COM: Lira Little

“Ugh, not again,” Lira muttered, the dark forest around her menacing in its long shadows and close trees. She brushed web out of her hair where she'd gotten it stuck

The web wasn’t thick enough to be Venom’s, or any drider, really. Thin and translucent, they brush out of her hair with. some work, and she stared at the threads before wiping them off, reminded of the first time she’d met Venom.

She certainly never expected him to let her go, or anything that had followed, but he had.

The web was quickly cleaned from her hair, and she stood and stretched, looking around at her surroundings.

Lost. Again.

With a sigh, she picked a direction and started walking. Nothing else to do, and maybe on the way she’d find some berries.

---

Walking through a dark forest at night was not nigh on Sam’s list of things-to-do. Neither was going on that walk by himself, Dean separated by at least ten feet from where he was at.

After two years working with his brother, Sam had learned some new skills, including a bit on blending into the forest background. He was certainly doing better than his first time, when a certain sprite had knocked him out of the way of a spider’s nest, saving him from a bite and possible paralysis or worse.

Dean was doing his own search, his flashlight carefully panning over the ground as he went. Because of Sam’s sensitivity to light, especially during a nearly pitch black night when his pupils were at their widest to try and collect what little light there was around them, Dean had to keep his light away from his little brother or possibly risk blinding the borrower, rendering him essentially useless.

If Sam needed Dean, he’d call. He just had to stay focused.

The sound of Dean’s crashing footsteps in the background, what little stealth he has ruined by the leaves falling in Autumn, turning the ground crunchy for even Sam, drowned out much of what Sam could make out. His eyes were wide and alert, and he wished his knack could tell him if any wild animals were eyeing him up. He had his small silver knife out and at the ready, but at his size it was all too easy to get swept up into the motion of much larger creatures.

As such, Sam didn’t spot his actual danger until it was too late.

He pushed past a low-hanging leaf from the bush he was exploring under, and let out a cry of shock when he stumbled over a girl on the ground. They sprawled out in a tangle of limbs, Sam scrambling free and his eyes going wide to see her.

She was his size. Or at least close to his size.

What really stood out to him the most, having run into borrowers and littles who lived in the forest before, was that she stood at least a good inch or two taller than him, obvious as she tried to scramble back in the dirt, and had mouse ears.

Sam loved the mice he’d lived near in his motel, but he’d never expected to find a person who looked to be half mouse.

Spotting the frantic look in her eyes, he realized she was trapped. A rock had fallen on her tail, also mouse-like, and she tried tugging it free as he approached her again.

“Hey, you’re okay, I’m not gonna hurtcha,” Sam said placatingly as he approached, smiling warmly to lower any fears about running into him in a dark forest at night.

“I know that! ” she protested without missing a beat, making Sam draw to a halt in shock at the attitude. “I just slipped and this stupid rock fell on my tail!”

With a few blinks, Sam assessed the situation.

They were in a divot in the ground, a large root creating a shelf of ground that arched over their heads, grass hanging off the edge and a few puffs of dirt still cascading onto her brown hair, giving her a mussed look.

The bowl of earth would make moving the rock hard for Sam and harder for her with her tail trapped and assumably in pain, but Sam knew just who could help out.

“Dean!” he shouted, throwing his normal caution to the wind.

In the distance, he heard the deep reply, “Sammy?”

“Over here! I need a hand!”

The girl watched him warily, then went back to trying to tug herself free.

“Don’t worry, we can get you out,” Sam assured her, going to her side and putting a hand on hers so she stopped possibly hurting herself more.

“I just want to get back to my boyfriend!” she groaned. “Stuck in some stupid forest again… at least the spiderwebs are smaller here…”

Sam blinked again in surprise, his eyebrows going up, but chose to ignore it. Considering he could get stuck in regular-sized spiderwebs, especially the potent black widows that lived in the area, for all he knew her two inches extra of height would do her no good.

“Dean’ll be right over,” he soothed. In the background, the crashing footsteps grew closer, a bright light panning over the ground.

“Sam, where you at?” came Dean’s voice from beyond the light.

Sam bent down and grabbed a stick nearby, hefting it briefly before chucking it into the leaves. The light snapped towards them instantly, and he covered his eyes with his arm, scrunching them shut as the world lit up brighter than town hall on Christmas.

The girl calmed down, her blue eyes bright and wide as a hand dropped into view. Unlike her boyfriend’s hand, this one was as human as they came, fingernails blunt and battered from years of working with his hands and a thick silver ring worn on a finger. The light drifted to the side, leaving them lit up enough for Dean to see while allowing Sam to blink blearily, spots in his eyes lingering.

Once his vision had cleared up, Sam waved at the rock. “Can you give us a hand?” he asked his older brother.

Dean nodded, gripping the rock and lifting it up and away. “What’s going on?” he asked Sam.

Before Sam could reply, the girl sprang into action, her powerful legs pushing against the ground and propelling her into the air. Sam jumped back and stumbled, not expecting her to leap above where Dean was crouched, landing on a branch out of reach.

Dean swore and fell backwards, landing with a thud on his ass. Sam had to stifle a snicker at the offense on his face, glad the hunter wasn’t close enough for his fall to affect Sam.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Sam called up when he recovered, running along the ground.

“Places to be, short stop!” she called out. “Thanks for the assist!” With a wave to Dean, she went to leap off the branch again.

“Hey,” Dean said, lunging into motion.

This time, the hunter managed to snare the mouse girl in his hands, carefully sealing her between his fingers and closing them gently. She squirmed around, then calmed and looked balefully up at him.

“You mind?”

“Yes,” Dean shot down at her.

Before things could escalate, remembering their first encounter with Bowman, Sam snagged Dean’s jeans and scrambled up his older brother’s leg. Dean let him climb to his arm, keeping the girl in a hold and not letting up on his glare. It had no effect on her whatsoever.

“What’s your name?” Sam asked as he strode across Dean’s arm towards the hands she was trapped in.

“Lira,” she said without missing a beat. “Now can I go?” She met Dean’s eyes evenly. “We both know you won’t hurt me.”

“Wanna bet…” Dean growled, but Sam cut him off.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” he explained. “We just need to know where you came from. If you’re dangerous.”

She looked at him uncertainly, then shook her head. “I don’t know what I am. I woke up like this one day. All I’m looking for is a way back to my forest. I fell into your world by accident.”

Sam arched his eyebrows. “Another world?” He looked at Dean. “That’s like where Nixie came from!” Turning back to her, he offered, “Do you want help getting back? We’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

Cocking her head, she sized the pair up, then grinned.

“So long as the big guy promises to keep his mitts up. I’m taken.”

Dean sputtered in shock, but Sam grinned. “He promises.”

---

Back at the Impala, Lira watched with some fascination as the smaller of the strange pair hopped down into the car’s trunk, trudging his way calmly around an array of weapons like nothing she’d ever seen before in any world.

“Is all that really necessary?” she asked curiously.

“Yes,” Dean said curtly, dropping his duffel bag on the ground.

“We deal with supernatural creatures that aren’t so… talkative as you,” Sam explained. “Most of them kill the people they find.”

Lira mulled that over, remembering Venom’s penchant for hunting and the time she’d kept him from going after a kid-- to his dismay. She was broken out of her thoughts when a few droplets of water splashed against her hair.

“HEY!”

Dean simply arched his eyebrows innocently at her as he closed the holy water. “Can’t be too careful,” he said snippily, still put out by Sam’s trust of the small woman.

Sam waved a hand up at them. “Found it!” Spotting the annoyed look on Lira’s face and the smug satisfaction on Dean’s, he shrugged. “Just be glad he’s not going for the silver.”

“I should,” Dean grumped. “What about skinwalkers?”

“Those have to be all animal or all human,” Sam reminded him. “Behave.”

He crawled out of the trunk and hopped onto Dean’s hand. “I only watched this once before,” he warned Lira. “Still want to try?”

She nodded her head, glad to have found someone with experience in portals this time. It made finding her way home that much easier.

“Ready,” she said.

Standing in Dean’s hand, Sam started to recite the Latin, then paused. “You’ll have to offer up your blood so the spell knows where to point you,” he explained.

She nodded understandingly. “Got it.”

Waiting for him to let her know when, she listened to the recitation. The air around him swirled, then expanded outwards into what looked to be ripples of light. As he waved at her, she bit into her palm, making a bit of blood well up as the spell focused on her. The color of the ripples changed to purple, reminding her of Venom as it became a portal, offering her a way back to him.

She looked back at the strange pair. “Thanks,” she said, offering them a real smile with no attitude in it this time.

Then, she jumped into the portal, and it all changed to purple.