We stay like that for minutes, and I finally am able to calm down, though the crushing feeling of what has happened has not left. I can see that Lory is growing increasingly impatient for an answer to my behavior, and I open my mouth to say something, but that all to familiar choking of words is all that images. Lory slumps slightly, and I can see Tom mirror her movements from the corner of my eye, and I look down, wishing I could say something. Wishing I didn’t have to.

“If you can’t talk right now, that’s fine.” Silver says, hand gently stroking the elongated grass surrounding me.

I nod, but continue to curl up.

“Oh!” he says, popping up. He grabs for his shoulder bag which he had rested against a tree, missing it the first time, and shakily reaches his hand in.

I look at him, and finally notice that they are… shivering?

Sprites, I forgot that humans are more sensitive to weather!

He starts to pull something out but I put a hand on his shoulder and look at everyone, miming them being cold.

“Oh, its fine…” Tom says, but his voice is a small bit for shake than normal. I shake my head and take off the first layer that I am wearing and hand it to a Lory who seems slightly more sensitive, arms wrapped around herself. I think of a spell for warmth over her protests and grab a stick, drawing the rune in the dirt. I put my hands to it and say the activating words in my head. It will be less potent because they are not spoken, but it will be better than nothing hopefully.

Tom look curiously over my shoulder as a warm orange-yellow glow starts to emanate from the ground there. Jacob tentatively steps into the circle.

“Oh God, this is the same temperature as that desert we went to!” he says, stepping out of the circle. Did I make it to hot?

They huddle around it at different distances to the center of the rune which is the hottest, saying thanks.

I nod, but it will wear off soon.

Silver rustles in his bag again now that he is more comfortable, hand now stable, and pulls out something that is wrapped many times in cloth.

He hands it to me, and I look at them before peeling off the layers, finding a small cactus, its roots enclosed by a bag of sand that is strung around the base.

“We were going to get one of those big, tall ones…” he searches for the name, “saguaros?” he says, looking at the others, and they nod. “But they said it would be to hard to transport so we just had to get a small one. I think it is still a saguaro though, just a baby.”

I look at them incredulously. They shouldn’t have done this.

This plants fruit has many amazing capabilities; it can be used to hydrate or dehydrate something or someone incredibly fast, a non-lethal poison, an antidote to said poison, a tonic for a variety of problems. Even the saguaro itself can be used to build foundations with its strong roots, and it is one of the only plants that we cannot fully manipulate growth-wise.

And I got them nothing but a…

I choke up just thinking about it. tears start to stream from my eyes again, but at least I am able to move and breath freely.

“Ah- Oh- A-are you okay? Is something wrong.” He says, walking away from the slowly fading heat, and everyone else follows.

I shake my head and wipe my eyes. He seems unsure of how to respond to that, especially because I cannot talk right now, and Jacob buts in.

“Maybe we should just give it a nigh, you do look tired.”

“And are you hungry? We haven’t eaten yet, so we can get something to eat together,” Tom adds.

I sniff and nod.

We break the rune, nullifying it, and head back to the village, Lory giving me my second under layer back.

We go back into the pub together, the dinner influx having dissipated, and order while they gather their items by the table.

I have never eaten here before, and the food was… interesting. Silver recommended what I should get that he thought I would like, and it came out steaming, chunks of meat floating in a thick, dark soup inside of a hollowed out and rounded loaf of bread.

I suppose it is similar in some way with the meat buns that my…

I chose not to think about her at this moment, simply enjoying what I can of the conversation and food, my stomach feeling immensely relieved that I am finally giving it real food again.

After, we do split up so that everyone could stay at their respective family homes, it being decided that I would stay the night with Silver.

“This is it,” he says, standing in front of a set of stairs on the side of the pub, a door at the top. “You’ll have to sneak in with me, but my father is usually still in the kitchen cleaning up at this time and Elizabeth is usually in bed by now.” He pauses. “It has been three years though…” he mumbles and I can hear an echo of nervousness in his voice.

I carry his instrument up the stars and slip through the door ash he holds it open, quietly closing it behind me. We tiptoe through the hallway, around a bend, and through the door of his room.

It is cluttered and sheets of paper with some type of musical writing sprawled across it lay in random spots along the room. He apologizes and quickly shuffles them into a stack on his small dresser, clearing a space on the floor for me to sleep.

He motions to set the case of the instrument down in the corner as he sets extra blankets and pillow on the space. Then he starts to crawl under it, saying I could have the bed, and I jerk my head no. I mime that I want the floor, and we have a back and forth before he finally relents.

We crawl under the covers, the wood beneath me cold, the blanket on top of me warm, creating an interesting effect.

“Good night Gold.”

‘Good night Silver’ I think, knowing he knows I would say if I could.

Minutes tick by and my eyes slowly grow heavier. I listen to his quiet breathing, in, out, pause. I realize that I am finally somewhat safe. The coven is still out there, and Masy, Wey, Iren, they all need help…

But I can’t do that if I don’t sleep.

An orange glow flows through my eyelids, and I crack my eyes open, blinking and putting a protective hand up as the sharp light of the sun enters my pupils all at once.

As I sit up, the sheets slide off of me in a loud hiss, and I look around.

That’s right.

That happened.

It wasn’t a dream.

I hope they are okay in their ‘parents’ care for now. They are still family, even with the inuriagi, so they wont hurt them, right?

Silvers room is as flooded with random objects and papers as I had ever seen a room be, and it was smaller at that. Silver is gone, his bed left unmade, and I suddenly feel extremely exposed. Where did he go?

Pictures of that white inuriagi tar exploding from the ground and wrapping him and everyone else in its blinding hold flash through my mind, no matter how unlikely it is that they would come to the village already. They would not expect us to come here, and even if they did it would be an absolute last resort for them to come here.

Still, my heart continues to race faster.

I get up and hug my arms around myself, unsure of what to do. If I go out, Silvers family could be there, but I have to make sure he is okay as well.

Looking around the room, I finally notice a torn piece of paper containing with a quick scribbled note, the ink partially smudged.

Will be back soon, must have breakfast with fam. Hang tight!

the ink is now dry, so this can’t have been written within the last hour. He should be back soon. And we can figure out what to do from there I tell myself.

I sit on the bed, tucked in a corner, thinking of what I was going to say, organizing the events into a more comprehensible story, and trying to think of what we could do now.

I could simply re-supply and then head off on my own… and no matter how reasonable that idea is, it fills me with dread, but I can think of no other option. Silver, Jacob, Lory, Tom, they will want to stay at home after their years of traveling, and it could be to dangerous for them to go.

A terrible possibility suddenly pops unbidden into my mind.

They could hate me for what happened.

I agreed to the plan, I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, save Masy and Wey, I couldn’t stop Iren from getting caught or Ebony from getting injured.

I just watched as Ebony slowly bled out in my arms.

I hear footsteps approach, the same pattern as Silvers, but louder and heavier sounding, possibly because of the wooden floors with something beneath.

“…you later!” he calls to someone in a room behind him as he opens his door, which he then quickly closes after he steps inside.

He spots me curled up in the only open corner and his usual smile twitches, his brows drawing together slightly, if only for a moment.

“Breakfast?” he says, smile full once again as he takes food out of his pocket.

I climb off of his squeaky and overly squishy bed and take it, nodding thanks.

“We never really planned a time to meat back up, but I am assuming that we just go to the alleyway as soon as possible.” He says, scratching the back of his head. I nod again.

He frowns. “How am I going to get you outa’ here…” he mumbles to himself.

I awkwardly look around the room as he thinks, unable to help because I do not know this place and its people.

“Oh!” he says, a little louder than expected making me jump, and he laugh before clearing his throat and continuing, tapping the air away from his chin, “I’ll just go out right now and make sure that they are still in the kitchen or their rooms, they can’t see the hallway to the door from those places, and come back in like I forgot something like my instrument and we hurry out.” He says smiling, nothing ever to serious for him. His ability to not let anything bother him, not let the world weigh to heavily on his shoulders, makes my weight lift just a little bit.

He goes out, leaving the door cracked slightly, makes a noise halfway down the hall, and returns, nodding to me, grabbing his instrument, and we hurry out.

He holds out his hand, his expression opening and warm, and I take a deep breath as I take it, bile not rising to my throat for once after so many years of not being with someone I am so comfortable with.

He leads me to the back of the ally again, where I met them before and his sister before that, his hand tightly wrapped around mine, grounding me, and I wish that I could hug any of them, because pressure always seems to take the pressure off, but I will have to settle for only the pressure in my hand.

We start to head towards the woods, but I soon realize where they are intending to go.

I stop, Silver being forced to stop along with me.

“We can’t go there.” I whisper, barely able to rush the words out, flashes of what happened in that part of the forest playing through my mind as I stare at the ground, waiting for it to burst up and capture us all.

What would they do if they find these humans? My blood runs even colder that it already is.

“Wh-” Lory is about to ask, but she stops herself upon looking at me. They look at each other, brows drawn together.

“Okay… where should we go then?” Silver says, his voice starting just slightly shaky, but he tries to lighten it and his face up, smiling.

“U-um… the opposite of this way…” I say feebly, not entirely sure, only knowing that we cannot by any means be near this part of the forest.

They look at Silver, who shrugs and nods, heading back, though going on the outskirts of the village still.

It is big, with many tall buildings and many different pubs and restaurants. I had never been further than what was apparently Silvers home and had no idea that they had building and people that specialize in something as trivial as hair cutting. It takes an entire twenty minutes of walking to get to the other side, during which they tell some of the most memorable stories of their travel.

They had gone to almost every biome you could; deserts, grasslands, temperate forests, deciduous forest, snowy mountain regions, swamps, which were apparently the worst because of how humid it was, causing much mold and warping in their instruments. Although I have always been content to live in the same or similar place my entire life, I slightly envy the experiences they went through unique to these different places, each so unique in its properties and way of life. It makes me appreciate all the more the cactus that they got me, that I had to sadly leave in Silvers room for the time being, for I had expected to never use such foreign materials for magic.

Eventually, we arrived in a nice spot with a big boulder leaning against a tree.

“Oh, look at that!” Tom says, pointing out how the tree had warped to grow around and incorporate the boulder.

I climb up the side of its white-gray marble and into the tree, but as soon as I am sitting on the lowest branch, I feel the weight of the bag on my back, the strain on my body, see Ebony’s twisted wrist struggling to climb down with me.

I drop back down onto the boulder, almost falling onto Silver who was about to climb after me.

He laughs nervously. “You okay? You love being at the top of the highest spot.” He says, the others starting to come closer as well.

“Um…” I say, looking at the almost nonexistent gap between the tree and the rock, unable to look at any of them. I need to tell them.

I climb down from the boulder and force myself to glance at all of them in turn. Lory, suspicious and eager for answers, Jacob confused, Tom worried, Silver trying to keep his smile, now crouched with one leg hanging off the side of the rock, boot bouncing off the hard surface with a muffled clack.

Right. I briefly review the order in which I will convey things in my head as I take a trembling breath, already feeling the tears rush up.

I tell them everything.