Bound Blade (GirlxGirl) 18+

Chapter Three

"There is blood everywhere and I am lost in it. I breathe blood, not air."
¤

Adira

The continent Mağōs was over a weeks journey from Malus, her home. Her kingdom. It lay in the West, closer to the human lands than Mağōs which had always confused Adira.

The week had been long and the journey tiring. The sea put her ill at ease and she'd been on it the entire journey thus far.
Mağōs was different to what she was used to, Adira could tell from the second her foot touched its sands. Magical energy thrummed through the continent, differently to Malus. The energy on her home shores was smothering and reeked of death. That's why Malus had become known as The Onyx continent. She truly understood it now. The South was warm, magical and alive.

Mağōs's magic was different, more natural and more restless. It spilled into her body and surrounded her being.
Adira payed the driver and got out of the vehicle, the last leg of her journey was one she'd do alone.

It was hours before she reached the Woodlands of the Spirits, and yet she sensed it before she saw it.
It called out to her, the way a siren called out to a sailor. It lured her onwards and lulled her turmoil.
She'd need her wits about her for this part of the journey.

After several minutes more her eyes took in the forest, trees impossibly tall, varying shades of greys, purples, blacks, blues, and whites. Wisps and orbs of light floated throughout the breeze, clear through her enhanced vision.

Taking a deep breath, hands floating above her weapons, Adira set forward.
It wasn't long before the song hit her. It seems her comparison of the forest to a siren wasn't ill-placed.

The melody flitted through her ears and brain, eerie and compelling, forcing itself into her head and soothing her unease.
When Adira got close enough she could make out the words.

'Here, in our forest, dark and deep. I offer you, eternal sleep...'

A chill ran down her spine at the ancient power she felt radiating from the spirits and their woodlands.
She had no intentions of harming the forest, which would allow her safe passage. In some sense at least. While the spirits and the forest itself may not harm her, she had no immunity from anything else living in it.

Glancing back over her shoulder once, Adira stepped forward and into the Woodlands of the Spirits embrace.

♤

Darkness surrounded her, the trees so high and large they blocked out all sunlight. The only light was provided from the orbs of energy and lights, and the multiple plants containing a bright bioluminescene.

So far nothing had threatened Adira, though her hands were restless near her weapons. She did not know this forest, did not know this continent or its inhabitants. She knew it could sense her home, her King's power and influence. Covering her like oil. This place felt threatened by it, and she got the message loud and clear.
She was not wanted here. She was not welcome.

A scent in the wind had Adira freezing all over. She'd sensed something following her, a creature careful and clever. It had stayed downwind, out of sight and blocked from all her senses.
It had not, however, taken her gift into account. It did not know she even had one.
Though her power here in this forest was muted, she was not completely blind... more so blurry visioned.