Challenge #04370-K352: Strangers in the Woods

in fiction •  6 days ago

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    A: "It's all natural!"
    B: "So're arsenic and cyanide." -- Anon Guest

    There are, in magical worlds, places where the people do not trust magic. They shun it, exile those with magic in their bones, and even watch those using sleight of hand with suspicious eyes. The threat of a noose, or a pyre, lurked within those hateful eyes.

    They also mistrust anything new, anything from the outside, and anyone who doesn't look like them.

    No matter what you do to improve a society, or a world, there's always pockets of resistance who believe that everything was better when it was all worse. You'd think it would be the Dragons or the Elves who are most like that, but... shockingly, it's the Humans. One of the species with the shortest lifespans likes to keep things the way they were when they were children.

    Alas, such retention of consequences is impossible. For a start, growing into adulthood also means gaining the responsibilities of adulthood. The only way to remain in childlike ease is to have an obscene amount of wealth. Change happens to all, even when it's resisted.

    Witness Hallow Hollow, a little village that still believes it is keeping itself safe from the Xenophobia Wars. Those have been over for some significant time.

    In the rest of the world, Elves trade with devilborn, Dragons, and D'varuv alike. Among many, many other peoples. Some call them friends. Some call them neighbours. Some call them family. But... not here.

    Hallow Hollow was an insular Human settlement. The walls were high and the guard towers permanently staffed. Anyone who ventured outside for any reason did so with weapons ready and expecting attack from any angle. Alert for anything out of what they call the ordinary.

    Most of the time, they never find it.

    Tye was out hunting, so they were already on edge. Heart pounding, cold sweating, hyper-alert, and close to panic. Twitching at every movement, ready to defend themself from anything that moved.

    It was something of a shock when they found the camp.

    There shouldn't have been anyone else around for miles.

    They looked Human enough. A burly, tall fellow in metal clothing. A slightly shorter woman in relatively simple fabrics, but colours Tye was unfamiliar with. A short and squat figure almost hidden in a cloud of black curls. A slightly-built and feminine form with glossy blonde hair, and a small figure Tye first mistook for a child.

    They were speaking strange words Tye could barely understand.

    The 'child' had grey hair and fast reflexes, calling Tye's presence to the group's attention whilst also reaching for a weapon.

    That was when Tye realised that they weren't all Human. Only two of them were Human. The rest were... monsters. Monsters from the outside. The stout one with the curls was one of the rock people from underground. The one with the golden hair was from the Fae Folk. And the small one... was an old man in a child's body.

    Tye didn't know what it was, other than new and strange. They kept their arrow trained on the small creature. Trembling as they darted their gaze from threat to threat to threat. "What are you?"

    It was the rock people said, "I know this one. It's from longer ago. Hello, there. We are Adventurers. We mean no harm."

    "You're monsters," said Tye.

    The tall Human in the metal coat said something that the rock people translated. "We hunt monsters. Lots of them are good eating. Want to try some?"

    The Fae Folk on the other side of the fire was making urgent no-no gestures.

    "It's all perfectly natural," said the rock people.

    "So's typhus," said Tye.

    [Photo by Monstruo Estudio on Unsplash]

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