LMS VII: Project Dreamweaver

When I was chased into the forest by the phobotor and Cynthia had bashed a rock over it’s head, I had thought that was the last I would ever see of the creature. Sadly, that was not the case.

“But, Myfanwy–” I began to protest, but the satyr in question cut me off.

“No. You’re lucky the Dreamweaver didn’t notice his pet missing last night, elsewise, you might be in a very different situation.”

My brows furrowed. “He was here last night?”

“Why, yes. Where did you think he was?” She asked the question with such bite and exasperation that I shrugged helplessly. “Hm. At any rate, you’re going to go back into the forest and bring that beast back before night falls.”

I paled. “Oh, God, no. Please, Myfanwy–”

“I don’t want to hear it. You’ll be accompanied by Goergios and Khloe along with your little Safety Sprite friend, so you won’t be going in alone. Besides, that forest is nothing to be afraid of as long as you respect the nature there.”

“Last time I went there, a group of goblins tried to kill me,” I pointed out.

Myfanwy waved a hand as if to wave the words away. “That was just a coincidence. You went in on a bad day, is all. And this time, you’ll be armed with two new allies.”

I opened my mouth to protest again, but she interrupted me for what seemed like the hundredth time in a row.

“Ah, Khloe! Perfect timing. Have you got everything you need?”

I turned my head to the direction of Myfanwy’s gaze and blinked stupidly a few times.

“All but Georgios, ma’am,” said one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen. Long white lashes framed big brown eyes. Cow eyes, my mom would’ve called them (which was a compliment despite the fact that being compared to a heifer ordinarily wouldn’t be one). The woman’s equally white hair was plaited back into intricate braids. Despite her white hair, her appearance was youthful, and she looked to be about my age if not a few years older. When her eyes flicked to mine, they narrowed slightly, and I mentally kicked myself, straightening and giving her a smile that I had a feeling was not nearly as charming as I had hoped it would be.

“Oh, I nearly forgot– you’ve had yet to meet Jane.” Myfanwy said.

“Yes. Our new human resident. How lovely,” the woman said in a flat tone that indicated it was not lovely. I felt my smile worsen as I began to feel a bit woozy. Was it something I’d done?

“It’s nice to meet you,” I blurted out hastily.

Khloe smiled an insincere smile that did not even begin to reach her eyes. “It is nice to meet you, too,” she said in a tone that made it clear it was anything but.
I damn near felt like crying.

“Where is your Safety Sprite friend, Jane?” Myfanwy asked, interrupting the minor depressive episode going on in my mind.

“Uh, she said she’d be coming down shortly. Just had to… do something first,” I answered haltingly, feeling Khloe’s eyes narrowing even more at me with every stuttered word that escaped my mouth.

“Hm. Well, she had best get down here quickly. Every second you waste is a second that could be spent searching for the Dreamweaver’s phobotor.”

“Yes,” Khloe agreed, staring at me pointedly with a dark look in her eyes.
I blinked a few times, feeling very on the spot and wishing Cynthia would pop up out of nowhere and save me from this situation. That did not happen for a few more minutes.

“Sorry! I’m here now,” Cynthia said, breathless.

“Good. Now go out front, I’m sure Georgios has been waiting for you all for a good while,” Myfanwy told us before vanishing into a corridor yet unexplored by me.

A few awkward moments passed with Khloe damn near glaring at me while I shrunk from her gaze until Cynthia chirped something blissfully oblivious and flew outside, leaving us to follow her.

“Are you ready, Georgios?” Khloe asked what looked like the back of a horse. The horse’s head lifted from the neck and– oh. Oh, that was not a horse. What should’ve been the horse’s neck was instead a human’s torso, and humane male face smiled down at us. Georgios was a centaur.

“Ready as ever, Khloe. I quite like when Myfanwy sends us on trips like these. It gives me a chance to collect new seeds for the garden. Heath also gave me a list of mushrooms to harvest while we’re there. I’ve got it in my bag just here…” He stuck a hand into his saddlebag and, after a bit of rummaging around, brought out a piece of paper.

“Lovely,” Khloe mused with a surprising amount of genuine warmth in her voice that soon leached away when she continued, “but we’ll have to focus on finding the phobotor and keeping Jane alive.”

Georgios’s smile fell away and his eyes widened, making him look almost horrified with himself. He turned to Cynthia and me. “I am so sorry! I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Georgios. I’m one of the Dreamweaver’s gardeners.”

Cynthia was unbothered and went on to chirp, “Quite fine, sir! It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name’s Cynthia.”

I smiled. “It’s alright, Georgios. I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”

“It’s good to meet the both of you as well,” he said earnestly.

“We should find Denholm before we even go near the forest. He’ll know tidbits of information about the phobotor that could be important,” Khloe said sharply.

“I do not think we will have to look very far,” Georgios said with a pleased little smile on his face that widened as he looked over us and waved in the direction of the doors from which we’d just exited the manor. We turned to see a stoic man with a shaved head and a remarkable amount of tattoos heading down the steps toward us. “Denholm!” Georgios greeted him fondly.

“Georgios,” the man returned the greeting without too much visual enthusiasm. As he got closer to us, I was able to see that the tips of his ears were slightly pointed and the deep brown of his skin faded to gradually to an almost gray hue. I could not for the life of me discern what manner of faery he was. Before I could avert my gaze from his ears, my staring caught his attention, and Denholm’s steely gaze met mine. “You must be Jane,” he said in a voice so neutral it almost scared me more than Khloe’s frostiness.

Despite that, I put on a smile. “Yes,” I said, “and you must be Denholm.”

“I am.” His eyes narrowed slightly at me and I fought to keep the smile on my face. After taking a moment to assess me, he continued, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I opened my mouth to return the sentiment, but he turned his attention back to Georgios and Khloe. “Myfanwy had to go overlook the gardens, so she told me to come out here and see if you needed anything before you left.”

Georgios appeared as though his soul left his body, all of a sudden looking as ashen as a fireplace. “Oh. Oh, dear. Maybe I shouldn’t be going on this little trip after all.”

Khloe waved a hand. “Catriona will deal with her. Denholm, do you know anything worth knowing about the Dreamweaver’s phobotor?”

Still unused to Khloe’s abrasiveness, both Cynthia and I gave her surprised looks. Meanwhile, Denholm considered her question before saying, “The beast’s name is Balor. He likes treats– specifically rabbits or sheep.” A smile quirked his lips before he added, “And he’s relatively scared of rhinos.”

~

The sounds of the forest filled the silence between us as we walked over the mossy ground, peering around tree trunks and sneaking glances through foliage.

Seemingly unable to bear the silence any longer, Cynthia whispered to me, “I find it odd that Denholm did not acknowledge me. Perhaps he did not see me. You are all rather large compared to my height.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that was probably the case when Khloe shushed us. We all paused, standing stock-still. Khloe continued walking. We stayed still. She turned around and gave us a mildly annoyed look. “By my shush, I did not mean that the phobotor was here. I just meant we need to be quiet if we want to catch it.”

There was a chorus of “oh”’s from the three of us and I gave Khloe a weak thumbs up that she ignored, turning back around and huffing.

I wilted.

Georgios trotted closer to me and leaned down to tell me in a warm, encouraging voice, “Don’t let her get you down. Today must be a rough day for her. She’s normally not this rough.”

I gave him a disbelieving yet grateful smile. “Thanks.”

A nearby twig snapped, and Cynthia (who had been hovering a small distance from my side) immediately flinched closer toward me, one of her tiny arms extending in front of me as I walked. It turned out to be a rabbit. Upon seeing us, the fluffy little thing hopped further out of the underbrush and was followed by what looked like it could have been a warren-full of rabbits.

Cynthia melted. “Oh, they’re adorable,” she cooed.

“So precious,” I whispered, beaming at them.

“Perfect,” Khloe said. “They can be our bait.”

Cynthia and I whirled around to look at her with shock and horror.

Georgios loudly sucked in air through his teeth in a thoughtful hiss. We turned to look at him. Seeing our begging eyes, he shrugged helplessly. “Khloe does have a point. They’d be perfect bait for the phobotor. He’s likely the reason these rabbits have fled their home.”

When we continued to look absolutely heartbroken, Khloe heaved a dramatically loud sigh. “Do you two want the Dreamweaver to come home and find his pet missing because of you?” She asked, her voice sharp and biting and terribly annoyed.

Cynthia and I exchanged a look, bewildered. “No–”

Khloe cut us off in a manner reminiscent of Myfanwy. “Then you should understand we’re doing this for the greater good. These rabbits probably will, too. Now, let’s just herd them back from whence they came. The phobotor’s bound to be there.”

“Should we perhaps follow them from a distance through the forest and let them attract the beast on their own?” Georgios suggested.

Khloe didn’t even wait a second after he spoke before shaking her head and cutting down the idea. “No. We’re herding them.”

So we did, staying silent and keeping our heads down, not wanting to attract attention from the phobotor or the other terrifying beast in the forest (Khloe).

After an hour or two waiting for the phobotor to come and pounce on his prey, the rabbits froze up, looking as though they were vibrating from how hard they were shaking. My gaze locked with the big black eyes of one of the rabbits closest to the edge and I felt something ache in my chest. I remembered exactly how that felt.

Waiting to be torn apart by a beast that was sure to come. Beside me, Cynthia sighed softly in sympathy, and the sound must have made something in one of the rabbits snap, because one moment, there was a rabbit at the edge of the colony, and the next, it was off leaping into the nearest bush. Well, I said into the bush. Really, it was into the waiting jaws of the phobotor.

Cynthia screamed and I would’ve echoed the sound had I not been frozen. The rabbits began to run, but froze yet again. I imagined the nightmarish thoughts the phobotor was forcing them to live through in their minds as he chewed their fallen friend to bits. At least I had it in me to run. These poor creatures stayed stock-still.

The phobotor kept his eyes on them, the silver in them wider than his slitted pupils as his powerful jaw moved. When he swallowed, he did so languidly, like he had a feast before him that he knew wouldn’t budge until he finished it all.

The hunger made the size of his pupils rapidly expand before narrowing to slits yet again as one of the rabbits twitched and he focused on it.

In his hunger, he hadn’t noticed us.

Then, the wind shifted, and his eyes widened, that dark head snapping around to face us. When his eyes met mine, I felt light-headed and dizzy, certain that I’d be facing those terrible thoughts from when he chased me all over again. But I didn’t. He merely glared at me– glared at all of us– before deciding we weren’t as enticing as the meal before him.

It was then that it hit me. He didn’t waste his powers on us because he had a better flock of prey to focus them on. Relief made my legs wobble.

He started to turn his head back to face the rabbits when he stopped, freezing as a scent hit him. In a moment, his entire body changed. He looked less like a monster and more like an oversized cat with odd tendrils curling out from behind its ears. His pupils had expanded and an excited look had settled on his face. For a moment, he seemed torn, glancing back at the rabbits before looking back at whatever it was that was slightly ahead of us. Then, he blinked, and suddenly, the rabbits were everywhere, free from his mind magic. With the rabbits darting around us, I almost didn’t notice the phobotor’s sleek black body bounding over them.

Stumbling over rabbits, we went after him, expecting to find him gnawing on a deer or something equally horrendous. Instead, we found him rolling around in a small bed of lavender, belly up and undefended as he purred so loudly that I was reminded of those heavy duty drills I would hear all the time at the construction sites by Elena’s favorite park.

We stared at him in utter bafflement.

Khione recovered the quickest. “Alright, this is good. Let’s get him back to the manor using lavender.”

“He’s right on top of it all,” Georgios pointed out.

“So?” Khione asked, unbothered.

“We can’t grab any if he’s on top of it all,” Georgios reiterated.

Khione blinked, pausing for a moment as she mentally assessed the roadblock before moving around it. “You’re a gardener, isn’t there anything you can do about it?”

Georgios gave her an exasperated look. “No, Khione. Despite gardening being my area of expertise, I can do absolutely nothing about this because there is a live phobotor atop a bed of lavender that he is currently crushing, and while I am a gardener, I cannot magically produce a new crop of lavender. Gardening takes time and patience, both of which we as a group are remarkably short on.”

While I had kept my attention going back and forth between Khione and Georgios throughout this whole conversation that was much like a ping pong match, Cynthia had not looked away from the phobotor. Her head was tilted slightly to the side in a way that was reminiscent of a puppy as she looked at the phobotor inquisitively. “I could grow some lavender,” she said at last.

Georgios’s expression was the kind of blank that one could only have if they were very startled. “You… you can do that?” he asked carefully.

Cynthia nodded.

He nodded slowly, like his entire world as a gardener wasn’t being uprooted as he carefully shifted a bit of his worldview on his field of expertise.

Khione was not so careful. “Great. Do it.”
I opened my mouth to object, but Khione wouldn’t let me, grabbing my arm harshly. Her nails dug into my skin as she dragged me back when it became apparent that I wouldn’t leave my place beside my friend.

Cynthia flew over to the edge of the lavender patch quietly. She slowly lowered herself to the ground, her wings fluttering then drooping and folding down as she settled onto her knees. She inserted her small, needle-like fingers into the ground and exhaled as she pressed them deeper into the soil.

Nothing happened. The wind didn’t change course, the foliage didn’t rustle. The phobotor didn’t go magically still. He remained rolling around in the lavender, purring contentedly.

Slowly, something green sprouted from beneath her fingers. It grew upward, flushing until it became purple and suddenly, it was lavender. A sprig of lavender, made from the magic inside Cynthia’s hands, which she withdrew carefully from the soil. When she looked up, we all did, and we saw the phobotor paying deep attention to the way the small sprig of lavender in front of Cynthia swayed in the sudden rush of a quick breeze. Cynthia flapped her wings and hovered above it. “Come, Balor,” she said, her gentle voice soft and cajoling. “We’ve got a lot more where that came from.”

The phobotor– Balor– cocked his head, still looking at the sprig of lavender. A low, pleased rumble echoed from his chest as he leaned down, nosing at the new sprig of lavender with his eyes closed. When he opened them again, Cynthia was a few paces backward, her fingers deep in the dirt once more. Balor watched in fascination as the lavender grew from her fingertips. Once it was done growing and Cynthia had removed her fingers, Balor prowled forward and nosed at the sprig. This continued for a while, Cynthia growing lavender and pulling Balor along by his nose with Khione, Georgios, and me standing like bodyguards behind her, taking a step back whenever she did.

When we finally reached the manor, Denholm was standing just outside of it, ready to take Balor. His eyes widened when he saw Balor sniffing at the lavender Cynthia grew and the rest of us standing around like a trio of useless idiots.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Why didn't you tell us the phobotor likes lavender?” Khione demanded.

Denholm’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t know that, actually,” he said, sounding slightly peeved at himself but otherwise unbothered. He clicked his tongue, and Balor perked up. The phobotor looked at Denholm, then at the lavender, then at Denholm again before pressing his nose right back against the lavender. Cynthia plucked the sprig of lavender from the ground and slowly flew up to Denholm, Balor following. She handed the lavender to Denholm, who (clearly mystified) carried it into the manor, Balor trailing after him.