“Whyyy…” Nicole whined, as she pushed aside branches and shrubs.

“I told you already, it’s going to take awhile to get there so we had to leave early,” I said, explaining for the fourth time as we trekked through a wild looking forest.

“But four in the morning? Couldn’t we have just come here in our sleep?” She continued.

“It’s only accessible at a certain time, after which the change in quanum seals it off, it would have been far too dangerous,” I said, as I carefully maneuvered around a fallen tree.

The forest was thick in plant life that was surrounded by a thick layer of quanum. The density of quanum in the forest made it very difficult to manifest and control our own quanum which meant we had to forcefully maneuver through the forest. The forest was also thick with flowers, a large violet variety, which seemed to glow in an iridescent pattern.

“And you still won't tell me why we’re here?” She asked with some annoyance.

“You’ll see when we get there, trust me, it will be worth the effort. Or do you just not want to be here with me?” I teased.

“Hey, that’s not what I said, I just don’t like getting up quite this early,” she said, quickly changing her tone.

“It’s alright, I get it, but it wouldn’t work at any other time,” I laughed. “There should be a clearing up ahead from the looks of it, we’ll take a break there and have some breakfast,” I offered.

“Oh, breakfast would be nice, what are we having?” Nicole asked, her attitude perking up a bit.

“Peach oolong tea, porridge and fried dough sticks. It’s my mom’s favourite so I’m used to making it,” I shrugged.

“That sounds like a good breakfast, I can’t wait!” She said excitedly.

We finally made it to the clearing and found a nice spot amongst the grass. There was a convenient stone formation with a flat rock for me to rest our food on and another large enough to rest our backs against. It wasn’t quite warm here at this time of day so I rolled out a blanket to put under us and brought out another one to wrap around us as we huddled close, Nicole leaning into me under the blanket.

“This is nice,” she said, as the gentle wind rippled through the trees and long grass around us.

“Yeah, it really is,” I said, as I watched a curious little animal sneak close to us from an adjacent rock.

Ripping off a piece of fried dough, I tossed it out towards the interesting looking creature. It had the body of a gerbil but a scaled tail like a snake and feathered wings on its back, it seemed like a mini chimera of sorts. Nicole also took a piece of her fried dough and tossed it over only to see a smaller trio of the same species pop their heads from around the rock.

“Awe, look, babies,” Nicole cooed.

“Indeed, I’m not sure I’ve seen this variety of animal yet,” I said, as we watched them chow down on our offering.

The strange rodent-like creatures finished their meal and quickly scurried away while we continued to watch and sip at our tea. We continued to sit there wordlessly, cuddled under the blanket, listening to the sound of nature around us. After roughly thirty minutes of silence Nicole finally spoke.

“When did you first start paying attention to me?” she asked, a curious smile on her face which left me suddenly sweating in surprise at the question.

“Honestly…I think from the first time I saw you…there was something different. It almost felt like I was supposed to know you? It’s a hard thing to explain…probably sounds weird,” I said, smiling awkwardly.

“No, not at all. To be honest, I felt the same way. I couldn’t help but pay attention to you, and then eventually I found myself looking for you all the time,” she said sincerely.

“Really? I guess that’s fair. I found myself looking for you all the time too. For the longest time I was satisfied just with seeing your smile every day and then after our accidental partnering for that science project we actually managed to forge a connection. From that point on I was certain I was in love,” I said, feeling the red heat of embarrassment flood my face.

I could feel the burning heat off Nicole’s face as she buried it into my neck which caused me to freeze up a little before I pulled her tight in an embrace.

“You’re always so tense,” she laughed. “I’m not going anywhere you know. We still have a lot of things to do. Do you expect me to leave you and Alden to figure it out?” she laughed some more.

I knew that this was her way of hiding her own embarrassment and instead ignored her comments, leaned down and gave her a kiss. She of course turned even more red and fell silent once more as we continued to cuddle and observe nature around us. After another thirty minutes or so I decided it was time to get moving again or we’d run out of time to get where I wanted.

“That was nice, and yet that’s not the reason we got up this early is it?” Nicole asked, with a curious smile.

“Nope,” I said simply, smiling back, as I repacked our things. “Let’s go, we have a lot of ground to cover still.”

We continued our trek through the forest, this time the wildlife paid more attention to us, following us around curiously.

“This is such a strange place. Usually the animals in a forest ignore people and hide, but not these guys. Do you think they’re used to people?” Nicole asked, as she continued to observe them.

“I’m not sure. I’ve only heard of this place, but I’ve never been here before. I hear it’s one of the first places formed within the 4th World, so maybe they are?” I said, honestly pondering the question.

“They do seem very curious about us,” she said as one of those strange rodents from earlier landed on her shoulder.

To her credit, Nicole didn’t jerk in surprise, she simply continued on her way with the little creature perched on her shoulder. After allowing it to smell her, she began scratching its chin which seemed to cause it to chitter in glee.

“Odd creatures indeed,” I said, as I looked behind to see a trail of them following me in particular.

After another hour of walking we came across a thicker portion of the forest surrounded with vines that had long sharp thorns jutting from them. We tried multiple different ways to get around the vines, pushing, pulling, cutting, but the vines were as thick and hard as rock.

“I’m not sure how we’re supposed to get to the center, but that’s where we need to be…” I muttered, as I continued to observe the obstacles.

“I’m sure there’s a way around, right little buddy?” she said, giving the creature on her shoulder another scratch.

As if understanding her comment, it chirped and hopped off her shoulder to the ground. With another series of chirps and a few pulling bites at her shoe it slowly headed in the opposite direction.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I guess we’re supposed to follow it?” Nicole said, as she began doing just that.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I shrugged as I followed her.

The gerbil-like creature led us around a strange winding path through the trees and vines until we came to a clearing on the other side that was surrounded by thousands of those violet flowers, emitting their strange iridescent light.

“Wow…this is incredible,” Nicole said, looking around at the field of flowers.

Carefully I observed the field until I could tell the direction we needed to continue off in.

“Yeah, this is truly a beautiful sight to behold,” I said, as I shifted my attention towards the massive tree canopy above us.

Nicole stumbled back as she followed my gaze upwards.

“Is that where we’re headed?” She asked, flabbergasted.

“Yep, straight to the top,” I said, smiling with excitement.

“Cool,” she said, smiling back excitedly.

As we began heading off, the little creature that had shown us the way chirped loudly, and waved its tail at us, as if waving farewell and headed on its way out.

“I suppose that’s fair, wouldn’t want to get stuck here,” I mused.

“What do you mean? Is it related to how you said this place is only accessible at certain times?” Nicole asked, curiously as we ventured towards the massive base of the tree.

The tree was gigantic, easily the size of a mountain, it could very well take days to travel around just the base of it.

“Perhaps,” I said cryptically.

“Ugh, I hate when you do that,” she said, smiling.

“Better get used to it, because I love doing it,” I teased.

We continued onwards until we were at the base of the tree, the journey until now had taken roughly six hours and with only two more hours to get to the top I was starting to grow anxious. I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to scale this massive tree in a timely manner without proper use of quanum.

“Can’t figure out how to get up?” Nicole asked, observing my perplexed series of expressions.

“Yeah…Any ideas?” I asked, as I continued to observe the tree in hopes of an answer.

Nicole hummed and hawed for a moment before pointing towards the vines hanging down as she watched a monkey-like animal approaching it. It was tall, maybe five or six meters tall, just tall enough to reach the vines. It tugged on the vine as it approached and, to our surprise, was quickly lifted upwards into the canopy.

“I suppose that’s our best option?” I said, staring up into the canopy, trying to determine the mechanic.

“I guess so, although I’m not sure if we can reach it?” Nicole said, observationally as she positioned herself underneath a vine.

“I think I can fly us up to it? Hold on to me,” I said, as I focused my quanum.

It was difficult to channel it, there were too many things messing with my senses and because of the unstable quanum, our Dratmana were virtually useless here as well. After a brief moment however I was able to lift us up to the vine and we took hold of it. I gave the vine a strong tug and it began to swiftly lift us upwards.

“This is such an odd feeling, but absolutely exhilarating,” Nicole mused.

“I wonder what we’ll find at the top,” I said, as I watched the massive branches come into view.

It didn’t take much longer for us to reach the end of the vine which had somehow retracted itself inside of a branch. While we were still at the lower level of the tree, it was beautiful, and full of life. It seemed that many of the animals from the forest had made their way up here already.

“I guess they instinctively know when a storm is coming…” I thought aloud.

“What was that?” Nicole asked.

“Uhh, nothing, come on, we don’t have much time,” I said hurriedly pointing upwards.

“Uh huh, sure…” she said, her tone skeptical.

While there wasn’t much external light penetrating the thick leaves and branches of the tree, a number of the plants growing inside were glowing faintly providing enough light to venture through.

“This is quite the expedition we’re taking today,” Nicole said, taking a moment to observe how far we’d come.

The forest below was expansive, sure, but paled in comparison to the depth of what was inside this great tree.

“Yep, we just need to reach the center where a particular branch will take us up to the top,” I said, pushing some leaves out of my face.

“If you say so,” Nicole said.

As we reached the next level of the tree we were greeted with the sight of colourful glowing butterflies fluttering about gracefully. Oddly enough it went from a mild temperature to stuffy and humid as we ascended the levels of the tree. Finally, I could see a pathway that led to a winding branch that shot straight upwards.

“Ahh, there it is,” I exclaimed, as I moved towards it.

“You certainly like your forests,” Nicole mused.

“I find them relaxing, and you never know what you’re going to find,” I said with a chuckle.

“But you did know what you were going to find here…” she said with mock suspicion.

“Ahem…well, that’s not important, let's continue upwards, we’re almost there,” I said, coughing.

It took roughly thirty more minutes of climbing to reach the top, but we did it. I reached my hand down to give Nicole a hand getting over the last branch. As she pulled herself up the wind swelled and rustled her hair, carrying its sweet scent through the air—or perhaps that was just the smell of the flowers, who cares. Hundreds of meters in the air we stood overlooking the 4th World and it was breathtakingly majestic as the tree’s aura began to shimmer visibly.

“What’s going on?” Nicole asked, as the aura began forming a barrier around itself.

“The storm should be arriving soon, guess we made it just in time,” I said, absently as I remained captivated by the scenery below.

I felt as though I could see the entirety of the 4th World from here. Despite being thousands of meters from base it was still easy to make out the mountain it was built into from here. Just to the east of us I could see the wind swelling up more and an odd kind of mist began to form.

“Wait…Is this a quanum storm?! Aren’t these supposed to be super dangerous?!” Nicole exclaimed, some anxiety in her voice.

“Normally, yeah, but this tree functions as a natural barrier to it for some reason so we’ll be able to watch it undisturbed from the best view in the world,” I said, gripping her hand tightly.

“I see,” she said, calmly looking around once more.

Her face lit up with joy as she paid new attention to her surroundings. It wasn’t long before the storm began in earnest. The iridescent aurora shone down towards the ground from the sky and tendrils began to form and reach downwards. As if congealing from thin air, strange birds swarmed out of the sky and began dancing amongst the waves of the storm.

“What are those?” Nicole asked, as she observed the effect of their wings as they bent the storm to their will.

“I’m not sure…I’ve never seen them before now,” I said, amazed.

“Are you okay?” Nicole asked suddenly, staring at me with concern.

“Me? I’m fine, why?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, you’re crying for one…but your eyes…they’ve started changing colours…?” she asked, her concern growing.

“Again…? I feel fine though so we’ll worry about that later,” I said, motioning for her to sit down with me.

It was clear that she had many questions but she respectfully held them back. Just as Nicole sat down beside me on the branch the storm swelled, colliding with the barrier of the tree. Particles of colour exploded outwards as the two forces of quanum battled each other in an astounding show of power until the storm was forced to bend itself around the tree. Even the tendrils of the storm were forced to divert themselves around the tree.

“Incredible…” Nicole said, her eyes and hair reflecting the fantastical light show. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, looking deep into my eyes, her whole body seeming to share the iridescence of the sky.

“Y-you’re welcome,” I stuttered, caught off guard by not only the beautiful colours reflected on her but also how genuine and sincere her reaction was.

She moved closer, leaning into me as she rested her head on my shoulder.

“I suppose all that’s left is to watch the show,” I said, and Nicole’s reply was so straightforward it caught me off guard once more.

“I love you,” she said, her hand embracing mine tightly.

“I love you too,” I replied, squeezing her hand tightly as we looked out towards the storm.