Oliver wasn’t exactly sure where they were going. He knew they were hunting, and that he had a cat to keep him company when Aelin went to seek out their prey. He was incredible at it, as a matter of fact. He fell into the swaying shadows of the leaves and branches, gracefully moving with them as though swaying to a melody only he could hear, a melody which was as silent as his own movements as he glided through the forest. Rather than the juvenile sneaking that he was used to seeing from Emma and himself, the giggle-filled stumble as they walked through the shadowed house he remembered from the many times they held sleepovers. The times they had waited for Emma’s parents to finish their fight and go to bed before they would attempt to steal some candy, even when they knew Emma’s parents would inevitably find out about it the very next day.
No, this was entirely different. He was like an honoured guest in their halls as he moved with them, the shadows, dancing in tune with each and every one of them as he weaved through the intricate dance they swayed to. It was a waltz of a thousand dancers, yet with only one axis that they all spun around as he intertwined with each one before moving to the next. It took almost no time from when he left to when Oliver lost sight of him.
And so, Oliver sat, Occupied only with the simplest and yet hardest task of all, namely no task at all. He didn’t even have Garmark there to entertain him. He was sure Garmark was simply engrossed in what a cat would do after the nanosecond of an apocalypse they had. In fact, if he had learned anything from Oliver in the short time they had known each other, he was presumably experiencing grand cat-centred adventures wherever he may be. But even as he spent his time imagining the adventures of his cat, it was quite boring to be caught in a situation where he could do nothing but wait without his cat to play with.
Minutes passed with only the unending rustle of leaves to occupy his mind. He needed to do something to pass the time. Oliver looked around at the many piles of leaves. He grined and got to work.
“Someone has done a poor job at hiding your body” Aelin’s voice rang sarcastically after minutes of Oliver trying to cover his own body with leaves, a task not easily accomplished by even the most outstanding and experienced coverup artist would find difficult, and hence a task Oliver completely failed at.
“I buried me myself, as a matter of fact” Oliver said, pride in his voice as he lay under a thin cover of leaves “for the sake of curiosity, how did you manage to discover my buried body?” Oliver asked.
“I know you hid it because it was, like I said, done horribly, so it was safe to assume you did it. As for how I noticed? Well, we’re back to it being very badly done. Next time try to avoid the human shaped lump of leaves and the holes that let me see your bright white shirt, it's very easy to see” Aelin said, only slightly sarcastic as he explained in detail, after all, the ability to hide was important for a hunter, so he was willing to share his wisdom.
“Fair enough” Oliver nodded, leaves tumbling off his still buried head “Would you mind terribly if I asked you to pile more leaves on me?”
“Why? Why would you want me to burry you in leaves?” Aelin asked.
“I think it would be rather fun, and isn’t that reason enough on its own?”
“No”
“It would... help me see my mistakes?” Oliver asked.
“You can’t see from inside there and even if you could you have no reason to learn to cover up a body since you could just throw it off the branch”
“... it could be fun?”
Oliver waited for his friends answer with bated breath, he couldn’t exactly wait with any other kind of breath without inhaling the leaves that covered his mouth, but now it was both psychological and physical.
“Well, I suppose it would be nice to see less of your strange pale skin, if only slightly” Aelin said, and Oliver heard the leaves start to rustle and watched as shadows eclipsed his already sparse view, until they abruptly stopped “On the condition that you sit up and look at your legs to see how to properly hide a body afterwards”
“Fantastic!” Oliver cheered, and in the process let a leaf slip into his mouth and causing him to try and spit it out.
“What did you do?” Aelin asked expectantly, as though he already knew, yet still wanted to at the very least try to keep his last vestige of hope in Oliver’s intellect alive.
“I ate a leaf, and to be quite honest, it wasn’t even horrible, not ideal, but it had no liquid on account of being an autumn leaf, so at least it wasn’t bitter” Oliver said.
Aelin immediately pointed out, in an exceptionally unimpressed manner, that even if the leaf wasn’t as bad as it could have been, pointing out that it could very well have been poisonous, then even so he was still stupid enough to eat a leaf. Aelin worked in silence for only a minute before he said that he was done, Oliver, of course, did not sit up for that reason alone. And when Aelin demanded that he uphold his part of their agreement and inspect what a properly buried body looked like, Oliver argued that they might attract animals who assumed Aelin to be easy prey as he was alone. Aelin actually accepted Oliver’s reasoning and agreed that they could take a break and see if any predators came to eat him.
“So, Aelin, what is your goal in this incredible new world we live in?” Oliver asked cheerily after simply enjoying the thick leaf cover he lay under, it was almost a blanket, really, and with quite the comfortable texture. It was presumably due to all the different sorts of leaves adding interesting patterns of sensation to his skin.
“I will become more powerful, the greatest hunter there has ever been” Aelin said.
“Interesting, but I have to ask, to what ends will your hunts and power bring you?” Oliver asked.
“Further than Anyone else, I will be untouchable” Aelin said, a bitter clang to his voice, as though remembering something vile.
“Nothing... more? I don’t mean to disrespect your dream, but is there nothing you wish to do with your power? No grand plan of any kind at the end of the road? No chair in the home you built to sit in? Noone waiting for your return from your final hunt, so you can simply live in each other’s company? Nobody to pass your knowledge onto? Just... power for power’s sake?” Oliver questioned, not because he didn’t see the appeal that power had, the sheer amount of people you could help with the type of power he described was breath-taking, but not having a goal beyond simply becoming more powerful seemed... strange, to him at least.
“Yes, I just want power” Aelin snapped.
“Huh... well, good luck with that” Oliver said with shrug, adding the rustling of the leaves covering him to the omnipresent whisper of falling leaves which permeated the forest.
“I'm surprised you’re this accepting of my goal, I thought you would insist I take a goal as obnoxiously good as yours” Aelin said.
“Hey” Oliver said, setting him to a fit of coughing after opening his mouth too much before he continued softly “first of all, there is nothing wrong with your goal, power is fine on its own, so long as you avoid the slaughter of innocents, I even assume it can be quite fun. Just thinking of all the incredible feats of acrobatics you can accomplish with enough dexterity and strength is already fun” Oliver said, reassuringly, before he continued, speaking in the tone of someone who just discovered how much someone else cares for them “and secondly, I haven’t even explained my goal yet, and you already assume it to be grandiose? I suppose all the books I read were right, people actually do become close friends far faster in dangerous situations than anywhere else, I mean, how else would you know me so well?”
“I don’t, I just know that Aianathon wouldn’t give me something convenient to do” Aelin grumbled.
“I am unsure what you mean by that, you are aware that we are talking about my dream, correct?”
“Yes, I am, but Aianathon happens to think that I deserve the worst luck he can concoct so I happened to cross the most altruistic idiot I have ever met in the worst possible situation to cross such a person, namely when I needed help. And now my honour as a hunter who prowls beneath the eye of Aianathon demands that as you saved me with pure intent and no expectation for a reward, I must grant you the greatest reward of all, namely my help in achieving your dream” Aelin explained, and even though Oliver could not see through to see his expression, he could only imagine that he looked as though he was just presented an animal Garmark had hunted. Annoyed, because he knew that the intentions were good, only that the gift was not.
“... my dream was to be covered in leaves, congratulations, your debt is paid” Oliver intoned solemnly, his voice austere and dignified as he broke his covering to blindly fumble for Aelin's shoulder to hold as he released him from his oath. He ended up finding his knee but settled for it when he realised that he would reach nothing further than that.
“No, it isn’t, you already admitted to having an unrealistically grandiose dream, and I will settle for nothing less”
“Alright” Oliver formed his hand into a thumbs-up “I will tell you my dream as soon as you are willing to look me in the eye and say that you would help me even if you didn’t have this stupid life debt, which I once again insist should not exist between friends” Oliver said as he stuck his hand forwards as if to shake on a deal.
He heard only a slight growl before the silence of the forest submerged him, and he was alone once more. Oliver dropped let his hand drop to once more be submerged within the leaves surrounding him. He Spoused that it was fair for Aelin to storm off, he did, after all, just disregard something which was clearly personally and culturally important to Aelin. On one hand he knew he should have tried to be more understanding of his traditions and values, but on the other hand it was also something so against his idea of a friendship for one friend to be indebted to the other. But Aelin was not the only one with personal beliefs, so how was it fair to expect Oliver to disregard his belief in what friendships were for Aelin's beliefs in life debts?
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Well even if that was the case, he probably should have avoided insulting his culture and personal beliefs directly by calling it stupid and should have simply made it clear that he disagreed with him.
“Well, mistakes were made, but it will probably resolve itself soon enough” Oliver muttered to himself, returning to becoming one with the leaves.
And so Oliver lay, waiting for Aelin to calm down and return so they could continue their hunt. But, as humorous as being covered in leaves was, it wasn’t the only reason for him to insist Aelin help him accomplish such a feat, no he also needed something... different. While he had, over the last couple of days, discovered that meditation was quite a pleasant way to spend his time, it did not exactly help him in the way he had assumed initially. So while he did not think abandoning the idea entirely was wise, as he had only been attempting the method for a short time, he still reached the conclusion that he could not focus wholly on one idea he could not confirm would work. And so, he buried himself in leaves in the faint hope that mana was intrinsically connected to life and nature. He strained his mind as he persistently tried to reach outwards with nothing but the power of his own mind as he attempted to force his senses to touch the ethereal.
But it was an insurmountable task to grasp for something he had only felt the barest flicker of once before in his life, and even then, it was moments before he lost consciousness, and it had been days since the event itself. It felt like grasping at a lights shadow, like searching for a place you could only discover if you knew where to go, except no one knew where to go, for it was new to all.
Oliver sighed with disappointment after fruitlessly trying to connect to the ‘life-force’ in trees beneath him or to nature in the leaves surrounding him. Oliver smiled to himself and took a moment to simply enjoy the sensation of the cool leaves around him in the warm forest. Perhaps connecting to nature wasn’t the solution, or perhaps it was simply not the solution meant for him. But even so, it had been relaxing and had led to the first time he managed to convince Aelin to join an activity not concerning survival, and that had a certain value of its own.
“Well, it was a slightly superfluous experiment from the very beginning, mana must be something internal if I can have a limited amount of it, as opposed to something external in which case I would only be able to use a limited amount” Oliver said from beneath his cover, deciding that, for now, meditation truly was the best option he could reliably practice.
The wind blew, bringing with it the scraping and rustle of leaves as the leaves floating on the wind skipped and scraped over the dunes and bundles of the leaves which had already fallen. Like the sands of a desert, dead, yet evermoving as the wind played with them, letting them run over the dunes of their own kind. Granting them life for a moment as they were dragged into the dance of the ever falling leaves of this forest once more, until they yet again met their end at a branch ever deeper.
But, inexplicably, Oliver thought he could hear something... different, on the winds this time, a sound carried too him from somewhere far away, high in pitch and... distressed? Oliver strained his ears as he waited for the wind to blow once more, and when it did, he heard... yowling?
Oliver shot up from his cover, leaves exploding into the air around him like a halo, some still intwined with his golden locks as his head snapped to look in the direction the wind blew from.
“Garmark?” He asked, worry clear in his voice as he looked intensely towards the sound of his new cat calling for aid.
Moments later he heard it once more, he shot from the bark and sprinted down the branch he stood upon, soon jumping from it as he heard his cat yowl again, continuing down narrow branches only as wide as he was, still sprinting for all he could, the whole time, calling out for his cat.
“GARMARK! Aelin! Garmark needs help, and I'm actually worse at surviving in the wilderness than he is! So I will also be needing help soon! So, just, follow my voice even though I will be calling for Garmark!” Oliver called out behind him, nearly stumbling into the depths between the branches when he did so, but nearly didn’t mean completely, so he decided to keep switching between calling behind him and in front of him, almost falling multiple times afterwards, yet continuing to do so.
He finally came to a stop at the edge of what could only be called a rift. It was strange, very strange, that in front of him was only a single branch, wide as a highway, yet with no branches connecting it to any others for at least five hundred meters to his right, and seemingly not at all to his left. The closest point was, in fact, where he stood in the y fork of his branch. From there the two arms of the y went almost directly upwards, only leaning slightly towards the bough. It was the closest point to the bough across from him, with only a seven-meter gap between the two points and even so he was two meters above the bough.
But as interesting as Oliver found it that there was an isolated bough in the middle of the branches, the far greater part of his brain was worried for his cat. For in the distance to his left, he could see a herd of the deer like creatures which dwelled in the branches making their way along the bough, a horde numbering in the thousands all charging down the lone bough. And on the bough ran a single orange cat, yowling and hissing at the approaching wave of hooves and horns with its back arched and hackles raised.
“Madman! What are you doing? We need to retreat to safer hunting grounds” Aelin’s voice suddenly rang out from somewhere to Oliver’s left.
“But we need to save Garmark” Oliver said, his voice calm and filled with a determination born from knowing that you can save someone so long as you try.
“Your cat is dead; it wasn’t worthy of life if it managed to isolate itself like this even if we could save it. Now we need to run, we don’t know how powerful animals inside this forest can become, and if anything is chasing or planning on ambushing that herd then we need to be as far away as we can be” Aelin yelled, already having been forced to do so by the approaching hoard which would trample Garmark in two, maybe three minutes.
“My cat is dead only when I say so, now I will be doing something you will strongly disagree with, so if you don’t wish to see my master... idea, then I recommend looking away, because it will happen” Oliver said, smiling at Aelin as he took off his scarf and tied it around one of the branches he stood between.
“No, You Idiot! don’t risk your life for a pet!” Aelin roared as he ran towards Oliver, but it was too late as Oliver had already leapt from his branch onto the bough after securing his scarf.
Oliver landed with a sharp hiss of pain, knowing that he could not roll on the steep side of the boughs edge, he landed on his hands and knees, before quickly scrambling up the side of the bough to reach Garmark. Behind him, Aelin yelled obscenities at him from the place Oliver stood in just moments before, demanding he stop acting like a suicidal idiot and let the ‘spirits damned’ cat die.
But Oliver did not hear him nor hesitate as he ran for where his cat ran, almost passing him by before he managed to pick it up. He became momentarily stunned as he looked at the oncoming herd, a mere two minutes away. Seeing them rampaging towards him was as good as seeing death approaching him, yet even so he was only dazed for a moment before the fire of hope burned away the net trying to ensnare and trap his mind. He smiled brightly as he reassured himself that everything would be fine so long as he kept his hope burning brightly, then he ran back towards the edge just before his hanging scarf even as Garmark scratched at him to be let down to continue running.
But as he came to a halt, he saw that he had misjudged the distance, it was not seven meters as he had thought, but rather nine, a distance far too great for him to cross when even seven was only possible with luck.
Oliver shook his head to clear his mind. There would be some way out, there had to be, he just needed to get Garmark to safety with the original plan and then come up with some manner for him to survive as well. He quickly pried Garmark off himself, an easy task considering that Garmark himself wanted nothing more than to escape and started to swing him back and forth.
“Aelin, I am going to need you to pull Garmark up with the scarf because I am not completely sure for how long Garmark will hold on” Oliver called loudly to Aelin, smiling up at him reassuringly.
“What exactly is your plan for getting yourself up here? Can you truly jump this far, with what, eleven strength?” Aelin asked as he narrowed his eyes at Oliver.
“I actually have not the slightest clue for getting myself away, but no need to worry, I'm quite sure I'll figure out something, if nothing else I can probably count on finding magic at my moment of greatest need, right? Until then I think I will try running for the next exit off this branch” Oliver said cheerfully before he released Garmark at the peak of his swing, launching the cat over the empty void between the branches as it yowled violently. Eventually it finally came into contact with Oliver’s long red scarf, latching on with its claws harshly as it hissed angrily, and Aelin pulled it up.
“Well, it has been fun, Aelin, best adventure I've ever had, now could you please take care of Garmark until I return? That would be much appreciated, well” Oliver glanced at the herd, now only thirty seconds away “I think I need to get running”
But just as Oliver prepared to run, Aelin called out “Wait!” he quickly pulled Garmark off the scarf as he untied it faster than Oliver could ever hope to, then he climbed up one of the slightly curved branches which made up the y. The branch bent as he came closer and closer to the bough, until finally he was at the point where the branch would snap under their weight if he climbed any further. He let the scarf fall until it hung, just three meters away and slightly higher than Oliver could reach standing.
“Can you reach this, you suicidal maniac?” Aelin growled from where he was wrapped around the branch with three of his limbs, the last one being his right arm which held the scarf.
Oliver glanced to the wave of deer, now so close that he could hear individual hoof falls.
“I can certainly try” Oliver grinned.
Oliver didn’t have time to take a running start, he simply had to leap as far as he could from the very spot he stood in, even if the chances of him reaching the scarf were slim without a run. But he had no choice. He simply needed to hope and take a leap of faith. He bent his knees and jumped.
The mere second the leap occupied seemed to stretch into infinity for Oliver as he soared through the air. He had once been told that when reaching for something which you knew to be the only thing capable of saving you, the world would disappear, and you would be left alone with nothing but a memory of anything other than your lifeline.
In that moment, nothing was further from the truth. Oliver saw the dance of the leaves all around the scarf which would save him, interspersed with streaks of dark mahogany, he saw the sunlight shining through the storm of endless leaves and felt the wind from behind him as the first members of the herd rushed past. He smelled the scent of the forest more clearly than he ever had before, and, just barely, through the thunder of the hooves he could her the soft rustle of the everfalling leaves. The nature all around him was an orchestra of unimaginable beauty to anyone who had not seen it all at come together the same time, namely anyone who had not seen it while dancing on the edge of death’s scythe.
His hand just barely reached the scarf, and he grasped it desperately. He clutched it with all the frantic power he had within him and reached to secure his hold with his other hand.
But when he looked up, he could see not relief in Aelin’s eyes, but panic, and then, as his mind cleared from the fanatical euphoria of survival, he too heard the groan of the branch holding them, ready as it was to snap.
Aelin’s eyes hardened with a grim determination that quenched the fear flicker of fear in his eyes, leaving only a pale silver left, like the colour of steel in the moonlight, determined and unforgiving.
“Madman, I will be giving you the grand experience of being part of one of your plans, congratulations” then he heaved on the scarf, letting go of the branch with his left arm to pull his end of the scarf up over the branch, then falling down the opposite side of Oliver. For a single moment, there was no weight on the branch, and it took said moment to snap back to its old position, and the scarf swept down along its side, through small sticks and tiny twigs as Aelin and Oliver were dragged behind it, dangling on either side until it finally came to rest in the y between the two branches, and Aelin and Oliver swung into each other harshly a couple of times before coming to an uneasy halt.
“Aelin... that was an amazing idea!” Oliver grinned widely as he hung inches from Aelin's growling face.
“That was not the lesson I hoped to teach”