Chapter 10
The Forest Alive
They stood at the precipice of another world. The fiery glow of evening sunlight could not pass beyond the trees, whose twisted roots were cloaked in mist and shadow. Into the darkness the River Lacrima carried on without pause, until it too was swallowed up by the depths of the forest, guiding them further with only the quiet sound of its murmuring waters.
A strange hush hung over the edge of the woods.
"Time to make camp, I think," said Lance, as they stood upon a hilltop overlooking the fringe of Whisperglade Forest.
"But it's not dark yet!" Charla argued, tearing her eyes from that enormous expanse of trees, which swallowed the horizon and spread like a stain of deep-green ink across the land.
"It will be soon." Lance flicked her with the tip of his wing. "And I don't fancy spending any more nights in there than we absolutely have to."
"Yeah, doesn't look too friendly, does it?" said Nuala with a wry smile.
Charla grimaced and looked back at the edge of the forest. There was certainly a presence about it—a sense of foreboding in the way the sunlight was so suddenly devoured by the darkness between the trees, which seemed, from this vantage point, to go on forever. They stretched from horizon to horizon without break or pause—an ocean of dark green, a barrier between her and the Well of Souls, built by nature and far greater than that ugly wall at Earthsoul. And she knew, as soon as they set foot between those trees, that the misty green darkness would swallow them as swiftly and surely as it did the sunlight.
Beside her, Meredy shivered.
"I've heard too many stories about this place..." she said in a hushed voice. "We really don't want to get lost in there."
"Which is why we're going to follow the river, and why we're not going in there when it's almost dark," said Lance, with a calm certainty that brokered no argument.
Meredy fell silent, but she continued watching the forest with nervous eyes. Charla shivered, but it was not fear that rolled down her spine—it was a tingle of electricity, excitement, anticipation. She was ready to go. She was ready to see what sort of strange creatures lived amongst the trees, to immerse herself in that dark and hazy sense of magic beneath the canopy.
What mysteries lay beyond the fringe of the forest? What new magic had she yet to see?
She was ready for a new adventure. Two days had passed since their encounter with the ape Kafik and his dreadwing, and Charla was growing tired of the rolling green hills. And at last here they stood at the edge of Whisperglade Forest, ready to take the next step towards the Well of Souls.
But that would have to wait until tomorrow.
"Alright," Charla groaned, flopping onto her haunches, "we'll sleep here, then. Since you're so scared."
"Glad you see it my way."
Lance smirked and headed down to the riverbank, with Meredy close behind. Nuala hung back.
"Lance is just spooked," she said to Charla in a loud, carrying whisper, "because he knows if there's any hungry monsters in there, he'll be the first to get eaten. You know, since he's the fattest."
"I heard that," he called back.
Charla grinned. Then she cantered down the hillside, kicking up grass, with Nuala close behind.
Hours later, when the sun had long since set and the four of them had settled down for the night, Charla awoke to the sound of scuffling nearby. Tensing, she raised her head and gazed wide-eyed into the darkness—but it was just Meredy. The sky serpent sat rigid, her silhouette outlined by moonlight, her fur matted and ruffled as if she had been rolling in the dirt. In the silence, Charla could hear her heavy breathing.
"Are you okay?" Charla whispered, after checking to make sure Lance and Nuala were sleeping undisturbed.
Meredy jolted and gasped, her head whipping around; Charla could see the whites of her eyes, huge and bright in the darkness. Then she shuddered and slumped in the grass.
"Just a bad dream," she murmured, averting her gaze. "Did I wake you?"
Charla hesitated, remembering a similar night several days ago when the roles had been reversed—when Charla had had the nightmare, and Lance had awoken. Talking to him had helped her then. So maybe...
She took a deep breath. "It's alright. Do you want to talk about it?"
But Meredy shook her head, and Charla's shoulders sagged. So much for that.
Silence fell between them then, and Charla found herself listening to the noises of the night. The gurgling of the river. The rustle of wind over the grasses. The creaking of trees at the edge of the forest. If she listened hard enough, she thought she could hear the distant calling of some nocturnal bird. Shivering a little, she turned her head to follow the river's path into the woods.
How dark and eerie it looked now, in the shadow of night, beneath the staring moons. The pale trees were like bones sprouting from the earth, reaching spindly fingers towards the sky, and their leaves were as black as ink. The river disappeared instantly into the darkness, as though fallen into a gaping void from whence there was no return. And there was a whispering, a misty sigh, that hung as fog upon the fringe—calling her, teasing her, speaking tales of mystery, danger and adventure to be found deep within the yawning woods...
Charla shook herself and pulled her eyes away. When she looked back, she saw that Meredy was gazing the other way—back towards the east, over the rolling hills of the Northern Plains. The wind tussled the fur upon her head. Though she couldn't see Meredy's face or expression, Charla felt suddenly a sense of wistfulness and sadness, as though it had been borne to her upon the breeze.
She shifted uncertainly. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Meredy started again, less violently this time. She turned her gaze back to Charla. "It's fine—I'm sorry. We should go back to sleep."
So saying, she turned her back on Charla and curled up again in the grass, as if that was the end of that. But Charla did not settle. She remained sitting up for several long minutes, wondering what nightmare Meredy might have had and why she refused to speak of it. And then she wondered about Whisperglade Forest, what they would find in there and what would happen tomorrow—and all in all, it was a long time before Charla closed her eyes again.
"Two rules before we go in," said Lance the next morning, holding up two talons as if he thought they were too stupid to understand. "One: Don't stray from the river unless you absolutely have to. Always know where it is. And two: Stay together. Don't linger, don't lag, and don't run ahead—stay together and keep each other in sight at all times. We don't want to get separated.
"And for the love of our ancestors, don't stir up trouble," he added, giving Charla and Nuala a pointed scowl. "Don't make excessive noise, don't approach wild animals except for prey, and don't touch something if you don't know what it is. What, Charla?"
Charla lowered her wing, which she'd been waving in the air for the last few seconds. School classes at the orphanage in Warfang had taught her that trick.
"Is that a rule, too?" she asked. "Because that makes three rules, not two."
Lance gave her a stony look. "Just be sensible, alright? Use your common sense. We can't have anyone getting lost in there."
"Yeah," Nuala added, speaking in Charla's ear loudly enough for everyone to hear, "or you might never be found again."
Charla shivered, but grinned. Only Meredy looked nervous. She kept shooting flighty looks into the trees, as if she thought something was about to jump out at them. But Charla thought the forest looked much less foreboding in the morning light—it was less eerie and shadowy, and more misty and magical, like it might be home to fairies and nymphs and other unearthly creatures that Charla had read about in Star Tales. Lance said they weren't real, but what did he know?
"As long as we stick together and don't act like idiots, we'll be fine," Lance said bracingly, with a meaningful look at Meredy. "With any luck, it'll only take us a few days to get to Lake Qilin. We might be able to fly some of the way, if the river is visible through the canopy..."
"Let's just go already!" Charla cried, unable to contain herself any longer. She was bored of standing around, and Lance might go on forever once he got started. Instead he broke off and gave her a flat look.
"That's what I like to hear!" said Nuala, doing a loop over their heads. "C'mon, Merry, let's see what this forest has to offer!"
Then she took off towards the tree-line and, after a worried look over her shoulder, Meredy followed. Lance sighed and plodded after them, Charla skipping at his side.
"I've never gone into Whisperglade before," he told her, almost as if it were a warning. "I chose to avoid it the last time I came near. So I don't know what to expect. Be cautious."
"Relax, Lance," Charla said, grinning back at him. "It's gotta be better than the desert. Maybe there'll be fairies."
He huffed, but she caught his smile. "Sure, kid. Sure."
Ahead of them, Meredy and Nuala stepped into the shadow of the trees, where their scales and fur were dappled with filtered sunlight, and Charla hurried to catch up. As she left the bright morning sun behind, a coolness enveloped her—like stepping into a pool on a hot summer's day. She flared her nostrils and tasted the scent of the forest, of musty earth, fresh water and damp undergrowth. Thin mist curled around her talons.
With one last glance over her shoulder, past Lance, she saw a final glimpse of the sunny plains beyond the trees—and then she looked forward and breathed deep, inhaling the earth, the forest, and the magic within it.
Then she kicked her legs, leapt over a winding tree root, and raced to the head of the line. The earth was soft and cool underpaw, layered with fallen leaves and pale moss.
"I said don't race ahead!" Lance yelled after her.
"I won't!" she yelled back.
But she did anyway, because it was too exciting and she couldn't help it. She bounded over mossy roots rising gnarled from the forest floor, ducked under low-hanging branches strung with strings of vine and leaves, and her paws pounded in the cool damp leaf-litter at the edge of the river. And it was only when the world began to darken, the trees grew taller, and the sunlight disappeared that she stopped and looked back.
Her friends weren't far behind; Nuala was almost on her tail, and the others were trailing close. But the rolling plains, and the morning sun with them, were lost from view.
Sunlight no longer filtered in golden patterns through the leaves. Instead they stood in a gloomy deep-green world that was damp, silent and enclosed, as if they had found themselves at the bottom of the ocean. Charla craned her head back and saw that the dark canopy was peppered with tiny specks of light, like stars in the night sky. The river rippled through the quiet, its clear waters tainted green and speckled with stolen light. And Charla realised that it had happened—that the forest had swallowed them, just as surely as it had devoured the sun that danced upon the Northern Plains..
From this moment on, they were in the belly of Whisperglade.
"Not nervous, are you?" said Nuala with a teasing grin.
"No," said Charla, tossing her head, and marched on.
And so they went, deeper still, following the river that flowed sedately alongside them. As they drew further into the forest, Charla became aware of a humid warmth that had not been there before. The air settled like a damp blanket over her scales, and even without the heat of the sun she felt like she had stepped into a place that winter never touched. They were sheltered here from the icy winds that skipped over the open hills, and the air was thick and hot in Charla's mouth.
She liked it. Whisperglade was like its own little world, enclosed and sheltered from everything else. She felt like she had entered a secret place—a place where no one ever went. When she listened hard, she thought she could hear the forest whispering its secrets to her. It knew that she was there.
Soon, it seemed, hours had passed.
They took a break beside the river, at the base of an enormous tree whose roots spread around them like sheltering arms. Charla paddled her muddy forepaws in the water. Very little sunlight made it though the canopy here—only above the river, where the branches of the trees on either side did not quite meet. It dappled the water with pale patterns, and she watched fallen leaves drift along with the current, carrying on into the unknown.
"It's nicer in here than I thought it would be," said Nuala, and Charla turned to see her perched upon an arch of moss-grown root. She looked unnaturally white against the backdrop of the forest.
Meredy, who sat nearby, nodded uncertainly. "It's calm here. It sort of feels peaceful. I thought it would be more..."
She trailed off.
"Creepy?" Nuala supplied, and Meredy gave a weak smile.
Lance just grunted. He was gazing suspiciously away into the green darkness of the trees and he seemed tense. Charla padded over to him.
"We should still keep our guard up," he reminded them grimly. "We've got a long way to go yet, and who knows what predators live deeper in the forest."
"Ah, big guy," said Nuala, flicking her ears, "we can always count on you when we need a ray of sunshine."
He snorted and retorted something, but Charla wasn't listening. She had just spotted something bright and colourful at the base of the tree—small but stark amongst the forest's earthy tones. Tilting her head, she crept up to it.
"Look at this," she said distractedly.
"What?" Lance grunted.
The thing moved, just a little, and Charla jumped. It was alive. She looked closer and saw that it was a bright blue frog, about as big as a single one of her claws, with tiny webbed feet and a scattering of vivid yellow spots. A tiny feathery crest, equally as yellow, crowned its head. It stared at her with one bulging red eye.
"It's a frog." She lifted a paw with half a mind to poke it and see what happened. The frog shifted slightly, as if to face her better. It had funny slanted pupils. "It's really cute, Lance. Look."
She made to touch it, wondering what its glossy skin would feel like under her paw—but then Lance made a strange guttural sound and his claws snapped shut around her tail. With a yelp, Charla was yanked backwards. Just in time. Before her eyes, the frog's incredibly long tongue shot out of its mouth and lashed the air inches from her face. For half a second, she saw it as a whole rainbow of colours—green, red, yellow, blue—before it disappeared back into the frog's gummy jaws.
Gaping, Charla lay sprawled on her stomach in the leaf litter and stared. The frog's feathery crest was vibrating, as if in warning. It turned itself around again, following her movements, its webbed feet sticking to the tree. Its throat bulged.
"For ancestors' sake, Charla!" Lance exclaimed, and she flinched as his paw came down heavily beside her head. "I told you not to touch anything if you don't know what it is!"
"It's just a frog," she said mulishly, pushing herself up again. She pawed away the leaves plastered to her chin. "What can it do?"
"Paralyse you, for a start," Lance growled. "That's a Rainbow Tongue. They're incredibly poisonous, so you don't want to try eating one. And their tongues are coated with a nasty toxin that can paralyse even a full-grown dragon for an hour or two. There's a reason we sometimes call them 'attack frogs.' "
Charla stared at him and then squinted again at the tiny jewel-bright frog. It did seem like it was trying to threaten her; it kept staring at her with those huge red eyes and shaking its crest. Now that she listened closely, she could hear a feathery hissing sound. She narrowed her eyes.
"It doesn't look that dangerous. I think it's cute."
"It is, kinda," said Nuala, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air next to them. Charla jumped. She and Meredy had come over to look—though, like Lance, they hung back.
"I don't care what you think of it," Lance said, rolling his eyes. "Just stay away from it. I don't want to have to lug you through the forest for the next few hours because you got knocked out by a frog."
Charla grinned at the thought. But she did as he said and backed off from the frog, which eventually stopped quivering its head-crest and hopped away into the undergrowth. She was sorry to see it go.
They moved on shortly afterwards, eager to make progress now that they were deep in the bowels of Whisperglade. Charla had become jumpy since the frog, and she kept her eyes peeled for any and all creatures that might be lurking amongst the trees or in the river. She didn't see much—only the occasional glimpse of little furry creatures within the leaves, or ripples in the water from some unseen animal—but she had the strangest feeling that the trees themselves were watching.
Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she saw them move—roots slithering like snakes through the grass; great mossy trunks turning as if to watch them pass. The back of her neck began to prickle.
Maybe—she hoped—it was just her imagination.
Hours later still, Charla realised the forest was suddenly darker than it had been before. There was no longer any sunlight trickling through the canopy, and what little sky she could see though the leaves was dark and inky. She could hardly see further than a few trees ahead of her now. The world around her was shrouded in shadow.
They made camp by the river. Charla shivered as they settled down for the night, and she was surprised when Lance asked her to make a fire.
"We'll have to keep watch anyway," he said, as she set about weaving a little ball of flame. "It's too risky to sleep when there might be predators about. But most wild animals here will be afraid of fire; it might ward them off."
She wasn't about to argue with that. It wasn't exactly cold in the forest, but the heat and light of her fire was comforting in a way that nothing else could ever be. Even just that flickering orange glow was enough to make her feel better. The dark and whispering woods weren't that scary...
Meredy did not seem to share the sentiment. Her ears kept flicking and there was a frightened, twitchy look about her face. Every few seconds, her head jerked around, as if she thought there was something lurking behind her. Even Nuala seemed a bit perturbed; her feathers were unusually fluffed out.
"Friendly place, isn't it?" she said with a sort of fake cheeriness, twisting her head around to look into the darkness. They had little by way of shelter—just a cluster of trees looming over them, like sleeping guardians.
Meredy curled her tail around herself.
"I'll take first watch," Lance offered, and no one argued. "Someone can take over after midnight."
"I will," said Charla, who didn't feel very sleepy at all.
Lance just shrugged. They settled down for the night, and Charla shuffled closer to her fire as the darkness deepened around them. She felt wide awake—and the noise didn't help. The forest did not go quiet at night. In fact, it seemed to only get louder. Things whispered and chattered in the darkness, trees creaked and groaned like restless ghosts, and leaves rustled restlessly far overhead. Charla lay with her eyes open for what felt like a long time, her vision filled with blurry fingers of firelight.
But fatigue crept upon her inevitably, and Charla drifted in and out of slumber for what felt like hours. She tossed and turned, and between fits of confused wakefulness, she slept and had strange dreams—dreams about trees with limbs and faces, which moved like graceful animals, like they were more than just leaves and wood.
And then she jerked awake and wondered if she actually had been asleep—if it really had been a dream. Or maybe those trees in the shadows really were moving.
Finally, tired of flopping around in the dirt like a dying fish, Charla got up and swapped places with Lance. While he curled up to sleep, she hugged her fire to her chest and gazed into the whispering night.
Time passed. Sometime between midnight and morning, Charla was startled by the sound of a commotion right next to her. Once again, it was just Meredy. This time, while Meredy composed herself and sat heaving with unsteady gasps, Charla just watched her.
Another nightmare, it must have been. That was two nights in a row. Distractedly, Charla wondered if she was dreaming about jackals, too.
But Charla hadn't dreamed about jackals since they'd left the mountains and made it out of their territory, so that didn't make sense.
It was a few seconds before Meredy calmed enough to raise her head, and only then did their eyes meet. They gazed at one another across the fire, and Meredy's eyes looked hollow and frightened in its light. After a moment, she gave a weak smile and turned her back on Charla. Then she settled again, curled herself around Nuala, and once more Charla was the only one left awake.
The forest hooted and howled around her. It would be a long night.
Somehow, in spite of Charla's nerves, the night passed without incident. It was still unusually dark when they moved on again, and Charla lit their way with fire until the midmorning sun found its way through the canopy. But even after the sun had returned, and the forest was again aglow with mossy green light, Charla remained jumpy.
She was almost convinced now that the trees were watching them. Every now and then, she caught flashes of movement from the corner of her eye—but when she turned to look, she saw nothing.
I'm imagining it, she told herself firmly, as she fell back to walk with Nuala and let Lance and Meredy take the lead. He was talking to the sky serpent in a low voice, and she looked a little unhappy. Charla thought she heard something about magic and resolved to ask Lance about it later.
Nuala flicked Charla's hind legs with her tail when she fell into step beside her, making her jump.
"Ain't that sweet," Nuala said, gesturing at their friends with a flick of her wing. "She's got him wrapped around her dewclaw. Didn't know she had it in her."
Charla just gave her a befuddled look.
"I'm kinda impressed, you know," Nuala added with a small grin. "She's finally putting in the effort to get her magic back. I wasn't sure she'd ever do it. I guess meeting you two was exactly what she needed."
"I guess..."
"What about you?" Nuala asked, looping around Charla's head and grinning at her from the other side. "Have you thought about working on your magic, too? I mean, you're already great with your fire stuff and all, but I bet you could get even better if you practiced. And, y'know...you might need it when we get to the Well."
Charla faltered and looked up at her, taken off-guard. She hadn't thought about that before—at least, not since leaving Warfang. But what was she supposed to practice in the first place? She'd already taught herself that little fire-orb trick. What else was there?
Maybe if she still had access to the Warfang Library and all the books and scrolls in the Elemental Tower, she might have been able to figure something out, but that was sure out of the question.
"Just an idea," Nuala said, when Charla failed to respond. "Something to think about, anyway. I'll help you if I can—just ask me."
Charla nodded slowly, her thoughts beginning to buzz with this new idea. Maybe Lance would know a few elemental techniques that would work for fire, too...
For the next short while, Charla happily passed the time discussing with Nuala what she could possibly practice and improve upon with her fire-breathing. They came up with a few ideas, and Charla was so eager that she almost forgot to be nervous about the constantly moving forest around them. By the time they stopped for a midday break and a drink from the river, she felt quite calm.
She was sitting at the edge of the water, paddling her paws between the reeds and telling Nuala how it felt to use a fury, when Meredy called out and pointed. Charla's head jerked up. A tiny snake had just slithered down from the bank on the other side of the river—and instead of slipping into the water, it began to glide along the surface as if it were made of glass. Charla stared.
It was a bright, pale blue, with a pointed snout and a body only as long as her foreleg and as thin as one of her claws. Mesmerised, she watched it slide over the river, its tiny tongue flickering in and out of its mouth, just like a naga in miniature.
"Cute," Nuala murmured beside her. "A waterwinder. It's probably looking for bugs."
Charla opened her mouth to ask how it could possibly be gliding over the surface of the water like that, but she stopped. Something else had just appeared, bobbing above the river, bright and shining through the forest gloom. It was a little ball of fire—but it was not like the fire that she was used to. It was a vivid, acidic green, almost yellow at its heart, and it reminded her with a wistful pang of the flames that had burned on the candlewicks in Silverback's den.
Where had it come from? It was just hovering there, inches above the water, throwing dazzling patterns of light that rippled and flowed around it. Charla could only stare, calmed suddenly by the flickering fire, as if it were an old friend she hadn't seen in ages. She kind of wanted to swim out and touch it...
Through the warm haze that had descended over her eyes, she noticed the waterwinder had seen the fire too. Like her, it turned its head to look, tasting the air with its tongue. Then, it began to slither forwards. Slowly, almost dreamily, it approached the verdant flame, its head swaying side-to-side as though entranced by the shimmering light.
Unconsciously, Charla leaned forwards as well. Her forelegs sank into the reeds.
And the water exploded.
An enormous creature erupted out of the centre of the river, throwing a volcano of water and moss into the air. Charla screamed and scrambled back, and Lance thundered to her side, flaring his wings out in defence—but the little snake was not so lucky. In a flash, the monster's gaping jaws snapped down on its twisting, struggling body, and at once it became as limp and still as a piece of old rope. Then, snarling around its prey, the creature twisted violently and bared its fangs at Lance. He snarled back.
In a flash of motion, it turned and scrambled up onto the opposite bank, the snake swinging from its jaws. Charla just stared, her heart thundering against her ribcage.
The river monster was easily as big as Lance, with a smooth streamlined body covered in slick brown fur, and a flat triangular head. Its huge clawed paws were webbed between the toes, and from its back and head grew patches of moss and strands of river weed—the sort of weed she'd seen floating inconspicuously on the surface of the river.
It had been there all this time, and she'd had no idea.
Struck dumb by fear and horror, Charla said not a word as the monster narrowed its beady black eyes and, with a lash of its thick tail, vanished into the underbrush on the other side of the river. In a moment it was gone, the hapless snake with it, leaving nothing but the sound of the bushes rustling in its wake.
Charla exhaled shakily.
The little green orb of fire had disappeared. The river was still again.
"Well, that was nice," said Nuala.
"What was that?" Charla breathed, her heart still pounding.
"Bulrush," Lance growled, folding his wings again. "A type of water boggart—predatory imps. They use illusion magic to confuse their prey and lure it in, as we just saw. You usually find bulrushes in swamp water, but I guess they like it here too."
"I thought I sensed illusion magic," Nuala muttered, gazing at the spot where the bulrush had disappeared. "Creepy thing."
Meredy was trembling; she looked like she'd lost her voice. Charla felt a bit like that, too.
"Best not to get too close to the river from now on," Lance said, shaking his head. He gave Charla a meaningful look. "And keep your wits about you if you see anything else weird. Don't let yourself be fooled. Figures there would be boggarts here..."
Huffing to himself, he moved on, with Meredy hurrying to stay close to his side. Charla stumbled after them. She'd never even heard of a boggart before—or a bulrush or whatever Lance had called it—and she didn't think she ever wanted to see another one. It looked almost big enough to eat her!
Shuddering, she hurried to keep up.
But now, with that encounter behind them, Charla was even jumpier than before. Every small movement made her flinch and turn her head. The darkness of the forest seemed to press in on her. Were those branches reaching for her or was she just imagining it? She struggled to keep it together.
If there were bulrush boggarts in the river, what else was there in the forest?
What other creatures were here that were big enough to consider her prey?
She didn't want to know.
It didn't help that, in her flighty nervousness, she kept falling behind the others. Eventually, just to calm herself, she lit a small orb of fire to keep her company and to hold the darkness at bay. It floated ahead of her like a small helpful fairy, casting a warm and friendly light upon her surroundings, and Charla relaxed a little.
She was not being followed. The trees were not moving. They did not have eyes.
But still she jumped and twisted around when something moved beyond the pool of her firelight. This happened several times, and each time Charla made her fire-orb a little bit bigger—until Lance finally yelled out to her.
"Charla! Don't lag behind." He paused to wait for her.
Seeing that he was further ahead than she'd realised—and the others were even further than that—Charla picked up her pace. "Uh...coming!"
Apparently satisfied, Lance started to turn away again. But Charla never reached him.
Just as he walked away—just as Charla stopped thinking about the things moving in the shadows—a flash of motion flickered darkly in the corner of her eye. Charla skidded to a halt and spun around. The glow of her flames spread across the leaf litter and into the trees. The breath froze in her throat.
A tree was looking at her.
A tree was looking at her.
She could see the enormous amber eyes upon its woody face, sparkling with fire, gazing straight at her.
And then it giggled.
Charla gaped. Before her eyes, the tree extended a slender hand with long, twiggy fingers—and beckoned to her. Her heart gave a funny leap.
As the tree moved, stepping away from her fire and gesturing for her to follow, she stared at its strange and impossible form. It had long slender legs and arms, and a dainty round face with huge eyes set into the bark. Leaves grew from the top of its head and rippled down its back, almost like fur or hair. It must have been as tall as a cheetah or a puma.
It moved like a cheetah, too. Charla watched as it started to walk away. It took long, graceful steps, its leaves rustling with every movement—and suddenly Charla just couldn't help herself. She stepped after it.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, the voice of reason urged her to back away and call for Lance, but she didn't. A strange fog had rolled in behind her eyes, muffling that voice, cloaking her thoughts, and suddenly it didn't seem to matter that she was alone in a strange forest—that Lance had moved on and unwittingly left her behind. It didn't matter where she was or what she was supposed to be doing or even who she was.
Nothing mattered. Nothing except this creature of the trees.
Her fire bobbed ahead of her, lighting the way. The tree-creature giggled again. Then it broke into a run, bounding gracefully through the other still and silent trees, away into the darkness of the forest. Charla didn't stop to think. She didn't need to. A sudden desperation seized her by the chest, by the heart, and she knew then that she couldn't let it get away—that she was meant to follow it. She had to.
And so she charged after it.
She ran through the forest, leaping high over arching roots and mossy clusters of stone, slipping on the leaf litter but always keeping her feet. Fire flowed in her wake, throwing rippling golden light upon the trees around her—and the tree-creature was always just ahead of her, glancing back with a teasing smile on its face, making sure she was following. Something in Charla's chest began to lift. She felt like laughing.
"Wait for me!" she cried, grinning as she leapt up a steep incline and charged between two enormous trees.
Another feathery giggle floated back to her, like the sound of wind rustling in the leaves. At the edge of her vision, Charla noticed that they were not alone. There were more tree-creatures—they appeared elegantly out of the darkness, bright-eyed and smiling, and they too leapt gracefully through the forest just ahead of her.
Charla pushed herself. She ran and ran, laughing breathlessly, fire in her eyes—and nothing else seemed to matter. This was fun. She wanted to do this forever. She wanted to catch them and then—and then... She didn't know. One way or another, the game would continue.
First, she had to catch them.
But just as she was gaining on them—just as she could see their bark-like skin shining with her firelight—the trees opened out before her. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Charla skidded to a halt.
They were in a great clearing. Mossy grass spread out over the earth, dappled with late afternoon sunlight that filtered golden through gaps in the canopy. And in the centre, gathered around a glistening pool at the base of a tall outcrop of stone, were more tree-creatures. Charla heard the faint whisper of a small waterfall.
Breathless, she stepped forward. The tree-creatures she had been chasing moved to join their fellows, who turned and stared. They gazed at her, and their eyes were huge and curious. Slowly, almost reverently, Charla walked towards them. Fire bobbed above her head. The creatures gazed at her in wonder.
And somewhere in the back of Charla's mind, a memory surfaced. Her dazzled head cleared a little.
"You're nymphs," she murmured. "Dryads. Tree nymphs. I read about you."
She suddenly became aware again of the weight of her satchel, heavy on her withers. She had seen these creatures in Star Tales. They were keepers of the trees, guardians of the forest...and tricksters to travellers. Many a lost traveller had blamed dryads for his misfortune, to the point where they had become known to dragons as mischievous and untrustworthy.
But the book had also said that no proof of their existence had ever been found or recorded. According to Star Tales, dryads were just a myth. A story. Like the tatzelwyrm and the magisiccus and the purple dragon...
But those huge amber eyes that gazed upon her with awe and wonder—and those spindly fingers that reached out to touch her scales like they were precious gems—seemed very real to Charla. Her heart was beating in her throat. They didn't seem to want to cause her harm. In fact, in spite of their wonder, they almost seemed afraid. Some tried to reach out to her fire-orb as if to touch it, but they drew back quickly with startled, frightened eyes. Every time she moved, the dryads flinched and shrank back.
Charla felt that just breathing too loudly might make them scatter. She tried to breathe shallowly.
"Are you scared of fire?" she whispered, willing the orb down into her paws. The dryads drew away and then gathered in again, crowding in the firelight, their eyes glistening. Charla held it out to them and they pulled back again.
"I guess you don't see it much here," she said, gazing around her with as much awe as they seemed to have for her. There had to be at least twenty of them—but it was too hard to count. They gathered and swayed around her, like a ripple upon the surface of a lake. "It won't hurt you. I control it."
She opened her claws and the fire curled snakelike around them. Some of the dryads stumbled back, but a few gazed in apparent amazement. One tried to reach out to touch the flames, but Charla pulled away. Its fingers were made of bark and wood. It would probably go up in flames far too easily.
"It'll burn you if you're not careful, though," she told them, and many shrank back with strange whispering noises that sounded like frightened muttering to her ears. Reluctantly, she put the fire out. The dryads seemed to sag in disappointment.
"Sorry," Charla said, rubbing her foreleg. "I don't want to accidently hurt someone. Um..."
She paused. The dryads were still staring at her—all of them—and slowly they started to press in again, their twiggy fingers reaching out to touch her. Charla shifted uneasily, hugging her wings to her flanks. She turned her head, but there were no gaps in the crowd—no easy way to escape. Something akin to panic began to rise in her chest.
What did they want from her?
Wait...
How far had she come from the others?
Stifling a gasp, Charla spun around. She'd completely lost her head—she'd run away from Lance and the others without even thinking about it! What was wrong with her? What if they couldn't find her? What if she couldn't find them? What if... What if...
What if she was lost in the forest forever?
Where was the river? Lance had said not to leave the river!
Panicking now, Charla tried to push her way through the crowding dryads, but they wouldn't let her. Their slender hands grabbed at her—stroking her scales and her horns, prodding at her face, as if they were searching for something. Charla jerked away, but she didn't get far. She was surrounded. All she could see were leaves and bark.
"Let me go!" she cried, struggling to pull her wing out of one's grip. "I have to get back to my friends!"
A ripple pulsed through the crowd, but the dryads did not pull away. Instead they started to whisper something—a word that Charla had never heard before. It hissed inside her head, begging, begging, and the dryads swayed around her, chanting it over and over again. Fire rose unbidden in her throat.
"Stop it!" she begged, jerking her head back. She didn't want to hurt them. "Let go of me!"
The dryads didn't even seem to hear. Flames licked at the back of Charla's throat. They weren't going to let her go. There was no other way.
But before she could so much as open her jaws, the dryads gasped and pulled back. They stumbled away from Charla, spinning around on graceful legs, and she staggered in surprise.
She was free. She could escape.
But she didn't move—because something else had entered the clearing. She didn't know what, but she knew that it was there. There was a faint glow at the edge of her vision, like sunlight breaking through the trees, and it had not been there before. An indescribable presence fell over the clearing. The dryads had gone utterly silent.
Holding her breath, Charla turned.
She could not have imagined what she saw.
Standing there upon the crown of the outcrop above the pool, glowing like starlight in the night, stood a creature the likes of which she had never seen. It was many things, and it was none of them. It was a dragon in the shape of its face and the iridescent green scales that glistened upon its willowy form. It was a deer in the slender, dainty legs it carried itself upon, and in the incredible antlers that branched out upon its brow. It was a sky serpent in the flowing mane of pale fur that rippled down its spine, and in the long snake-like tail curling behind it.
It was all of those things and it was none of them. It stood as tall as a full-grown dragon, its antlers strewn with tiny white flowers, the edges of its graceful body glowing with pale greenish-white light. Its eyes, like pools of molten gold, gazed straight at her.
Charla couldn't breathe. She didn't know what she was looking at—she wasn't even sure she wanted to know. In equal parts, she wanted to run to it and flee from it. She wanted to gaze upon it in awe and tear her eyes away in fear. Her heart felt that it might burst to be in such a creature's incredible presence.
Magic lashed like lightning through the air—charged, dangerous, and powerful. Charla felt it on her tongue and in her lungs. She felt it burn the edges of her eyes, but she couldn't close them. She was trapped. She was frozen.
But that moment lasted only a second.
With a powerful, graceful bound, the creature leapt from the top of the outcrop—and with that single leap, it cleared almost the entirety of the clearing. It soared over the pool and over the heads of the dryads, and then it hit the grass on the other side of them with only the faintest pounding of hooves. And then it was gone, like a glowing wraith into the trees, galloping into the gloom of the forest and out of sight. A flicker of warm light rippled in its wake, almost like fire.
Even long after it had gone, Charla didn't move. The dryads, too, were still.
She could hear her own heart beating, thumping a rhythm in her chest. She didn't know what had happened. What had she just seen?
What had that been?
But she had no time to think or collect herself. The dryads were starting to move again. Charla heard their whispered, unintelligible murmurings—saw them start to turn back towards her—and rising panic brought her back to her senses. She had to get away now, while she still had the chance.
She took a step back.
And somewhere in the distance, a guttural voice cried out through the trees.
"Charla! Charla, answer me!"
Charla gasped and spun around. A thundering of paws was racing through the forest now—the crashing of something huge blazing through the undergrowth—growing closer, ever closer. Her heart leapt.
"Lance!" she cried, and she raced towards the trees at the edge of the clearing. He was there even before she reached them.
Wild-eyed and unrestrained, he thundered into the clearing and Charla didn't wait for him to get to her. She flung herself at him with enough force to halt him in his tracks, flinging her paws around his neck and pushing her head against his chest. Lance braced himself by flinging his wings out, his sides heaving with loud, heavy breaths.
"Are you okay?" His huge paws clasped her shoulders. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, I'm okay!" Charla said breathlessly, pulling back to look at him. His nostrils were flaring and his eyes were still wild—but as she watched, his grip on her loosened and that seemed to ease.
"How did you find me?" she asked before he could say anything else.
Lance exhaled heavily and jerked his muzzle to the side, indicating something behind him. "Meredy."
Charla craned her head around him and saw, panting and limping slowly, Meredy approaching through the trees. Nuala flew above her head, her face taut. But before Charla could so much as call out to them, Lance's grip on her shoulders tightened again.
"What were you doing?" he insisted, his eyes flashing like fired steel. "What were you thinking? How did you get so far away from us? Why?"
"I didn't mean to! I was tricked! The dryads confused me—I didn't realise what I was doing!"
"Dryads?" Lance echoed, staring at her like she'd lost her mind. "What do you mean dryads? There's no such thing."
Charla looked incredulously at him. "Of course there is! They're right behind me—don't you see—"
But she broke off suddenly, because when she turned back to the clearing, it was not dryads she saw. Instead, surrounding the pool, standing still and inconspicuous, was a cluster of tall spindly trees. Charla gazed in disbelief. They did not have faces or eyes, or limbs or hair made of leaves—they were just normal trees, as silent and inanimate as they were ever meant to be.
How?
Had they turned themselves into trees? Could they do that?
Flustered, she stumbled towards the nearest one, intent on finding out—but Lance held her back.
"I don't know about dryads," he said, his paw heavy on her shoulder, "but clearly something fooled you. There's a lot of weird magic in this forest. You probably just got caught up in some creature's illusion magic."
"Another boggart, maybe?" suggested Nuala, who had finally caught up. Beside her, Meredy was still gasping for breath and couldn't seem to speak.
"Maybe," said Lance. "It's certainly more likely than dryads."
Charla swallowed dryly and said nothing. Could that really be true? Could it all have been just an illusion? But it had looked and felt so real, and she didn't want to think that she had just imagined everything. She wanted the dryads to be real.
"It's probably a good thing we found you when we did. Some creature might have been about to make you its dinner." Lance gave her a grim, disapproving look. "How many times do I have to tell you not to run off on your own? I told you to watch out for anything that looked weird. We could have lost you!"
"I'm sorry." Charla curled her tail and glowered at her paws. "I didn't mean to. I wasn't thinking..."
"Give her a break," said Nuala. "Illusion magic has fooled older and wiser dragons than her. Just be glad we actually found her. We might not have without Meredy."
Meredy's cheeks coloured and she looked away, as if trying to hide her meek little smile.
Lance sighed. "Right. At least there's that. Thanks, Meredy. Now we just need to..."
He trailed off, gazing into the dark trees behind them, his brow furrowed. Charla and the others looked at him.
"To what?" asked Nuala.
"Get back to the river," he grunted. He looked back at them. "I didn't think about that."
Charla stared into the forest gloom and understood immediately. She had no idea where the river was, or how far she had come from it. She couldn't even hear it anymore—just the gentle murmuring of the small waterfall over the pond. Clearly the others hadn't considered that, either, when they'd come racing after her.
Lance looked at Meredy. "Do you think you can help us get back?"
She hesitated, her eyes darting into the darkness. "Um... Maybe? Using windsense on something that isn't alive—something that doesn't breathe—is a bit tricky... But I can try."
"It's better than nothing," Lance said, though he didn't look pleased.
Nuala shot him a swift, nasty look and said brightly, "Of course you can do it, Merry!"
Meredy just blushed and turned back the way they'd come, her tail swishing agitatedly. Charla shared a look with Lance before following. As the four of them left the clearing and stepped again into the shadows between the trees, she couldn't help gazing back over her shoulder. But the trees that had once been dryads remained still and lifeless. And as for the other creature... It was long gone.
Disappointment settled in her stomach. But still she could feel a tingle of magic on her tongue, as if the air was charged with it, left behind in that incredible creature's wake. She took a calming breath and looked up at Lance.
"I saw something else back there. There was some kind of animal there, right before you came."
Lance raised an eyebrow. "Did it look like a boggart?"
Charla shook her head. She wasn't even sure she could describe it. "It was...different. I've never seen anything like it before. It was like a dragon—it had scales and everything—but it had no wings, and it had hooves and these really long legs. And there were these huge antlers on its head, and there were even flowers growing on them."
She lifted a paw to her forehead, spreading out her claws to pretend they were the prongs of a magnificent pair of antlers. Her scales shivered with the memory of it.
"I think...it must have been really magical," she said, gazing at the canopy far above their heads. "There was so much magic in the air... It was amazing. I wonder what it was..."
Lance was silent for a long moment, and when Charla looked at him he was just gazing at her with his brows knitted together. Finally, he turned his face away.
"Just part of the illusion, probably," he murmured. "Something to confuse you. Don't think about it too much."
But Charla did think about it, and the impossible creature remained rooted in her mind for hours afterwards. What it was, she couldn't fathom. But she knew, somehow, that she had laid eyes upon something that few had ever seen, that perhaps was never even meant to be seen. A creature of incredible magic—magic far greater than that of even the strongest dragons.
And she, only she, had basked in its presence.
A/N:
Weh heh heh, you thought you got rid of me, but I came back! I know, I know, you're horrified.
I swear I've been doing stuff these past two months. I rewrote a single chapter like 5 times again (I need to stop doing that). Oh, and I moved to the other side of the world. That's also a thing I did. But now I am back with the writing mojo and trying to get myself used to the mindset that 'no, everything I write is, in fact, not a piece of shit.' It's a bit difficult, but I'm getting there. (That's also why there was no A/N last chapter, because every time I tried to write one it was horribly self-deprecating. I need to stop.)
This chapter's a weird one. Charla met Xerneas or something, I dunno. Hope you enjoyed it one way or another! Thanks for reading! If you're ever curious about my progress and want to know where the next chapter is, just poke your head into my profile. There's usually a semi-recent update there. BYE.