▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 7║▌║▌║█│▌

I gazed upon the forest in front of me. The dense trees that covered it made it to where there was a permanent darkness, but there was still light in the forest. I could see white light coming from white leaves, and little lights dancing all around the trees. It seemed everything had a glow on it actually. The plants had a light green hue, and the mushrooms and molds emanated their color. This forest was full of vibrant, yet soothing colors. If I couldn’t tell that I was in another world before, I definitely could now. I looked back at Garen coming up the hill, and he had a knowing smile on his face. When he finally got to me, he asked me, “It’s amazing right? No matter how many times I come here, I can never get used to it. It’s like I’m seeing it for the first time all over again.”

“You weren’t wrong when you said this place was beautiful. I never thought a place like this could exist anywhere. What are those lights that are glowing in the air?”

He looked at what I was talking about, and observed some. He then started to walk down the hill into the forest, and he told me, “Well some of them is just the natural air of the forest, but the ones that are darting places is the fairies.”

As he walked forward, I stood there at the top of the hill admiring the surroundings. Some of the fairies even flew toward me and hovered in my face with a bewildered look on theirs. They probably never seen a human before. They didn’t say anything, just looked and then flew away. I was mesmerized by them. They were elegant, cute creature. Like small humans, with pointed ears, and bug-like wings. They were all about the size of my hand. Eventually the others behind us caught up to me and before I knew it, Sasha was beside me. She smacked the back of my head with her hand and said, “Let’s go loud mouth. We can’t just stand here the rest of the day. We still got several miles before we get to the Fairy Forest capital.”

When she called me loud mouth, my fascination with the forest was quickly replaced by embarrassment from my comments earlier on during the day. As she ahead of me, I rushed forward to her side. “I’m sorry about my comments earlier.” I told her. “It was ignorant for me to judge your leader and culture before I knew anything about it. Ever since an incident in middle school, I have had trust issues with people with power. I hope you can understand.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder and told me, “It’s whatever. What happened to you at this thing called middle school?”

I was puzzled at first then I realized that they probably don’t have a defined school system like we do in my world. I looked at her pale, graceful face and said, “Oh yeah, you probably don’t have middle school here. It’s basically a place where you send kids to learn intermediate stuff. Not really easy but not really hard, and I really wouldn’t like to talk about that incident. It’s something personal, and I don’t like to talk about it in general, sorry.”

She seemed to shrug off the fact that I didn’t tell her about the incident, and went straight into more questions about middle school. Her normally elegant and graceful demeanor changed into excited and giddy when she talked about my middle school. Her features seemed to brighten up too. She asked me excitedly, “What did you learn in your school? How many subjects do you have? What was your favorite subject? Does middle school also have sports?”

I was taken aback by her sudden change of character, and the amount of questions she asked at the same time. I stepped back a distance from Sasha’s grasp on my arm, and told her, “Well at my school, we had the subjects of English, Math, Science, Social Studies/History, Information Communication and Technology, Physical Education, Music, and Art. We also had the chance to do sports if we wanted to and did good in the tryouts for it. We had some clubs too, that we could join if we wanted to. Do you really like school or something? You seemed to get really excited once I mentioned it.”

Sasha’s brightened features dulled again, and she looked back off into the distance as she calmed down. She said, “Well I think I would like it. I have always loved the stories my dad would tell me, but I could never read any new ones. Monsters don’t have the right to school here. That’s a privilege reserved for the gods.”

I felt sympathy for Sasha when I heard this. People didn’t really associate with me, so books were the only things I had to get out of the outside world. If I wasn’t able to read…I may not be here right now. I looked at her downtrodden face, and I told her, “Well I can teach you how to read and write if you want me to. At least I can in my language, you may not have the same language as we did in my world. At the very least I can teach you some basic math.”

She looked at me with wide eyes, and she told me, “No, No, you can’t do that. If the gods find out that I am able to do any of that. There is no telling what they will do. I appreciate the sentiment, but I really can’t. By the way, where are your friends? Shouldn’t you be walking with them? They are your kind, well one of them is the other is your friend.”

It was my turn to somehow look a little gloomy even in a beautiful place like this. I remembered the situation in which I was asked to leave them alone for a minute. I told Sasha, “They needed some alone time. I don’t really like the girl anyway, so I’m fine with distance between her and I.”

She nodded in understanding. Now that I looked at her real closely in the light, she seemed even prettier in the light shown by the forest than in the normal sunlight. She seemed to emanate a magical hue that could mesmerize even the most self-restrained man. All of a sudden I heard Garen from up ahead shout, “Heads up guys! We are here!”

I was wrapped up in Sasha’s appearance, that I didn’t notice my surroundings. I turned my head back forward, and what I saw was even more beautiful than the forest itself.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌