The Unicorn's Forest

Charlie shook the thoughts from her mind and listened to Wes's explanation on the spell while she had some pancakes. She wasn't sure how well it would work for her, but it definitely had it's advantages. Then as soon as Wes finished about his spell, Tim started on his own explanation. As Tim explained how to work the spell, Charlie pulled on her magic and felt something gently pulling her in the direction they'd been heading. Charlie nodded to herself as she let her magic go. She was confident that she'd be able to find her way with it if it became necessary.

Then when Tim was finishing his explanation, they'd been finished with their breakfast for a while. The others were about to get up to start striking their camp, Beth turned to Amelia.

"Weren't you going to tell everyone what the effects the different spores had on Charlie," Beth asked, as if they'd already agreed for her to explain after Tim and Wes were done.

"What're you talking about?" Amelia asked, looking rather confused.

"Well, I said that you could explain what the three kinds of spores that were in Charlie's system were doing to her," Beth answered. "I was just thinking this would be a good time for that."

Amelia sighed. "Fine," Amelia said, sounding a little annoyed. Then as she settled herself back down, she took a deep breath. "Alright. Well, I might have said to some of you that Charlie had three different kinds of spores in her body. One was influencing her perceptions. Probably what made her want to try and strip in front of all of us. There probably was others, but I'd have to look into Charlie's mind to know what they were. I'm assuming she was only able to focus on one thing at a time, which is why when Beth held Charlie down she stopped trying to strip and started to kiss her.

"The second kind of spore was influencing her emotions. I'm not sure exactly how, but she did seem rather manic, which was probably a combined effect of this spore and the first. Though, I think this was what was behind her trying to kiss me and Beth. So, you can relax Wes. If we dosed you with this spore, you wouldn't be trying to kiss Ralph." Charlie was shocked at that statement. She clearly missed some bits that would have helped her shift the focus off of what her behavior had been. Which also annoyed her that no one had mentioned this before.

"Now, the last one affected her body's sense of touch," Amelia continued. "I'm not sure how exactly this influenced her, but I'm pretty sure part of it contributed to her trying to strip as well as why she was calmer once she was tied up and in her sleeping bag. So, I think this covers it all, so if no one has anything else to say, I think this will cover all of the effects the spores had on Charlie." Amelia's tone as she ended had a strong 'leave me alone now' vibe that Charlie wondered how long she'd have up. After all, Amelia was the one who was most into the reading out of all of them. Charlie was sure she'd want them to start reading shortly after they started walking towards the gate, if not right as they start continuing on their way there.

Aside from that, Charlie was happy to know what exactly the affect the spores had had on her; even though she couldn't say she liked what she had done under its influence. Although, she did wish that they wouldn't focus so much on what she did while she was high from the spores. Or if they did, they'd be equal on their treatment from those who apparently had some things happen to them that no one had mentioned until now. Or at least one of them.

While they were taking their tents down, Charlie looked around. She just realized something that she felt she should have noticed earlier. Where was Velithy?

"Anyone see Velithy?" Charlie asked, wondering if the mushroom girl had left hem already.

"I'm right here," Velithy said, making Charlie jump as she came out from behind a tree about twenty feet away from her.

"Okay, I was just wondering if you were still…" Chalrie trailed off as she noticed something on Velithy's cap. It looked dried, but she couldn't be sure with the distance. "What is that on your cap?"

"Wait, what?" Wes asked, sounding surprised.

"What're you talking about, Charlie?" Beth asked, glancing at Velithy.

"Oh, these are spores I saw one of those with you leave behind," Velithy replied, as if they were talking about clouds in the sky and what shapes they could see in them.

"What do yo umean 'spores' and which of my friends are you referring to?" Charlie asked, quickly giving a concise translation for her friends.

"It was from him," Velithy replied, indicating Ralph. "He shot them and I collected them during the night."

"Ralph," Amelia declared, sounding rather angry. "Don't tell me you did what I think you did while thinking of Velithy? I mean, she looks like a kid. Don't tell me that you are attracted to people like that?"

Charlie was shocked at the subject change. She couldn't say that she saw this coming, but she also felt herself agreeing with Amelia's sentiment. What kind of person would look at a little kid that way?

"Hey, I didn't even know she was there," Ralph protested. "I was using a magazine I brought."

"Uh huh," Amelia drawled. "Like we'd believe that over your… uh… your 'spores' on Velithy's cap."

"Hey, I may have gone behind that tree during the night, but I was looking at a Sports Illustrated when I…" Ralph trailed off as he looked around him, at everyone before he closed his eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. "When I did the deed."

"Let me see the magazine," Hannah said, holding out her hand.

Ralph sighed as he set his pack down and opened a part of it and pulled out a magazine. Then he opened it and showed it to Hannah.

Hannah opened the magazine and leafed through it before giving it back to Ralph, a disguested look on her face. "Okay, I believe him about not doing that to Velithy." Hannah said, sounding like she wanted to take a bath.

"So, are we done now?" Ralph asked.

Charlie wanted to say no, but couldn't think of anything else to say. So, she looked at her friends and it was clear that she wasn't the only one who couldn't respond. At the very lest, she flgured that the subject was dealt with.

Charlie figured that she should probably try to walk by herself when they started moving. She had just too much going on at the moment, a lot of which was related to the spores and this whole forest.

Though, after they struck their camp, Charlie found herself walking in step with Beth again. "Sorry about kissing you," Charlie said, wanting to leave that whole event behind her. "I know you're seeing someone and I shouldn't have done that, no matter what."

Beth chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Charlie," Beth replied. "I didn't want to bring it up, but actually the guy I'd been seeing dumped me when I tried to give him a Christmas gift the day before we started this expedition. I didn't say anything, and maybe even led on that I was still seeing him, but that's more because I didn't want to distract from any of this."

"Well, even so, I thought I should apologize," Charlie replied.

Beth put her arm around Charlie's shoulders again. Charlie was fine with that, until Beth spoke again. "Though, if you want, we could do that and maybe even more while we're traveling across worlds. After all, we're in the same tent. No one's going to know," Beth said suggestively.

Charlie quickly pulled away from Beth's grip with Beth laughing. "That's not funny!" Charlie snapped.

"Depends on how you look at it," Beth remarked as she continued to laugh.

Charlie just shook her head and focused on the direction they were traveling in. She felt Beth's presence more than heard or saw her when Beth came up from behind Charlie to walk next to her again.

"Okay, sorry about that," Beth said quietly, almost as if she didn't want anyone else to hear her. "Maybe I went a little too far with that, but on some things I just can't read you. So, I thought I'd put that out there. Besides, I actually liked it when you kissed me. Kind of made me think that there might be something there between us."

Charlie kept her eyes focused on the what was ahead of them. "I don't know," she replied, just as quietly, not sure if it was because Beth was being quiet or because she herself didn't want anyone to over hear her. "Even though Alex isn't here, I still want to be true to her. I can excuse what I did because I didn't know about the spores or what it could do to me, but I'd still like to think that I'm being a good girlfriend to her."

"No problem," Beth said. "But if you ever want to give me a try, just let me know. Even if it's after we're back from this expedition. Though, if you want, I'm sure Alex wouldn't mind me joining in with you two."

Charlie rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you know Alex and I haven't actually done anything like you're suggesting," Charlie remarked.

"She has, but that doesn't mean you won't in the future," Beth returned.

Somehow, talking to Beth, even if it was about a topic that she'd really not discuss with anyone, was actually helping her to relax. She couldn't say why, but it almost made her feel like things were back to normal. That the incident with the spores could be left behind her.

Though, even after Amelia got everyone taking turns again on reading, Charlie couldn't say that she felt any less relaxed. It was almost like the 'spore incident' hadn't happened and things were as they had always been. She was starting to feel rather optimistic about the way things were heading now.

She found that she was even able to let go of the thoughts that she'd had about leaving everyone. Even as they arrived at the gate, she felt her spirits buoyed and wondered if she should think of this as a fresh start.

"Uh, not sure how to explain this…" Tim trailed off as he adjusted his position to try and pinpoint where the gate was in the open area.

"What is it this time?" Hannah drawled, her expression saying to Charlie 'here we go again.'

"It's just that there appears to be two gates here," Tim replied. "I'm not sure why, though."

"Maybe one was here and there was a gate shift so whoever had that gate here had another one opened," Charlie suggested.

"Not a bad theory," Wes remarked. "Though, why would they want to go to this world?"

"If that's your line of thinking, couldn't whoever had the gates created here have not even bothered with the first one?" Amelia asked. "After all, we traveled through a gate that brought us to this world, so someone had to have had at least one gate to this world and we've only seen a small part of this world."

"Amelia makes a good point," Beth added. "There could be plants others might like on different worlds, there could be medicines that can only be found on this world, and there could have been a unicorn's forest entrance at one point."

"Alright, alright," Tim relented. "Which gate should we take first?"

"Why not the closest one?" Ralph answered. "I mean, it's as good as the other one as far as we know."

"Might as well go with the closest one," Hannah remarked. "As Ralph said, it's as good as the other from what we can see."

Charlie looked around at her other friends as they remained silent, clearly not caring which one they took. She found it a little amusing, but did her best to not let it show.

"Well, I was hoping for more of a discussion, but I guess it's decided then," Tim sighed.

Charlie then turned to Velithy had followed them up to this point and expressed her farewell. The others also said good-bye to Velithy, who thanked them for helping her learn so much about them before she started to walk away while they dealt with in through the gate.

Once, Velithy had disappeared behind some bushes, Tim took it on himself to be the first to walk through the gate, followed by Ralph, then Beth, then Hannah and Amelia, Wes then insisted that Charlie go next, with him bringing up the rear.

After Charlie was surprised at how used to the sensation of traveling through the gates, she was getting. The world that they had entered had a clear sky that showed it was late afternoon, the sun had already gone down, at least that's what Charlie assumed, given how warm it was right then.

In front of them was a kind of farm or ranch, but it was hard to say exactly what it was. The horses looked like they might not have been completely there, as Charlie was pretty sure she could see through at least some of them, though with some she could see some of their organs and felt a little nauseated by that. Although, they all had a physical presence that she could feel, even from about twenty feet away.

Then there were other animals that she couldn't really say what they were, even though they looked rather close to cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs, and geese. Each had a fence around their pens, much like what she'd seen on pictures she'd seen of farms or from shows which have some scenes occurring on farms.

They stood there looking around, not sure what exactly to make of what they saw. Charlie glanced behind them, towards the gate they'd just come through, and saw that they were in a part of the farm that didn't seem to have a real use. Just a dead end between a couple buildings with the back of it running into the cliffside.

Charlie looked up and felt like she was looking up and up, when she estimated it was probably around a hundred feet high altogether. Which while that was pretty high, it was nothing to the cliff that had a gate near the edge of the top of that cliff.

They then walked out to pass by some of the animals, though Charlie made sure to keep her distance from them. They might be just weird looking variations of the farm animals she knew of her world, but she didn't want to take the chance that they might be hostile towards them.

Amelia and Hannah, on the other hand, were moving up to the fences and talking with each other excitedly. Beth was studying them closely behind Amelia and Hannah. Ralph was moving around as if he was at a zoo with the pens not providing any real barrier if the animals proved aggressive.

She noticed one of the pigs looking at her and could see it had four eyes. It didn't look hostile, merely looking at her like she was something interesting around it, but nothing important. Even though part of her wanted to hold her hand out to let it get her scent, she held back. Mostly because her entire surroundings unnerved her.

They walk out past where the animals were and came to a field that looked like it was growing mostly wheat or some other grain. The field had turned gold, indicating it would be time to harvest it soon. Charlie was sure there should be people around, but wasn't seeing anyone.

"Anyone know where whoever has to live here would be?" Amelia asked. "Or even if there's a house for them to live in?"

"Not that I can see yet," Tim answered, looking around.

"What about that over there?" Wes asked, pointing back the way they'd came.

As Charlie looked, she saw the top of a house that stuck out just above the shelters and other buildings around the animals. It looked smaller than she had actually expected, more like the houses she'd seen from pictures of farmhouses from the eighteen hundreds. Charlie was even less sure what to expect because of that.

"Should we head over there?" Charlie asked, not sure if they should. Personally, she thought they should see what the other gate had in store for them.

"Good idea," Hannah said, grabbing Charlie's arm and pulling her back towards the animals and what lay past them.

Charlie could only try to keep up with Hannah. She knew if she tried to resist, she'd slow Hannah down at best. At worst, she'd end up getting dragged by Hannah. Although, she was a little surprised that Amelia or Beth didn't take her other arm.

Charlie was vaguely aware of her other friends accompanying them as they ran past the animals and heading to the house they had been barely able to see. She wasn't sure what would happen, but she knew that her friends weren't going to let her just, essentially, sit this one out.

Despite herself, she found herself laughing as Hannah started to laugh. She couldn't say what it was that made her that way, just that she couldn't hold it in. It just burst out of her as soon as it appeared. She was vaguely aware of the animals watching her as she ran with her friends towards where they had seen the farmhouse.

As they pass the last of the buildings with the animals, They can see the farmhouse clearly. There's two floors, is well maintained, and smoke can be seen coming out of the chimney. There's still a distance to it, maybe fifty to seventy feet, but as soon as they came into view of it, they heard barking.

As soon as that sound reached them, Charlie noticed several somethings that were purple heading towards them. She couldn't say what they were, only there were several of them and the larger ones had a darker purple color to them.

Then as they got closer, she could see that they were dogs of some kind, but with four eyes. Charlie hoped they weren't going to attack them, but she couldn't be sure. At the very least, she could see tails wagging, so she took that as a good sign, even though she still had no idea.

Charlie was aware of her friends slowing down their pace and she stopped running herself. At the very least, she suspected that if they were running at the… she decided to assume they were dogs, as that's what they looked like to here, despite the extra pair of eyes, then they might take it as a hostile action towards them. Not that she knew a lot about the behavior of dogs.

As the dogs were almost by them, she heard a voice calling out something, but she wasn't able to focus on it and so couldn't understand what was said, but she looked towards the farmhouse and saw what looked like a girl who looked older than they were coming out of the farmhouse.

The girl had brown hair, ruby red eyes, and horns that grew almost along the side of her head from where they appeared to grow out of the back of her head. Or at least that's how it looked to Charlie, despite the distance between them at the moment. She was wearing what she remembered seeing was the usual attire of the eighteen hundreds. A long skirt that covered pretty much from neck to ankle to wrists. Yet, despite that, it almost felt like she was hardly wearing anything at all.

Charlie felt an indescribable pull towards the girl. To the point she wanted to do what she knew Alex had wanted to do to her, but had been denied. Charlie couldn't say what it was that made her feel that way, but she could only look at the girl with a desire that felt as out of place as it was strong.

At the same time, while the dogs didn't seem to be hostile, the girl froze when she saw Charlie and her friends. Charlie wasn't sure if strangers in this world were welcome or if there was something else. She started to raise her hand to wave at the girl let out an ear piercing shriek. Terror being able to be seen in her eyes, despite her being so far from Charlie and her friends.