Unfamiliar Territory
Chapter 31: Burn

There it was. I could no longer feel the burning, twisting feeling in my insides or the pain from the recent injuries. It had all gone numb. I was standing through sheer willpower. I tried to speak, but all that came out was strained breathing.

The witch and her familiar stepped forward; I almost fell over myself when I stepped back.

“You appear surprised. Good. That means the fool kept up his side after all. Though, I’m afraid, he will soon learn that I did not do the same.”

My back hit something solid, but not one of the pillars or one of the walls. Before I could leap away, a massive arm came down around my neck, lifting me into the air with ease. I gasped, kicked, but the grip was solid— unmovable. It was as if I had really backed into a wall and it had reached out and grabbed me.

“You see, Mallard and I made a little bargain. He would help to reunite me with my children, and in return I would eliminate his familiars. He did a splendid job, truly a master of his craft, having you all run around in circles trying to stop Fawn and her twisted little monsters. Or, should I say, my twisted little monsters.”

I was losing consciousness. The blackness was becoming absolute. I tried to dig my claws into the arm of the person strangling me, but it did not seem to even faze him.

“But, he made a mistake in trusting me. You see, I had no intention of doing away with such a precious resource as a handful of familiars.” She waved her hand again. “Kat, darling, please come here. I wish to hold my son again.”

I stopped struggling. The figure who had been as still as a statue near Gust moved. I followed it with my dimming eyes. It stepped into the fading light of the sun through the shattered window.

It was Kat.

Her skin was grey, like a corpse, and her face was vacant of all expression, but it was her. Her nose, her lips, her eyes. The ‘Surprise and Lies’ t-shirt ripped and covered in grime. The fading green hair with dirty yellow roots. The glowing green eyes that stared at nothing.

What did she do to you?

“What...did you do...to her?” I managed to force out from the extreme pressure on my neck.

The witch cradled the sleeping Trout in her arms while Kat stood there, arms hanging loosely at her sides, her eyes still staring at nothing.

“Did he tell you that those foul teeth would kill them? I would imagine he did, I’m sure he believed so himself. But not true. It is simply one of my masterworks.”

The witch waved her hand around and flowers of all sorts and colors, plants with leaves both large and small, answered her call and began to grow up from the ground.

“Once you discover you have Knowledge, it may feel very limiting, at first, with what you can do with it. Truly, it only gives the holder control over one aspect of our world, one idea. But I have found, with time, that one idea can mean many, many things.”

She closed her hand into a fist and the plants and flowers shrunk down, withered, until they were gone.

“Not that I expect a feral familiar to understand. I suppose I am wasting breath on you, but it has been so very long since I have spoken with anyone. My husband, even my own children, were not interested in sharing words with me. Even though it had been so many years since I had last seen them.”

She stroked Trout’s hair. I could see her now. A tall, thin woman with wild, brown hair that stuck out in various directions. She looked young, but her eyes held deep shadows beneath them and there were many lines in her face for someone of her supposed age. Her green eyes were similar to Kat’s, but darker – warmer.

“You’re a monster.” I gripped the arm that held me as tightly as I could and forced it to move just enough so I could breathe –so I could say: “And I’m going to kill you.”

“A monster, am I?”

She silently handed Trout back to Kat, who immediately backed away into the shadows afterwards. The witch then walked towards me.

“You consider my family your family. Did you sink your teeth into them long enough to consider them such? Are you the reason they fear me now— resent me?”

In a flash, she was upon me, gripping my hair and pulling so I could get a clear look at her glowering green eyes.

“Answer me truthfully, Mr. Fox.”

I resisted just spitting in her face. Between the grip on my throat and the pain in my scalp and the rest of my body, I was quickly losing any sense of reason. But I had enough to know she had to hear my words, even if they didn’t reach her, even if they were the last words I would ever say.

I held her glare with one of my own. “I looked after them. I protected them. I helped them try to get over a mother that wanted to hurt them. You and Mr. Mallard are exactly the same. I didn’t make them feral, you did!”

I kicked her straight in her stomach. The witch gasped and fell back as she released me. I pushed everything that I had into forcing the arm off my neck. Another hand tried to stop me. I caught a few fingers with my mouth, and bit down hard enough to sever them.

The one who had been holding me screamed. It was a voice I recognized, but refused to hear. I spat out the meat and made for the witch. She was still recovering from the kick; she was not ready for me.

Someone else was.

Kat leapt in front of her, grabbing one of my arms. She twisted me around, attempting to lock me, but I went with the turn. I tucked in the arm she held, felt my shoulder pop, and back handed her with my free one. The force was enough to hurl her off of me, just in time for me to leap away when the ground below me crumbled.

Dark, spiked limbs were tearing up from below the floor, growing longer and wider as they continued their ascension. An entire tree was forcing its way up through the floor. The ballroom echoed with the sounds of cracking marble and twisting metal. I marveled at its might until Tusk came charging in from the shadows.

I jumped aside to avoid his teeth, but grabbed him before he could pass me. I dug my claws into his side before he could try and force his way free. He squealed and squirmed, but I held him. I screamed against the burning in my muscles and the searing fire from my wounds when I lifted him up above my head.

The top of the trees branches had forced themselves up. Unnaturally sharp, waiting to come alive and strike me. I took the few steps needed to reach them. I continued to hold the massive weight of the boar in the air.

“Master!” Tusk cried out in his raspy voice. With a final cry of effort, I threw him.

"Change!" came the shout of the witch somewhere on the other side of the tangled mass of naked branches.

The boar changed into the old, grizzled man mid flight. The last thing I saw were his red eyes, open wide, as he fell into the branches. His bulk broke through many. Many more stabbed into him. He fell down below, towards the first floor, shouting until an echoing thud silenced him.

“Tusk!” I heard the witch cry through the deafening noise of the growing tree. “Dearest, please answer me!”

I turned to a noise behind me. I caught a fist thrown by Kat with my hand, but failed to avoid the knee into my stomach. She grabbed my arm before I could recover and, kicking out my feet, she threw me over her shoulder. I slammed into the ground as Kat released my arm. I had less than a second to wonder why before I was forced to grab her arm as it tried to come down on me, her dagger in hand.

“Kat, snap out of it!” I groaned.

Her other hand came down on the hilt of the knife, trying to force the blade down into my chest. I could not see her face from my position. I gripped her arm with both hands, but my muscles were reaching their limits. The pain from my wounds was turning into blinding agony.

As my vision turned blurry, I watched the knife lower, felt the tip of it cut into the skin, when something gripped my ankle and tore me out from under Kat. I didn’t even have time to feel relieved before I was hurled into the wall, the impact almost forcing me through the wall itself. I crumbled to the ground, my insides felt like they had exploded. I was covered in blood—covered in aches both large and small.

I knew if I was still a real human I’d be dead by now.

I tried to stand until a large hand came up under my throat and raised me into the air. I barely had a hold of the wrist before I was shoved back into the wall. I gripped his arm and caught his familiar, dark eyes.

“Stallion, please. Don’t do this.”

He made no expression. The last time I saw him, he had risked his life to save me, to save everyone.

His hand tightened on my throat. Any tighter and he would be able to crush it completely.

“Now, now, Stallion. Let mother deal with the feral.”

The witch had arrived. Several branches had stretched out from the risen tree. They followed her like loyal pets, hovering in the air, waiting to do her biding. Stallion released me and I nearly fell over.

I forced myself to hold firm, to stand. “I’m not going to—”

Pain erupted from my hand. Enough that it overwhelmed every wound I had sustained up till then. I could not hold in the scream as the tree branch pierced my palm and pinned it to the wall.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fox, were you saying something?” She smiled a twisted smile. “Please, go on.”

I tried to control my breathing, tried to hold her glare. “You bi—”

More pain, somehow worse than before, in my other hand. Another branch ran through it, held it into the wall. I couldn’t stop the screams. I thought I was going to pass out. I wanted to pass out. But the agony of it all was just too real.

“Really, you must speak up. I’m afraid I do not understand.”

The witch walked up to me, Stallion and Kat moving aside for her. She stood before me; the point of another tree branch pressed itself up underneath my jaw. I could barely feel it. I could hardly feel anything besides the stabbing in my hands.

“You may think you are helping my children, in some twisted fantasy you thought up in your head, but you are only prolonging their suffering. There is no place for them in this world. They would be feared, hunted, and tortured by the know-nothings who rule everything, who would despise them for their gifts. And if they did not kill my children, they would use them for their own gains, run them dry and ragged until their lives gave out.”

“So you’re just going to imprison them instead?” I hissed through the agony. I was burning inside. She couldn’t get away with this. Even if she ripped me to pieces, I wouldn’t let her get away with this. “That doesn’t fix anything!”

“I do not have to explain myself to you.” She glowered as the point in the branch began to dig into my skin. “You do not even have a use to me. I had my fill of talking with you; I remember now why I stopped. Unless you are me, you do not understand me. Be grateful that I have decided to make your death quick.”

I swallowed. Closed my eyes. They felt wet when I did.

Had I been crying? Because of the pain?

I hadn’t even noticed.

“Meadow killed herself to save me.”

The branch stopped, and then pulled away.

“What did you say?”

I could not escape the images. Meadow, cold and still. Dr. Quincy silent and unmoving as I dragged him through the rain. I still had their blood on my hands, on my clothes, everywhere. The pain I felt now was nothing compared to that.

“She used her magic, her gift, to save my life. I was bitten by one of your creatures. I thought I was dying, she thought I was dying. She took it all away. Your gift, my bruises, my cuts, everything that I suffered to try and fix your and Mr. Mallard’s mess.”

“You... bastard!" the witch shouted, slapping me across the face with force. “How dare you corrupt her! Using your wiles— this was your doing!”

“Wiles?” I almost laughed. “I scared her so bad I thought she hated me, even when she said she didn’t. She didn’t save me because I tricked her. She saved me because...because she’s a fairy of the forest.”

The branches around the witch backed away. The ones stabbed into my hands loosened. I felt the witch’s icy breath as she stepped closer to me.

“How do you know that? Did she tell you that?”

I nodded. I chanced to open my eyes all the way. The witch was staring at me full in the face. Her green eyes wide, searching.

“She also told me that it’s okay to be scared. Don’t apologize for it. But, if she were here now, she wouldn’t want her mother doing something like this just because she was scared.”

The branches left my hands. I held them against me but kept my feet. For whatever reason, they didn’t hurt as much anymore. The witch was staring at the branches that still held my blood. Stallion and Kat stepped in between us, regarding me with dead eyes.

“You must either be very crafty or very kind, to get her to say such things to you.”

The witch waved her hand and the branches raised themselves above us all, each one pointing down at me.

“I see now that being feral only means you still cling on to your humanity. You speak from your heart. That I can also tell. But you still do not understand everything about our world. You have not lived a life of fear. You have not witnessed men wishing harm to your children just for being who they are. You have not learned the cold truth that we are not meant for this world.”

Several branches shot down, forcing me to jump back until I was pressed against the wall with nowhere to run.

“After your kind took away my life, all that’s been left is fear,” I returned, cutting my nails into the wall. “Why can’t I hope for better? How can’t I?”

“Your anger is very familiar to me,” the witch said with a smile, much less twisted. “It reminds me of a younger time, a younger me. When I was a little girl and my mother told me the stories of our kind, I was filled with so much wonder and hope. I believed one day that I could change the world, make it better.”

“Why can’t you? It’s not too late!”

The branches came down around me. I moved as much as I could to avoid getting stabbed. They tore holes in the wall, in the floor, only to pull back out and stab again. My injuries were hindering me again, making me slower. I wouldn’t hold out for long.

“When the know-nothings came and killed my mother, burned our house down, I saw the truth in things. I wanted the know-nothings dead and the trees, the very grass beneath their feet, came alive and carried out my will. Do you understand? They did not answer me until I wished to harm those men. I did not receive my gift until I could pay for it in blood.”

A stray limb gripped around my leg and pulled me to the ground. The rest of the limbs rose over me, their pointy ends waiting for the call to end my life.

“You’re the one in control,” I said, trying to find the soul behind her eyes. “Nothing happens until you say it does. You don’t have to do this.”

“You still do not understand.”

The witch raised her hand and the limbs raised themselves. They weren’t leaving.

“I never had a choice.”

"Deep beneath the meadow grove...”

A voice sang out into the ruined ballroom. The witch, her branches, Kat, Stallion and I all turned to a doorway. The doorway I had used to get in.

”Through the grass, below the snow...”

The words were familiar, the voice was familiar. I glanced at Kat whose face remained frozen like a doll. When my eyes fell over the witch, she looked back at me, her trembling lips and glossy eyes betraying her worry.

She tore her eyes away from me and called out to the shadows: “Maple, darling, is that you?”

”Lies a beauty, soft and still...”

“Waiting patiently until...”

A smell hit me, even through my broken nose and all the blood. It was very unfamiliar. Something that singed my nose hairs, forced me to put a hand over my shattered nose. I had the sudden urge to run, but between the witch, her branches, and my brainwashed friends, there was nowhere to go.

I heard the witch take in a breath. A bright red glow had replaced the darkened void in the doorway, and that it was growing stronger by the second.

“There comes a one strong and sure...”

“With golden light and warmth so pure...”

“Go!” the witch shouted at Kat and Stallion, pointing at the red glow. “Protect your Master!”

But they were not even looking at her. Their dead eyes were focused on the glow. When black smoke began to billow out from the opening in the doorway, they backed away. The branches that had been prepared to stab into me, and the one that held my ankle, moved away, retreating back to their tree.

“No, please! You can’t leave me now!” the witch cried after them.

“Kat, Stallion, wait!” I shouted as the two walked backwards, deeper into the darkness. I tried to stand, but the leg where Tusk had gouged me gave out before I was even on my feet. I noticed then just how pale I had become.

“He greets the beauty with a kiss...”

“...And wakens the flower that we all did miss.”

I could see the fire now. Flames danced in from the doorway. The smell that came off of them was even more intense. I saw the many various species of plant life try to crawl away, but the fire was eating through them like a ravenous animal. It wouldn’t be long before they reached me.

I was backing away on my backside as the witch took a step towards it. “M-Maple? Sweetie? It’s your mother. Why don’t you come out so we can talk?”

The singing had stopped. Just like it had when Kat sang it. Was that the end of the song?

My answer came when a massive fireball burst from within its brethren who now completely took up the doorway. The witch leapt away and I shouted curses as it scorched a blazing trail through the vines, grasses, and flowers until it struck the tree that had rose up from the floor, igniting it and all its naked branches.

“Shit, shit,” I continued to curse, sucking in deep breathes, trying to back away from the fire that was quickly consuming the wildlife and the ballroom they once held dominion over.

The heat was overwhelming. The black smoke that arose from the fire’s eradication of plants would have long ago suffocated everything if it hadn’t been pouring out through the gaping hole in the window like a massive storm cloud. My enhanced senses were nothing but a burden now. I had to keep a hand over my nose or the singed smell coming off of everything would be too much. Looking at the fire made my eyes water, but it chased away what darkness remained from the setting sun.

I could see Kat and Stallion, holding each other, huddled in a corner of the room like trapped animals. I spotted the witch standing back up, surrounded by walls of flame. It wouldn’t be long until they trapped me as well. I heard someone cry over the crackling and burning. When the song picked back up again, the voice was much louder.

”Bright rays, raining down from the blue sky!”

“Maple, darling, please! Let us talk!” the witch begged, desperately patting away the fire that caught to her fancy gown when the flames licked too close.

”Warm breeze, chasing snow and making dry!”

The fire was getting too close. I could it feel it start to burn the skin of my legs. I dragged myself away, using my better leg, and clawed across the cracked marble and retreating grass. I caught sight of Trout, sitting on a table of polished stone.

He was the origin of the crying. The flames were dancing around the table, encircling him, and steadily growing.

“To hell with this!”

I bit the inside of my cheek as I forced myself on two feet. I hardly even moved before I was on the ground again. I cried out in frustration and pain.

It was too much. The pain, the fire. I couldn’t do it.

Trout started to choke on his own cries, on the smoke that burned off from the flames that surrounded him. I tried to crawl towards him. I shouted at him that it would be okay, that I would make it in time. The tears from my lies evaporated from my face before they were hardly there at all.

“Leopold!” The witch screamed out, and suddenly I was getting wrapped up by roots that exploded out of my short’s pocket. They had me trapped, pinned to the floor, before I had time to register what was even happening.

I scanned the room frantically, trying to find some way out of this nightmare, and found the witch, staring back at me.

In that brief moment of time, I saw all of the color drain from her face. I saw her mouth move a fraction. I understood what she had failed to say.

“Oh.”

”Sing bright! Sing bright! The sun does shine!”

The screams that followed those words drowned out the crackling of the fire, Trout’s cries, the pounding of my own heart in my ears. I saw it all. The witch consumed by flames. Maple, walking from the doorway, the walls of fire separating around her as she stepped through them. Her hand was raised, the fingers curled as she kept it pointed at her mother and as the flames continued to burn.

”Sing bright! Sing bright! For yours and mine!”

Her voice rang out clearly through the devastated ballroom. It cracked at several words, but she sang clearly and with enough passion and heat that the fire, which burned all around, paled in comparison to it. I barely noticed when the roots, which had been trapping me, dried out and crumbled in a matter of seconds.

“Maple...”

I tried to call out to her, but I barely got out her name before coughing violently. My throat was so dry; the smoke that did not escape the window was burning my lungs. Trout’s screams came back to me and I tried to stand again, only to trip over the gimp leg.

”It melts away the snow! It makes the grasses grow!”

I hit the ground and shut my eyes. I could feel the burning embers all over me. I could no longer breathe.

This was it. This was as far as I got. I had nothing left to give. The noises, the smells, the feelings— all of it was draining away.

I felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

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