...Valarichard? No that wasn't it... Valaronaldo? Hmm... definitely not that... Valarandall? Maybe?
There I was, awkwardly sitting on the massive cadaverous horse, back within the dark and oppressive claws of the forest, watching as Valaricky sliced up some sort of nasty and rather aggressive sentient plant. It was still very dark out, leading me to believe that I'd somehow slept all through the day. I felt rather guilty that he'd held me in that uncomfortable looking position for so long... I must have been incredibly tired.
Thick suffocating mist obscured the dolorous undergrowth, which struggled to grow within the twisted roots and jagged stones that embroidered the perilous forest floor. It swirled around Valarodney as he sprang backwards, trampling a poor unsuspecting fern with his boot, just as three slimy barbed vines viciously lashed out at him like deadly whips. He quickly dodged them, and with a few swift metallic slashes they were immediately shredded by his menacing blades.
I inwardly cheered, then covered my mouth and gasped, while he effortlessly jumped up and impaled the thing's sickly black stalk. Crimson goo disgustingly oozed down it's front side as it let out an ailing hiss of anguish. The rest of it's vines abruptly plopped to the root entangled ground below with a few soft thumps. Then it keeled over, dead as dust.
Yikes...
We'd been back in this damnable forest for about an hour now, and already several harrowing creatures, including massive walrus sized zombie spiders, had tried to attack us... They might as well have thrown themselves into a blender. Valarobert had been swift to slice them all to mangled smithereens, making me feel far safer than I did the first time being out here.
But regardless of the new found sense of trust and security that I felt with this strange shadowy man, I was still not pleased that we'd come back. By the way he had been intently looking around and jumping off of the horse to tap on random roots, I had surmised that he was searching for something, but it was hard to know for certain.
I seriously wished that I could just ask him what we were doing out here, and if it had any relevance to getting me home. But alas, we were as linguistically unavailing as my stupid useless foot currently was for walking. And I felt as frustrated as a seagull trying to communicate with a baboon.
I tried to comb my fingers through my disheveled golden locks the best I could, while curiously watching his muscular arms powerfully rip the now dilapidated plant's spiky roots right out of the dark putrid soil. His ridiculously long shadowy hair cascaded down behind him, as he used the sharp tip of his sword to carefully cut two spikey thorns from the root.
With the thorns held safely in his palm, he discarded the rest of the plant by throwing it against a corpse tree. The tree eagerly grasped at it with it's skeletal claws, then gobbled the apparently scrumptious thing down with a hiss of satisfaction. I noticed the dull metallic glimmer of a strange sword woven into the bark with it.
Our gazes met, and he had a similar apologetic look to the one when he was about to remove those pesky pebbles from my foot. The whirling veil of mist ominously caressed his cloaked frame like the long spindly fingers of a lovelorn specter, as he strolled back over and began rummaging around in the saddle bag. He pulled out a simple looking black book with strange dark grey symbols on it.
"Lucilia, come." His pale clawed hand gently wrapped around my elbow, as he carefully guided me off of the horse and into his arms.
"Oh, okay." I floundered a bit while trying to wrap my arms around his neck.
He cradled me against his chest, then gently placed me down on a large gnarled root covered in squishy black moss. Luckily I was still wearing his black shirt, so I didn't have to worry about staining any clothes. Then with the grace of a swan gliding across water, his large frame knelt down on the rugged terrain before me, and he flipped open the book's aged pages to a marked spot.
I nervously cleared my throat, then gently pointed at the book. "Earth? Yes?" I was extremely curious to know if this was apart of how he was going to get me home.
Please say yes... Please say yes...
"No." He softly replied.
God fucking dammit.
He pointed to the book while saying something, then began motioning as if his hands were talking to each other in an unintentionally humorous way. A small giggle chimed out of me, but he didn't join in on my laughter. An apologetic smile flittered across his lips, as he carefully placed the thorns between us.
I stopped giggling and warily watched as he ominously lifted his hand over the thorns, and began chanting some sort of harrowing sounding incantation from the book. His voice was insanely deep and dark, shaded with an otherworldly inhuman ambiance. The harrowing words themselves made my skin crawl, and bile rise in my stomach. It literally sounded like he was trying to summon the devil or something... What in the world?
A ghostly crimson mist began creeping up from the soil and around the thorns. It eerily swirled as it wisped into them with a whispery sounding whoosh. I watched with wide frightened eyes, as Valarafiki carefully picked up one of the misty thorns between his fingers, then said something to me and pointed to his dark grey tongue.
He placed the thorn on the very tip of his tongue, and the thing literally latched onto it. It looked as though he had some kind of bizarre tongue piercing. The crimson mist began creepily pouring from his mouth, then to my horror, he picked up the other thorn, and held it out for me to take.
Oh fucking hell no! I want absolutely no part of this diabolical ensorcellment!
"Oh no, no, no! There's no flippin' way that I'm doing that!" I stubbornly shook my head in refusal. Then I pathetically tried to leave this accursed eldritch ritual, and crawl back to the friendly zombie horse who was happily munching on some ferns. The only other creature in the miserable place that didn't completely terrify me.
"Lucilia..." He warily drawled with a look of reluctance.
My hand wrapped around a particularly slimy root, while I actively ignored him. "Nope, nope, no- What the!?."
He suddenly crawled right on top of me, and carefully flipped me over so that my back was firmly pinned to the ground. He looked both penitent and determined, as his legs swiftly imprisoned mine. The crimson mist was still swirling out of his sharp-toothed mouth, making him seem incredibly redoubtable in the misty darkness.
"Holy shit!" I screamed, while frantically trying to wiggle away. "No, please, no! Valarogerick, please!"
"Valarogerick?" Confusion briefly contorted his features, then he quickly shook it away. "Okay, Lucilia, okay." With furrowed brows, he held the other thorn up to my mouth, trying to get it in. I pinched my lips as tightly closed as I possibly could. "Lucilia..." With a few muffled pleas, I wildly thrashed my head from side to side. "Okay."
My eyes widened in horror, as he quickly shoved two of his fingers into my mouth, breaking the seal of my lips. "No, please, what are you doing!? What are you doing!?" I tried to say, but it sounded more like the gargled squawk of a strangled guinea hen.
He gently spread his fingers apart, forcing my mouth to open, then he slipped the misting thorn between my lips. I hissed in both displeasure and fear when I felt it latch onto my tongue with a slight pinch and prickling sensation.
"Good." He calmly said.
Crimson mist was now pouring out of both of our mouths, as he slowly lowered his head to mine. I thought for sure that this otherworldly voodoo freak was about to kiss me, but his lips stopped mere millimeters over mine. His entangled hair cascaded down beside us, as he looked into my eyes with compunction in his scarlet gaze.
What hell is even happening right now!?
"What are-" My words were abruptly cut off and I thrashed in horror, as he swiftly shoved his silky wet tongue into my mouth. The thing was long and powerful. A force to be reckoned with.
I desperately tried to shove him away, but his tall muscular frame was far stronger and heavier than what my noodley lissome arms could manage. The tip of his tongue pressed firmly against mine, and a surge of terror shot through me. My eyes widened in panic, as I felt our tongues literally become attached to one another via the thorns. I hysterically tried to pull my tongue away with a few gaggling noises, but they were locked tightly together.
What the fuck!? What the fuck!? What the fuck!?
The unsettling bones on his forehead furiously twitched, while his mouth muffled all of my terrified screams. I watched in fright as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, making them look like two pools of fathomless midnight. Then my own eyes rolled back, shrouding my vision in complete darkness.
A strange sensation moved through my tongue, as if tiny veins were rapidly growing out of the thorns and into my flesh. The feeling swiftly crept to the back of my throat and webbed up into my brain, coiling in the cerebral cortex. The veins tightly wrapped around our entangled tongues, and everything gave one final intense squeeze, then abruptly dissipated.
My vision came flooding back and I unceremoniously gasped for air... What even was that!?
Valarodolphus sat back up, with his legs still imprisoning mine, and spit the thorn off to the side. "Can you understand me?" His deep voice questioned with uncertainty, causing a feeling of shocked bewilderment to fall upon me. It was so strange, He was still speaking in that uncanny language, yet I could understand each word perfectly.
What in the world?
"Lucilia, can you understand what I'm saying?" He reiterated, as I blankly stared up at him with a dumbfounded expression. I was way too frickin baffled to answer him. "Dammit." He muttered in frustration, while climbing off of me and standing back up.
I slowly pulled my bedraggled form up into a seated position while staring at him in complete befuddlement. He'd begun hastily looking over the book with a confused frown, while kneeling back down onto the labyrinthine roots.
"I-gluagh!" I tried to speak, but abruptly choked on the sharp thorn in my mouth. Valarodolfo immediately looked up with concern, as if he was worried that I might collapse and die or something. He swiftly glided back over and knelt down before me. I grimaced and spit out the thorn. "I-I can understand you." I softly spoke, while peering up into his anxious crimson eyes.
A look of pure excitement instantly beamed across his handsome features. "It actually worked!?" He exclaimed, and closed the book with slight thump. "That's wonderful!"
Then there was a brief awkward silence between us. It was as if we both had too much to say and no idea where to even begin. "Where am I? And what did you just do to me?" I frantically blurted out.
"How did you get here?" He calmly asked at the same exact time.
A harrowing screech resounded nearby, causing a wave of fear to crash over me. "It's best not to linger here for too long. Come, I'll explain all that I can." He softly spoke while picking me up.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, while he effortlessly glided the sort distance back to the horse. "So, um, how is it that we can suddenly understand each other?" I curiously asked, although I highly suspected that it had something to do with that freaky tongue ritual that he'd just preformed.
"Well, I just preformed a tongue rooting spell." He said with a slight chuckle, while gently placing me back on the saddle with both of my legs hanging off to one side... Knew it.
"A tongue rooting spell?" I curiously tilted my head, while he placed his book back into the saddle bag.
"Yes, and I apologize for how invasive that was. I understand that it was probably rather frightening for you." He remorsefully smiled, then continued to explain as he climbed up behind me.
"What it did was spread microscopic roots throughout our tongues and into our brains. They exchanged information from our minds, and are now translating each word we hear." He pointed back and forth between our heads. "The roots in our tongues should also allow us to fluently speak the others language if we choose to." He spoke in perfect English as if testing it out. I stared blankly at him and blinked, while the horse playfully whinnied in front of us.
I have fucking roots webbing throughout my brain and tongue now!?
His muscular arms encaged my frame as he grasped the reins, with my side pressed snuggly against his front. "Oh and, you're in The Abyss." He casually mentioned while gesturing all around, then looked me directly in the eye. "How did you get here?"
The Abyss!? What the mother flipping fuck is The Abyss!?
Some ghastly creature hissed behind a nearby tree, causing me to jump and my skin to crawl. "Th-The Abyss? What do you mean, The Abyss!?" I nervously hugged myself while leaning further into him, forgetting to answer his question. "Please, I want to go home. Can you take me back to earth?"
He smiled sympathetically while clicking his heels against the horse's side, silently commanding it to trot. We both gently swayed as the horse moved through the dark twisted trees. "To my understanding, The Abyss is a completely different world other than earth. You're on another planet in a separate far away dimension. And no, I myself can't take you back, but I have a friend who can. However, that could take awhile, so if you would tell me how you wound up here, it might be easier for us to figure out how to send you back ourselves."
A foreign mixture of both hope and trepidation bloomed in my heart upon hearing his words. My eyes followed the rather spooky movement of the horse's skeletal front leg cutting through the swirling mist, as I tried to mentally process my newly acquired information... I'm on an alien planet, in a different dimension... But luckily, there are ways of returning home?
The horse gently leapt over a fallen log, causing me to squeak and hastily grab ahold of Valarupert's arm while we bounced. I didn't let go either. "Well, I really don't know what exactly happened. It was a very peculiar event. I was dancing in a stream back on earth, then my ankle got caught on a necklace around a corpse's neck, of all things. But it wasn't a human corpse, in fact, it looked really similar to you, except it was obviously rotted and had no eyes. I accidently cut my foot on it's spiky black armor while trying to get away, then I grabbed the necklace, and fell through some kind of portal, I suppose." I shrugged, and peeked up at him, unsure if my seemingly senseless story would be helpful or not.
He looked as though I had just told him the most unsettling thing he'd ever heard. "Wait, wait, wait... You're saying that there was someone who looked like me, wearing black spiky armor, back on earth?" He pointed to himself as he warily spoke.
"Yes, only they were dead." I softly nodded.
"How dead were they? Were they dead dead, or undead?" He seemed really concerned about this.
What kind of question is that? I wondered with a look of puzzlement... Then I remembered that we were riding a literal zombie horse. Oh, perhaps things can become undead in this world?
"Umm... Dead dead? I think..." I delicately tapped my chin.
"You think?" He furrowed his brows. "Well, if they were undead then they probably would have tried to eat you."
It would have tried to eat me!? Well, that's some truly horrifying information...
"Definitely dead dead." I quickly nodded.
"Okay then, their hair, was it braided or up but loose? And were the spikes on the armor large or small?"
I had no idea how any of that would be relevant to getting me home, but I answered him anyways. "Um, it was braided, and small... maybe?" I nervously bit my lower lip. "Why is that important to know?"
The breeze ominously blew his tangled hair out beside us, while shadows skittered all throughout the trees. "Because what you are describing sounds exactly like a royal Tenverian scout. And tenverians are heinous bloodthirsty creatures who have absolutely no place in a living world."
Heinous bloodthirsty creatures? Perhaps he isn't of the same species then?
"Oh, huh, I thought that you might have been the same species as it. If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you then? An elf or something?" I didn't really mean to change the topic so abruptly, but I was just dying to know what he was.
He slightly sighed and the bones on his head twitched. "No, you were correct. I am a Tenverian." I stiffened at his words... Oh shit... "But I promise you're in no danger with me. I'm an outcast to my people, and I shun their disgusting and violent ways." He quickly added, clearly worried that I'd be afraid of him.
My heartrate quickened, and I quickly reconsidered all my options. There were none. He was literally my only source of protection, and my only lead to getting home... Fuck, I'm stuck with him. "Well, um, alright then. That's good to know..." I hope... "Do you still think that there might be a quicker way to get me home?" I quickly reverted the conversation back to the original question, and gazed up at him with pleading eyes.
He looked back down at me as though enchanted by my gaze. "Possibly." He shrugged. "I'm currently retracing your steps. Once we get to the spot were you first arrived, then maybe we can try to use that necklace you spoke of to send you back."
"Oh... about that." I nervously scratched the back of my head. "Some creature took off with the corpse. I doubt that we'll be able to find it." I held my palm up while defeatedly shaking my head.
"That's alright, I know how to track." He said with a warm smile, then raised a curious brow. "Now, tell me, what's an elf?"
-: ✧ :-✧-: ✧ :-
There I was once again, sitting on the massive cadaverous horse, back at the place where I'd first arrived in this atrocious abyss. The dark tempest sky raged above us, while I watched in annoyance as the tenverian man skillfully tracked every single move that I had previously made.
"And I can see that you stumbled over here..." He pointed to the root laden ground with his sword, then mindfully took a few wide steps to the side. "...Then you tripped over here... and then again over there..."
"Well in my defense, it's not easy being thrown into an unknown world of darkness with a sliced open foot." I gestured down towards my poor bandaged foot... I almost preferred it when this guy only spoke like a caveman.
His eyes twinkled as if he were genuinely trying not to laugh at my expense, and his smile fluttered a bit. "No need to defend yourself. I completely understand." His expression changed from one of amusement to one of laser beam focus, as he began predatorily circling around the spot where I'd first landed, intensely scanning every miniscule detail of the soil.
Within the short amount of time that it had taken to get here, I'd learned that this awful world was entombed in endless night, and just about everything was undead. Which explained all the frightening gloom and oppressive darkness.
Why couldn't I have ended up somewhere cool, like Narnia or something?
I'd also learned that there was some far away and ghastly kingdom ruled by a malicious undead queen, and that's where the scout had most likely come from. Although, it still remained a mystery how we'd ended up in the forest, and not said kingdom.
Valaralph was apparently a lone wanderer who'd abandoned life in the kingdom long ago. He didn't share too many details about it though, and didn't speak highly the kingdom nor of the queen, at all. So naturally, I secretly surmised that he must have been some sort of criminal on the run... A jewel thief, perhaps?
He also thought that it was downright hilarious that I'd assumed him to be an elf. At one point I thought that he was literally going to fall off of the damn horse from laughing too much, while asking things like, "You seriously thought that I was a mythological creature?" It had been really hard not to laugh at him, so I did under the guise of 'joining in on the fun'.
"Um, Vala-um...uhh..." I began to call over to him, catching his attention. He curiously glanced at me, with his eerie crimson eyes piercing through the veil of mist. He looked so dark and ghostly, with his shadowy jacket fluttering out behind him. "In all honestly, I can't remember your name." I shrugged in embarrassment.
He softly chuckled in amusement. "It's Valarendrik." He kindly responded with a smile. "And don't worry about it. It's probably as alien sounding to you, as Lucilia is to me."
A gentle giggle chimed from my lips, while I daintily held a lock of my wavy hair out of my face. "I suppose that's very true. Well, um, Valarendrik, have you found anything yet?" I curiously inquired.
A seal of concern was suddenly stamped across his brow. He looked down at the ground, then back up to me. "Honestly, no. Was it by chance a flying creature that took the corpse?"
Oh shit... It totally was!
"Actually, yes. It was." I meekly replied.
He nodded with an expression as if some sort of bad news was settling in. "Mhmm, and were it's wings feathered or scaled?"
"Scaled." I softly squeaked.
He frowned, then swiftly glided back over with black mist wisping out behind him. "So, I have some bad news. I don't think that we'll be able to locate the necklace."
My breath hitched in my throat, and anxiety clawed at my mind. "Well, what about your friend that you mentioned? Can you call him for me? And let him know that I'm in need of returning home?"
He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Well, you see, that's kind of the problem. I can't exactly call upon him, and his visitations are rather random. Sometimes he leaves only for a few days, other times I don't see him for a few months. And he was just here with his wife and two hellions last week." He climbed onto the horse behind me, then shook his head. "I honestly have no idea when he'll return." His front pressed into my back, surrounding me with that sweet rosewood and pepper smell.
A feeling of dread cut through me deeper than any knife ever could. My mouth felt dry, yet my palms became embarrassingly sweaty. I opened and closed my clammy hands, while staring down at them as if in a daze... Months? ...I might have to be stuck here for a few whole months?
"I-Is there a sooner, um, possibly a quicker way, perhaps?" Not only did I fail to form a proper sentence, but my body had begun uncontrollably shaking. How would I survive being trapped on this abominable planet for a few months? I had a life to get back to. It was almost unfathomable how my seemingly perfect world had so suddenly been ripped away and ruthlessly flipped upside-down right before my very eyes.
With movement so gentle and a touch so light that I almost didn't notice at first, Valarendrik leaned forward at my side. A small sympathetic smile danced on his lips, as he softly brushed a stray tear from my cheek which I hadn't realized had fallen.
"It's okay, Lucilia. You will return to your world. That can I promise." He softly said, then clicked his heels against the horse's sides. Once again, our bodies gently swayed as the horse began to leisurely wander through the forest. "I'm highly doubtful that there's a faster way, but there is a way no less."
I sucked in a shaky mournful breath. "But how am I ever going to survive here for that long? There's no sunlight or civilization. It seems like just about everything wants to kill me. And I don't have any food or shelter."
He gently rubbed up and down my arm to comfort me. "I can protect you. And you're more than welcome to stay with me until you can return to your world, no matter how long it takes. I also know of several plants which are suitable for human consumption. The choice is yours though. I won't force you to stay with me if you're uncomfortable with it."
I bit my lip and turned to look back at him with teary eyes. "Valarendrik, you're the only thing in this world that's given me any sense of comfort so far. So thank you, and of course I'll choose to stay with you. I just don't know how I can ever repay you for your kindness."
"Just be my friend." He answered with a look of compassion and a benevolent smile.
"Thank you." I softly whispered, and snuggled into him.
He seemed a bit awkward about it, but placed his arm around me anyways while staring off into the distance. I didn't think much of it though, and assumed that that's just how he was. A strange and awkward otherworldly man with crazy hair.
My dark savoir.