Here's another dibs opportunity.
And the conclusion of the Lil' Tara/Lil' Rose vignettes.
Series: Vignettes
Number: 52
Title: Into the Woods
Author: Sassette
Feedback: Can be sent to
pink_overalls@yahoo.comSpoiler Warning: None
Summary: Lil’ Tara and Lil’ Rose make a trip into the Dark Forest.
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters. I’m just borrowing them, because it’s lots and lots of fun.
Rating: G
Into the Woods
Part 52 of the Vignettes Series
By Sassette
“Are you sure?” Tara asked, gripping Rose’s hand tightly and giving her a chance to change her mind. For some reason, though she had barely noticed, the field of sunflowers hadn’t taken her to the willow tree where she had met Rose, but instead to the little clearing outside the Dark Forest where they had had a picnic together a few days ago. Rose’s helicopter, the blades still spinning but slowing down, sat nearby, and Rose looked at it longingly before her lips pressed together and her eyebrows scrunched up.
“I’m sure. It’s time,” Rose said, nodding once.
“You’re really sure?” Tara asked again. “Really really really really really reeeaaalllly sure?”
“Really really really really really reeeaaalllly,” Rose said, nodding again. “And you’re sure?”
“Oh, yes,” Tara said, nodding eagerly, a huge smile breaking out on her face. “This is going to be so much fun!” she declared, bouncing a little in place as she squeezed Rose’s hand again, and looked into the Dark Forest.
“You’re, umm .. you’re not scared?” Rose asked uncertainly, looking at Tara in confusion. “Not that I want you to be scared!” she said quickly, realizing that Tara might think she meant that she wanted Tara to be scared, but that wasn’t it at all. “Because you’re my friend, and I wouldn’t want you to be scared, no, but the Dark Forest is, y’know, scary, so I thought you’d be more … scared,” she said, trailing off.
“Well, I am scared,” Tara said with a little shrug. “But I think … I think there’s something wonderful in there,” she went on, her smile growing. “And I told my mom that you took me up in your magic helicopter, and that I was really scared, but once we were flying it was really fun, and she said that sometimes the very best things are scary at first,” she said, her eyes drifting shut and a look of concentration crossed her face as she tried to remember the rest of what her mom said. “And that other times when you’re scared it means it’s time to run away really really fast, but I think that this will be fun, and that there’ll be good stuff in there, because you’re here,” she finished, as if Rose’s very presence meant that nothing bad could possibly happen.
And to Tara, it did.
“Oh,” Rose said, thinking about it for a minute. “That makes sense,” she said, frowning a little and nodding like she had seen her father, the King, do when he was talking to his advisors.
“Okay, lets go,” Tara said, taking two quick steps forward only to be stopped up short by Rose’s hand in hers because Rose hadn’t taken a step forward at all. “Rose?”
“Walking. Right,” Rose said, taking a deep breath and nodding her head before walking forward, not realizing she was holding that breath.
They took two more steps, then three, then four and five.
And they were there, under the trees of the Dark Forest.
“Rose?” Tara said, looking at her bestest friend, who at this point was starting to turn red to match her hair. “Breathe.”
“Breathing. Right,” Rose said, and she started breathing again, offering Tara a sheepish look before they went further into the forest, the thick branches overhead entwining until there was only the occasional spill of sunlight, hence the name “Dark Forest”.
“I can do this, I can do this,” Rose muttered under her breath, too low for Tara to hear. She was watching her feet as she walked, the cool interior of the Dark Forest making the hair at the nape of her neck rise up despite the warm flight jacket and scarf she was wearing. With a sidelong glance, she looked at Tara, who was smiling, and practically skipping as they moved deeper into the forest, and Rose couldn’t help but smile, too. “We can do this, we can do this,” she changed her chant.
Tara looked around, her eyes wide with wonder. Everything was all shadowy and mysterious, and it was scary, but she didn’t hear anything except Rose muttering, and their footsteps on old fallen leaves, and birds singing happily. They moved further and further in, neither one realizing that they weren’t following a path, and they couldn’t see the sky, and that there was nothing to mark their way home again.
Rose, for her part, tried to not be scared, but it was hard, because the Dark Forest really was very very dark. She didn’t really like the dark, and Tara probably knew that, but she didn’t want Tara to think she was being a baby. Of course, she hadn’t thought that Tara was being a baby when she had been afraid to fly, and that probably meant Tara wouldn’t think that she was being a baby about this, but there really wasn’t any way to know for sure.
Unless she asked.
“Tara? You don’t think I’m being a baby, do you?” Rose asked quietly, breaking the silence between them.
“What?” Tara asked, her eyes wide as she looked over at Rose in surprise. How could Rose even think that? “How could you even think that? Of course I don’t think you’re being a baby! You’re being way braver than I was about flying, because I didn’t have to trick you into closing your eyes!”
“Yeah?” Rose asked hopefully, finally looking up at the forest around them instead of at the ground.
“Really really,” Tara said with a smile, and Rose smiled back, and everything was okay again.
Except, Rose believed, for the part where they were in the very very scary Dark Forest.
Of course, nothing bad had happened so far, and they’d been walking for at least ten minutes. Rose’s smile grew bigger as they continued on, and she looked at the very big, very dark trees.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said.
“Wait,” Tara said, stopping up short.
“What?” Rose asked, her voice rising to more of a piping squeak then it usually was, her head whipping around this way and that as she couldn’t quite decide which direction to look in.
Tara’s eyes opened wide in alarm and she froze in place. “The birds stopped,” she whispered.
“What?” Rose asked, also whispering, as the very big, very dark trees seemed to loom over her, the deep shadows of the Dark Forest so very very deep, and so very very dark that Rose realized anything could be hiding there, and she wouldn’t see it.
“Something bad is out there,” Tara said as softly as she could, and her lower lip trembled. She had been so sure there was something good in the Dark Forest that she had talked Rose into going in, when she should have talked Rose into staying out, and now they would be eaten by some big slimy monster with octopus arms on its face and big terrible claws, and sharp mean teeth, and –
“Run!” Rose yelled, pulling Tara along as they sprinted off, ducking around trees and leaping bushes.
- and it would be all her fault. But Tara didn’t have time to think about that, because thinking could be later, when she wasn’t so busy running as fast as her little legs could carry her.
Rose had seen a monster. One minute she was looking into the shadows, and the next, the monster had just appeared, lit up by the closest little beam of light to where they were, and it was big, and it was slimy, and it had tentacles on its face. She hadn’t had time to really be scared in that instant, at least, not scared enough to just freeze where she stood, because she had to get Tara out of there. Rose had always known that she would have to go into the Dark Forest, and if Tara was killed and eaten by a monster, it would be all her fault, because Rose was the one who just had to go in, and Tara had only followed because she was a good friend.
And so Rose and Tara ran, further and further into the Dark Forest, and the monster roared behind them, and the roar was very scary, and very deep, like the shadows around them. They tried not to look, tried not to see, but the shadows seemed to reach out, and the branches on the trees seemed like they were trying to grab them, but they just kept running, their hands clasped together.
Tara held back a scream as they ran, and she wished very hard that her mommy were there, because her mommy could make a light, and then at least they could see better where they were going, and it would keep the scary shadows away, and Tara hadn’t learned how to make a light yet.
Even as she thought it, Tara felt magic running from Rose’s hand into her hand, and from her hand into Rose’s, just like the magic ran from hand to hand when her mommy would hold her hand and make a light. Tara almost stopped, she was so surprised, but she remembered in time that it was very important that they run, no matter what. But Tara kept thinking about the light her mommy could make, and she was thinking about it so hard while she ran that she thought she was imagining it when a little blue light appeared in front of them.
“Gah!” Rose yelled when a light suddenly appeared. She kept running though, hoping she and Tara would lose it, but it stayed ahead of them, and grew bigger, and though Rose was scared at first, she became aware of a warm happy feeling where her hand held Tara’s, and somehow she just knew that this light was a good thing, and it was there because she’d just been thinking about how a light would help, and that Tara must have been thinking the same thing.
The light got bigger, and drove the shadows back, though another roar from the monster kept the young girls moving as fast as they could, though they were starting to get tired.
“Gotta’ keep going,” Rose said as best she could, though her side was starting to hurt from all this running, and the Dark Forest really didn’t seem cold anymore, and she wished she weren’t wearing her jacket.
“Right,” Tara said, thinking much the same thing about her own flight jacket, but trying to run as fast as she could, because she knew that Rose would stop and help her if she fell or started slowing down.
The blue light made a very sudden turn, and Rose and Tara almost ran right by it, but they turned together and followed the light and through the fear, hope started to grow, because the light seemed like a very good thing indeed.
After awhile, the light made another turn, then another, but still the monster followed them, its roar moving them onward and onward, until their legs could barely move and they were stumbling. The sounds of the roar and its footsteps got closer, and the light made another turn.
Crashing through a bush, Rose and Tara came to a stop, holding their arms in front of their faces as the very bright light of the sun shone down on them.
“Oh, gosh,” Rose said, blinking her eyes hard again and again until she could see.
“The monster – let’s not forget the monster,” Tara said frantically.
“It can’t follow us here,” Rose said, and she smiled.
“Really?” Tara asked, taking a few more steps into the clearing – for that’s what it was – and looking over her shoulder at the trees.
“Really,” Rose said. “But I can’t tell you how I know, because I don’t know how I know, okay?”
“Okay,” Tara said, and she looked away from the forest, getting a good look at the clearing for the first time and her eyes widened in delight. “It’s so pretty!”
And it was. A little white cottage sat in the middle of the clearing, bright happy sunshine beaming down on it. There was a little white fence, and a mailbox, and the windows had blue shutters. It was a very big clearing, and there was lots of open space next to the cottage with soft-looking grass and wildflowers and butterflies.
But best of all, there were roses in the yard. Lots and lots of roses, and Tara laughed happily and clapped her hands. “I knew there was something good in here!” she yelled, skipping to the gate, then stopping.
Rose, meanwhile, was smiling too, and nodding, because Tara had been right, there WAS something good here, and it WAS a very pretty cottage. But there everything was all nice and cared for, so someone must live there, and Rose wanted to know who it was, because as pretty as the cottage was, it might not be a nice person, and she started to doubt her own feeling that this was a safe place.
Tara looked over at Rose, thinking close to the same thing. Tara, though, thought that this WAS a safe place, but someone had to live here, and it would be rude to just let herself into their yard so she could look closer at the roses.
“Someone has to live here,” she said, and her voice was a little sad, because it looked like a very nice place to live, and she suddenly wanted to stay here with Rose for a very long time. Rose was her very best friend, the best friend ever, and every time she went home, she was a little worried that Rose wouldn’t be there when she got back, but if they had an actual cottage that was theirs, then she knew her friend would always be there.
“Umm … I think we do,” Rose said, and she pointed at the mailbox.
Tara looked confused, then walked over to the mailbox, too, so she could see what Rose meant. There on the side were the words “Rose and Tara”.
“Well, do we have any mail?” Tara asked, and Rose shrugged before opening the mailbox and peering inside.
“We have a letter!” Rose said excitedly, and reached in, pulling out the plain white envelope that said “Rose and Tara, White Cottage, Dark Forest” on it.
“Open it, open it!” Tara said, also excited. She never got mail at home. At home mail was always for her dad and sometimes for her mom.
Rose opened the envelope carefully, and pulled out the letter and unfolded it, and she and Tara huddled together to read it.
“Dear Rose and Tara,
I know the Dark Forest is very scary, but I also know that you’ll get here soon. I’ll be the very best cottage I can be, and I’ll always be a safe place you can run to. When you’re here, you don’t have to worry about the monsters.
Love,
The Magic Cottage”
“Rose?”
“Yeah Tara?”
“Do you know the story of Hansel and Gretel?”
“Uh-huh,” Rose said, raising her fingers to her lips and letting out a sharp whistle. The cottage was, indeed, very very pretty. And the letter was very nice, if it was true, and Rose really wanted to stay here with Tara, and she thought Tara really wanted to stay, too. But they were young, not stupid.
“What was that for?” Tara asked, frowning and she clapped a hand over her ear. Rose had whistled really loud right next to it.
“Oh, sorry,” Rose said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but – “
“Oh, right! I just called the magic helicopter! I haven’t had a chance to show you yet, but I taught it to come get me when I whistle now! Isn’t that cool?” Rose said, smiling proudly, even as the buzzing sound of the magic helicopter got closer as it flew over the Dark Forest looking for them.
“So it’s a trick?” Tara asked, looking sadly at the house. “We’re going to fly away?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said, biting her lower lip and looking uncertain. “But the magic helicopter will know!” Rose said quickly. “If it lands and shuts off its engine, then this is a safe place, but if it lands and keeps the engine on, then we run for it and fly away, okay?”
“Okay,” Tara said, nodding and feeling better that they had a way of knowing if it was safe to stay here, but still feeling a little sad about the idea of leaving the cottage, because she loved it a little bit already.
“Here it comes,” Rose said, shading her eyes with one hand and looking as the noise of the helicopter got louder. And then they could see it, and they both waved as the magic helicopter circled twice before landing.
Tara held her breath as the magic helicopter settled, slowly, slowly …
“It’s, umm,” Rose said, crossing her fingers as the magic helicopter came to a stop.
And then Tara let out her breath with a great big “Whoop!” as the noise of the engine stopped, too, and she and Rose started jumping up and down.
They’d found a safe place in the middle of the Dark Forest, and though it had been very very dark, and very very scary, they had made their way through, and found something very very good.
by bytrsuite » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:38 pm 
But, thank you … I appreciate the comments. I’m particularly glad you liked my take on ‘important vs. immediate’. It’s important to be able to make that distinction in a relationship, >before< getting peeved. As much as I try to keep the vignettes pure W/T … the Scoobies are the most important people in their lives outside of each other, and I kind of enjoy their guest appearances. It lets me work with different aspects of W/T.
I am so glad to see you and what a story so cute I feel for Tara and where she is comin from and Willow all relaxed and ready to show her parents her girl and ready for the rest of Happy ever after.
s'good to see ya...and especially to see an update 
too cute, really.
(not that I should've needed inspiring to do that)
