Peony

The worst of the cold season over, and the winter winds have lost their mettle, relinquishing their icy grip on the land and allowing life to flourish anew. Faint white and pink bulbs dot the flowering trees and bushes that were leafless not that long before. The fledgling blossoms are as beautiful as always this time of year, adorable little buds that have finally gathered the courage to start opening. They are releasing a lovely floral fragrance with a hint of sweetness, promising of the bearing of fruit to come. The critters are lively, singing birds, buzzing bees, and the faint rustling of bushes hinting at other animals just out of sight. It's a wonderful day, the kind of day that demands requital in the form a stroll deep into the woodland to properly appreciate.

So that's exactly what I am doing. After hours of walking, I've lost track of how deep I am in the forest, but even as the foliage thickens, the atmosphere grows no less welcoming. I'm on course to a hidden groove I discovered several decades ago, my personal sanctum. I plan to spend the next several days meditating there in peace. Elves often adopt such sanctuaries as their own, and I've already informed my kin of my absence. I'm certain many are heading to their own sanctuaries as well, although I'm inclined, or perhaps biased, to think mine is particularly pleasant. I am excited to see how it has changed over the winter, a feeling of giddiness almost like I'm visiting an old friend adding a bit of extra pep to my stride.

But distractions are plentiful along the forest path, and what is the point of life if not to stop and smell the roses? A beautiful bush has caught the attention of me and the excitable bees both, the latter of whom are happily buzzing about it. This overeager little bush is further along in its flowering than the others, its buds fully opened to flaunt smooth gradients of yellow center to white to pink tips. The blossoms look so tender and fragile in this state, the petals slightly transparent like thinly-woven silk. I dare not touch such a delicate beauty, but a small sniff is too tempting to resist. I creep over, bend down, and let the floral smell reinvigorate me. Ahh... I could stay like the fore- Ooch! I've been stung! Seems someone's cranky about my nosiness!

"Eek! Greedy bee! I'm just having a little whiff!" I exclaim, backing up and moving my hand to rub where I was jabbed. "Oh, very well. I suppose I have no business sticking my nose into your food. Best I leave you to your work, hmm?"

But as I caress the back of my neck, I notice a suspicious and lingering numbness spreading there. It's an acute lack of feeling, an accelerating blankness so severe that I am soon unable to feel my fingers there at all. Something is wrong. Bee stings, from experience, are always painful, never numbing. This is something else entirely. I whirl on my heel, frantically trying to find what pricked me, but my coordination is off, and I nearly fall into the buzzing bush. There's nothing behind me, but I'm not so easily fooled. The forest is too quiet, the silence of the normal jovial birdsong speaking volumes. I should have noticed it sooner! Someone else is nearby. Am I being stalked?

"Whaaut iz diz?" I slur, my tongue now sensationless inside of my mouth. "Whaz happenen tu muh?"

My instincts scream at me to run, but as I turn to attempt to do so, my legs refuse to cooperate. They maintain most of their feeling, but as I look down and try to move them, there's a strange disconnect between what I will for them and what they actually do. Walking, which should be so simple and natural, feels disjointed and impossible. Every bend of my knee or twist of my ankle has to be consciously focused on, something that is quickly growing difficult against the backdrop of fuzziness in my thoughts. I try to fall into a rotation of focusing on my muscles and joints, but my stride is shambling at best. Terror builds rapidly and I try to scream for help, but my voice comes out as throaty and animalistic, the nuance of enunciation escaping my numb tongue. All I succeed in is agitating the nearby bees, but I've lost too much feeling to tell if they're stinging me or not.

I don't make it far, face-planting just next to the bush I was fleeing form. I don't even realize I've fallen at first, it taking several seconds of wailing into the dirt before it dawns on me. My legs continue their rhythmic swim uselessly, scraping and stroking the empty air as if still trying to propel myself forward. My thoughts continue to race even as my body doesn't respond, screaming at me in pure terror and telling me to panic. It's getting harder and harder to listen. I can't hear the swarming bees anymore. I can’t smell fresh blossoms on the wind. I can’t sense anything at all. The world is shrinking, and I’m fading with it. Eventually, even my fear fades as the numbness spreads into my mind as well. Everything goes black.

How much time has passed when I awake, I have no way of telling, but instead of the awakening on the warm, sun-kissed earth I'm used to trodding on, I come to on uncomfortably solid rock. My senses are still distant, my body still groggy from whatever I was nicked with earlier, and it is a struggle to even turn my head. Through great force of will and spurred on by the discomfort of having my nose pressed into the stones, I manage to tip my head to the left enough to glean some of my surroundings. My clarity of my mind is beginning to return, observations about the new environment coming to me in little broken fragments. I'm indoors. It's big. Empty. There are no plants. No sun. Cold. Unsafe. Panic. I should panic. Something is very wrong.

A surge of adrenaline mixed with fear snaps me out of my stupor, and I'm resubmerged into my awareness with a blood-freezing shock. I've been abducted, sedated, and transported to some unknown place against my will. It was most likely premediated, judging by the careful precision with which it was carried out. My absence will be expected for quite some time back home, and the timing seems to convenient to brush off as mere chance. Unfortunately, this realization only unearths more worrisome questions to which I have no answer. Why was I targeted? I'm not someone important. I don't have any enemies that I know of, and I'm not wealthy enough to ransom. So why? Have I been mistaken for someone else? But it was so thorough, so planned. It doesn't make any sense...

Getting nowhere fast, I force myself to sit up, becoming alerted to the shackle around my neck only upon hearing the clinking of metal and feeling the extra weight lift with me. My neck is bound in constricting iron, tight around my throat and giving no concern for my personal comfort. My weak pawing at it proves futile, and I quickly accept its presence as a given. Looking around, a chain links my neck to a strange sort of contraption in this the center of the room, and at once I recognize it as being human in make. Surrounding me, the walls of this domain are human made as well, built giant stones squared by a process I believe the humans call 'masonry'. I know very little about humans, but from what I've seen they are very good at obliterating nature to rebuild it in their image. Why they feel the need to do this is beyond me, but it does little to inspire trust in my new captors...

More unnerving though are the bookshelves. They are flush against every wall, straight, rounded, angular - they are cut whatever shape they need to be to pack as many of them into to the space as possible. I crane my head back, but the shelves go up, and up, and up, shrinking into a skyward horizonal point and offering no clues to how tall this structure really is. Every shelf is stacked with thick tomes, bookkeeping being another disturbing human practice I'm roughly acquainted with. The humans, in short-lived lives, seek desperately to chronical everything, slaying trees as if out of jealousy for perennial status. All they chronical in my eyes is their own ruthlessness. The pages printed in this blighted spire are lifeless and empty, but forest they are made from was once alive.

Part of me dies from despair as I realize just how dire my situation is, any delusions of escaping on my own merits leaving me. The humans can be monsters when they put their mind to it, and I'm not cut out for heroics. I can't break metal chains or power through sedatives. I'm just a peaceful elven woman who only wanted to enjoy the gentle turn of spring in her special groove. The world is so wonderful, so vivid. I want to watch the baby birds grow up and see the blossoms bear their future fruit, but now... How I am supposed to? What will I do? Without nature, I... Without the flowers and the bees, I can't... I'm not going to...

It all proves too much, and I buckle inwards on myself, coiling into fetal position as I start to cry.

"What's going on? Why is this happening?" I whimper hopelessly, too broken to give thought to who my loud, echoing sobs might be alerting to my newly awakened state. "I don't want to be here! I want... I want to go home... Please!"