I.

The hyleoroi wizard treaded the forest path in silence. A few rabbits and beavers crossed her path in joyful bliss as she went, but she ignored them. Up high, the tree songs recounted "the Watcher's" return, but she ignored them and burned with frustration.

Artetris had been starring out her old, half-refurbished, Wizard City apartment's busted window when it happened, when the human woman, Betty, first appeared through its hole and requested magical instruction. She remembered how Betty swooped right in on a flying rug, much to Artetris' astonishment and displeasure at the sudden intrusion, and though she had yelled and screamed at Betty to leave or suffer the wrath of her mystic arrows and bow, the woman did not budge. Unperturbed and unwilling to just quit the hunt of whatever it was she pursued, the human woman stayed and faced her. Betty, in response to her arrows, merely threw her hands up in surrender and submission while asking to be heard, and out of respect for the woman's nerves, Artetris had listened. That was how her return adventure to the forest and her duties as its Watcher first started.

"Hey, hey," the woman said to her at arrow point with her hands raised high in surrender, her pretty red hair fluttering behind her. "I'm not here for any trouble. Huntress Wizard, right? I'm Betty, Betty Groff. I just came to ask for your help in learning things about magic I don't get. I heard that you were a master of natural, earthy magics. I…really would like to learn more."

Huntress Wizard Artetris recalled thinking. That was the title and name that the Land of Ooo had bequeathed her, for she was a Huntress and a Wizard both professionally and by blood. She was Artetris Huntress Wizard, daughter of Hylea Huntress and Manevus Wizard. She was eighteen years old and a mistress of forest magics and trees. She hailed from a forest home on a peaceful cliff where the water always flowed over the edge in tranquility…

The title, thus, always filled her heart and mind with a heavy mixture of sadness and pride no one but herself could know. How could they? How could anyone know Huntress Wizard when she went so far out her way to protect the soft things residing deep within her spirit? She had to be certain that those emotions did not bring her end after all. She had to be certain…

Artetris recalled scrutinizing Betty closely. She had found her familiar…eerily familiar almost as if her spirit sensed some deep-rooted omen about Betty that she should not ignore. It quickly hit Artetris why upon recalling the Anti-Magi Bella Noche's attack upon their magic city. This woman, Betty, had ridden in with an old and human Ice King, who had practically been knocking at Death's door; she was the one who had gone in and delivered the blow needed to knock the anti-mage out—though not before she, Artetris Huntress Wizard, had felt her forest wilds' call and her nymph spirit answering.

While the city had long since recovered from that battle just fine, she did not, not after that instance of losing her father's wizard heritage and feeling the woods' call. After that, the forest wilds' call became a persistent illness in her that not even wizardry's mad and sad tolls could numb or cure as they once had before. In many ways she held no actual desires for an herb that could do the job, for secretly she missed running outside the city and amongst the trees of the woods. That was why Betty's arrival both intrigued and frightened her deeply. It felt…right to her despite the caution and fear within her.

If she went back without caution after all, her dreams for herself and the woods were forfeit. She would lose the freedom she had worked so hard to claim from her cursed past. At least, at the time she had told herself that to remain in some control against the madness flowing within her to just leave the city and return home to her family's tree. She had to act carefully…

But in that city, was she truly free?

Artetris remembered returning her arrow to her quiver and standing upright to face her intruder with folded arms. Why had this woman, of all beings, come to her? And why now on the cusp of her will's breakdown? Had the forest sent this woman's spirit to her? If so, why?

"Alright," Artetris told the woman. "What is it you wish to acquire in knowledge from me? To cast spells is not for the brilliant or the wise. Only cursed souls pursue it, for they lose nothing they have not lost already. Concerning forest spells, they are more…heritage based than the typical hub drub tricks of the city. I cast magic from the head and the blood. It's not something non-forest wizards can just do."

"I'm…not looking to cast actually," the woman, Betty, had said, dropping her arms and stepping down from the carpet into the apartment. She marched forward with her hand outstretched for a shake. Artetris reluctantly shook it back before refolding her arms in discomfort. "My name is Betty, as I said, and I'm a human brought here through space and time. I'm trying to understand more about magic so that I can help cure someone I have lost completely to the influences of a magical item. I am looking for guys and gals willing to let me observe their magic up close to just kind of get a sense and feel for how it works from person to person. Could I…simply get you to hang out with me in the forest and show me how your Huntress magic works?"

Artetris had huffed at the request and turned away to think on it. For how long would this human be observing her? Where? And how? And for who was it that she fought? Ice King? Surely not. Though…he had been a human once, hadn't he?

"It would just be for a day," the woman…Betty… spoke up as if in anticipation of such apprehension. Artetris shot her a stern look with a hum but otherwise remained silent. "We'll go out into the woods and, you know, do whatever's normal for you. I'm here to learn!"

Artetris pondered what the woman really hoped to do. Mana was not something ordinary beings could handle. Those who were turned by it often went mad with no chance at recovery, and yet this woman sought its "secrets" just the same. If one truly understood magic; however, he or she would know that there were no secrets to it, just pain and a great desire to change that chaos to peace. Magic was a slight of the hand, an illusion. The real power behind it was emotion, imagination, and understanding how the multiverse worked both physically and non-physically—traits most wizards in the city truly lacked as they favored the mysticism side of magic more than its practical uses, a practice she deplored greatly.

How many truly knew where their powers hailed from? How beings like globs and sleepers like Artemis and Darren factored into the things they could do? And for those that did know, how many had not succumbed to the madness that came from such an understanding?

But then, did Betty not already possess the first thread that would lead her down magic's dark path one way or another? Did she, the Huntress Wizard, really have the right to stop her?

Betty's resolve to move towards madness caused even her, the battle-hardened Huntress Wizard, to feel for the woman's plight—or had that just the forest in her calling?

In response to her visitor's persistence, Artetris finally relented with a sigh and gave in to her latent desires. Killing the woman would gain her nothing but more trouble. Plus, as a huntress, she could not ignore Betty's conviction. No amount of argument or rebuttal would move her from the path she had chosen. At the very least, she could protect her as best she could, by teaching her how to fight back the urges. What Betty did from there was on her.

More than any of that, however, Artetris had finally decided that running from her past no longer suited her style. Just as the woman, Betty, faced the darkness ahead, so, too, must she. Her time to face the forest and its trees had come.

"I will help you learn the skills you shall need on your endeavor," she finally told her. "After that, you shall be on your own. Just know that you tread a dark path rife with challenge and pain. You're lucky. I've been wanting to get out of the city for a while no to revisit the old roost. This presents me the perfect excuse to go for it. I'll meet you outside the city tomorrow at dawn. Don't dawdle, or I'll leave and go my way alone."

"Right!" the woman proclaimed in an almost mad excitement. Artetris remembered leering at her with concern. Betty, in response, only hushed and backed away from her and climbing back onto her carpet to leave.

Before going, she had repeated to herself coolly, "At dawn…"

After that, she waved and flew off for the town. "I'll see you tomorrow! Bye!"

Without so much as a "thanks" or a look back, the woman, Betty, left and met her at dawn the next day as planned. Their excursion came and went, and the woman vanished from her world as mysteriously as she had entered it. Even so, Betty's mark upon her remained, for that was how her inevitable return home had started. At the time, it had been a simple mission, a simple hunt; but looking back on it all—for once in her straightforward life—the forest had actually awakened something in her that she just could not escape.

A hunger… A madness… A desire…

A…thirst to hunt down Huntress Wizard and to know who she was now, to know how her elder-self compared to the child-self she had left behind those three long years before. That was what she felt inside and that she had to answer, least she ultimately suffer the very fruitless fate she truly feared. But the return had not gone as planned, not hardly. The trees had trapped her there, and she could not escape. How could she leave when she was their only salvation?