The Unicorn's Forest

Heathcliff rubbed his temples as the headache intensified. It wasn't from the usual causes that he was used to, instead it was what he was hearing from the two people in his life whose advice he'd always respected. Primary in that group was his father.

"You may not like hearing this, but you still have to face facts. You're not congress, so facts have to matter more for you. Letting go of any attempt at getting this Rivers girl and her friends under your control will help you get them under control ore than anything else you can do," his father told him.

Heathcliff sighed. "You say that like things work that way," he replied, wanting to just tell him to shut up, but at the same time, unable to discard the respect he's always had for his father.

"It may seem counterintuitive, but look at it this way. Your attempts to get her under your control have failed, partly because you didn't know enough to avoid what happened and partly because your plan was seriously flawed to begin with. Those attempts have made them distance themselves from you as much as they can, given how much they need you as well. If you work with them without trying anything underhanded again, then you'll slowly begin to build trust. Waiting for that may take a long time, but at the same time, that trust will give you a small amount of control over them. However, that will be because they will trust you to hopefully seek your advice if problems come up for them. If they don't trust you, you won't be able to even be able to get that," his father clarified.

"Your father may have a point on how to get some control of them, but what I want to know is what made you think that the ill-advised attempt to have your niece, my daughter, seduce her?" his younger half-sister, Sylvia, asked him, her glare belying her calm tone.

"I accept that things did not go as I had planned, but we've always known that magic needed to be controlled and that not everyone should have access to magic. What I did was in line with what those who came before us had done," Heathcliff replied, his words sounding more hollow in his own ears than he expected. Did he really believe what he'd just said anymore? Especially since magic is likely to become commonly known once more, regardless of the efforts that had been put in since the end of that war so long ago to keep the majority of people from knowing about magic.

"Look, even you should know that even if we sealed that Rivers girl's magic, she could just as easily have it unsealed again, given she's a Friend of a Unicorn. Even you should know what that entails. No matter what, control has been lost. All we can do is try to mitigate just how much control we'll be able to maintain. You've always been intelligent enough that you should have realized you were doing exactly what you should do in order to lose all control," Heathcliff's father said.

"Even Shirley probably could get her magic unsealed if she failed you miserably enough that you decided to seal her magic. I know Rick certainly doesn't care if he maintains control of his magic," Sylvia commented.

Heathcliff sighed. He couldn't deny the validity of what he was being told. He just really didn't like it. "Fine, I'll tutor that Rivers girl personally and without trying anything else," Heathcliff allowed. "Then I'll find a tutor for each of her friends that will be competent. Would that work for you?"

"That should be good," his father allowed.

"It will be, but you need to get that done before they get back from their scouting trip into that world," Sylvia answered.

Heathcliff nodded. He assumed as much and had a few people he'd already selected for that before the plan to get Charlie Rivers enchanted and under their control. Though, he really should have realized before that, that that method should be left as a last resort rather than a second resort.

_

Charlie felt almost like she had two bodyguards as she made her way back down the trail that she had walked down with her friends. She was pretty sure they were getting close to the marker that had been left to indicate which direction to go in order to get to Petals' forest.

Beside her were two arachnoids, the one that had three braids and the one who'd blown the whistle when they'd encountered it. The one who had blown the whistle to call the other arachnoids was apparently Arachnia's sibling Arachnis. The one with three braids was named Archis. She thought they both might be male, but she was withholding her judgment on the subject since she really didn't know much about their species.

She didn't pay them much mind, but it did get a little annoying that they wouldn't speak to her, even though they were merely there to report if what she said about Petals' forest was true or not. She had the feeling that is Archis wasn't there, Arachnis might be more willing to talk, but she couldn't be sure.

The sun was setting by the time she reached the first marker along the path. Then when she tried to turn to where she knew the entrance to the forest was, Archis put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, motioning for her to continue the way they had been traveling.

Charlie sighed. It was one thing for them to not be up to talking, which as she thought about it, she probably would have been that way about six months ago and found herself surprised at how much she'd changed just by being friends with Beth and her friends.

Pushing that thought out of her mind, she took a deep breath and began to try and explain, again, where she was leading them. "I told you that we set a marker where we first reached this path, and this is the marker," Charlie said as she pointed to the bright blue plastic ring hanging on a broken branch.

Archis examined the ring, with a mystified expression on its face. Arachnis waited by Charlie until Archis was finished. When he backed away from the ring, Charlie found she was low on patience. "Are you satisfied now?" she asked. "If so, can we continue on to the unicorn's forest?"

Archis regarded Charlie for a few minutes, during which she couldn't help but use her magic to call out to her friends and get them to join her and leave this world. This trip was becoming much more tedious than she would have liked.

"Lead on," was all it said, making Charlie's annoyance build even more.

She then led them towards the entrance to the forest, which Charlie was glad it wasn't much farther. She was ready to call it a day and felt like she was running on fumes at the moment. Maybe her irritation in the form of the arachnoids accompanying her was adding to it or maybe it was merely in addition to her exhaustion. After all, this location was clearly in a different time zone than Colorado.

As they reached the marker indication in front of the entrance to Petals' forest, Charlie stopped for a moment as she turned to her 'escorts.' "This is the entrance to the Unicorn's Forest. Follow me and you'll be inside the forest and if you want, you could even meet the unicorn if you wanted or leave and make your report to your boss when you see the inside," Charlie informed the arachnoids.

Then before they had a chance to respond in any manner, Charlie stepped through the entrance into Petals' forest and took a deep breath as she moved aside so if the arachnids entered, they wouldn't run her over.

She didn't have to wait long, as both rushed into the forest one after the other, although it looked like they had to bend their human half in order to fit through the entrance. Seeing that, Charlie wondered if there was a size limit for even the gates.

She didn't say anything to the arachnoids as they stared in wonder at their surroundings. Charlie briefly put her thoughts out to Petals and could tell she was in another part of the forest, which meant unless Charlie called to her, she probably wouldn't be aware of the arachnoids. Or unless they spent an inordinate amount of time there.

"What is this place?" Archis asked softly.

"This is a unicorn's forest," Charlie replied, trying to keep from having a ''I-told-you-so' tone. Though she wasn't sure how well she succeeded.

"How long as this been here?" Arachnis asked, his eyes drinking in his surroundings.

"I can't really say," Charlie admitted. "I only became aware of the forest entrance in my world about six months ago, so I don't know if any of the entrances of this forest have remained the same or if the anchor points have been changed at some point after it was created."

"You seem to know much about this place," Archis said.

"Maybe, but I don't know as much as there is to know," Charlie replied, not sure where this is leading and wondering just how much she was going to dislike it.

"What secrets does this place have?" Archis asked, walking over to a blue crystal formation, examining it.

"I couldn't really say," Charlie replied. "All I know is what I've been told by others."

Archis walked towards Charlie, in what she assumes is supposed to be an intimidating way. "Tell me what you know about it."

Charlie sighed. While she was tempted to tell the arachnoid where it can stick that question, she couldn't think of why she shouldn't share the information with them. After all, she hadn't been told, even by Arachii, that this information was secret.

She explained what little she knew, though left out details about what else the Heart of the Forest could do as well as the crystal that had contained Petals' memories from before creating this forest.

When she finished, the expressions on the arachnoids made her feel like everything she'd said was meaningless given how vacant they looked.

Shaking her head, she decided to just get this night over with. She's really want to go to sleep right now, especially since she knew that if she had to deal with these two for much longer with how they'd been treating what she'd been telling them as lies or something that she was coming up with to pull one over on them or something.

"Well, anyway, unless you want to meet the unicorn that lives here, it might be good for us to return to your village and you can let your boss know what you saw," she said, not caring which option they took. If they wanted to meet the unicorn, she planned on napping against the nearest tree, if not then she'd be able to go to sleep soon enough after they arrived back at the village.

Regardless, she was just done with this altogether. Part of her wondered if she'd be stuck in the headache if she was the only one of their group who could understand the arachnoids.