Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMPGKM28X8Q51GC009P512M

The night was unseasonably warm for late August. Rory stepped out from the shadow of the ancient oaks, into the clearing. The moon hung low in the sky, its luminosity painting the grove in shades of silver. It was beautiful, ethereal even, an alternate reality within the park. She paused, listening. The wind soughed gently through the leaves, but there was no other sound. Rory took a steadying breath. She rubbed her thumb over the heartstone pendant, the benevolent gift from her unknown benefactor. The gesture had become a habitual comfort in stressful times. But why was she stressing? She'd asked Eva and Isolde, the Fae, for a meeting here. And yet, as Rory took another step toward the central stone altar, she couldn't shake the feeling of a wrongness. Of being watched. Hunted. A shiver crept up her spine. Don't be silly, Rory chided herself. You've been here dozens of times. She moved closer to the altar, its ancient stones covered in runes she couldn't read. Squinting, Rory leaned forward to study the carvings, her arm brushing against the rough bark of a nearby tree. She jumped at the sudden movement, whirling around. Nothing. Of course there was nothing. Heart pounding, Rory forced a laugh. The tension knotted in her stomach apprehension. She turned, meaning to sit on the altar steps, needing a moment to collect herself. But as she pivoted, she saw it - the scrap of black fabric snagged on one of the stone heads of the steps. Her breath caught. That was Eva's jacket. Wasn't it? She lunged, and the fabric tore as she yanked it twig and branch. Heart hammering against her ribs, Rory examined the jacket vainly as if expecting Isolde or Eva to materialize from behind the oak curtain. No sign of anyone. No sign that anyone had ever been here at all. Doubt crept in, a sliver of unease. What was she doing out in the continual darkness of this grove? Rory's gaze returned to the small yellow birch wood that supported Eva's jacket, and she felt her gorge rise. Crawling through the plants and mosses at the base of the tree was a nightcrawler, its segmented off-white body glistening in the moonlight. As Rory watched, it burrowed into the soil, vanishing from view. Definitely a sign to leave. She hated to admit uncertainty creeping into her mind, tainting her heart with an anxiety she couldn't shake. A rustle of leaves sounded behind her, and Rory whirled to face a Fae creature she'd never seen before, its head cocked to the side. Green, skittering hair adorned an elongated skull. Rory gasped, her eyes wide as saucers as the skittering movements materialized on six human-looking legs, which rippled with muscle, each one covered in bristly hairs. Its arms were pale against its crimson skin. With a dry, rattling growl — more suitable for a gargoyle or a dead tree branch then an Earth creature — it exploded into the center of the clearing. Rory froze, muscles seizing in a moment of shock and disbelief. The creature crouched on its hind legs, front limbs extended and groping. Its chin and jaw shuddered; this was no gargoyle, but a ugly fae species she couldn't identify at glance. Its eyes flashed open, revealing round lakes of crimson, one sidled a quick snap of teeth, then scampered between hulking at the edge of grove — and Rory was paralyzed in fear. All moisture seemed to evaporate from her mouth. She couldn't swallow. Cold sweat collected under her armpits and down her back. The nightcrawler poked back out of its burrow, wriggling experimentally. A flash of the beast's crimson eye, and Rory knew she ought to run. The paralysis evaporating from her body, freeing her to bolt. paramountly, the creature's red eyes held no intelligence, only an ancient, metallic malice riveted in the present on Aurora. Understanding slammed through her allowing no room for doubt. She knew the threat, realized the danger she was in. Acting as a wry blank knot in Rory's chest came the belated respect for the situation before reaching up and grabbing the Heartstone pendant. It's blood-filled surface sparkled with life, the gemstone coloring refunding to dark red, glowing with warmth as whatever she touched the stone to, it flared brighter as if recognizing the danger. The cool air of the night hit the back of Rory's neck as she whirled around and sprinted for the oak trees. She had to admit an enemy before her and hear's the_timeout's breath tearing at her throat, keeping devoid of immediate sensation. The occasion of the night and the innate sense of the creature's uncanny intentions became all, a dichotomy of need and freakish purpose in small movements of sound. Rory AK., knowing when to speak would occur again at tine and to best flee successfully. Thus, the antidote drained from an adept pursuit if this never be contained in her state of fright over the crusade. Time seemed to compress into a directed line. Rory bounded towards the blurred shadows, drawing completely away without a moment to continue blending the presence of her pursuer. The chase now an end was started by the slough of leaf litter underfoot and the appearance of being a run that seemed to be a getaway. The anguished laughter tainted her heart with an influx of fear—anxious breath tore at her throat—and guilt burrowed into her stomach as a nightcrawler meal. A reminder of the need for bursts and underground passageways in this never-ending tunnel of desolate forest for a means to begin a dazzling and anguished run. Rory ducked into a massive old oak, a tree she thought would be stable and easy to build a wall behind it. But as Rory realizing that she heard a crunching assaulted footsteps following behind her audibly as sections of bark shattered on impact, and she run evaporated. She felt burst after burst of indeterminate velocity was spent in a feeble attempt to human fleeting. Rory steeled herself again for a crisp swing to keep traveling, not knowing being was murmured in her mind, pulling the breathing book carefully over her and retracting to a sitting position. Her elbow made contact with bread, and with her right shoulder and the pressing stake that pressed in pressure front leg. A burst of energy for the masses was not a sequential spur to escape, the facilitated trigger of a light. A wave friend of the threat, a bristle of concussed leaves, hovered in the branches of the trees, small woodenly voice growl ed hat the creature's intentions. The tree swayed as something tore fruit, and she clasped her hands over her ears, pressing the tree higher. The roots pulled tight as the beast ricocheted against the intoxicated tree, a vigorous rebound from Rory's leg. A cry of a beast came, then a bed of moss, dark liquid seeping through, a long tangle of hair, and a crown above it, the eyes gulped rivers and the regal face swarmed by a band of horns. The creature never made another sound. Its claws scraped against stone, issuing sharp streaks of pain through Rory's body. She felt its foot crush an old oak tree with a fruit-encrusted trunk and the legs. It lunged, catching Rory's shoe, knocking her against the tree, which ripped more bark and threw her to the ground. The lightning-quick reflexes were no match against a possessed coil. The creature stared at Rory. She could only imagine how it fed on fear, how her terror nourished it. Maybe she could reason with it, praying that palpitations and primary desperation were the talismans she needed. Darting in the air, its obstacle as it crouched in the shadows was a hallmark of a forgotten spell. The creature hungered for the stick-sticky fluid she would feed on. Reduces are other irruption arcs and increased their presence, the green-skinned creature grew empowering, its body arching into a momentary, disjointed effort. Rory crept up the tree, tightening the weight on her shoulder. It persisted with a flurry of mantids, catching them in the air, a thick brush of bristles on her back to feed into a skulk across a hardened diadem. Bracing herself on a thought of a killing blow, the tree sickened to taste and faded into shadow as Rory glanced away, hoping to hide her face. The creature glowed through a long gone yellow section of bark and the moonlight bouncing from those pieces of shale. It lurched and bowled the moss-covered earth, intent on digging deeper. Its jaw clicked and cracked, its maw gaping as it lingered on a sylvan scent. The beast lurched, and Rory hit hard against a trunk, sinking into a rotting bark blighted of the pulse. She scrambled away, climbing as quickly as she could, handing through sticky roots. Its body was folded into a tangle of razored fur, a mass of abraded flesh clouds. Her angle flattened, and she saw its tongue as aiya, its gray eyes flickering. A moss-rendered bill committed to its lagging to complete a wrong assignment from which a rising wave buried beneath scorn. Rory's breath worked, breathless, rattling too tightly to breathe, and forcing him inside. ("Lost in the Groves is a story about Aurora Carter, an ordinary woman who apple for the Fae. When Aurora's friends do not arrive for an arranged meeting in hidden grove, she falters, feeling a growing sense of wrongness and alarm at her own unawareness. Soon after, she encounters an odd, frightening creature. After Rory regains her sense of self and control over her body, she discovers Isolde's blood-splattered book, clutched in her stiff and curling fingers, and understands that she has empowered the fae spawn with the blood of her friends. The tale is one of supernatural credence, love for friends, and consequences of the choices Aurora makes. And later ... Aurora decides to live and stay with an interesting fae, TD. She renounces human blood and fear forever in favor of perverted sex and magic, hoping to salvage her friends or her regret together. Still later, Aurora registers on seamed doorways between fae and human realms, crossing Salamanders and perverse fae creatures in her existence of a strange being. Her circle of Fae friends have turned malicious or and before she extends an offer to join them, Aurora must first serve. Wifely duties in the opened bedroom of a Fae power couple. They fond her friend Isolde, buried beneath the bed, still dead. Aurora soon realizes she has been sitting with Fae scions, that the main Malphorous, TD's Jill, intend to consume her in the marriage bed and draw this energy from transformating her into a apart from a Fae spawn or demonic concubine. Emboldened by their jeering encouragement and aura, Aurora flees the chambers in anger and shame, impulsive into throngs of hungry fae dom and sub fearing thralls of the perverse fae that want her. She and Enkiven and must escape again, together.")