So.... I was not able to resist the urge to write a prologue for a WIP of mine. Sorry, not sorry. Welp, nightwraith17 , here's a piece of the Alabama book.

Morgana walked through the woods. Cicadas screamed from the tangled branches, and her sweat-soaked shirt clung to her back. Earlier, the roar of moving vehicles and the cry of emergency sirens were adjacent to the path she had walked, but she was now far enough that only the song of the forest could be heard.

Her legs did not obey her mind.

Stop. Stop.

A fog settled over her thoughts-- the fog as thick as tar that made her head pound and the blood pulse in her ears. Despite their determination to keep moving, her legs groaned in pain.

She began to trudge off of the straight path she had walked for what had felt like several days, even as she stomped her heel into the clumpy, moist dirt. Morgana did not want to obey the pull. Troll magic always led you to the woods, even if you stood as stubbornly still as you could possibly manage.

Morgana held her hands out in front of her, fingers stretched out. She swiped them, only faint tendrils of light emitting from her fingertips. She swore as white-hot pain flashed in the back of her skull.

Her legs continued to carry her forward, even though it felt like they would crumble to dust in any moment. How long had she been walking?

She blinked through the murky darkness as pain pulsed behind her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to scream for help. Any dark Fae near her knew she was there already.

Now, in this part of the forest, the trees grew in tight clusters. Her body was still being pulled-- and the unstoppable urge to go forward had no clear path in mind for her. She hit low-hanging branches, some of which scraped and scratched her face. She had to keep her eyes shut tightly to protect them. A drop of blood rolled down her forehead and her eyeballs were going to bust.

How long had she been walking?

She seemed to have reached a clearing, because she no longer ran into trees and thorny, brambly branches. Morgana dared to open her eyes.

There was a faint glimmer through the darkness, like tiny stars flickering until they faded out, never to be seen again.

A twig snapped.

The spark of light abounded, its blue hue glinting off the trees in tiny specks. It lowered towards the ground as the face of a young man appeared above it. The light underneath him extinguished as Morgana stopped in her tracks and crumpled down on her knees.

"You've walked for so long, Morgana," he said in a rasping whisper.

Her nostrils flared as she scrambled back on to her feet. Her legs wobbled but she dug her heels into the ground to support herself.

"I've seen you before-- with my daughter. I know what's been going on," she hissed.

The man let out a laugh. Morgana winced as the sound pierced her ears like a pick striking through ice in the first swing.

"You truly don't," he said quietly, "She couldn't trust you."

There was a pause shared between them. Not of silence, which was made impossible with the chirping crickets and the cicadas that continued to scream above them. Morgana rolled her shoulders back. Between the fog and whatever forces that kept her from attacking him, she knew this would be it.

"I know what you're about to do. She wouldn't want this."

The man smirked through the darkness. "The mute cretin doesn't know."

Morgana let out a strangled snarl as she tried to lunge for him. Her fingers swiped through him, who was now a mere cloud of the fading remnants of the light from his powerful illusion. She whirled around as harsh curses rolled from her tongue like boulders that had been shoved down a hill. Where had he gone? Where had he--

The air escaped her as she felt his hand grasp her shoulder and he pressed his fist up against her chest. No-- it wasn't his fist.

Morgana let out a croak as he pulled away and she fell to her knees once again.

Blood began to soak the front of her shirt as pain shot through her chest. The man held the slender dagger out in front of her, the dark blood dripping off of the white blade.
She stared up at him with wide eyes as she gasped for breath, pressing her hands against the wound.

"You have been so, so brave," he said softly, "I can see why she cares about you so much. I almost feel the same." The man's eyes caught a glint of the growing moonlight as he slipped his dagger into its sheath.

"It's been a pleasure."