Another journal

You can find all the sections here.

After asking a satyr who smelled like a barn, she talked to what had to be a gnome and a man who looked pretty mortal but had a distinct shadow with an even more distinct tail. They were all busy and had no idea where Dry-Eyes was. Emily wandered the endlessly branching halls, hoping she could find her way back, until she finally found someone who knew where she could find the sprite.

The panther looked up at her from the corner of his eye. “She’s out in the winter garden, would you like me to bring you there?”

Emily nodded. It was somehow weirder for a cat to talk than a grasshopper. The panther blinked a slow cat blink and Emily swirled for a moment in blackness before standing on the frozen ground of a path that wound between snow-covered trees.

“I thought you were going to lead me, or something.” Emily realised she was talking to herself, as the cat hadn’t bothered to come along. Chagrined, she started walking, looking for Dry-Eyes. She needed to remember the literalness and rule-bending tendencies at play here—the perversity of the Folk didn’t limit itself only to deals and promises made.

Emily wondered if there were gardens for all the seasons. Most of the plants lay dead and bare, though there were startlingly bright flowers she couldn’t identify. The path forked and Emily realised she wasn’t going to just stumble across the sprite.

“Dry-Eyes?” She danced in place a little, the cold was setting in and her feet were going numb. There was no sign of the sprite. Emily looked back, wondering if she should just return to her room and wait there. The path cut clearly through the trees and stopped, Emily estimated, right about where the panther had materialised her.

“You didn’t think that through.” Dry-Eye’s voice held a laugh. Emily turned to see her hovering where the paths met.

“I guess.” Emily shivered. “I should have gone back to get a sweater and my boots once I heard winter garden.”

Dry-Eyes gestured. “This way out.” Emily followed her through the frozen beauty of the garden to an arch made of stone and ice. Through it, Emily saw a hall of the monastery. There was no tangible feeling as they passed through, except that Emily’s feet began to prickle as they thawed.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.