Charmkins fanfiction. Sad but true

This is set immediately after the Charmkins movie, with the Charmkins fleeing back to Charmworld and the Weeds all being swept downstream. Earlier in the cartoon, this river poured into a waterfall when Lady Slipper was in trouble, so I can only assume that the Weeds would have gone over too. Shortly after that is where this story takes place.

The pool of water, already churning from the waterfall emptying into it, was disturbed again when Dragonweed burst sputtering and spitting to the surface. Skunkweed was clinging to him and when the Bramble Boys surfaced, they tried to clamber up to Dragonweed's furry shoulders too. Thorny emerged a few feet away and spit an arc of river water out. They fought and shouted at each other all the way to the bank.

Dragonweed flung Skunkweed and the Brambles off with a strangled shout. They were quick to get out of his way. Thorny came out more slowly, limping a bit. Dragonweed was in such a state of outrage that he didn't seem to even notice how wet he was, stalking up and down the river bank while the others recovered.

"Where's Briar Patch?" Skunkweed asked, wringing out his coat tail. The poor Weed's smell had tripled when he had gotten wet, and the other Weeds staggered away from him with their eyes watering.

"Who knows?" Thorny smacked his head to drive water out of his pointed ears. "Maybe he got swept further down the river."

"He can find his way home," snarled Dragonweed, still too furious to care. He smacked Blue Bramble away from him and kicked Skunkweed further along the path. "Get moving, stickerheads!" The other Weeds scrambled to keep up and soon they had all headed back towards Thistledown. Only a pair of ice-blue eyes watched them go.

Curly-toed shoes danced lightly as a fairy through the rocks on the other side of the river, down past the main pool to where a much smaller falls emptied into a gentler cistern, shaded by willows. A ragged top hat slowly drifted in the shallows there. The silent watcher picked it up and underneath was a ragged head. She sneered to herself, then reached down to lift it up by the hair, only to drop it again with a hiss of pain. Tiny briar jabs left a line of blood drops down her hand.

She reached down into the water again, more carefully this time and lifted the head up. There was a body attached, but she only lifted the face. There was a mop of chestnut brown hair, pointed ears and nose in a round, almost gentle face. One of his lower canines jutted up against his upper lip, and a black patch covered his left eye.

"Briar Patch," she said, mockingly. Weeds weren't usually so clever with names. He didn't answer, being waterlogged, battered, and unconscious. She slid an arm around his shoulders and then jerked it away with another pained sound. His clothing seemed to be spun of nettles. Cursing under her breath, she set his hat on her own head and got a much more careful hold of him, then disappeared in a cloud of red dust and leaves.

Back at her hideaway, she got a better look. He was scrawny-looking and dressed in the remnants of formal wear. She wondered about that for a moment. Perhaps he had once been part of a well-to-do family, she thought, amused. More likely it was just a style he'd adopted to set himself above the backwater nitwits who'd left him to drown.

The affect was ruined by the nasty gash he had above one ear that she'd found while pumping river water out of him, and ghastly purple bruises were striping his thin back. The waterfall had given him a sound thrashing along the river bottom before spitting him into the cistern. Judging by the swelling, he also had a broken ankle. To tend him, she had been forced to find a way to literally handle his prickliness. If she was very gentle and slow, she found, the briars in his hair and fabric wouldn't catch on her skin. She could feel the sharp little points under her gliding fingers, but as long as she didn't grab or move against the grain, they didn't hurt her.

She wrung the water out of him, removed his soaked clothing, and bedded him down in her own moss bed. She'd put a poultice on his gash and ointment on his bruises and a homemade splint on his ankle. There were old bruises marking him too. She remembered Dragonweed's casual violence as he slapped the Weeds around. She tried to imagine the skinny Briar Patch standing up to the burly Dragonweed and giggled out loud. That would be the shortest showdown ever.

Briar Patch shifted at the sound, and she thought he might wake up, but he didn't move again. She studied his face more closely. His right eyelid quivered and her eyes were drawn to the patch covering the left one. There was a moment of hesitation, then she raised the patch to look underneath. To her surprise, the left eye seemed perfectly healthy, even when she peeled up his eyelid to peek. A little unnerved and intrigued, she let the patch fall back into place. Why would he wear a patch over a perfectly good eye? Then, he flinched and his uncovered eye blinked open.

Briar Patch came awake to a throbbing ache. He wasn't sure where it was coming from until he tried to raise his head. Sparks exploded in his vision and pain lanced from his skull down his spine. The jolt ended somewhere inside his ankle joint where new pain exploded.

He wasn't aware of the sound he made, but collapsed back on the bed. He struggled for a moment, trying to find a position that wasn't agonizing. Hands took his shoulders and held him still. Eyes so pale blue they were almost white looked down on him. He gasped and a woman's face leaned out of the shadows to smile impishly.

"Do you know me?" she asked. He took a deep breath that made him wince, then said weakly.

"No..." His usual high-pitched drawl was a ghost of itself, hushed and raspy from all the water forced in and out of him. She laughed and stood up over him. He could hear the rustle of leaves as she moved. She ran a finger down his long, pointed nose and he felt a tingle that quickly tightened into an itch. He could almost feel little blisters popping up on his skin. The woman's smile broadened into a full smirk.

"I," she said, savoring his discomfort. "Am Poison Ivy."