X Marks the Faerie

I don't know why he acts the way he does, but surely he knows that his behavior just irks me. Trying to act like a faerie, playing around with the flowers, and speaking when told not to speak. He never listens to a word I say and quite frankly I could care less if he got lost in my realm.

I broke out of my thought bubble and stopped to look at the fork in the path. It has truly been a long time since I have been home and everything looked slightly different. "I don't remember there being a fork here." I whispered mainly to myself, but Gaylen heard and had to put in his two cents.

"Well, you've been gone a long time. Maybe you forgot some things." He said rather loudly. I shushed him and sighed. There was no helping this situation. I took a few minutes to look at both paths and decided to go to the left. "Are you sure this is the right path?" He said again, louder than before. I stopped and turned around to face him. "Do you not understand the word 'silence'? I am not going to ask you again to keep your mouth closed." I said with some venom in my voice.

My voice made me shiver. I normally wouldn't act like this but I was not going to die because of his loud mouth. He kind of shrunk at my words, which instantly made me feel a little guilty but I wasn't going to let on that I was.

He looked up and a perplexed look came across his face. "Where'd that come from?" He asked. I looked in the direction of his gaze. A small stone cottage with a white picket fence stood alongside the path. Indeed it was clearly not there a moment ago. "This path holds many mysteries and old faerie magic, even the faerie elders can not explain what it derives. Be it evil or be it good, it's a gamble." I said. I was feeling slightly woozy. Perhaps from the magic of the appearance. Either way, I was feeling drawn to the place. "Lets go in." I said eagerly.

"But I thought that it's a gamble, wouldn't it be a better idea not...." Gaylen started to state logically, but I cut him off. "NO! We must go in, it would anger the spirits if we passed it up." I lied without realizing it. I shifted my gaze back to the stone cottage and looked back at Gaylen. He shook his head. "I'm going with you because I really have no idea what's going on." He mumbled and I just about lept for joy.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the cottage. As I got closer I could feel the magic fill me more. It was a wonderful feeling, and I wondered if Gaylen felt anything.

I looked at him to see his expression, but he seemed to be just looking around. "Gaylen, do you feel that?" He looked at me and shook his head. "Not a thing. Why?" I just smiled. "For a minute I thought you might be able to feel the magic around, but I suppose not." I said and walked on closer to the cottage. I could tell that he was wary of the structure, but he kept following me. I got up to the door and looked around. I felt happy, and light. Almost giddy too. I giggled and opened the door.

Then something sharp stabbed me in the eye. I was so shocked, I couldn't even let out a scream. I threw my hand up to feel my eye. I expected to feel something warm and oozing from my eye. Yet, I felt nothing. I looked at my hand. Absolutely nothing was on it.

"Are you ok?" Gaylen asked concerned.

"There's nothing wrong with my eye?" I shakily asked.

"No....unless having beautiful eyes is wrong." He smiled.

I blushed, almost forgetting the strangeness of what just happened. I'm not sure what that was but I wasn't going to let that discourage me. I looked around. It was a fairly simple dwelling, nothing interesting stood out until my eyes landed on a single crystal glass full of a sparkling red liquid. It sat atop a simple wooden table. I walked towards it, pushing an old falling apart chair out of the way. I picked the glass up and held it in front of my face. The glow of the liquid excited my eyes.

"You're not going to drink that are you?" Gaylen asked.

"No..." I said disheartedly.

I started to put it back down but paused for a second. Looking at it a second time, I brought it back up and drank vigorously of it.

"What are you doing??!?" Gaylen cried out.

At that moment, Gaylen was almost seemingly thrown through the window to the outside. "GAYLEN!!" I gasped out into a scream. I took a step towards the door, but fell. The whole cottage shook violently and the place crumbled in on me literally in seconds. "I think I've made a huge mistake." I almost cried. Then the floor gave out from underneath me, and I was falling.

The rubble of the cottage didn't seem to come with me though, it all had vanished. I was falling all by myself. Almost seemed like I had fallen trap to a bottomless pit. I still braced myself for the landing though. As I fell, I felt like everything was floating away from me and that I was going to pass out. Trying to fight to stay awake while falling, I never imagined this would happen to a princess.

My last thought before blackness overtook me was actually about Gaylen. That I hoped he was okay, and that if I lived through this I would have his lips upon mine. I smiled as I went unconscious.