In Exchange for Magic

I burst into the bright sunshine and fell toward the ground, making a very personal acquaintance with the branches of a few unforgiving trees on the way. My arms and legs scratched raw, I finally landed on something solid and quite angular. My head snapped back and smacked the forest floor, and my hands scraped along the gritty ground. It took me a second to realize that I was in the same forest clearing that I'd been looking down on from the cupboard in the basement.

The colors seemed muted somehow, as if they'd been showing off for me while I was still safely anchored to earth. Everything seemed normal now, the glitter was gone. Even the cleverly built campsite seemed a bit worn-in.

Suddenly, the solid thing I'd landed on squirmed. My giant dress was suffocating it. I rolled away from it and picked myself up, shaking dirt and twigs from my hair.

"Ooh," the thing that I'd landed on groaned.

The thing... Was a boy.

"Excuse me?" I asked weakly, feeling quite sick.

It was the boy who I'd seen from the cupboard. The exact one. Same white-blonde hair, same dark eyes. He wore a leather-like vest over his tunic, with fastenings across the chest and a short, stiff collar. Upon closer inspection, I could see that he had pointed ears; the tips of which poked out from under his crop of dirty hair.

I fumbled about for words, half-staring at his ears, half-wondering if I was crazy. I slowly began to entertain the idea that this wasn't a dream. I have just crash landed into another world. I have just crash landed into another world and onto an elf.

"You've just... You've just..." the boy faltered, pointing first at me and then up at the sky.
"Yes, I think I have," I finished for him, sitting down heavily when I found that my knees were poised to give out. "Hold on - ouch! - No, I was right. Pinching still hurts. I was right." I paused poignantly. "Well, shit."

His eyes widened. He ran his hands through his hair in horror.

"No... No, no, no... This is bad..." he muttered, hanging his head and pacing. "This is very, very bad..."
"Who are you?" I asked numbly.
"This is very, very, very, horribly, dreadfully bad!" he cried, ignoring me completely.

"Where am I?" I demanded lightly, still dazed. "What are you doing?"

Please answer me! I added silently.

He had gone over to the table with the weapons laid out on them. Over his pants and under his tunic, he wore a leather utility belt. It was fashioned out of slits. In one slit, he sheathed the curved cutlass. In another, he slid in the rusted knife.

"What are you doing?" I asked again.
"Give me your arm," he answered.
"I'm actually trying to get some answers here, if you don't mind. This is all sort of - "
"Give me your arm. Now."

Dazed, I immediately held out my left hand to him. Taking the small, shining dagger from the table, he approached me. I eyed him nervously.

"What are you going to do with- hey!"

He'd pricked my forearm without warning. I tried to worm away from him, but he was holding on to my wrist with an enormous amount of strength. I could feel a bruise bloom under his fingers, which added to my confusion and discomfort. Blood trickled down my arm and onto my wrist. It pooled near his fingers and spread over his thumb.

"Red..." he muttered absentmindedly.
"Yes, my blood is red!" I cried. "Now, please! Tell me what's going on!"

I shook my arm violently, and the boy allowed it to slide from his grasp. He silenced me with a scathing look as he rubbed my vibrant blood between his thumb and first two fingers. His hand was trembling as he held it up to the sun. He shook his head.

"What?" I asked nervously. I clasped my right had to my arm, putting pressure on the cut. "What's wrong with me?"

"Your blood..." the strange boy murmured. "It doesn't sparkle in the sun..."

The boy, after a moments hesitation, licked his fingers clean. I raised an eyebrow.

"Which means that you don't have any magic," he thought out loud, licking a smudge of my blood from his upper lip. "Which means... you're human."
"This is it. This is what it feels like. I'm officially crazier than a circus tent," I admitted, breathless and on the verge of mad laughter. "Yes, I'm a human being. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord."

"Oh, be quiet."

The strange boy scowled and ripped a strip of linen from a shirt that was hanging from the clothesline. He tossed it to me, and nodded his head towards my bleeding arm.

"And cover that up."
I deftly caught the cloth and tied it neatly around my wound. "What a gentleman," I commented dryly, my head throbbing.

The boy hurried over towards the weapon table again and a different knife, this one looking like a butcher's. He hefted it in his hands.

"W-What's that?" I asked, growing quite nervous again.
He scrunched up his nose and replaced it on the table.
"What are you doing?"
Silence. He continued looking for another suitable weapon.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I cried, panic making my voice break.

He whorled around to face me. In his right hand, he held the battle axe.

"I'm going to scream. If you come one step closer to me with that - that thing, I swear I'm going to - "
"No time for screaming," he said, rushed. "We've got to go."

The boy shoved the staff of the battle axe into my hands.

"What do you expect me to do with this?" I asked in a voice that was much higher than my own.

He grabbed my wrist and began tugging me into the dense cover of the trees. I struggled against him and lashed out with my wounded arm. I was no match for him. He could easily overpower me and simply carry me wherever he wanted - but he was pressed for time and I was determined to make him work for my cooperation.

"Let go!" I demanded, aiming a kick at his calves. My foot connected with his right leg and he let out a roar of frustration as his step faltered dramatically.

"Are you ever silent?"
"No!"

The boy grew quite red in the face as he clenched his hands into fists. For a tense moment, he looked as if he were going to hit me. Instead, he decided to take his frustration out on the foliage around us. Tight-lipped and heated, he slammed his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree.

"Owwwwww..." proclaimed a voice coming from somewhere within the trunk.

He drew back, horrified.

"Dolores, is that you? I'm so sorry!" he whispered, patting the tree. "I didn't mean it, honest!"

A girl, who was about three feet tall and the color of bark, crawled out of the hollow trunk. Her hair was green, twisted in a matted pile on the top of her head. Her fingers had grown out to twice the normal length, and her teeth were few and pointy.

She clicked her tongue sharply at the boy and hissed.
"Dolores!" he protested, making a move as if to comfort her. She bared the claws on the ends of her fingers.

"You named a tree?"
"Hush."
"You named a tree Dolores?"
"Tree-nymph," he corrected. "Now hush! You've made her angry."
"I'm not the one who punched her house!"

He narrowed his eyes. Dolores the tree-nmph was busy patting the trunk of the tree, checking for damage. The boy turned away from me.

"I'm sorry Dolores... Forgive me?"
She took a half-hearted swipe at him, and he reeled back.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," spat Dolores. "Stupid Sully! Stupid Sully hurt tree!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Sorry, sorry! Stupid Sully sorry!" she hissed, then clicked a bit more. Her tattered dress, which seemed to be made out of leaves, whisked out of view inside the trunk.

"Great!" the boy shouted, throwing his hands into the air. "Look what you've done!"
"I'd like to point out, once again, that I'm not the one who punched her house!"

He gave me one last, scathing look, and then turned and strode deeper into the forest.

"I don't understand!" I cried out to his back. "I've only read about nymphs in mythology and books."

He paused and, without turning to face me, he called, "We're not in a story book. Are you coming or not?"

He continued on.

"Wait!" I cried, my voice breaking into a genuine plea. "Please."

He stopped and turned, his head inclined toward the ground.

"What is this place?" I asked, my voice still soft and oddly scared-sounding.
"Attannia," he answered. "Now let's go. We haven't got time for tears."

He continued on, faster than before.

"Hey!" I yelled as I jogged to catch up with him. "I wasn't crying!"