seven 𖤓 A Dangerous Game

"Hello?" I call out into the forest as I approach the edge of the grass, just as instructed in the letter. The bravery I had armored myself with, sword and shield held with gallant optimism have vanished, leaving me alone and naked in the dark.

Somehow, the sound of my own voice provides a small comfort, so I speak again, louder this time. "Hello?"

My greeting does little, bringing out no one from the trees I begin to scan, only earning a rustling in the bushes from a white rabbit. It darts across my feet, little nose twitching as it lands within inches of me, before its eyes settle on something.

It rushes back into the bushes before I can so much as tell it to stop, to wait, that I am afraid and do not wish to be alone. That the forest goes on for miles, and though I am only yards within the trees, I already feel the veil of safety that covers the castle and all that lives within it lift out from above me.

My heart sinks deep within my stomach as my mind screams at me to turn back. How foolish am I, truly, to venture into such a place, at such a time.

My wand is buried in the pocket of my robe, digging into my side with a not so gentle a reminder that not all hope is lost. Nothing is lost at all, I tell myself with a firm grip upon the wood. Even if I do die out here today, it will be by own fault, the consequences of my own actions. Not the result of a curse I did nothing to deserve.

I spins around as I prepare to make the trek back to the castle, when the whisper brushes against me ear, my name breathed out like a seduction. "Emma."

My elbow lodges into something soft, a reflex in which I jerk it as hard and fast behind me as I can.

"Fuck!" The woman swears as I pivot to face her, my heart returning to its position in my chest, beating hard enough that I fear it may fly out of me entirely.

Through a mane of dark hair, two dark blue eyes stare at me with tears of pain welling in them, and my fear is instantly swapped out with an insurmountable amount of guilt. Even so, I keep my mouth shut, spending the valuable time in which the person is preoccupied with their newfound agony taking them in.

It is a woman, I first come to understand, through the mass of black curls and the thin, yet curved frame, cloaked in a blue dress not unlike one I own as well. She has delicate yet strong features, thin, jagged bones that pierce out from her face, sharp enough to cut the finest of glass. Her rosy cheeks contrast from the paleness of her skin, and her lips are the deepest shade of red.

A part of me tells me to run, but all I can do is stare at the vision of beauty I have never seen anything like before.

"Is your intention to main me?" She murmurs, rubbing where my elbow had met her stomach.

"Sorry," I wince in response, as though I am the one who is wounded. "Are you...?"

"The Whisperer of the Woods," she answers for me, straightening her posture to stare at me through the glint of moonlight that manages to slip through the overhead canopy of leaves. A hand outstretches, slender fingers directed towards me. "Better known as Morgana. You are Emma."

It is not a question, but a statement. She knows my name, perhaps has known who I am for years. Of course she does, the gleam in those blue eyes of hers suggests she is aware of far more than she should be.

"You left me a note," I say rather dumbly. Though if she finds amusement in my lack of dexterity, she does not show it, the little smirk she wears remaining the same as before.

"I did," she confirms, retracting her hand back to her side. Only as she does do I realize I was likely meant to shake it, to introduce myself properly back to her.

My cheeks flush scarlet. "Apologies," I mutter, moving to brush my hair out of my face before I can quite comprehend why. Something about this girl, the nature of her, has me willing myself to appease her in a way I have never felt before, not with my father or my mother or even Salazar Slytherin. My instinct throughout life has been to push, and it had taken a conscious effort to do the opposite.

This time, I have to fight against the urge to sink to my knees, an unusual feeling of unworthiness consuming me whole.

A spell — perhaps she put a spell on me, and my eyes grow wide as I search her. She holds no wand, but something about her tells me she is not like every other witch, not in need of such instruments.

"Nothing to apologize for." Her voice is thick and clean and almost sparkling, not a single hint of a rasp like I would expect from a forest witch. Assuming that is what she calls herself, though given the fact that she certainly does not roam the halls of Hogwarts, that is where my mind goes to.

"You...you called me to the forest." Another dumb statement, I am well aware of this, but she does not seem to be keen on starting the conversation, so the burden falls upon me. "What is it you wish of me? Are you...are you going to kill me?"

For a brief moment, shock eclipses her previously placid expression, followed by her lips curving in amusement. Then, without so much as a second of warning, she leans her head back and releases a loud laugh. It seems to echo off the trees, bouncing about in the night and settling back in a pit formed in my stomach, like a knife twisting.

"If I was going to kill you, Emma, you'd be dead by now," she assures me — at least, I think it is supposed to be assuring, though it fails to lift the blanket of anxiety she's draped over me, leaving me shivering in the night.

"I know of your plight," she omits any further pleasantries, those blue hues scanning me, my shaking frame and newly thin body and eyes I'm sure still have that spark of rage, even in my fear. I doubt it will ever leave me, not fully. "I know what Merlin did to you."

"How?"

"I know a great deal of things," Morgana tells me. In her voice, it sounds like a promise.

My fists clench, then unclench, releasing anger I haven't a clue the origin of. Morgana has yet to do anything to offend me, yet the desire to rip her pretty head from her body bursts into me like a home intruder. What right does she have to this information about me? What has she done to earn my secrets?

Attempting to keep my composure, I shift my weight from foot to foot. "The forest is a dangerous place to meet."

Her nose twitched, a hint of amusement flickering across her. "I had to ensure we would not be spotted. I have little need for eavesdroppers, the bastards that they are."

This time, I find a smile cracking at my lips, the anger slipping out from the shell that has formed around my body, vanishing into the thick of the dark forest, hopefully to never find me again.

"Merlin is a cruel man," she continues when I am silent, simply allowing the various emotions to rush through me. "He is a cruel man, and so is Salazar Slytherin, for allowing your father to be murdered in the first place, starting all of this."

I nod in agreement, not bothering to ask how it is she knows everything, if she can read my mind or has seen and heard things elsewhere, or if she is somehow above the typical human ways of acquiring knowledge.

"Revenge is a dangerous game, Emma," Morgana says, outstretching a hand, finding mine through the darkness. Her skin, cold and clammy, sends a jolt through me when it collides with my own, something forceful and all too unusual.

"I am not seeking revenge," I respond, though I can tell she knows I lie. Perhaps she knew before I even opened my mouth.

She looks at me with pity in her eyes, enough of it that has me shifting about where I stand, boots scraping against the forest floor. "What else would you deign do, with all that has been thrust upon you?"

"Live?" I offer.

"That has been taken from you. If you are going to go down, would you not rather bring them down with you? Perhaps feel more at peace with your death, if you knew your final days were spent doing something worthwhile?"

"How is avenging myself worthwhile?"

"How is it not?" Her expression morphs into one of annoyance, not with me, I can tell, but with whoever drilled this way of thinking into my brain, long before Morgana likely ever knew who I was.

"Morgana, you fail to understand me. I am worth very little, in the grand scheme of things."

She shakes her head, a sad sort of look in her eyes. "That's where you're wrong, my dear. Do you wish to be great?"

"Greatness is a dangerous game," I say, repeating her earlier statement with a similar tone to what she had used.

To my surprise, her lips curve upwards, in an odd sort of smile, like a river. Calm at the surface, but you know there is something deeper beneath those gentle waves, ready and eager to pull you down when you least expect it. "What I am offering you is an opportunity for revenge. I will help you, Emma. We can take down all those who have harmed you. Merlin, Slytherin, name a name and I will help you."

Silence passes between us for a moment, the only sounds being the life of the forest. Then, I ask, "Why?"

"A clever question." Morgana steps around me, forcing me to turn around, following her so I do not have my back towards where she could so easily wield a knife. "But would you not say it is worth it, despite not knowing my reasons?"

"No," I answer simply. Perhaps foolishly, too, I only realize after I speak. Even so, I continue with, "I cannot trust you if I do not know a thing about you, let alone your intentions."

Half of me expects a curse to reign down from the heavens, a more dramatic occurrence of what Merlin did to me. Morgana does not strike me as a woman who takes being scorned lightly. But instead, she tilts her head back, a laugh ripping out from inside her.

"You cannot trust me, I understand that," she agrees with a girlish sort of giggle. "But who can you trust?"

"I have friends," I suggest, sounding uncertain even as I speak, though I am not sure why. "I can trust them."

She shakes her head.

I frown. "What do you mean?"

Another shake of her head. "It's a no, then?"

I pause. Think this over, give it a true moment of thought beyond what my impulses tell me.

It would be just as unwise to say no to her as it would be to say yes, I determine. She, for all her professions of revenge and how I was wronged, could be no different than Merlin. I could be cursed once again, the effects of it worse. If I deign say no to her, tonight could be the last night of my life.

But saying yes is no less risky. I haven't a clue what I'd be getting myself involved with, nor with whom. Morgana is an uncertainty I have yet to face in life, something so unique and foreign and sudden, I find myself teetering on the edge of greatness or damnation without knowing which I prefer. Without knowing how I got here in the first place.

"I cannot say for certain," is the answer I end up giving, a calm, reasonable one. "May I...may I be allowed to ponder on it for a while?"

"What is there to ponder on?"

We are walking now, I realize as I rush to keep up with her fast pace, deep into the shroud of the forest, away from the castle, from warmth and safety and everything I know. A perfect metaphor for something, maybe, but all I can focus on is the fear rushing through my veins like burning acid.

I don't want to die. Not tonight. Not because of this girl.

"It is a lot to consider," I explain, twisting my fingers about in my hands, fiddling with the ends of my nails. "What would your revenge entail?"

She waves a dismissive hand, brushing the cool forest air towards me. "We will deal with that when we come to it. I think you can make a good guess on it, Emma. You're no fool."

I gulp, halting my movements, now understanding how little I wish to be alone with her. She does the same, pausing her steps and turning her full body towards me, eyebrows lifted in a calculated, yet lazy motion.

"I am not a fool," I agree with her, shoving aside my hesitancies. Perhaps if I die tonight, if she curses me where I stand, at least I will not be shocked when the blow hits me. This time, she will have to look me in the eye as she takes my life away from me.

So, I finish, chin lifted high, "And I know something is unsavory when I see it. Whatever it is you wish for me to participate in, I cannot."

"You are making a mistake," she warns me, though the darkness in her eyes does not match those of Merlin when I denied him in the same way.

"Maybe," I agree. "But I am willing to play that game on my own."

Morgana releases a huff, hugging her arms to her chest. "You will come crawling back to me, Emma. Trust me. And when you do, I will accept you with open arms, because I understand what restrains you. I possessed a human heart as well once. You will soon trust me, I can sense it."

"Believe what you wish." I give her the smallest, kindest of smiles I can force through the glimpse of moonlight that catches onto my face. "I bid you a good night, Miss Morgana."

She is gone within the moment I blink, there one second and vanished into the air the next, leaving behind only a footprint in the dirt floor beneath her as a memory she was ever standing in the first place.

I regret it the moment she is gone. Not due to a temptation towards her offer, but the feeling surrounding me that, despite her newfound absence, I am not alone. Eyes follow me, I feel them digging into my skin as I slowly, ever so slowly step towards the way I came.

I want to run. I want to sprint as fast as I can, feel the ground dig up from beneath my feet, but to do so would be to signal to whatever it is observing me like a meal that I am onto it, that I am just as aware of it as it is of me. It would spring them into action.

Who knows if I could outrun it.

I am halfway to my destination, to the clearing in the trees when I hear it. The snapping of a twig, just feet behind me.

It is instinct that takes a hold of me, my entire body spinning around as I reach into my pocket, retrieving my wand with as much speed as I can.

It isn't enough. It never is.

Shoved to my back, my wand rips itself out of my grip and vanishes within a shrub as my attacker digs its claws into my shoulders, holding me down. Restraining me, keeping me from moving my arms, my legs, from doing anything but opening my mouth and emitting a scream.

The creature — a hideous, almost bear-esque monster, with horns for ears and teeth long and sharp, peaking out from beneath a Cheshire smile, is not frightened by my scream, the final thing I can think to do to get it off of me.

I scream again, a helpless chorus of pleas I know deep down will get me nowhere. Morgana, I think with a desperate cry as the creature lowers its jaw towards me, snout brushing against my chin. She may still be nearby, may be able to come to my rescue.

Assuming she had not been the one behind the creature's attack.

My heart sinks at the thought, my only hope.

I'd thought a death in the forest to be my own choice, to be preferable to burning up as Merlin decided for me, but as I look death in its grotesque yellow eyes, I know I am not ready. Not for this. Not now.

I scream again, raising my head and staring up at the Heavens, only for it to be converted into a cry of agony as the creature's claw digs itself deep into the crevice where my shoulder meets my torso.

It wants to take its time with me, I understand as it leans down to lick up the blood now seeping from my gaping wound. What ever dark creature this may be, it has the same sadism of a human man, yellow eyes gleaming as its tongue is coated with my blood.

Then, just as I close my eyes in preparation to give up, release myself into the arms of something stronger than me, I hear it.

A whimper, like a puppy being kicked in the side.

The beast collapses, rolling off of me in the process and falls to a heap on my left.

Morgana, I exhale with a sigh of relief, eyes opening. She'd come to save me after all, heard my cries of distress and returned for me.

But it is not Morgana who my gaze falls upon. 

Author's Notes

I don't really like this chapter tbh but it'll have to do. Final chapter of 2024!!!