"I don't know if he forgives me or not," said Zar.
"You drove them out of Niwen and into a place where they cannot survive," Issen replied. "You think that's not enough?"
The two of them spoke privately beneath the Spirit Tree, periodically looking up at its glowing, orange power source.
"You and I both know how well they've been trained," he responded. "And as long as they could still be alive, they could come back!"
He turned away from her and clenched his fists.
"I could've killed Mint right there!" Zar responded indignantly. "We voted to kill her ourselves, but failed to deliver on that promise! We shouldn't have tried to do it so...symbolically-!"
"Why does this have you so worked up?" Issen calmly interjected. "If they come back, they'll likely be too hungry and tired to fight. Then you can have all three of them to yourself!"
"You know why I'm worried," he said darkly, holding his paws out toward his father. "Don't you feel it? His light...his glow...it's faded...it doesn't have the same warmth that it used to!"
Issen gravely stood up with the help of her wooden staff and looked in the same direction. She understood exactly what he was talking about.
"He's hurt," he continued. "And disappointed...in us! He knows we could've done better!"
Zar, with his one eye, could only stare dejectedly at the ground after saying that.
"I don't even know if killing them will make up for our mistake anymore," he finished.
"But that's if they come ba-"
"When they come back!" he snapped, pointing a finger at his sister. "Like I said: we trained them too well to just go and die out there!"
As if on cue, the hurried hoofsteps of a messenger spirit could be heard behind them.
"My Elders! My Elders!" came the voice of the young spirit. "Zar! Our scouts have reported in! There's no mistaking it. All three of them survived!"
"Told ya!" said Zar.
"I'm not finished," the messenger went on. "They were last seen heading toward the Wellspring Glades. We don't know how they evaded detection for that long, but we think we've managed to track them to a potential hideout beneath the area!"
"Well done, younger brother!" said Zar. "Go tell those scouts that all three of you deserve some rest. You'll all have the honor of burning that hideout to the ground come morning!"
With a big and relieved smile, the messenger spirit saluted and scurried off.
"Well, it sounds like you'll have your chance to find out sooner than expected," said Issen. "Are you sure you're up for this? That doesn't sound like a run-of-the-mill, scouting mission..."
"Oh, believe me," said Zar. "I've been waiting too long for this already!"
The one-eyed spirit then summoned a spirit spike before immediately hurling it at a nearby rock with deadly precision.
"It's not like I haven't done this before, clueless," he mumbled.
"What was that?" asked Issen. "Did you just...call me a name?"
"What? No! I didn't say anything!"
. . .
Fir wordlessly handed the wooden jug back to the moki that had given it to him. He sat in a makeshift nest, fitted into a small alcove dug into the side of the cave and large enough for him to lay down in.
"Huh, not even a 'thank you'?" she said indignantly. "Figures. You spirits are all the same!"
Normally, he would have retorted, but he wasn't in the mood. In fact, he wasn't feeling much of anything right now. The last thing he could remember was being eaten alive by the howler they'd been hunting. Was this some kind of hell that he'd been sent to? No, his arm was in a cast. No hell would put his arm in a cast.
"I'm not dead, am I?" he asked in monotone.
"What?! Of course not!" the moki replied. "Though, now that you mention it, I kinda wish you were…"
He just looked at her incredulously.
"What kind of nurse are you?!"
When her glare didn't waver, Fir just stuffed his head into his paws in response.
"Never mind," he said.
Then the door creaked open, and in walked two chameleons followed by two familiar spirit guardians, one of which had two antennae atop her head instead of the three atop his (or the one on Keo, sticking out like a horn), ears so big they went down past her knees, and a small bruise on one of her cheeks.
At the sight of him, she froze. Her face took on the now familiar expression that made her look like she was about to cry. He briefly met her sorrowful look with an angry one, before facing away from her and laying down on his bed.
Such a simple gesture, but it was enough to nearly break her heart. Now, tears did come back to her eyes as she rushed over to him.
"Did you kill it?" he asked coldly.
"What?" was Mint's reply.
"Yellow-eyes?...Did you kill 'em?"
"Yeah! And it was all thanks to-"
"Good," he interrupted. "Now go away."
Suddenly, Mint was frozen and she let out a sigh of shock. For a moment, even she didn't know what was wrong. Then it hit her: this time, her heart really was broken.
"Wh-what?" she stuttered.
"I said go away!"
...But she couldn't leave...she would never leave him in a million years!...slowly, anger crept back into her soul...
"I almost died trying to get you back here," she said. "Did you know that? Oh! Of course you wouldn't, because you were too busy being FULL OF YOURSELF!"
"Shut up," Fir replied.
Mint only got angrier. It wasn't the hateful kind of anger, instead it had a tinge of her caring nature infused into it.
"We came back home, Fir!" she continued. "Back to where they'd want to kill us, because we knew it was the only place where you'd have a chance! We took a risk for you! So...so…"
Suddenly, she took a turn, a turn she didn't even think she'd take.
"So why did you save me? Why did you teach me?" she asked. "And...and why would you bond with me if all you wanted to say was 'go away'-?!"
"Because I love you!" Fir snapped, spinning around and sitting upright.
But his sudden motion didn't faze her. Instead she just looked at him in shock and confusion through sorrowful eyes.
"I've loved you since the day you fell and it sickens me!" he continued, his own body starting to quiver and his voice starting to sob. "It sickens me to say that because you're my sister!"
He said it all to her face, his eyes locked to her own. Mint could only whimper before him.
"And siblings. Don't. Do. That-"
"Why does it have to be so weird?!" she suddenly shouted.
The two were silent for a brief time, but for those few moments, everyone could feel the tension in their auras.
"...What if we're just different, Fir?..." she said more quietly. "You love me and I love you back...isn't that ENOUGH for you?!"
When he didn't respond, she put her paws on his shoulders. If there was a time to tell him, it was now.
"What you did, Fir...did nothing."
Surprised, he locked eyes with her again. Yes! This was what he needed to hear!
"We don't reproduce like the other animals," she continued. "It's okay!"
"You mean," Fir started. "I didn't-?"
"No!" she said, shaking her head and smiling. "All we did was bond, that's it."
Mint moved her paws down to his palm and held it tightly.
"And isn't that all you wanted?" she stated more than asked.
Then she pressed her head into his chest, closing her eyes.
"Please...just let me heal you!" said Mint, holding his paw in hers. "You healed me once, now please just let me heal you-"
Her voice gave way to sobs, and as she willed her spell into him, he finally accepted it in. A mild crackling of bones could be heard as Fir's limb was fixed, and, without taking the cast off, he wrapped his arm around her neck and nuzzled her.
"I remember watching your leaf touch the ground," he said somberly. "You stood up so quickly! You nearly stumbled trying to find your balance, and then completely forgot about it when you saw butterflies go past you. Your smile, your innocent laugh, you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen…"
He pulled away, and once more they looked into each other's burning white pupils.
"And you still are," he continued, placing a paw on her cheek. "When I found out you'd stolen the Spirit Tree's light...I was angry...angry that it had to be you! You had just been assigned to me and Keo, and I'd found myself wondering...do I tell her?...how do I tell her?...that...I love her?"
He closed his eyes, forcing out tears.
"...I thought I'd never get the chance..."
Mint could only smile, shedding tears of joy as their noses came closer together.
"You don't have to wonder anymore," she breathed, right before their lips connected again, Mint holding the back of his head, with Fir's arms wrapped around her perfect waist.
They would never know how long it lasted, or who turned away in disgust, and they didn't care. This was their special moment, and nothing was going to take it away.
. . .
"I must admit I was wrong about your kind," said the moki nurse. "You aren't all so cold and unfeeling."
"I mean, none of us are," said Fir. "I just don't understand what it is we've been doing?"
"To say you don't wanna know is an understatement," said Mint. "But I had to know the truth...and as much as it will hurt, you need to hear it too."
Timo explained to Fir the same thing he'd explained to Mint and Keo. His reaction was...predictable. He put his head in his paws as the four of them now sat at the table in the chameleon's office. While he was speaking, the moki left the room.
"I wasn't just training to control our own," he started, head in his paws once again. "I was training to one day kill...innocents!"
Keo placed a consoling paw on his shoulder.
"All this time," said Fir. "And I never knew."
"You're only eight months old, Fir," said Keo. "Not even I knew! Though, I was starting to get suspicious myself."
"But...you trusted them?" said Mint. "The Elders? And that's why you said nothing?"
"We all put our trust in them...but I guess that's what brainwashing is, huh?"
"None of you could have known," said Timo. "And your father couldn't have known what he was doing either."
Timo pushed a small record-book across the table to Keo.
"I wonder what they would say if they knew the truth about him," he said. "This is everything my father had on yours from the time he arrived in Niwen...well, more like fell-out-of-the-sky."
With trepidation, Keo opened the ledger and began flipping through it. Other than the fact he was seeing actual records of his own father for the first time, he was astonished by the sheer level of detail that was put into them!
"...What in the world?..." was all he could say. "Look at this! Everything is here: how many times he teleported, how many times he dashed, bashed, and grappled…"
Fir scooted up beside him to look as well.
"Forget that! He saw the number of times he just jumped or wall-jumped!" he said. "How?"
Timo just crossed his arms.
"Right...trade secret," said Fir. "I forgot."
He took the record-book from Keo as Mint joined in. Despite the insane amount of information before them, including how many corruptions he'd killed, how many spirit shards he found, all the places he'd discovered, how much spirit light he'd traded, even how far he swam, there were just a few disturbing notes at the top left that kept most of their attention.
"Number of...deaths," said Mint somberly.
"Deaths by hazard, deaths from corruptions," Fir listed. "...deaths by d-dr-drowning?!..."
"I guess he did come here with soul link," said Keo gravely. "That is what you called it, right Mint?"
"...Yeah…"
"Forgive me for wondering this, but," Fir started. "You'd think if Motay went through all the trouble to record so much, he'd at least have the total number of deaths listed, too."
"Oh, he did," Timo answered. "Turn the page."
When Fir flipped the parchment, a separate piece of paper fell out. Tentatively, he picked the paper up and showed it to the chameleon.
"What is-?"
"It unfolds," said Timo darkly, interrupting the young spirit.
Fir shakily began to do so, almost hesitantly, as if an unbreakable curse were to befall him if he read its contents. Indeed it unfolded, and kept unfolding, more and more, so much that he had to set it down, and then still it kept unfolding! Finally, when all was said and done, it took up over half the space on the table.
But the worst part, what left the three spirits in wordless shock, was that the massive piece of paper was covered corner-to-corner with tally-marks.
Fir just slumped back in his chair.
"How...did he keep his sanity?" he asked when he could finally find his words.
"I don't think he did," Timo replied. "At best, he was barely holding it together! A note that my father wrote later on comments on his growing irritability with other creatures. I've never counted all the tallies myself, but it only makes sense."
"There's gotta be at least a few hundred, here!" said Keo in further astonishment.
Everyone sat in silence for some time.
"How do we know we can trust you?" Fir suddenly asked. "What if this is all faked, and you're brainwashing us?"
Looking up from the page of tally-marks, he went on.
"What if we've never committed any atrocities?" he said. "And you're just telling us that to get us on your side?"
"Is it really that hard to believe, Fir?" said Mint.
"Excuse me?"
"Our light can burn things, Fir! Things and...and creatures, too…"
Mint placed a paw on the paper as though trying to console it the way a mother would her child, but the moment her palm touched the page, a violent tempest of memories swirled into her head.
She felt limbs being vaporized away by false light, before the rest of her body fell into sandy spikes; she felt herself tumbling through wooden gears in the wellspring and getting thrown out the other end with her body crushed in half; she even felt herself being torn apart by a swarm of corruptions!
It all rushed in-and-out of her mind in an instant, and suddenly she found herself standing away from the table, clutching her wrist as if she'd touched a surprisingly hot surface. She had backed away so quickly that her chair had fallen over and slid across the room.
Everyone was looking at her, stunned; she had screamed, startled by the memories. But they weren't done. The last one was the worst: when she heard her father speak.
Please go away!...PLEASE!...Just leave me alone!
He was limping through stagnated water, somehow injured already, with corruptions closing in from all sides. He sliced and diced away at them with his spirit edge, killing a slug-like corruption in his desperation. It exploded in his face, and the smell made him puke all over himself!
Finally they collapsed onto him, sinking him into the purple liquid.
No! No, help! Heeelp! I don't wanna-!
Then his voice, already weak and traumatized, was snuffed out as he was pressed under the surface. He hadn't even had time to breathe-in beforehand, and soon found his lungs forcing in the surrounding muck!
Mint snapped back to the present, gasping for air. In her trance she had unknowingly fallen back against the wall, and she could only turn and press her face and paws onto it; she was suddenly so physically and mentally exhausted, that she couldn't even stop drool from coming out of her mouth. She felt Ori trying to hold back tears as the memory faded, and the tears coming anyway.
...Make them stop Dad… she thought. ...please!...I've seen enough!...
Suddenly, paws took hold of her. She gasped and swatted them away, only to realize it was Fir trying to comfort her.
"S-sorry!" she stuttered. "I-I'm sorry!"
Then the smell hit her nose. She looked past him to see a pool of vomit staining the floor, and pointed a quivering finger at it.
"Is-is that-?" she started.
"Yours?...um...yeah," Fir completed. "You don't remember?"
Mint didn't know whether to nod or shake her head.
"Are you okay?" Fir asked. "What'd you see this time?"
"'What did she see?'" Timo repeated. "You mean...is this an effect from being zapped by the Spirit Tree's light?"
"Yeah, every so often, she sees his memories," said Keo, still calm and in his chair. "But I've never seen her this jumpy after a vision."
"It's real, Fir!" Mint whimpered. "It's all real. Every death I saw...they were all in Niwen."
"How can you tell?" he asked.
"...The locations all felt like home...except...dying..."
"This place was likely far more hostile than you could ever dream during the decay," said the red chameleon. "I'm shocked that you could recognize it at all!"
"Well, I guess that answers that question," said Fir. "Though, I hope you recognize why I had my doubts, Timo."
"No, I get it: all this information coming at you out of the blue, and all of it going against what you've been taught your whole life...believe me, I completely understand!"
"But none of this answers my real question," said Mint. "What are we?"
"Um...you're a spirit guardian," said Timo.
"No! I mean...what is a spirit guardian?"
"Oh."
"We're so...different...and I don't know why!"
"Well, my educated guess has always been that you're all some physical manifestation of nature itself, wielding the very forces of nature as your abilities."
"But you can't know, can you?"
"No. Like I said: it's an educated guess. Not to mention I'm not one of you."
"But these days, being one of us means being kept from the truth," said Fir.
On that thought, the room descended into strained quiet.
"Well, let's think," said Keo, breaking the silence. "If we go off of Mint's reasoning for stealing the Spirit Tree's light, then that would imply we're unnecessary for the world."
"More than that!" said Mint. "I think decay wouldn't exist without us! You both saw what I saw: the land becomes so dependent on spirit trees to survive that it eventually wouldn't know what to do if one's power suddenly disappeared!"
"Almost like a disease," said Timo. "Or a cancer...my thoughts exactly."
"This already sounds ridiculous," said Fir.
"I agree," said Keo. "But we need to keep an open mind. After seeing dad's records, all I can say for certain is that we've known nothing this whole time!"
"...but a disease?"
"Whenever we're out in the decay, any corruptions that can move come at us like antibodies! How else do you explain that? They don't go after howlers or other dark creatures in the same way."
"Howlers are way bigger than corruptions. Why would they ever go after howlers?"
"Corruptions don't care about getting hurt, Fir! They don't even care if they get killed, as long as they kill you, or whatever their target happens to be. It's just that it's always us! Why only target us if we're not the disease?"
Everyone sat in thought for a moment. Suddenly, Fir's ears perked up.
"What if we're not a disease," he started, pointing a finger up at nothing in particular. "But a foreign body? Think about it: we look nothing like anything in the forest-"
"Everything doesn't look like anything else in the forest, Fir," said Keo. "It's called biodiversity."
"No! No, that's not what I mean. What I'm saying is...we are literally glowing! Name one other creature in this world that holds light within them in the same way we do."
"...I can't," said Keo.
"Right?"
This time, Fir pointed straight up.
"What if...we're not of this world?" he posed. "Like-"
"Aliens?" Mint finished with a tone of disbelief.
Fir then snapped his fingers and pointed at her.
"Yes! It's like...Timo! Consider this."
Fir ripped a loose splinter out of the floorboards.
"If I were to stab you with this splinter, I won't, but say I did. Wouldn't your immune system respond to it in the same way that it would some disease?"
"I suppose it would," Timo responded. "In fact, it would swell around it!"
"Exactly!" said Fir as he put the splinter down. "Sorry about that, by the way."
He and Mint both sat back down at the table.
"No worries," said Timo.
"I rarely ever say these words, but I think Fir is right," started Keo. "We are far more mentally and physically adept than any other species in this forest, like we're some kind of apex predator-"
"We're ridiculously small compared to a lot of creatures though," said Fir.
"But size isn't everything! We still have the capability to take down creatures hundreds of times our size; if that doesn't scream superiority, then I don't know what does!"
"I'm inclined to agree," said Timo. "Especially considering that your species is different in ways you may not even realize: you all can solidify light into weapons and other tools, your females never have periods...you guys don't even defecate! Do you realize how weird that is?!"
All three spirits held puzzled looks.
"What's a period?" asked Mint.
"And what does deficate mean?" asked Fir.
Timo's glowing eyes widened. He didn't realize he might have to explain these things!
"Umm...don't worry about what a period is," he said. "As for 'defecate'...most animals, when they eat something, not all of it gets used...so they...get rid of it...as waste…"
"...out their-?" Fir started, pointing at his rear with a disgusted look.
"Yes," Timo quickly finished for him. "You may have seen other animals do that. You just never knew what it was until now."
"Oh...ew!"
"But the fact that guardian spirits don't do that is what's so crazy: it means you guys have one-hundred percent efficiency with whatever food you consume. With no other creature have I seen one-hundred percent of anything!"
He pointed at Mint's vomit on the floor.
"Come to think of it, that's the first time I've witnessed something come out!" he finished. "I really should get someone to clean that up…"
Keo contemplatively leaned forward in his chair.
"So we're not some disease, nor are we the good guys," he said, bringing the conversation back. "We just aren't meant to be...here."
"But then, what could have brought us here in the first place?" asked Mint.
"A meteor, perhaps?" Timo interjected. "But as for why, or whether or not that's even true, I don't think anyone could know. It's an event that could predate hundreds, or even thousands of spirit trees!"
"Then how are we to know?!" asked Fir, throwing his arms up in the air.
"...What if Seir knows?" Mint posed.
Everyone turned to her once again.
"She never said it to me, but I think she's an immortal being," she went on. "If anyone would have answers, it'd be her...right?"
"Even so, how would we get to her?" Fir replied. "No doubt that'd be the most heavily guarded place in Niwen after the stunt you pulled!"
"Ugh, I know! But…"
Mint sighed in defeat.
"I don't know," she moaned. "She said dad's memories would be able to explain more than she could, but I guess that didn't mean everything."
"Tell you what," said Timo. "Why don't you guys sleep on it? It's late, and maybe you'll be able to figure more out in the morning. Your heads will be clearer, you know?"
Keo nodded in agreement.
"I concur," he said. "We may not have a definitive answer yet, Mint, but I think we've made decent progress. At least we have one potential heading, that being Seir and finding a way to contact her again."
"I have one sleeping bag," said Timo. "I suppose the couple can sleep on the cot in the room adjacent."