *magic sounds*

Puck: Huh? The spell was just supposed to take a few of her memories… But now I can feel all of her energy flow into me like a current…! That’s… not what I was trying to do…

Arle: Huh? Did you hear a voice just now?

Carbuncle: GU! Gugu!

Arle: Um… Uh… I probably just imagined it! Let’s hurry on home, Carby.

Carbuncle: (sadly) Gu…

SFX: *Arle and Carbuncle’s footsteps*

[Later. Noise of a door being opened quickly]

Rulue: Hmpf! …Arle! Allow me to invite myself in!

Arle: Um… You’re… Rulue!

Rulue: I heard from Witch. You went and caught a cold, now, did you?

Arle: Yeah… I mean, my nose isn’t stuffy, but I can’t really focus on anything. Did you come because you were worried about me?

Rulue: What…! As if I would ever lower myself to worrying about you…! I-I am only here because my Darling said he would pay you a visit! I had to-

[Door opens again]

Satan: AAAARLYYYY~~~ I’ve come for a bedside visit~!

Arle: WARGH! Who is that!? … Ah… Oh, it’s just Satan~.

Satan: And hello to you too, my Carbunny! You’re as adorable as always today~!

Carbuncle: (desperately) GUGU, GUGU!!

Satan: Arle, you’ve always been in such good health, I never expected you’d end up catching such a nasty cold. But it’s alright now! C’mon, let your Satan’s burning hot hugs break the fever for you~!

Arle: Urgh-! You wanna HUG me!?

Satan: Now, now, you don’t need to hold back. We’re a couple, after all! My fiancée must not be ashamed of public displays of affection~!

Arle: Fiancée? …Is that so…? The two of us are… engaged?

Satan: Huh?

Rulue: ARLE! OBVIOUSLY NOT!! What are you saying, are you out of your mind!?

Satan: I-I mean… Arle, are you sure you meant to say that just now? Something seems…

Arle: NONONONONONO! I take it back!! What the heck am I even saying…? It’s just Satan’s usual delusional ramblings! Anyway, stop calling me your fiancée and GET OUT!! I GIVE YOU TWO SECONDS!!

SFX: *magic sounds*

Rulue: Arle, what in the world!! You don’t need to threaten us with magic!

Arle: Um… Uh… (scared) Ah…

Satan: Arle…

Arle: Huh? What spell was I trying to cast just now…? Weird…

Carbuncle: Gugugu…!

[Door closes as Satan and Rulue leave the house. They are now outside.]

Schezo: Hey! Satan! Rulue!

Satan: Hmpf. So the Dark Mage has shown himself.

Rulue: Hey. What in the world is going on here? I’ve never seen Arle… like this.

Schezo: I knew it… So you’ve sensed it too. Something is wrong with Arle. Her memory and energies are slowly but surely draining from her.

Satan: As long as Carbuncle is by her side I think she is safe physically speaking, but… this is no physical issue, now, is it? This is directly affecting her heart and soul. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an infection that could cause one to lose their memory gradually like this. We have no choice but to try and find the cause.

Rulue: If that is so, then I will head to Witch’s house. She has a huge collection of old books, and knowing her, she might know a thing or two that does not occur to us.

Schezo: That is a good idea. But we must make haste. If her energy and memory keep deteriorating at this rate, then there is not much time until she…

Rulue: Until she…?

Satan: We must not let Arle know of this, but there is a possibility she might lose all her memories and magic. Before that happens, we have to…

Arle: …? What does that mean?

Schezo: Arle…! How much have you heard?

Arle: I heard you all whispering in front of the door, so I couldn’t help myself… So, I’m going to forget everything and everyone?

Satan: Now, now, Arly, it’s alright! We’re all going to save you soon enough.

Arle: But… you said that even you don’t know what caused this, didn’t you, Satan?

Satan: …!

Arle: (awkwardly) Ahahaha! Oh wow, looks like I’m in trouble~! Ahah, um! …Sorry. Could you leave me and Carby alone for a bit?

Carbuncle: Gugu…?

Schezo: Arle, wait-!

[She closes the door in his face.]

[Nighttime noises.]

Arle: *sigh*

Carbuncle: Gugu?

Arle: You know Carby… This all somehow doesn’t quite feel real to me.

Carbuncle: Gu…

Arle: I’ve always just relied on the idea that everything is just gonna work out somehow… I guess I’m just good at making stuff up as I go or something… but… I don’t think I can just wriggle myself out of this one.

Carbuncle: Gugugu…

Arle: I mean…! I can barely remember any of my spells anymore! It kinda feels like this is it…

Carbuncle: Gu…

Arle: And also… If I’m honest, there are already so many things I feel I can’t recall clearly anymore. Like, I still know that Schezo is a creeper and that Rulue has a bad crush on Satan… Or that Satan likes to cause trouble, but… that’s about it. I don’t know the details anymore. Hey, how did you and I meet? And how long ago was that…? Carby… Am I gonna forget about you, too…?

Carbuncle: Gugu, gugu!!

Arle: Huh? You’ll protect me…? Ahahaha! Thank you. That makes me happy.

Schezo: Arle.

Arle: Ah! Um, you’re… Schezo!

Schezo: Looks like you’re not doing well.

Arle: What, me? No, I’m okay~!

Schezo: …

Arle: So, um… Looks like your days of chasing me around are finally over, huh?

Schezo: What are you talking about?

Arle: All you wanted from me was my power, right? Now that I’m not going to have any powers, you’re probably not gonna care much about what happens to me, huh?

Schezo: Wha…!?

Arle: I mean, it sucks that I’m not gonna have any magic anymore, but… I guess that’s one load off my back at least!

Satan: Arle. Don’t say something so foolish.

Arle: Huh? Oh, right, that Satan! Hey, Satan, looks like you had a lucky draw with this, too, huh?

Satan: Whatever are you talking about?

Arle: I mean, not only am I about to forget all of your past misdeeds soon, I won’t even have any magic to resist you with… Oh, wait, my magic was why you were attracted to me in the first place, wasn’t it? Guess you’ll lose interest in me too then. Maybe I’m actually pretty lucky, seeing how this all means you two are finally gonna get off my case and all! Heheh!

Schezo&Satan: Arle!

Arle: Uh…What?

Schezo: Don’t force yourself to laugh. It doesn’t suit you.

Arle: Huh…?

Satan: Arle. Do not underestimate my love. Do you really think I would want to take you as my consort after you’ve lost your memory and power and are docile and easy to manipulate? And above all else, regardless of what happens to you, you will always be Arle.

Arle: That’s…

Schezo: Arle. I wouldn’t be able to rest if I were to leave you behind in this state. Be at ease, I will protect you. I will tell you as many times as you need to hear: I need you.

Arle: Ahah, Schezo! You dropped some words there again! You meant to say “I need your power”, didn’t you?

Schezo: Hmpf. I’ll let you think so, if you want to… Let’s head for Witch’s house. She should be helping Rulue to research the cause of Arle’s memory loss right now.

Arle: Yeah! Alright… Let’s go to Witch’s- Uh, huh?

Satan: What’s wrong, Arle?

Arle: Um… Who was that again?

Schezo: What…!? Arle, don’t tell me you…!

Arle: And, to start with, who are you people? Huh? Where am I? Why am I here?

Satan: A-Arle, pull yourself together! You can’t have forgotten me, the great Satan!

Arle: Ahahaha! It’s nice to meet you! Looks like you know me from somewhere? Your name was ‘Greatsatan’, huh?

Satan: …!! SCHEZO!

Schezo: Yes, we seem to be approaching the event horizon! Let’s go, Satan!

Witch: Um.. well…

SFX: *browsing in a book*

Witch: Em… huh…

Rulue: Witch, are you STILL not done with your research?

Witch: Hmm… Please give me a tad. Gradual memory loss is a rather rare symptom, y’know…

Rulue: Well, speed it up somehow! …I hate to admit it, but I don’t have the slightest clue about matters of sorcery, so this is up to you!

Witch: Argh, could you stop putting me under so much pressure!?

Rulue: …! It is not in my nature to just stand by and watch… Hah, why am I wasting my time here, when right now my Satan is by Arle’s side and watching over her?

Witch: You say that, Rulue, but I can tell that you’re plenty worried about Arle yourself, aren’cha?

Rulue: …? Where did that come from?

Witch: Oh, I’ve just never seen you with that distraught look on your face before, is all.

Rulue: I-I am just distraught that my darling prince is spending time with Arle and not me, that is all-

Witch: Oh, reeeeally? Is that all? But if Arle lost use of all her spells, defeating and getting her out of your way should be easy for you, shouldn’t it? And then your beloved “darling prince Satan” would be yours once and for all.

Rulue: (shaken) T-That’s… I…

Witch: What’s wrong?

Rulue: OH-HOHOHO! Don’t you dare lower my noble, queenly self onto such a disgraceful level! I will defeat Arle in a fair and equal battle and win my darling Satan’s love and attention of my own power!

Witch: Hm~? Oh well, if that’s how you wanna spin it, then okay. Continuing our research… Ah!

Rulue: Did you find it!?

Witch: Here! Look at this! This has to be it. P… “Puck”. Um… According to this book, “Puck” is a faerie who loves to dance and play pranks on humans. Its specialty is a spell that inflicts its victims with forgetfulness…

Rulue: So that is what did it to her…Really now, Arle, how could you let yourself be done in by such a creature? Tch, you are such a handful!

Witch: But this is odd… It says that Puck’s natural magic power isn’t all that strong. All the spell should do is make things slip from one’s mind for a short while… (she turns a page) Hmm… Maybe this has something to do with the fact that we have a full moon today… Moonlight naturally has magic-boosting properties, so maybe it affected that faerie and-

Rulue: I do not care about those details! I will go and finally report what we have learned to Satan now! …Oh, my Satan! Your Rulue… Your Rulue is coming for you~!

[Rulue runs off]

Witch: Hey! I was trying to explain everything you need to know!! Come back here-

[The door closes]

Witch: Waaaaait!!

SFX: *magic sounds*

Puck: What do I do? That girl’s power won’t stop flowing into me…! What’s going to happen to me?

SFX: *running footsteps*

Puck: I never meant this to go this far!

Carbuncle: (accusatory) GU! Gugu!!

Puck: Urgh!

Satan: We found you…

Schezo: So you are the one who stole away Arle’s memory.

Puck: Huh? Why do you know about that? Ah! It’s that big girl!

Arle: Hey! Let go of my hand, stranger! What in the world are you all doing, ganging up on a defenseless child!?

Rulue: Arle, stand back! We are doing this for your good! …How could it make you forget about your rival, the noble fighting queen, Rulue!? I will never forgive this!

Arle: Eeek! What is wrong with this lady!? Those arms are way too strong for someone who looks so beautiful!

Rulue: Shuddup!! Looks like even amnesia can’t touch that smart mouth of yours, huh!?

Arle: Amnesia…?

Carbuncle: Gugu, gugu!

Schezo: Hey, Witch! What do we have to do with this thing to get Arle’s memory back?

Witch: Well… I reckon they’ll just come back by themselves if Puck is knocked out, maybe? But that’s not what’s important, now, listen-

Schezo: I see… *sound of him drawing his sword*

Satan: I must admit, I do not like the thought of needing to bully a weak creature to resolve this, but… can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Puck: P… Please forgive me! I never meant for any of this! I still don’t even understand it… My powers just seem to be working a whole lot more strongly than usual!

Witch: Hm, aha. I knew it… Then that would mean…

Carbuncle: (asking) Gugu?

Satan: Hmpf! I will hear no excuses!

Arle: W-Wait! What are you doing, Mr. Horned, Mean and Green!?

Satan: I am the Dark Prince, Satan!

Arle: And you, you silver-haired excuse to call for an adult!!

Schezo: My name is SCHEZO!

Arle: Can’t you see that that little guy is scared? Why are you being so awful to him!?

Satan: Well, that…

Schezo: …is quite simple. All that we want…

Satan & Schezo: …is for our old Arle to come back to us!

Arle: Huh…?

Schezo: Let’s go!

Arle: STOOOOOP!

Schezo: (off balance) Gah…!

Satan: What is it NOW, Arle!?

Arle: Look… I get the gist that you guys are doing this for me. But, please don’t hurt someone for my sake, okay?

Satan: Do you know what you’re saying?

Arle: Okay, listen… From what I gather, I’ve lost my memory and forgotten all of you, right? But maybe… and that’s just a “maybe”... that doesn’t mean that my feelings for you all have disappeared!

Carbuncle: Gugu?

Arle: I’ve been watching you all fight for me this whole time, and seeing that, I somehow feel warm, as if I really, really loved you all from the bottom of my heart. So, maybe I can make this work even without a few dumb memories! We can just make new memories together! Right?

Schezo: Ah…

Satan: Arle…

Carbuncle: Gu! Gugu!

Rulue: How can you say that so easily? …Then again, that way of thinking is so quintessentially you…

Witch: Um, I’m sorry to bust this very heartwarming moment, but… it seems there’s some clouds coming in. Aaand, there they go covering up the full moon, and-

SFX: *magic sounds*

Arle: Huh? …Huh!

Schezo: W… What’s wrong!?

Arle: Whoawhoawhoa… What’s up with my head, I… Uh… Hey, Satan! Schezo! Rulue! Witch! What are we all doing here?

SFX: *quick Carbuncle footsteps*

Carbuncle: GUGUGUGUGUGU-GUUU!!

Arle: Ahahaha! Carby! Hey, what’re you being so cuddly for all of a sudden?

Satan: Arle! Do you recognize my magnificent self now!?

Arle: What are you talking about? OBVIOUSLY I recognize you! Not like you’re easy to confuse for anyone else!

Witch: Hmm, just as I’d thought. The amplification of Puck’s magic only lasts as long as the full moon. As soon as it was covered up, he went back to his usual abilities.

Rulue: Wha- Why didn’t you say so earlier!?

Witch: I tried! You were the one who ran off before I could finish talking!

Puck: Heeey… I have no idea what’s going on, buuut… looks like everything’s back to normal now, so…

Arle: Wait, uh… What is even happening right now?

Carbuncle: Gugu, gugu, gu!

Arle: Let’s see, I ran into a faerie that called itself “Puck”, and then… AHHH!! YOU’RE PUCK!!

Puck: Nonono, I’ll never do it again, never again! Like I’d ever put myself through something so terrifying again! BUH-BYE!!

[He warps out.]

Arle: Whoa-! …And he’s gone.

Satan: Aaaarly~!! I’m so happy! Now, in celebration of the return of your memories of being my loveliest fiancée, how about a passionate baiser from moi to-!

Arle: Who are you calling “fiancée”!?

SFX: *she punches him. Hard*

Satan: URGH-! (under heavy groaning) Yeah… Our old Arle’s back… Charming and strong-headed… as she should be…

Schezo: Hmpf… Arle. So it would appear your powers have returned to you! Thus, let us resume… our endless dance of passions!!

Arle: Yeah, yeah, I get it already. But could you at least try to reel in the embarrassing misspeaks in public a little? *sighs* You’ll never change, will you, Creeper?

Schezo: Urgh…!

Rulue: Looks like she’s completely back to normal. So much ado about someone like her… We should’ve just let her be if you ask me!

Arle: Heh? What’s with the attitude! I don’t remember asking for your help!

Witch: By the by, Arle…

Arle: Yeah?

Witch: Just for the sake of my personal research: Do you recall any part of what happened while you had lost your memory?

Arle: Huh? Uh… Oh, right. I think I can remember, kinda!

Witch: …Including the part where you said that you, and I quote, “really, really love all of us, from the bottom of your heart”?

Arle: WHA-!? Uh… Um… Eh… That was just… I, uh… I was amnesiac! You can’t take that seriously!

Witch: But was it not you who said that, even though she’d lost her memory, her feelings have remained the same? Which would make the previous quote a confe-

Arle: WAAAAH, STOP! STOP, STOP!

Witch: Now, now, Arle, answer the research question: Was that statement, in fact, a confession of your true feelings~?

Arle: NONONO, SHUT UP! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF THE WORLDS, SHUT UP, WITCH! JUST STOP TAAAALKING!!!

-THE END

#Neni translates #puyo pop #puyo puyo #puyopuyo #puyo madou #monogatari #arle nadja

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five-rivers · 1 year

Text

Waking the Woods

AO3

Sequel to Rumors of the Woods of the Kingdom of Amity.

For @summerssixecho and @modordracena

Danny was sorting through the pantry, hoping to get all the misplaced poisons put back in the red cabinet before his parents came home the day after next. More inedible substances would inevitably be stored in the pantry once they came back, but Danny would do just about anything to avoid eating another bezoar for just a little bit longer.

Also, getting poisoned sucked, but that went without saying.

His sister, Jazz, was gone, too, but that wasn’t unusual. She’d gotten an invitation to study at the College of Elmerton, and of course she had to go, even if it was in another country.

Which meant that he was the only one home when he heard the knock. It also meant that he was so startled by it that he propelled his head into the underside of one of the pantry shelves at speed.

No one knocked on their door. Ever. Even the paying customers were more of the ‘let ourselves in’ type.

Danny staggered out of the pantry, head spinning slightly. Ow.

The knock came again, this time taking on a decidedly frantic character. Danny shook himself, and patted his head down. No blood. Great! He walked to the door, half convinced that he’d find someone who was both out of town and very lost, but determined to be polite. Show people it was possible for a Fenton to have manners! Not their fault he smacked his head into the shelf.

He slid open the door and immediately got punched in the face.

“Oh, gods, I’m so sorry– Where did the door go?”

“It slides,” explained Danny, clutching his face. “Sideways. Ow.”

“I’m really sorry, I was just knocking. I didn’t realize–”

“I know, I know.” Probably, the whole ‘nobody knocks’ thing was the only thing keeping this from happening much more often. He peeled his hands away from his face and took in his visitor as well as he could, given his temporarily blurry vision.

Dark skin, yellow cloak, vividly red hat that had to be violating at least a dozen sumptuary laws… There was only one person Danny had ever met that dressed like that.

“Tucker?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tucker, sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Surprise?”

“In more ways than one.” Danny touched his face tenderly. “Ow.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Danny, deciding not to mention that he’d done much worse to himself not five minutes ago. “Come on in. What are you doing here, anyway? I haven’t seen you since, uh…” When had it been, anyway?

“Since I got apprenticed, I know.”

“Yeah!” Tucker hadn’t been happy about it, but as his parents had said, felting was good, steady work. People always needed cloth. “Don’t tell me you’ve already finished your apprenticeship.”

“Uh, no. It is sort of about that, though.”

Danny paused, halfway to the living room. “You’re not running away, are you?” Tucker had never seen the type, but it had been years.

“No,” said Tucker. “But, uh. It’s sort of complicated. It’ll take a little bit to explain.”

“Alright,” said Danny, continuing into the room until he could perch on the edge of his mother’s rocker. “Go ahead.”

“Right. So. Every ten years or so, the weavers’ and felters’ guilds get together to negotiate with the shepherds about prices. Tanner’s guild, too, sometimes, but not this year. This year, my master got chosen to go. Which meant I was at loose ends."

"So you came to visit me?" asked Danny, touched.

"Um. No. Maybe I would've, but at the same time, the pages at the castle all came down with carbuncle pox–"

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that."

"So, the pagemaster asked the guilds to send apprentices to fill in for them."

"And you were sent because you were at loose ends."

"Right."

They stared silently at each other. Just when Danny was about to prompt Tucker to continue, because that had explained nothing, the other boy exploded.

"I was sent to give a message to the princess and she had a book out about Rangers, like the one your mom always had, and I asked her why she was looking up Rangers and she said it was for a personal project and she asked me why I could read - because apparently royalty think guild apprentices can’t read, go figure, she sounded impressed, though - and I told her that I’d always wanted to join the monastery, but money, and then, you know, she was surprised I could read, I wanted to say something impressive, not be written off, and I said I knew a Ranger family, and then she said that if I could get a Ranger to help with her project, she’d pay off my apprenticeship and recommend me to the head monk, and I said I could definitely, one hundred percent do that and you’d be happy to help. So, uh. Yeah. Yeah, then I came here. What’ve you been up to?”

Danny's jaw had dropped at some point during Tucker’s ‘explanation,’ but he gathered himself. "The attic, I guess. Tucker… I'm not a Ranger."

"But your parents were."

"Not… not really." Jazz, at least, had thought they were doing the whole Ranger thing to embarrass her. The Fentons were alchemists by trade, if not temperament. Rangers didn't really exist any more.

"Grandparents?"

Danny shrugged.

"Come on, Danny, you're literally my only hope."

"Why do you even want to join a monastery anyway?"

"Because that's where all the books are."

Danny rubbed his head, winced, and thought about it some more. "This project isn't some creepy rich person thing, is it?"

"What? No. The princess is our age!"

"So? I'm self‐aware enough to realize that I can be creepy about…" he trailed off, blushing furiously. "Things."

"She's a girl!"

Danny blinked. “So?”

Tucker stared at him. He stared at Tucker.

“She legitimately needs a Ranger.”

“What for? It isn’t like there’s any magic in the woods anymore. They’ve been mapped.”

“Apparently not,” said Tucker. “Look, I know you haven’t seen me in a long time, and we’re not close friends anymore, but you have to at least be curious. And you’d get to meet the princess.”

Danny sighed. “Alright, alright. I am curious.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked all those questions. “Where am I supposed to go and when am I supposed to be there?”

“The princess wants us to meet her at the castle at noon.”

“Tucker,” said Danny.

“Yes?”

“You want me to go to the castle. At noon. Today. Looking like I just got beaten up. And convince the princess, who has apparently done a lot of research, that I’m, what, an apprentice Ranger? Is that even a thing?”

“An experienced Ranger. I, uh, might have played you up a bit.”

“Tucker,” said Danny. “You were wrong.”

Tucker hunched his shoulders. “About?”

“Us not being close friends anymore. You see, if we weren’t, I would be kicking you out right about now.”

“Noted.”

Danny did not run around like his hair was on fire for the next hour, although at one point he came perilously close to actually setting his hair on fire.

An hour was not long enough to prepare for this. For that matter, days wouldn’t be long enough to prepare for this. He was an apprentice alchemist, barely, not a monster-hunter, not a warrior of any stripe, not a mage, not even a historian.

But on the off chance that there was magic… or a creature or some sort…

He packed his travel kit with a few randomly chosen vials of caustics and poisons, making sure they were carefully separated from the vials and flasks carrying more benign brews. Glues, solvents, and cleaners went in another compartment, salves and topicals in yet another, and things you were actually supposed to eat or drink in a fourth.

He felt woefully underprepared.

Tucker was really lucky he didn’t have any other friends, darn it.

His eyes strayed back to the lockbox in the back of the storeroom. He shouldn’t… But odds were, the princess was delusional or just getting scammed. He could put everything back before his parents got home. And if the princess had found something magical, wouldn’t it be better to have something that could affect it? Even if it was old and super questionable?

With a skill born from his parents always losing their keys, Danny picked the lock on the lockbox. Within were two vials. One was pale green, with a dark, glittery red mixture inside. The other was coated with crackling, peeling red and contained a liquid that glowed green through the cracks. The reason for these color choices was, Danny assumed, because one of his ancestors was a sadist of some variety.

He checked the labels to make sure they were what he remembered. Tincture of Sanguiflora magicidium in the green vial and mana pondalorum physick in the red vial. He triple checked his memory of their effects against the booklet in the lockbox. Only then did he put them in their own, separate, compartments.

He was ready to go, and absolutely sure he was going to regret this in at least some way.

Welp! At least it’d be interesting.

Danny had never actually been to the castle before. His parents were… Well, even if they were the absolute best alchemists in the kingdom (a disputed title) they weren’t exactly welcome around anyone who might not want their clothes ruined. Or their houses. Or their health. Even beyond the Ranger thing, they were pretty eccentric.

The castle was impressive, he supposed. But it was just a large building. He wouldn’t want to be a guy attacking it, he was sure. But looking at it from the outside got old, fast.

“So,” he said to Tucker, “noon, huh?”

“You know that’s just an estimate. Not everyone has clocks.”

“I am absolutely convinced that the royal family has at least one clock.”

“Yeah, but do they know that you have a clock? That’s the question. And is your clock even right?”

Danny shrugged.

One of the guards whistled at them, and for the first time, Danny saw his face.

“Huh,” he said, “is that Dash?”

“Might be,” said Tucker.

“You! Boy!” snapped Dash, who was only a little older than they were. “Are you Tucker Foley?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“And the-” Dash sneered, “-Ranger?”

“It’s not my day job.” Or any kind of job. Actually, was he getting paid for this? As much as he’d like to live off air and pleasant thoughts, he did have other needs. At this point, though, it seemed too late to ask.

“You’re expected. Follow me.”

Wow. Danny didn’t know that Dash knew any words as long as ‘expected.’ Shocking. Maybe being around all these high-class people was starting to rub off on him.

Not far inside the gates was a… Alright, Danny didn’t know what was going on, but it had the energy of people preparing to go somewhere, so. Yeah.

“Your majesty, I’ve brought the felter boy and his… friend.”

“I’m sure they have names,” said a girl who was wearing a surprisingly practical riding dress, “and I know you know at least Tucker’s.” She turned slightly towards Danny. “And you are?”

“This is, uh, Danny, Princess Samantha,” said Tucker, bobbing bow and elbowing Danny in the side until he got a clue and did the same.

“I’ve told you, you can call me Sam.”

“R-right. Sam.”

Everyone in the vicinity except the princess shot them a glare so venomous Danny was tempted to get out a bezoar (ick). The princess didn’t notice. She was too busy examining Danny. He straightened under her sweeping gaze.

“You don’t look like a Ranger.”

“My parents have more experience.” Or so they claimed, anyway. “There’s not a lot of call for Rangers these days.”

“Well, you’re the first one to come to me with even a lick of authenticity, so I suppose you’ll do,” she said, finally. “The Fenton line, correct? Branch of House Nightingale?”

“Um,” said Danny. “I suppose?” He’d heard some things like that, but if he had any Nightingale ancestors, they were buried beneath far more common people.

“I think you might actually be the last survivors of that house. Do either of you ride?”

Danny and Tucker shook their heads.

“More’s the pity, although we won’t be moving at much more than a walk with all the people who insist on coming with us despite their lack of interest in our nation’s heritage.” She sniffed. “You will be coming of course, Tucker?”

“‘Course he will,” said Danny, looping an arm around his shoulder. “We used to be a team when we were kids.”

“Oh? Goodness, that almost makes me reluctant to send you off to a monastery. There are so few people with any Ranger training left.”

She turned away, back to her preparations, and Tucker threw Danny’s arm off and glared at him. Danny grinned lazily back. Served him right. Danny could spread the misery around a little bit.

It was true that the princess’s retinue did not move at a rate faster than a walk. This was, however, at least partially because the princess kept stopping to give alms on her way out of the city. It seemed the city’s population of beggars had learned her preferred routes.

“Hey,” said Danny, “this was a one day sort of thing, right? It’s okay that I didn’t pack stuff for overnight?”

“No, it should be fine, I think,” said Tucker. “But there’s like a hundred people here. Someone will have spare stuff. Besides, if it goes much longer than that, we can just leave.”

Danny nodded. “That’s true.”

When they finally reached the forest, they walked for another hour and a half, this time stopping so that the princess and her ladies could coo at the half-feral forest cats that sometimes watched their progress.

Alright, Danny cooed at them, too, and since he and Tucker were on foot, they had a much better chance of petting them, something he felt just a little smug about.

The first hour of that was on a well maintained road, the last was on a path that looked to be newly cut through tangled underbrush and fallen trees. Much to the displeasure of the princess’s guards, she decided to dismount and walk next to Danny and Tucker for this part of the journey. She called it ‘bracing.’

“We only found this because of the late storm during the drought last year,” she said. “Father sent the fire watch to make sure there hadn’t been any bad lightning strikes close to the city, and one of them found it. I spent months convincing Father to let me investigate. I’m hoping that soon it will be something I can share with everyone.”

Danny cleared his throat. “With this all being so last minute, Tucker didn’t actually get a chance to tell me what ‘it’ was. Um, Princess Samantha.” He had no idea how often you were supposed to address royalty by title. It didn’t come up all that often in his life.

Samantha’s smile faltered, slightly. “It’s Sam. And we’re not sure, actually. That’s one of the reasons we wanted a Ranger. I thought that you might recognize it from your training.”

“I don’t know how likely that is,” cautioned Danny.

Samantha shrugged. “It is only one of the reasons. But you don’t have to be pessimistic. I’m well aware that this endeavor might come to nothing. It is one thing to hope to reclaim a country’s magical heritage. It is another thing entirely to actually do it.”

“So… you don’t believe magic is getting used up?”

“I’m not sure. I think it might have been… But I have hope that magic is something that can be restored, renewed, and used more wisely. Other places seem to have managed that, at least a little. It would be a shame to give up on it entirely, wouldn’t it? It was a wondrous thing.”

“Sure,” said Danny, “but there were also the monsters. That’s what the Rangers were for, a lot of the time.”

“Even so.” She fell silent for a while. “Have you ever heard of the trap-rabbit?”

“No. Tuck?”

Tucker shook his head.

“They used to be quite common here, is my understanding. The walls of my nursery are painted with them. They don’t exist anymore. It’s a sad thing, I think, for that to happen. I would not wish it to happen even to monsters.”

Tucker made a face. The princess saw it.

“I have read the stories,” she said. “In them, we strike first as often as they.”

“But those are stories,” protested Tucker.

The princess shrugged. “As is any history you did not witness personally. But even we can’t return things to what they were, don’t you think learning what was is still a worthy goal?”

“It sounds like one, anyway,” said Danny. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

They emerged into a clearing around a large pond. On the other side of the pond was a huge tree with great, drooping branches. The branches swayed in the wind, momentarily revealing something made of stone.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” asked the princess, stepping onto a path that led around the side of the pond. It was made of uneven pavers and looked ancient.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I didn’t know trees like that got that tall.”

“Neither did I,” muttered Tucker. “What’s under there, though.”

“You’ll have to see,” said Samantha- Sam, skipping down the path.

Danny started after her, and immediately tripped. He just barely caught himself before face planting and possibly having a very expensive and dangerous accident with his travel kit.

He maybe wasn’t as recovered from his head injuries as he’d thought. And, yes, he was counting Tucker’s accidental punch.

It was fine.

The stone beneath the tree was part of a structure, obviously made by intelligent hands and at least as old as the paved path. There didn’t seem to be any way into the small building, just some words carved into the side.

“Do you recognize it?”

Danny shook his head. “But there’s always been lots of different kinds of ruins.” He walked around the structure, going slowly. “Reminds me a little of shrines in old temples.�� Those are open-sided, though.”

“I know,” said Sam. “The tree doesn’t mean anything to you, either?”

“Should it?”

Sam shrugged. Away from the shadow of the tree, her retinue was setting up camp. They seemed more than happy to let the three of them investigate the maybe-shrine on their own. Well. Mostly. A couple very formidable looking ladies were watching them like hawks, and a bald man had taken out a stool and a thick, dusty book to read in the shade.

“I don’t think so… It’s kind of similar to that one story, though, isn’t it? The one about the tree of life and a sacred pool.”

“It is. The water seems to be just water, though, and the fruit is just fruit.”

“Might be where the story came from, though.”

“Maybe,” agreed Sam. “What do you think of the writing?”

Gods, that was not his area of expertise. Still, he stepped closer. “Hm,” he said. “It’s very writing-like.”

Sam looked at him, concern on her face. “You can read, yes?”

“What? Yeah. Just give me a second. This isn’t regular writing.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’ve gotten someone else to translate this already, right?”

“My tutor, William Lancer." She gestured at the bald man, who briefly glanced up from his book. "It’s good to have a second opinion.”

Danny nodded and called up his admittedly meager knowledge of this sort of thing. He knew some, because a lot of alchemical texts were written in the old language, but he wasn’t exactly spending his days practicing it.

“Um,” he said, intelligently. He was starting to see what Tucker meant about wanting to impress her. “The first binding, valued more than coin, valued more than land, but spent on it nonetheless, by those who do not own it. When it is gone, dust is left. Heart of the land, spend yours before your people. We shall… wake?” Danny paused. “Is that ‘wake?’”

“‘Open,’” said Sam. “We think answering the riddle might open up the… shrine, for lack of a better word.”

“Mm,” said Danny, who had usually seen it in the context of sleeping medicines. “Is it the same on all sides?”

“As far as we can tell.”

“Dust is, um. Huh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing when he jostled his head. “I think this dust might be the same dust as grave dust. Does that help?”

“This isn’t one of those animal sacrifice things, is it?” asked Tucker. “Or, uh, human sacrifice?”

“We thought of that,” said Sam.

Tucker moved away from her.

“But, ah. Blood magic tends to be… unpleasant. We thought we’d avoid that.”

“Might still be blood magic,” said Danny. “I mean, blood fits, doesn’t it? Blood relations are the first tie you have, it’s more valuable than money or land, but people still fight wars for those things, they just try to spill other people’s blood. When it’s gone, you’re left with grave dust.”

“I would prefer not to get sacrificed,” said Tucker. “If it’s all the same to you, your highness.”

“Tucker, if I was that desperate to get in, I’d just hire people to pull it down, or get a battering ram. I’m not going to sacrifice anyone. But… heart of the land? We thought perhaps wood doves, because of the crest…”

Danny shrugged. “At that point, it might as well be talking about your blood.”

“Mine?” asked Sam, scandalized but intrigued.

“Sure. You’re popular, right? Or at least, you’re royalty. That’s sort of like being the heart of a country.”

“Couldn't it just be talking about the word, too?" asked Tucker, looking faintly ill. "Couldn't it be that you just have to say the word blood?"

"I don't know, we've said blood a lot just now."

"But not in the old language," pointed out Sam.

"Sure," said Danny. "Sang."

Nothing happened. He shrugged.

"Maybe you need to say it," Tucker said to Sam.

"Sang."

Still nothing.

"Bleeding it is, then." Sam pulled an unreasonably large knife from the vicinity of her corset.

Tucker jumped away, and even Danny took two hurried steps back, ready to throw himself behind the corner of the building. The ‘supervising’ adults were unalarmed.

But the princess just pressed the blade to her thumb and held it out to the structure.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe you need to bleed on it?” suggested Danny.

“You don’t want to get an infection, your highness,” said William Lancer, not looking up from his book.

“I know,” said Sam. She pressed her thumb against the wall, just under the carved riddle.

For a long moment… nothing happened.

But then the walls shuddered and began to drop into the ground, leaving only the pillars at the corners to support the roof.

“Yes!” Sam pumped her fist and ran in as soon as the walls got low enough.

This, finally, stirred the watchers to action.

Danny and Tucker exchanged a glance. It'd be bad if the princess were cursed, wouldn't it?

Danny hopped over the wall next. The interior was… Not much of one. He didn't know what he expected of a ten foot by ten foot building with no walls.

"Look," said Sam, pointing up.

"Oh, wow," said Danny, all awareness of what the princess’s minders were doing falling away from him. The pillars might not be much to look at, but the ceiling… Danny had just enough experience at art to understand what had gone into carving and painting it. It was the night sky, as viewed from below trees. Each leaf and needle was picked out in exquisite detail, perspective perfect. And the stars… as an alchemist, even an apprentice one, Danny had to know when the stars were right. These stars were accurate. They were even accurate to this time of year. Even the moon was right, its face a careful reproduction of what was really there.

“The floor, too!” said Sam, bringing Danny’s attention to the stone tiles and the small flowers and leaves painted on them as well as… were those map lines? Danny wasn’t sure. “This is marvelous. Do you suppose the pillars are meant to resemble tree trunks? I didn’t see it before, but now-! Even if this was it, it’s worth it!”

“It is pretty,” said Tucker, finally following them in. “Wonder what it was for.”

“It hardly even matters. That is, it matters, of course, but look at it!”

They looked.

And while they were looking, the walls shot back up, leaving them in pitch blackness.

“Ah,” said Danny. “Somehow, I feel like we should have expected this.”

“Bleed on the walls again!” suggested Tucker in a not at all panicked voice.

There was some shuffling as everyone ran into one another.

“It’s not working,” said Sam.

“Well,” said Danny, “at least there’s still the battering ram option?”

“That only works if there’s nothing inside the thing you care about breaking. Do you– No, I suppose you wouldn’t. What was the point of this, anyway? To trap princes and princesses?”

Danny shrugged, even though no one could see him.

“I don’t suppose any of you have flint or matches?” asked Sam. “Candles?”

“Some,” admitted Danny. “But you don’t really want to light a fire in a closed space like this. Oh! Wait! I do have something.” He opened the top of his travel kit. The glowing mana pondalorum physick was immediately visible. The red coating of the vial blocked most of the green light, but in the otherwise absolute darkness, it seemed to burn.

“What is that?”

“Mana,” said Danny. “Or water with mana in it. Some of the old books aren’t super clear. My parents saved it from way back.”

“Did they save anything else?” asked Sam, her eyes wide. She reached for it.

Danny pulled it back, towards his chest. He had not anticipated curious royalty as a threat to his ‘not getting in trouble with my parents’ plan, but in retrospect he could see that was as obvious a risk as getting stuck in a weird possibly magical ruin.

“Yeah,” he said, “there’s also the magicidium mix. It’s, um, emergency magic antidote. Magic killer. So, if one of us gets cursed, you want to grab the green vial with the red stuff in it.”

“And, what, drink it?” asked Tucker.

“Or dump it on them. Drinking it is better, but, you know, curses…”

“Right,” said Tucker, nodding, “I absolutely know curses.”

Danny had doubts. But he also had better things to do, like examining the inside of the walls. He raised the vial, glancing up as the green light was reflected off the painted stars. For a moment, he thought he might have caught a glimpse of something else, then the moment was gone.

“Hey, why don’t we just dump the magic killing stuff on the walls or something?” asked Tucker.

“Because it’s probably magic that makes them move,” said Sam. “Not magic that keeps them in place.”

The walls had writing on them. He turned to the nearest one, and brought the vial closer. “That’s different from the outside, I think?”

“What does it say?” asked Sam.

“Give me a minute,” said Danny. “It’s really hard to see.” He squinted at the writing. “This is a lot longer,” he said with some dismay.

“You can read it, though, can’t you?”

“Just… don’t rush me.” Danny chewed his lip, then read slowly. “Beat true, oh heart, with wisdom and wit, for without these passion lies silent. Um… Those who would be woken, must be named. Those who would be named, must be woken… No. Those who are named will be woken. Speak, therefore, the names of…”

“What names? Ours? Mine?”

“Give me a second. The names of… Okay, I’m not sure if this is just a poetic way to say sleep or not. The names of those beneath the stars, for you must know them whether it is day or night. Say them, wake them, walk into the light.”

“You think beneath the stars means sleep? Those are completely different!”

“And beating around the bush is completely different from avoiding a topic,” said Sam. “But they mean the same thing.”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “The stuff I learned from is big on metaphor, but it was, you know, formal.”

“We’re going to die,” said Tucker.

“We’re not going to die. Let’s start with our names. I’m Sam.”

“Danny.”

“Tucker.” Tucker looked around, nervous. “Do you think it wants our full names?”

“Yeah…” said Danny, also apprehensive. “Magic usually does.” Not that he really knew, but that was the way it was in stories. So. “Daniel Vladimir Fenton.”

“Oh, gods, that’s your middle name?”

“Shut up. I know yours is Meredith.”

Sam rolled her eyes with her entire body. “Princess Samantha Annamarie Laurel Caspera Manson of Amity, Duchess of Beau. Your turn.”

“Tucker,” he sighed, “Meredith Foley.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “maybe it means something else when it says all.”

“Like what? We’re the only ones here.”

Sam had started picking at her lip. “We are,” she agreed. “But… The floor, it was a map, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I really hope you’re good at geography. I’m not.”

“You’re a Ranger.”

“That has nothing to do with geography.”

Sam turned, surveying the room. “What if it’s not the map, but the trees?”

“The… sculptures?”

“They’re under the stars, too aren’t they?”

The next half an hour or so was spent desperately trying to name… everything. Danny and Tucker just recited every tree name and plant name they could remember - and some animal names just in case - while Sam was a bit more methodical. Danny and Tucker’s frenzy was only occasionally interrupted by Sam saying something like Elmerton, Casper, Axion, Floode or Eerie.

As a result, they had no idea who it was that finally triggered the walls to slide down again. Danny, for one, didn’t really care. He threw himself out as soon as he was able, and the others seemed to have the same opinion.

He knelt on the grass and tilted his head up to catch the sparse sunlight filtering through the branches above him. In doing so, he saw that everyone who had been there before was gone.

“We weren’t gone long enough for everyone to have left, right?” asked Danny.

“No,” said Sam, “not at all.” She climbed to her feet and walked past him, examining the ground. “It’s like they were never here at all…”

Tucker gasped and pointed up. “Look at the tree!”

Fruit hung from its branches, heavy, round, and red.

“What is that?” asked Danny.

“You don’t know?”

“No. I’ve never seen a tree like that.”

The walls of the small building grated as they started rising again. Danny, Sam, and Tucker turned back to it, slowly. Dread bubbled up in Danny’s stomach, creeping along his spine.

“Maybe we should just go back to the city,” said Danny.

Sam shook her head. “There’s no guarantee the city will even be there.”

“There’s no guarantee it won’t be.”

“And there’s no guarantee that stupid thing won’t disappear one of us if we look at it funny,” argued Tucker. “Let’s cut our losses.”

“There must be a reason for this,” insisted Sam, crossing her arms. “They wouldn’t just make all this happen for no reason.”

Danny eyed her suspiciously. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you know about this.”

Sam tapped her foot. “Maybe,” she allowed. “Nothing solid, mind you, but one Ranger journal I found suggested that this place was used by the old kings to petition the woods, and that they needed both royalty and Ranger to do it. That’s… one of the reasons I wanted someone like you to come.”

“Petition it for what?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t say. It was one sentence in thousands. It could have been anything. Good harvests, few wolves, killing the Pariah King, whatever. It might not have even been talking about here at all. I just thought… If there was anything left…”

“Clearly,” said Tucker, “there was something left.”

“Right,” said Sam. “But it didn’t say anything about making people disappear.”

“It didn’t say anything about anything, is what it sounds like,” said Tucker.

“Yes, but…” She trailed off. “Don’t you think it’s more likely that we were moved? Considering.” She gestured at the peaceful and undisturbed clearing. “Even the path we came in on is gone.”

Danny hadn’t noticed that, but it was true. The border of the clearing was entirely overgrown, with no sign that people had broken through the shrubs and small trees there.

“I think,” she said, “that to get back, we have to keep going.” She looked between the two of them, then at the building, squaring her shoulders. “I am sorry I brought you into this, but it’s done. Let’s at least work together to get out of it.”

There wasn’t much choice, was there? “Alright,” said Danny. “Let’s go.”

The words on the walls were, predictably, different than they had been before. Danny was getting used to this already, somehow. “This is the wisdom of the land, that when the land drinks, the people shall drink, and when the people drink, so shall the land drink, and that when the land is fed, so shall the people be fed, and when the people are fed, so shall the land be fed. For water to be received, it must be given. Should salt be given, then salt shall be received. The land that is fed on blood shall also bleed. The seed that is planted will grow. That which wakes will be woken. The…” Danny paused.

“And you were doing so well, too.”

“Listen.”

“Sorry, it’s only… at least the last one had a clear instruction. This sounds like some kind of philosophical statement. Not that there’s anything wrong with those.”

“I’m not done yet,” said Danny, plaintively. “I haven’t seen this word before. I think it’s a person? And they’re getting whatever they’re doing done to them? It goes on like that for a while longer.” He ran his finger down the line. And then it says, because the people and the land are one, only about a dozen times.”

“Why would it say it a dozen times?” asked Tucker.

“It uses a different word for land each time.”

Sam frowned at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel it. “What?”

“Like, mostly it uses the word for land that has trees on it, but–”

“You mean a forest? Or wood?”

“No, there’s a different word for a forest. Actually, there’s specifically a word for land that has a forest on it, as opposed to just trees.” Which Danny only knew because a lot of alchemical potions had dirt as an ingredient. Incredibly specific dirt. “And there’s a different word for soil. Or for unoccupied land. It’s… the old language is weird.” There was a reason it wasn’t spoken anymore.

“And that’s it?”

“No, there’s one more line. Show your intentions: to eat, and to be eaten. No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. That must be feed.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” said Tucker.

“At least it’s an instruction.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to eat the fruit. I might do that anyway, actually,” said Danny. “What? I’m hungry. I didn’t eat anything at midday.”

“But what if you eat it, and then it eats you?”

“At least I won’t be hungry?”

“I think the bigger problem here is what if it’s poisonous,” said Sam.

“Is that really the bigger problem? Really?” He gestured around himself. “I’m going to eat one of those fruits and, uh. Water the tree.”

“You can say you’re going to pee on it,” said Sam. “I have bodily functions, too.”

“Whatever. If that doesn’t work, we can try something else.”

Sam squinted at him. He got the impression it wasn’t an expression she wore often, but it suited her face very well. “You know, I expected a Ranger to know more about all of this.”

Tucker made flailing motions behind her.

“That’s– In the spirit of honesty, no one in my family has done real Ranger-ing since my grandfather disappeared when my mom was a little girl.”

“The woods do disappear people, oh my gods–”

“My parents just like camping and pretending there are still monsters, and Tucker said you needed someone, so…”

Sam’s whole face twitched. “I see. I suppose we can’t say we aren’t similar, then, with respect to false pretenses. But… let’s not do that anymore. For the sake of not dying.” She paused. “Is the red–”

“It’s really anti-magic.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped. “At least there’s that. If the fruit starts turning you into, I don’t know…”

“A wolf,” suggested Tucker.

“Why not? A wolf, I’ll make sure to pour it down your throat.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “And if it’s poisonous, I’ll eat a bezoar.”

“What’s that?” asked Sam.

“Thing that helps with poison. It’s gross, you don’t want to know where they come from.”

“I thought we were being honest–”

“It’s a stone formed in a someone’s stomach or gut,” said Danny. “Like a gallstone.”

Sam looked fascinated, if disgusted. “Does… does that actually work?”

“I’m… not actually sure. But it can’t hurt.”

“I don’t know, it kind of sounds like it could be poisonous on it’s own.”

That was what Danny said to his parents, but did they listen? No.

He shrugged at Sam walked away from the building and towards the shore of the pond, where the branches trailed in the water and the fruit was easier to reach. He pulled one off and rolled it in his hand. It felt like a plum, even if the size and color was off.

“Danny, are you sure,” started Tucker.

"Am I sure what?" asked Danny, opening his kit.

"What are you doing?"

Danny looked down at the beaker in his hand, then back up at Tucker. "Testing for common poisons?"

"Oh. I thought you were just going to eat it."

"No, that's weird." He set up his materials and poked a hole in the fruit with his knife to get some juice. He let it drip into the containers, then stood up to throw the punctured fruit into the pond.

"Maybe we shouldn't throw things into the potentially magic pond," suggested Sam in a way that wasn't very suggestion-like.

Danny shrugged at her, wondering vaguely if shrugging at royalty was a punishable offense. Something caught his eye.

“Hey, there’s a bucket here,” said Danny. “Do you think we’re supposed to do something with the bucket?” He walked over and picked it up.

"Maybe it's to actually water the tree," said Tucker.

"That makes sense," said Danny. He tossed the bucket at Tucker. Tucker fumbled it.

“Why me?”

“I’ve got to watch this,” said Danny, pointing at where the fruit was reacting or not reacting to the chemicals in the beakers. “And, well…”

“Dear gods,” said Sam. “You had better not be about to say that I’m somehow unable to fill and carry a bucket because I’m a girl.”

“No. I just thought you wouldn’t want to.” And she could probably make life very hard for them if they annoyed her too much.

Sam scoffed and took the bucket from Tucker. “I’ve got it.”

“Alright,” said Tucker. “She’s got it.”

The tests for poison came back negative, so…

Danny bit into a fruit he’d just picked and blinked. “Oh, these are actually really good.”

“We’ll take your word for it.”

“Look,” said Tucker, “That thing’s not doing anything, so I’m going to see if I can find the main road. I’d prefer it if you came with me, but…”

“Might as well,” said Danny.

“Fine,” said Sam. “But we’re going to take precautions to make sure we can get back here.”

“Like what?” asked Danny.

Sam pulled out a clue of string from… somewhere.

“Do you just carry that around?”

“Of course. String is useful.”

It turned out it didn’t matter. No matter how they left the clearing, they wound up back in it.

"It's been a couple hours," said Danny as they laid on the ground under the tree. "I probably would have died by now if there was actually poison in those fruits."

"Mhm," said Sam, contemplatively.

"Just a question, but, speaking of which, have either of you noticed the sun getting lower?"

"No," said Sam.

"Nope," said Tucker.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He looked up at the still-blue sky. “You guys are going to have to eat or drink something eventually.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker. “But I’ve been thinking, and… what if it takes us someplace worse?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.

“Staying isn’t an option.”

“It could be. Maybe the fruit grows back, or there’s fish in the pond.”

“Have you seen any fish?” asked Danny.

“No. Why?”

“Sometimes people use fish as fertilizer.”

“We don’t have anything to catch fish with.”

“We’ve got string and the fruit. Maybe we can find some worms, too?”

“Might as well,” said Sam.

None of them were particularly skilled at fishing. No fish were caught.

Sam chewed on the fruit. “You know,” she said, “if it weren’t for the mortal peril and all, I’d say this was pretty good.”

“It is tasty,” allowed Tucker, who was pausing to glare at the fruit between every bite.

“No, I mean all this.” Sam waved at nothing in particular. “It’s nice. Fun.”

At least someone was having a good day. He’d been trying to ignore the swollen lump on the back of his head and his black eye, but it hadn’t really been working.

Under other circumstances, though… He could see hanging out with Sam and Tucker being fun. The odds of that happening if Sam went on with princess-ing and Tucker became a monk were pretty low, though.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything without being watched by half a dozen people since I was eight.”

“Anything?” repeated Danny.

“Anything.”

Danny didn’t want to ask, but the question was there, in his head.

“Yes, in the bath, too.” She sighed and held up the fruit pit. “I suppose we should bury these? Over there, maybe?”

“Can’t hurt,” said Danny. “Anyone have a shovel? And– Oh!” He opened up his kit. “We can use this!” He held up a vial of white powder.

“What’s that?”

“Niter!”

“... Doesn’t that explode?” asked Tucker.

“Sometimes.”

“Why do we want to explode anything?” asked Sam.

“We don’t. It’s fertilizer.”

“But it’s white.”

“So?”

Tucker sighed heavily. “Maybe we can use the bucket as a shovel?”

Sam patted down the last bucket-scrape of dirt with a gleeful expression. They were all pretty grimy at this point, but it looked like she was enjoying it.

The scraping sound wasn’t exactly music to Danny’s ears, but it was still something. They ran to the building. Three of the walls had dropped. The one nearest to the pond had remained standing.

Danny swallowed. Something felt… Not wrong, exactly, but there was a strong sense of meaning.

“Hey,” he said, before Sam and Tucker could step in, “wait. Maybe only one of us should go in. Just in case.”

“In case what? We’re already in a bad way,” said Sam. “We might as well face this together.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, but this feels… Different. If everything’s fine, you can come in, too.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny, “but you wanted a Ranger for a reason.”

“Yes, but we’ve established you aren’t one.”

“I’m enough of one for us to get here, right? If I get stuck in there, you can always plant more pits and open it back up.”

“And who knows if we’ll be in the same place?” asked Sam.

“Just… humor me on this,” said Danny. “And remember, if I do get cursed, we have the magicidium.”

“There has to be an easier name for that,” muttered Tucker.

“Sure. Blood blossoms. They’re called that because they’re red.”

Tucker spread his hands. “Then why–”

“I like saying it. It makes it sound cooler.”

Sam raised her hand, stopping them. “You know you’re the only one who can read the old language, right? You’d be the one going in to look at what’s written there.”

“I know. I’m the one who suggested it.”

Sam groaned, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her wrists. “I should have learned the old language instead of Elmerian.”

Danny shrugged. “There’s always the future?”

Both of… oh, he might as well call them his friends, at this point… glared at him.

“Fine,” said Sam, “but if you do get cursed, I’m going to say I told you so.”

With trepidation, Danny crossed into the building. The floor and ceiling hadn’t changed, but the only upright wall was now packed with writing. He craned his neck back to see what was on top. The words almost seemed to glitter.

“This is a lot,” he said.

“Can we come in now?” asked Sam.

“Not yet,” said Danny. “Let me translate this first. Children of the land, know this, we, your forefathers, and we of the land have built this path to see the… obscured?” A shadow fell across Danny’s view of the carving, making the words seem to flash. He stood on his tip-toes and leaned closer, squinting. “To understand the world… beyond? Within. The world within the woods, and you have come because they have failed and you wish to repair.” He put his hand on the stone as he leaned still closer, nose almost pressed against the stone in an effort to see just a little better. It slid into a comfortable depression and he continued to read. “Let the bright magic– mana– let mana alter–”

Light flared across his vision, then everything went dark. He yelped.

“Danny?!”

“I’m– Hells and heavens–” He rubbed his eyes. “The sun didn’t suddenly disappear after that flash, did it?”

“No.”

“What flash?”

He’d been afraid of that. “I’ve been cursed.” His heart did a funny twist at the admission.

If his parents were here, they’d be thrilled.

Actually, probably not. If they’d been cursed, they’d be thrilled. They’d still be upset about him getting cursed.

“What?”

“I can’t see anything. I must have triggered it somehow–” He shook his head, as if that would throw off his blindness. “The word obscured. I thought it was just the lighting, but maybe it really flashed? Um.” He turned around, carefully. “I think it was just the words that triggered it, but I’m going to walk in your direction…”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tucker, “you’re going the right way.”

“Just stay straight,” encouraged Sam.

The building was barely three strides across, but at the same time it was the longest walk he’d ever taken. He was relieved when Sam and Tucker grabbed him.

“Alright, so, if you guys can open my kit and get out the magicidium–”

“Blood blossoms. Let’s call it blood blossoms.”

“Whatever you want,” said Danny.

“They’re red, right?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, and sparkly.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Good,” said Danny, holding out his hand. “Can you– The cap?”

Sam pressed the vial into his hand, her fingers lingering around his as she made sure he had a grip on it.

“I should just need, like, a sip,” he told himself. He raised it to his lips, drank, and immediately knew that what he had in his hand wasn’t the blood blossom mixture.

With a calm he didn’t feel, he lowered the vial.

“Can you see, now?” asked Sam.

“No,” said Danny. “I can’t. What color is this?” He held up the vial.

“Red,” said Sam.

“The vial is red,” clarified Danny.

“Yes, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Danny, closing his eyes. “That’s- The blood blossoms are red. But the vial they’re in is green. This is the mana, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” said Tucker.

“Kinda crackly glaze, glowing green on the inside?”

“Yeah,” said Tucker, weakly. “It looked different in the dark.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, voice cracking. “The dark does that.”

“I thought you said the red vial,” said Sam, very quietly. “Oh, no, I thought you said the red vial.” She sounded like she might be about to cry.

“Hey, it’s hard to tell the difference between red and green,” said Tucker, clearly intending to comfort her.

“Genuinely, it is not.”

Someone, probably Tucker, swallowed audibly. “You can still take the blood blossoms, though, right?”

“No! No. They don’t react well with concentrated mana.”

“By not reacting well, do you mean–”

“Niter isn’t the only thing in my kit that can make explosions.” He swallowed and opened his eyes. He still couldn’t see anything but this still felt more like facing things. “This is fine. I’m just blind, not dying.” Probably. “We’ll just be relying on more guesswork than before. Or I can try to figure out what it’s saying by touch?”

“No,” said Sam, grabbing his wrist, “do you want to get more cursed?”

“Carefull,” he hissed. “We don’t want to spill this here. Where’s the stopper?”

“Here,” said Tucker, taking the vial of mana from him.

“What else do you remember from what you were reading? Before you were cursed?”

“I don’t know. Something about letting magic change you to be… Something. And then something about guarding both sides on the next line down. Or fighting. Maybe something about waking up. I don’t remember.”

“Danny,” said Tucker, “your eyes are glowing.”

“They’re not, like, melting or anything, are they?”

“Just glowing. The same color as the, uh, stuff. The mana.”

“And your hair is turning white,” added Sam.

“Oh, that’s great. Maybe I am dying.”

“Don’t say that,” said Sam. “Maybe- Maybe this is magic changing you, and we just have to let it run its course.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I, but it’s that or you explode, so forgive me for a little optimism!” She’d never dropped his wrist, and now she trapped his hands between hers. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Neither do I,” said Tucker. “You’re my best friend.”

“We haven’t seen each other for years,” said Danny, trying not to sound choked. “Come on.”

“Hey, some friendships are timeless, right?”

Sam sniffled. “Even short ones.”

Gods, he really might be dying.

“Does that mean I can tell people I’m friends with a princess?”

“Only if you want my mother trying to get you executed.”

“That’s not a n–”

The sound of the wall behind him dropping made Danny jump. But what made him spin was that he could see light coming from behind him.

Footprints made of flowers glowed on the ground. A rectangle in the dimensions of the far wall was cut out of the darkness surrounding him. Beyond it…

“Oh,” said Danny. “Do you guys see that?”

“Do you?” asked Sam, suddenly sharp.

“Maybe.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “Were there steps leading down to the pond before? And was the pond glowing?”

“No,” said Tucker. “But we don’t see that.”

“We see everyone,” said Sam. “The way out. The knights are there, someone must have sent for them.” She laughed. “We can get out. They must not be able to see us, though.”

“I don’t think I can go that way,” said Danny. “I don’t see it.”

He could only see the ancient and watchful trees that surrounded the clearing, the faintly luminous waters of the pond and the steps that led down to them. Images of trees, not quite reflections, swayed on the pond’s glowing surface, seeming to extend into the depths.

“You should go,” he said, faintly. “Now. You don’t know if you’ll get another chance.”

If his heart had been twisting before, it was shuddering now.

“No,” said Sam. “No. I started this. None of this would have happened if I didn’t bring you here. I’m not going to leave you. We’ll go down to the pond with you. Or at least I will.” The last was said with an edge of challenge.

“Me, too,” said Tucker, though he seemed far less certain. “I got you into this mess, Danny.”

“I don’t know that I’m going down to the pond,” said Danny, both touched and annoyed. “And you don’t know if you can, if you can’t see it.”

“It’s where the path leads,” said Sam, stubbornly. “Didn’t you read that that’s why this place was built.”

The footprints. Danny closed his eyes briefly, and nodded. “Walk where I walk,” he said, putting his foot squarely on the first print.

He wasn’t sure if it was just the magic doing weird things to his vision, but as he got closer to the opening, the prints seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking straight at them, taking shapes other than a human sole. He tried not to think about what that might mean.

He stepped out of the building. Sam and Tucker walked out after him.

“Wow,” said Sam, looking around. “That’s… definitely different.” She waved her hand in front of her. “It’s like the air is glowing.”

A breeze stirred the waters of the pond to lap at the lowest step. It felt like they were beckoning him down into that even stranger forest beneath its waters.

He pulled the strap of his travel kit off over his head. “Here,” he said, handing it to Tucker. “Just in case.”

“We’re going to be with you,” said Tucker, trying to push it back to him.

“Yeah, but… Let me go first, alright?”

He stepped down and forward, once, twice, and his foot broke the surface of the water–

A forest is not a single thing. It is a vast and sprawling ecosystem, containing within itself multitudes. Creatures, plants, and even decay. Life, limited and not. Water, from beneath the earth, from the sky, from the rivers and streams, from the lakes and the ponds. Air and soil and stone. Death that becomes life and life that becomes death. The trees stretch upwards.

Yet, it is a single thing.

Truthfully, sometimes it is even a single life. A thousand trees with a single root.

And, here, there was magic.

The woods woke, stirred from slumber by the ripples of a stone thrown into still water.

A stone is changed by water. A stone is changed, also, by the root of a tree piercing through it, dividing it, scattering it. A stone may be shaped. A stone may be changed. But this stone was clay. This stone was flesh. This stone was a seed that might yet grow. This seed was a star that might yet shine.

They were awake.

They were awake, and, so, they would wake.

But the people were the land and the land was the woods, and the heart of the land had long ago promised a champion to the people, a guardian at both sides of the gate. A contract that was wisdom.

The seed was well rooted, but the star was of the air, and there was accord between heaven and earth. This satisfied. But the price of knowledge was always the destruction of ignorance.

This was the past: The sword, the spear, the fire, for evil is the reward of evil, and sown salt shall reap no harvest but salt. Monsters met with monstrous ends, even the monsters who called themselves men.

“I don’t want to be a killer,” whispered Danny, “I don’t want to kill people.”

Then he would not be, and the gifts of killers would not be his.

This, too, was the past: The wall. The tower. The rope. The net. The maze. The binding word. The sacrifice. The promise.

It shall be kept.

“It shall be kept.”

And this was the past: The house that was built under ax and saw, a home for a gardener. The books that became forests of their own. Long memories and longer stories, passed on forever. The campfire and the meal shared. The trees tended, and new growth rising from ashes.

“I can do that,” said Danny. “I can be that.”

The heart of the land sent forth a gift, with passion, wisdom, and wit, and it was received. That which gives is also given, and that which is gifted may also receive. There were gifts. There were expectations. A gift must be given in turn.

And the fruit of the trees shall sustain. And the branches of the trees shall shelter. And that which is protected shall protect.

And this was the future.

Danny crawled out of the pond, gasping. Hands - familiar, now - pulled him up and out.

“Oh, gods, Danny–”

“What?” he managed, spitting up water.

“There’s stuff growing on you–”

“Your ears–”

“Princess Samantha!”

Something heavy and hard jostled into their little group, knocking Danny back to the ground. He could feel it. The ground. All those little lives and deaths. The things growing, hungry, wanting, needing– All the things he could give them–

“Stop this at once!” demanded Sam, bringing him out of… whatever that was. He looked up and around, and was impressed by how many sharp, shiny, pointy things were pointed in his direction.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but was thwarted by his body deciding it just wasn’t going to do that. His whole body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together with new parts.

… Which might actually be what happened. The… presence in the woods within the pond had been… It had been an experience. One he wasn’t keen on repeating in the near future but nevertheless ached for.

His head didn’t hurt anymore, at least.

“Back foul beast!” shouted one of the knights with a spear, his voice reverberating within his helmet. “You will not lay your hand on the princess–”

“I was the one touching him! He’s not a beast– Let me go! Tucker, say something!”

“Please don’t kill us! Danny’s just cursed!”

“What manner of curses have you wrought upon the princess! Release her from your geas, monster!”

If Danny wasn’t so scared right now, he’d be laughing. Who talked like that?

But he was scared. He needed to get away. He needed speed, swiftness, and the agility, or at least the size, to avoid all these spears and swords.

Which was a ridiculous thought to cross his mind, because it wasn’t like he was going to pull any of those things from thin air.

Except he did. Change rippled over his body, throwing off white sparks like from fireworks. Fingernails to claws, hands to paws, ears sharp, tail - He ran, four-footed, between the feet of the nearest knight, body stretching and contracting in his flat-out sprint as if he knew what he was doing.

He had no idea what he was doing.

A spear impacted the ground in front of him, and he startled sideways into a horse’s path. Everything was so much larger than him, now. He lashed out, claws raking across the horse’s nose, and the horse reared back, dumping its rider.

It occurred to Danny, then, in a sort of vague, panicked sense, that whatever he’d turned into, he could cause a lot of chaos.

The next horse he saw, he went for the eyes.

He neglected to realize that, as small as he was, chaos might affect him more than it usually did.

Still, he made it to the brushy edge of the clearing in what he hoped was one piece. He crawled underneath it, hopping through thin spots whenever he was able. A tree rose up out of the shrubby mess like a godsent miracle, and he climbed up it, sinking his sharp claws into the bark, until he got to a branch that could support his weight. His real weight, not whatever he weighed now.

He huddled down, trying to remember what the change felt like, trying to will it to reverse, to make him himself again–

Slowly, his body returned to normal, fur fading back into skin, claws becoming nails once again. His clothing, sans shoes, rematerialized from somewhere. But… This wasn’t what his body had been like when he’d crawled out of the pond. It had been different, then. He could feel it. He knew it.

The tree he was perched in was not the presence below the pond, but that was a matter of degree, not kind. The roots of the woods were tangled and reached as far down as the branches reached up. To stone. To star.

It was quiet. Steady. Already established. It didn’t need things from him, not like the ground. Not right now, anyway.

But still, it whispered to him, and he knew. This was no more him than the forest cat's body he'd worn moments ago.

He curled in on himself and cried.

Tucker found him first, over a week later.

Although, it might have been better to say that Danny let himself be found. Shapeshifting into a cat or squirrel helped with hiding, funnily enough.

Shapeshifting was fun, even if it wasn't worth… everything else. At least, so long as he was in the trees. With his feet on the ground, listening to everything beneath them, without the lightning focus of fear, he couldn't direct it. What he was fell apart into… this.

Not the same as he'd been as Sam and Tucker dragged him from the pond, but more like it. A shape closer to what he was wanted to be rather than what he wanted to be.

But he'd seen Tucker coming, and he didn't want to talk to him while hiding in the trees. That would be wrong, he felt.

So, he walked into the middle of the road in front of Tucker, moss and grass curling up around toes that weren’t shaped right. His fingers were long and sharp and so were his teeth. He had no idea what his face looked like right now. He hadn’t been brave enough to check… assuming, of course, that he could even tell by touch. He could have stripes right now and not know it.

He hoped he was, at least, recognizable.

“Danny, gods. We thought you were dead.”

Oh, good. At least that fear was unfounded.

“Hi, Tucker,” said Danny. After not talking much for a week, his voice was scratchy.

… Or maybe that was the crying. Who knew?

“Oh my gods.” Tucker drew his hands down his face. “I can understand why you didn’t come back to the city with…” He gestured at Danny’s entire body.

“That’s not why,” said Danny, before he could continue. “I can’t leave the woods.”

“You what? What do you mean, you can’t leave?”

“I just can’t.” He’d tried to leave, at the beginning, but it didn’t work. He could walk to the border of the woods, where they opened up into the fields immediately around the city. He was quite comfortable there, even, standing under those branches, looking out. But he couldn’t go any further.

“Because of the curse?”

“I guess,” said Danny. “There’s not really anything else, is there? There’s not something that just makes people stop for no good reason.”

“Can you– I brought the blood blossom stuff, can you take it? Maybe–”

“No,” said Danny, firmly.

“But–” said Tucker, pulling the green vial out of his pocket.

Danny wanted to cringe away from it. “Just. No. Tucker… I’m not sure how much…” He wasn’t sure how much of him was left that wasn’t magic. “Sometimes, when curses really take hold, it doesn’t–” He sucked his lips in and regretted it as his long teeth scrapped at them. “What do you think happens when that stuff is put on something that is magic?” Danny tilted his head to the side and tried to smile again. “It’s been over a week.”

He watched Tucker’s face shift as he realized what that might mean, and his smile fell as well.

"I've seen my parents come through a few times," he said, just to say something different.

"Did you talk to them?"

"No." He grimaced. "Apparently, I'm a creature now.” He ignored that he’d said as much to Tucker just moments ago. “It didn't seem… smart."

"That must be…" Tucker paused to search for an appropriate adjective. "Hard."

"Yeah." He'd been wondering if Jazz had come home. If she was looking for him, too, or if she was still in Elmerton. If she knew. But he didn’t want to ask.

"Sam will want to see you." Tucker bit his lower lip. "She kind of… asked if I would look. I was going to anyway! But… I can tell her I couldn't find you, if you don't."

“No, I think I’d like that, actually. She was right. It was fun, before.” He sniffled. “Maybe we can even try to find what she was actually looking for.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Tucker, aghast. “Messing around with all of this cursed you to have weird ears and be stuck in the woods for who knows how long. Let’s just forget– Well, I mean, avoid anything else like this as much as we can.”

The woods leaned in around them. “I don’t think it works like that,” said Danny. “Things are waking up. And I think… I think the only reason Sam was able to find the- the path was because the woods were already waking up. And some of the things… I don’t think they’re good, Tuck.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” squeaked Tucker. “You know your eyes are glowing again, right?”

“Are they?” He blinked and shook his head. “Have you been looking for me the whole time?”

Tucker laughed nervously. “No. There’s, uh. Turns out that if you disappear with the princess there are questions. Lots and lots of questions. So many questions.” He shuddered. “And my master is angry at me. And the guild is angry with me. But I’m fine! What- What have you been up to? What else have you been up to? I, uh. Ha. Ha?"

A wry smile twitched the corner of Danny's lips. "The tops of the trees, I guess."

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2023

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