Unlike everything else about Alice’s situation, learning how to use her connection to the plants was almost… easy.
The forest welcomed her. It was as though she had been distracted before, ignoring what had been there all along. As though all the stress about being in a new world and all the worry about Aurum and the original story and how to keep things on track had kept her oblivious to an entire world of magic and connection. The inklings she had felt of it before back at the cottage were nothing compared to the ocean of awareness the trees and other plants were offering her now. It was a huge comfort, a support as she traveled alone, following distantly behind Aurum and Pollan.
Not that I would even be able to follow them without the trees’ help, Alice thought to herself for the hundredth time. It had been eight days since Aurum had asked – or rather, told Alice to leave. At first, Alice had despaired. Her plan of embracing her purpose and following the others to guide and protect them from a distance was frankly ridiculous for a non-magical, modern woman unused to wilderness travel, without combat skills, and completely alone in a strange world. But after almost a full day, just as she had started to wonder if the only thing she could do really was to return to the cottage and wait for the world to end, a gentle presence enveloped her mind.
I’ve lost it, she had thought. This is truly it. I’m living in a fantasy world, probably in my own imagination while I lie in a coma or something, and this is just an escalation of my absurd dreams. Aurum was right. Or, wait – if this is a dream, Aurum doesn’t exist, and that means it was my own subconscious. So I was right? And that’s why I’m wrong?
Spiraling like this for a good while, Alice had only slowly relaxed enough to explore what the presence was. It felt familiar, like the berry bushes or the faint sense of guidance she had felt from the forest when it led her to the cottage on her first day. Putting her existential panic aside for the time being, Alice confronted it openly for the first time and was almost frightened by how strongly she could now sense the individual trees and larger consciousness of the woodlands around her. It was soothing though, and calmed the desolation and loneliness she had been drowning in before.
Now, she had had time to practice sharing thoughts and feelings with the plant life, enough that she could keep track of Aurum’s progress even from a great distance. The trees also guided her to food when she was hungry, and kept her path near fresh running water. It was not exactly omniscience, though. Alice still was working on communicating clearly enough to ask the trees to warn her of anyone dangerous, but that was harder than asking where Aurum was specifically, and she was worried it hadn’t worked. So she moved quietly, learning how to do so better and better based on the impact her travel was making through the forest. Leaving any sort of trail was like leaving a bright line through the trees and plants now that she was tapped into the mind of the world around her, so she clumsily tried to minimize her impact.
I’m not improving quickly enough, she worried, stepping over a stream, currently about a day’s travel behind Aurum and Pollan. She had no supplies or map, and no defenses. Even with her plant magic – if that’s what it was called – she really was relying on stealth above all else. Once they were in the mountains, she had no idea what she would do.
For that matter, though, she had no idea what she was really trying to do. Originally, she had wanted to avoid all contact with Aurum, but hadn’t. So then she had wanted to try and push Aurum to make the same decisions as in the book, but that had only pushed Aurum away. Each evening when she tried to sleep, alone in the soft sounds of the nighttime woods, she worried that maybe following them to try and help was a mistake. Maybe leaving them alone was the actual solution. Maybe, she would wonder, I’m just following them because I’m scared to go back to the cottage and live all alone, forever.
Nevertheless, Alice persisted. And even in the midst of all her anxiety about the future and the purity of her intentions, and her concern for Aurum, she also felt joy.
I have magic, she told herself wonderingly, continuing away from the stream along the faint trail of bruised leaves and broken twigs Aurum and Pollan had left. I actually have magic.
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