The leaves rattled against each other, slapping each other like children and falling to the ground. The breeze working them up grab my own hair into it. The red and blonde strands slapped at my face, making me scrunch up my nose. Frustrated, I braided the two tones back from my face making a it look like blood had been streaked through it. It had been another unexpected side effect. The top half of my hair grew a brilliant crimson while the bottom was blonde. I twisted it up on top of my head, snapping a stick off a tree to put through it.

"You shouldn't do that." Pitri muttered, picking his way through the forest delicately.

I looked at him with a frown. "It was just a stick."

"The tree dryads don't like when you break things on purpose like that. We are already risking the Leshy by being in here, we don't want every Other against us."

"Let the come, I shall kill them all!" I unsheathed my swords, swinging them to cut through the vegetation. It fell and splayed across the ground just like the manticore.

"Alice don't." He hissed, grabbing my hand to stay it. "Nor should you say things like that. The dryad are different from most Others, as long as you don't cause trouble in their forest, they'll leave you alone and have even been storied to help travelers."

I snorted. "All Others are sneaky, self-righteous, power hungry, killing, horrible...things. They are hunting down humans to extinction and stole the world for themselves."

I started stomping through the forest, swinging my hooks around with the flow of my stride. The presence left my side and I stopped to see Pitri, unmoving. "You mean like humans were before they got knocked from their self-built pedestal."

"It's not the same and you know it."

"Oh really? Humans caused the world to go into the 6th Major Extinction event, burned fossil fuels that put all the CO2 into the atmosphere causing global warming, destroyed habitats because they could and to build their precious buildings, hell they even created massive nuclear weapons to kill each other, and that's just the short list!"

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" I shrieked, I leap racing towards him wrapping the hook around his neck. "Humans were unrightfully punished by the Others and I'm going to bring justice to them for it." I pulled away, turning. "I'm going to save them and the only reason I didn't kill you too is because you are half human."

I stormed off, crunching leaves and sticks beneath my bare feet. I needed to find shoes at some point, maybe some nice leather boots. A frustrated ah sounded from behind me.

"You don't get it. You're such a hypocrite. You're acting just like the Others, acting like you have some divine right to be the judge and executioner. Yes the Others were wrong for slaughtering humans, but it doesn't mean you should go slaughter them for it." He was getting real worked up on his soap box, ranting away at my back. "It's just not that simple. The humans were never the sole victims in all this and it's not like they didn't have something coming for what they had done. If the Others hadn't stepped in the world would have died and humans with it."

I walked ahead, ignoring his venting. Maybe I was wrong about him. It seemed he sided with the Others. I would go find humans, real humans and save them. The scientists had taught me all about the Others invasion and the history of the Earth. I didn't need some halfling to tell me what happened. I knew what happened.

Homo sapiens sapiens, the evolutionary superior species were the only capable of populating the entire globe. A subspecies of the original Homo spaiens, they were bipedal and stood out for their ability to use tools and problem solve. It was nature selection that they survived and other species died. Climate change wasn't their fault, the Earth naturally went through rises and falls in climate. I knew because I had been made to memorize the global timeline. Plus CO2, along with the other Greenhouse Gases responsible for global warming, were increased by multiple things, both natural and human. Climate change was just an unfortunate event, not humans fault. It couldn't be. Otherwise, I wouldn't be saving them if they had caused it all.

Climate change had been called a global threat. The event that had pushed Earth to mere seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, a metaphorical clock on the countdown to global catastrophe. However, it hadn't been always accepted. Many people had disagreed with the scientists that had proved it was occurring or were ignorant of the facts. The world was far too happy with the way things were and didn't want to believe that there was a looming threat hanging over them. By the time the world did something real about it, and not just little tries at patching, it was far too late.

"Alice!" A voice drifted into my thoughts of facts, analyzing what I knew to be true. The facts that had to be true. "Alice!" It shouted again, allowing me to identify it as Pitri.

"What?" A tree swatted at my head.

I went flying back, cracking into a large aspen. The roots emerged from the ground, snakes hunting, to wrap around my ankles and up my calves. I shouted and tried to cut them off, but blood was seeping out of the back of my head from the impact and I had lost a sword. Mid-chop, my sword hand was caught and trapped by a vine. I began shrieking, using the rage to reach in to find the Others within me. Strength flowed through me, allowing me to rip my arm free. An red friction burn on it like a tattoo.

"Please! This has all been a misunderstanding. She's sorry!" Pitri yelled into the woods before hissing. "Say your sorry."

"No! They attacked me first! I'll not apologize to a bunch of stupid plants nor their even stupider Other puppet masters."

Pitri face palmed.

"Help me!" I shouted, struggling to get free from the vegetative tendrils.

Each time I sliced through one another appeared. I need my other sword.

An eerie silence fell over the forest. I froze, my instincts basically hitting me over the head with warning. My ears twitched and eyes whirled, the Other's hyper-senses kicking in. Elegant men and women floated through the trees towards us. Their skins were various shades of greens and browns, with bark, leaves, and branches integrated with their very being. They were like living trees and far more beautiful than the pictures in the books I had studied. It took my breath away. I bet people would never call them monster.

"Hello halfling." A sweet voice drifted on the breeze from a woman with long green hair woven with cherry flowers. Black cherry flowers based on the black crackled bark that was in patches all over her skin.

Pitri bowed his head in respect, making me growl. How dare he bow to the Others. A man with branches twisting and turning to cover most of his face approached me. It looked like he was wearing a mask almost with the pattern the danced up and over his features to spikes a top his head. I made to swing my sword, but was surprised to find I had been fully entrapped from the waist down. I had stopped cutting when I saw them, stupid rookie mistake. Never trust the Others.

Canines slipped down, elongating from their already unnatural length compare to humans, to graze my lips. I rose my sword, pointing it straight out at chest height. I may not be able to move my legs, but I would still go down swing. The man didn't hesitate though at my blade, he came forward until he was just outside my reach. His muddy brown eyes meeting mine.

"So what do they call you little slayer?"

I hissed. "Why should I tell you?"

"Because you come traipsing into my forest like it is yours. You cut and kill things despite receiving a warning from your wiser friend, and all the while claiming you shall do the same to me and my people." He had been gesturing throughout, a clam sweeping movement with his hands that rippled through the forest. "I believe that gives me a right to know."

The earth rumbled in agreement with his words, a threatening reminder I was in their territory and not some training ground at home. A branch reached down and brushed the back of my blood matted hair before I could stop it.

"And then there's the color of your blood."