Britin Frazey

When Tuct Snugly was around seven years old, he truly disobeyed his parents for the first time. He ventured off his family’s safe land by himself, marching past the line of opal trees and stepping proudly into the Spirit Woods.

Tuct knew the risks he was taking, but he was seven now, and that was just the type of risk that seven-year-old orcs were supposed to take. Rekka was looking up to him, now that she was two and had somewhat of a concept of the world and people around her. She thought he was brave– so he was going to be.

It was the last day before Sequor disappeared for a couple of long weeks, and Tuct wanted to pick his family a bouquet of SequorBlooms. They were everyone’s favorites, but they only opened when Sequor shone overhead, and always faced in its direction. Tuct had only ever seen them from a far distance, when he went walking along the opal tree perimeter or when his parents took him into the Spirit Woods to visit their favorite tree.

They had laid Tuct’s grandfather, Tackin, to rest in those woods only a couple of months before. Tuct had this feeling that green SequorBlooms would sprout up where they’d laid him– a dark, rich green, like Papaw’s skin. So he traipsed over to the biggest, tallest tree, and leaned against it as he tried to remember which direction they’d left Papaw.

The spirit tree’s surface rippled against where Tuct’s back touched, sending pulses through the branches and the roots that reached deep into the ground, and to the sea below it. Tuct didn’t feel it, just looked around the Spirit Woods and wondered where the flowers would be.

He figured that if he prayed properly to every god, there was no way his spirit could be attacked by any of the other ones that lived here. He’d done a good bit of it before he’d even seen the opal trees that day, and now he whispered one to Motu, because Tuct wasn’t an idiot, believe it or not. He knew whose spirit tree this was. He’d always felt a deep connection to Motu, and it was at its most prominent here. His muscles were strong for an orc boy of seven, but he was more concerned with the emotions of himself and those around him. 

Inhaling the subtle perfume of quiet joy, Tuct leaned his bald head against the surface, felt the roughness of the rainbow bark on his purple flesh, and sighed pleasantly.

When he raised his head again, Tuct recognized the path along the burgundy soil that his family had taken that day and began retracing it. Weeping willow branches waved in the wind, and Tuct smiled. The prismatic leaves rubbed together, and birds chirped from their nests in the trees. It all seemed to whisper to Tuct: turn back!

Rekka had said he was brave. It was her first proper sentence. My brother is brave, she had said, her hands as sure as the stubborn look on her face.

He’d thought she was joking– he was just sitting by the Quietcliff hearth with a book open in his lap, and he’d had a single tear streaming down his face. The story had been of a treant lad befriending a growler pup, and how the growler later had to sacrifice itself to protect the treant it loved. Anyone would cry at that.

Their Mama had waved at Tuct, and Rekka had repeated the sentence several times for him and others to see. It had been months, and Mama still hadn’t let that go.

My brother is brave! He saw Rekka saying.

Turn back! The Spirit Woods hissed.

Tuct sighed and stomped his foot to come to a stop, not noticing until too late that he was right in a puddle of red mud. It went flying, casting stains all across the cream fabric of his jumper and the trunks of nearby aspen trees.

He gasped and heard something rustle in the distance. He ran and hid behind a trunk that was as thin as a beanpole, while Tuct had always been a large lad. Needless to say, his hiding attempt would have failed, if the creature that he’d stirred had been one worth hiding from.

Tuct’s blue eyes were squeezed shut, his rosy red cheeks flushed as he held his breath before finally peering towards the bush.

“Oh, you must be a rabbit!” Tuct exclaimed. He’d never seen one, as they were more frequent in the plains, and Quietcliff was a wooded and mountainous terrain. Regardless, he knew that they could still pop up from time to time, depending on the season. Admiring its small body that could fit in his two hands and its long, silky fur that was at once pure white and iridescent.

He squatted to the ground and cocked his head at it. “Please, Caritas, let it join me,” he whispered. In his head, he found himself adding, I won’t pick the flowers if it joins me, and I’ll even leave the Spirit Woods.

The rabbit’s ears twitched, opening up from behind its head, and it was then that Tuct saw how they opened like butterfly wings. As a Sequor ray shone between the branches, its ears were reflective and translucent. It tilted its head. Then, without warning, its ears began flapping, and the creature was flying toward Tuct.

The young orc fell on his rump, splashing red mud in every direction, including at the hovering creature before him. However, it slid right off its perfect coat, and as that same mud rolled down its fur, it turned into a silvery-gold liquid.

Tuct scrambled back on his butt, and before he knew it, he hit his head on Motu’s tree. He thought he was further away from it, but that didn’t matter now that the levitating thing was hovering directly in front of his face.

Closing his eyes and taking a long breath of the serene perfume, he gathered himself. He was seven and he was brave, and he would not be scared by a baby butterfly-bunny. Opening his eyes, he looked at the creature, only to find its kind, wide eyes staring directly into his soul.

“Hello there,” he cooed, simultaneously sweet and suspicious.

The creature cocked its head at Tuct and made a noise somewhat akin to a chirp. Despite himself, Tuct giggled and found his hand reaching out slowly and gently below it. It fluttered for another moment, then perched happily on Tuct’s purple hand.

Tuct gasped lightly but smiled as the creature– which most certainly was not a rabbit, if he knew anything about them– stopped flapping its wing ears and began to rest its four paws on his hand. He held it up at eye level, finding it weighed very little, and smiled at it.

“What are you?” he asked curiously.

It purred and leaped from his hand to his bald head, where it turned around and settled down. The creature’s breathing grew slow and steady, and Tuct found that he would never move again if he could help it. 

Soon, they were both asleep against Motu’s tree in the Spirit Woods.

---

Papaw’s wrinkly green face came into view, eyes crinkled and teeth jutted as he laughed. In one hand, he was holding Rekka’s red, newborn form. With the other, he was signing to Tuct and his parents. 

Tuct was watching this interaction as if he weren’t in it, yet there he was, at the wee age of five, trying to keep up with Papaw’s tale.

“The god of dreams will create their own species one day, too. Quie has never done things on the same timeline as other gods, but they are a worthy god, after all! People are always speculating about when Rellis and Hora will make their species, but I’d bet it’s Quie who’s next. Time and knowledge species? Whatever. But a species with dream magic? Now we’re talking! If not Quie, maybe Lissira will…”

Rekka began crying, and Papaw moved to comfort the child, abandoning his theorizing.

“How’d we get from green to red? Genetics are something, right?” he asked.

Dad raised his arms and looked at himself, in all his redness. Then, he looked right at Tuct. Not five-year-old Tuct, but the Tuct that was watching, and signed. “Where are you, son?”

Tuct squirmed, and the image changed. He was standing in an unfamiliar village. There was snow on the ground, which was odd because Tuct had never seen snow before. He fell to his knees and picked it up in his hands, watching it slide through his fingers like sand.

“Hello?” said a young female voice from behind him. “What are you?”

“Well that’s awfully rude– why don’t you start with who?” he shot back.

Tuct turned around and found a bear cub with dark fur standing on its hind legs, baring its teeth in a scary mock-smile.

“Sorry,” it… she… said. “I’m not used to meeting–”

Tuct spun on his heels and took off running, but slipped on something slippery under his feet and face-planted into the snow. He got a mouthful of it, but when he sat up to spit it out, it had turned to actual white sand. 

He was on the island– Ignis’s island.

Thrilled, he sprinted up the hill to find the shattered glass temple, but found instead the hearth at the center of Quietcliff, its ground now white sand like the legendary island. He sighed, exasperated, and leaned his back against the hearth, rubbing a hand over his bald head.

After catching his breath, Tuct pushed up and picked a direction. He started walking, calling out the whole way. “Hello? Is anyone here?” he asked.

Waves lapped at his bare feet, and Tuct wondered why he hadn’t put shoes on to go to the Spirit Woods. Why had he gone in the first place? Some spirit had taken a hating to him and clearly sent him far from home, and now he was never going to find his way back.

He plopped his butt down on the white sand and began to cry. Thinking of his family, he sobbed more and more.

Then he felt something nudge his hip.

Taking in a staggering breath, Tuct opened his eyes and blinked away his tears. It was the butterfly-bunny, staring up at him as it sat there.

“You again?” Tuct hissed at it. “What even are you?”

It cocked its head at him and chirped. Tuct remembered the bear cub.

“Oh, sorry, that was rude. Let’s start over?”

It hummed.

“My name is Tuct,” said the boy, sniffling. “Do you have a name?”

It fluttered in the air, circling around Tuct’s face and making buzzing and chirping sounds the whole time. Tuct didn’t recognize the noises, but when the creature landed in front of him and looked at him again with its big eyes, Tuct understood.

“It’s nice to meet you, Poppy. How did you get here with me?”

Poppy blinked slowly at Tuct, then did a backflip.

“What do you mean, you did it?” he asked.

Poppy stood on her back legs, kicking her front ones up in the air, creating a small, iridescent bubble between them and pushing it off in Tuct’s direction. The bubble floated towards him, and touched the tip of his nose, popping.

Tuct shuddered as the liquid splashed his skin. 

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “Are you a spirit?”

Poppy blinked.

“Then what? A rabbit and pixie hybrid? I’m not trying to be rude, but–”

Poppy began to flutter off, and Tuct rose to his feet, chasing after her. When he looked down, he realized he was walking across the deep sea, but he was only ankle-deep in water. Not slowing, Tuct continued to run through the sea, following until Poppy sat before a golden tower so tall that it disappeared behind the clouds.

The sand on the ground was lilac, and Tuct could barely tell where his feet ended and the ground started.

“I’m dreaming,” Tuct said aloud. Now, he remembered falling asleep. But was Poppy ever real? Or was the whole thing a dream?

Was his body really in the Spirit Woods? Or was he asleep in bed?

“Did Quie make you?” Tuct whispered gently.

Poppy’s ears moved more quickly now than ever, the speed of a hummingbird’s wings, as her tiny body catapulted straight towards Tuct’s face.

---

Tuct woke with a start, finding Poppy curled up in his lap. As gently as he could, Tuct scooped Poppy up and held her tiny body in his hands. He didn’t know the name of Poppy’s species, yet, but he knew that he might have very well found the first of Quie’s creations.

With a proud smile on his face, Tuct walked out from the Spirit Woods, crossed back over the line of opal trees, and made his way back home with his new pet.

After that, he never ventured into the Spirit Woods alone for many years, for fear the next creature he’d discover there wouldn’t share the lullabyte’s love.