#rabea

She was what she used to call an experienced adventurer, which was why she knew that The Forest was off-limits. Only younglings and desperate people entered. People who were too hungry for fame and glory, or people who hungered for the insanely high prize Irma the Immortal had set for whoever retrieved The Book behind The Wall at the heart of The Forest.

Short: idiots to which Rabea did not belong.

And why would she even attempt to venture inside? There were plenty of giant hiccuping frogs and deers of devastation to hunt in perfectly regular forests!

And then—

“I'll attempt it”, Margo said while they both walked down the market. Rabea choked on a bite of Kartoffelpuffer.

They had seen one of Irma the Immortal’s posters and laughed about it wholeheartedly. So why…?

“Why?” Rabea asked.

"Why not?" Margo laughed and then elbowed her in the side. "Don't worry, I'm just joking."

But when she thought that Rabea wasn't looking, she folded—folded—the poster and put it in her coat's pocket.

It is something Rabea notices and later remembers, but in that moment does not pay the attention to that it needed. Something that she spends a lot of time dwelling on on her deathbed. Poison in her cup, but that's another story.

What happened is this: They spent a warm summer night in each other's embrace and said goodbye the next day as they usually did. Rabea had been hired to find the tear of the moon and Margo had mentioned another job as well. They'd find each other after, they always did.

So Rabea fought the guardian of the tear and then outsmarted a wild boar and finally brought the tear to a collector of rarities who paid her in statues of The Big Fourteen made of lead, which meant that she needed two extra weeks carrying those to the vault. And then another three weeks in which she had to fill out the papers and argue with the vault's master whether she had 'rightfully acquired' the treasure. Rabea didn't know who in their right mind would have stolen the tons of lead but that did not convince the master.

So perhaps she simply had been late and missed Margo. There was no reason to worry yet.

She went out and brought down what turned out to be the owner of the lead mine—which, certainly there was a thing going on there—returned early and waited, and waited.

That was when she remembered the folded poster.

Maybe it would have been right to call her impulsive, but not once had Rabea regretted her hasty departure. She stepped into The Forest with a cheap map the lady in the bookstore had gifted her with a head shake. The greenery surrounded her. Clean air surrounded her, bugs in the air and if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought it to be just any regular forest.

Until she encountered the slug pit, the spiky spider webs and earworms.

Rabea stumbled into a clearing, beaten and exhausted, bruised all over. Though just as stubborn as before. She would not, could not leave without Margo.

“Ouch, that was my leg”, she heard a voice behind her. When she turned around, she saw a big shape in the ground, looking vaguely humanoid.

The thing slowly sat up and Rabea grew certain that it had at least been human at some point. But now there were forget-me-nots sprouting from the socket of what used to be an eye, slime running down the back where it had lain on the ground and started to slowly become one with the ground. The skin was covered or replaced by moss and rough bark—

Rabea had thought it to be a tree’s root when she had walked past it initially. Mostly also because of the mushrooms growing from what she now knew were the joints.

“Excuse me, I didn’t see you there.”

The thing opened the mouth and revealed sharp teeth, not white but yellow and brown. “It’s alright, it happens a lot. It’ll grow back”, it said and put some fallen leaves over the hole Rabea had created in its leg. When it looked up, it seemed as if its eyes widened, some new flower buds popped open in one of them. “Oh”, it said, “it’s you.”

“Me?” Rabea asked. 

“Yes! What are you doing here?”

“I am looking for my friend. I think she got lost around here, I want to help her find the way back home.”

“Oh, I love you too, but I am not lost, I am just growing roots.”

And the thing about mercy is that it never comes alone. Mercy is granted for people who face an unacceptable fate. Mercy is granted out of the hunger for power and only very rarely out of compassion. Most certainly, mercy is prefaced by begging. And begging is born out of fear.

As ivy started to wrap around Rabea’s ankles, she started to fear like never before.

“No, no, no, no!” With every step she took, another vine shot out and tried to hold onto her. She tried to free herself with her sword, with the magic potion she had bought recently. Dispair flooded her veins, an utter helplessness. It was too much, too many, she was alone, oh so alone, and oh by the greatest treasures, she just wanted to be safe, to be embraced, to. Get. Away. Get. Help.

“Margo! Please, oh no, please help me!” she yelled and the thing responded, grabbed some of the vines and helped free her.

“Run!” Margo yelled back and it looked at Rabea then, no tears running but an ant crawling out of the empty eye socket. 

“I’ll return!” Rabea promised and then she ran. Because she had been granted this mercy and everything in her begged her to take the chance. Because not taking it would have been the greatest scorn.