"When the hume soldiers came to the Wood, the village took small heed of them," Mjrn said to them later. She sat bowed over her hands in her lap, a flower wilted by Henne Mine's darkness. The presence of the men seemed to terrify her, so they stood back to allow her peace to talk. "So long as the Wood Herself is safe, the viera give little care to goings on beyond. But in me, uneasiness stirred. I had to discover why they had come."
"So you came here hoping to find something out, and got yourself caught," Balthier said. Mjrn's frightened gaze flashed up to his face. Her dusky cheeks flushed, and she glanced back down at her empty hands. He grinned. "You're as foolhardy as your sister."
Fran put her arm around Mjrn's shoulders, encouraging her.
"They took me then," Mjrn continued, hushed, distant, "and set close beside me a stone. They said its Mist would be drawn into me, that the viera are well-suited to this end. I saw the light coming from the stone, and then –"
She stopped, horror darkening her face.
"We have seen this," Fran said, closing her larger hand around one of Mjrn's. "On Leviathan, the Mist from the Dawn Shard drove me, too, into such a rage."
Fran looked at Balthier. "She was taken not by the Dawn Shard."
"Manufacted nethicite," Larsa said, and Fran nodded in agreement. Larsa whipped around, suddenly speaking loud and fast. "Then that means – Penelo, the stone I gave you, do you still carry it with you?"
"Sure," Penelo said. She pulled it from her pocket. "It's right here."
Larsa snatched it right out of her hand and jumped away from her, his blue eyes panicked, not seeing the hurt that washed across her face. He scrutinized the stone, checking for cracks in its crystal facets. "This is more danger than I had imagined. I should never have given it to you. Forgive me, I did not know."
Penelo lifted a shoulder and tilted her head, smiling down at the boy. "I'd always thought of it as a sort of good luck charm," she said softly. "And even if it is dangerous, on Leviathan it kept us safe."
Larsa smiled gratefully back up at her, but he did not return the nethicite.
"There is a place for all things, even danger such as this," Ashe said. Whether she was trying to convince them or herself, Daina couldn't tell.
"I hope you're right about that," Vaan said doubtfully.
..::~*~::..
Fran and Mjrn, side by side, led the way through Eruyt Village. Jote stood once more in front of her sanctuary, waiting for them, her women on either side of her.
A viera in armor of robin's-egg blue paced toward Vaan, holding something close to her chest.
"I heard the Wood's whispers," Jote said. She gestured with a long-fingered hand.
Reluctantly, the blue-armored viera unfolded her arms and passed a teardrop-shaped crystal to Vaan.
"Take it," Jote said ungraciously. "Lente's Tear is a permission. Pass through the Wood and leave. To other places go."
Vaan accepted the crystal, exhaled, and turned to leave.
Mjrn, so young that she was no taller than Daina, nearly knocked Vaan over when she surged forward. "That cannot be all!" she said passionately. "I saw it when I left the village! Ivalice is changing! How can the viera stand and do nothing at all!"
Jote's expression did not soften. "Ivalice is for the humes," she said flatly. "The Wood alone is for us."
"But that is wrong!" Mjrn actually stamped her foot. "How can we just hide here in the trees when all the world outside is on the move! I, too, wish to live freely – to leave this Wood!"
"Do not do this," Fran suddenly said in a low, urgent voice. "You must remain away from the humes. Stay with the Wood. Live together with the Wood. This is your way."
Mjrn goggled at her. "But Fran – my sister!"
"I am no longer of you," Fran interrupted, gentle but insistent. "I have discarded Wood and village. I won my freedom. Yet my past has been cut away forever. No longer can my ears hear the Green Word. This solitude you want, Mjrn?"
"Sister," Mjrn begged.
"No, Mjrn. Only one sister remains to you now. You must forget my existence."
Devastated, Mjrn fled, dry sobs scattering from her lips.
There was a short silence while the gathered viera merely watched. Then Jote looked up.
"I am sorry to make you do this," she said. For once, she sounded so.
"She goes against the laws of the Wood," Fran said with something very like a shrug. "I threw down these laws. It is better that I do this. Better I than one who must uphold these laws herself."
Jote nodded at her women. One by one, the assembled viera slipped away, leaving Jote alone with Fran and the humes.
Fran broke the silence first. "I have a request," she said in a small voice that cracked. "Listen to the Wood's voice for me? I fear – I fear She hates."
Jote cast her spell, breathing in the magickal wind that lifted her hair. When it died down, she opened her wise, ageless eyes and fixed Fran with a look of deep love. "The Wood longs for you," she whispered. "For the child gone from under Her boughs."
Unexpectedly, Fran chuckled. "A pleasant lie, that," she teased.
She turned away, but Jote wasn't joking when she said, "Be cautious. The Wood is jealous of the humes who have taken you."
"I am as them now, am I not?" Fran asked. She looked over her shoulder. "Goodbye, sister."
And thus she left Eruyt Village for the last time, pausing only once to ensure that her friends were with her. They welcomed her, a tight-knit group of humes smiling up at the tall viera in their midst, even Balthier. Fran, head high and shoulders straight, did not look back.
..::~*~::..
Lente's Tear did as promised. When Vaan brought it near one of the barriers, the magick faded to a thin film. They were able to pass through with only a little resistance, much like walking into a spider's web. A few viera wood-warders met them with unyielding hostility, however, ill-naturedly wishing them luck on their trek to the deeper areas of the jungle.
But not all monsters preferred the deep.
The creature must have been asleep for a thousand years or more, for it was indistinguishable from the mossy boulders surrounding it. When it tasted magick on the air – whether Lente's Tear or Penelo's scrolls, Daina couldn't tell – it stirred, separating itself from the ground with the cracking of uprooted vegetation. Penelo screamed. Vaan nearly pulled his chocobo off its feet when he yanked on the reins to avoid the monster. The chocobo kweh kwehed, wings flapping. Two treants, the golem tree-guardians of the jungle, tumbled off the elder wyrm's boulder-like back like a couple of brown pill bugs, and then rushed forward to attack.
Fran nimbly leaped to the ground, releasing an aero spell. The magickal wind tore through the first treant's torso, cracking it open like a nut. The rough-thewed arms and huge hands lost all strength; the tiny, withered legs hanging between them shuddered convulsively, and the golem crashed into the bracken. However, the elder wyrm was now fully awake. Its wings and barbed tail slammed into the trees, which caused a choking sporefall that incapacitated Fran and her sensitive viera nose. Balthier wrenched his chocobo around and sent it barreling into the second treant to protect her.
"Majesties, stay back," Basch said, handing Larsa over to Ashe. Her blindfolded chocobo kwehed in distress at the feel of another rider, backing away from the noise and confusion.
The mossy wyrm stomped around, its claws digging deep furrows into the wet earth. Although Daina's chocobo was not war-bred, she gathered the reins in one hand, drew the kogarasumaru with the other, and charged. It was a brutal, bloody battle, one that quickly wore Penelo out as she struggled to keep everyone awake and healthy with esuna spells. Basch, Daina, and Vaan fought the enraged creature, coughing on and blinded by the spores in the air. It wasn't until a well-aimed shot from Balthier's sirius punctured one of the wyrm's eyes that Daina was able to sneak in and whisk the kogarasumaru through its jugular. A torrent of ichor flooded out, hot and sticky. Her chocobo panicked, throwing her.
The wyrm furiously tore the poor chocobo apart before it died, its gargantuan heart finishing what Daina's blade had started, pumping the last of the wyrm's ichor into the earth. Its body collapsed, becoming nothing more than a hump of moss and pink flowers, to defend the jungle no more.