The world can be a nasty place for those unprepared. On this fateful day, one man learned this lesson the hard way. In a deep part of the woods, where the shadows crawl with danger and the weak perish quickly, a lone warrior found himself in an encounter with a basilisk. Slender, scaly, and venomous enough to take down a dragon, any rational human would have wet their britches at the mere idea of facing one, and fall unconscious at the sight of one. Any smart human would have turned tail before they had the unpleasant experience of meeting one.

But the human that found himself in the woods that day was not smart or rational in the least. He had entered with nothing but a sword in his scabbard, plate armour on his body, and a fluttering red and gold cape on his back. He was a warrior, by all accounts a hero, and sneered in the face of danger. He’d seen death, and spat in its face. He’d laughed at trauma, and positively guffawed at injury. In short, this man was an idiot.

Joshua the Mighty let out a hearty bellow, and thrust his sword at the beast again. He missed, just barely, allowing the basilisk to whip the sword out of his hand with its tail. It let out a horrendous hiss, flicking acidic spit in every direction.

This did not look good for him. It had been an hour since the battle had started, and he was exhausted. He wiped the sweat away from his brow, and stepped back from the beast. It advanced closer, assured of its victory, and flicked its tongue in delight of the meal. Joshua let out a couple of heavy breaths, and for the first time in his moronic life, decided that it was time to run.

There was a second of hesitation in his heart, but once he had his mind set on it his body acted instantly. He spun on his heel and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction, jumping and ducking over as many obstacles as he could in an effort to slow the basilisk down. The overgrown snake lunged after him with ease, slithering through the small openings that he had to duck through, gaining after him slowly but surely.

If it at any point decided to, the basilisk could have jumped and bit the human’s head off, but then it would have missed out on the joy of the chase. After all, what was the point of food if you couldn’t play with it?

Joshua ran as fast as he could, plowing headfirst into branches and brambles, coming out covered in his own blood. The only thing running through his mind was that he couldn’t die in a snake’s stomach! With a roar, he kicked against the ground and leapt into the air, flying at a ludicrous speed.

Straight at a tree.

A small part of Joshua gave up at that moment, but the rest of him simply braced for impact. He put his hands in front of his face and got ready for the shock to hit his body. To his surprise, he felt nothing but the wind fluttering through his hair until a second later, when he tumbled onto the ground.

With the grace of a drunk anteater, he controlled his roll and turned to face behind him, ready to dodge the basilisk’s deathstroke. However, the basilisk behind him simply looked in confusion, peeking around the tree that he should have crashed into. It saw nothing but an empty clearing, no human, not even a palatable pool of blood. With a sour look, it slithered off, and if Joshua had been able to speak basilisk, he would have heard a few choice curses directed at him.

As soon as the basilisk left Joshua’s range of vision, he let out a long breath. He was, however, compelled to find out why the creature couldn’t see him. With a moment to breathe, he took in his surroundings. What he saw left him breathless.

In front of his eyes grew the tallest tree that he had ever seen, a monument to the beauty of nature. Its twisted trunk, gnarled and splintered, grew taller than any building that he’d ever seen, and seemed to be as wide as a city in and of itself. Surrounding the tree were clumps of multicolored light, whizzing and swooping about, making the normally shaded forest seem as bright as the surface of a jewel.

Shakily, he rose to his feet, and took a couple of steps in the direction of the large tree. With a tremor, he realized it for what it was: Yggdrasil. He fell to his knees once more, and gaped in awe at what he had found. He needed to tell somebody about this, or at least get a small board of it. After all, wood from the World Tree itself was worth its weight in gold if he sold it to the right people!

His thoughts clouded by greed, he didn’t notice the dragon in the air until it was practically on top of him. With a yell, he reached for his sword. His hands reached an empty scabbard; he forgot that he’d lost it in the fight. With a yelp, he raised his fists, as though that was going to do anything against a dragon.

The dragon dove at the ground and halted its descent with a quick flap of its wings. Joshua looked at it, and felt like he should have run away while he had the chance. The dragon, covered in lightning blue scales, snorted derisively at the man, sending a shower sparks flying towards him. Joshua let out an undignified peep, and fell backwards, landing flat on his butt. He crawled away slowly, whimpering as the dragon loomed over him.

Thankfully, it didn’t take another step, and sat down on the ground, as docile as a puppy. A lady in a long, flowing robe jumped off of its back, gracefully landing on her feet. Joshua let out a sigh of relief. There was someone controlling the beast! Some amount of shame coming back to him, he blushed deeply and tried to stand up on his shaky legs.

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you.” The woman said. The words sounded bored and uninterested on the surface, but had an undercurrent of steel. “You really shouldn’t have come here.”

Joshua opened his mouth to reply, but found his words stolen by the attire that sat on her head. It was a pointy, black hat. A symbol that all folk, whether young or old, man or woman, tall or short knew. This woman was a witch.

“How you got into here is a mystery in and of itself,” the witch mused to herself, sauntering towards the man, “but there are no exceptions made. Pray to whatever god you will, but if you were blessed you would have never found yourself in the Witches’ Grove.”

Every hair on Joshua’s body stood up on its end, telling him to run away from this place. This was different from the basilisk. That was just a beast trying to eat him. This woman was dangerous.

He gave a small grimace, and stood up. If he was going to die, he was going to do so on his feet. Joshua straightened his back, and opened his mouth ready to deliver his final words.

“I-”

That was all he managed to get out before the witch turned him to ash. Belle widened her eyes, and pursed her lips. “I suppose that I should have waited for him to finish.” She let out a small sigh, and patted her dragon on the snout. “Come, Dara, we have work to do. The beasts won’t feed themselves.” She hopped onto the dragon, and flew away.

This death had, for the most part, gone unnoticed. The world did not suffer a great loss from the passing of Joshua the Mighty, and he was never close to anyone in the town that he grew up in. Any passing magician would scoff if they were told that such a relatively small event was an act of fate.

But while the event couldn’t be considered fate for the death of an insignificant character, Joshua had performed admirably in starting a chain of events that would change the world. Unbeknownst to the witch and the small pile of ash that was previously Joshua, a small tree had sat at the edge of the clearing and seen everything.

This small tree was surprisingly adept at movement, and slowly shimmied its way towards his possessions. With slow controlled movements, it bent low, and picked up the cape in such a way that allowed the sunlight to shimmer off of it.

If the tree had had eyes at the current moment, they would have been wide and filled with wonder. However, trees do not have eyes, and so the little shapeshifter simply shook to convey its excitement. It had an idea.