With cruel laughter hounding his steps and bathed under the dappled light, Fir raced through the humid forest, heart beating madly in his chest while his lungs burned for air and in places where there had once been armor covering his limbs, bruises were busy forming to join those already covering other places.

A fool.

He’d been a fool to come here all alone.

Make a name for himself?

He almost laughed, and under different circumstances given what he now knew, he might well have.

Instead, he didn’t so much as chortle, merely breathing a tad harder for a moment as he pumped protesting limbs for all their worth, leaping over roots, hissing as branches smacked into him and deceptively sweet looking flowers and innocent shrubs kissed him, their thorns biting deep, but he didn’t stop, he didn’t dare stop.

Not even when his tattered cloak caught onto a branch, almost choking him and with wheezing sounds he ripped it free instead of daring to risk even a moment’s pause to tug it free instead of leaving it behind. Opting to continue running instead for all that his lungs burned and his limbs felt like rods of lead lashed to and dragging large rocks.

It would seem that his parents had been right after all.

His father had taken one look at him way back when, when Fir had just entered the awkward years separating a child from a man, and the old warrior, with his usual bluntness, had shaken his head and declared he would never be a warrior like either his old man or his mom. Apparently Fir had neither the build nor the instincts for it if the man could be believed, and he should have believed.

“Where are you little pet?” a cruel melodic voice said with a sing-song from somewhere far behind him and, by the sounds of it, looking for him in the wrong direction.

“Come out, come out we want to play~” this one on the other hand…

Cursing softly and with labored breath, he reached with trembling fingers into his pouch, his mostly empty pouch, and retrieved a small dull disk, the last one.

Letting it drop behind him, he continued running through the narrow path, if it could be called that, and soon after was rewarded with a small pulse of magic making his ears pop while from behind him a pained furious shriek rang but for all the fury in his pursuer’s androgynous tone, he couldn’t help but smile and breath a sigh of relief even though he didn’t dare stop.

For one, while the woman? It had looked like a woman but one could never tell with the Fae. Still, while the woman was unlikely to keep chasing him courtesy of the iron shavings digging into her flesh, right away at least. It wasn’t like she was the only one chasing him or calling this place home.

These woods like the wider Fae empire beyond, were to the one alien to him, unknown, unlike the more sensible and mundane branch and tree back home, and he’d stepped right into them due to his folly and pride.

He should’ve listened to his parents after all and realized that while his mom, a woman whose beauty was only matched by her kindness and skill in combat. Clearly the Viril beauty had merely tried to let him down more gently than his father had when, back when, catching his father’s words, the bunny woman had merely smiled and said that Fir might yet ‘grow into one’.

He clearly very much hadn’t.

Grown into a warrior that is. Despite trying and trying throughout his adolescence and the first few years after his majority.

For all his efforts he’d barely managed to become a scout, tolerated as one more than like by the rest of the Viril and the steady stream of volunteers that joined the forces of the bunnies to help ensure the Fae stayed out of the lands of decent folk.

And now, in his folly he’d…

Pushing such thoughts and regrets away for now wasn’t the time, he instead tried to head towards the direction of the border again, or at least, the direction his senses and memory said the border should be.

But those woods, jungle really, were alien, Fae.

And for all that for the next couple of minutes no new pursuers made themselves known, much to his relief, that didn’t mean that no new ‘friends’ had arrived seeking to play with him. For it could very well be the case that new hunters were on his tail, only these ones had skill enough to remain undetected, skill that exceeded his own to notice them. Nor did the lack of pursuers mean that he was heading in the right direction as he realized with growing distress when he knew after a few minutes moreso due to the deep ingrained instincts of one who’d been raised amongst the trees and could thus judge his relative position and how long a trek should take him.

Fir knew that he should’ve spotted some familiar landmarks by now. Ones he’d kept in his mind when coming into these cursed woods in the first place.

But he didn’t.

Instead, everything about this place, for all that to an outsider one tree would look the same as any other, this looked…

New.

And in this case, new was very much bad.

Swallowing, gulping, he paused and instead of continuing the way his memories insisted was the correct way he opted instead to trust his instincts and pivoting about started dashing the way he came, if while trying for an angle so as to avoid stumbling into the furious woman who, for all he knew due to how weird the Fae were, she might very well still be where she received his ‘gift’.

But of his old pursuer he caught neither sight nor hair off, instead, more new sights and green vistas greeted him and, exhaustion finally catching up to him he started to slow and, as he did, took sight once more of the resources that were left to him and the answer to his query was a distressing one.

For his pouch lay empty of any of the tools he’d been forced to make liberal use of.

And he’d thought he’d over-prepared if anything.

Letting out a snort that was almost a sob, he shook his head and marched on with a tired pace.

Food and water he still had enough.

Enough for a few days at least, and, under different woods he could’ve hunted for more and he could risk the same in this place if it came down to it he supposed.

If nobody caught him that is.

But under the circumstances, more important in the immediate than even food was…

He swallowed.

Of all his weapons only the short blade sheathed against the side of his girdle remained.

It would have to do.

To his great relief, the path ahead seemed to be clearing and opening up which gave him cause to dare smiled.

He’d done it, it would seem, he’d found a way through those blasted woods and while his parents and friends would no doubt be furious. Now that he knew better he’d accept whatever punishment they had in mind and in time they’d all laugh together⁠—

The relief vanished from his body and heart with the same quickness it had come, for as he stepped into a clearing, a soft melodious voice caressed his ears and soul and the realization hit him like a tumbling boulder.

He was still in the wrong side of the border.

“Oh? What’s this?” the melodic voice said, and its tall blonde owner blinked as she stopped her singing and turning towards him, smiled.

She had a pretty smile, one that it felt like, was all but asking, begging, to whisk his worries and mind away if he but let it.

“Who is it that steps into my Garden,” the tall beauty asked with a slight tilt of her head, slowly closing the distance on long, curvaceous pale shapely legs and bare feet. “A guest?” the beauty asked and Fir, despite the harrowing chase and even more harrowing time before, found that his worries seemed distant, his troubles almost silly as he stood there, enthralled by the tall legged beauty with the massive breasts who approached clad in but a thin skirt and crop-top made of leaves and whose blue eyes, nestled between bangs and under long blonde locks gathered in a bun all but mesmerized him and seduced his soul.