A/n: The prompt was sent to me by the tumblr's chat and in the form of a picture. What I can say though is that the original thought was made by two accounts. In the first comment one could read: Me, the living embodiment of a twelfth century maiden and willful heroine of a medieval ballad: "The words are a totally, valid, reasonable and safe place to meet new friends and men." And, on the reblog, the answer was: "Me, the living embodiment of the fairy queen to whom the woods belong, sick and tired of all these maidens traipsing about picking my roses and trampling on my moss: "Oh my fucking god."

Being the little shit I am I changed some of the premises in order to make Emma less of a maiden and more of a... I would say in DnD terms she would be closer to ranger(?) more or less at least xD

PS: Since we are on the topic I fully recommend Under the pendulum sun by Jeannette Ng because that's a book that captures perfectly well what the Fae are about. Plus, it is written in such a way that one can't stop reading it until you reach the shocking end…
On with the story! I'll see you at the comments section ;)

Arcadia

"Queen of the fae, she was once feared. Even now myths and stories are now whispered into the night, brought by the ashes of fires in which children gather around. Everyone knows her stories, but some don't think them as true. And then a princess goes into the woods, trying to find a place to stay, to hide. And as danger approaches from the shadows of leaves and branches creatures watch her, waiting for her majesty to come."

Emma knew the stories, had heard them since childhood, when she didn't have marriages to worry about or a kingdom to lead. She knew of creatures made of moss, brought alive by the same magic wizards and sorceress alike wielded in order for the royal family to be safe from those trying to kill them. She had liked the stories even, back when she had been that child, wide eyed and dreaming of far-away lands created in the edge of summer rays and pulsing hearts.

Those times, however, were long past. So, as such, as she left the stallion she had stolen in the middle of the afternoon, -once the stable boy had fallen asleep with a tincture purchased to a smarmy man in the darkest streets of the city, on the northeast barrier of the forest, she didn't think twice about those creatures of translucent wings and keen eyes. She merely saw the woods as temporary shelter, a place to stay as the first scouts started to, probably, search for her.

The afternoon sun was already hiding behind the first mountain range at her right and, by the time she reached the first true line of the woods, she was already smelling the mud that was beginning to stain her boots. Under the foliage, the warm temperatures that made her parents kingdom so famous weren't there and, even if she was already accustomed to haunt and live outside the walls of the castle -never had been the kind of staying inside- she shuddered, thinking all of a sudden if the blue doublet she wore was going to be enough. Or the small dagger she had been able to put between her clothes after exiting her bedroom chambers.

She could go back, a voice on her head whispered, but she didn't listen to it, touching instead one of the knot-filled side of one tree at her right, peering between it and the next one. Mottled with green, the soil around the tree was wet, however, and didn't provide enough comfort for her so she kept walking, leaving behind the path made by those who navigated through the woods with carts and goods between the kingdoms.

Hissing when her right foot slipped, she grumbled a curse between clenched teeth that didn't travel far within the thick leaves and ferns that covered that side of the forest. Their colors still bright enough to provide enough comfort as the light dimmed.

Unknown to her, however, ears heard the word, and worried eyes followed her movements as they separated themselves from the soil and wood she had just stepped in.

"The queen is not going to like this." They all whispered to each other, the buzzing of the words getting lost to the human that kept on traipsing through the woods that, once upon a time, had been given to them in a treaty so ancient for humans and mortals alike it could already be dust.

One of them, covered in verdigris, nodded sagely and disappeared, letting the others keep on looking at the princess, her blonde curls a lighthouse into the night that was already beginning to set.

Deep into the forest, in a place that even some could say that wasn't in the actual forest anymore, the trees thickened and grew in height until nothing but them could be seen. To humans, the place oozed a strange sense of discomfort. Although not many had seen such place.

The fairy that run from shadow to shadow, however, didn't have such qualms and so, she pretty quickly found herself in the middle of a few dozen of trees that, to non-magical creatures didn't seem any different than the others around her. For her, however, the wood was different, pulsing, and the dust that covered the large square-shaped leaves spoke of her from the few hundreds like her that did their best to keep the magic inside the bark of the trees contained. A slightly difficult as magic -like every other creature- didn't like to be told what to do.

Swallowing, she stepped inside the trees, her body merging with the trunks before she breathed inside of them.

The room that greeted her was, unlike the forest outside, illuminated with will-o-wisps trapped inside ash-made jails. Their tremulous light didn't make her shudder but the sudden transformation her body went through did; her stature growing from her usual one to the one she very rarely got to use. Wincing, she craned her neck as her wings folded around her body, iridescent colors covering her skin in the same way the verdigris was still staining her fingers and wrists, her eyes completely black as she blinked.

Once upon a time that spell managed to make her almost human, sans, perhaps, the ability to breath and eat human-made food. Now, however, that knowledge had been lost. With one exception.

"You know how I prefer to talk to you like this." A voice reached her as she closed and opened her hands, waiting for the tingling from the magic to fade.

"I'm sorry your majesty." She replied, her voice hoarse as her vocal chords trembled, not used to words been made like that.

On the far end of the almond-shaped room, a shadow manifested itself outside the walls. The shadow transforming in silhouette as brown eyes opened, red lips turning into a smirk as a head covered in brown-colored locks nodded.

"What brings you here?" The silhouette said, her lips barely moving but her voice reaching the fairy even stronger than before.

Taking a step forwards, the faery bowed, the now wrapped wings cracking with the movement, sensing the presence of magic that emanated from the Queen.

"There's been a breach." She murmured, raising her eyes just enough so she could she a barely there tremor on the back of the majesty's eyes. "A human girl is walking through the woods."

The words, albeit said at some point in the past, felt strange and alien as a flare on the will-o-wisps light seemed to punctuate her words. Returning to her apparent boredom, the Queen rose her brows as she took a step forward as well, purple light enveloping her as black sap climbed through her legs, creating a similar dress than the faery was already wearing albeit the small drops of sap that remained forever liquid and yet crystalized, made the faery gulp.

"Let her grow bored." The Queen said, her lips curving into a feline-like smile. "All humans do."

"She is leaving the mortal path behind." The faery pushed, knowing very well that she shouldn't but still willing to give the information.

The queen huffed at that, the sap falling now from her wrists towards her fingers as she rose her right hand, purple sparks falling out of her in almost drops. The faery felt the magic closing around her, squeezing her empty chest in a painful enough way that made her gasp even if she didn't have any lungs to speak off.

"There is a deal, a contract." The Queen snarled. "Don't interfere. She will go back to her world as soon as she realizes there is nothing for her here."

The faery knew it was her queue to leave, to go back to the trees and soil she so much adored, to the trickling magic of the forest. Enchanting but not as much as the one of the Queen. She, however, had been a godmother to human children once, many years ago when tales were still told about them, incantations and favors asked from them and, perhaps for that, she could remember something the presence of the Queen couldn't.

Or perhaps she had a death wish.

"Shouldn't we look for her? Under the moonlight the woods change in ways mortals can't handle." She wheezed and the power around her disappeared as she spoke up, the hands of the Queen falling back to her sides.

"That should be her concern, not ours." The words, albeit regal, hold a smidge of worry and the faery smiled to herself even if she could feel her entire body trembling like a leaf.

Unknown to them, however, many other eyes were already following the steps of the blonde mortal that, still walking deeper and deeper into the forest, was beginning to feel tired.

The trees surrounding Emma had changed; bark darker and damp under her fingertips, the moonlight a vague memory whenever she managed to look up, between the branches and leaves that fell upon her. Tiredness beginning to set as well as a rumbling stomach, the princess looked around her, at the whispering forest that seemed to come closer to her every time she took her eyes from the ferns that were now beginning to reach her midriff.

The sounds weren't different from, perhaps, others she had already heard when she followed around her parents' hunters, on those days she still had been able to do such a thing but something there -on the hoots and wailings, seemed to be darker, almost like a warning being murmured by mots that felt like dancing just an inch away from her. Blinking, she focused on a spot a few meters away, a strange gleaming bluish light beckoning her from the dark green grass and almost black mud.

Unheard by her, the creatures that had kept following her looked at each other, nervous.

"We should help her." One made from rotten bones of thousands of creatures signed in the air, its voice the sound of the wind getting caught on branches and glass.

"We can't." Another covered in insects whispered back from the ground, its eyes red and multiple. "The treaty…"

"The wild hunt will be out in less than a few mortal hours." The first one replied with a hiss. "They will devour her; they hadn't been able to taste a mortal since the treaty was done."

"Perhaps that's her price to pay." Answered a third creature, leaves and slowly withering flowers running through skin that seemed to almost be water. "No mortal should be outside their paths."

The second creature seemed about to answer when her eyes fell upon the human, her sclera turning white with fear as she saw where the woman was heading for.

"The seal." She said, pointing at the clearing no mortal should be able to see and yet where the woman's steps seemed to be heading, leaving behind the trees and rocks that had been scattered across the land by giants and dwarves centuries ago. "She is going to the seal."

"Impossible." The insectoid creature replied and on her voice moths and flies seemed to echo, sudden fear enveloping them all. "She couldn't…"

"We must warn Blue." The third one said. "She went to talk with the Queen."

"Neither of us could arrive to the castle before the mortal reaches the seal. Her fate is already written."

Meanwhile, Emma felt in a dream, the fog around her brain only seeming to grow as she walked towards the bluish light she had seen, steady but pulsing and creating a comforting warmth on her skin as she walked towards her. Mouth parched, she gulped and winced at the feeling on her throat, only to forget about it as, yes, the trees parted slightly letting her see a small clearing in which the light bounced, apparently source-less.

She could almost remember her wet nurse: Don't eat their food, don't go where they lie, don't enter their home. She, however, wasn't a toddler anymore and, perhaps for that, decided to walk towards the center of the clearing realizing, far too late, that the bluish glow seemed to follow her every movement in a fog that crawled her boots and legs until it licked her fingers with cold and a kind of power that felt like the one the sorceress had but ten, forty, a hundred times bigger.

"Free me."

The clearing was suddenly still as the voice echoed on her brain, her lungs beginning to ask for an oxygen she wasn't aware she was deprived from and, as she took a step backwards blindly, she could see her left hand fishing the dagger from her belt, its sharp blade glowing twice as she sliced open her other palm without her being able to stop her movement.

And then, as the light disappeared, engulfed in a vortex that seemed to come out of the very floor that didn't feel hard but soft and malleable under her boots, she could feel her body being liberated. Falling to her knees, she scrapped her hands as she let the dagger fall to the ground; rocks shifting as the vortex grew, lighting illuminating her face as she tried to find the opening of the clearing once again.

On the deepest part of the forest, a Queen and a faery rose their heads, the black sap covering the Queen's body seeming to tremble as one will-o-wisp died, its light dissolving into thin air as the cage it had been encapsulated until then fell into the room's floor.

"Call for my carriage." The Queen whispered with dark anger. "Treaty or not something has been changed on my forest."

"Yes, your majesty."

The forest floor was a welcoming sight to Emma's hands as she fell over it, twigs and branches biting into her flesh as she scrambled away from the clearing, heart beating fast on her throat and chest.

Magic, she thought, gaping and trying to gulp down as much air as possible, head reeling, wasn't supposed to be like this. Magic were tricks and grandiose words that truly didn't do anything until gemstone's dust were thrown above them.

Magic, she realized as she felt her knees wobble, was something very different from what she had learnt it to be. And while she reached that conclusion, the shadows around her only seeming to grow as thick, almost black, ink began to bleed and fall from the trees around her, the dim light turning even dimmer until nothing but grays and blacks surrounded her.

The taste of her own blood made her gag as she began to feel her own conscience beginning to slip, brain unable to catch up with what was happening around her. Shimmering shadows forming at the corners of her eyes, she tried to see them but, as soon as she tried to call for them they were gone. Earth trembling under her feet, she searched for the dagger, momentarily forgotten where she had dropped. There was nothing she could do, she realized, the sudden idea of her alone in the woods, completely devoid of any kind of help beginning to set as she tried to speak only to found that she was unable to.

Until a voice, rich and holding an accent that felt like the crackling of sparks and flames on a good fire, reached her as her vision cleared, the thundering sound dying as the shadows congealed and created a silhouette made out of smoke and fog.

"What are you doing here, human?"