Xoris

Chapter Eight

The start of the purple and green trees began to spring up around him as the forest came into view. Though the sight of thriving life was pleasant after the amount of time he'd spent in the Wastelands, there was something about the energy of the place that bothered him.

It was that same thrumming sensation that he'd felt from Kraim back at the castle, that extra pulse of life within everything, and yet, it flowed differently amongst the woods itself. It felt wild, untamed, and flexible in its uses, a complete opposite to the steady, decisive energy that had come to sit in his chest ever since his last battle. It felt like the very majik of nature itself sought to creep and nestle in the cracks between his armour. The constant itch was beginning to return, much more incessantly than before.

I suppose I'll make this as quick of a trip as I can then, he decided. As his route began to be covered with more and more thorn bushes as he went, he unsheathed his sword, starting to hack away at the rows of vines. After clearing himself a bit of a path, he managed to find something akin to a dirt road, the grass more worn and the leaves coating the ground clearly having been pressed into it several times.

"What are you doing, Stained?"

The targeted feeling of the wild majik trying to prey into him grew, and he turned to face the voice. A small, unmal Fae floated beside his face only about three hand lengths away, their neither masculine nor feminine body supported by a thin, gauzy pair of wings. "We don't want you here," they spoke again, a sour expression on their face.

"H-how did you know I was Stained?" he asked warily, thrown off guard. I'd been trying so hard to cover it.

"Your heka. It is blatantly obvious that you don't belong here. No one wants to deal with your kind, so go back over the mountains you came from." The attitude coming from them almost seemed too large for their body, barely over a hand tall, but Xoris tried to be patient with them.

"Actually I'm not from the mountains, but that's besides the point. I'm here to speak to your rulers," Xoris explained, pulling his hand through his hair and trying to offer them a comforting smile. "I'm a paladin, sent from King Lloyd, with a proposition for your people, so if you could just lead me to your castle..."

"We don't want to make deals with the Humans, or their king, especially if he thinks hiring Stained is a good idea now." A sharpened finger was pointed away from the direction of the path Xoris stood on. "Leave, before you are dealt with like every other visitor."

Xoris breathed out a sigh of impatience, clasping his hands together. "I'm sorry, but I cannot. The proposition I have is of utmost importance, and-" He stopped as the vines he'd cut only moments before twitched out of the corner of his eye.

"I said, leave!" That was as much of a warning as he got, before the bushes surrounding him closed in. Branches stretched over his head to prevent him from climbing, and roots snaked beneath his feet to hold him in. As he heard a small flutter of wings he assumed the Fae left him to rot in a solid cage of plants.

"Let me out! You didn't even listen," came his shouts as he shoved his body against the foliage. Luckily the pauldrons on his shoulder kept any of the nastier looking thorns from sinking in, but even with his weight thrown against them, they refused to budge. He pulled his body back, sword in hand to plunge it into the vine's flesh, but it barely left a scratch, rebounding off the tough surface as the momentum sent painful waves of shock up his arms and into his elbows. A hiss drew out of his mouth. He did not go through this entire ordeal to starve here. He put his gloved hands on the tangled walls in between the spikes, but as he pulled, and even tried to bite at it, the majik stubbornly held, protecting it.

"This is ridiculous!" he shouted, although he doubted anyone was close enough to hear him now. "What did I ever do to you?" There were stories of the Fae's clear stance on the war, pulling themselves into what some had called their own realm, and killing any Human or Beast that drew too close to it, but all the same... They didn't even allow me to make a first impression.