curious_cosmos | Arabella, Martha, and the Tenth Doctor: 'Round and 'Round and 'Round We Go (Reply)

10th_13thdoctor ((If you'd rather just use Martha, I can edit the title.))

Arabella adjusted the shoulder bag strap that crossed diagonally down her chest so the heavy bag rested more comfortably against her hip. She'd come prepared-- a couple of horseshoes, a handful of silver coins, a rough-carved wand made of rowan wood, a handful of fresh red berries, a clump of St. John's Wort, a four-leafed clover. An iron dagger rested in a sheath strapped to her leg beneath her skirt. She wasn't overly fond of handling iron herself-- it felt like an ice burn to her skin, and really, it did make her wonder sometimes about the truth of the legends surrounding the Thorne heritage-- but it would be effective against any malevolent fey she happened across.

Her dirty white Reeboks whispered against the narrow, winding, nearly overgrown trail that meandered until it disappeared into the thick of the forest. It was an old forest, some even said virgin forest, though she wasn't sure if that was accurate. What she did know, though, was that there was a plethora of legend attached to this little patch of woodland. Eerie, glowing orbs luring passers-by onto the trails at night. People entering and never being seen again. The sound of ghostly flutes and hauntingly beautiful singing wafting upon the wind that blew from within the tangled mass of trees and vegetation. The wood itself was barely a mile across, but those daring souls who ventured into it (the ones who returned) swore that it was much larger than that.

So, of course, Arabella Thorne would happily traipse right into the heart of it all. She was just that sort of person.

Three days ago, she had received a call from her Aunt Ariadne, who had informed her that a local child who had gone missing some twenty-odd years ago had returned to Briny Cove-- and hadn't aged a day. He was, from all accounts, traumatized enough that he wasn't making any sense. Through some careful string-pulling, she had managed to convince his befuddled and distraught parents to allow her to speak with him. He kept repeating a derth of demented nursery rhymes, speaking of skulls and decay and the ashes of the Black Death, and Nightshade potions and elfshot poisons that rotted the soul, and the delicious tears of the fearful, of hats dipped in blood and indescribably beautiful horses who drowned their riders, and we all fall down, and we all fall down, and we all fall--

It had been enough to give her an idea of what might have happened, and to know that she needed to tread very carefully.

Arabella saw the telltale line in the underbrush of a deer trail and moved from the main path. Her presence out here was, for now, intended to be an information-gathering expidition, nothing more. She would come back later with her aunt, or maybe both of her aunts, if it turned out to be something that needed dealt with. For the most part, she didn't like interfering in the machinations of the fey, even the friendlier ones, mostly because doing so tended to open Pandora's Box-o'-Chaos in her world and she already had enough chaos in her life, thank-you-very-much, but when they were preying on people, on children... well, then she might have something to say about it.

The deer trail wound in the aimless way that deer trails usually do, often completely disappearing in the snarl of vegetation for a ways until it re-appeared some distance away. And this is how she found the faery ring.

It was a broad ring of brightly colored Russula mushrooms arcing around a large, luxurious white ash. She stopped walking, looking at the ring with a good amount of intrigue.

Glancing around, she saw a number of bright green circular patches scattered about the area. She knew that the mycellum had spread in its characteristic rings beneath the soil as it drew nutrients from its environment, releasing nitrogen that fed the grass. The red-capped knobs surrounding the tree were the fruit of this particular mycellum ring.

For some reason which she did not fully comprehend, many of these rings also served as some sort of portal to the level of reality the fey reside in. Not all of them, and in fact there were probably far less than there used to be, but she would lay odds that this was one of the live ones.

She bent over at the waist, holding her bag against her back with a hand so it wouldn't swing around and dangle on the ground, and inspected the ring of mushrooms, careful not to actually lean into the circle.