It is said that the fairy realm is twisted like a knot; here and there run side by side, yesterday goes under and tomorrow through, until, in the end, it all comes back around to the start.
Once there was a pair of adventurers who dared to trespass on the fairy woods. They came into a quiet glade, hemmed by whispering wind and burbling stream, where golden light filtered down through a canopy of translucent green leaves. They were young, wide-eyed and eager, hardly feeling the heavy packs upon their backs.
"Hello again," one lady said with laughing smile. "I see we're back to the start already."
"Is it really the same as where we started all that time ago?" the other answered, eyeing the flickering boundary of light and shadow beneath the ageless trees.
"It must be, mustn't it? Did I not pick that selfsame apple from that very bough?"
"This one?" Her companion reached up and picked the ripe fruit, hanging from the branches above, and handed it to her.
She took a bite, savoring the crisp, juicy fruit. "Just as sweet."
They both settled on the ground in the middle of the glade, both stretched across the ground, side by side, one still gnawing on her apple.
However, the other remained dubious. "I do not know. I am not the same, and you?"
She truly did laugh then. "I do not know what else I could be. Were I not my same self, I'd surely still be lost in those winding woods, as toddling babe or crone."
"Then you'd do it all again the same, without thinking twice?"
"Perhaps, or maybe better. What else would you have us do?"
"I do not know. Perhaps we have no other choice."
"Sure we do, just pick a way! Or else we could remain here forever, side by side."
"No, I would still choose the way we went before, even after everything."
"As would I."
"And who knows, perhaps it will be different this time around."
Writer's Month - word: knot | setting: fairy realm
AUgust - Reboot/Fresh Start
Flufftober (catch-up August) - Pillow Talk