Ves broke the surface with a gasp, hands clawing at the air as she struggled to stay afloat. She’d learned to swim almost before she could walk, but now she had nine tails worth of fur soaked and dragging in the current. She dug at the water, kicking frantically against the current even as it dragged at her tails like a massive sea anchor. All around her, she glimpsed flashes of green and sunlight as she fought to stay above the water.

After the first few seconds, she gathered herself enough to swim across the current. She was clearly in a river, and even if she could barely see as the current dragged her, the flow had to be going along banks. She just had to keep the current coming from her left, and she’d hit land eventually. Or it would hit her.

She grunted as a root slammed into her stomach, reflex alone driving her claws into the bark as she fought for purchase. Scrabbling up the hard, smooth bark, she dragged herself up the heavy, sloping roots to finally collapse with a relieved pant. She could still feel her soggy tails dragging in the water beneath her, but she was too tired to lift how many pounds of water and fur up with her.

The Moon God was a dick.

Slowly catching her breath and her wits, she took stock of her surroundings. Though not immediately obvious when she’d dragged herself out of the water, the air was stiflingly humid, the trees clustered tightly along the edge of the river in a way that she’d never seen back in Uthed. Everywhere were the sounds of life thronging and swarming, birdsong and the buzzing of insects and other sounds she couldn’t hope to place.

She must be in Aureana.

The thought briefly made her reconsider her opinion of the Moon God. It had been the Prince’s plan to flee to Aureana once the shades had begun attacking the kingdom. She hadn’t heard all the details, but from the stories of the other academy girls and those soldiers they’d picked up, the shades were coming from castle Uthed itself, flooding out across the country. Aureana had always been a friendly neighbor, if not really an ‘ally,’ and notoriously impossible to attack. It made sense as a place of sanctuary.

Didn’t mean the Moon God had to dump her in the river though. Then again, being stuffed in a metal casket and thrown into the solid ground probably wouldn't have been any better. Probably worse. Probably much worse.

She steadied herself on the tree she’d clung to, grunting as she finally hauled her tails out of the water, setting them across her lap with a wet splat and a grimace. There was no way she could travel any distance carrying so much extra weight, and she didn’t envy the thought of letting her tails drag through the muck behind her. With a resigned sigh, she started to wring the water out of them and tried to think about what she knew of Aureana.

Most stories tended to focus on the horrors of the jungle, and the wonders of the Sunlit City. The horrors mostly seemed to consist of an endless variety of increasingly awful insects and other bugs. Glittering skull-borers, crimson-shelled eyesnatchers, Rothschild’s linguaphages. There were stories of lost explorers eventually becoming nothing but a shambling husk of creeping crawling things, thousands of insects carrying out a living mockery of their victim. She fought down a shiver as a sapphire blue thing with far too many legs landed on her fur, quickly flicking it away.

The Sunlit City was the only reason anyone ever bothered coming to Aureana in the first place, and it was where the Prince and his retinue would surely be heading. An island city in the middle of a lake, she remembered it was supposed to be fed by a hundred tributaries. She glanced at the river, and sighed. Chances were that following it would lead her in the right direction, she hoped.

Content that her tails were as dry as they were going to get, she gave them one last shake and tried to chart a path. The bank of the river was an endless procession of tangling roots and low-hanging branches, the forest further within seeming to only grow thicker. The river itself was a possibility, but as it was she’d have no choice but to swim, and with her tails that was a less than appetizing prospect. Heaving a sigh, she started to pick her way down the roots that projected into the river.

----------------------------------------

An hour later and she could still see where she started.

“Damn trees,” she groused, groping for the next branch in her path. Even with her claws, the trees delighted in being smooth and hard-barked, rejecting any but a dedicated stab from her fingers. Even when she pierced the bark, she quickly found her fingers covered with pale, milky, sticky sap. Her robe was a mess now as she kept cleaning her claws of the goop just so that she could keep using them to cut and clamber. Annoyingly, the sap seemed to delight in attracting insects that became stuck, sometimes to the degree that even after she swatted them off, their legs and other pieces remained glued to her. It was a nightmare.

“Excuse me, do you need help?”

Swung her head upwards to where the voice had come from, finding a snake even larger than her peering down from the branches. “Aaaa!” She immediately lost her footing and her once more sap-choked claws skittered off the tree bark as she spilled over backwards. Quick as lightning, the snake lunged out and grabbed her in its jaws, teeth lightly pricking through her robe. Before she could react, she was yanked into the tree and deposited on a branch.

“Blegh! Oh blugh! Glahg!” The snake waved its head around, flopping it’s tongue about as it worked it’s jaw. “Oh you’re covered in whiteweep! Oh it tastes awful! Glagh!”

“I’m… sorry?” Ves tried her best to brace herself on the branches, one hand on the spear-turned-belt wrapped around her waist. Even though her heart was hammering in her chest, it was distinctly difficult to be threatened by the snake even now rubbing its face on the nearest tree, clearly trying to wipe its mouth out. Belatedly, she noticed the massive gold serpent was actually clad in what looked like a cape of feathers all down its back. As she watched, the snake bent around and nosed into the feathers, fishing out a waterskin and coiling around it to drink from it. It quickly spat out the water.

“Oh, that’s much better, so much better. Eugh,” it tucked the skin back into its cape, and turned to her with its wide, unblinking eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Fine… I think?” Belatedly, she remembered that the Aurenians were snake-people. Somehow she’d imagined them as being scaly people, not actual snakes. “Are, uh, you okay?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me!” The snake laughed nervously, the lilt of its voice distinctly feminine now that Ves was able to process it. “Are you okay? How did you get so deep in the jungle?”

“I, uh, fell in the river,” Ves said. It was technically true.

“Oh, goodness! Oh, it’s a miracle you weren’t eaten!” The snake made a lunge for her, and she scrambled back, the snake immediately recoiling as well. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry! I’m a hugger, haha. I heard humans hugged, too, so I thought… I’m sorry, I’ve only ever read books!”

Ves carefully tried to settled back down on her branch, eventually forcing a smile. “It’s alright,” she lied. “These things happen.”

“Oh, I know, I know. When I first met Orchid, I-- Oh I’m sorry I’m rambling.” The snake shook herself almost like a dog. “I’m Marigold. You must be terribly lost. Were you with the humans coming to the city?”

“Yes!” Ves nodded eagerly, her mood starting to lift. “I, uh, got separated.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” Again Marigold tried to hug, but this time she arrested the motion so quickly she almost stopped before Ves could react. Almost. “Sorry! Sorry, it’s a habit. Here, we’re… awfully far… Oh! Oh, Orchid has a boat! She goes to the city all the time! I bet she hasn’t even made her trip today yet!” The snake bobbed her head happily, turning away towards the jungle. “Come on!” She started to slither off eagerly.

“Wait!” Ves tried to stand up, the branches slipping unevenly beneath her feet. Before she could tumble, however, Marigold’s coils latched around her, yanking her back towards the trunk with a yelp.

“Ah! Sorry! Sorry!” Marigold released her immediately. “I forgot, I’m sorry!” She looked Ves up and down, and let off an aaahhhh. “You have legs. I forgot. Uh…” Marigold glanced around, then gently bent the middle of her body towards Ves. “Here, go ahead and climb on.”

“Thanks,” Ves muttered, unsure of how much more her nerves could take. She gingerly climbed atop Marigold, earning the occasional hiss of alarm and nudge of direction as she avoiding the apparent piles of patches, pockets, and satchels packed among the feathers. “Why in the world do you need so many pockets?”

“Oh! I’m a naturalist!” Marigold said, finally beginning to slither along once Ves was secure. “Natural philosopher in some circles. I study the forest, collecting and cataloging the wonderful variety of insects and animals that call our jungle home!”

“Sounds… lovely,” Ves said, suddenly imagining the pockets beneath her bursting open with crawling, biting horrors.

“Oh it is!” Marigold gushed, nimbly weaving her way over the branches as easily as Ves might walk along the floor. “You can’t even imagine the wonderful variety of life that surrounds us! I think I’ve gone out every day of my life and found something new. The Royal Society of Entomology actually named one after me! Marigold’s Nightwatcher! They predominantly dwell in the southern jungle, where temperatures are more temperate, but they do share a range with the similar Reticulated Nightwatcher. You can actually distinguish them by their nesting behavior.”

“Oh, really?” Ves asked on reflex, belatedly realizing she did not want to learn more about the many bugs of the jungle.

“Oh, yes!” Marigold bubbled. “You see, for years the common assumption among entomologists was that the Reticulated Nightwatchers nested above or below the eyes of their hosts at random. However, when I compared observations, I noticed there was a statistical trend to under-eye nesting the further south one went, however both sides of the Xictal river are considered the same biome so it was never really considered a barrier for speciation.” Marigold paused for breath. “Anyway, my initial hypothesis was that there was some sort of environmental factor at work, such as ambient temperatures. So I captured specimens and allow them to nest on my face at different altitudes of the local Xictal mountains to better simu--”

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“You what?” Ves burst out, imagining crawling insects boring into her face.

“Oh? Oh! Oh, haha, Nightwatchers are harmless!” Marigold said. “They settle around the eyes of their host because they actually prey on the pale-shelled eyesnatcher, catching them as they are lured towards the host’s eyes.”

“...lovely.” Ves was pretty sure she hated this place.

“Isn’t it? Anyway, my tests revealed that the specimens I caught always persistently nested above the eyes no matter the climate. That was my first indication that there was more going on. I went back and acquired some under-eye nesting specimens, and I found the same result, climate had no impact on nesting. Once I’d determined that, a thorough examination of the specimens revealed slight differences in thorax morphology that suggested speciation. Subsequent studies during the waning breeding season confirmed my suspicions, and my paper was subsequently published by the Society itself!”

“I’m… very happy for you,” Ves said, hoping she had simply found the strangest snake in the jungle.

“Aaaa! Thank you!” Marigold gave a wiggle down her entire length. “I know I should be proud of the accomplishment in my own right, but it’s so much better to hear it from a friend! I mean, Orchid says she’s proud of me too, but I know she’s just humoring me.”

“I couldn’t imagine why,” Ves said, squirming as she thought she felt one of the pouches under her squirm.

“Oh, it’s just her way of being a good friend, and I appreciate it! It’s so nice that she lets me ramble when I get on a roll. So many folks, their eyes just start to glaze over--”

Ves briefly wondered how she could tell.

“– and I even had one nod off on me on the spot!” She sighed. “I wish they’d just told me they were bored. I’d have happily talked about something different. I always find taxonomy to be a fabulous--”

Ves mentally drowned Marigold out as they made their way through the forest. It was amazing how quickly the snake could move through the tangle of trees, and immediately obvious why nobody ever bothered to attack the jungle. Even if one were to cut down all the trees in their path, the ground below was more roots than soil, and there was no hope at all of any organized military force moving through it. And that was to say nothing of all the insects that would be stirred up in the process. Aureana might just be the safe haven the Prince had hoped it would be.

“Am I boring you?” Marigold asked in a tone that could have made a puppy cry.

“Oh, uh, no, I mean…” Ves found herself confronted by the impossibility of a snake face looking heartbroken. “I was just thinking about the other humans.”

“Oh!” Marigold dipped her head, switching immediately to shame. “I’m so sorry, you must be worried sick about your friends. Don’t worry though! The queen keeps the Tezcht river regularly patrolled and cleared! As long as they sail straight down it, they should be fine.” Marigold froze. “But you couldn’t have possibly gotten washed down from the Tezcht! Oh no, if they navigated down the wrong tributary, they could actually be in danger!” She started to swing around, and there was a rattling sound as the tip of her tail began to shake about. “Oh, oh we have to get to Orchid right away! If they’re lost and the Queen doesn’t know-- oh, no! It’s scaleworm season! What if they try to cut through the forest!?”

Ves could only yelp and hang on for dear life as Marigold shot off into the forest like an arrow. She found herself shaken from side to side as she discovered that snakes could in fact jump, the muscular body beneath her twisting, coiling, bunching and springing as it hurled itself from branch to branch. Suddenly, the sunlight hit her full on and she lost her grip, tumbling into a soft, loamy clearing as Marigold kept going.

“Orchid! Orchid! Are you here?!”

Ves gradually righted herself, finding Marigold knocking at the door of a modest hut. The walls were made of woven branches, studded with brilliant white orchids that practically glowed in the direct sunlight. After a moment of frantic knocking, the door opened and a second serpent, a brilliant white banded with an irridescent violet, slid out. “Marigold, what in the Queen’s--”

“I found a lost human!” Marigold pointed at Ves. “And there might be others! Lots of others! We need to get the Queensguard immed--” Marigold was silenced with a tailtip to the nose.

“Marigold, dearest,” Orchid said, staring at Ves with an expression that chilled the air. “You’re in a state. Please put on some tea, and I’ll get the full details from our guest.”

“Oh, you’re absolutely right!” Marigold slid past and around Orchid in a coiling hug before slipping into the hut. Now alone, Orchid slithered up to Ves, rearing up to loom over her.

“For a naturalist, our dear Marigold can be incredibly unobservant,” Orchid said, her voice clipped and refined. “I don’t know how she missed such an obvious moon-touched, but I want to make it exceedingly clear that there will be no mischief with my dear friend, or there will be consequences.”

“I… don’t intend any mischief.” Ves gulped.

“Really?” Orchid quirked an eyebrow without moving her face. “Then why is dear Marigold convinced that there is a whole gaggle of humans right now heading for their death?”

“I told her I fell in the river,” Ves muttered, looking away. “And when I said I got separated from my friends…”

“She drew the conclusion herself.” Orchid sighed, bringing her tail around to rub her nose. “I hate Homecoming so much. There is no end of trouble every time.”

“Homecoming?” Ves asked. She’d never heard the term before.

“No, of course you wouldn’t know. I assume you used to be human?” Orchid asked, giving a sniff as Ves nodded. “I thought so. The aesthetic is unmistakable.”

Ves colored and hunched a bit, suddenly keenly aware of her chest. Was it that big?

Orchid sighed. “Sorry, that was unfair of me, we all have our own preferences. I could hardly fault an Aureanian who came back with crystal wings.” She stretched and lowered herself to a friendlier height. “Let’s begin again. My name is Orchid,” she offered her tail in an obvious invitation to shake. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Ves,” she hesitantly took the tail and shook it. “I… didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“No, I trust you didn’t, else we wouldn’t be having such a civil discussion.” She turned towards her house. “Now, I suggest you come inside and give us the full story of how you came here, if only to calm poor Marigold down.”

----------------------------------------

It did not calm her down.

“You’re a moon touched?” Marigold appeared to be vibrating. “A human moon touched? Is that possible? How is that possible? Wouldn’t your goddess light you on fire? Is that a myth? Is it even a goddess? All my books said Uthed woshipped--”

Orchid tapped her tail on Ves’ back as Marigold began to slither about the room in a disjointed ramble. “She’ll sort herself out in a minute,” she recovered her tail to take a sip of her tea. “In the meantime, I presume you still intend to head to the city?”

“Yes,” Ves said, staring down into her own cup, wincing as Marigold bumped straight into a wall. “Even if things will be… tense between myself and the others. I really don’t know what else I would do. Uthed is still home and… the prince is still my prince. I want to save them,” she said, pushing back her her other lingering desires.

“Well, I don’t envy the journey ahead of you,” Orchid shook her head. “Still, I’d be happy to help.”

“You would?” Ves glanced up.

Orchid, for lack of a better word, smirked. “You’re clearly a nice enough girl, and you mean well. Admittedly I wouldn’t have made your choices, but then that’s something I could say even of your time as a human.” She let out a dreamy sigh, her eyes gazing out the window. “Really, to be out on the open sea, the wind howling and tearing at the mast, the salty spray in your face. The adventure of every storm, the majesty of far off lands!”

“Was just cold and wet whenever I went,” Ves muttered, remembering days spent below a pitching deck as rain hammered down. She got a gentle whack upside the head for her comment.

“Don’t ruin my fantasy,” Orchid said.

“Sorry,” Ves muttered, finding herself fighting a small smile as she finished the last of her tea. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible,” Orchid said. “If your story is to be believed, we’ll likely have a head start on your ‘friends,’ which suits me fine.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to be in the middle of Homecoming when a whole pack of humans arrives.”

“What’s Homecoming?” Ves asked.