*laughs* No,  really.  I guess being 'lost' would freak most people, make 'em panic and stuff.  But I knew Exactly where I was (in the dark forest) and I knew Exactly where I was going (nowhere the dark forest didn't want me to go)

Being 'lost' didn't really phase me much at all, but those eyes!  They were gone now, I couldn't see them anywhere, but they were Hers, no doubts about it.  I stood up, still chuckling, and brushed myself off.  I was still giddy and reeling a bit as I blundered off blindly through the woods.

The 'Her' in question was a young Wiccan I had met some years ago...*sigh*  She honestly tried really hard to be my friend,  but I still  managed to piss her off.  I mean Really Piss Her Off, ya know?  Sent my letters back and wouldn't talk to me.  GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE *giggles* So I did.  *shrug* This was about two years ago...

I still think of her every day though.  *laughs* You know how it is... She was One of Those people you meet and you just KNOW, ya know?  Doesn't matter who they are;  married, single, young, old, male, female, black, green, blue, none of that matters, you Know *sigh* I wanna say 'know you can trust them' but tha's too tame by far...

*sigh* People whose souls you can see, and they are pretty *shrug*  I dunno, she says she never cast any spell on me but that's how it feels....charmed? enchanted? *bursts out laughing* 'a crush'? 'puppy love'? hell, who knows...

I pushed my way through the brush, avoiding all the trails that presented themselves to me, grinning at each one...That would be too easy!  After all, I AM a shaman of some small fame both in this Realm and the Other.  *giggles*  If the dark forest wanted to throw something at me I was Not going to make it 'easy'.

Sure enough, after I passed up the fourth or fifth trail a clearing opened up and I found myself standing just inside the tree line gazing out upon a large lush green meadow.

hmmmm, Now What?

I waited for a while but nothing happened, which bothered me...the dark forest should have been much more active than it was.

I listened....

The few forest type sounds I'd heard a ways back where absent here, only the faintest of murmurs as the breeze flowed across the tall grasses of the meadow.  I stood taught, stretching out all my senses to there maximum and just a bit beyond... Way off behind me, deep in the forest some elves where doing their thing, a few animals poking about...maybe.  No insects, no birds, no little critters close by though....

Off in the distance beyond the meadow towered Yggdrasll.  It still rose over the horizon, but it Always rose over the horizon until you were There...kinda spooky that, but that's how it worked.

Well, I had a bearing, if I could get out into the meadow and start WALKING again I might actually clear the dark forest before it knew what was going on...

So why was the Wiccan keeping tabs on me anyway?  Why was she plaguing my thoughts now?

I was just about ready to shrug it off when the most god awful Banshee wail HOWLED in my right ear sending a furnace hot blast of spittle filled breath along with it.

I did what any red blooded brave clever and devilishly handsome shaman would do, I leaped right out of my britches and ran as fast as I could in whatever direction it was I happened to be pointing in at the moment.

Right about the time I began to wonder just exactly what it was my legs were doing and how they started doing it and how was I going to cut in and start Making them do that without, like, falling flat on my face and killing myself was about the time I ran head long into a hole.

A real honest to god Alice In Wonderland type hole where you fall forever in an instant.  Somewhere on the journey downward my legs stopped pumping and my arms started flapping.   I don't think that chunk of my brain that was in freak out mode could handle more than one useless motion at a time, ya know?

The rest of me noticed that it was getting dark Fast and that I was falling like a rock.

And then I landed.  *laughs*  I hit the stone floor like a wet sack of meat and spattered deep into the stone, bones liquefying on contact.  It felt fucking AWESOME.  That may sound sick but it did, *shrug*

But I wasn't dead and so far None of the shocks I'd received had snapped me back to This Realm.

I could still see, and hear...

I couldn't move though, or feel....