A Wisp of Fate

A change of pace

Our focus is now back on earth around the same time.
A girl around the same age as the boy walks through a field of sunflowers, a book in her hand. She has short blonde hair, round glasses, and blue eyes.
"It's not fair!" She proclaims, "magic is real, and so is Fillory!"
With that, she twirls around and falls into the flowers. Letting their stalks and pedals envelop her.
She had hoped doing this would send her to Fillory, but alas it did not, and she got back up and brushed herself off, making her way out of the field. She eventually got back to her own backyard and sat in her family's hammock outside her house, swaying back and forth and opening her book. The book happened to be Fillory and Further, by Christopher Plover. The same very book read by the boy.
She read this book most days, as she enjoyed getting lost in its description of magic, and a distant land. One that could solve all her problems, and take her far away from her parents.
Eventually darkness fell and she had to return inside. Reading late, until at last she fell asleep. And dreams of Fillory, and a strange brown haired boy filled her head.

...

The girl couldn't feel more out of place.
She was in high school now, and she had just turned seventeen. And she happened to be at a party. Music roared and lights flashed, and people floated around. Drinking, dancing suggestively, and well, partying. She sat in the corner of the room reading, trying to block out the obnoxious noises around her. She was sure she was just invited because one of her guy "friends" needed to invite a girl to be able to come in the first place. She rolled her eyes as she saw him walking over.
"Heyyyy girl, get your head out of your stupid fairytales and have some fun!" He said loudly to be heard over the music.
"They're not stupid, and I'm having plenty of fun over here," she insisted, even though it was far from the truth.
"Suit yourself bookworm!" He laughed and twirled away, grabbing a drink off a table and tasking a swig from it.
"Intolerable." She muttered as she shook her head and closed her book.
She needed some air, and she needed it now.

She stood up and walked out the back door, her book in hand. She rolled her eyes as the entire back porch was just full of teenagers scattered around French kissing.
She walked off the porch, and towards a nearby forest. The noise getting less and less as she moved through the trees.
It was a beautiful night, the perfect temperature, with a light breeze blowing around, tickling her skin.
She turned around halfway as she heard a voice calling back from the porch, it was the same guy that invited her.
"Hey! I saw you come this way, we're gonna play strip poker and we need one more person; where'd you go?!"
And with that she took off deeper into the forest.
She started by running, and then after a bit slowed to a walk. She looked around, and realized she was lost.
"Well crap," she muttered.
She looked around for any sign of light or the house she came from but found nothing. So she just stopped and listened. Surely she could hear the booming of that music, but again, nothing. She listened closer, and finally did hear something. A faint ticking.
She looked around and tried to find its source. Walking around she eventually found a clearing where the ticking was coming from.
In its center was a tree, with snaking branches and a massive trunk. Housing a clock in the very middle. The source of the ticking.
And the same tree she read about in her book.
A smile formed on her face as she slowly walked closer. It was confirming that magic and everything she read about might actually be true!
She reached out to the tree, and touched the clock. And as soon as she did the entire tree erupted in a blinding light, and sent her flying several feet back. She landed with a thud and a small cry of pain. But she wasted no time in scrambling to her feet to try and figure out what happened.
The light began to subside, and as it did, a boy walked from it's wake.
He was tall, with brown hair, and bright blue eyes. He wore regal looking clothes, a purple embroidered vest, and a golden crown laid nestled in his hair. To her, he was kind of cute.
He stepped forward and looked around, finally spotting the shocked girl, he walked over.
"Say, am I back on earth?" He asked calmly.
"Hubum umm, yes. Yes you are. Hi." She stuttered out.
"Ah, I see. Well I must be here for a reason, but I really can't see it. Rumors are spreading the Beast has returned and I have to prepare." And with that the boy turned and started messing with the clock on the tree, tapping on it and muttering things under his breath.
"You can't just leave like that!" The girl said, walking back over to the boy. "Are you from Fillory? Is magic real? If it is you have to teach me!"
The boy turned and looked her right in the eyes, an action that actually made the girl stop and shiver a little.
"Look," He began, "I really don't have time for this. I'm vulnerable here, there are no protection spells and I haven't found the old gods yet to try and figure out how to banish the Beast. I know it's a lot but you have to leave me alone." He turned and walked a few feet in front of the tree; raising his hands.
The girl started to reply but stopped immediately as she saw what he was doing.
He made a few lighting fast gestures with his hands, and muttered words she couldn't understand before raising his right hand up to the tree. A blue glowing ring appeared around his wrist and pulsated a little before flickering out. The boy looked confused and started looking around.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Asked the girl.
The boy moved fast, going over to her and started talking in a hushed tone. "It isn't safe here, where are we? We have to get out of these woods."
"Umm, we're outside of one of my classmates houses I think, but I got lost." She replied.
"Concealment spell, don't worry about it, I can get us out, just start moving in the direction you came, and we can-"
He stopped talking and fell dead silent.
The girl started to say something but he held is finger up to his lips to shush her.
She forest became still, even more than it was, it seemed dead. No crickets, no wind, no nothing.
Then, there was a faint sound. A rustling, a flapping. Then, in the distance, the moonlight illuminated a small cloud of what looked like moths. Thousands of them.
She looked at the boy in confusion, and he had a look of pure terror on his face. That didn't do anything at all to calm her nerves.
She looked back at the fluttering cloud and grabbed onto the boys arm.
The cloud parted, and something terrifying walked out of it.
A tall, lanky man, wearing a tattered business suit. Who had long black fingers like snaky claws, and who's face was shrouded in hundreds of black moths.
It had to be what the boy feared,

It had to be the Beast.