Spellbound

The impact wasn't the worst thing. Over the centuries, the two had often measured their strength against each other in order to be able to defy the everlasting changes in human society, should the times get tough. Zoe had often had fun testing with Douxie who could throw whom the farthest using only their magic.

But the intention which she now felt behind Douxie's outburst caught her ice cold! While she herself raced with rage and wanted to rush at his attacker, he magically pushed a bar between her legs - not the child!

Only because of the already manifold practice with him, she was able to roll over her shoulder and land on her stomach, where she immediately pushed herself up with her arms to jump up again. But then the reverberation of his magic resounded in her head and it was even clearer and more distinct than it had been mere seconds ago.

NOT THE CHILD!

'What child?!' Zoe literally growled into the worrying void of their magical connection, where she could normally feel his steady presence when she concentrated.

But this time it was quiet. Too quiet. When the swirling dust and leaves had calmed and Zoe could once again clearly see what was happening around her, she took in the situation with a quick glance - Douxie lay motionless and obviously unconscious, while Archie stood next to his head, aggressively hissing at the troll leader, who, ignoring her wizard's familiar, just put a hand on his arm, where the arrow was still stuck in it, while he grimly looked at the troll that had attacked Douxie and looked confusingly like him, except for the height. With his right hand he pulled a small bottle from a pouch on his belt, in which a liquid was sloshing. Without pausing, the troll leader uncorked the small bottle with his teeth and brought it to Douxie's mouth.

That made Zoe's blood boil over!

Powerfully, and with a scream that promised agonizing suffering, she jumped up and ran to her companion. She didn't understand the words the troll shouted at her, didn't want to understand, just wanted to prevent him from pouring poison into her Douxie!

But, suddenly, she literally lost the ground under her feet, when she was grabbed and pulled up into the air. Then her arms were each stuck in the hands of the other two adult trolls, as if they had vises!

"Let go of me, you swamp-faced cowards! You're not going to poison him!" Zoe snarled at the trolls, kicking at the two who held her relentlessly.

Through her fear for Douxie and her own screaming, her head turned into a sea of white noise and now she didn't even hear the troll leader's words, but only saw him move his lips. But then he just looked at her unfathomably, shook his head briefly, and then turned back to her Douxie. With another screech, Zoe reared back. But it was too late - without resistance he was able to pour the liquid into Douxie's mouth and then slid his hand under his head to lift it a little. While doing so, he continued to ignore Archie, who by now looked really rabid, and began to massage her companion's throat.

Zoe could have cried! But instead, she immediately began to memorize the information she had perceived so far that would help her save Douxie - the color and quantity of the liquid, which was moving rather viscously. But to be able to help him she first had to free herself from those two goons!

'Why'd I have to plant catnip! With Archie in his right mind, it'd never have come to this!' she mentally shouted to herself, kicking and squirming in the trolls' iron grip.

Then, suddenly, the troll leader stood in front of her. And while he looked at her seriously, she felt a short dump pain at the back of her head and then nothing more, as reality blurred before her eyes...

The stars shone brightly when Zoe slowly opened her eyes again. Her head hurt and the skin on one of her legs itched uncomfortably in a few places.

Blinking, she carefully moved her head so as not to aggravate the headache and saw Douxie above her. He was talking to someone, and though he had an unhealthily pale complexion in the light of a flickering fire, there was a determination in his expression that made Zoe frown.

What had happened?

She felt as if someone had cut out parts of her memory. She remembered Douxie staring transfixed at the screen of her laptop. But then? Nothing...

With a slight back and forth motion, Zoe tried to shake away the veil over her memories. In doing so, she must have caught Douxie's attention, because all at once she felt his hand on her left cheek and saw his smile above her. It was so good to see him smile! With a sigh, she leaned into his touch.

But as she did so, when she turned her head away from Douxie and suddenly saw the people Douxie had obviously been talking to, it went through her like a bolt of lightning and her eyes widened.

Before and around them sat not only the troll leader with the belligerent child and the two gorillas who had held Zoe, but many many more of the forest trolls!

"It's okay, Zoe, they won't hurt us," she heard Douxie's soothing voice while he was stroking her cheek.

Meanwhile, her eyes flickered from one troll to another, and as her palms began to crackle with warmth, she braced her feet to the ground to push herself up against Douxie. But instead of the trolls reaching for their weapons, she saw worried faces and- scared ones?

Suddenly, Douxie's arms closed around her and Zoe felt him gently rest his head on hers.

"Let your magic rest, love. I'm fine. Archie is okay and you have nothing to fear. Instead, you're scaring the trolls. Let's talk, hmm?"

"Forgive me and mine, Draoidha," spoke the troll leader immediately after. "It was not my intention to hurt you. But you were in such a rage because of your concern for your companion that I saw you as a danger to yourselves and mine."

"What have you done to me?" Zoe grudgingly brought out, catching a glimpse of Archie lying on his back, stretching all fours and having his belly scratched by two troll toddlers.

Her interlocutor seemed to have followed her gaze, for a growling laugh rumbled within his chest before turning back to her.

"Your dragon is doing well, and the effects of the sense-fogging drug are wearing off. As for you, all I did was incapacitate you by activating a pressure point."

Pressure points... how Zoe loved that ancient technique and hated it at the same time when anyone used it on her! But with this confession she couldn't help but feel respect for that troll. After all, it was a clean and effective method that didn't result in any injury if used properly.

But Zoe wasn't yet ready to give up her anger.

"And what have you done to my companion?"

She stared at him, playing with the ball of energy that kept being fed by her electrifying emotions. But that didn't seem to faze him any further. The fact that Douxie still had his arms locked around her, holding her close, seemed to calm him immensely.

"I gave him the antidote to the poison with which my son's arrow was soaked."

Hearing this, she wanted to jump up again, but Douxie's grip tightened, and when she felt the presence of his magic flare up in her back, she knew he wouldn't allow her to use her magic against the trolls. But that wouldn't stop her from speaking her mind to this son!

"So not only is he attacking people for no reason, he's poisoning them! What was that poison?" she demanded to know.

"It was the poison of a poison dart frog, as you call the animal."

This information almost completely paralyzed Zoe. But not a second later Douxie began massaging her arms.

"It's all right now, Zoe. The antidote has completely neutralized the poison and Tonrac has already apologized to me several times for shooting me."

"Besides, I don't attack people," said Tonrac interfered with a snippy tone. "Only humans!"

"That's not helpful!" his father rebuked him, then turned back to Douxie and her. "As I said, I hope there will be no bad blood at the end of our encounter, Draoidha."

"Why do you call me that? Draoidha?" Zoe frowned.

Looking slightly confused, Toncor mimicked her expression. "That is the title you deserve, sorceress. You are not just a normal witch, you are a healer. A master of the plant and healing arts." With a sweeping gesture of his hands, he gestured around him, and that's when Zoe perceived that they were still in her garden, just a bit on the periphery. "You have unfortunately injured yourselves in that unnecessary attempt to help Hisirdoux," he spoke, now pointing at Zoe's leg.

Following his gesture, she nodded as she saw the treated injuries that she had previously only noticed as itching.

"But no matter how big or deep the cuts to your leg were," Toncor continued, "here we immediately found everything we needed to care for your wounds. This is truly a draoidha's garden."

"Thank you for treating my wounds," Zoe thanked him somewhat meekly, finally letting her magic drain away. She didn't miss the collective sigh of relief from the trolls she hadn't met before, nor Douxie's approving hum that radiated through her back as a vibration. "But why are you here?"

"They need our help, Zo. Humans have always taken wood from the rainforest, but in recent years, it's become so much that they've had to retreat further and further from their original settlement area!" Douxie explained to her without further ado. "Normally, they could live side by side in the Amazon basin with the indigenous people there just fine, without encountering each other much."

Toncor nodded gravely, and as Zoe tried to sit up a little more comfortably she noticed how tense Douxie's arms were. With some effort she was able to loosen his arms around her and turn to face him. Looking at him then, her eyes widened.

"The less space the different tribes had in the forest the more aggressive encounters occurred. Toncor and his tribe decided to leave because they didn't want to attack their brothers and sisters of their life forest. I have already promised that I will help them to the best of my ability," her companion continued with an enthusiasm that even his normally golden amber eyes were suffused with a bright blue, thanks to the magic that just flowed through him.

That gave him a fiercely determined expression, and the realization spread through Zoe that after a long time, Hisirdoux Casperan had once again found a cause he would fight for.

"It would please me, of course, to have you by my side in this. What do you say, Zoe?"

And when he turned his head and looked at her with that engaging, determined and penetrating gaze, she couldn't help herself. Chuckling, she grabbed his hands and squeezed them tightly. "How could I not be by your side when after so long you have found something that spellbinds you so?"

His lips first formed an incredulous "o", only to become his characteristic broad smirk that she loved so much.

"Okay, first we have to put them somewhere." Breathing away all her former negative feelings with a loud exhale, Zoe turned to the leader of the trolls. "Toncor, do you already have a shelter here or did you virtually just arrive? Do you need caves or-?" Questioning, Zoe raised an eyebrow and looked at the trolls sitting around her. "How many are you?"

"Unfortunately, we suffered losses on our way here. From the original 39 you only see 35 left in front of you. Therefore, we do not make any demands on our accommodation. It only has to protect us from the sun. We have often had to move underground in the last few days, and some of us think that this will be our future. But I haven't yet given up hope that we will find a new forest for ourselves that hasn't yet been claimed by humans."

Hope. Yes, hope was something Zoe knew about. But she also saw in Toncor's eyes that this hope seemed to be fading.

With a sigh, she shook her head slightly. "And I don't want to take that hope away from you either, but it doesn't look good. Especially here in North America, there are really a lot of people. Why don't you stay here? For the time being, I mean. My garden is far enough away from the city that you should be undisturbed, and I can magically strengthen it so that the treetops staying together won't let any sun through, nor will any uninvited wanderer happen to pass by here."

With a serious smile, Toncor bowed his head and placed his right fist over his heart. "I thank you, Draoidha. We accept your hospitality very gladly. Mine are exhausted and could very much use a few days rest."

"Understandable," Zoe said and stood up. Beside her, Douxie did the same. "You guys go ahead and get some rest. We'll figure out the best way to help you."

While Douxie picked Archie up from the troll children, Zoe set up the magical backup and then grabbed her laptop bag. After they had all said goodbye to the trolls for the moment, they thoughtfully walked back toward Arcadia.

"You know," Archie suddenly interrupted the quiet as they approached one of the bridges that ran across the canal after nearly half an hour of walking, "it's nice to see that Douxie isn't the only one who can still be spellbound by something. It suits you, Draoidha Zoe."

"Oh shut up, Archibald!"