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Trees. So many trees…

Puck felt a weird whooshing sensation disrupt his relaxing train of thought. Opening his eyes and sitting up, he found himself… no longer in the park. Startled, he quickly leapt to his feet and went to set his back against the tree he'd been leaning against, only to stumble backwards as the tree wasn't there any longer. "s**t!" he barked as he landed on his butt in a stand of tall ferns. This was something Faust had definitely forgotten to mention. Where the hell was he? And how the hell had he gotten here?

The recently-awakened senshi's heart pounded in his chest as he stood again and looked around. He seemed to be deep in the middle of a dense, dark forest. Except there was dead silence; no birds chirping, no creatures moving through the undergrowth, nothing. Not even a breeze stirred the enormous old trees that surrounded him as far as he could see. "s**t," he said again, his voice falling flat in the still air. It didn't feel dead, just… dormant. Looking up through the tops of the trees, he could see the faintest hint of a huge pale blue orb hanging in the twilit sky. What was that, a planet? It was too big for the sun or the moon and not the right color. Yeah, he definitely wasn't in Destiny City any longer. He wasn't entirely sure he was still on Earth.

Tucking his senshi phone into the waistband of his shorts, Puck nodded to himself. "Well," he muttered, trying not to freak out, "may as well have a look around."

Arbitrarily he chose a direction and began picking his way through the undergrowth. Before too long it became evident that there was nothing this way except more trees. He started heading off in another direction, only to find himself still deep in the woods. Was this all there was in this place, nothing but trees? He looked around, anger and frustration starting to rise. This wasn't getting him anywhere except more lost. Suddenly his eye caught what appeared to be an intentional gap in the forest -- small, and not obvious at first glance, but there nonetheless. Something inside him said go this way. Weird, but then he was always one to trust his own instincts.

He headed toward the slight gap in the woods. Sure enough, there was a path, narrow and overgrown, the trees arching overhead making it almost resemble a tunnel. He began to follow it, all the time wondering how it got there. It had to have been in use for some time, the way the trees bent and the path curved up on the sides, as if something massive had regularly gone down it in the distant past and worn it in. That only led to more speculation as to who or what had used it. Were there monsters here too?

After what seemed like an eternity of walking, the path seemed to open up. Now he was getting somewhere. Puck stepped out of the woods and into a clearing surrounded by trees much larger than he'd ever seen before, entwined with moss and ivy. What was more curious was the fact that these trees looked as if they had elaborate carved openings in them that resembled doors and windows. He instinctively gravitated toward the largest of them, and as he drew closer he could see what looked like a winding staircase on the outside of it. "Hello?" he called softly, poking his head in the doorway. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the tree, he could make out a single large room with a high ceiling, filled with furniture: a chair and table, a desk, a curved bench with a low table in front of it, all seemingly made of wood and scrap metal. Another doorway opened up to the side, evidently leading to another room. Everything was rusty and dripping with moss, as if it hadn't been used for some time. Centuries maybe. Still, it sent a small chill through him. It meant that once upon a time someone had lived here. Maybe an entire civilization once thrived on this world. But what happened to them?

Puck retreated from the lower level and started up the staircase on the outside of the tree. Reaching the top, he found another doorway leading into another room, this one equipped with a bed and a desk and chair in front of one of the windows, and another doorway leading off to what he presumed would be the bathroom. He stepped cautiously into the room, running his hand over the moss-covered interior wall -- and immediately whipped his head around to stare at the wall as he felt intricate carving beneath his fingers. He wished he had some kind of lantern or light with him so he could better make out what the carvings were, but just from what he could feel they seemed to loop and curve over the entire surface of the room.

A wave of familiarity suddenly washed over him. Was this place… his?

Stunned, Puck sat down hard on the floor. He kicked himself that he hadn't read the Primer yet, hadn't sought out Thraen or somebody else for some explanations. There was no denying the sensation, however. He'd guessed that the names on the senshi Contact list were planets and moons and stars, yeah, but he hadn't figured out that the senshi themselves were connected to actual worlds. If that were true, that would mean this world was in all likelihood Puck. He rolled the idea around in his mind and found he rather liked it. His own little world, quite literally.

Slowly getting to his feet, Puck left the room and descended the stairs, lost in thought. He wanted to stay, but he had to get back before he was missed. Once he was in the clearing again, he looked around one more time. The woods didn't seem foreboding any longer; they seemed somehow comforting, welcoming. It was a deeply weird sensation, to feel as if he truly belonged in a place he'd never been to before. The longer he stood there and absorbed it all, the more right it felt. He'd have to come back and explore this place some more, maybe solve some of the mysteries he'd uncovered here.

And he'd make damn sure to read that bloody Primer once he got back home.