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Rosalind's chest thumped with anticipation at the thought of returning home. Air conditioning was not too far off!! Dashing forward, Scheelite be damned, Rosalind intended to be the first one to make her way out of the woodland.

It felt as if she couldn't reach her normal senshi-running speed, but whatever, that didn't matter at the moment. Trees blurred by, splotches of sunlight filtering through leaves the entire way. The fairies were waiting oh-so patiently, such courteous creatures!! Rosalind would have to thank them for being such good forest hosts once she was within talking distance.

Finally, she was standing in front of the snickering little people-- what was so funny? She looked up at them, then behind her at Scheelite, who was more wide-eyed than usual. Why were the fairies laughing at her? Rosalind looked beneath her feet, and found the answer. There was nothing there except a black void of nothing. It was like Wiley Coyote, or something, as she wasn't falling, just standing in mid-air for awhile. Maybe, just maybe, if she inched her way back-- no, that didn't work. She immediately began to plummet into the abyss beneath her. Screeching like a harpy, Rosalind flung herself towards Scheelite and managed to get a grip on his ankles.

"H-help me, Scheelite," she cried out, "just pull me up!! Or something!! This is most definitely not the way home!"

Scheelite may have had many unfortunate quirks, but being an excellent ladder was not one that Rosalind minded. His lanky features and sturdy Negaverse uniform made it easy for her to pull herself up, but she was somewhat afraid that his frail, feminine arms would give at any moment.

"Nevermind the pain, Scheelite, nevermind it!!" She yanked on his hair harder than what was necessary (she kept their previous battle in mind) to pull herself closer to the top, and continued, "men foster character through hardships, you know." Rosalind, who had poor upper body strength, had a foot on both sides of Scheelite's shoulders. She couldn't pull herself up, so she jammed a heel in the lieutenant's head and pushed herself over the top.

Rosalind had the luxury to relax since she wasn't, you know, dangling over an abyss of nothingness. "I will help you, Scheelite," she said flatly, "in just a second." There was no response, uh, that definitely was not normal. He hadn't been quiet since they found themselves in this strange forest, so why now? She peeked over the edge and found he wasn't there-- that'd explain why!

"Uh, Scheelite? ... Scheelite?" There was nothing but emptiness and the fairies above her. "How dare you little imps do this!!" Rosalind prepared to shout her magical incantation, but remembered that her powers weren't responding. They hovered about her and snickered, as if to mock her stupidity for following them in the first place.

Then she remembered her tactic against Serandite. Solid gold hurt, and her pumps just so happened to be made out of it. She took a shoe off and chucked it at the little winged people, and missed, of course. The gold shoe gleamed in the sun and plummeted down into the black abyss before her. Great! Now she was without a shoe! Nevermind Scheelite, she had lost a shoe!

Being mocked was not fun, not fun at all. Rosalind stood with her arms crossed and back arched, looking up at the tricksters who had lead them astray. "You little goblins were supposed to take us home, and you urchins made us trudge through that awful forest, and you imps are just awful," Rosalind huffed, and continued, "If I could, I would hire a gardener to trim your nasty little foliage clothes away, and see how you like being made into a joke!!"

Rosalind stomped her foot in detest and felt steam shoot out of her ears-- literally. She had heard of 'fuming in the ears' before, but had never seen it happen! How unladylike! Rosalind held her ears as tightly shut as possible, so as to keep the steam in, which seemed to work. But as soon as she opened her mouth, steam billowed out like cigarette smoke, which was even less appealing than from the ears. Rosalind began to tear up, but was cut short when her beloved shoe flying back up, as if by magic. "My shoe, it's come back to me," she said while reaching for it, fumes be damned.

While slipping it back on, Rosalind heard a cry-- a very familiar cry. It was Scheelite, her temporary-comrade whom she had forsaken! "Scheelite, darling," she called down into the hole, the smoke now almost non-existant, "how do you expect me to help you?" Rosalind thought that the pit was bottomless, but apparently not. "Why don't you do some surveying down there-- then I'll think up a way for you to get up here. It's a fair trade, wouldn't you say?"

"That is not how you ask for help, Scheelite," she said matter-of-factly, "but I suppose I can work something out." How fun! She had never been in a situation where someone needed her to do something, and it was quite fun, like play pretend or something. Rosalind looked around for something that'd pull him out of the dark hole. There were trees, trees, toadstools, rocks... Trees, a patch of flowers, fairies watching inquisitively... Oh, a twig! It'd work. Or, atleast, it'd better. Rosalind wasn't going to get herself dirty over this whole thing.

"Okay, Scheelite darling, you're gonna have to reach up kind of high for this," she said, "or maybe even jump." Rosalind kneeled, put a hand on the ground, and stuck the stick over the edge. "Do you see the stick, Scheelite? Reach for it! But not too hard, cause it might break, okay? Then you're out of luck. And hurry! My knees will get dirt on them!"

It was funny, but in a pitiful sort of way, to see Scheelite scrambling to get out. There must have been a girl with a heaving bosom down beneath, or something, that brought him to such tears. He was trying so hard to get out, and it reminded Rosalind of some poor girl trying her best to get a scholarship into Crystal. Yeah, it was that pitiful. "Fine, I guess I can get something more..." Rosalind trailed off, "sturdy?"

So, she picked herself up, wiped the dirty from her knees, and went off to look for something that was slightly longer and a little sturdier. But what was there, between plucking a tree from its roots, and toadstools? What, would she pluck flower after flower and tie a floral rope together? Ohhohohoh, yeah, right. The crying was getting louder and more blubbering the longer she looked around-- it was so aggravating!!

Rosalind, fed up, marched over to a tree and snapped a loose branch off. "This has better suffice," Rosalind called out, "because I just ripped a hole in my silk glove!!" She looked at her hand and found a small rip-- maybe it would fix if she henshined down? Oh well, not in front of Scheelite.

She returned to the edge of the hole, got in the same position, and held the newly acquired branch into the hole. "Hurry up, Scheelite," she said flatly, "this is the last time I'm doing this." If he couldn't reach this one, well, then it was a personal problem he would have to deal with on his own time. She had make-up and an air-conditioning to get back to.

The forest appeared to not care. Around the hole the grass was green and the flowers were pretty and birds sang tunes in the trees, except watching the panicked, sobbing boy and the girl with the ripped glove was another bird who wasn't singing a song at all. It cleared its throat behind them: it was a raven.

"You're going to come to grief," it said conversationally, "if you keep on traipsing around here, not even knowing where you're going. Or knowing what you're looking at. Poor unseeing Scheelite, poor unseeing Rosalind."

Scheelite didn't seem to agree with her. He was far too busy calming himself to at least a point where he could react to just what was going on. Crazy bird? Crazy talking bird. Unseeing? What wasn't he seeing? Everything seemed to be clear as day! But...then again, there were all those instances where it felt like there was something more. Is that what the bird had meant?

The boy had managed to slowly calm his cries to quiet little sobs. It certainly wasn't for Rosalind's shake, but moreso his own. Birds shouldn't talk (unless of course it was about the word, as eveybody knew that the bird was the word), and if this bird was talking to them then it had to be about something important right? He'd think about how weird it was for birds to talk later. Maybe he'd ask Zink about it!

"U-unseeing? I saw a giant friggin spider in that hole right over there!"
His voice cracked at the word 'spider', and one hand had been raised to shakingly point in the direction of the hole he had been so recently trapped in.
"I've NEVER seen one that big! Not even in my nightmares...."

Alive or... Dead? Well, that certainly didn't bode well. Maybe fitting for Scheelite, since he was a waste, but certainly not someone so well-to-do such as Rosalind.

"I'm not worried about spiders, not in the least," Rosalind said confidently (confidence found because there were no spiders at the moment), "but I am worried about myself. I mean, would you blame me?" Rosalind looked back at Scheelite, then back at the Raven. "Since you know what you want to be, that being a raven and not a nasty fairy, perhaps you could be my map?" She didn't want to trust the black bird, but he seemed knowledgeable about where they were, and that automatically gave Rosalind a reason to take his word. Plus, he seemed much less annoying than Scheelite.

"I do wonder, though. Can you tell me what this place is? These 'Elflands'? Could you also tell me if this is the Negaverse's doing-- wait, are you an agent of the Negaverse, bird?" Rosalind looked over at her comrade, "no offense, Scheelite."

She began to ponder what the raven had said previously-- unseeing? But she could see, even those awful images that flashed when she blinked. It was the reason her eyes were drying. It was the reason she had to hold her thoughts off. How would she sleep if the horrible things appeared whenever her eyes were shut? Not that she wanted to sleep if she couldn't find her way home. "Is the way home in the center of the forest? Because that's what I'm looking for."