Ratface hadn’t wanted to do any work today, so when Tiffany had asked her to go for a walk outside of the town, she’d jumped at the opportunity.
It was partly because she was being run ragged and partly because training meant interacting with the glamour. After Hannah’s reveal, that didn’t seem as attractive an option as before. It wasn’t like she could just decide to trust the glamour and be done with it.
She shook her head. She’d been circling the problem the entire time, she wasn’t about to work it out on the walk.
Tiffany had been leading her through the forest in a winding pattern. She seemed to be communing with the plants. Occasionally they’d reach out a hand and she’d roll her eyes and give them her blood.
“Should I be concerned how many deals you’re making?” asked Ratface.
Tiffany grimaced.
“I’m still used to normal plants, it’s hard to get these ones to work with me,” said Tiffany. She squeezed her already bleeding hands onto some plants to get them to open the way to them. “In an ideal world they’d work with me because I’d helped out the area, but I haven’t done enough.”
“Most plants seemed easy for you to control,” Ratface observed.
“That’s because they wanted to grow and I could help them, a simple requirement in some ways. Demon plants seem to know I need them and they’re exploitative. That’s what today’s all about.”
Ratface eyed the bucket and garden trowels Tiffany was holding, it didn’t escape her notice that there was two of them in that bucket.
Tiffany stopped in front of her as they came to an area walled off by plants. Tiffany placed her non cut hand on them. She stood in silence for a bit and then something in the air changed. The vines opened and let them through. It was a gap only big enough for one person at a time and Ratface could feel the annoyance from the plants on letting her in.
Inside she found herself in a wall of green. It was like a war in here and it was clear by the overwhelming green the demon plants weren’t winning. Already breaks in their wall were starting to appear. A strong smell of mint filled the air and Ratface frowned.
“Mint?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s an aggressive plant, even the demon plants have an issue with it,” Tiffany said.
She chucked a trowel to Ratface and rolled up her sleeves.
“This is my attempt to win the forest over, we’re going to clear it all out.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Ratface looked at the field in front of them. This was going to be a full day job. She knelt and started weeding. The shovel dug into the ground, and she pulled, yanking out as much as she could. After that she had to dig in to find all the roots that had dug deeper. It was hard work, but it reminded her of the few time she’d helped out with the Kauri around her own village. They never had anything too bad to deal with unlike the mint which had dug into the area.
Tiffany was having a much easier time of it. Part of it was due to her being a farmer but a lot of it was the fact that she had druid magic on her side. Each root she pulled out was helped by the demon plants joining her to drive the mint away. They chucked the mint they found into their bucket, there was no way all the mint would fit in that.
It was then that one of the demon plants whipped out a vine and pulled in the mint. It proceeded to open a mouth and munch down on the mint itself. Ratface and Tiffany looked at it with horrified fascination.
They kept at it in companionable silence, only occasionally interrupted by the munching of the trees around as they feasted.
“I hear your helping Halmir is coming up against a wall,” Tiffany said after one such loud crunch.
Ratface attacked the roots in front of her with the trowel.
“A wall is right. They want me to trust the glamour in my head.”
“It won’t trust you?”
“I wont trust it,” said Ratface. She pulled out more mint and threw it straight at one of the mouths. The tree caught it then lifted it into its mouth. It seemed annoyed at Ratface’s loss of etiquette.
They fell back into silence as Ratface attacked the mint with renewed vigour. Tiffany seemed thoughtful as she worked with the demon plants to eradicate their foe.
“You know, I don’t like this forest,” she said after a while. It retracted from her as she said it and she smiled. “I don’t think it particularly likes me either.” The plants paused, then moved their way back to her. The olive branch extended.
“I don’t think I’d trust it like I trust a normal plant, it’s not going to grow to protect me just because I asked. If it found me wounded, it’s more likely to attack unless I’ve given fair trade.”
“Demon magic is about sacrifice,” said Ratface.
“Yeah, but druid magic isn’t. It’s about collaboration.”
She kept working at the mint and the demon plant worked with her, attacking aggressively. Tiffany gave Ratface a look that said, ‘see what I mean?’.
“Collaboration means working with a bunch of plants and animals that don’t want the same thing. I can’t trust any of them to act like me.” She chucked the mint into the bucked and a vine wrapped around it to eat.
“Yet I can trust it to go after the mint. I can trust it to take my blood in fair dealings. I can trust it to act in its nature.”
“You think I should work with the glamour?”
“I think you already are. You made the deal right? You just have to trust it to act within the nature you identified.”
They finished up with the mint and walked out of the forest. She watched as the demon plants that had so relentlessly attacked the mint now delicately prodded at the ground that it had been in, like they were feeling at a wind. They let Ratface and Tiffany leave unscathed, even letting them take a direct path instead of having to move through different areas. Tiffany carried the last of the mint in her bucket like a trophy.
“Maybe one day I’ll totally trust this forest, but that isn’t today. Today we trusted each other because we had to.” She glanced at Ratface. “That’s sort of how you and I started too, and now you’re helping me garden. Who knows what the future hold if we can just extend a little bit of faith now and then.”
Ratface mulled it over. She still couldn’t trust the glamour completely, but she didn’t need to do she? She just had to trust it to work with her. She let out a big sigh. She’d need to talk to it once more. If everything went well, Halmir might be awake tomorrow.