six_word_stories | (no subject)

Riding the Hedge isn't for everyone, Dils, Angel warned her. Maybe it's just not your thing.

At the time, all of six hours ago, she'd railed against his assessment. Not her thing, huh? Stick to kitchen magic and meditation, huh?. Well! They'd see about that, wouldn't they?

She concocted the flying ointment with steady hands, though her internal thoughts were all awhirl. Angel wasn't wrong about her aptitudes - she had a greater affinity for practical solutions, for work grounded in the immediate needs of the here-and-now, of the body, of the home. Dillie appreciated common sense and had little energy or attention to spare for riddles or extended metaphors, even when it came to magic. The dreamy imagery of trancework did not appeal to her, nevermind setting foot in other realms. Common sense rarely applied outside of one's own plane.

Or maybe practice makes perfect, she thinks as she puts a sprig of mugwort in her shoe, anoints herself and sinks into a meditative state. Maybe I need to get out of my comfort zone.

There's a reason 'be careful what you wish for' is such an old, universal saying. The universe doesn't even give Dillie time to reflect on that before it wrenches the fabric of her reality out from under her, dropping her right through into the next. She freefalls, tumbles, her scream frozen by the press of cold air down her throat. All around her is rushing darkness, so solid it may as well be the inside of a well. Her outflung hands catch nothing but air. Nothing, nothing at all, until--

--thorns bite at her flesh, sharp points prickling her fingers and scratching her arms. They snag her sweater, her jeans, tangle up in the strap of her bag. Hanging by her clothes in the dark, she gasps for breath, too stunned to even register her scrapes and tears. The pain begins to register through just as Dillie notices a faint glow filtering around her, like moonlight through leaves.

She tugs one arm experimentally. The thorns pry loose from her flesh with a hiss-inducing sting, but they relinquish their grasp and she falls another six inches to some kind of deep, loamy ground. Slowly, arms up around her face to protect against further scratches, Dillie shoulders on through the thick bramble. Every now and again she has to stop and blindly work her hair free of the entangling thorns, but she makes her way towards the strengthening light.

The last branches give way. A rumpled, bloody, wild-haired hedgewitch half-stumbles onto a mossy forest floor. She pauses to blink in the starlight, face upturned to its strange clarity. Her scored hands rise, palm up, as if to cup its glow. For a moment she just stands and breathes, any worries about where she might be and how she plans to get back suspended in beams of silver light.

[The dog who has wandered into the forest is unlike any other creature. He's trapped within a robotic suit, clearly formed from man's twisted imagination. He's been used by the military to kill, to be a weapon, transformed into something he's not.

But beneath the exterior, he's still just an innocent animal, a dog who wants love, affection, and a home. His nose quivers as he smells the fae that is hiding nearby. He looks around, his voice robotic and dog-like at the same time.]

?Who there?