And he trekked through the spledourous plane

[Zonty 457]

 

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He stalked the enchanted forest a while, wondering hither and thither; he strayed between a pair of arching boughs and then he halted. Doubt beset him, for wherever he glanced, all seemed so familiar– and the same. 

Underneath that vaulted ceiling of sprawling and tangling branches, he sat himself down and pondered. He frequented forests, and many upon the Odras – the continent that was his homeland – were known in every obscured nook and cranny. But it was a different case with this domain of woods. He have not been here before, and the flora here unwavered in their stoic guise. On both flanks, and in the rear and forwards, whither he'd go mattered little; the woods ranked in unchanging structure. Although, whether he erred in his path and traipsed in circles, or the forest was contrived of alike tiles of land, or the morbid trees and grass travelled alongside the Watcher's paces, was hard to tell.

 

 

He spun his eyes about; the nonchalantly breathing woods seemed keen and imperious; staring at the intruder and bidding him death of starvation, for, though occasional brooks of serenely wading waters embellished grasslands, there was absolute dearth of even most timorous and hard-to-catch creatures. The fauna was absent. 

Probably beholden to the same fate as I. He guessed. 

The herbs are likely noxious, and peril awaited all who tasted them. And without prey, so the predators perished or turned seldom. 

His head shook in dismay and his eyes turned to his legs. His teeth grated. Therein something cracked - a stick beneath someone's boot; surprise strung the Watcher and he snapped in the sound's direction; on a bed of fallen leaves and bent grass was a girl. A silk dress was on her, the hair blonde and tended, flowing down to her breast, and from the veil of them protruded a pair of pointy ears. Her legs were bent in knee, so that the bare feet were firm on soil, where the torso was reclined backward, and arms were bracing against the ground behind. Her chin was reared and the glance trapped in light-lit crones. A lonesome ray that managed to thud through that dense thicket far above shone its indigo gleam upon that lithe and minute figure. 

 

"Beautiful is the domain of Shadow, is it not?” Her voice awoke, and her neck turned; a face in the pale lights from above had a soft smile.

 

“Shadow? Is that where I'm at?” Coarsely rasped the Watcher. His body was ennervated, and so he did naught.

 

“Why have you come here, traveller?” She asked. “You do not belong here. You are not of this realm.” - “You reek of Bûn-Drög; and they sought a route hither for millennia. They want us gone” Her head tilted, her gaze squinted. 

 

“Do you?” - thus the query hung in the air. Unanswered; the Watcher slipped no word.

 

“We wish no war. For although you are mistaken, we believe in change. We do not want to condemn.”

 

“Why do you wish to doom us?” 

 

The Watcher smirked; “Pity?!” – “Is that the only thing you can came up with to sway me?”

He shook his head with a grin of malice on his lips. “You will not faulter me with your lies; and it is the only thing you and your friends spout. Lies!!!” – “Cease, and your demise will be painless!!” His hand had clung to the belt, and thence unsheathed a dagger, and he swung its blade towards the young girl.

 

A sigh from her fluttered, and the weapon notched her like butter, and her form dispersed in mist; it churned and swirled about the Watcher, and from behind the mist stepped darkness, and the Watcher it enveloped. A fleeting scream broke out, but it couldn't escape the fringes of the arch where the man had been sitting; it sunk into naught and forest's silence continued.

 

 

Spoiler

Just wanted to finish something i started yesterday and hadn't had the chance of wrapping up nicely :3

 

Part 1, for anyone who liked the small story: