“About this place? You mean the Esulmor Edge?” Scoresby asked and continued without waiting for me to confirm, “It used to be an inn, but you already know that. What you don’t know is that it used to be a great inn. My father would bring me here from time to time when he traveled to Granhill and further east. He was a merchant like me, you see.”

Hung up on every word leaving his lips, I nodded, bewildered, with dozens of questions on my mind.

“It used to be crowded and quite lively. Music, dancers, and lots of drinks. Of course, whereas now I’m too old to prance around on the dance floor, I was too young for that at the time, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the scenery quite a bit. Ah, don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t interested in girls back then, yet. What I meant was the views from the windows and the terraces. The sight of the Granora’s Peaks - and I’m talking about mountains - was beautiful, and on a clear night, you could even see the lights of the Radrood’s Bellowing Windmills further south. But that’s all in the past, as you can see.”

“What happened?” I asked, reining in my curiosity as obviously those were sore memories for the old man, something of which I had my fair share of and didn’t want anyone prying into.

“Esulmor happened, girl. The forest has slowly swallowed this place.”

“And...people just abandoned it? I thought you said it was a crowded place?”

“Oh, folks have tried to keep it going, that’s for sure. And for a time, they even managed, but fighting Esulmor is like trying to stop flood water with your bare hands. You said you met them, didn’t you, Korra - the mossbears, I mean?”

A shiver went through my body - not the bad kind, but a warm tingle. Hearing him, someone who reminded me so much of my grandfather, call me by my name so naturally, nearly made me cry happy.

“Ehm...Korra?”

‘Shit!’ Once again, my focus slipped.

“Yeah, I met them...well, only one. Why?”

“Don’t give yourself so little credit. Most folks would say that’s one more mossbear than they want to see in a lifetime. Anyway, they are not called Forest Caretakers for no reason. Tell me, how old does this forest look to you?”

Unable to refrain from looking around, my eyes swept over the towering trees all the way to their crowns high above us. “A hundred years, maybe even hundreds of years. But I don’t know...you said they didn’t grow here when you were young.”

“What a bright young woman - you’re right. Do I look that old to you, though?”

“No...you look about sixty.”

“Now you flatter me. I don’t have a second array to make me look younger. Sixty-seven, and I was an eight-year-old kid when the trees took over this place.”

“Bloody fucking shit...” The swear slipped from my lips before I could stop myself. A bit shameful, for sure, but from what Scoresby said, the majestic trees towering around us that could easily rival the sequoias on Earth weren’t even 60 years old.

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“Tits, I couldn’t have said it better myself,” the old man chuckled, unfazed by my swearing, throwing in his own cuss, quite likely to make me feel better. “Well, as I understand it, there was some sort of incident - a disagreement between the Empire and the Lord of the Forest, and he let the trees spread further south all the way to the Granora Peaks, swallowing this inn and the Old Road in the process.”

‘Hold on a minute. Empire? Old Road?’ The old man talked as if I was supposed to know all these things, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t know shit and was lost for what to ask first. Like, I did sort of get the Old Road, but the Empire? I was in an empire? In the end, the thing that might endanger me the most right now took priority.

“Who...who is this Lord of the Forest?”

“Oh, have no fear. I don’t believe the mossbear you met was him. He lives deeper in Esulmor.”

“So, it is a mossbear?”

“He is, yes, very, very powerful.”

“A-as in four digits?”

Scoresby scowled. “Tits, no. If such a beast lived in Esulmor, I’d think twice about stepping foot in here. Wait! It can’t be...was that the mossbear you came across, girl?”

“No. No, no, no. I mean, I couldn’t see the number of sigils, but I'd say it had about four hundred sigils. The Lattice showed me four of those weird runes.”

“Good. For a moment there, I thought...never mind. Can you describe it to me?”

Seeing no reason not to, I did my best to portray the mossbear I came across.

“Sounds like an Adult Mossbear to me. You were in luck, then; young ones tend to...play with new “things”, if you get what I mean."

“No, not really.”

“Well, it would most likely rip you apart. An Adult Mossbear would only do that if you were strong, a challenge for them.”

I would imagine the Young Mossbears to be weaker and smaller than the one I had met, still: ‘Damn.’

“And you still travel through here?”

The old man chuckled, shrugged, and gave me a warm smile. “Marlen, my wife, says I’m not in my right mind, but it saves me half a day’s travel compared to going around the Esulmor by the New Road. Besides, how can a day’s travel compare to living here? I can’t wait to tell her about you...”

“Don’t!” I blurted out and stopped short, realizing that I had taken a step out of my hiding place. Sure, I scurried back just as quickly, but the old man’s expression said it all. He saw everything. He saw me for what I was, a beast to be feared.

“W-were...” Scoresby stammered and paused, looking at me, bewildered. “Was that a suppression chain?”

“Huh, w-what?” I asked, having a hard time grasping what he was talking about. Didn’t he care what I looked like, who I was? For f-fuck's sake, that I was naked?

“That thing on your wrist, Korra? Was that a suppression chain?”

Looking down at my hand, I nodded. “That’s what they called it.”

“They? Your master and...forget I asked, girl. Some things are better not to remember. Anyway, if I’m not wrong, I should have some tools in the wagon that should help me get that thing off your hand. Interested?”

‘Hell, yeah!’

After I nodded, rather fiercely, the old man went back to his wagon. That he took his time looking for whatever it was didn’t help much, though. Doubt crept into my heart. What if he was searching for a weapon? Or the fourth shackle put on me? The shoelace bitch said they needed all four to activate them. What if...?

“Apologies for the wait. I forgot where I put it,” Scoresby said as he returned to the fireplace with a small leather toolkit in his hand. As he unrolled it on the ground in front of him, my eyes fell on a set of more than two dozen what looked like lockpicking tools of various shapes and sizes.

“Do you know how to use one of these, Korra?”

“No, but I do wonder why you have them.”

The old man chuckled, my thief allusion not lost on him. “You never lost your keys, girl? It happens to me all the time. Now, though...I’m in a little bit of a pickle on how to help get the shackle off your hand with you over there.”