How About No? 1 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Darkhorse331

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How About No?

Chapter 1

-VB-

Ever have information forcefully downloaded into your brain?

No?

Well, I didn’t know what that would be like. Or feel like.

Now, I knew.

I nearly died once, you know, back a couple years ago when I got infected with a disease of unknown origin. DUO, the doctors called it. My pulse hit 190. The docs gave me fentanyl to “let me go painlessly.” I didn’t die, though, but the pain leading up to the fentanyl was something I never thought I would experience again or have it be matched.

Info-download into the brain?

That felt like whatever nearly killed me by a factor of five. I couldn’t even scream. I just twitched on the ground with pain dominating all aspects of my senses. I felt pain, heard pain in my voice, saw pain in the reddened vision (when I could actually see), smelled bitter pain, and … tasted pain? Ah, yes, it was the taste of sickness, the bitterness, that came when you get sick, so nothing out of the ordinary. I was, technically, sick with pain.

It finally came to an end, and I laid there in the …um … snow.

Snow.

I didn’t live anywhere close to where snow fell.

Even as my body complained, I pushed myself up and looked around.

Yes, everything was covered in a light dusting of snow.

“What the fuck?” I muttered as I got up, but the moment I was halfway up, I saw my state of dress. Instead of my usual basketball shorts and a bland white t-shirt, I had dirty hemp-like long pants and an equally long hemp-like shirt, both of which had dirt, grime, and sweat. At least it was keeping me warm.

I chose to ignore that oddity for a moment and continued to stand up.

When I finally did and turned around, my heart stuttered as I laid my eyes upon a very familiar looking tree.

It was no ordinary or rare tree. I wasn’t a botanist; I didn’t give two shits about plants except for what I ate.

However, when a gnarly tree had a face carved into it with what looked like blood dripping from the orifices, a bone-white bark, and red leaves fluttering in the snowy day.

… Someone made a very convincing copy of a weirwood.

Slowly, I reached forward and-.

I stopped fully before I touched the tree as I began to feel something from it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I backed away as my lips began to twitch.

“Nah. Nah nah nah nah nah,” I uttered repeatedly as my heart started to get louder in my ears. “Nah nah nah, none of this is real. Someone drugged me. None of this is fucking real.”

But the feeling didn’t go away.

Worse, my mind began to supply me with information about what I could use the weirwood tree components for. I could use the sap as a base for potions and the entire tree itself as a familiar by giving it mobility and binding it to me-.

“FUCK NO!” I hissed as I backed away even more.

But then I hit something with the heel of my feet. Freezing, I slowly turned around and then froze like a rabbit when I saw what I had just touched with my bandage wrap of a footwear and not shoes.

I began to feel like I was about go go crazy. I felt things. I touched things. The cold was seeping into my clothes. All of this felt too real. The weirwood felt like it was watching me even though it was just a tree and I hadn’t even touched it.

And the oval thing on the ground?

That felt like it was alive.

It looked like a dragon egg.

I couldn’t stop the twitching lips from curving up nor the high-pitched unhinged laughter.

And then I blacked out as the stress got to my head and clonked me out.

When I woke up again, I was shivering with a layer of snow on top of me.

My mind immediately supplied me with information on what I can do to alleviate that.

Hungry, cold, and tired, I moved my body on auto. Getting up from the ground, I grabbed the dragon egg and walked over to the weirwood. I set the egg down and scooped up a bunch of the reddish blood-like sap from the tree.

Then I bit into my pinky and let blood flow. I ignored the pain as the blood dripped down into the sap and slowly mixed it up while muttering … something. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, only that this would help me.

I felt something new leave me in a small trickle and into the mix of sap and blood.

When I stopped, the small viscous solution was glowing lightly.

Without a hint of reservation, I raised it up and drank it all.

Immediately, I felt my stomach feel full, my body warmer, and my strength return. My mind snapped into focus and I stood there in utter confusion and shock.

“Fuck,” I giggled as tears began flowing. “What the fuck is going on?”

There was nothing for me to do but grab the dragon egg and leave.

I was in Westeros, the land of A song of ice and fire, and just performed some kind of magic.

Where’s a cave I can hole up in and scream in both delight and horror? I also did need shelter from this unending snowfall.

I ended up searching all day and barely managed to find a small hole in a hill in the middle of the forest (why was I in the middle of the forest in the first place?) and crawled in.

It was warm. It was nice.

And … And it smelled?

I looked around and then felt something huff on my face.

…

Oh.

Yes.

Snow, winter, cave…

I just crawled into a bear cave.

“FUCK!” I screamed as I ran out of there with a bear close behind me.

This was NOT my day!

-VB-

A/N: Alchemy CYOA

Potions, living bottles; elementalism, Nature, Occult and body; go alone