The tree in question looked like a candy-cane had had a baby with a willow. Dark Emerald green twisted around Amethyst from the base of its trunk, becoming lighter the further away from it’s center you got. To the point where the long dangling tips of its branches were a soft downy white. The use of the word "downy" was very deliberate, as the purple leaves of the tree looked more like the down that you would find on a baby bird than leaves on a tree.

The Milkfruit hanging all along its upper branches made the entire thing look like some sort of absurd fantasy-dragon themed Christmas tree.

The branches holding Ihaka began to lower as she approached. The sudden shift upset him at first, but when he saw that he was being delivered into Kyra's arms he happily held out the Milkfruit to her as though proffering a great discovery.

Kyra laughed with relief as she reached for him. “I need to teach you not to take food from strangers." She chided him gently as she touched the soft branches of the tree.

"Thank you," she said before the absurdity of the entire situation hit her, and she burst into laughter. "Not that you likely know any English, even if I did assume that you could hear and make sense of the sound of my voice."

She was about to turn and leave when she felt a light tapping on her shoulder. She then looked back to find that it was one of the white tips of the tree's branches. At a loss and not knowing what else it could possibly want, Kyra lifted her hand to shake the branch. The Milktree pulled out of her hold, then gave her forehead an exasperated little flick. Kyra wasn't certain why she was so certain that it was exasperated, but she could have also sworn that the other surrounding flora were laughing from the rhythmical susurration that travelled through their leaves.

"Ow. I'm Sorry, I don't know what I can do for you."

And then, something amazing and unbelievable that had never been described to her by her teachers began to take place before her eyes. The entire tree began to move as the branches lifted to form a giant picture. At the centre, the shape of a wolf began to take place. Then another, and another, and another.

The blood drained from Kyra's face, "There are more of them?" Her voice trembled, "A pack!?"

A single branch stabbed out in her direction, and Kyra had the impression of someone playing charades pointing at the person who had guessed a word right.

Kyra glanced back towards the road, "I need to quickly get my things."

But just as Kyra was saying that the entire Milktree bent itself over, and with far more dexterity then Kyra would have credited it with, it picked up both her pack and the body of the Terra-Wolf that she had killed. Dumping them down in front of her. Kyra blinked at them for a second before looking back up at the tree, "Um, thank you. But I don't think that I'll be able to carry the wolf with me. I'm kind of at my limit with just Ihaka and my pack." Hooking the straps of Ihaka's carrier into place, she then bent down to grab her pack, "I know it's rude to take a favour and run, but to be frank, if there are more of those things around I've got to get us out of here. Like, a few hours ago."

Kyra felt another light flick on her forehead as the tree picked both her pack and the Terra-Wolf back up. This time securing them in place deep within its branches.

Kyra wasn't really sure what to make of that, but before she could think up a protest, the branches of the tree reached down yet again. This time to actually pick up Kyra herself. The Milktree even picked up Kyra's knife that she had dropped, who knew when. Kyra and Ihaka were passed securely between the many branches until they were a good two thirds up its total height.

"Ooh, my Goddess." Kyra hushed as she was finally set down with her back securely within a dip between one of its thicker branches and its trunk. "Haa haha. Wow." Kyra hadn't been able to see the full height of the Milktree from the ground, but right now, she could see that she was a good two stories above the ground. "Alright, I hear you. Waiting here until they have passed us is probably also a good option." Flick. "Hey! Wait, what are you doing?"

Kyra had been diverted from her protest as the whole tree had started shaking and shifting. Peeking down Kyra was met with a roiling sight. One that she did not believe that she would be able to forget, not for the rest of her days. It was like looking down into an incredibly fast moving snake pit. Or a school of Eales. The ground began to make an incredible grinding and shifting sound. The Milktree was uprooting itself.

"Holy... Carps!" Kyra exclaimed, "How are you not hurting yourself!?" Flick. "Ow! Stop that."

It took the tree a good ten minutes for it to get itself totally free, and then it started moving at an incredibly fast pace in the direction of the human base.

Kyra wasn't sure what was more incredulous. The fact that none of the seemingly hundreds of roots in the writhing sea beneath her ever seemed to get tangled on each other, or that the tree wasn't leaving any kind of devastation behind itself on the smaller flora it ploughed over. If it wasn't for the bare patch of upturned earth that she could still barely make out disappearing rapidly into the distance, one might have sworn that the Milktree had never passed through the area.

Realising that she still held her knife dangerously in her hand, she wiped it off on the cuff of her pant leg for what good that did, then sheathed it behind herself. Figuring that there was nothing she could do about her current situation even if she had wanted to, she settled more firmly into her perch and prepared to wait.

Seemingly sensing her unwinding nerves, the tree lifted her pack up until it was hanging on one of the thinner branches that was coming out of the main one near her hip. Kyra thanked the tree and opened it up. Thinking to get one of the sandwiches that she had packed for herself. But before she could even finish taking it out of its paper bag, it was torn out of her grip. The branches of the Milktree brushed over the sandwich in a horrified manner, before it threw the whole package far away into the distance. "Hey, I need to eat!" Protested Kyra, as she secretly admired how far the package had gone. Another flick landed on Kyra's forehead before the branches - that Kyra was more and more wanting to call feelers - started rummaging through her pack. It pulled out every food item that she had brought, even going as far as to forcefully crack open one of her cans of baked-beans to see what was inside. It was seemingly unimpressed with the lot of them, as soon everything was flying off into different directions.

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Then it slowly brought out one of the Milkfruits that she had. Thinking that it couldn't possibly have a problem with that as it had fed Ihaka one of its own fruits, Kyra was quickly proven wrong as it very deliberately held the fruit up to her face as if it wanted there to be no mistaking what it was talking about. Kyra was too late to protect her forehead as another, particularly strong flick hit her forehead.

"Ok, we seriously need to find a better way for you and I to communicate." She said as the fruits she had packed went the way of her other foodstuffs. "But what was wrong with those?"

The tree very pointedly threw one of its own fruit into her pack. "You have a problem with Ihaka eating fruit from other trees?" Kyra grabbed at the feelers -they were definitely feelers - that went for her forehead, "OK! Is it because they weren't fresh?" A branch stabbed out in her direction. Yes.

"But fruits from this realm have an incredible shelf life. It takes a year for them to even begin to go off." The feeler that she was still holding wiggled towards her forehead. "Stop. Stop! Ok, I'll take your word that they're not as good if they aren't fresh." The feeler retreated, and Kyra breathed out with relief. "Um, may I have one of your fruits then? I am getting rather hangry." She looked down at Ihaka who was looking curiously back at her. His face was a mess from having had the fun of single handedly cracking open and eating a Milkfruit earlier. Kyra sighed and went digging for something to wipe him off with, almost forgetting her request before the tree swayed to the side. When it righted itself, it presented Kyra with a long orange stick. "I don't know what that is." She said, and the tree proffered it in the direction of her mouth. "Um, thank you. But I'm not sure that I can eat it. Human bodies didn't evolve in this realm, so we have to be incredibly careful before we decide to ingest anything."

It picked up the fruit from inside her pack before holding them both out to Kyra.

"If you're saying that I can eat that if I can eat a Milkfruit, then I'm pretty sure that that is not how it works."

The tree exasperatedly shoved the stick in her direction before throwing the fruit back in her pack. Kyra glared at the stick distrustingly for a few more seconds before taking it.

"Alright, but if I die because of eating this then I'm holding you responsible."

The feelers surrounding her gave an almost shrug like roll, as Kyra quickly finished wiping Ihaka off before biting into it. The closest Kyra could come to describing it was celery textured bamboo. Only instead of being completely hollow, it was filled with an incredibly sweet tasting thick creme that reminded her of ambrosia back home. Mixed with the incredibly refreshing and crisp outside, it made for an interesting meal.

Water dripped out of the cut that Kyra's teeth had made in the top, and she quickly sucked it up. "Oh, my Goddess. This is so Good! Panda's would have a field day." She gushed, then belatedly remembered to thank the tree.

The soft susurration that she associated with laughter travelled through the Milktree.

"Sure, go ahead and laugh. See if I care." She mumbled, causing the susurration to intensify.

Regretfully, Kyra found herself becoming full after only a few bites as an incredible warmth filled her belly. She carefully put the stalk into her pack facing straight up to stop it from losing all its liquid, and then stopped Ihaka as he reached for it. "From how rich that was baby, you're likely way too young."

The Milktree stabbed out at her as it did when it wanted to indicate that she had gotten something right. "Why don't we play a game with the tree Ihaka? What do you think? You reckon we can teach it some Earth symbols, so that it can talk to me without resorting to poking or flicking my forehead??"

"Ya!" He exclaimed.

"Ya!" She replied, "I think so too."

And so it went as they sped along. Kyra, along with Ihaka's enthusiastic if mostly unhelpful help, began to curl and stretch the trees feelers into the different basic shapes that were used universally in most parts of the world. Explaining each as she went along.

She started with a circle for yes, an X for no, and a triangle to indicate an ambiguous answer. She then went on to demonstrate the question and exclamation marks. She even explained the basic math symbols of plus, minus, times, divide, equals, and percent as she figured that they had a myriad of uses that didn't necessarily have anything to do with math. She finished explaining numbers, by which point she was embarrassed at how surprised she was that the tree had no problem understanding, and went on to demonstrate the bigger than, smaller than, sideways V symbols. She figured that they could also be used to indicate the importance of something. She was beginning to wonder whether or not it would be helpful just to straight up teach it the alphabet when the tree suddenly slowed.

Surprised, she looked around to realise that she could see the roofs of the human base in the distance. So either Kyra had completely misjudged how far she had come, or the tree had done what should have been the distance of somewhere around a three hour hike for fit humans, in what she was sure was under thirty minutes. Without breaking a figurative sweat.

The tree came to a complete halt some hundred meters or so into the tree line from the base. There was a bare patch of earth there that looked remarkably similar to what the Milktree had left behind, and Kyra wondered what plant life had recently relocated.

Feeling a bit melancholy as the tree lowered Kyra, Ihaka and their things down to the ground, she said, "Thank you so much for the lift. I'm not sure when I'll see you again, I doubt I'll be heading back towards the portal very often."

But again she was surprised as the tree began to move, this time digging its roots deep into the ground. It was then that Kyra realised that the bare patch of earth had likely been there because the local flora had recently shifted to give the Milktree space.

As the Milktree slowly finished wriggling around to settle comfortably where it was, Kyra asked the obvious question, "You're staying here?"

Only to be rewarded when the tree created a garland out of its feelers before her, signalling a big yes.

"Can I come to you for Ihaka's fruit?" This got her a teasing flick to her forehead. Her protest was cut short as a garland was lowered over her head, and she and Ihaka were both enveloped in what she could only feel was a hug.

She laughed as it finally turned her around to nudge her in the direction of the base.

"Ok, I'm going, I'm going!" She protested as she slung her pack over her shoulders and frowned down at the body of the Terra-Wolf. There was no way that she was going to be able to pick it up. Not to mention, walking into the base with the thing would signal to every human there that she could take care of herself. Something she wasn't certain that she wouldn't rather have the opportunity to shock any potential... holes of derrieres with. In the end, she decided that it was probably better to not come off as easy prey in the first place. But thinking of going under the radar, that reminded her of something else. She turned back to the Milktree and asked, "Would you rather I not say how much you can understand to the rest of the base?"

When presented with a small triangle she clarified, "Don't care either way?" and got a circle back.

"Hmm. Well, I doubt anyone would listen if I did try to tell them. Ok, I’ll see you soon yeah?”

Kyra turned towards the base. Picking up the two hind paws of the Terra-Wolf, she was again confronted with the bizarre gravity of the Spirit Realm. The body feeling somehow both heavier than she had expected, and yet somehow easier to move at the same time.

As she walked, the grasses and bushes bent out of her way, outlining a path that she eventually realised took her around the more fragile plants. Thus preventing her from flattening them with the body of the Terra-Wolf that she was dragging behind herself.