Breaching the copse of trees blinds me as the lights combine. My lantern takes my split second of blinking away spots to explode like a small cannon in my fist molded around its handle, perfectly punctuated by a scream I can’t contain.

_And everything had all been going so well until now! _

My grip instinctively releases the demon light. I trip and stumble away from the small flame remaining, crashing to the ground of the strange clearing I’ve found and recoiling as I roil upon on its surface as if on a mossy wave.

I decide it’s a good thing I’m already sitting down when the lamp alights again. It must be my sleep deprived mind, but I swear the moss underneath the lantern opens up and swallows it whole, leaving only a sizzle of smoke behind.

Darkness descends, the only illumination being the green beacon further in the clearing on my right. But I just can’t look away from where my lantern surely remains, waiting for my mind to perceive it once more.

“Lampy?” I croak, regretting only deigning to name it now.

A strange crazed hiccuping sound starts up. I roll my head on my neck in search of the source within the loam of green shadows. It’s only when I’m unable to pinpoint the direction it’s coming from that I realize it’s me.

I think it’s a laugh, but I can’t be sure anymore.

Especially when it rapidly turns into sobs.

“Lampy,” I cry out my most recent reason for tears.

I’ve entirely lost it: myself, my mind, my purpose, and worst of all - my lantern.

I go to crawl towards where it disappeared but I can’t. I can’t move.

My chin drops to my chest as I search for the reason.

“Somebody’s gonna die,” I promise the vines that have belted themselves over my waist.

The hounds closing in on my trail take that moment to howl in agreement, as does the rustle of leaves within the barrier of forest at my feet that precedes a humanoid figure making its presence known between the trees. It looms over my pinned and prone body appraisingly.

Shadowed as it is, I can vaguely see its skin that resembles tree bark and eerie eyes alight with the same green as the light. I try to swallow down a bit of my panic but my mouth is too dry.

The man I fled from, who is obsessed with scrolls, comfy empty beds, and apparently dogs, had writings of creatures like these that I’ve been reading about over the past week: dryads.

_Generally benevolent female fae beings whose life forces are connected to trees._

I can work with that, I decide, as the pounding of paws only gets louder.

“I think they like you,” a distinctly inhuman male’s harmonic voice observes from my right, cutting through the silence and my staring contest with the being as I spiraled.

“The dogs?”

There’s a hum, but I swear it was almost a laugh.

“No, the vines,” he answers.

Huh. They’re sentient? I need to go apologize to the one I yelled at.

I pet the constricting greenery on my waist.

“Down, boys,” I encourage.

They slither off reluctantly.

My gaze shoots up to green orbs that have somehow widened and turn toward the voice of the person that the dryad is obviously protective of.

_Oh_. I don’t blame her.

The silhouette of a fae male stands backlit against the radiance that I could swear has brightened. He has to be at least seven feet tall with a wide chest and even thicker limbs that anyone could confuse for the trunks of trees, not unlike the one he begins to rest a shoulder against as if used to lingering perusal.

“And what about you?” I ask him.

His head jerks back.

_Did I not ogle him to his content? _

“What about me?” He recovers.

“The vines like me but what about you?”

Both of our attention shoots to the snapping of branches underfoot nearby.

“Undecided,” the fae drawls.

The hounds howl triumphantly.

They’ve found their quarry.

I hop up with strange ease. Almost as if the moss helped me. “Well, how can we fix your indifference,” I propose, “because I’ve got some unwelcome guests about to crash our party.”

The silhouette pushes off the tree and gestures to the incandescence that may or may not be pulsing right now.

_Is it… excited? _

I know nothing of the physiology of fluorescence.

“Come with me,” the man who somehow looks taller and broader upon that request, asks.

I go to side eye the dryad, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

“You don’t even like me,” I whine.

He raises his shoulders in a strangely human movement. “Only the worthy may enter. It is not up to me.”

Worthy? My humorless laugh just about gives away my location. I’ve never been deigned worthy of anything: a home, friends, and certainly not this mission.

I’m just a disposable nobody given vague directions from a boss who found me on the streets as a child & is never going to hear the end of this one, I’ll tell you that much.

But then I get caught on his next words. Enter?

Oh great heavens, the glow is a portal.

Rapid snuffling encroaches behind me.

I turn slowly, knowing what I’ll find.

_The dogs are here. _

Strangely piling up right at the edge of the clearing, they can’t seem to see me or enter it.

Just sniffing rabidly at the cusp until one sends up a howl for his master.

“There’s a ward over this sacred place,” the male voice supplies way too close to my ear.

I jump about a foot in the air.

“Then how did I get in here?” I ask with a hand over my racing heart, keeping my eyes pinned on my pursuers.

The mean scroll enthusiast, who woke me up, emerges on the horizon of trees, stomping through the forest like he owns the place.

“I was wondering the same thing,” the fae admits.

I shift a bit on the strange moss as the owner of the scrolls approaches the clearing. His gaze travels right over me, his pallid face contains no illumination by the green light at my back that is almost blinding.

I exhale a shaky breath at the proof I’ve stumbled into something otherworldly & turn towards the light, avoiding the male entirely. If rumors are true, I don’t have time to get lost in a heartbreakingly beautiful face.

“What’s on the other side?” I can’t help but ask.

He walks ahead of me, but calls over his shoulder as he enters the apparent portal, “That’s up to you.”

I almost stomp my foot before remembering the sentient greenery.

It doesn’t matter the species, apparently. All males are incapable of giving a straight answer.

What if I don’t go?

Best case scenario, I’m accosted by dogs and sent back to my boss in shame.

I already have nothing, but this would remove my usefulness.

What reason would he have to keep me around?

What reason do I even have to stay?

I blow out a breath, shake out my arms that feel uneven without my lantern in hand, & charge once again into the unknown ahead.