Iron Quill - The Apprentic - Beyond the Forest

[PraetorDragoon]

"Looks like you have much to learn."

 

The wizard said to me as I failed the spell once again. I wondered why it went wrong. In the months I had been the apprentice to the wizard, I haven't gotten the ability to even cast the simplest spell right. I could gather the power with easy, but using it was something I haven't managed yet.

 

"Yes, it looks like it" I forced the words out of my throat.

 

I hung my head in shame, feeling the dissappointed glare of my teacher.

The apprentice hung his head in shame. Being send away would make me lose my last chance. Ihad nowhere else to go. With my head hung low, I scuffled back to my chair, looking for the book I found yesterday. The seller claimed it would help me learn magic, but I doubted it. Yet, at this point I was desperate enough to almost try everything. I opened the book, and started to read the runes near the vivid, almost living illustration of a forest.

 

The sun was setting when I woke up, gasping for fresh air. Looking around, it appeared I fell asleep at the roots of a giant, mangled tree. I wondered how I ended up here, not knowing anything about this place. I vaguely recalled my teacher sending me on a errand, but this memory was already fading. Though it didn't matter. I needed to get home quickly, else my apprenticeship would surely be forfeit!

Following the road through the strange forest, it was more and more clear that this was a nightmarish place. The trees were leafless and boney, the shadows they cast were malformed, and didn't follow logic. Further down the road, I see the first sign of life in this strange forest. A traveler, not unlike me, with a brown leather coat and hat. I decide to walk towards him, and find out what place I have arrived in.

 

"Greetings, traveler" I greet the stranger "What kind of pla-"

 

My voice froze, for when he turned towards me, I could get a clear look at his face. His face! Gaunt and blue toned, with slint, yellow eyes. Sharp ears flanked his head. When he saw me, he sported a wolfish grin, full of sharp, pointy teeth.

 

"Brothers" he said in his low, almost hissing voice "Seems like we have found new blood"

 

He laughed a terrifying, high-pitched laugh while several small, purple demons came down from the trees. Their oversized heads and high-pitched voices would be almost comical if they didn't sport sharpened claws and even sharper teeth. While the drumming sound of their hooves came closer, I came to the conclusion that I could never outrun them. More desperate measures needed to be made.

 

Having no other chance, I pulled one of my teacher's soulstones from my pocket. The glowing, whispering stone was full of promise, full of power and magic. Concentrating, I slowly gathered the power from the stone. Somehow, it was easier now, quicker. I could feel the power in my veins, in my soul.

 

"Away!" I shouted, and threw the power at the demons. While I intended to throw a firebolt, the spell went awrey, and turned into a blazing gust of wind instead. The wind blew the demons away, and collapsed several trees. I could hear their high-pitched shrieks, and their leader voice unspeakable profanities. With their path blocked, I ran.

 

I ran and ran, desperatly in my attempt to get away. I couldn't hear their high ptiched voices anymore, but I was sure I wasn't out of danger yet. If not these demons, something else was sure to be around here. Not looking ahead, I ran into something large and soft.

 

What do we have here
Some tasty morsel it seems
hurrying to get in my belly
Well, that I can help.

 

What I ran into was a stuffy teddy bear. But unlike those I knew from back home, this one was tall and large, it's frame was massive. Malice gleaned from it's buttoned eyes, blood dripping from it's stitched mouth. One of his claws grabbed me, it's mouth splitting open, revealing swaths of teeth, ready to devour me alive.

 

"Wait!" I blurted out "Why do you talk so strange?" Desperate to make it out alive.

 

The teddy stopped, and looked at me with a puzzled look in his buttoned eyes, my terrible fate stopped for a few moment.

 

Why, isn't it clear
You uncultured one?
I speak in rhyme and song
for I am a Poet Bear

 

"Poetry? That is no poetry, Bear. You are just throwing words together in a sentence. That isn't how you make a poem."

 

Speaking more clearly now, feeling a chance to get out of my predicatment, I continued.

 

"Exactly, those are no poems. Real poetry has a rhyme to it."

 

I took a deep breath

 

"So you should do something like this,
Without a hiss
Having similar identty in sound
So the sentences can be bound"

 

The bear nodded, clearly agreeing to what I did say.

 

You are right
This is no rhyme
Now let me think
For something better than this.

 

With those words, the teddy put me back, and started to think. Sensing my chance, I ran away from the thinking giant bear, hoping that he wouldn't catch me again.

 

After escaping my encounter with the poet bear, I came across a clearing. But this one was even more otherworldly than the the rest of the forest. It looked like a kids toy room. Blocks, balls, and tossed away toys were lying around. In the middle was a small table, where three figures where drinking tea. The smallest of them was clearly a kid, and was berating the others in it's childish voice, like he was talking to his toys.. The largest of them I couldn't get a clear look off. I felt my eyes and mind rebelling at the mere glance of it, adverting my eyes, I saw a famllion shape. It was one of the demons I met earlier, its face frozen in horror, its eyes pleading to end his nightmare. Backing away from the scene, tI realized that several of the broken toys on the ground were dismembered corpses, broken and slaughtered for the amusement of the horrific entities there. And so I turned and left, child's laughter in my ears.

 

Horrified and disoriented by my last encounter, I stumbled through the forest. It was getting darker quickly, and I made haste to get home soon. Lost in my thoughts, a root broke under my feet.

 

"OW!"

 

Looking around what made this sound, I saw one of the trees getting up, it's bark and knobs forming a nightmarish face. All around me, more of these trees did awaken. I stood there, frozen, as the forest around me came alive.

 

"How dare you human" The tree-creature said, "To wound my child like that."

 

Surely, the roots I did break belonged to one of the smaller trees. Quickly, I tried to apologize.

 

"I'm sorry, sir tree, but I-"

"No apologies, you fool! Too often youkind comes here, with steel and fire. Many of my friends and familly did fell by your axes and saws. You will pay for their deaths"

 

Around him, the other trees nodded in agreement, their inent clear. I was out of soulstones, and out of tricks. This was where my story would end.

 

I have finally figured it out

Now I can now do it without a doubt
It is finally time
For I can at last rhyme!

 

Powerful bellowing shaked the earth, and the teddy bear did appear. Grinning with glee, and happiness in it's buttoned eyes, he made his way through the tree-beasts, crushing those that didn't run under it's bulky weight. Those that tried to stand against him where quickly swatted away by it's powerful arms. 

 

"Away bear, the mortal is for this one!" The branch-creature said, trying to gesture the teddy away. "You don't belong here!"

 

You are wrong
For it's you who doesn't belong
I have long laid my claim
You have only yourself to blame

 

The Teddy wrapped its arms around the treewraith. The beast, clearly startled, tried to stab the toy and tried it's best to get clear. But it was in vain, as the sound of breaking wood and snapping branches could attest to. Soon, the struggle ended, and the bear threw the body away. Then, he turned it's stitched, stuffed face to me.

 

I thank you for your aid
Yet it remains a debt unpaid

 

Stitched ripped as the Teddy opened it's impossibly huge mouth, thousands and thousands of razor-sharp teeth were the last thing the apprentice saw before everything went black.

 

 With a shock I awake at my chair. Shaking my head, I wondered what did happen. Did I only dream? Then I looked at the picture of the forest once more, where I saw a waving teddy bear standing among the broken remains of trees.

------------------------------------------

Ingredients Used

The Apprentice

A book

Lost (in the Forest)

 

I hope you enjoyed it. 

 

(Also on my blog)

[Laatija Gray]

Ha! I love the poet bear!