The wind having thoroughly been knocked out of his sails, John sulked. "We should probably talk about this," said Aradia, face sagging with worry. Just then Roxy walked in, and immediately walked back out upon seeing two of her friends standing in a puddle of brain.
"Er, maybe when we have some privacy," said John as the sound of retching carried through the door. "That we can be sure won't be interrupted."
"I swear to Nayru, the two of you," Roxy grumbled irritably, wiping her mouth. "You guys are so gross and not in a cute way!"
Stepping through the wreckage of the door led the kids into a cavernous chamber. The edges of the room were wreathed in white smoke and the ceiling lost in darkness. The walls here were paler wood, like that of the Forest Haven, the rot having grown from the outside in. Thorny vines as thick as a grown man's waist crept along the walls, pulsing and throbbing as if in time to a gigantic heartbeat. The door opened up to a large balcony carved from the wood. Fifty feet below was water, the sight of which made John gag. It was murky purple, filled with bits and flotsam. It bubbled and roiled, and now and again a brighter flash of purple scattered just beneath the surface, a strange bioluminescence. Things moved underneath. They might have been long, spiked seaweeds, but they moved far too quickly to be plants.
There was another doorway almost level with the water, and strung between the two platforms was a system of ropes and pulleys, and a crude wooden carriage. Hesitantly, the kids stepped onto the creaky boards and waited. Roxy hopped up and down twice. Nothing happened.
"There!" Aradia pointed. A wooden device about half as big as a grown human was set into a niche in the wall. It had been designed to look like a tree, so they hadn't noticed it at first. It was roughly teardrop shaped, with something like a weathercock at the top, where it was narrowest. The arms of the weathercock were tipped with big green bowl-shaped shells, resembling leaves. A cable ran from the base of the machine and along the wall to a wooden box just above the door the kids had walked in from, to which the cables suspending the carriage were fixed. "I'll just fly over and work it manually," said Aradia, getting ready to jump.
John stepped in front of her with the Deku Leaf and waved it towards the machine. A burst of air hit the device and the weathercock began to turn, the array propelling the kids down and across at a steady pace.
The ride was quick, but the air lay heavy on the group, and not just from the increasingly noxious fumes as they approached the purple water. "You okay John?" Roxy asked, nudging him in the ribs. John grumbled.
"We're gonna talk about it later," Aradia whispered loudly. She was picking dried brain mucus out from under her claws.
"Let's just rescue Miss Paint or whoever," John snapped. At that moment, mercifully, the carriage stopped, and the children disembarked.
The next room was enormous. Aradia had seen it, but only through the eyes of a morth. It was a huge, jug-shaped hollow in the tree, its walls thick with moss. New branches grow from the walls in a spiral pattern, all the way down to the bottom, where more purple water churned, even more hideous and fetid than the pool they had encountered earlier. In the center of the purple pool was a gigantic knot of thorns that had collapsed inwards under a great weight; scraps of blue and purple petals lined the edges of the hole. "That's where the flower fell," Aradia said, pointing.
They were near the top, and could see the shape of the branches. They were rounded at the bottom and bearded with moss, but their grain was exposed at the top as if they'd been split, yellow flesh exposed to the air, and each branch widened into tear-shaped platform at its tip. With a squishy, creaking sound, the nearest one turned and stretched out to the platform the kids were standing on. It waited patiently, close enough to step on.
"Do we risk it?" asked Roy, but John had already given his answer, and it was not the one thy expected. He took a running leap off the ledge and plunge towards the great hole below, pulling the Deku Leaf at the last second to halt his fall. He drifted down into the darkness, out of view.
Roxy and Aradia looked at each other, noting each other's expressions. While both were displaying huge frowns of bafflement, Roxy noted that Aradia's smile carried a tinge of guilt. Her ears pricked up. "Okay, what happened while I was throwing up in the other room?"
Aradia laughed nervously. "Funny story really…"
Earlier John had resolved to kill the first living thing he saw, but it turned out to be Roxy, and he felt bad about it. A nagging little voice in his head that sounded a bit like Jade told him that he was being immature and that he was terrible at dealing with his anger. He shut it up by telling it that he knew he was bad at dealing with his anger, and that in his defense he'd never really been angry until a few weeks ago when all this adventuring stuff had started. And really he thought, drifting into the darkness of the thorny chasm, shrouded in a cloud of emerald sparks drifting from the Deku Leaf, being angry was a hell of a lot more exhilarating than being sad, which he'd done a lot of before.
Down and down he fell, until the jagged hole above was just a ragged blot of light no bigger than a coin. The stench hit him like a physical barrier, and he let go of the leaf with one hand in surprise, plummeting the last few feet.
He landed on a gigantic flower, floating in the water. If it could still be called water, that is; it was a positively livid purple, and whatever unholy chemical reactions were going on inside it were making it glow. He was surprised that it didn't corrode the wooden walls around it, and then he noticed that the walls were almost entirely made of the pulsing, thorny green wood that was choking the entire forest. The color was much darker here, a sort of deep turquoisey-blue. They pulsed like the walls of an artery, and John became curious. He put away the leaf and pulled out his slingshot, taking aim, and shooting a lead ball into a thin veiny vine that looked like its skin was ready to burst. The lead ball did not break the skin on impact, but an instant later the spot split open, damaged just enough to not be able to handle its internal pressures. A pressurized burst of water shot out, and struck John in the face so hard it knocked him down.
When he came to, the girls were looming over him. "That was very reckless of you John," ssaid Roxy. She had a clothespin on her nose. Aradia was going to speak next, but then she turned and started dry-heaving over the edge.
"I'm okay, the water in the vines is clean," said John, trying to breathe only with his mouth. The smell could honestly have killed a pig, he thought. "This smell is the most disgusting thing I've ever encountered," he went on, standing up. "It is like poison, but on fire. It is the tea they served in the waiting room in hell. It could probably be used to chemically cook an entire cow, like using lemon on catfish, except that it would be rendered inedible instead of delicious. Can I have a clothespin?"
Roy shook her head. "Only had the one on me. I would give it to you but I want to live."
John growled, a sound that turned into a sudden coughing fit. "I honestly think this smell could kill us," he said. "Do not touch the water."
A bubble the size of a pig rose a few feet in the distance and popped. The smell worsened by a tiny increment. "We need some airflow," said John, producing the breath waker, its cool blue metal gleamed refreshingly in the murky purple light. The edges of John's clothes began to ripple in a little wind that spiraled around him. He opened his hand, letting it ripple between his fingers. "Good boy," he muttered. Then he conducted the Wind's Requiem.
Nothing happened.
"It's too much," said Roxy, looking around. The chamber they were in was massive, bigger than the one above it. They may have been below sea-level. Off in the distance, visible only because of the glowing murk, a tunnel snaked into the wood, going on for who knew how long. "And what do you mean the water in the vines is clean?"
"It meant what I said," John replied, just a bit snappier than usual. "Look!" He pointed to the hole he'd punched; it was leaking clear, greenish fluid into the murk.
Roxy gasped. "These creepy vines are detoxing the forest!" she declared.
John raised an eyebrow. Roxy went on. "They grow thickest where the water is most disgusting," she said. "Then they distribute the clean water to the rest of the forest!"
"Makes sense," said John. "We did drink some a while ago and didn't die. It wasn't…purple." He looked around the cavern. "What would happen if they died?"
Roxy rubbed her chin. "Probably the toxins would go out of control, especially when they started rotting, and the whole forest would die."
John felt a cold thump rock his body. He was a pretty imaginative boy, but did not need that imagination to know what kind of ecological disaster that would cause to the whole region.
"What did I miss?" said Aradia, as she wiped a thread of sticky ick from her mouth. At that point John began to retch.
Roxy grinned down at her two sick friends. "Really too bad you don't have a clothespin like I do."
John stood up and snatched it off her nose, throwing it into the water. The shadowy forms that swam beneath went into a frenzy. The kids stared wide-eyed into the depths. "Fuck this hole," said John, just as Roxy began to scream.
"Let's get out of here!" she snarled, which made her choke in the noxious atmosphere.
"We can't," said Aradia. She was looking upwards, morose and forlorn. "I can't carry you both, I can barely fly!"
Roxy blinked. "But you've been carrying me this whole time!"
"Gliding," said Aradia. "Did you honestly forget? I've been riding the wind downwards with you, not flying. Definitely not upwards!"
John bit his lip, looking around. "We keep going," he said. "There's no other way."
Roxy growled. "How!?"
John whipped out a card and tapped it, unfurling the sail. "Like this!"
An hour later they were sailing the flower down the tunnel. It truly was long, but mostly it was slow going. Roxy was holding one end of the sail while the other two corners of it were tied to a Boko stick they'd (very carefully) fished out of the water and stuck into the flesh of the flower (already beginning to rot in the toxic water). John was blowing wind into the sail with the Deku Leaf while at the same time holding the breath waker in his hand, a mixture of blue and green magicks rippling around him as he worked. Aradia was flying ahead, dragging the makeshift ship behind her with her steel whip. The water had become like sludge this deep into the tree, choked in places by masses of dead insects, and Aradia was struggling. "Just take us around that bend," said Roxy, "then come back down and rest!"
"Okay," Aradia shouted, tugging all the harder at the idea of rest. After a few minutes, they made it. A hundred yards down the way was a collection of knots in the sickly green wooden wall that looked almost like a face. The largest one had been turned into a door. It was shut, but the sounds of insects could be heard on the other side. There were more enchanted torches in sconces around the face, and a sort of porch carved into shallow concentric steps. Huge wooden things like pinecones sat scattered about, seemingly newer than the primitive construction.
Aradia alit on the flower to rest, and Roxy offered her a drink of their tea from earlier. She took it gladly, nursing the canteen. "Soooo," aid Roxy, reclining on a petal, "are you two gonna talk to each other now?"
"Nope," said John, working the leaf. The flower lurched forward in the sludge, and then lurched back almost the entire way. Without the girls' help, he wouldn't be getting anywhere anytime soon.
"John sit down and talk with us," said Roxy, languidly sniffing a handkerchief, and then deciding to breathe through it.
John grumbled and complied, assuming a very cranky lotus position. Roxy chuckled. "You look like that mailman. Okay so, why did you condemn us to slow choking death in a poisonous tunnel?"
"It's not that bad," said John, at the same time as Aradia said, "I guess it's slightly my fault."
Roxy snapped at her. "No it isn't! John's being a baby!"
And then twenty yards away, an octorok rose from the depths. It had been emerging for about a minute now but the sludge was so thick that it was slow going. The octoroks of the Forbidden Woods lived only in the polluted waters and were much changed from their clean water dwelling cousins across the strait. The octorok was huge and pale, though stained purple by the murk. Bioluminescent patterns glowed on its sides, flashing in an angry pattern of blinks and strobes. It raised four of its tentacles out of the water. The appendages split into three near the ends, like boneless hands, and were covered in rings of long, thick spines all over instead of suction cups; they made it look like a collection of creeping vines covered in tiny sharp mouths. It opened its mouth and fired off one of its gall-stones, a murky, putrid lump. It struck the side of the flower, making it spin out of control. The octorok swelled up as it gathered material to make another one.
But as the flower spun around a second time, John let loose with his slingshot, not having forgotten his vow to kill the first living thing he saw. Time seemed to slow down as he pulled back the cord, sighted down the arms of the weapon. He exhaled as he let go, and something unexpected happened. His breath carried a puff of magic, and the ball ignited with bright blue fire. The soft lead melted in midair, becoming a deadly spray of molten metal. The drops sheared through the octorok's eyes and it shrieked, leaping into the air and flopping down onto the sludge in its death throes.
The flower came to a stand-still, having spun much closer to the octorok due to pure luck. "Whoa," muttered Aradia, staring at the dying monster, "that's amazing!" John just glared at the thing; its spots were still luminescing. He loaded another lead ball and ignited it.
"Nice shot," said Roxy, slapping John on the back, breaking his concentration, making him drop the ball and nearly fall into the murk.
"I guess it was pretty amazing, eh Aradia?" he asked, smiling to himself.
"No I mean the octorok is flashing its spots in Dragonroost Island semaphore," said Aradia, tracing the pattern in the air with a taloned finger. "Do not interfere," she said slowly, picking out the words one at a time, "I'm going to kill this island once and for all and free the region of its toxic influence. Oh Din burn it," she muttered, kneading her temples. "The Great Intelligence is actually an idiot."
John and Roxy snickered. "I'm pretty sure this settles it," said John. "We need to take it out, whatever it is, even if it doesn't have Miss Paint." He cracked his knuckles, then his neck, and then his back. Roxy looked on in horrified fascination, her eyelid twitching slightly.
"Or we could reason with it," said Aradia, watching as the octorok's lights at last blinked out.
"You do that while I kill it," said John, "it'll be a good distraction." He pointed at Roxy. "Stretch out the sail first mate!"
She snorted. "Whatever you say captain, but the three of us need to have a feelings jam when this is all over."
The last ten yards of the journey were done on foot, the sludge having grown into thick, purplish mud. It was shot through with lines, like burrowing insects, all trailing toward the wooden porch and its door. John made a mental note to buy a nice pair of boots a the next shop; his sandals had not been made for adventuring and were starting to fall apart, and even whole they wouldn't have kept this mud out.
The moment John set foot on the first wooden step leading up to the great door; he breathed a sigh of relief at having stable footing again. The moment immediately after, the dozen or so pinecones exploded. Out jumped a Bokoblin armed with a machete, the very one from earlier, a swarm of morths, three or four acid-green chuchus, already beginning to morph together into a larger being, two half grown Mothulae, snapping their jaws with a stony clicking, and an ancient Moblin that must have gotten lost in this forest ages ago. His razor mane had gone white with age and then yellow with filth, and his tusks had rotted down into stumps. Disturbingly, hanging moss had taken root in his flesh, drooping almost to the floor, and mushrooms were growing out of his back and mouth. Every single monster here had eyes that glowed a murky orange in the dim light.
"I…am…working…" said the Moblin through a mouthful of fungi. It spat and approached slowly, limping. Its left hand was sheathed in a partially hollowed log. "This mouth…tastes awful…" it rumbled, hacking up purplish phlegm. "This forest is toxic. Let me finish it. Then we can all leave."
"The forest is holding back the filth," said Roxy, striding up to the Moblin, glaring up at its porcine face. One of the piggy little eyes was swollen shut. "Purifying this nasty water! If you kill it, the poison will spread."
"That's not possible," it rumbled, the 'S's difficult for its tongue. "You're lyiAAAUGH!" The word transformed into a monstrous bellow and the glow left its eye for just a second; the Moblin took back control of its body and took a swing at Roxy with its makeshift club. She sidestepped it easily and punched it in the solar plexus. The Moblin bent, and John whipped the slingshot out of his pocket, empowered a shot, and fired on his exposed head. The monster bellowed as the mosses and mushrooms caught fire, and then every other monster attacked as one being.
The green chuchu, as big as a man, with a cluster of orange eyes, leapt onto Roxy, forming two pairs of crude hands to grapple her with, while the morths and the Bokoblin went for Aradia, the two Mothulas springing for John. He ducked under their leaps and they went soaring over him into the muck, then he unslung his hammer and shield. He spun around to gain momentum and threw the hammer at the Bokoblin before it reached Aradia, smashing its chest, while the troll girl slashed the morths out of the air with her whip. John ran over to the Bokoblin, sliding into its feet and knocking it over. He picked up its machete and threw it at the blazing Moblin—
Or rather it fell miserably near the Moblin's feet. Wasting no opportunities though, Roxy slammed into the Moblin's side, using the heat from the fire to make the chuchus separate and fall off her back. Picking up the machete, she swung it deep into the Moblin's torso, pivoting the swing into a thrust, and then tearing the blade out of its side, spilling its guts onto the floor. The Moblin fell like a tree.
One of the Mothulae sprang out of the mud, jaws snapping, and Roxy whipped her rod out of her belt and struck the insect between its mandibles. It disappeared in a burst of pink light and dark colored panels. On the other side of the battlefield, Aradia was whipping off the legs of the second Mothula. There were a dozen morths in her wooly hair but she seemed not to mind. "Guess that settles it," said Roxy, blowing on the end of her rod and stabbing the machete into the floor.
A horde of octoroks came into view. Some emerged far out into the tunnel where the water was much thinner, but the rest came climbing along the thorny walls, scuttling and grappling with their horribly spiky tentacles like nightmare spiders. They looked much bigger than the one they'd fought earlier, or perhaps they just hadn't noticed how huge they were. A dozen lumpy, purplish gall-stones slammed against the floor, shattering on impact into razor sharp shards. "Oh boy, more killing," Aradia muttered, twisting her lips. A fully grown Mothula came screaming around the bend, spewing fire and morth eggs.
Roxy growled in frustration, pulling up the machete; the tip broke off in the wood. "John, just get on with it!" she shouted, tossing him the card with the pictobox. John barely fumbled as he caught it, and then he tried the door; it was latched from the other side. He slammed his hammer into the door, once, twice, three times, and it burst open on the fourth. He ran inside just as Roxy unleashed a magical blast, the sound ringing in his ears as he padded down the wooden hall.
It narrowed as he followed it, constricting into a crude tunnel of pulsing vines, the thorns creeping towards him so he had to contort his body in unnatural ways. They were much thinner and sharper, their tips fading to red. The walls, beating like a heartbeat, were straight up indigo now, not green at all. John was breathing hard, his claustrophobia setting in again, but the end was in sight, so he pushed himself through.
The tunnel opened into a chamber shaped like a bell. A battle was raging inside. A gargantuan flower hung from the ceiling, electric blue with violet accents, erupting with violently yellow pollen from its anthers. It twitched and snarled like an animal, swinging its huge, barbed tendrils, thick as tree-trunks, at the swarm of monsters below. Insects and Moblins shattered under its blows, painting the floor with gore. In their midst was a Carapacian woman, short and plump, blank and smooth-featured like John remembered them being in his travels. She wore a blue and green top and a comfortable looking skirt. Her eyes however, were glowing orange; he could see each individual facet.
Next to her was male troll. He was wearing a coat sewn from blue leaves with a guitar slung across his back. His thick black hair was shaved on the sides, and his ears were broad and leaf-shaped like a cow's. His mouth was full of narrow fangs that glinted like needles, and he had the broad curved horns of a prized bull. He held a crude lance made of a dried vine, a drill-like spiral of yellow wood studded with thorns. Out of everything in the chamber, he was the only living creature whose eyes were not glowing orange. He turned.
John scowled, his ears perking up as high as they could go. "It's you then? It's been you the whole time? Some random troll I've never met before?! Do you even have any idea what you're doing?!" By the end of it he was screaming at the troll. He dropped his shield on the ground, holding his hammer in one hand, ready to pummel the other boy into a paste.
At the same time, the troll began to rant at him, his ears falling low. "You and your dumb friends have been bugging me all day, and, I am not going to let you keep doing it. I'm gonna finish you off and be the hero, if that's alright with you, and even if it's not you'll be dead, so whatever. It was just a courtesy, and now I get to beat you up." He aimed down the shaft of his lance, stamped the ground, and charged at John.
John, imitating him, charged right back, swinging his hammer like a madman. It connected by pure chance with the end of the troll's lance, knocking him off balance. The tip of the lance dug into the ground and the troll was able to pivot on the point of it just in time to dodge a vicious hammer blow. The hammerhead struck the ground and John himself lost balance. The troll elbowed him in the back and John almost fell down.
His solution was to drop the hammer, spin on his heel, and punch the troll right in the face. The troll staggered, dropping his lance. John punched him again with the other hand, and let out a flurry of punches onto the poor troll's face until he accidentally struck his horn. Something in his fist crunched and jumped back, hissing in pain.
The troll, meanwhile, nearly fell over. Troll horns are in fact very sensitive, full of nerve endings that help them balance. The blow made him feel dizzy and set his stomach reeling.
John looked up first and noticed his foe's discomfort. He rushed the troll, who just barely managed to sidestep out of the way. He unslung his guitar and began to play, plucking the strings with a pick made of pale blue metal.
"What are you gonna do, sing John Mayer songs at me until I cry?!" John barked. He did not notice the whirling patterns on the cold blue pick, like clouds or winds made solid, nor that the guitar appeared to have been grown from a single flowering plant, its woody green stem comprising the neck, and its brilliant bronze leaf pod the resonating chamber. He didn't see the rings glittering on the troll's fingers, each of them a Carapatian artifact that boosted his powers immensely. John did not see these things, only that his enemy was being ridiculous, as if mocking him, and he charged the troll again, screaming "I'm gonna kill you until you die!"
He certainly took the time to notice those things, however, after a swirling gust of blue-tinted wind slammed into his chest and threw him clear across the room.
The troll looked around himself, breathing hard. "Oh no, no no no!" he shouted. His monsters had lost his direction and were being massacred by the devil-flower. Miss Paint, his new friend, had fled from the room screaming; he just barely caught sight of her rear as she scampered out the tunnel. The troll snarled. "Um, yeah! You better run! I don't even need you anyway! I can handle the Kale Demos myself!"
John hurled the smoldering corpse of a Mothula at him, and the troll just barely parried it with his guitar. The insect body crumbled in two halves on either side of him, just to reveal John a foot from his face. John landed a vicious uppercut that threw the troll to the ground. Picking up the Mothula's mandible, he prepared to finish the troll off. "Before I kill you," said John, "you're gonna tell me your na—"
He was then launched all the way to the ceiling by another burst of wind. The troll leapt to his feet and began to play again, launching John between the massive barbed roots of the devil-flower. He prepared a face-melting solo that would finish them both off, the wind in the room howling along at incredible speeds, the air crackling with static electricity. "It's Tavros, remember it because you'll be screaming it later!" he said, just as he was about to play the killing chord. He flushed slightly. "Because I'm gonna be kicking your ass I mean, and not like, anything sexual…anyway I am this generation's Breath Waker and I am gonna wreck your shit—"
Tavros was himself slammed off his feet by a meaty fist of air as John conducted winds around himself. The disorderly howls became sweet saturnine singing, a cosmic chorus in tune with the music of the spheres. His eyes glinted coldly behind his glasses, he was walking on air, sliding on the breeze like a dancer, the breath waker poised like a weapon. "So you're a liar and an idiot," said John. "I'm the Breath Waker. It's me who's going to gather the pearls, and me who's going to make way for the Hero. You're just an idiot who got lucky! Where'd you get that pick huh, Beedle sells those now?" He aimed the breath waker like a dagger. "Bad dog," he whispered into the wind.
It surged around him, through him, and threw Tavros off his feet. The wind howled through the narrow tunnel, knocking the girls (all three of them) off their feet, tearing the wings off Mothulae, extinguishing fired, and turning the top of the river of sludge into a fine purple mist. It roared down the tunnel, acquiring strength as it acquire debris, bursting up through the thorny chasm, roaring though the rooms and hollows of the tree. Not an inch of the great tree was untouched by the wind. Monsters were scoured by the acidic mist, torn by the slashing winds, shocked by the gathering static, and that hideous stench was carried up and outward, and then, at last, the wind streamed through the precious few exits in the tree's canopy. The blue gales rose above the Forbidden Woods, coalescing together in one great blue cloud. For an instant, all was still. And then the air was split by electricity, each bolt as pure and blue as the sky, ripping through the cloud but never once making landfall, until the gathered toxicity was completely destroyed, leaving nothing but the scent of lightning and petrichor.
The girls found him a few minutes later, crouching over Tavros's prone body, slugging him in the chest. "How did you do that and oh sweet green Farore John no!" shouted Roxy, pointing at Tavros. "Did you just murder that guy!?"
John snorted. "I really should have, but no. He was playing some song I'd never heard before and I played a counterpoint to the song on the breath waker. I just made it up as I went along, and the two songs clashed together and did some crazy shit because of magic. Anyway, now I feel bad about beating him up so I'm trying to resuscitate him." His fist came down on the troll's chest once more, and Tavros coughed up a wad of purple phlegm, sitting bolt upright and smacking his head into John's. John punched him out again. "Din, Nayru and Farore," he muttered, standing up, rubbing his knuckles. "You resuscitate a guy and what does he do?" John threw Tavros into a fireman carry, wincing as his massive horns poked him in the lower back.
The Kale Demos shrieked, its stamen peeking out from between its petals. It looked a bit like a Boko Baba, but much more fabulous. "Should I feed him to it?" John wondered aloud. The girls goggled.
"No," he decided, "he's been punished enough." Bowing slightly to the flower, he added, "I'll take him off your hands, er, tentacles, er, clawed tendrils, don't worry." The devil-flower clucked contentedly and retreated into its petals, settling down on the floor for the first time in a long time.
"And what is that thing?" asked Roxy, staring at the gigantic bloom. "It's gorgeous."
"Kale Demos," gasped Aradia. "The first flower that grows in an area that's been hit by an ecological disaster. Sometimes little blossoms sprout on the side of Dragonroost after an eruption, but I've never seen one that big though!"
A gentle breeze had been blowing this whole time, pushing around luminescent green pollen and filling the room with a refreshing light. Now it coalesced in the center like a glowing green whirlwind. The forbidden Woods was letting them go.
One by one they stepped into the light, and then they were gone.
Notes: These last couple chapters have just shot out of me like a ruptured hernia. John is, if you recall, quite violent when cranky. He even forgets he has a hammer sometimes, as seen when he fought Caliborn. I promise this romance stuff will be handled quickly and not degenerate into some kind of love triangle. Next time, we attend a party! (and deal with some kind of love triangle).
Remember to try out the Ao3 version of this chapter, which has a soundtrack. Even if you'd rather not, look up the song "You Are My Hope" from the Bravely Default OST, which I used for one fight scene and highly recommend.