The woods opened like an invitation to madness-trees twisted into unlikely arches, mushrooms glowed beneath the underbrush, and the very air smelled faintly of silver and secrets.
Lavender skipped along the narrow path with a grin that could frighten angels. Her boots made no sound, her eyes gleamed with dangerous delight, and her fingers moved as if arranging invisible treasures in midair.
"I've decided," she declared, arms stretched wide to embrace the sky. "My collection is far too incomplete."
Vashir, silent as a shadow, walked behind her-his only response a tilt of his head.
"No, no, no," Lavender went on, spinning slowly, eyes wide. "Incomplete is an insult. It's bare. My collection must be exquisite, outrageous, the kind that makes ancient kings turn in their graves with envy!"
She stopped and faced Vashir, hands now gripping the sides of her coat like she was trying to contain the storm brewing within.
"They must be the most powerful," she whispered with a reverent shiver, "the most wanted... the most rare. The strangest of the strange. The madder, the better!"
Then she threw her arms out again and twirled in a dizzying circle, laughing-sweet and unhinged, like wind chimes in a hurricane.
"Imagine it, Vashir," she beamed. "Artifacts lost to time. Creatures unseen by the civilized eye. People! Oh, the people-beings so magnificent, so terrifying, so beautifully absurd, they deserve a place in my world. I will travel this land, no-this realm, and gather all things worth collecting!"
Vashir raised a brow. "Even people?"
"Especially people," she said with an eerily bright smile. "If they're worthy. If they're shiny enough. If they make my soul itch with need. Oh, yes. They'll become part of my grand exhibition."
"Willingly, I hope?"
Lavender shrugged with a devil-may-care smile. "That's a detail. An... adjustable one."
The totem at her side pulsed once-deep violet and alive-and Vashir's golden eyes flicked toward it, thoughtful, as if it too were part of her mad symphony.
"You're not scared?" she asked suddenly, tilting her head at him. "Not even a little?"
"Of you?" Vashir answered. "Terrified."
She laughed.
"But I'm still going with you."
He stepped beside her now, close enough that their arms brushed when they walked. "Wherever you go, Mad Collector, I go too."
Lavender looked at him, smile turning soft for a breath, then she grinned once more-sharper than any blade she owned.
"Good," she said. "I'd hate to have to collect you too."
And so, they walked on-one a quiet shadow, the other a blazing flame. The Mad Collector and the Vanished Serpent.
Ahead of them, the world unfolded like a map no one dared to draw.
And it was theirs for the taking.