Farrin Whitefoot

There weren't always dragons in the valley. In fact, only moments ago there were no mythical creatures of any sort anywhere. At least, that's what Farrin had been brought up believing. He continued to believe this even now, while his entire vision was filled with a plethora of said creatures. It wasn't that his mind argued against the evidence provided so thoroughly by his eyes. His thoughts never got that far. The part of him which dealt with logic simply curled up into a ball and decided that life would be altogether much easier if it switched off for a few minutes. Perhaps it would try a reboot? - Farrin's eyes were taking in rather a lot of what can only be described as nonsense. Yes. A quick restart was in order.

"Err..." was the sound that fell from Farrin's open mouth.

"Err what?" Came a tiny, squeaky voice from somewhere off to Farrin's left.

"Err... Just err... I think..." Muttered Farrin, not knowing or even beginning to wonder who he was talking to. His mind was in the middle of turning on again.

"Oh, I see," said the voice, "at least I think I do. Maybe I don't actually. Nope. On second thoughts, I definitely don't. Sorry!"

"...Don't worry..."

"I rarely do."

"...That's good..."

"I suppose... Hey are yer alright, mister?" The voice sounded genuinely worried as it's owner came close enough to see Farrin's glazed eyes. Farrin's mind finally found a gear, though said gear was little more than an old, worn cog which was missing a few teeth, it eventually rotated enough to reengage some minor motor function. His head tilted in the direction of the voice. The voice belonged to a collection of twigs.

"Oh..." said Farrin. It seemed the right sort of thing to say. "Are you... Sticks...?"

The collection of twigs nodded.

"Oh..." said Farrin again, with no particular inflection. A dragon cremated a tree in the distance. Somehow, Farrin managed to completely ignore it, along with the large number of tiny pixies which flapped curiously around his head.

"Are your eyes alright?" Questioned the twigs, and Farrin saw that there was a knot at the top of the tallest, widest stick which seemed to be acting as a mouth.

"I think so...?" Pondered Farrin out loud, before realising his eyes were burning as though he hadn't blinked for several days. In his mind, another cog joined the first and they turned together. Farrin blinked. The relief from a pain that he didn't know he was feeling until just now was instantaneous.

The twigs turned to look in the direction Farrin had been facing, "What's over there then?" It asked, its high voice raising in pitch to a frequency somewhat akin to that of a bat's squeak.

"Err..." Mumbled Farrin. Then he realised he'd said that already. Feeling somewhat peer pressured, he looked back across the open valley ahead. The freshly cremated tree was crumbling to ash in a soft breeze. "Uh... Dragons... And it looks like there are goblins... And pixies and elves..." He felt as though he was on a bit of a roll now so quickly continued: "Gnomes, orcs, elementals, chimaera, unicorns, trolls-"

"Ok ok! Yer seem to know yer creatures. Brain functioning again is it? I'm Klip. Pleased to meet yer, mister!" One of the twigs bent into a 'U' shape and stretched towards Farrin. Farrin crouched to reach the twig, took it in his hand and gently shook it, assuming from context this was expected of him. It was warmer than he'd expected.

"Pleased... To meet you too... Uh... I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are...?"

"That's a tad rude don't yer think? I gave yer my name. What's yours?"

"Oh sorry. I think I might be struggling a little with reality right now. I don't think I'm quite myself... But I'm Farrin."

"I'm only peelin' yer bark, mister! Even where I come from I'm told I have an odd sense of humor... Some call my kind 'faelan'. Some call us 'gwit'. I prefer 'brashen' myself but take yer pick!"

"Right... Er... Klip was it? I might have quite a few questions to ask you..." Farrin felt something clunk into place in his head. It felt like a small bubble popped somewhere near the back. "The first thing that comes to mind," he continued, "is... Err... What's going on?"

"Oh have yer not been to the valley before?"

"I've been to this valley before."

"Ah no. This is this valley! Not that valley... as in... your valley... This is another valley. Your valley is your valley but it's not here. Yer follow?"

"I'm not in the valley I know?"

"Correct! - Yer not. Fun question: How did yer get here? Yer human right? I've not seen humans for years!"

"I... Hang on! This is quite a lot to take in..." Farrin trailed off, rubbing his temples and slowly slumping to the ground which he now noticed had become mossy; it was not the bare, dusty limestone he usually found beneath his feet in his valley. He grabbed a clump of the moss, his mind telling him it might make more sense if he peered at it more closely. It didn't. It was moss.

"Hey now!" Shouted the sticks sharply. "That's not on! Put that back!"

Farrin, startled at the sudden change in tone, quickly shoved the moss back into the ground. It was not a horticulturally sound attempt but Klip seemed somewhat mollified.

"Thank you. Now, before yer go and get yerself killed for some sort of cultural misappropriation, maybe I should teach yer some stuff if yer haven't been here before? Lucky yer found me before one of the others really! Yer find much worse than dragons when yer travel for as long as I have."

"I... I'm sorry... What did I do...? With the moss...? Your moss?"

"The less said about that, the better. Just don't go around touching another twig's moss, alright? - It's just not on. Let's make that rule number one. Oo I'm getting into this! Yes! I'll be yer guide! Follow me!"

Farrin tensed, ready to jump up and follow the small creature at a run if he had to; this brashen, although essentially a jumble of sticks, had very quickly become his touchstone in this weird new reality. He needn't have worried about keeping up though. In the time it took Farrin to stand, Klip had shuffled about two feet away. Farrin took a small step to catch up. Klip continued to slowly shuffle away. Farrin looked in the direction Klip appeared to be heading. There was nothing for at least half a mile where there stood a couple of large boulders.

"Are we heading to those rocks?" He asked, pointing.

"Yep."

"Err..."

"Yes...?"

"Err... Is it rude for me to offer to... to carry you?"

"It is not."

"Should I carry-" was all Farrin managed to get out before Klip's tiny arms and legs were scrambling up Farrin's clothing. Considering how slow the brashen had been on the ground, this sudden climbing prowess astonished Farrin a little. It also gave him a clearer look at the creature's body, or rather, lack thereof. Klip really did seem to be just a jumble of twigs, connected to one another by some invisible force. Every stick in the jumble was currently being utilised as a limb, each of which rotated around a nonsensical axis, the pointy ends poking into Farrin's shirt for grip as Klip climbed onto his shoulder. It felt much like what Farrin thought it might feel like to have a warm, slightly thorny bush perched against his neck.

"Thanks," said Klip cheerily as Farrin set off towards the rocks, "this will be much faster. My brother was always better at ground walking than me. It's... A kind of fear I have... Well... All brashen have. Anyway, that's for another time."

"Uh, ok..." Farrin muttered. He thought he could sense the fear radiating off Klip and, in a rare moment of tact, refrained from pursuing his curiosity. "So... What's at those rocks?"

"Oh they're just rocks, but they're not exactly there."

"I can see them," Farrin pointed, "there they are... Just there."

"Oh yeah, they're there alright! Just not exactly where yer think there is."

"Where's... There...?"

"It's somewhere else. Yer'll see soon enough!"

Farrin felt it before he saw anything. As he came within thirty paces from the rocks, his right leg felt suddenly, noticeably warmer. His left leg followed the right, as was normal while walking, and this leg felt significantly warmer than his right. Two more steps in the direction of the rocks and Farrin's whole body was equally, uncomfortably warm. He stopped, but only partially because of the weird temperature change; Where the rocks had been moments earlier, he now saw much the same rocks, only these had a definite air of wrongness about them. He couldn't put his finger on what was so off. The texture looked normal. The light and shadows seemed pretty standard. Even the colour was exactly the same as four paces ago. Was it the size? No, not the size. It was something much more like gravitas. These rocks definitely had that in abundance. They looked to Farrin as though they had always been here. They were so very present that, for the first time in his life, Farrin felt powerfully unworthy. Whatever that meant.

Klip hopped onto the now mossless ground and pointed back the way they had come. Farrin thought the bunch of sticks had a cheeky look, but couldn't explain what made him think it. He turned to look in the indicated direction and gasped. The dragons, pixies, trolls and all of the other nonsense had gone. The only hint that there was anything odd in the valley now was the faintest shimmer in the air, as though there was an almost perfectly transparent cloth wafting in the warm wind. Then Farrin noticed said warm wind and the fact that it was becoming both more than just wind and more than just warm. He managed to half turn before feeling a sharp pain in his back. His body seized up in a semi-twisted position and began to topple sideways. Rather than anything potentially useful, as he fell, apparently in slow motion, he found himself first wondering if it would hurt when he hit the ground and second whether or not he'd had lunch yet. Surely if this kind of thing was going to happen, it should at least happen on a full stomach? Then again, it might be dinner time wherever he was now, so a stomach void of lunch might be more appropriate?

The back of Farrin's head hit the ground and everything went black.

Unconscious, Farrin would not feel a thousand tiny hands carefully carrying his body over compacted earth and tree roots, through patches of ferns and across streams. He wouldn't notice as a rope was tied around his ankles, his body was hoisted a hundred feet into the air and carefully transferred to an ornate wooden platform. He wouldn't be able to sleep soundly knowing he'd been lovingly tucked in to a feather bed by captors who knew almost everything about him and had waited several generations for his appearance. He would however have an incredibly vivid dream about eating lunch with a dragon named Gregory.