Then she came
She stripped him of power
She made a mockery of us
She claimed to be good
She claimed to be pure
She lied

~Song of the Woods

_________________________________

"Only cowards run from a fight."

It was the plan in itself that had been bothering Aldwin ever since it had come to him a few days ago when he found himself on the beach in the early hours of the morning before even his sister arrived at the sandy shore and the stars still glared down from the heavens. 

He had found the answer that morning, the answer to all of his problems, only he would never dare to speak it aloud, even to his sister, whom he trusted more than anyone else in this world, for she would surely object to this foolish and desperate plan he had formulated over the past few days.

Perhaps Aldwin had never figured it would have come to this, as he stood before the dark and menacing woods, fear coursing through his veins, flooding through his body as he stared up at the tall dark pines. Yet now it seemed like there was no other option. 

No matter what his sister had said, Aldwin knew in the darkest corners of his soul if he went into battle, then there would be no coming back. He would die as soon as he got onto the battlefield, just like all the others that would be fighting alongside him and there was something in him that just wasn't ready to die. So that left him with this one option.

It wasn't unheard of for boys to run so they wouldn't have to be shipped off to the frontlines and their almost certain demise, but they had always thought too small and had always been caught. Those boys had been forced to fight anyways, going on particularly dangerous missions until they faced what they had run from the first time, and death claimed them. 

Only Aldwin knew the one place they would never look for him, for the horrors that lay within its trees. The Wild Woods. The land of the Mutare. 

Now it was to be his only salvation.

Aldwin's mouth was drier than it had ever been before in his life as he looked up at the towering pines his hands trembling in fear. No Lekki could survive the Wild Woods, that much was known, as not even those fighting on the frontlines would go much deeper into the trees than what was necessary since the Mutare never came out. 

For some reason, the Mutare stopped leaving the Wild Woods almost seven years ago when the war took a turn for the worse for Amaryllis. It was still unclear what had happened, but the Mutare were different in those trees.

At first, they were thought to be mindless creatures, leaving the darkness of the Wild Woods only to search for Lekki blood, which they all craved. However, in the shadows of the Wild Woods, they became a whole new type of beast. Smarter, stronger, faster. 

The Mutare in the woods were no mindless beasts, but instead trained soldiers, with the strength of three Lekki men and feet that let them soar across the forest floor as fast as the wind. There were even rumors that some of them had even gotten their hands on the forbidden. 

Magic.

Magic had been outlawed in Amaryllis since the ancient times by the gods above because of how dangerous magic was in the hands of mortals. If a Lekki was found to be guilty of using magic, it was punishable by death. Magic was meant only for the gods, and not for the foolish hands of mortals. 

Only Aldwin couldn't help but wonder if they would have won the war by now if they did have magic on their side, like the Mutare. Perhaps the gods had only kept magic from Lekki hands in fear they'd one day use it against them. Like how the Mutare were now.

"So you're really going in there?" a voice asked behind Aldwin asked, causing the young Lekki boy to jump and whip his head around in shock. A Lekki girl stood there, about his age, one he knew by the name of Gwen. Her pink hair glowed in the sunlight and her pastel green eyes glowed like spring. 

She was beautiful, in the sense of the word, yet she looked like most of the others in the village. Pastel colors ran through the veins of the village, hair and eyes coming in all different shades. Light blue, pink, yellow, and green. The only theme that remained consistent was that everyone in the village had light hair and light eyes.

But with Aldwin's dark hair and his sister's dark eyes, it was clear the blood of outsiders ran through the sibling's veins.

"Yeah," he said, turning back to the trees, his lips pulled into a straight line, as he shifted uncomfortably in the presence of the girl beside him. Aldwin had never like others, especially those from his village. They were all foolish, the girls playing with their rag dolls made from scraps of cloth, dreaming of their princes and the boys playing with wooden swords, dreaming of being the hero that ends the war. 

Aldwin had never found in interest the childish dreams of those his age. Instead, he much preferred the company of his sister, who was too in love with the sunrise for her ever to take interest in a man or family.

"Why is it, that you don't want to fight?" Gwen asked, snapping Aldwin out of his thoughts, as she came to her own conclusion as to why Aldwin was at the edge of the Wild Woods. "It's very brave if you-"

"Stop," Aldwin snapped, glaring at the girl with his stormy blue eyes crashing against her spring green ones. "Just stop, and return home, Gwen," he said. "If I let myself believe, if only for a moment, that what I'm doing is brave then I might as well just be betraying my entire family," he stated, his voice not faltering as he spoke the dark and poisoned words. "So just return home, Gwen, this is none of your business."

"No," Gwen stated, a smirk making its way onto her lips as she walked closer to the boy she considered her friend, as she considered everyone in the village to be her friend. "If you're going into the Wild Woods then I'm going with you."

"The Wild Woods is no place for someone like you," Aldwin said, taking a step closer to the ominous dark pines that made up the Wild Woods. 

As he got closer he heard a soft melody being whispered through the trees, carried by the winds from a mouth hidden deep within the shadows of the trees, something that echoed in the back of Aldwin's mind, yet he couldn't quite place his finger on what it was or why it sounded so familiar. He then turned to face Gwen, who was looking back at him with a face of stone. 

"Return home Gwen, and live your life. Don't throw it away in someplace like this," Aldwin growled.

Gwen smiled a sad smile, shaking her head as she looked at the boy in front of her with light green eyes. "You really are a fool, aren't you?" Gwen whispered to herself before pushing past Aldwin into the dark pines and disappearing into their dark branches without even so much as flinching. 

She had wanted to do this for a while now, and she wasn't about to change her mind now. Aldwin stared at the place the pines had sucked her into their shadows for a heartbeat, before shaking his head, gritting his teeth, and summoning all of the courage he could muster, before following her into the dark pines.

After all, he wasn't going to be shown up by a girl.

A U T H O R ' S   N O T E

Oh Lord, you really should consider being shown up by that Gwen chick. I mean just because that bitch has a death wish doesn't mean you should have one too.

This is why I hate everything

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I really need a nap!