A/N

I know some of you aren't familiar with the terms and names of faeries, so I'll try to put them up.

Buachailleen: mischevious male shape shifters, to use the readers digest version.

Sheoque: A type of faerie that like to keep children and grown-ups as pets, because they find them amusing.


I jerked my head around just in time to see the shadow that had been following us for the last hour disappear into the bushes a couple hundred feet behind us. It moved pretty fast, whatever it was.

"Where are those little lights coming from?" Jean said angrily as she looked around. For the last fifteen minutes, we'd been seeing lights out of the corner of our eyes, only to have them vanish before we could look at them.

"Ooh, I wish they would just go away!" Kitty said swatting away the air as if that would make them stop. "This is so annoying!"

"Any ideas, Rahne?" Jubilee asked as she tried to ignore anything she thought she saw.

"I've heard about faerie lights, but don't know too much. I was raised where belief in the good folk was forbidden." Rahne said as she kept walking. "But I do know that faerie lights are supposed to lead you astray, or lure you into a false sense of security before the faerie kidnap you."

"I see one!" Jubilee yelled suddenly, forgetting everything that Rahne just said. "It's right there! Look!"

I glanced over to see a small light winding through the trees, pausing slightly in plain sight, then flying off so fast it left a stream of light behind it.

"Wow. Wanna see where it goes?"

"What part of 'lead you astray' don't you understand, Jubes?" Rahne said exasperatedly. "Just ignore them."

We kept walking through the forest, making a straight line for the mountain that had begun to loom.

As we kept walking, we passed a small clearing with a single stump. It looked like some sort of meeting ground of some sort, and all of us did our best to avoid stepping into the cropped grass.

Danny.

I froze in my tracks and turned slightly to look behind me. There was nothing there but slowly waving trees in the breeze.

I frowned and turned back to catch up with my friends.

Which were not there?

I stared into the open space ahead where my friends were walking. They weren't there. They weren't anywhere.

I whirled back around. Nothing there either.

I looked at the ground. My friends tracks stopped abruptly. "Great. Now what?"

Jean stopped to ask Jubilee what she had meant to say before she was cut off by Kitty, only to realize she was utterly alone. And that the forest had totally changed.

"Jubilee? Kitty? Hank? Anybody?"

All of the mutants and other found themselves in the same predicament, totally alone and not knowing where to go from there.

I climbed the tree quickly, careful not to upset the branches I heard life rustling in. When I was high enough, I peered off into the distance, trying to see if they managed to somehow get far enough ahead of me without track that I was just overreacting.

No such luck. No mutants or flying horse men in the vicinity.

I took the time to look not at the forest in front of the mountain, but at the forest to my left and right. I was surprised to see there was a lot of it. It was too easy to get stuck in forest like this. And lost to boot.

In fact, I think we had managed to go through the thinnest part of the forest.

"Is something wrong, little girl?"

I looked behind me and saw a woman sticking half out of the tree I was currently using as a lookout.

"Uh…no, not really. Sorry to bother you." I said, getting ready to take a leap off the branch if needed.

She was brown as the bark of the tree, and her hair was long, but it looked to be made of leaves, green and blue in color. She looked like she was wearing green clothing, of something I couldn't identify.

"How do you know you've bothered me? Are you assuming that I am a short tempered dryad?" Her voice was milky sweet, but I got the feeling that it was meant to disarm.

"I try not to assume anything. It gets me into trouble. I just figured you might not want me to be in your tree." I assumed it was her tree, even though I shouldn't.

"And how do you know it's my tree? Isn't that assuming?"

"I like to say it's putting my money on a safe bet. After all, you're sticking out of it." I pointed out. She looked behind her.

"Yes, I suppose you would come to that conclusion." She said before sinking a little back into her tree. "Now, why are using my tree?"

"I was looking for some people." I said honestly.

"People? So many people pass through these woods, and some of them even walk into the faerie enchantment that keeps them from leaving."

"There's an enchantment stopping people from leaving?" I stared at her.

"Of course. The faerie have claimed this as their domain for so long, you don't think they'd let everyone walk through it, do you?" She smiled, showing teeth that were milky sap white.

"I didn't know."

"No one does, until too late." She was grinning now.

"Well, I'd better go now." I said, eager to get away from her.

"Let me help you."

"No, that's alright, I'll---ack!" The ground rushed up to me, and the only thing that saved me from broken bones was the roll Mr. Logan taught us to fall safely from heights. I looked up at the moving branch and the Dryad. She looked vaguely disappointed that I hadn't died on impact. Then she shrugged and disappeared back into the tree. The tree itself stopped moving.

I quickly left the tree behind. It wasn't the best of company.

I didn't walk the way my friends did, that would only send me where they went, and I didn't want to go there just yet.

Instead, I walked into the thick of the forest, just past the little clearing with the stump. I didn't know where I thought I was going, but this was a good a direction as any.

The forest was full of birds that now looked at me with feigned indifference, and I knew that almost all of them were the shape shifters, because while I sensed them there, I couldn't understand them.

I ignored them and kept walking until I came onto a stream. The fish hid when they saw me, not wanting to be caught. Apparently a good bit of people did come into the forest, no matter what the Dryad had said, because fish only do that when they've connected man with fishing pole, which usually takes awhile.

I hop skipped across the stream on the little rocks, barely keeping my balance most of the time and almost falling in more times than I could count.

When I reached the other side, I was fairly dry and still with a good bit of dignity.

I climbed up a small hill and found myself looking right into a very dark, scary looking cave. I decided to go around it, whatever lived there didn't need a visit from this mutant.

I skirted the cave and kept walking through the woods.

A little tittering sound caught my ears a few feet behind me. I resisted the urge to turn around.

The thing that was laughing came closer and closer, laughing the entire time, as if there was some great joke only it could understand. When it was right next to my ear, just out of my sight, I stopped and feigned a yawn, and watched as a very small winged creature with short, magneta hair came flying into my eyesight, thinking my eyes were closed. When it saw that I actually saw it, it tried to fly off, but I caught it with my other hand.

"AIIIEEE! Let me go, you stupid fat, deaf cow! Don't squeeze me! Please don't squeeze me! Let me go!" She was slightly hysterical, and kept hitting my thumb with both hands, then sinking her teeth into my finger.

"Ow! Stop that!" I scolded her, barely keeping myself from letting go out of reflex. I was also careful not to squeeze. I could see why she was terrified. She was barely three inches tall, and I could crush her with ease.

She spat out a small drop of blood and bared her very sharp and pointy teeth at me. "I'll keep biting if you don't let go!"

"Why were you following me?"

"Go to hell!" Was her immediate response as she struggled to free herself. "I won't tell you anything. Cow!"

I watched as she quickly tired herself out. She couldn't spread her wings, I had on trapped under a finger, the other was flapping uselessly, unable to do much without the other.

"Are you calmed down now?" I asked the little magneta haired girl. She bared her teeth at me. "Good. Now, what were you doing?"

She didn't say anything.

"Okay, let me take a stab at it. You like following people around and basically making a nuisance of yourself. Am I close?"

She just glared at me. I took that as a yes.

"But I guess you've never been caught before. Well, I'm not going to squeeze you or keep you or anything, so if you promise to stop then I promise to let you go."

She looked faintly surprised at the offer. I gently untangled my fingers so I wouldn't damage the dragonfly-like wings that I had trapped and kept my fingers open so she could leave. She slowly floated up into the air, hovering suspiciously, then shot off into the undergrowth.

I patted my hands down and started walking again. I probably should have been more surprised, but with all the things I've seen in the last few weeks, it wasn't surprising me like it should.

I got maybe fifteen feet before the same little person suddenly flew in front of my face, making me jump back.

"What's your angle?" I got to see her much more clearly this time. She was dressed in a green vest top with a low neckline, and a skirt that separated into separate triangular pieces, like leaves. She actually looked a bit older than I was, and looked like her face was dabbed with sparkles.

"My angle?" I asked, recovering quickly.

"What do you get out of being nice to the pixies?"

"Nothing that I know of." I said walking past her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked as she flew beside me.

"I don't know, maybe I'll be helped later. In any case, it's not worth wondering about. I don't keep tallies on favors owed or received, thank you." I ducked below an overhanging branch, carefully staying low enough to miss the marsupial hanging off the underneath.

"You're weird."

"So I've been told." I said as I straightened up.

"You come into this forest, not looking to nab pixies and such for magic, you speak to beasts and brush the minds of the Buachailleen and you don't seem to care you're in danger from everything in these woods! What kind of a human are you?"

"One of the special few, I guess."

"Like the one the Sheoque caught with those hooded goblin rejects?"

"What one?" I said, curiosity perked. There couldn't be many goblin rejects around.

"It was some human with weird hair, it looked like a sea star got glued to his forehead." She said with shrugging shoulders. "Not as if you could find them anyway.

"Unless I had help, of course." I said raising an eyebrow. "Isn't that what you were going to say?"

"Maybe. Not everyday a pixie finds a human worth following around. You're certainly weird enough."

"Thanks. Now, who are the Sheoque and how can I reach them, if you're deciding to be so helpful?"

"Shouldn't we introduce each other, first?" She asked, flitting a couple inches from my nose.

"I'm Danny."

"How bland. I, am Roxanne." She said before she landed on my shoulder. "Now that we know each other, let's get going. I wanna see how you deal."


And how exactly will she deal? We'll figure out a bit later.

PrincessOfWildfire: Heh, if I made it obvious, it wouldn't be fun. We'll never know, will we? But anyway, I'm glad you liked the last chapter, I've put more faerie-related magic in this one, hope you like it!

Anon(girl):Glad you loved it, hope you like this one too!

Raliena: I may have one or two of them show up, but I like the variety, it's easier to write for. I hope you like the chapter!

Chrissy: Glad to see you back! Yes, I think Crepuscule is better suited for Adelia too. I'm glad you liked the last chapter and got your fill of faerie mischief for this one!

Herman will take the reviews! Make sure they don't get hijacked by curious faeries on the way!