Chapter 3: An Amazing Maze of Trees, Warning; May Contain Bread.

 

The Centre of the Great Snowy Forest is very difficult to get to. It is known as the heart of the forest so naturally it would be hard to get to. As one gets closer, the Forest’s trees become more and more maze like in their arrangement. Not only physically, but odd mists linger in the area, confusing those inside, making left look like right, friend like foe.

 

Of course, the forest will have some idea the intention of those that try to enter, a mere child would not treated the same by the forest as a mean brutish villain. The child would likely be guided in the direction of safety, but the villain would be guided to peril.

 

The trees and plants become more alive as one progresses, whispers of their leafy conversation wafting like the bemusing mist through the forest. Still further there not mere trees but Draids, living denizens in the form of trees! These plant like denizens make the maze like nature of the heart worse as they can move about far more freely than their more wooden kin. The sensation of being watched by their eyes only adds to the feeling of unease.

 

Now all of that would be troublesome enough, but there is also the guardians, those who either living or near dying who gave themselves up to the forest to protect it. These guardians come from many kinds of denizens, some of the guardians are so old that all that remains of them is ancient bones, given flesh of vines and other plants.

 

Only two kinds of denizen can reach the centre, those the forest allows, and those who possess such power that the forest cannot deny them.

 

Lupix and her band certainly didn’t hold that level of power, and so far hopes of the forest just letting them in didn’t seem good.

“I think we are lost” One of the band said.

The band had long since gotten to the point where the mists made it hard to tell who was who. Quite impressive considering three of the party were conepeople, who not only looked different to Lupix and Koul but sounded much quieter.

“That tree looks familiar” Another remarked.

“All of them do, in fact, everything does here” a third spouted.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” a voice repeated back.

 

“Ok, wait, lets do a roll call here, I’m Lupix”

“Am ‘P'”

“Koul”

“Am ‘P'”

“Mik”

“Specker”

 

There was almost silence as the forest talked to itself without being insane.

 

“That was two Am ‘P’s that couldn’t be right could it?”

“I only called once!”

“He’s an imposter, there can only be one Am ‘P’!”

“Oh yeah? Well what is my full name?”

“Not going to fall for a trick question! My name is Am ‘P'”

“…Amulious Percinnet actually”

“Aha so that one is a fake”

 

“Yes, So I am the real one!”

“No you aren’t”

“No, I am!”

“No me”

“Me!”

 

There was a snarl of a wolf.

“Enough, Koul, bang your drums, see if you can’t drive some of this mist away!”

 

Koul did so, though he couldn’t tell if the mists moved because of his banging or out of sympathy.

 

Soon, the mists had cleared away to reveal the band.

One Koul

One Mik

One Specker

One Am ‘P’

Two Lupix, Lupixes, Lupixi?

 

“Just who do you think you are!” Both of them said to each other.

“Stop it imposter!” They said, facing each other with their thunderlutes ready.

 

One lupix began to play, making a beautiful sound. The other, in response stuck out its tongue, made a rude noise, ate its instrument and vanished in a puff leaving only leaves.

“Yahahoo!” a voice laughed loudly around them.

“What a lovely instrument” the voice said, far ahead of them said.

They had all looked in the direction the voice came from, Specker noticed something, glancing at Lupix.

 

“Lupix! Behind you!” he shouted as much as a coneperson can.

It was however too late and a figure twirled away on one clawed foot from Lupix, giggling.

In its clawed gnarled hands it held Lupix’s thunderlute!

 

“thats…” Mik squeaked.

“Bread!” Koul Exclaimed.

 

The figure was a denizen named Bread, or at least that was what it preferred to be called, and would steal a denizen’s ability to say names if it was called anything else. Nobody knew quite what Bread was, everyone agreed that Bread was a great deal of trouble. All that could be seen of its real body was its earth-caked claws, and many denizens had claws on their hands and feet.

 

Bread wore a great hooded coat of leaves and many different flowers to hide its body, and its mask, which one could see as being loaf shaped if you were that desperate to see meaning in its name, covered its face. The mask was of simple bark, but moved like a real face. Some thought it was its real face, but Bread taunted such by putting the mask on its back and speaking from there. Two great branches which still had fruit on them hung out either side of its hood.

 

Bread pranced insolently before them, making rude faces and somehow plucking the thunderlute to produce hoots, snarls, howls, grunts and other forest sounds.

 

“Give that back! It is mine, it has been in my family for generations!” Lupix called out.

“Would you feel the same if it was a crown?” Bread mocked, and vanished in a puff, leaves floating behind.

 

“If it were a city?” It called out from on top of Koul, wearing a crown of flowers and sitting on the rebcubre like a throne. Koul swiped at Bread, but it simply tumbled away.

 

“Just give it back to me, it is precious to me, it was given to me by my grandmother!” Lupix yelled.

Bread turned his head around such that the chin of his mask was pointing to the treetops.

“If it is precious, why does it cry to me? This child has been misused, misunderstood, the wish of its giver denied. I shall take better care of it” With that, Bread spun on its heel, lifted its mask facing away from lupix and her band and swallowed the lute whole.

 

Lupix couldn’t say anything, shocked that she would lose her beloved lute so easily.

Tears came to her eyes, and she shook with anger.

Bread came close to her.

“Now now? What is all this about, are you a wolf or a cloud? Making such rain? Oh I know, you can have it back if you play with me!”

 

This merely confused Lupix, confusion that turned to dread as Bread changed before her. Its mask snapped in half, then grew out into two mighty wooden jaws lined with jagged teeth. There was sounds like the breaking of twigs from its body and it grew into some manner of hulking beast, the Coat of leaves covering thick limbs.

 

Lupix screamed and ran as it chased after her. She had no musical instrument or weapon to fight it with. Koul tried his best to keep it back, his own body even warping into the strong form that rebcubres had. Neither his claws, nor his horns could stop Bread, and laughing, Bread tossed him this way and that. Koul had even tried biting with his now toothed beak, but to no avail, Bread’s coat of leaves had become like scales.

 

The conepeople, brave as these three were, couldn’t take all this and had fainted.

 

Lupix tried desperately to think of something as Bread bounded after her, crashing and tumbling this way and that. Her hopes were low however, as not even Koul transformed could keep Bread back. She really didn’t like this ‘playing’.

 

She used every trick she had learned running from the Firelord’s snuffers, causing Bread to get tangled up in vines, to smack into trees, to trip over rocks, to fall in ditches. Three times she thought she had lost it, but Bread kept coming back.

 

Lupix began to tire, and knew that she could not keep running forever. She thought that was true of more than just her current peril, in fact, it was like with her singing and her royal duties. She wondered if she was still running, and from what.

 

She almost forgot that Bread was chasing her, and then it came to her, she just hoped she was right or more particularly that she was wrong the first time. She stopped and Bread caught her, they tumbled along the ground.

 

Then Bread’s wooden muzzle mask was before her.

“Tag, you’re it!” Bread said, before horking Lupix’s thunder-lute up on her.

Bread leapt away hooting and laughing.

Lupix laughed too, Bread really had just wanted to play. The big scary change it had done was just messing with Lupix, and now that she knew, Bread’s form looked silly more than anything else, a ramshackle fake beast of twigs and leaves.

 

Then, she got up, and chased after Bread.

Eventually all of the band got caught up in playing tag with bread. Lupix didn’t know how long they played, but one time, while Koul was ‘it’, Bread disappeared behind a veil of foliage, Koul gave chase, then stopped and called for the others.

 

After they finally came to him, deciding Koul wasn’t just trying to get a cheap tag, they saw what Koul had seen.

 

There, before them, was the Spirit of Wood, Residing in the centre of the forest, which they had unknown to them drawn ever closer to as they played tag with the mischievous Bread.