FOREST

She was going to throw up.

The room was spinning and it was this disgusting color of smeary brown amber and... was she drunk? The smell was awful too, burning smoke and the messy acidic taste of... of...

Poppy took a deep breath and then another as she forced herself up on her hands and knees.

The whole world around her pounded with the marching feet of tiktoks and screaming split the air. The squealing of metal on metal went on forever until she thought her teeth were going to rattle out of her head.

Oh Gods, this was what it was like to be in one of those metal suits.

The amber glass and... why were sounds so loud but still muted? Everything sounded like thunder but... you couldn't understand anything anyone was saying. It was like being underwater... It was like drowning.

She had to focus. She had to or she was going to die, that's what it felt like. If she didn't focus she was going to be swept away be memories that weren't hers. Memories that weren't...

Gunshots. Babies crying. Water washing away graves.

Red scarf. Blue eyes. Silver zipper.

The smell of baking bread. The smell of Finaqua on a rainy day. The smell of burning blood...

Poppy forced her eyes open. She'd collapsed, lying on her back staring up at a screaming amber sky.

Mother told her to not try this until she was older.

Wait, wait, she had all the time in the world to learn to use her magic.

Mother. Mother. I want my mother...

Mother was dead. Mother was buried next to the cabin by the white elm, near the apple tree. He hadn't time to make her a proper headstone. Just a bit of wood and tears...

Mother was dead. Mother stayed behind so that the tiktoks wouldn't find her or her sisters. They'd all ran in different directions. They should have stayed together. She should have gone back for her sisters...

It was overwhelming, it was her mind and his and then...

Poppy screamed.

She screamed until she was hoarse, letting out all the noise she had to keep in so she'd stay hidden. All the screams that had threatened to bubble out when she saw her sisters cut down. All the screams that had choked and silenced her and somewhere in it all she realized that she wasn't the only one screaming.

She wasn't the one screaming.

Bit by bit she forced herself to stand and stumbled drunkenly around the amber room that wasn't a room until she fell.

Stumbling over the only solid thing...

Jeb.

Shakily she pulled him into her lap, just like she really was. Just like her real body was on the outside and oh Gods she hoped she hadn't really started screaming because Glitch would just be scared out of his wits...

The amber light had pulsed. Dimmed.

Poppy looked around.

Nothing had changed. But... what had she done? She was worried about Glitch... There it was again, a hitch in the cacophony.

Glitch.

A flicker.

There were memories behind... behind all this trash and Glitch was one of them. Poppy took a deep breath as her fingers curled into dirty blond hair while she held her other hand out and pushed.

For a second there was a gap, like someone moving a curtain aside, a flicker of... sunlight.

Sunlight in a forest, laughter, blue eyes, and...

Poppy bent down, her lips barely brushing the curls of Jeb's hair and she whispered, well, a rather silly word,

“Butterscotch.”

The world exploded into green.

“No! Jeb! Give it!”

The was a girl with long dark hair and the brightest blue eyes, dressed in trousers and a shirt that was her father's... She was chasing Jeb all up and down a sunny riverbank trying to get...

“No way. You've eaten the last two. I want this one.”

He was holding up an apple, just out of her reach as she pouted, barefoot in the shallow water.

The apple was a golden sort of caramel color, and shadows from the sun through the leaves in the forest danced on it.

“But! Come on, I'm a princess.”

Jeb was grinning, hazel eyes alight,

“There isn't any law that I know, that states that I have to give my last Butterscotch apple to anyone, princess or not.”

“Well, I'll make it a law!”

There was a beat before she reared up and tackled him, sending them both into the knee deep water. Laughter and then... something in blue eyes that Poppy was never meant to see...

“What in Galinda's garters are you two up to?!”

Glitch.

Poppy blinked as her friend... Jeb's friend came over the grassy hill and stopped at the edge of the river, his hands on his hips and a silly grin on his face. He was in grey breeches and boots. A linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Poppy recognized the green coat tucked under his arm. Brown curls shimmered in the sun as he shook his head. Parental, but still grinning.

“You two do know that the caravan from the Eastern Vale arrived an hour ago, you've already missed lunch.”

“Crap.”

Poppy blinked as the two untangled in the water and the Butterscotch apple bobbed happily downstream on to a different adventure.

Muted words and laughter. There was going to be a lot of explaining. Jeb's father had been so mad...

“That isn't happening...”

Poppy blinked as she looked down in her lap. Jeb's eyes were open and he was frowning.

“That isn't happening right now. That already happened. Right?”

Slowly Poppy nodded as she and Jeb sat alone in the memory of a forest.

“It was your m-memory.”

“I'd forgotten.”

“That h-happens sometimes.”

He closed his eyes again, leaning into her lap. He was tired, like they were all tired. Too much running, too many steps and stumbles and not enough...

This.

Poppy listened to the memory of birdsong and the memory of water rushing over stones. She felt the memory of warmth and the breeze that was sweet with the smell of life.

“This place really happened?”

Jeb's voice wavered and around the edges of green and sunlight, Poppy knew there was still amber and blood. The uncertainty of reconciling those worlds.

“Yes,” she said, forcing her voice to be strong, still hopeful, “This place really happened.”

Then, as if those had been some strange magic words, Poppy opened her eyes.

Glitch almost tore across the fire when she looked up. An hour, she'd been wilted like a rose in the shade for an hour with him pacing back and forth. Cringing at every whimper she made that Jeb shared.

“Poppy! Are you hurt? What happened?”

“I-I'm okay.”

The relief in Glitch's eyes made her smile and then there was a silence as they both looked down at Jeb.

He was dirty, thin, and as pale as the rest of them but he was awake. Awake and frowning up at the girl whose lap he was in.

“Poppy? Right?”

Poppy nodded and then held her breath as he turned to Glitch.

“Ambrose?”

Another second passed as Glitch blinked furiously,

“Am who?”