Chapter 7

Hope opened her eyes with an anxiety, being afraid of a view of the mythical land, which borders she had crossed through a doorway opened in a lake. She saw the landscape in total darkness, not lightened up even by starlight. The girl quickly realized that it hadn't been possible to see neither the Moon, nor any other heavenly body in the sky. The surroundings were quiet like being under a barrier impervious to all sounds. In the darkness, Hope tried to find Jessica, her other friends from the group or the men, thanks to whom she was in a place such alien to her. At some point, a glitter of the flame brightened everything around, and Trance noticed Match crossing borders of the Land of Eternal Twilight. It turned out quickly that Preview, X-23, Wolfcub, as well as Owena, Lorella and Loranir safely arrived at the darkest part Annwn. Ben created a flame in the hand lightening surroundings up.

"Better?" He asked.

"It will be better when we are sure that nobody is observing us." Loranir said. His sister approached Preview.

"Stigmatic one, did some visions come to you?" She asked.

"No. And if you call me the stigmatic one again, I won't answer your questions anymore." The girl announced coming up to Hope.

"How are you?"

"I'm ok. Until next winged frog appear."

"We should go further." Owena stated.

"It's too easy. Mab knew that we were arriving. She sent a monster from the lake after us, and then the witch to check us. Even if this place is cursed and Fearie are afraid to come here, we don't know what surprises they are planning for us."

"What are we going to do? How will we find Megan and the rest?" Ben asked.

"We must find our brothers at first." Loranir cut in on a conversation.

"If we don't take advantage of their help, we will never find the road to the heart of the Land of Eternal Dusk."

"Don't you know your own land?" Ben asked.

"No. We spent the life on earth, and we could see Annwn only in our dreams. And it was a land much more beautiful than the place in which we are standing now."

"How did you open the passage? Where did you know about it from?"

"Every Fearie has a method of return home encrypted in the mind from a time of birth. I and my sister aren't exceptions. It is special spell which manifests by itself, and we don't have to learn it. Unfortunately, we can use it only once in a lifetime."

"What?" Wolfcub butted in.

"I expressed myself clearly enough, and my voice was sonorous enough, that all those present had heard it."

"Do you mean that you cannot take us back home?"

"Yes. That is exactly what I meant. But it should not worry you, because chances of staying alive in the magic war which will soon consume that land are almost non-existent for mortals."

"You son of a bitch!" Wolfcub was irritated.

"It starts again." Jessica sighed.

"Loranir's character forces him to be provocative for the others." Owena announced.

"Our team is at each other's throats again. When we finally agree with each other and we help each other, something appears that arouses new disputes between us. Usually I'm cause of the quarrel."

"Are you glad that my brother became the cause now?"

"Brother?"

"Yes. This two has always been like real siblings for me."

"Are I and Laura the only people who remember why we come here?!" Ben shouted at his teammates, busy with conversations and quarrels and forgot the purpose of their expedition. Laura smiled looking at the black-haired friend.

"Listen, maybe I'll look around?" Hope offered falling into a trance. When Owena noticed what the girl was going to do, she immediately ran up to her.

"What are you doing?" She asked shaking the mutant.

"I wanted to look around in the form of a astral projection. I wanted to leave my body..."

"I know what the astral projection is! Are you completely mad girl? A moment ago, we learnt, that the witch Matilda is hunting us, and you wanted to give her your naked soul? The ghost would be as a lighthouse for her astral hounds!"

"How was I supposed to know about it?" Trance answered feeling anger and embarrassment.

"Next time if you want to do something, ask us for advice, ok?" Owena informed all her company.

Meanwhile, in a large garden full of roses, whose petals carried with a wind formed real flower waterfall all around, the man with golden hair walked. His peace was broken by the appearance of the other person, known to him very well. By the gilded gate to the retreat of the man, a pale woman with black hair stood.

"Rhoswen... I can see that you found your way home." The man said smiling maliciously.

"I feel that your magic is becoming more and more faint." He added. The woman fell to her knees arousing clouds of flower petals around herself.

"If Mab found you after your all failures... To be defeated by residents of the Earth several times... The queen is certainly angered." The man with golden hair teased around his friend. The girl looked at him angrily.

"At least I lost nothing!" She shouted pointing at the elf's golden prosthesis.

"But something much worse happened to you, right? You are poisoned by enchanted cold steel, Am I right?" The man approached the kneeling woman and looked at her deep eyes.

"Orin... help me, I beg you." The girl whispered. Watery eyes betrayed, that she was even weaker.

"Do you want me to protect you from the anger of our Queen?"

"No... lend me your flowers of life... regenerative garden..."

"Remember that you will be my debtor now."

"I don't care about it, I wish to live."

"Ok." The man replied gladly. When pale woman fell on the grass and lost consciousness, the elf with golden hair started the recitation of spell's words. Green stalks and roots of flowers growing around the girl came near to her, and soon wrapped her hands, legs, torso and head. Her body disappeared under the ground, becoming an integral part of the magic garden. Orin was satisfied, since saving the life of his friend in the place of his greatest power, he created a faithful helper.

The group of young mutants and three other people, thanks to which, the group entered the Land of Eternal Twilight was preparing for a long and difficult journey through inhospitable and dark forests lying on the border of enchanted lands. Jessica Vale was sitting on a fat root growing out of the damp earth, trying to call lucid dream in her mind, a vision that could show her where they should start search for their friend with wings of a butterfly. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to do it. Her abilities were put to a sleep as soon as she crossed through the surface of the lake. After a moment, Hope came up to her.

"Do we have some cues?" She asked.

"No. I'm completely worthless." Jessica replied.

"We both can't help here." Hope said.

"How are you feeling here?" Jessica asked. Trance sat down by her, on the fat root.

"It's difficult to tell. I'm anxious, because I don't know what can happen to us. I don't believe them." She told pointing at elves and Owena walking around nearby.

"I meant something different. Do you remember our conversation in the Danger Room many months ago?"

"About the artificial sky and the fact that no holographic projection can to equal to the real remote place, under the real sky of thousands of stars?"

"Yes. Here, there I feel something similar. Everything that surrounds us is artificial, false, as if it all was one big illusion covering true reality."

"Do you think that we are inside some holographic projection?"

"No. I don't feel anything synthetic, no cold technique made by the interstellar empire. It's totally different here. This place is real, much more real than the world in which we live and much, much older. On the Earth, I know places in which I feel the Universe observing me with a thousand of star eyes. Here, I feel as if I moved back in time and found myself in the very heart of the world being born. But under the illusion of forest and sky, something ancient and terrible waits. I feel the breath of this place and I'm really afraid."

"Don't talk like this, because I'm afraid now. Let's move and find Megan as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, Owena and Faerie siblings were looking around the place. The long-haired girl was holding a ball of dark blue light and whispering a spell. Blonde girl was watching the sword with runic symbols on the blade phosphorescing with immaterial light. Laura Kinney interested with behavior of two young women turned to Loranir.

"What are they doing?"

"They are searching for signs left by our countrymen, anything that could take us to the place, where they are hiding. Lorella is combing the grass with a magic ball. It is dangerous, because every use of the magic is alarming Mab or worse, that witch. Therefore, Owena is protecting her, forming around her magic barrier. Don't go up closer, because you can impede their concentration.

"I don't intend to do it." X-23 replied. The man walked away from mutant, simultaneously approaching Match and Wolfscub, standing close by.

"I hope that we will be in a lot of glorious battles together in the future." He spoke to Ben starting the conversation.

"And I hope that there will be no more battles." Ben announced.

"What shame that such a great potential is wasted in somebody who is turning away from his real nature."

"What do you mean?" Ben became irritated with a strange Loranir's note.

"The fire flowing in your veins is a gift from the world in which foundations of the real Land of Eternal Dusk stand. Don't you feel calling of the abyss?"

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about! My fire is a result of the mutation, it's physical and certainly doesn't come from this place! I don't have anything to do with the magic and I still don't believe in it! This land is probably in some another dimension, on other planet, anywhere at all but certainly not in the magic world of some fairy tale!"

"I don't understand you people. Why you are inclined to believe in something such distant as worlds circulating around the other Suns, but you are at the same time don't want to acknowledge the possibility of existence of something under your noses? Something that is much more real than all other dimensions, how did you name them?"

"I don't feel like philosophizing! Come back to your women and help them, because searching of safe road takes them too much time!"

"Exactly! Why did you come up to? Do you want to quarrel? Very well. I'm probably the only sensible person who knows that you aren't telling us the whole truth. And this entire mystery tour can be a trap!" Wolfcub butted in.

"From the beginning I knew that you were a wild card of this team, not mentioning your obvious appearance. But here, you can meet somebody similar to yourself, and maybe then the entire anger, you have built up for years, will disappear."

"I don't want your psychoanalysis! Ben told you to go away from here!"

Loranir turned around and, without a word, walked away towards his acquaintances.

"What did he mean? What did he mean with this abyss?" Ben asked, thinking out loud.

"Don't think about it! Can't you see that he runs some games? He's trying to go inside our heads! If I were you, I wouldn't talk to him until we get back to Earth. And I'll have him on the eye."

Hope and Jessica were still talking, sitting on the mossy root.

"Jessica... perhaps you are still are under the influence of this witch?" Trance asked.

"I don't have a clue. Perhaps you're right, perhaps her charms blocked my abilities. I'll touch nothing more until we don't find Megan and return to the Earth."

"What did you feel when she took control of you?"

"Completely nothing. I talked to you, and a moment later I found myself in a completely different, cold, dark and humid place. I could hear my own voice screaming from a distance, but I could not do anything. I lost the rule over my own body. Only the appearance you, your astral projection restored me to reality."

"I'm glad. I think that anxiety, which you feel now, can be remains after the mind of the witch. Perhaps it is she who is dangerous, rather than this world?"

"Maybe. Since when I was in contact with her I've been feeling something cold, dark and humid in myself. Something lurking in corners of my thoughts."

"Jessica..." Hope whispered touching hair of the friend. She moved closer to her and clenched her hand firmly.

"Again, I'm a light which will get you out of darkness." She added smiling. She moved the face close to girl's face and closing her eyes, she kissed her lips.

In the same time, the group travelling with Megan Gwyn admired psychedelic colors of the forest full of a huge mushrooms. The place was strange, unreal, like taken out of some feverish dream. It was horrifying and, at the same time, fascinating. It invited every traveler like a garden full of Forbidden Fruits. Young mutants saw it for the first time, they looked all around like hypnotized by every element of the landscape. Geralt sat down on pink moss, driving off strange, miniature lights flying around.

"Are we stopping?" Ian asked him.

"We'll rest a bit, and let them enjoy this garden." He said looking at the green, phosphorescing mushroom stretching above him in the semi-darkness.

"Better not let them walk away too far. Who knows who or what can lurk behind the hill." Will announced looming into the view. Mark and Megan approached Shan.

"It's so... strange here..." The boy said.

"Yes, but I'm not anxious." Shan replied.

"I feel strange excitement. Like internal joy. As if something sang to me from the distance, and at the same time inside me." Pixie added.

"Shan, I wanted to talk with Megan... to be with her alone. We didn't have time fo each other from the moment when the pale woman had attacked us in the funfair. At first the school and Frost... later Megan's family..."

"All right. Go. It can be ours last longer rest before the expedition to the palace." Shan answered. When young mutants walked away deep into the grove of colorful mushrooms, Karma came closer to Ian and Geralt. Will looked at her suspiciously and later turned away. He didn't feel like talking to stranger, or wanted her finally to confront with the magus, whom she didn't trust from the beginning. Megan and Mark went along the path made from stones glistening with a golden glitter. The boy stopped at one of large mushrooms and touched its surface.

"Strange, it is hard and rough, as if I touched the bark of a tree.

"Perhaps local trees look so strange." Pixie said. The DJ looked at her eyes, and a moment later at her wings shimmering with colorful brilliance, as grass and other plants in the World of Eternal Dusk.

" How are you ok?" He asked.

"To tell you the truth, I started feeling much better as soon as we were in this land. Suddenly, the fear left me, as if I came to a family house after years of exile. I believe that I really came from this place."

"I'd like to be as pleased as you." DJ replied looking in the direction of the wall of forest in the distance. Confused Megan looked at him, simultaneously trying to approach him, but he only sped up. Megan withdrew her hand, staying in the place.

"Megan... you must understand that I cannot share your joy." Mark said. He walked away from the main path and wandered through the hill covered with thick grass. Pixie went a few strides behind him.

"Since when people from this land appeared... they have tried to kill me twice!"

"You forgot that the one they had wanted to kill is me. You only crossed their road by a chance!" Megan was indignant.

"Now we're already safe... both..." She added.

"Really do you understand nothing? It isn't about that they threatened us... but what they forced me to!" DJ violently turned in the direction of his girlfriend raising his voice.

"So it's about it..." Pixie whispered.

"I killed a man! No matter who or what he was! I released such a great energy like never before and I tore him apart to shreds! Even a wet stain didn't left after him!"

"You had no choice! If not you, I would be..."

"It's not true! If I controlled myself better, I would knock him out, or hurt him. But I wasn't able! As soon as my wave hit his body, I could not stop it, I could not even control it. What will if it repeats? What will if I lose control again? If somebody from the group is hurt, somebody from the school? If you suffer?" DJ said with tears in his eyes.

"You won't lose control, I believe in you..." Megan announced. She approached the boy and touched his hand.

"Emotions are raging in me, you should escape from me. Quickly." Mark replied through clenched teeth.

"No. Do you remember when you calmed me down with your music one time? Now it's my turn. Close your eyes and don't say a word." The girl touched boy's head.

"Megan, I..."

"Quiet. I asked you for something. Close your eyes and try to relax."

DJ relaxed and tried to silence emotions inside him. When he closed his eyes, the swoosh of the wind whipping meadows of the magic land, moving crowns of trees lying in the distance, reached his ears. The wind, creating silence and calmness which he needed so much. He felt the warmth of his beloved hands and gained the belief that it was she who asked the nature surrounding him from every side to soothe his soul. When he opened his eyes, he saw Megan's eyes and her delicate smile. He looked around himself.

"We walked away too far the rest." He said looking at green hills and a few huge mushrooms growing out of them.

"If this was true, they would search for us." Pixie replied. She pointed at the closest mushroom, shimmering with a purple brilliance.

"Come on, we'll sit down there and talk." She suggested. Mark agreed and moved in the direction of the strange life form, holding his girl by the hand.

In the same time, Shan tried to start a conversation with the old acquaintance of Megan's father. The man in the raincoat sat on the hill examining his weapon, at first completely ignoring the presence of the girl. Seeing that Karma didn't intend to leave him alone, he hid the handgun under the coat and turned to the woman.

"Are you trying to get to my mind? You will fail. Do not even try."

"Why do you see me as the threat?"

"Let's say I can see it in your eyes. They're on a fire with hate to my person. And I completely don't understand why." The man replied.

"Look around. You will find the answer yourself."

"I cannot understand it. You hate me because some group of dark Fearie, which I don't even know, attacked your pupil."

"If not you and your pals, nobody would threaten Megan's life. Why you interfered in matters, which you completely didn't understand? Who gave you the right to interfere in matters of this land?"

"If not our expedition to Fearie, nothing would threaten Megan. You are right. Because she would never be born."

"This conversation leads us nowhere." Shan replied.

"For the first time, we agree. It is impossible, that a miracle happen, and you start to trust me and my companions. Therefore it'll be better if we stop talking to each other. Protect your students, after all you decided to go through the gate with us between worlds because of them. We will do our job and ask Queen Mab to take the curse off from the girl."

"Or we'll force her to do it." Ian added joining the conversation. After a moment, Geralt got up from the grass.

"You lost the time for an unnecessary conversation with me, when Megan and Mark go somewhere." He announced.

"What?" Shan was surprised and alarmed.

"Look around. They aren't here." The man said.

"I'll go to look for them." She added.

Mark and Megan were sitting under the cap of the psychedelic mushroom gazing at the night sky stretching out above their heads. Pixie's thoughts had been somewhere else, or ran out in the future, trying to imagine how the approaching meeting with her real mother could look. Mark was silent, not butting in, since he knew that the girl needed the moment of peace after such a crazy week. He looked at the meadow before himself noticing that, around the large mushroom, other mushrooms, smaller and placed in a perfect circle grew. He remembered legends of Fairy rings which could turn out to be more real than he had ever thought. Suddenly, something tore Megan out from her thinking. The girl got up spreading her wings.

"What happened, Megan?" DJ asked.

"I saw something..."

"What? There is nothing." Mark said looking all around.

"I saw something strange... wait here..." Pixie walked away from the mushroom, heading above.

"Megan, where are you going! There is nothing!" Mark got up from grass, reminding Geralt's warnings.

"We should not split!" He added.

"I'll be back soon... I must inspect something!" Megan replied waving at him.

Girl climbed up the hill and looked at clearing on its other side. Her eyes widened from an amazement. A group of unusual beings stood in the darker part of the meadow, next to a black forest. Eight slim, young girls with golden hair looked at mutant smiling. They were completely naked, and wings grew out of their backs, resembling the ones belonging to Pixie.

"Who are you?" Megan asked noticing that strange figures had the same eyes as she. Girls grabbed hands forming a ring from their bodies. One of them dragged the hand out to Megan, inviting her to join them. Pixie, like hypnotized, took a few steps in the direction of the strange company. Completely automatically, without the participation of the reason, she gave the hand to the magical being standing closest to her. Mark quickly came to the other side hills in order to check what happened with the girl, who was not answering his calls.

"Megan!" He shouted, when his eyes noticed Pixie standing amongst naked figures. Young mutant smiled to him in a strange fashion, as if she was mocking him, being glad of what was supposed to happen to him in a minute.

She spread her wings ejecting a cloud of hallucinogenic dust in the direction of the boy. Dazed by chemicals, DJ fell down on his knees. Impulsively, he reached for the discman, but his body was embraced by a paralysis. Naked, ethereal figures rose up into the air and, after a few seconds of flying around the hill, they surrounded Mark in the same way as a few minutes earlier they had surrounded Megan. The boy wasn't able to fight, call for help, or think even rationally. The image in front of his eyes waved, being discolored in a crazy psychedelic way. Pixie approached him and touched his head, not getting rid of a bizarre smile. To ears of the boy a laughter of girls came, that seemed to him to come from thousand sought throats. Megan took the shirt off throwing it at Mark's legs. After a moment, she unzipped trousers, sliding them down below knees. The boy raised his head up, looking at the girl's body. Young, elf girls dancing around them became one being, a wave pulsing in a permanent, determined orbit. Megan unbuttoned her bra and threw it behind herself, showing naked breasts. Her underwear flew up, where it was seized by one of fairies. The girl freed herself from trousers and shoes, and then rose into the air, landing right by her beloved next. She approached him, touching him with her naked body, sprinkled with hallucinogenic dust generated by her colorful wings. Mark didn't know what had happened to him. His hands felt the warmth of girl's skin, but other senses were entirely blinded by shimmering airborne dust. Megan made the last movement in her magic erotic dance. Her pants slipped down after smooth legs and landed in a grass, by knees of the boy. Pixie became beings similar to her fairies, bare and with a second thoughts, submerged in an ecstatic dance.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team reached the hill. Everyone were surprised by a sight welcoming them.

"Megan! Mark! What you doing!" Shan shouted.

"Girl!" Her father was shocked.

"I knew that a visit in this place won't be good." Will added.

"It's not their fault. These beings took control over them." Geralt announced.

"We must help them!" Shan said.

"Perhaps we should not disturb them." Will offered.

"It's my daughter! You must do something, for Christ's sake!" Ian was irritated very much.

"We must break their ring. It is the only chance, because they both are under the influence of a powerful magic." Geralt noticed. Shan tried to use her abilities to take control over the mind of one fairy girl and to cease her play, but she wasn't able to touch her thoughts.

"What are they? As if I touched something unusually slippery."

"We have to fight their magic with a magic!" Geralt geared up for the attack.

"Forest girls! I'm ordering you to leave these two alone!" He shouted. Unfortunately, his words got through to none of girls. They all were too busy looking at Megan dancing, in a nude, before her boy.

"It's nothing, negotiations won't help..." Geralt said, and attacked girls with balls of magical energy. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to break the circle, or even to get attention of any of forest nymphs with wings of the butterfly.

"What are they, for Christ's sake!"

"You cannot touch them now. They are merged." Will butted in.

"Do you have any good idea?" Geralt asked.

"Of course."

Will smiled ominously and generated a blue flame in his hand. Then, he hurled it at one of naked girls. The figure broke away from the rest, moved a few steps in the direction of the forest, and convulsions shook her body. Wings fell out from her back, the skin started becoming wrinkled, and hair grayed. The girl got older by decades during a few seconds. Her body shattered in front of everyone's eyes, and only a heap of ash remained. Remaining nymphs stopped, ceased their dance looking with a terror at what had happened to their sister.

"Do you want to join her? If not, escape from here and get in our way ever again. Do you understood?!" He shouted. A blue flame burnt in his eyes. Frightened girls rose up into the air, and escaped into the forest thicket plunged in a darkness. In the middle of the ring, trampled down by their feet, only disorientated Mark and Megan remained.

"It's not Fearie magic..." Geralt said looking with a fear at his companion.

"No." Will replied coldly. He walked away from the group.

The old witch was standing at the crossroads, tightly clasping the gnarled cane. Her long, pitch-black hair was blowing in a breeze made from the bad magic sleeping in the heart of the old woman. The lady looked at the silver moon hung high above her head, listening closely to horrifying howling coming from nearby forests. On hills plunged in a darkness, a pack of astral wolves was waiting patiently for orders from their master. Specters of animals phosphoresced with a bluish glow, similar to the lunar light, but colder and frightening. Apparitions had shapes of wolves or bigger dogs with semi translucent bodies, looking like joined to each other by their internal glitter. When the witch lifted her cane above the head, animals stopped howling, and their empty eyes focused on her.

"I am calling you on, cursed kings! I am calling you on, forgotten Gods! I am calling you on, warriors! Come here from the deepest infernal lands!" She shouted. Large, black clouds covered the disc of the moon, and then, the disturbing glitter of astral wolves and infernal hounds were the only light in the surroundings.

"I feel the ancient power in my bones again!" The witch hissed.

"I have my former power!" She added after a moment, with a great satisfaction. The Earth around the witch started shaking. Neighborhood became covered in the unnatural fog. Even spectral animals were afraid of it, they cautiously moved back in the direction of the forest. After a moment, deathly pale hands keeping swords, battle hammers and axes emerged from a dry land. The witch, seeing that her calling reached addressees, stuck the cane in the soil and touched the locket hanging on her neck. Dark figures rose from the earth, whose sole purpose was to be included in the Wild Hunt, completely controlled by the will of the black-haired woman. Bones awaken from the eternal rest started being covered with skin, as grey and as gloomy as the dress of the witch. Armors, elements of clothes and appeared on undead bodies, weapons which owners probably used when they had been alive. Many figures were sitting on the riding horses, also arose from the grave, some having a skin and other made out of just bare bones, all animated with a black magic. Other ghouls were standing on their own legs, holding deadly weapon as bows, crossbows, swords and axes. Destroyed crowns graced a lot of heads, confirming that figures had been men of consequence in the past.

They didn't have a free will, and their every action was controlled by the magic for the dark witch. A chariot pulled by two spectral horses drove up to the place in which the woman stood. The witch climbed on it and let everybody know that the hunt had been begun. One of kings summoned to the life, the man with a long, grey beard, put a horn to his mouth and blew it with all his might. Wolves and astral hounds joined to the Wild Hunt. They blend with the group of horses and walking participants of the hunt. Soon, the entire group moved deep into lands of eternal twilight, hurrying for the meeting with uninvited guests.

In the same time, the man with golden hair waited for the regeneration process of his friend to end. The elf's garden consumed the body of injured and poisoned Roshwen, and in the place in which she had disappeared under the surface of earth, bloody-red flowers grew. When the carpet of plants moved, golden haired man broke from reflections and started gladly scrutinizing the occurrence. The hand of the woman penetrated through the tangle of branches, stalks and roots. She wasn't white, as earlier, but her skin took brightly green shade. After a moment, the entire body of murderess emerged from flower ring. Seeing her transformation, the elf smiled widely. At first, she was disorientated with her change, but the girl quickly noticed something unusual, she guessed how big a price she had paid asking Fearie with golden hand for his help. Her skin was of the color of grass, and her hair were dark-green like leaves of oak. She felt every blast of wind falling on plants in the garden and every ray of sunshine touching their surface. She became connected with that place with bonds so strong that no power was able to break them.

"What have you done with me!" She shouted looking at her hands.

"What you asked for. I saved your life. I expect your lifelong gratitude now." The man replied.

"You changed me! You connected me with this garden... you turned me into a plant!" Roshwan vented her anger attacking the elf standing before her with harsh words.

"This is the nature of magic of this place. Venom of cold steel poisoned your body too much. There was no other way and you knew about it very well. Did you think that I would help you without any benefits for myself?"

"Do you know what it means to me? I am sentenced to live in this place! I will not be able to leave this garden ever again! You imprisoned me!"

"Your life here became a part of my plans. Therefore we both gained something. You have a life, a long live, this place is magical and will survive throughout centuries. I have somebody who will perform a task for me, when a time comes."

The woman was silent. The magic transformation of her body which she had experienced, due to of elf's trickery, was becoming stronger with every passing minute, and the connection with the magic garden became more and more permanent. The elf smiled, and then bowed to her friend.

"Forgive me, but I have got something to sort out. You know, our land is vast and I still have so many places to visit." He announced, and then disappeared in the cascade of rose petals.