Chatper One: One Step Forward

Phoebes horseman found her in a particularly icy part of the hedge. it was cold, dark and reminded her far too much of the wretched maze she had finally escaped. Her mein was a mess of owl feathers in place of hair, as he pulled her from a snow bank. "You have found your way to Winter" he had told her, wrapping her tightly in a cloak of dark blue fur. Surely not from any animal that existed else where.
He led her through the snow, she remembers very little of any of it anyway. Just thatnhe whispered something about the beauty found in the darkest winters.

She stumbles through some brambles, her hair..no
feathers....fluffed and messy. Her eyes appear large and golden, exaggerated almost glam-rock eye makeup makes them larger and more pronounced.
Tired. so tired. her feet ache as she slumps to the dirt.

I barely recall from broken memories of many years ago how hedges are supposed to denote certain statuses. Families that have hedges, they're supposed to be extremely rich. Do these families hunt in their hedges like them do?

Hedges, hedges, hedges. I'm mentioning that word an awful lot.

Hedges hedges hedges.

Hm.

It starts to annoy you, doesn't it? You want to make it stop, as swiftly as you can. Stop what? The words? It's not simple, to stop words. But you can stop who are bringing them to life. That's what I was used for. Maybe a bit more.

I swear I'm not yet lost. I can articulate well enough. I can speak. I'm not crazy. It's just that - You have to keep your mind busy while traversing this place. Else it will become lost on its own.

My consciousness slowly brings me back to wherever we are, and the first thing I feel is my face, wet. An audible sigh escapes my lips as I refuse to move. Let's drift a bit more.

If there's one thing that has immediately improved since I escaped is my capability to retain memories. Everything from before my escape is... Misty. I remember my, what, fourth day? Yes, let's say that. My fourth day outside my keeper's watch. I had entered a small cave after escaping something that was running after me throughout a dense thicket of vines. The small cave weirdly led me to a mountain pass. It felt calming, for a small instant. The cold, the clarity. Then a snowstorm struck me. I walked and walked. And walked, and also walked. Eventually, my whole body felt numb. I kept walking, of course, but have you tried to walk with numbed legs? Well, imagine a whole numbed body. And now imagine yourself in a snowstorm.

Then, in a far away distance, I saw a horseman. He had a lantern, I remember. That shined, brightly. The light inside it, that is.

I remember following him, as fast as I could. He never waited for me. At some point, I thought he could be afraid. Maybe I screamed for him, begged for his help. I don't know, he just always kept his distance.

Following him did lead me down the mountain pass. He disappeared when I found a cabin. Of course, when I weakly opened the door, I succumbed on what was a rocky path - Yes, there was no cabin. I think I woke up afterward, and just kept walking.

What could have that been? Am I crazy? I haven't mentioned this to those that are similar to me, those that walk the same walk.

I can only assu - A sudden noise immediately provokes a reaction, and I jump to my two feet, my eyes now wide open. A swamp. We're a swamp. Charming. And that... What is that scaly thing? I immediately assume a defensive position and dare not look away. "Everyone" I whisper, loud enough for the presences around me to hear. "Ready yourselves"

Drip drip drip Edwina saw her blood fall to the soft earth as she leaned against a large stone to catch her breath. Her eyes drawn too it. Her hand absently moved to where the metal device had been that she had dug out of her own flesh. The cloth there was soaked in her own blood again.

Drip drip drip

Something different as her blood splattered the ground. Plants were rising up from where her blood fell, plants with little red flowers.

A voice came then like the warm sun breaking through the clouds, "They say hope springs eternal."

Edwina turned fearing her owner had found her but instead saw someone else, someone who introduced her to the court of spring. The two talking for a seemingly long time and producing the first genuine smile on Edwina's face for a long time.
Why would she find a place in a court when she was obviously fleeing from the horrid court of her mistress. It was a mystery she would try to unravel.

The encounter though lifted her spirits enough that she was able to continue through the hedge and find she was not alone in her pursuit of freedom. There were others and misery loves company.

The way they took grew more and more moist and outright boggy in places and she tried to keep off the ground as much as she could. When she heard the splash she turned looking off towards the sound of the disturbance.

"Oh, oh my, no no no." She looked to the others and gulped.

Slowly but surely wins the race...

Coleman trudges through the Brambles. Trods and Paths are too dangerous to travel... too open... so the Thorns it is. They cut and they cut, yet in ways that cannot be accurately encapsulated by human words like "cutting." He bleeds more than just blood. The Hedge is exacting a toll for his escape, but the price is more than just physical pain. Somewhere in the distance, he hears the baying of briarwolves and the shouts of hobgoblin huntmasters... or does he? Was it just his anxiety, made manifest by the psycho-reactive nature of the Brambles? The changeling stops and listens for a moment. Then he presses on. He’d come too far to be captured again by his Keeper. He’d die before that happens. Coleman looks around to some of the other changeling escapees in his company. A sorry lot, all of them: dirty, hungry, and exhausted. Their meins are more real than anything.

He thinks to himself, darkly. No need to be the fastest. Just don’t be the slowest.

Coleman’s tall, shadowy body is gaunt and gangly in a Jack Skelington-esque sort of way. He moves and glides like an ill-proportioned marionette, incessantly pulling and tugging against the grasp of the Thorns. His dark gentleman’s suit, part of his mein, is shredded and almost unrecognizable. Perhaps in response to his presence, the portion of the Hedge in his direct vicinity twists with crepuscular vines, buffeting and warring against the Hedge-warping effects of the other changelings around him.

Coleman thinks back to his brief but momentous encounter with the Autumn Horseman. It wasn’t an experience one would ever typically forget, but the Brambles have a way of ripping thoughts from one’s mind the same way briars rip at skin. The changeling ran through the memory over and over to keep it fresh. It was something to do, at least. Something he could use to steel himself against the misery of his current state.

The personage of Autumn was not so much a person as it was a ubiquitous force playing at person-like impressions. It was like seeing autumn leaves blown by a great gale, choosing to wear the masks of man and horse. If you could catch all the entropy and transitionality of the Fall season and put it into a leaf-swept roiling mass of a creature... well, that was The Autumn Horseman... all browns, oranges, and reds. All muscles and falling leaves, with a horse-skull face and antlered crown. Coleman didn’t know why, but it was instinct to drop to his knees in its presence. The entity didn’t so much speak as susurrate; didn’t so much move as rustle. He innately knew what it was; the knowledge was as instinctive to him as fear.

"Yes... yes..." he remembered saying, speaking aloud in response to the sound of leaves crackling. "I swear by oath. I’ll carry the mirror of lead... I’ll walk the court of ash... I’ll walk with you, forever and always... we have an accord."

He'd killed her anyway.

Shiv's grief burned like acid - and oh did she know that feeling well. She'd tried so hard to warn the girl, to caution her, to lay a false trail. All for naught. He had caught her, of course. His bloody hands had... No. Not now. She had to focus. Coursing through the Hedge as fast as she could; running so so so so hard. Like the flaming tears streaming down her face.

"Ring around the Rosie, Pocket full of posie"

His choral voice rang out across the hedge. She shuddered, unable to help but recall those words as...

Snick snack snip went his talons. Little Lillian spraying out across the nave - ears, eyes, nose, all torn out quick as a flash. Her throat next, crimson fountains everywhere as He sang. Somehow the screams persisted in that place. Even as Lillian tumbled down, her screams kept rising.

He'd smiled at Shiv then. Of course he had. The bastard.

"RUN"

She knew, then, that she'd gone to far. He was...

No. Focus.

The Thorns tore at her as she scampered through the Hedge. Her blood and tears flowed freely. And her heart within her burned with a hatred that was all consuming.

The Hedge writhed around her, suddenly. Wicked tendrils snaked about her feet, tripping her. They wrapped tighter, and whip-like snapped her about.

With hardly a thought she let the hatred out. A flaming nimbus exploded from her, reducing the thorns to ash.

"Teine is uinnsean
Màthair agus leanabh
taobh a-staigh is a-muigh

Leanabh de chreach
Tha mi gad fhaicinn. Tha mi eòlach ort
Tha samhradh a 'cur fàilte oirbh
Seall a-nis, agus faic
an t-slighe lasrach air thoiseach
Am bi thu a 'dannsa còmhla rinn? A bheil thu saor?"

Shiv rolled to her feet. Before her was... Brigid?! The old tongue from this flame haired... NO. A TRAP!

Well, two can play this game, thought Shiv.

"Chan eil tràill tuilleadh
Chan fhaigh neach-teagaisg mi
dè a th 'ann an seo?"

The rider smiled broadly, as she swung up onto her rowan mare. Behind her, a path opened in the Thorns.

"Well, lass. Get ye gone then. I seek no slave, and none who would bow to a master such has he. Go. I'll lead him a merry chase. But remember this well. You've found your spine again. Don't you bloody go loosing it out there." With that, she began to keen. The only word I can put on it. A sound to freeze your bones to the marrow. The Hedge recoiled all about her, and she hied herself off towards the chorus of my Keeper.

I was not one to waste a chance. Quick as a hare I bolted down the path she had opened for me.

We need to move

"There is likely something just as dangerous beneath the surface. We should just run. And keep running.

Edwina nods, "We all need to make it, I will help. Do you think maybe we could stir that thing up that slipped into the water ? So it might attack the hounds.

Nothing I can do will help here...anyone else?

"And here I was thinking that we might actually loose them," Magnus said as he heard the hounds.

"Stirring things up will only make things more difficult for us."

"Let's just continue moving, we shouldn't stay for too long, look around for a safest path and let's go."

He started looking around trying to find a path that they could traverse without too much trouble.

I stare at the other travelers with my head hanging half-low, expectingly, as they fail to take any decision. I dug my nails into my mount of venus as I hear the horn, and gulp down the driest of saliva. "If we fight, we lose. We gotta run. Either that or hide." I mutter to those that also travel with me.

I can't help but notice how expertly the one that calls herself Beckett seems to act while trying to find a way out. I move one, two or maybe even three steps in her direction, ready to bolt and follow if needed. Otherwise, my body is jittery, and the first signal of trouble may convince me to run regardless. I won't go back.

"Seems like the water it is, shall we move then ?

Edwina will move once the others decide if they will or not.

Clad in a writhing mass of darkness, Coleman begins trudging slowly into the water.

"Might as well go first..."