Posting the catchup Friday Flash Fiction prompts.
I've caught up to the current posts and last Fridays prompt, 'Watch Your Step" is where I wrap up the Chronicles.
The balance of the posts are a little bigger than @flashfictionfridayofficial allows.
The Foxxfyrre Chronicles: Episode Eleven
The morning was a rush of deliberate purpose. Up well before the break of dawn, supplies were readied, haversacks stocked, and a light breakfast consumed in silence. Ahead lay a good hour's hike to reach the coordinates of the tree.
Before departing the Inn, Foxxfyrre paused at the heavy oak front desk to speak with the keeper. “We are heading out on a survey of the interior, and we have heard mention of an ancient oak known as the Father Tree. However, its coordinates are entirely absent from the local map. Even the relief legend on the dining room tapestry fails to pinpoint its location.”
“The Father Tree, you say?” The innkeeper’s voice dropped, a distinct undercurrent of worry tightening his features. “It is not pinpointed on our tapestry because no one alive knows exactly where it stands—or where it stood. The actual tree they called 'The Father' was an ancient oak revered by the old druids; they held the bulk of their sacred rituals before its boughs. There was a tap drilled directly into the heartwood that slowly wept a continuous drip of sap. The druids would bring their newborn children to the clearing to be blessed by the Father, marking the baby’s brow with the drippings. It was a contract meant to ensure immaculate health and an unnaturally long life.”
The keeper leaned over the counter, his voice dropping further. “Local lore says the tree was situated at the head of Weeping Lake. There is a massive oak stump remaining there—ancient beyond measure, yet it shows absolutely no signs of natural decay over time. But the actual image of the tree itself? The one woven into our pub's tapestry? That is merely a replica. The original tapestry of the Father Tree still hangs inside the ruins of the old Huxelley castle.”
“Thank you for your insight,” Foxxfyrre said, offering a crisp nod.
Once they cleared the threshold of the Inn and hit the path, Rennie’s ears swiveled. “So, mate, stump or castle? Where are we setting our bearings?”
“What does your intuition dictate?” Foxxfyrre countered, pacing smoothly over the gravel. “Where do you believe we should head first?”
“I reckon we hit the castle first,” Rennie said confidently. “The old tapestry is bound to hold a clue or two that the pub replica missed.”
“An exceptionally sound deduction, Rennie,” Foxxfyrre replied, a rare grin touching his muzzle. “And that is precisely why we are heading to the stump first.”
Rennie paused, his forward momentum faltering. “Why the stump first if it’s just a dead piece of wood?”
“Because it is directly on the path to the castle,” Foxxfyrre chuckled.
Rennie hesitated, processing the geography, before letting out a boisterous laugh. “Right. I guess I should have looked at the map before opening my mouth, eh?”
“Precisely,” Foxxfyrre agreed, his smile broadening.
The footpath leading toward the lake was entirely different from the marshy perimeter they had surveyed the day before, cutting just east of the dense, silent woods. Weeping Lake itself was a modest body of black water, only slightly larger than a standard woodland pond.
At the head of the water, exactly as the keeper had described, the trees broke open into a wide, quiet clearing that eased into a small sandy shoreline. The stump sat roughly forty paces back from the water’s edge.
It was immense. It didn't look like a tree that had been harvested by a crosscut saw, nor did it possess the jagged, splintered look of a trunk felled by rot or storm. It was as if the tree itself had simply ceased to exist above the root line, vanishing into thin air. The surface of the wood was highly irregular, rising and falling in smooth, weathered peaks and miniature hills—not polished by tools, but completely devoid of sharp edges.
As they drew nearer to the clearing, Foxxfyrre’s posture stiffened. The brilliant blue-white mana that had recharged at the boundary yesterday began to noticeably waver. By the time they stood directly in front of the smooth wood, his aura had completely dimmed, and the characteristic glow of his eyes had waned to a faint flicker.
Stepping up to the edge, Foxxfyrre extended his arm over the smooth surface of the stump.
Just like the boundary line at the marsh, the geometry fractured. His hand and forearm appeared to vanish entirely into thin air—but the moment they did, the mana surrounding his shoulder flared back to life with a blinding, sparkling intensity.
Keeping his arm submerged in the invisible space, Foxxfyrre began to carefully sidestep around the perimeter of the stump. The intense glow held steady until he reached the exact midway point. Suddenly, his entire left shoulder vanished from view, replaced by a radiant surge of energy. It was as if he were pressing against a solid, curved wall emanating directly from the wood.
Maintaining his grip on the unseen space, he reversed his direction, sidestepping back until his opposite shoulder struck the matching edge of the invisible boundary. There was a distinct gap between the two sides—a physical separation of about four feet.
Foxxfyrre rotated his arm away from the center of the stump, keeping it entirely behind the veil as he completed his lap until the limb finally flickered back into visual reality. He turned, plunged it back through the seam from the opposite side, and traced the threshold until it returned to normal.
He had successfully mapped the entire invisible perimeter.
“That’s bloody weird,” Rennie muttered, watching the fox’s fur settle. “Why put such a tiny barrier around a dead stump?”
“I do not believe it is a barrier,” Foxxfyrre murmured, inspecting his cuffs. “I suspect it is a doorway.”
“Of that, I am currently uncertain. But we must make haste to the castle. We cannot afford to be late for our eight o'clock appointment.”
Rennie frowned, his eyes darting between the vanished space and the path. “But aren’t we supposed to be here? If this stump is the Father Tree?”
“I am quite certain now that the Father Tree mentioned in the note refers to the original tapestry within the keep,” Foxxfyrre explained smoothly.
“And you’re willing to bet on that, mate?”
“The variables align. Here, out in the open, we are entirely exposed. We have been actively surveilled since the moment we entered the clearing. The castle destination was chosen for two specific reasons: to see if we possessed the intuition to connect the note to the original tapestry, or if we would waste the allotted hour searching for a physical tree that no longer exists in this layer of reality. If we sit here until eight, our observers will simply disband and report that we failed the riddle. If we leave now, we arrive precisely on time to meet our caller.”
Rennie’s ears twitched forward. “Observers?”
“Yes. There are stoats hiding just beyond the tree line up ahead.”
Rennie squinted at the dense foliage. “Stoats? I don’t see a single shadow. Is your mana tracking them?”
“No,” Foxxfyrre replied, a faint, dry smirk playing on his muzzle. “My olfactory senses. The wind is blowing south.”
Rennie grinned. “Ah, of course. Only the nose knows for sure.”
Turning away from the empty clearing, they quickly broke into a brisk pace toward the rising cliffs. As they entered the narrow footpath, a faint, rhythmic rustling echoed through the undergrowth—barely audible to standard senses, but to Rennie’s oversized ears, it was a drumrush.
“Yep,” Rennie whispered, not breaking stride. “They’re packing up and heading away to our right.”
“And how do you know this?” Foxxfyrre asked quietly.
Rennie didn't answer. He simply reached up with a paw and cheekily flicked his large, sensitive ear.
Just shy of a half-hour's hike up a punishing, rocky incline, the silhouette of Lord Huxelley’s old castle loomed out of the fog. One entire wing had collapsed into a jagged mountain of moss-covered masonry, but the main keep and the right wing remained structurally intact, though heavily scarred by decades of unchecked weathering. It was a massive, foreboding structure—entirely too grand for a fishing village of only three hundred souls.
The colossal main doors were unlocked, but the ancient iron hinges were stiff, groaning violently as the duo forced their way inside.
The main foyer was a sprawling, subterranean square of cold stone. Massive gothic arches split off toward the left and right wings, while a pair of central arches led deeper into a formal drawing room and a grand dining hall. Twin stone staircases curved upward from the flagstones, ascending toward the dark upper living quarters.
Following the keeper's directions, they bypassed the stairs and stepped through the central archway.
The term 'drawing room' was a severe structural understatement. The space was immense, possessing the proportions of a royal ballroom; one could easily host a banquet for two hundred guests and still leave a massive clearing for dancing. A row of dark portraits lined the right wall, while the entire left wall was dominated by a breathtaking, floor-to-ceiling mirror. At the far end of the hall, an elevated dais rose like a stage meant for theatrical productions or a full orchestra.
Directly across from the full-length mirror hung the original tapestry. Like the looking glass, it stretched from the flagstones straight to the vaulted ceiling twenty feet above.
The craftsmanship was immaculate. Unlike every other relic in the ruined keep, the fabric showed absolutely no signs of age, dry rot, or fading. The depicted tree was colossal and undeniably beautiful, yet it carried a deeply unsettling, creepy undertone. One could clearly see the iron tap drilled into its side, dark droplets of sap frozen mid-weep. In the background, the weave perfectly detailed Weeping Lake, the clearing, and the small sandy beach.
“Rennie,” Foxxfyrre murmured, his eyes scanning the threads. “What do you make of the architecture here? What catches your attention?”
“Well, it’s a creepy old tree with a leaky thorn in its ribs,” Rennie said, rubbing his arms against a sudden chill. “The sort of tree that would gladly haunt your dreams for a decade. But look at the shoreline... it’s not right, is it? There’s something completely off about the layout.”
“Yes, the geometry is inverted,” Foxxfyrre noted. “And I suspect...”
They both looked at each other, the realization hitting them simultaneously.
“It is backwards,” they said in unison.
They turned instantly toward the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the opposite wall. Sure enough, within the reflection, the tapestry’s orientation flipped, displaying the lake and the clearing in its proper, real-world arrangement.
They approached the glass slowly, their eyes locked on the mirrored image of the ancient oak as they drew within arm's reach.
As they closed the distance, Foxxfyrre felt the familiar, heavy drain. His mana began to rapidly drop, the soft light of his eyes dimming to a dull spark with every step toward the pane.
“This is another barrier, isn't it?” Rennie asked, his voice echoing in the vast room.
“Possibly,” Foxxfyrre whispered.
Raising his hand, the fox extended his arm exactly as he had done at the stump outside. He kept his paw forward until it made physical contact with the glass. The surface was freezing, completely solid. He pressed his palm against the rightmost edge of the mirror and began to slowly sidestep to the left.
When he reached the exact mathematical center of the mirror, the resistance vanished. Foxxfyrre’s hand went straight through the solid pane. The moment his flesh crossed the threshold, the mana surrounding his submerged hand exploded into a brilliant, sparkling blue-white radiance—but unlike the stump outside, his arm remained perfectly visible through the glass.
He pushed his limb deeper into the mirror; the intense glow held, and the arm remained entirely intact.
Rennie stared at the submerged limb, his snout twitching. “What do you think that means, mate?”
“I believe the stump in the clearing was indeed a doorway, but it was never an entrance,” Foxxfyrre deduced, his voice echoing with a strange, double-layered resonance. “It was an exit. That is why my arm vanished when I crossed it—I was attempting to enter through a threshold designed to push things out. This mirror... this is the true entrance to the source.”
Foxxfyrre withdrew his hand from the glass, the cold air of the ballroom instantly dimming his aura once more. He looked down at the wallaby. “Touch the pane exactly as I did, Rennie.”
Rennie nodded, placing his paw against the rightmost edge and sidestepping toward the center, keeping his hand pressed flat against the glass. He slid all the way to the leftmost frame without the surface giving way an inch.
“Just as I calculated,” Foxxfyrre murmured.
Rennie sighed, dropping his paw. “Let me guess. No mana, no key to the front door.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. The barrier is specifically attuned to react to an alternate nature.”
Foxxfyrre reached down, his purple-furred fingers locking firmly around Rennie’s hand. He turned back toward the center of the mirror where the glass had previously liquefied. He looked at the wallaby, his eyes flaring with a sudden, desperate blue spark.
“Are you prepared for this, Rennie?”
The sentence was violently severed by a deafening rush of wind. The grand ballroom vanished into absolute blackness. There was a terrifying sensation of falling downward while simultaneously stepping forward through heavy gravity. Another sudden whoosh rattled their teeth, followed by a blinding, explosive burst of natural light.
They stumbled forward, breaking their fall on soft ground.
As the vertigo cleared, they quickly turned around to look for the mirror or the castle foyer—but there was no stone, no glass, and no ruined keep. They were standing directly in the center of the familiar clearing by the edge of Weeping Lake, the small sandy beach sitting exactly forty paces away.
But it was no longer a dead stump.
Towering hundreds of feet into the sky before them was the Father Tree—immense, completely intact, its ancient leaves rustling in a wind they couldn't feel, as thick, golden sap slowly dripped from the iron tap in its side.
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