Whatever Danny currently was, and whatever additional power he was drawing on, it let him swim through soil like water. He continued downward, through the dirt, brushing aside grabbing roots, following faint impulses. The shape of the underground wasn't right, somehow. But also not wrong. It twisted, as if space had been compressed into maze-like tubes and folded back on itself.
Sam and Tucker were down here, somewhere. Danny could feel it. Danny knew it.
He broke into a cavern made of crumbling dirt and writhing roots. Sam and Tucker stood back-to-back at the very center. Tucker had a machete in his hand, and Sam was wielding a long knife that she must have been hiding in her boot. The crossbows had been thoroughly abandoned to the point Danny couldn't even see them in the cavern.
Then again, crossbows had wood in them. They could very well be the source of some of the roots he was seeing.
He snarled as one of the roots made an attempt to grab him, brushing by his whiskers. This form wasn't so different from a cat's - he had four limbs, a short snout, claws, a tail, whiskers - he could work with this.
He lept towards Sam and Tucker, wrapping around them.
"Danny?" gasped Tucker, shocked.
"This is Danny?" shouted Sam.
Danny crouched, the roots shifting and slipping away from him. There was something there, something– They shouldn't act like that, Danny knew. There was something strange about him, right now, some additional power he was drawing on, something that linked him more closely with the presence that was the woods.
But there was no time to dwell on that.
He leaped upward, back into the solid ceiling of dirt that made up the ceiling. Sam and Tucker shouted, but then the thick dirt muffled everything, and Danny focused on clawing his way upward… And away from the clearing full of grass, away from the Grain Woman's influence.
Danny burst from the ground under the spreading branches of an oak and shivered into a smaller form before curling in on himself, exhausted and hurting.
Sam picked him up and cradled him in her arms. Danny squeaked before curling up even tighter.
"It really was him," said Sam.
"Yeah," said Tucker, breathlessly. "What was that, anyway? That thing you turned into?"
"I think he's asleep," said Sam. "Or passed out. Something like that. And, um. I think that was an earth dragon. A lindwyrm. The thing he was. If that's what you were asking."
"I thought he could only turn into normal animals and stuff."
"He did say he'd turned into a weird wolf, didn't he?"
"No, he said he wasn't going to show us what they looked like, because there wasn't a good space on the ground for him to turn into one. That's different. And there's plenty of non-magic reasons a wolf could be green."
Sam hummed dubiously. "The bigger issue is how we're going to get out of the woods. We have no idea where we are."
"Well, we can't leave with Danny… and we can't leave him like this… he's all…"
"No, but we still need to be able to go when he… left my guard… trouble…"
Danny's understanding of their words began to fuzz out as he sank more thoroughly into his exhaustion. His friends were here. They weren't going to leave him. The trees here were old enough and strong enough that he knew they would whisper to him if the Grain Woman came.
He could relax. He could rest. He could sleep.
So he did.
.
Danny woke up all at once and jerked upright, his heart hammering.
"What–" he said, hands - he had hands again, good to know - clenching around… his… blanket? His blanket. The one in his little ruin-home. He was, in fact, in his home. "What? What's going on?"
"You passed out," explained Tucker, who Danny hadn't noticed at first. Danny didn't jump. "Sam and I walked around for a while. She was sort of trying to find the edge, so we could leave quickly once you were up again - the whole missing princess thing, you know - but then we started recognizing the stuff around here, and, well, here we are." Tucker shrugged. "You shifted a few times, but you were mostly little fluffy things, like kittens and rabbits, until a couple hours ago."
Danny nodded, still feeling unsettled. "How long was I out?"
"Four days."
"Four days?" repeated Danny, shocked not only by how normal he felt, but also by Tucker still being here. "How–"
Sam threw a piece of cloth at Tucker from the doorway. "Stop making stupid jokes and make sure your machete isn't covered in sap."
"I'm allowed to make jokes," said Tucker. "Danny makes jokes."
"How long was I really asleep for?"
"Just a few hours," said Sam. "How are you feeling?"
"Worn out," said Danny, "but fine. I'll probably be okay in another couple hours."
Sam sighed. "I don't think we can stay that long."
"Yeah, I… Yeah. I understand. I think I'm pretty safe here, though. It should be fine for you guys to take the regular path out."
Hopefully, the Grain Woman wouldn't be able to find them there, outside the woods.
(Danny worried that they would get hurt, out there, without him. The Grain Woman had been able to reach the silos in the first place, after all.)
(Danny worried that they would be too afraid of the woods to come back, after that.)
(Or, at least, too afraid of him.)
"I'm sorry," said Sam, "it's just… We need to get back to my father and figure out what to do about the Grain Woman."
Tucker's eyebrows went up.
"Do?" he repeated. "Are you serious? There's not anything we can do about that. I don't think there's anything anyone can do about that. She could control grass. Grass is everywhere."
Sam's jaw was set, stubbornly. "There has to be a way to make her give back the silos."
"Sam, for all we know, that grain is gone. Used up. Planted or thrown out. Turned into those little rolls she had on her table. Fed to birds. Set on fire."
"It can't just be gone," said Sam. "People were relying on it for the winter."
"It can be gone. All you're going to be accomplishing by trying to get it back is getting us, or whoever you decide to send after it, killed."
"What, you think I'm just going to send someone to–"
"No, I think it would be us, and that's why–"
"It's not even my decision–"
"Oh, so we aren't here because you decided–"
Sam jabbed a finger at Tucker's face. "Just because you don't care, doesn't mean I don't!"
Tucker glared at the finger. "You know what? Fine, princess, whatever you say, princess. Find me when you're ready to go throw away our lives, princess." Tucker stalked past Sam and out the door.
"Uh," said Danny. He blinked, hard. His eyes had been so wide they'd started to dry out.
"I'm fine," said Sam.
"You sure?"
"Yes. I just need to…" She shook her head. "You get it, right?"
"I don't know," said Danny. "Tucker has a point, but…" He didn't know how to put his feelings into words. Not the feelings he was sure were his own, mixed and churning, and not the ones that pressed on him from outside, deep and placid and ancient, the edges of the two mixing, like at the mouth of a river.
He hesitated too long. Sam huffed. "Of course he has a point." She shook her head and headed to the door, then stopped.
"Danny," she said. "Can I ask you something, before we go?"
"Sure?" said Danny, drawing the blanket more tightly around himself.
"The whole thing you said about the trees… speaking to you? And the grass, with the Grain Woman…" She hesitated, looking down. "Do plants… do they have thoughts? Minds? Souls?"
Danny wasn't sure how to answer that at first. "Sort of," he said, finally. "Not like humans or even animals do, though, I think." He had no idea where these impressions were coming from, but they felt true, and they weren't coming directly from the trees themselves. "They're more… distributed? Diffuse? Spread out over a few different trees, most of the time, not just one. I don't know how to say it. And even if they weren't, I don't think they think about death and stuff the way we do. Not that they want to die, it's just… different, for them. Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Yeah, I mean, I don't know where all this is coming from." He tapped his forehead. "It just shows up, which is kind of scary."
"Sorry," said Sam.
"It isn't your fault."
Sam made a distinctly un-princess-like face at him. "Agree to disagree," she said. "I should probably catch up to Tucker. Before he's eaten by a bear or something."
"Okay," said Danny. "Goodbye."
.
Danny was tired enough to sleep alright at first, but anxiety wormed its way into his dreams. He couldn't get the image of Sam and Tucker confronting the Grain Woman by themselves out of his head. Or, worse, one of them by themself.
When he woke in the morning, he felt terrible. He ate only a little, his stomach churning with thoughts of maybe and what if. But he still managed to… not be quite as rung out and exhausted.
Maybe…
Maybe, he'd go take a walk. Near the border of the woods. Near where Sam and Tucker usually came in. Not because he was worried, or anything like that, but because physical activity was good for one's health, and he hadn't tested the border to see if he could get out in a while.
… He wasn't sure why he was making up stories about why he was doing things. He didn't need to. It wasn't like there was anyone out here to call him out on it.
He stood up, stretched, and left, leaping from the stone threshold to the branches of the nearest tree.
Most likely, he was worried about nothing. Probably, Sam's father wouldn't allow her anywhere near the woods again, after all of this. Or Tucker would talk her out of it. Which would be sad and lonely for Danny, but… It would be fine.
It would be fine.