A leaf falls on his face, that's the first memory he has. Which doesn't set right with him so he tries to remember something else.
The forest is quiet of human noises. Only birds and animals and the wind rustling in the branches are around him.
No wait
His hand finds a worn leather pouch, when he sits up a powder falls from him. He rubs the fabric of the patch and has flashes of a memory. A pulled string and a yelp. It was his own yelp of course.
What does he know?
Well he's in a forest.
Alone.
Alright he can handle that for right now. What else?
He feels fine. The mummer of voices in the back of his head clicks into place and he remembers he's not human. Well that would have been a awkward conversation to have with someone later...
Someone who.
He knows there's someone out there.
He looks around, there are many someones but they are all, faceless and nameless right now.
He waits to see if things will click into place.
Something large shifts out of his view, it was blurry and unfocused on and was just...watching him.
He remains calm, just because it was big doesn't mean it was going to attack, he waited. He follows it, now able to pick it out of the shadows.
It leaves. So he doesn't pay it much more thought. It did not seem threatening and didn't make him worry.
Now that he's sitting up and looking he can see lots of things, that he has warm feelings for, these don't spark any concern in him.
Tiny little people, that glow and float.
Some of the tiny, floating, glowing people move closer to him, he leans away just to be safe. These creatures could move fast.
Little things. He reaches out tentatively to the nearest one. It...no...he lets the finger get closer and be touched.
So tiny. They float around him. He finds them harmless, for now, so doesn't worry about them. He looks at his own clothing, he was dressed for a walk in the woods. He checks his pockets and finds berries and leaves. He feels a sense of accomplishment for having them.
The only thing else he can find is the empty pouch. He can't imagine he'd walk out into the woods without a bag or-
There is a voice.
It's echoing. He's getting the tail end of the voice.
It goes quiet for a while.
He could get up and walk around, but the problem with that idea is that he simply can't remember where he is. He figures it matters to him where he ends up so he shouldn't just wander around.
"What do you think?"
He looks to the tiny people.
"Wait"
He's surprised one of them says something back. He wonder for a moment if he's going insane.
But it felt natural. His fear was a conscious reaction on a lower level he felt...comforted to hear the tiny voice.
So he waited.
The trees were thick over head but there was a passing of time, the light would shift. He stopped looking up because time didn't mean too much.
He talked to the tiny people. This felt normal...comfortable.
It eased the passage of time.
He was torn out of his conversations by that voice.
It was around him. Sounded like it was closer to him at some points but further away at others.
He decided the sixth time he heard it, that it was a female voice.
From somewhere in the forest there was a scream. The birds were upsetted and he looked in the direction, it was behind were he sat, and he waited to see what would happen. What had caused that scream?
When he was about to turn back forward, that's when he noticed the shaking trees. Something was coming his way.
And fast.
The tiny people floated a bit away.
There was a growl and they...calmed down?
That growl was from something large and it was still coming.
He surprised himself by not screaming when it finally got to him.
A hulking creature, all shades of earth. Long wild hair covered in debris, large lower fangs protruding upward.
The large thing drops a large bundle of pink flowers.
No...
Not flowers.
A woman.
He thinks it's a woman. She's small, so he supposes she could be a child, but he's inclined, for whatever reason to think it's a woman. But her dress was so many different shades of pink she had seemed to be made of flowers. The forest must be getting to him.
Perhaps she was a strange, other creature like the tiny people and the tall beast.
But the cut of her clothing was more like his own, color aside. The other creatures dressed differently, her dress was more tailored. No, not one of them then who?
A flashlight hits the ground next to her.
He looks up at the trees for the first time in a while and it's dark outside of the small area where the little people are. They kept a glow, he hadn't even noticed.
She had been out in the forest? With a flashlight?
"Urrgg that hurt!"
The beast makes an apologetic sound and...no his eyes were deceiving him, the create looked bashful. The girl was sitting up and grimacing.
She's be fine or she would be making more a issue of it, something told him this.
"AHHHH" And she's on him.
She sounded excited and his arms instinctively wrap around her. Of all the things he's done from a memory he can't recall, this was the one that filled his heart up the most.
"You're alright, oh thank you thank you" she keeps saying thank you in different languages, he understands but he doesn't know why she's so grateful.
She holds his face in her hands and he sees she's got tears in her eyes. Deep eyes, a color he'd know anywhere and then slowly like the grains of sand he comes back to him. She lets her hands surround him again and hides her face in his chest, crying quietly.
"I'm fine, oh... I'm fine." He rubs her back. He must have been gone hours without word.
They had discussed over breakfast how he needed to go into the woods behind the house to find some things to restock on and he'd be back before lunch.
He had grabbed the small back pack from the side of the door, it had been a while since he had used it. The old pouch with the- Amnesia powder...He looks over at the discarded old pouch. Was inside the back pack and he moved it out to pack up his small supplies he needed. He had been searching for the right leaves and fruit, they were hard to find but he had help from the other folk. He had set his back pack against a tree, playing with the pouch, it had been knotted tightly and at the time he couldn't remember what was in it. He had gotten distracted when he spotted a rabbit in the under brush and followed it a ways, a certain plant liked to grow around rabbit homes. But the rabbit had gotten away and he got mad and he realized the pouch was still in his hand. He slowly turned to return to where he had put his pack and tugged on the string. When it got loose he had slipped on a leaf.
He had gotten hit by his own powder.
She wasn't wearing a coat, he noticed. She only had the flashlight. She was sniffing back whatever threatened to leak from her nose. Leaves and some dirt, he can see know, are stuck to her dress.
"Did you come to find me, Eva?"
"I...went looking when you didn't show up for lunch. I went back and waited but then...it got darker out and I needed the..." she glances over at the flashlight. She didn't know his forests, but she would have had to have been very distressed if she hadn't even gotten a jacket when she had the chance. She was used to mountains and knew how temperatures could change and she had more common sense than to walk out without anything like this. True it was unlikely she'd die from exposure but she knew better.
The troll that had been standing back shifted forward and actually began to play with the tiny other folk. He finds the thought of not recognizing his long time friend, like he because of the powder, was utterly hilarious. He had a tiny smile on his face.
"But you're alright...alright.." She touches his face again. "here." she whispers this last part when she hugs him again.
"Yes, here. What did you think I would be?" His voice is slightly amused but curious. Such a serious tone of voice. He was missing something here. She knew they wouldn't die out here, in his youth he has spent winters surviving out here, surly she knew that much?
She sniffles again. "I thought-...no...it's silly."
"Regardless, tell me your silly thought." She sighs, knowing that he wouldn't let this go. She doesn't want to look at him and she mutters into his chest. But she realized he wouldn't hear it and looks up.
"I thought they took you from me."
She cannot see the other folk. She is often confused when he talks to them or about them. Troll is the only one that she can see, the first meeting was a mixed affair. He had always assumed her sad look was because she could not see them. That she, always wanting to be properly introduced to the important people around her and feeling like the other folk were important to him, was sad about this.
He hadn't thought she would worry they would take him. She doesn't know their nature and the way they interact with him. Up until this moment he had been slowly introducing her to the stories.
"oh...oh you..." she hides her face again. "Silly, silly thing." He places kiss on the top of her head. "I'm not going anywhere, they would have to drag me away. There would be a very awful fight about it."
"Awful?"
"The ground itself would tremble, many would know. I would not be forced to go anywhere and I have no plans to leave."
She rubs a hand under her nose before she looks at him.
"R-Really?"
"Really, truly, absolutely...scouts honor."
She laughs at that. She gets his jokes, when he has them.
"I-It's getting late..."
and cold. The sounds of the animals, switch slowly over. Day light creatures are going to bed and night light creatures are awakening. Outside the other folk glow, night has fallen over the land.
They stand up and Liechtenstein checks the flashlight, the battery is dying but it gets them to his backpack. She hugs close to him, under his jacket for warmth. After the light dies out they walk by fairy light, home.