To Save a World Ch. 04

Aaron ooh-ed at her idea after she told him, and enthusiastically relayed her requests to the wolf woman. Serche, puzzled at first as to why her mighty hooks are being ignored, soon happily complied with their request. In short time, they fixed the problem of Aaron's pants. The loose material was gathered on the inside of the pants and hooked together with Serche's sharp twigs, which she made to fasten on to itself for security. All without even having to take it off. Impressed, Aaron insisted that it also be done with the sleeves on his shirt. After that, he then insisted on the same treatment to Lydia, as she had way more loose material on her clothes, small as her frame was.

They'd spent more time than they originally intended in the clearing, but after their break the two humans were able to move much better in the dense foliage. It didn't exactly make them walk better. And their clothes still got snagged, but they can now at least easily pull themselves off, instead of dragging the entirety of the vegetation around them with their loose clothes. All while keeping their skin intact.

With the problem momentarily solved, it did bring the young woman's attention to how lacking their party was. As they slowly trudged in a straight line, she made a quick assessment. Both she and Aaron had on a combination of now-fitting shirt and trousers and soft leathered boots, while Serche was even more naked than they were, having only some sort of band around her breasts and a short skirt around her privates made from Lydia's old cowl. Trasnu was not much better than her, only having a pair of trousers, his muscular torso bare to the unforgiving jungle. Both the beastmen walked barefoot, although it didn't seem to be much of an issue for them.

She shook her head. They only had the clothes on their back -- wait, they didn't even all have clothes on their back -- and those that do didn't even fit properly. With their surroundings pressing on them from all sides, the young woman couldn't help but feel woefully unprepared for such an undertaking.

She shook her head, refusing the cold blankets of defeat from smothering her mind.

Instead, she focused on what she could do. Perhaps there was a way to fashion clothes out of the leaves around them? She thought it was possible. With the limits of Serche's magic still vague to her, she couldn't be sure, but at the very least they could weave some leaves to use as cloaks if it ever got too cold. Amidst it all, she adjusted her mindset. The limits of Serches magic were still vague to her -- so she might as well think of all the possible things they could do!

Suddenly, possibilities flooded her brain. But she stopped short. First things first, she thought, let's try and speak the language of these legends.

* * *

The light was rapidly fading. Aaron still couldn't get used to how fast the darkness comes within the forest. One minute they would be walking in perfectly illuminated undergrowth, and the next they'd suddenly find themselves scrambling to look for a clearing during the last scraps of sunlight.

Serche had just finished constructing the obscured fire pit that Trasnu taught her before he left to hunt, composed of two holes dug into the ground, connected together by a small tunnel. She was in the process of arranging firewood on the larger hole for their campfire; kindling at the very bottom, then an assortment of small twigs on top, and then progressively thicker wood on top of each other. Approaching from behind, Aaron found the arrangement strange because of the way it was created; it would be very difficult to place the burning kindling on the very bottom of the pile, seeing as it was dug about a hand-span deep into the ground with very limited space. But he assumed that the Forest Kin would know what she was doing more than himself.

"Here you go" he grunted, dumping an armload of dry branches on a pile beside Serche. Lydia, beside him, followed suit. You'd think it was easy looking for dry wood in a place filled with literally nothing but trees, but it was actually more difficult than he thought. Oh, there were dead wood everywhere, but most of them had already rotten, or had piles upon piles of dense growth on top, or were too heavy to drag back into camp. Despite that, they still managed to come up with a substantial haul, but it took them a longer time than expected. It was now almost fully dark, and soon it would be almost impossible to see ten feet in front of them. The noise had changed, too, the night insects spontaneously belting out their joyous music all around them.

"You think this would be enough?"

"Yes, that'd be enough for the night." Serche affirmed, getting up from her position. "Now stand back."

Aaron and Lydia took two steps backwards. In the gloom, they could just barely make out the other's features as they glanced at each other.

Serche stretched out her hand towards the pit, a good five feet away from her now. It was difficult to see her expression in the darkness, but Aaron thought that he could make out her frown as she stared intensely at the pit.

'Okay, so she's going to use magic to start a fire. Pretty nifty.' He thought to himself, 'But why do we have to stand so far ba-'

Whoosh. His question was answered before he even finished, a tall pillar of fire erupting from the hole in the ground as if it held a pool of gasoline. He jumped back with a yell as the area around him brightened yellow for a brief second, hearing Lydia do the same beside him in surprise. Serche huffed noisily.

"Quick! Place more wood on it! That damn fire's so big it would burn out all the wood in a flash."

The instruction snapped them out of their reverie, and they hurried to the side of the fire to feed it with more substantial fuel. Serche was right, most of the wood inside the hole were already red, crumbled ashes. "That's amazing! You can do fire magic?" He enthused, looking back at her.

"I hate making fire" Serche muttered emphatically in reply, "It takes up a lot of energy to persuade the spirits to do something so unnatural. And it's very difficult to control."

"Oh, I see. But still, that's a wonderful ability."

"It's so unnatural" Serche groused. If he didn't know any better, he'd playfully say that the prideful young woman was just whining. But of course Aaron knew better, so he kept his mouth shut.

Serche sat beside them around the fire. Aaron was between the two ladies, a silent and observant Lydia to his right and the irritated wolf-woman to his left. Serche started to hand out berries to everyone, and they nibbled on the sweet treats in silence as they waited for their true meal.

The peacefulness was quite odd. It felt like they've been constantly moving. At first, away from some unseen danger. Next, in pursuit of some unseen urgency.

What was it again? Ah, right, water.

If he didn't think about it, he wouldn't even notice that he was thirsty. Now that he thought about it, though, he became aware of that dryness in his mouth. As if the inside of his mouth was some clunky machine that needed his spit as lubricant, and now that there was much less of it, his tongue felt rough, clumsy -- like it was banging all over the place, and the inside of his cheek felt like cardboard. He swallowed, and it seemed like his throat contracted a little harder, not really swallowing anything, but taking a longer time to finish the motion nonetheless.

He wasn't a woodsman, but even he knew one simple fact. Dehydration was suicide in the wilderness. So yes, water.

So it felt like time was running out, like they shouldn't just be silently sitting waiting for their meal. Well, at least he was just sitting silently. Apparently, Lydia had struck up a conversation with Serche, and they were now keeping their heads together, muttering, trying to get their points across to one another.

Aaron was pleasantly surprised when Lydia asked him to tell the wolf that she'd like to learn the Forest Tongue. Truth be told, her exclusion from most conversations had been worrying him, and he'd been looking for chances to introduce the matter to the group. But with everything that's been happening, it flew out of his mind.

So he was glad when Lydia took the initiative of talking to the beastman. The only thing he had against it was that Lydia refused his help, saying that she wanted to try by herself first, and she'd call for him if she encountered something that she can't decipher. So far, she hasn't called for his assistance yet, although he's caught her looking his way helplessly from time to time, often when the pair would become very animated with their facial expressions and gestures.

The fire warmed him, and even with the grumbling in his stomach and the dryness of his mouth, that small coziness threatened to make his eyes droop. The sound of the forest, the emotional comfort of the small, diligent voices doing their best to understand each other near him, even the fresh smell of woodsmoke mixed with the musk of the earth -- all connived to put his mind into a tired sleep.

There was only one thing that woke him up to full readiness, and that was the sound of Trasnu returning.

The hunter seemed to have been luckier tonight. Three bloody carcasses hung from his belt, looped by sturdy vines. They were already dressed and skinned, their fresh meat shining red in the firelight, their separated fur slung on his shoulders like some token of victory. Additionally, he held two large birds by the neck on his left hand, similarly as ready to cook, and on his right he held a giant fruit by its stem. He struck quite the gruesome image, to be honest -- and Trasnu probably won't smell good in the coming hours, as well. But the thought of hot, juicy meat in his mouth already made the hungry young man's stomach gurgle in want.

The fruit turned out to be a kind of vegetable that they called creanncura. The literal translation was 'hard skin', the word apparently passed down from an ancient form of the Forest Tongue. With its tough outer covering, insects are not as prone to destroying the fruits compared to other plants, and thus it often runs rampant in colonies all over the forest floor. As the story goes, it was one of the staple foods for the Forest Kin during their early years of escape from the conquering human kingdoms, because of its abundance and ease of preparation.

Aaron thought that any history lesson would have been more interesting when they were discussed during times when the students weren't half starving.

"Now, now!" Trasnu exclaimed, standing over the sizzling camp fire, ringed with cooked meat "Who wants some of these in their bellies?"

Of course, everyone did, even Trasnu.

There was a lot of food to go around; the big fruit was chopped to pieces and then roasted, along with some edible nuts that Serche found, and the meat rubbed with various herbs. Berries and fruit that they harvested during their trek was passed around after, both to serve as dessert and to temporarily assuage their growing thirst.

Their stomachs bulging satisfyingly, eyelids drooping in tiredness, the party slept peacefully on the thin piles of soft leaves that they gathered beforehand. Aaron and Lydia snuggled together naturally, seeking comfort in each other's arms.

The next day brought everything in better perspective for Aaron.

The very first thing that Aaron noticed when he awoke was an acute sense of thirst. It was a fact his mind instantly latched on the moment he became conscious. We need water, his mind seemed to say, and we need it very soon, or things are going to get shitty. He tried to swallow, but ended up kind of like flexing his throat.

Beside him, Lydia was starting to stir. The moment she woke up, he knew that she did so feeling the same thirst. She stretched, frowning worriedly, and when their eyes met they could see the worry reflected in the other's eyes.

"We seriously need water soon, huh." Aaron stated rhetorically. They were seated around the morning fire, rubbing the chill off their body, a blanket of worry noticeable in their silent demeanor.

"Yes. And that's not it. I'm afraid I have more bad news." Trasnu spoke hesitantly, handing everyone fruits that he had gathered earlier in the morning. It was a silent confirmation of their predicament that the hunter told them not to bother with morning exercises, despite having announced just the day before that it was going to be a routine. "There's a thick patch of vegetation between here and where we need to go."

"Wait, that's it?" Aaron laughed a little. He had finished translating for Lydia and had been tensely waiting for a few seconds. "It can't be that much worse than.. well, here?" He waved his arms to indicate their surroundings.

Trasnu shook his head. "No, I'm afraid it can get worse. Much worse. Run'an beotaylle, we call them. The spirit's secrets. There are parts of the forests that the spirits of the world do not want us to see, and so they are... protected. Hidden away from mortal eyes. Vines as thick as a grown man's arm. Thorns both wide as a palm and thinner than a nail, both as sharp as the finest bone knife, ready to rend flesh. Leaves that could kill you with a touch. Plants that prey on other living things. The stories are endless. We are told from our youngest years never to get nearer than a stone's throw from the black walls of a run'an, lest some poisonous fumes of plants bring us down."

The old man shook his head again. "I have never ventured so far out as to have seen one in my lifetime, but I recognized it immediately."

Serche breathed loudly. A huff of expelled air couldn't have articulated the sudden fear they were feeling any better. "But what does that mean for us? Can we not go around it? Is there no other way?"

"The wall of accursed plants stretched as far out as the eye can see on both sides." He spread his hands. "I even climbed the tallest tree in the area, to see. It would take us two, maybe three more days to walk around. That is if we are lucky, since we do not know anything about these run'an, other than the olden stories. It could take us a week. It could all be cursed black plants from that point of the forest. There is no way to tell."

"But we can still do it?" Aaron felt inclined to ask, ignoring the cold lump of fear in his stomach.

The hunter shrugged. "We would get weaker by the day, for a longer time. Not to mention, the forest is unpredictable. We have been lucky until now, but disaster could befall us suddenly, and we would be too weak to deal with it."

"Wait wait wait," the young man exclaimed, "Time out. Let me get this straight. So you want us to go through that -- the run'an? Is that even possible?"

Trasnu directed his gaze at Serche. "It would all depend on her, the strongest persuader of the spirits for the past century."

Everyone turned their eyes to Serche, who herself was staring at the fire with an impassive look on her face.

"I- don't know if I am capable." She finally answered, "I would very much like to claim that I can handle it, and I am confident in my abilities -- but against the Black Wall? Against a legend told to children at bed time?"

"I have no doubt you could do it. Nevertheless, if worse comes to worst, we would just die."

"Oh, there he goes." Aaron suddenly muttered. "I knew you were a little crazy."

"Young man, in this world, there are fates far worse than death. Take another story of the run'an beotaylle, for example. Apparently, there is a plant that feeds on you by keeping you ali-"

"Okay okay. Let's get back to the topic at hand, Trasnu."

"She can do it." The old man said confidently.

"Wait just a minute." Aaron exclaimed in realization, "Holy crap, but do you even know where we're going? We've been following you all this time because you acted like you knew what you were doing, but how can you be absolutely sure that there'd be water on the other side of that damned place?"

"Ah, there he goes. I was wondering when you were going to ask."

"What?"

"Intuition. Beastman instinct -- the best kind there is, sharpened and honed to perfection by my years of service to the Clan."

"What. The. Fuck?"

"Trasnu!" Serche scolded, immediately picking up on Aaron's growing anger. "Answer our master properly!"

At the same time, Lydia's small hand found Aaron's, a gentle breeze of soothing emotions gently washing over his mind. Aaron was immediately aware of how close he was to letting his emotions take over, perhaps derailing the conversation even more.

"All right, all right. I was trying to lighten the mood. I apologize." Trasnu made a conciliatory gesture, nodding in Aaron's direction.

"No, you're right. It wouldn't do to break into anger in this kind of situation. But please, tell us you have a more substantive reason to order us to our deaths other than your intuition."

Trasnu contemplated for a few seconds. "Hmm. It's... difficult to explain. The other hunters call it a gift, but I think of it more as an acquired feel for things. I am uncannily perceptive when it comes to the forest. Things like the weather. The best hunting spots -- oh, hey, now that you mentioned it. You know what I used to hunt our meals? Rocks. Now that's an acquired skill -- but it's not perfect. Sometimes I miss. It didn't matter though, because there were so damned many of them all over that big triamore tree a little ways off -- oh, pardon. But you see my point. It normally takes a hunter several hours of tail-wagging to catch a substantial number prey in unfamiliar forests, without prior knowledge of the animals, the herds, their routes. Unless they get lucky. And I get lucky a lot. Because my guts and my feet just point me to them, and more often than not, I get it right."

He shrugged. "That's it, for my intuition. But, I have another thing to say; I actually came quite close to it, you know?" The old man grinned, staring at each of them, his golden-brown eyes glinting with slightly-mad mischief. "And I heard it. Yes, these old ears -- the best ears in all of the Clan. Faint, but it was there. Woosh. Water. Rapids. Shallow and steep, for it to have made sound that could carry that far, over such obstacles.

That's it, really." The old man leaned back. Aaron, as well as the rest of the group, had unconsciously mirrored him leaning in, due to their interest.

"Besides," The old man added, "Do we not have nothing else to base our decisions on? All of us are foreigners in this land. We have nothing, we know nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, my gut is -- at the very least -- better than nothing."

Aaron sighed deeply. He rubbed his face with his palms, and then continued the motion to comb his long hair away from his face. "Yeah. Fine. That makes sense. That's way better than nothing, if your instincts are as sharp as you say. Sorry for doubting you. But you're absolutely sure that going around it would kill us?"

"Well, no, not at all. But I trust our Serche's ability more than I trust the whims of the spirits."

"Ugh," was the woman in question's reply. "If I don't get us through that thing, we'll all be dead."

"Undoubtedly so, honored guide."

"Yes. Sure. Fine." Aaron surrendered. "I guess I prefer a quick death, anyway."

Trasnu laughed heartily, clapping him on the back. "You're learning, old pup! Learning!"

* * *

"Holy fucking shit. No. Fucking. Way."

Aaron gaped, his bulging eyes staring at everything in front -- and above him -- in fearful wonder. What was before him was utter insanity. Simply impossible. After everything he'd been through, the young man thought that nothing this world could throw at him would make him bat an eye. It turns out, of course, that he was dead wrong.