The Fey Forest
photo source: google images
The fairies led me down a paved road surrounded by tall, lanky trees covered in bright green leaves. The dark evergreen color of the branches lower to the ground bore a stark contrast to the yellow-green leaves up top whose faces opened towards the sun. White flowers huddled at the base of the bare trees and the tallest trees were carpeted in velvety green moss. I reached to stroke the petals of the white shell like flowers, but the fairy to the left placed his green and gold hued arm on my own to stop me. He spoke in his mother tongue, composed of soft consonants and many vowels; as though it was simply the wind whispering in my ear. Startled, I pulled away and the fairy that had found me placed a gentle burnt orange hand on my shoulder.
“Do not worry, sister. Elok Een means you no harm. Those flowers are poisonous, especially to our kind.”
I looked back at Elok Een and saw crinkles around the corners of his eyes as he gave me an amused smirk.
“How do I say thank you, Erabella?” I ask her while maintaining eye contact with Elok.
“Estapen as.”
“Estapen as,” I murmured, receiving a nod from him in return.
One of the fairies up front indicated our arrival to Erabella who smiled as she led me to the end of the corridor of trees. There stood a tall mound of gray stones smoothened completely as though they might have been eroded by water.
“We’re at a dead end, Erabella.” I look over to see her translate to the rest of the group and all let out a chuckle.
“Not quite, dear.”
She stepped forward with a few others and they spread their arms wide to the sky. Their hands moved gracefully, cutting through the air, energy emitting from their hands onto the stone, which had appeared to become aqueous. Elok turned back to watch my reaction as Erabella glided through the stone and disappeared. I must’ve looked ridiculous because Elok could not help but let out a snort as he extended his arm towards me to help lead me in.
It felt as though the heaviness of my steps from exhaustion and hunger had simply melted away and been left behind in the corridor of trees. The bright light was too much for my vision, but soon enough I found my footing on some cool damp earth. I opened my eyes to see the largest waterfall I had ever seen in my entire life crashing down to a large pool of water surrounded by land. Far out in the distance I saw an expansive body of water that I could only imagine was the ocean but how could that be possible if we were still in Virginia? Beaming at the scenery, I reached my arm out absently to steady myself on Elok to find that he was now dwarfing me even more than he did before in size. What was once a six foot semi-human form now was an eight foot tall fairy.