| FELO-DE-SE |
| Amos ran as fast as he could into the boscage, and wandered deep into the forest. He knew that the spirit could not follow him, since he was bound, in essence, to the roadside. The boy was lost now, and could not tell which way to go to return to Aremaapwe's part of the wood. The sky was turning a violet color, as the first hint of the proximate dawn began to bleed through the, until now, adumbrated firmament. Would he get back in time to save himself? Could he? Just then, he noticed a light coming towards him. He hid, for fear that it might be Hecate herself come for him on foot, but soon discerned the figure of a young woman, holding aloft a lantern. She hummed to herself a tuneful lilt, as she jauntily made her way towards the boy. He thought for a moment that he should hide anyway, but no matter which way he crept, she always seemed to turn in that direction. Eventually, he gave up and stood still, waiting for her to come upon him. "Can you help me? I am lost, and need to find my way to a certain place in the forest." asked Amos, once she arrived. She spoke not a word, but just smiled and motioned for him to follow her as she continued her air. Amos reasoned with himself that the hour was drawing near that he had been told to return to the guardian of the wood, and as this waif was the only option, which had been presented to him, he took it. He attempted to describe to her the place where he had left the wood spirit, but she didn't appear to pay him any mind. He watched her, as she glided through the forest, between the trees and brush, without much thought or effort. It was difficult for him to keep up with this sprite, or whatever it was that she was. She had long reddish-brown hair, a youthful figure, which Amos secretly took stock of, draped in a light-green dress, which hung straight down, and was most likely homespun. She had happy, but distant, eyes that gazed into somewhere other than their respective surroundings. Her general bearing reminded him of the demeanor of an autistic child he'd seen once; she was in a world of her own, and wore a constant smile. She had a wide mouth with full pink lips, fair skin, with a sparse sprinkle of freckles, and her hair, parted in the middle, hung down just past her shoulders. In her hand was a plain pewter oil lamp, which shown dimly in the brightening sky. Amos worried that they wouldn't arrive in time. His guide took him through unbeaten paths, twisting through odd byroads; reminding him of some of those cabbies in the city who take you through half an hour of side streets before you realize your destination was actually around the corner from your place of origin. As if she had surmised his train of thought, she turned around at that precise moment and smiled what she must have intended to be a reassuring smile, but rather had the adverse affect on poor Amos's frayed nerves; and would she never stop singing that damned song? All of his previous grievances seemed so miniscule and trivial in the light of all that he had been through this night. All he wanted to do was get through this all and go back to the security and comfort of his home. Before he realized it, he found himself walking straight into some sort of pond, which wasn't very large, but got deep very quickly. His guide had stopped her tune (mercifully), hung up her lamp on a low hanging branch, and turned to face him with outstretched arms. She stared at him with those empty eyes and smiled, pulling Amos to her bosom. She kissed his cheek, then slowly moved her lips towards his mouth. He felt a prickle of anticipation, as her lips pressed against his own. His heart began to pound as she held the back of his head with her right hand, and wrapped her left arm around his waist. For a moment, he was lost in pleasurable feelings and thoughts as he reciprocated in kind. Then she pulled away, and he saw her lips were blue, and her face was puffy and discolored. Her hair was tangled, and riddled with pond flora. She smiled again, a dead soulless grin. Amos screamed, but she put two waterlogged fingers with loosened fingernails, one on the verge of coming off, and barely held in place by a strain of some unidentifiable corpse ichor, and playfully shushed him as if quieting a small child. The boy tried to disengage himself from her grasp, but found her grip to be firm and vise-like. She forced his head onto her shoulder, and began to sing her cursed song again as she stepped backwards into the deep of the pond, dragging Amos along with her. The poor boy was half mad by now, and as he saw the first rays of the morning sun breaking through the treetops, he thought of how foolish he had been for courting Death as he had done. All he wanted now was to go back home. In a last fit of preservational adrenaline, he pryed his head off of the girl's shoulder, and screamed to the wilderness, "I don't want to die; I want to live! I want to live!" Believing his life lost, he surrendered to his lot, and began to cry again for ever having left his home and begun on this misadventure. As he did so, he felt a release of the corpse's grip, and found that he was dry and on land again. He felt warm, now that the sun shone fully on his person, and felt complete, as he realized that he was back in his body. Looking up, he saw the face of the wood spirit, Aremaapwe. The spirit reached out to the boy, who instinctually recoiled, but the elemental just laid his hand upon the boy's shoulder, and smiling said to him, "You have chosen well. Go to the edge of the forest and you shall find your people searching for you. They seek, for they are worried; they worry because they love you. Be patient with them, for they are only human, and do not always act the way you would have them do. Be secure in the knowledge that you are loved, and that even with all of its' vicissitude and disappointment, it is always best to choose life." On that note, he helped the boy stand up, turned him towards his people, and sent him off on the right path after all. |