King of the Woods, or Trivial Pursuit

Part 39 - Caterpillar

"Wake up, dipshit," Byron said.

Ray rubbed his eyes. Mushrooms towered over him like redwoods and disappeared into clouds like Chinese dragons. More fungi of all shapes and sizes surrounded him: layered shelves, round caps, and giant puffballs, in Woodstock-appropriate colors and repeating patterns devised by zonked-out chaos mathematicians. A sitar droned, and tabla thumped, but Ray could not see the music's source. Byron reclined atop an orange and purple polka-dotted cap as tall as a tiki hut, taking hits from a bong that stretched almost the entire length of his green, cylindrical body.

"Please tell me that's a sleeping bag." Ray said.

Byron looked down at his many, many limbs. "My abs! Dude, why am I a centipede?"

Ray sighed. "Caterpillar. It's an Alice in Wonderland reference."

"I don't watch Disney movies!" Byron dangled off the edge of his mushroom and offered Ray a hit. "You have some fucked up dreams, yo."

Ray waved Byron off and poked his finger into the squishy wall of the tiki hut. It felt real, if not precisely solid. "If I'm dreaming, why are you here?"

"Probably because you're gay for me," Byron said. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Ray sat cross-legged and looked up at Byron. The tallest mushrooms allowed no view of the sun, but ambient yellow light filtered through, illuminating spores and dust motes. "I found some Golden Bough. Trivia said that it would reconcile me to the Green. Which presumably includes her..."

Byron crossed his many arms. "That's not what she said."

Ray squinted at him. "I never told you about any of this."

"It's your trip. I know everything you know. What did she tell you about Golden Bough?"

"It like, makes you one with nature," Ray said. "You mix it into a tea."

"And what did you do?" Byron said.

"Um, I ate it."

Byron slow-clapped his caterpillar limbs. The motion cost him his balance, and he rolled off the mushroom, landing on his back next to Ray. "The dose makes the poison. I think you're going to be here awhile. Probably see some more weird stuff."

"Sola dosis facit veneum," Ray muttered. He'd never heard Byron say it before. But the toxicological saying brought his attention to the suspicious dust motes floating all around him. He wrinkled his nose and covered his mouth with his t-shirt. "What is that god-awful smell?"

Byron laughed into his bong. "The air here is fine, bro. You crapped yourself back in the real world."

--

The clouds tired of upstaging the moon, and the sweat on Ray's brow shone silver. Trivia had placed him on a bed of flowers like the one on which they'd spent their first night together. Still as he was, it looked like a bier.

A crow landed beside him, taking human form. "Merde," Audubon said, wrinkling her nose. "He smells like he looks. What happened?"

"Don't insult me," Trivia said. "I need your help to kill Frazer, but there will be a reckoning for what you've done."

"You said he wouldn't see you again," Audubon said. "I thought you were done with him."

Trivia glared at Audubon. "He was done with me. It's not the same."