A chorus of birds chirped sweetly in the trees, the lush green grass and the tiny colorful flowers making the meadow even prettier than it did in winter. The side of the meadow dropped off, making it the top of a cliff that towered over a huge valley. The valley was filled with trees, some on hills that rolled through it like waves. Some patches of land had no trees, only grass, flowers, and bushes.

A river cut through the valley, separating some it in half and emptying into a small lake. Towering above the lake and the valley was an awesome mountain range, the mountains snow-capped and majestic. It really was a breathtaking view, and a rare one at that, for not many traveled this part of Patch. Most who traveled here would be taking pictures and bubbling over how amazing and beautiful it was.

But that wasn't the case for the traveler who was currently walking there.

"Quiet, birds!" Crystal said, irritated, "I'm trying to get a signal!"

Crystal walked through the grassy meadow, her eyes fixed on her scroll rather than the gorgeous view around her. Her hair was up, tied in its usual tight ponytail. Her hair had grown an extra two or three inches since the Fall of Beacon, her ponytail falling just past her shoulders, rather than her neck.

She wore a combat skirt now, unlike her previous outfit, and wore a tight belt around her waist, her shirt tucked neatly into it. She wore the same black gloves that cut at the joints, as well as pair of leather boots with heels.

"C'mon, Sapphy," she urged, holding her scroll up to her ear, "Pick up!"

"Welcome to Lightning Wireless," an automatic voice answered, "The number you have dialed is either out of call time or does not exist."

"Of course not!" Crystal shouted, throwing her scroll onto the ground. She sighed and picked it back up, looking at the screen. Sapphire's smiling picture with the name "Sapphy" under it was there, the red hang up button on.

Crystal touched Sapphire's picture and sighed.

"I miss you, Sapphy," she said, a tear rolling from her eye, "Where are you?"

A cool breeze blew by, rustling the leaves in the trees and blowing Crystal's hair back. The sunshine came down in soft rays, bursting through the clouds and making bright sunny patches in the grass.

"It was hard to get here," Crystal mumbled, looking around, "So please don't tell me that you aren't here."

Crystal, blown away after a building had collapsed and separated her and Sapphire, had managed to run away from Beacon and find a train, which she rode to Mistral and stayed in Firestrom, a small village there. Then she had gone off to find Sapphire, remembering her last words saying she was in Signal, a city in Patch.

Taking a boat, she had sailed to Patch and was now here.

"I'm tired of Grimm and rabbits," she said, putting her scroll into her satchel and continuing her walk, "I'm tired of bees and mountains. I'm tired of walking and seeing the same sunny sky all the time."

She moved a tree branch out of her way and stepped into a shady part of the forest, the view of the valley and mountains harder to see behind all the trees. A few birds flew away as Crystal entered, their wings hitting the branches and shaking them.

"That's right," Crystal muttered, "Get lost."

She walked on through the bushes, bored and tired.

"Oh, why must I fall into such a haze!" she sung out loud, her voice strong and somewhat pleasant echoing across the valley. She tilted her head sideways and listened to the echo.

"Walkin' for miles after all this craze!" she continued, waiting for the echo. It came, joined by sweet birdsong and the rustle of the leaves in the wind.

"Huh," Crystal said, surprised that she actually like her voice.

"This will be the day we've waited for!" she sung, "This will be the day we open up the dooo-oorrr!"

This time, the echo seemed a bit harsh on the higher note. Crystal snorted and shook her head.

Suddenly, a dark cloud covered over the sun, casting a shadow over everything. The forest became dark and quiet.

"Seriously?" Crystal called, "Why'd you have to do that, cloud!"

Her echo didn't respond this time, just birds singing and the distant sound of the river flowing. Crystal just sighed and continued walking.

Suddenly, there was a strange growing sound. It wasn't like the growl of a beast, but more like…

"What was that?" Crystal asked out loud, "Sounded like a groaning zombie mixed with a slithering snake."

She paused and thought a little while. The sound repeated.

"Or a sheep choking on a bomb..," she said, her finger to her chin in thought, "Yeah...that matches up better."

The sound continued, repeating and getting closer, joined by many more.

"Naw," she said, the noises filling her ears and the branches of the trees around her shaking and bouncing, "It's more like a haunted child with the croup."

Suddenly, a horrible shriek sounded and several black Grimm, monkey like in their appearance, leaped out of the trees at Crystal. Their eyes were golden, surrounded with red and a bony mask-like face with red markings.

"Eek!" Crystal cried, startled, "Shadowmonks!"

The monkey Grimm all jumped on her at once, some on her shoulders, some on her head, some climbing up her legs and others trying to bite her.

"Don't bite me, Munchkins!" she cried, pulling out her sword and swinging herself around in an effort to shake them off. One of them bit her left arm, just below her shoulder, sending an acidic, burning pain through her arm.

"Augh!" she cried, the pain startling her. Her aura flashed up, but the bite didn't really change much.

"Get off!" she shouted, blindly swinging her sword and slicing the small, frail monkeys here and there; some losing their heads, some losing their tails, some ending up in half, and some having a disk-sized portion of their sides and backs being sliced clean off. There were quite a few of them, their mouths purple on the inside and their teeth dripping with...whatever that purple stuff was. Her arm burned and her hand was getting tired from swinging her sword around like that from the hilt. Her eyes were tightly shut as the monkeys were jumping at her face and some were crawling up her.

"Of course you imps don't hit!" Crystal grunted, holding one hand in front of her face and using the other to spin it in front of her, chopping the monkeys that leaped mindlessly at her front. She looked around at her surroundings.

"The cliff!" she thought out loud, the burning feeling in her arm somehow making her head feel slightly fuzzy. She felt a little like she was drunk, even though she had never had that experience before. Even so, the wild idea surging through her head made more sense than ever to her as she began rushing out of the forest the way she had entered, bursting back into the beautiful meadow and racing towards the cliff's edge.

She was still spinning her sword wildly in front of her front like a shield, decapitating a monkey that had climbed up onto her neck and stretched its head out. She could see the deep valley below the cliff coming closer and closer as she ran, monkeys hanging off of every inch of her and trying to bite and choke her.

"Remember your landing strategy!" Crystal hollered, her voice somewhat blocked as a monkey's arms wrapped tightly around her neck.

Then, looking like a madwoman, she jumped off the cliff. Just like that.

Holding her sword and covered in Grimm monkeys, she fell freely from the top of the cliff, which was really quite tall. Some of the monkeys looked up and seemed to understand what was going to happen if they held on. They leaped off of Crystal, including the one partially choking her, and disappeared into the treetops.

The view of the valley below and around her would have been quite amazing if the person seeing it wasn't falling. The valley was like a bowl; the cliff being the rim and the sides, and the valley the inside. Some of the sides of the valley were covered thickly with grass, moss, and trees, some of the trees sideways, due to the cliffside they were growing on. Afterall, the place she was falling into was called Meadowbowl. And the name served it quite well.

But as Crystal fell, her head feeling dizzy as she spun around in the air and her arm burning, some monkeys still on, but slowly disappearing as they began to jump off as the ground got nearer and nearer. The wind was blowing so hard in Crystal's ears that she could hardly hear her own voice as she said talked rather than thought her plan. All of the monkeys had left now and the trees were only about two hundred feet away.

"Okay," Crystal said, her voice slightly slurred, "Just land like you did in Beacon."

She pulled out her sword, thankful that her left arm had been bit rather than her right, and held it out in a high arc above her head, searching for way to land.

"This is gonna hurt!" she shouted to herself, still holding her sword above her head and closing her eyes. Her stomach felt like it would fly out of her body if she fell any longer and her eyes would fly out, too. It was hard enough to hold her sword with all the momentum and wind building up.

The treetops grew closer and her fear, although fogged and somewhat controlled, suddenly erupted, making her feel suddenly frightened. She hadn't been very scared before, random Grimm encounters and cliff jumping something she was okay with, but now it was as if all the fear from every frightening situation from the past had just exploded inside of her, making her open her eyes wide, just as the first branch hit her.

It was like a sting rather than a blow, slicing her skin as it made contact with her face. This was followed by hundreds of others, which all snapped off of the trees they were growing from after Crystal fell through them. Leaves, branches, and sticks flew about in every place she fell through. Every branch was another bit of aura replenished. Hundreds of flashes of purple.

The she hit the ground. Slowed down a bit by the branches and leaves from her fall, she slammed onto the ground with loud boom, forming a huge cloud of dust and a wave of purple aura shooting out amidst the mess.

It took a while for Crystal to understand what had happened, as she opened her eyes and saw that she appeared to be in some sort of a crater, covered in dust, scratches, and cuts. Her left arm burned in such a strange way that it almost seemed to be numb. Burning numbness. Nice.

She sat up groggily, wondering if she had blacked out or just simply landed and sat up just now. The impact had hurt like crazy, knocking out her air and making her world turn black...That or she had just closed her eyes.

Looking around her, she saw that she was surrounded by trees. Trees and rocks and plants and flowers, some of which, were quite pretty and fragrant. The moon was high in the sky, its glowing shattered pieces spreading out and stars twinkling around it like glitter on tar. Crickets chirped all around her, a bunch of other random creatures joining in and making Crystal annoyed. She didn't like bugs.

She stood shakily up, using the crater's rim to support herself. The bite on her arm hurt way more than it had when she had been sitting down, and now her whole left arm had a strange burning sensation. Like when you put alcohol on a cut. She could hardly see around her, the night dark and her vision slightly blurry.

"Am I gonna die?" she asked in the silence. She didn't know is she was asking that to herself or to all the bugs she couldn't see. Whatever the case, she began to wonder why she even asked that.

"Why'd I say that?" she asked aloud again, looking around, confused. She shook her head, instantly regretting it as a wave of warm dizziness surrounded her head and made her sway on her feet. She nearly fell over until she regained her balance and squinted in the darkness.

A twig snapped in the distance.

"Who's there?!" Crystal exploded, jumping out of the crater and pulling out her sword. Her left arm kind of just flopped to her side.

"Great," Crystal said out loud, "Can't move it."

She stood there, holding her sword and standing in a fighting stance, looking around her. Then she forgot what she was doing.

"Hello?" she asked, standing up straight and looking around. Only the crickets and bugs answered her.

Crystal did a half shrug, her right shoulder the only one responding.

"I dunno," she said randomly, turning around and dropping her sword.

She stood there for quite a while. Just standing there as if she was waiting for something, which she wasn't. She looked down at her sword as it lay there in the dust, her eyes tracing the words carved into it. BLAH.

"Are you okay, miss?"

A smooth feminine voice shattered the silence of the night. Or was it night?

Crystal, not having even flinched from the suddenness of the stranger's voice, looked slowly up at the sky, which was now a light orange-gold, the clouds pink and purple like cotton candy.

"Good night?" Crystal asked slowly, her brain feeling like an obese person biking uphill. Her own thoughts made little sense to even her. Everything was just strange in her sense. Even the birdsong surrounding them seemed odd to her.

"Are you okay?" the woman repeated, stepping closer. Crystal shook her head, falling over as soon as she had, due to the overwhelming wave of dizziness that passed through her when she did that.

The woman gasped and rushed towards her, just barely catching her in her arms. Unfortunately, the woman had dropped her woven basket that contained berries, spilling them all over the grassy ground. A swarm of strange looking birds blurred past Crystal and the woman and crowded around the spilled berries, creating a gust of wind that blew their hair and the woman's brown wasn't a single one left once they flew away, making another gust of wind.

"Miss?" the woman asked, shaking Crystal and slapping her face, "Miss!"

Crystal was still conscious, but the slapps felt mellow to her face and the sound reverberated through her head. Around her eyes were light purple rings.

"Whut," she mumbled, opening her eyes again and staring up into the face of the woman. The woman's skin had a browner tone, making her bright green eyes very visible, even in the pale light of the morning. Her dark brown bangs spilled over her forehead and stopped just above her eyes. She looked quite young, actually.

"How old are you," Crystal asked, her voice flat and incurious. The woman raised a brow.

"Uh..," she began, unsure of what to say, "Why?"

Her voice wasn't too old, either. In fact, she sounded like she might even be about as old as Crystal.

"I dunno," Crystal said smile spreading on her face. The woman shook her head.

"I'm 22," she said, sighing with a smile as if wondering why she was even telling her. Crystal nodded.

"18," she said.

"I'm Olive," the woman said slowly.

"Crystal," Crystal answered back almost immediately.

"Are you okay?" Olive asked, a playful smile still on her lips. Crystal half shrugged.

"My arm is on fire," she said plainly, "And I fell from the sky." She pointed upwards and then frowned at her comment. Olive wrinkled her nose.

"Did you hit your head?" she asked. Crystal nodded her head vigorously, but then nearly passed out from doing so.

"Okay..," Olive said, wondering what to do now. She lowered Crystal onto the ground and stepped back. She looked around and suddenly noticed the bite on Crystal's left arm. Whatever had bitten her had torn the sleeve when it had bitten her. The wound was deep purple and the veins in her arm were also that color, visible through her pale skin.

"What bit you?" Olive asked, suddenly frightened. Crystal smirked and turned her head, spotting a chipmunk nearby.

"Crystal!"

She snapped back to attention, still hazy-minded.

"Whut..," she asked, her voice heavily slurred.

"What bit you?" Olive repeated sternly.

Crystal looked up and laughed.

"Monkey," she said, the name sounding funnier and funnier to her as it echoed in her head, "Snake monkey, or something."

Olive's eyes widened.

"I need you to come back with me," she said suddenly, her voice strict and focused, "Can you stand?"

"Yeah, duh," Crystal said with a giggled. She rolled over onto her belly and pushed herself up to her feet, Olive helping her.

"My arm feels really weird," she said as Olive put Crystal's right arm over her shoulder and began to walk slowly forward. Olive nodded.

"I'll help that," she said simply. Crystal grinned.

"Have you seen my boyfriend?" she asked, her voice reminding Olive of a very sick and drunk person.

"What?" Olive asked, mostly to herself, "No."

"Symooooon!" she wailed dramatically, throwing her head back and passing out for a moment right after. She jerked her head up as soon as she came to, hitting it across Olive's cheek.

"Woah..," Crystal said, looking at Olive's face, "Do I know you?!"

Olive rolled her eyes. She had seen people react like this to Simia Anguis bites before, some much worse. It always depended on how they acted and their personality. Perhaps Crystal was more of a crazy person.

"No, you don't," she said flatly. Crystal smiled and suddenly began to tremble.

"Are you okay?" Olive asked, concern beginning to rise again. Crystal laughed shakily.

"Aw yeah!" she hooted, "Shakin' like a salt-thing!"

Olive just kept walking forward, wishing that her town wasn't a mile away. Suddenly, Crystal lurched forward, taking a deep breath and jerking out of Olive's grip. A horrible gagging sound followed.

"Crystal?" Olive asked slowly. How long had she been bit for?

Crystal sat up slowly, a dark purple substance running down her face from her mouth. Crystal was quite pale and dark circles had formed around her eyes. Her hair was messy, sticking up here and there and had leaves and twigs sticking from it. She looked horrible.

"Whut?" she asked blearily, "Grass don't taste good."

Olive carefully helped Crystal up to her feet and slumped her on her shoulder, getting them in the position they were in earlier. Olive wrinkled her nose at the puddle of chunky deep purple liquid on the ground where Crystal had gagged.

It must have been a day since she was bitten.

"Think you can walk half a mile?" Olive asked. Crystal's head shot up as if she had just been awoken from a deep slumber.

"What!"she asked sloppily. She was a mess.

"Nothing," Olive said, shaking her head and continuing forward.

It was at that moment that Crystal suddenly stopped walking entirely and thuded next to Olive's feet, unconscious.