Chapter 31: Leaving the forest

The silence stretched as I limped away from the clearing, the sound of the stream growing louder behind us. The forest here was thicker than before, the pines growing closer together, their branches tangling overhead and blocking out most of the light. What little sunlight made it through broke into thin strips across the ground, catching on roots and patches of damp soil.

The air felt cooler under the canopy, carrying the smell of water and earth. Every step was uneven, the ground shifting between soft dirt and raised roots that caught at my feet if I wasn’t careful. The stream kept pace beside us, its constant burbling filling the silence we didn’t.

This was a faster way than we had come, without having to run of course from the Glassmaw we were able to take a more direct route. If I looked back, I could still see the clearing through the gaps, smaller now, already being swallowed by the forest.

No one spoke at first.

All four of us moved together, slowly for my sake.

Emma kept glancing back. Ingrid did too, though she tried to hide it, I think she was trying not to scare us. Doran didn’t look back at all, just stared straight ahead.

“We’re really just… leaving it?” Emma finally asked, her voice tight.

“The bush?” I asked. Petting the Kitesqueak, trying to pretend my shoulder wasn’t throbbing.

She nodded. Her brows were still furrowed, lips pressed tight. “It ate that Vulpiquill.”

“And the Vulpiquill ate the stag,” I told her. I remembered having this argument with Mira, and Dain, and Talla.

Weirdly enough Reed always understood or maybe the thought just hasn’t occurred to him.

“That’s not the same, it had taken over those Aethrons.” She predictably countered.

“That’s nature.” The ache behind my eyes throbbed, and a sigh slipped out before I could hold it back. “My mom says when a predator chases prey, they’re both running for their lives.” I told her as I rubbed my eyes.

I winced as I stumbled over a root, my shoulder flaring. Ingrid’s bandages held it tight, but the bleeding had stopped, unlike my hand so I didn’t complain.

The forest had shifted, the Kitesqueak I was carrying landed on the ground and ran off, but I barely noticed.

Emma had caught me, I clutched her sleeve, her eyes were hard to see as the forest darkened but I could still see the worry in her face.

“I’m fine” I whispered softly, but I didn’t release her sleeve.

My eyes widened, I pointed to a patch of leafy stalks near the base of a rock outcrop. “Mender’s root, And livercap moss.” 

“what is it?” Emma asked as she helped me walk towards it.

“its called Mender’s root, what do you think it is” I teased her I sat carefully nearby, trying not to hiss as the pain flared again.

“good eyesight” Ingrid said she scrambled toward the patch, kneeling hard on one leg, “how do I?”

“the moss gets scraped out, the root needs to be cut out, don’t touch the boulbous part it smells bad.” I told her. “umm… what are you too doing in my forest” I said suddenly.

“What?” Doran squeaked. He stopped by a smaller tree only twelves meters high, I hadn’t noticed how wide he was before, but framed against the tree I could tell, he was at least a meter wide, and over three tall.

It was strange standing all bunched together in the shadow of such a large man.  Even stranger was the height difference, Ingrid was crouching now, but she was just as tall as we were what was she doing with such a mountain of a man

I dropped my gaze before he could catch me staring. His shadow stretched across the ground, swallowing mine. “Just… I want to talk about something, to distract from.” I gestured to my bandaged hand.

Ingrid glanced at me, then nodded slightly. “we are adventures,” she began, “we were part of a escort group for a noble.”

Adventurers!?! I tightened my grip on Emma’s sleeve as she shifted, and I caught a faint scent of soap and something earthy, like the forest clinging to her clothes.

“Adventurers!” Emma exclaimed “Did you have to fight bandits on the way?”

“No, but we did fight a Warden,” Ingrid said.

Emma blinked. “A what?” she asked, confused.

I spoke up “Thunderstrike Wardens are massive six limbed bears,” I said, grinding my foot into the dirt. “They’re super territorial, they like being high up, they take electricity from the clouds and use it for their fights.”Emma raised a brow. “You’ve seen one?”

“No, we have one it should be at the top of the mountain though” I said I turned to Ingrid “is that the one you saw? Did—did you come from the peak?” I asked them before pausing. “you guys were escorting a noble through our part of the forest?” I said slowly “you—you weren’t trophy hunting were you” I tried to keep the betrayal from my voice.

“we were not hunting, it was an escort job” Ingrid her voice in that annoying tone parents use when they think we are being unreasonable.

“we also don’t know anything about this being your forest and it was on the other side of the mountain not the peak.” Doran added

The other side? It might have expanded its territory or been pushed out, I’ll have to tell Dad.

“you didn’t kill it did you?” Emma asked what I was to afraid too.

“no it lumbered off, we hurt it though.” Ingrid pulled a small knife from her satchel and began tearing, bundling, slicing the root with the small knife. “could you help her get the bandages off” she nodded to Emma.

“right sure”  she came up to me and started getting the bandages of my shoulder. I watched her hands move. They were shaking just a little. 

“I’ll be fine,” I murmured. “they’ll heal me when we reach the town.” I put my hand on hers to calm her, it just seemed to fluster her more, but her lips curled upward sligthly.

“Do you have a bowl? we need to ground up the root?”

Doran pulled a small bowl from a satchel. And started petering the moss.

“what about the finch?” I decided to ask to know that doing so would have been the same result.

“a finch?” Emma asked She was removing the bandages from my shoulder with more gentleness than I expected.

“the Thunderstrike Bear has a symbiotic relationship with the lightning Finch, which is why they are called Warden and Sentinal, the finch warns the warden when something has intruded in its territory.” I continued faster “though a lot of people get it confused which is why they call it a warden and sentinel, but they are actual the same creature .”

Doran showed me the ground roots.

“now we just apply it to my shoulder”

“how do you know how to do this?” Ingrid asked

“we use them to heal the animals when spells aren’t necessary or we don’t have any, like now.”

“the finch and the warden are like a baby and a grown up?” Emma ask.

“no,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not how it works.”

Doran tilted his helmet, the visor clanking slightly. “Then what?”

“They’re the same.” I said wincing as Emma pressed the poultice to my shoulder

“sorry” Emma frowned. “What do you mean, the same?”

“They’re one,” I said, “They are only separated physically, they have a shared awareness.”

“It’s an extension” Ingrid interjected “The finch works as its scout then it sends the information to the warden telepathically, which is why we are taught to kill the finch, if we do the bear doesn’t show”

“That’s…” I hesitated. “That’s not how it works, it doesn’t have to send the information, and its not an extension they are both the same creature.”

Ingrid blinked at me. “You’re saying it’s truly one creature?”

“It is,” I insisted. “did you kill it?”

“missed” Doran answered

“Good…” I turned to Emma “and yes its one creature, like…” I tossed around for an equivalent my memory flashed to a travelling caravan that came by a few weeks ago. “Have you ever seen a puppet show?”

“yes” Emma answered as she started applying the poultice to my hand as well.

“well its like the puppeteer being the consciousness, controlling both puppets, the puppets may be different but its all under control of one…”

“wow that’s amazing!” Emma exclaimed not noticing my pause “Are any other creatures like that too?”

“I—I  don’t know…” she looked at me earnestly “but there probably are Lumisiel tends to test out different variations of ideas with her species, like how we have a similar magic system as the Crystal stags…”

I focused on Lucarion, I could feel the bed beneath him, could hear the gentle snores of Flicker from the corner. I focused on our heartbeats feeling the different rhythm they both had.

***

I had been sucking on the gross moss, barely paying attention to where I was stepping. My focus was somewhere else entirely, reaching, feeling for Lucarion. The forest faded at the edges of my awareness, first the smell of damp earth and pine thinning until I barely noticed it, then the steady burble of the stream slipping away behind everything else.

I kept walking.

The ground shifted under my feet, roots catching and releasing, but even that felt distant. The sounds dulled further, like they were being pulled away from me, leaving only the faint rhythm of something else. My attention narrowed, tightening around that connection.

Then even the shapes around me blurred. The trees, the light breaking through the branches, Emma just ahead of me, all of it slipping out of focus like I was looking past it instead of at it.

My foot caught.

Dull pressure spread through my body as I hit the ground hard. My hand flew to my shoulder and came back sticky with blood. The breath left me in a sharp rush, and something in my chest hitched wrong, like I couldn’t get it back properly.

I tried to move, something caught me, shifting and bunching the more I struggled, soft but stubborn enough to keep me down.

“Olive don’t move, you seemed to have passed out,” Ingrid said, though she sounded far away.

“She couldn’t have lost that much blood,” Doran said.

Someone kept breathing irregularly, was it Emma? Was she upset?

I tried to focus on the sound. It came in clearer, uneven, catching, crying.

Someone was crying.

“Olive! Is—is she going to be okay?” Emma asked, her voice surprisingly steady for someone who was crying.

“It’s okay Olive, we got you just stay still,” a motherly tone had reached Ingrid’s voice.

Olive? Why is she comforting…

It—it was me!

Pain flared sharply, intensifying now that I could feel all of it at once. It pressed in from everywhere, too much, too sudden.

Then I felt it.

A path.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, faint but there. A way out. Away from it.

I didn’t hesitate.

I followed it.

The pain dulled, dropping from sharp to distant, fading into a low, steady throb. The pressure lifted just enough to breathe again.

I opened my eyes.

I was staring at the ceiling, lying in Lucarion’s bed.