Sunlight danced across Mrs. Strawberry’s sleep laden eyelids. It was a warm green color, the morning sunlight filtered by the leaves of the oak tree surrounding their new mushroom hut with a bright red roof. The cook stirred in her decadently comfortable red moss bed. “Survived my first night, I would say that’s a good thing.”
“Good morning.” The cat rumbled pleasantly, her fur was patterned like a leopard as she sleepily smacked her lips together and then yawned wide enough that an acrobatic troupe of wombats could have easily leapt between her teeth without a hair being disturbed. “Just another causal stroll at night.”
Mrs. Strawberry reached over to scratch Derkaz’s ears “I’m surprised we were able to travel four hours in the dark without mishap.”
“You’re surprisingly nimble for a human wearing slippers. Granted we had the magic of Auris to help.” The feline relented, stretching before jumping off the bed.
The cook inspected her feet “Yes, it’s odd that my toesies aren’t shredded to pieces.”
Devourer swung his head over the edge of the bunk above cook. His ears covered with striped sock like accessories to stay warm. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he mumbled “Auris magic.”
“Their hand and feet can’t be damaged or get dirty.” The feline supplied when she realized that her small friend wasn’t going to further elaborate. “Allies in close proximity to an Auris are imbued with the same Auris magic. With Devourer’s skill in the magic, you could tiptoe through glass, glitter and razor blades and it wouldn’t leave a scratch or glint.”
The old woman scrutinized the male’s clothing with this new knowledge “That’s how the gloves on your feet stay so pristine clean!” she surmised “I thought you just had a bunch of them hidden in a pocket and kept switching them when a grain of dirt touched them.”
The Auris sniffed primly as he pulled off his ear socks “I am not that fastidious.” Descendre snorted and Devourer ignored the sound “Strong Auris magic means you are a good mate, the cleaner the feet the better the mate.”
Abruptly the stone inside Devourer’s hanging jacket spoke “It is Monday, six days until the return of Strawberry to her world.”
The three-eared creature sleepily smacked the rock with annoyance “Nobody likes countdowns.”
“Be nice to the rock, or else it may never work again.” The cat grumbled. “And then we would be down another contributing member of the group.”
“Hey, I contributed, I got a great addition to our troop. And I kicked some major butt.”
The cat looked over her shoulder “Yes, you kicked butt, but you need to work on not losing members of the troop. Cause right now we are down to three and three is pretty small for a troop.”
“Five of us actually.” A pleasant voice corrected. The words came from a cyan skinned creature soaking in the oversized sink.
“Onion!” Descendre said with relief.
“Yes, it’s me.” The green-blue animal murmured lazily as his tail (made of branches and leaves) languidly dipped into the water and then raised up to shower the blue-eyed creature’s body. His hands and fingers were formed of leaves and he used them to scoop up more glistening water to and poured it into his open mouth. He abruptly stopped as something occurred to him. He looked at the cook “Hello, I don’t think I’ve met you before, my name is Onion of the Silken people.”
Mrs. Strawberry took an instant liking to the odd creature. The warmth in her voice reflected her feelings as she approached the Silken with an outstretched hand. “Hello Onion, I am Mrs. Strawberry, I’m the new cook.”
Onion lifted his leg out of the sink, his root foot extending languidly so he could shake her hand. “Pleased to meet you. What a curious name, mizzazstrohbarry.”
“Oh, is it curious?” she asked genially. Onion was reminding her more and more of her of grandchild Shaun who had ADHD. He would spin off in many directions during a conversation and she had learned to just go with the topic switching. It was clear that Onion would be of the same nature with his train of thought.
As if to enforce her assumptions Onion’s response was decisive. “Yes, it is curious. What does it mean?”
“A strawberry is a red fruit.” She explained, the expectant expression from Onion caused her to add “A strawberry grows in a bush, you can make strawberries into jams.” She looked at the creature with the right half of his face covered in leaves and waited to see if he had more questions.
“Yes, I like ztrobarry, but it isn’t as pleasant as your entire name; Mizzazztrobarry. It’s fun to say.” He leaned back in the water, lifting his hand to let the motes of sunlight play between his leaf fingertips “It is like my own name Onion. Onion is another fun word to say. I named myself after the onion plant because I like how they taste.”
Descendre coughed politely to interrupt this tangent “Is Gus with you?”
Onion dipped his feet made of roots into the water and absorbed so much water that the level of liquid in the sink dropped two inches. He yawned before answering “Nope, when our camp got attacked, he told me to swim and that he would find me once it was safe. I swam for days. I finally heard his house calling me to me through the roots of the forest and had swum over hoping to find him here…” His words trailed off at the pained expression on Devourer’s face.
“Onion, please stop for a second.” Devourer wiggled his fingers inside his ears as if to clear them of a swarm of bees had decided to create a hive inside his brain. “I forgot how whistly your voice gets.’ He pulled back on the socks on his ears then nodded “Continue.”
Mrs. Strawberry looked at the cat for an explanation.
Descendre shrugged “Silken absorb air and expel it between the leaves on their face at specific angles to create different pitches that bounce off each other to create words; sort of like creating a grass whistle. Aurises can hear all those pitches and it’s like nails over metal.”
The Silken in common ADHD fashion continued his train of thought without missing a beat “Since Gus is not here it would appear I should go swimming some more.” He started to climb out of the water.
The Derkaz and Auris both rushed to stop him “NO!”
He paused “No?”
Descendre spoke quickly “Gus will come look for us at one of his houses, if you are in the house too, he will find you here.”
Devourer chimed in “He wouldn’t forgive me if we lost you five times in a row. I don’t need another dunking in the river.”
Onion pondered this concept for a few moments “Those are both very good points. I suppose we could stay a while.”
Devourer looked with concern “When you say ‘we’ did you bring another rampaging behemoth you found in the woods?”
Onion laughed, it was a pleasant sound like wind passing through a weeping willow (though Devourer winced slightly) “Oh, no, I learned my lesson from last time. No, just this little lady.” He brought his hand up to show a yellow horned beetle with a purple light gleaming on the end of her tail.
Descendre leaned forward to look at it “What is she?”
Onion shrugged “I have no idea, I found her while I was wandering. There was a whole swarm of them. Very pleasant companions I will say. They make the prettiest noise.” He paused to make a trilling noise, like gentle breeze passing through dried out reeds, the beetle rubbed her two sets of horns together, creating an intricate melody.
The troop enjoyed the everchanging music as they left the red roofed building and started returned to their journey to save Devourer’s people from a monster.
-
They travelled along the riverbank, the lush green grass making the walking easy, Devourer and Descendre caught fish from the river as they travelled.
While the two splashed in the water, Onion kept the cook company. He moved on all fours like a fox, his tail of leaves and branches constantly moving and lashing as they discussed her world, and he pointed out various things from this world. The mountains that spiraled up like ice cream scoops “Created by the Council of Owls during the Tandem Crisis.” He explained.
The cook raised an eyebrow “You seem very well versed on historical information on this continent, are you native here?”
The Silken’s roots sank into the ground and then escaped with little clods of earth with every step, some plants dying and quickly replaced with little sprouts of the same species “Nope, I am from an independent island on the other side of the world. I love to learn though. My species gain our sustenance from experiences and knowledge.”
“Oh, that sounds interesting, how does that work?” she asked, her attention distracted as Descendre bumped a focused Devourer into the river with a mischievous grin. He made a large dramatic splash and spluttering. When Descendre reached down with her tail to help him out he grabbed it and dragged her back in with him with a roar of triumph.
“Marvelous to see them relaxing a little bit again.” Onion whispered. Little flowers that were pink with yellow motes of light rose up as he said it, he glanced down at the petals “Youthful exuberance, that is a rare flower on this trip.”
Mrs. Strawberry looked at the flowers then back at the two cavorting companions “You witness or learn something and flowers bloom. That is where you get your food. Osmosis in the purest sense.”
Onion’s blue eyes twinkled “Exactly, unlike the rest of my species I taught myself to hear and speak audibly, giving me a chance to access an untapped treasure trove of experiences and knowledge. I save one flower or berry from every experience to take back to my island. I can share those berries within our roottalk and give them a chance to see the world in way they have never been able to before.”
“That is incredibly generous of you.” The cook acknowledged.
Onion shifted his shoulders (which Mrs. Strawberry assumed was his attempt to mimic a shrug) “I am hoping that I can inspire some of them to work to learn audible communication as well.”
“We should probably help them out of the water, that riverbank is pretty high.” Mrs. Strawberry suggested. The two of them worked together to first pull up the Auris (who was boosted up on the cat’s head while she churned water), then the cat (which required more work). Onion sank his roots deep into the ground to anchor then he used his tail to create a living ladder for the cat to climb very carefully (to avoid slicing any of his delicate branches) as the cook and the gentleman grabbed the cat and lifted her the rest of the way onto the bank.
As they dried off the cook mentioned something that had been spinning around in her mind. “You pronounced Mizzaztrabarry, as if you could hear the real English words, not like I was speaking common. Why is that?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Onion shook himself like a wet dog, sending leaves cascading everywhere “I have to interpret things audibly in multiple layers to understand them, usually three layers of translation.” He held up one finger/leaf “First, I use my leaves to sense vibrations created in the air.” He held up a second leaf “Two, filter out background noise like breathing, trees rustling, the wind.” He held up a third leaf “Three, taking those vibrations that are ‘words’ and translate them into bio-chemical thoughts that I can understand. The illusion magic on your ring adds a fourth and fifth layer, it was easier to simply filter out that sequence of sounds from the ring and learn your English.”
Mrs. Strawberry stared at the creature for a few moments, reassessing his level of intelligence. “You mean to say we are conversing in English right now?”
Onion tilted his head to the side, leaf slowly floated down to land on his head and make him look innocent, adorable, and very clueless “I know over four hundred thousand plant and fungal chemical languages. I listened to your English words before they could be magically captured and changed by the ring. Using those words, I was able to figure out the structure of your language. After that I created a hypothetical library of nouns, pronouns, verbs and such based on the sounds you were making. It is all just basic biochemistry after that.”
“But the words that you don’t know…?”
“Oh, I simply say it in common, then I hear what the word sounds as the ring translates it from common to English for your ears, the next time I say the same word in English. Pretty basic.” Onion blew the leaf off his forehead and then chased after it like a puppy. The beetle riding on his shoulder trilling a melody that very clearly meant ‘charge’.
Mrs. Strawberry watched the Silken’s antics as Descendre sidled up to her “He speaks Derkaz better than me, he is a genius as long as you don’t try to explain math to him.”
Devourer chuckled “True, watch this. Hey Onion!”
The Silken froze mid leap, his sunken roots holding up him in an arched jump, leaves and the beetle all tumbling around him “Yes?”
“What’s two plus two?” Devourer said with an evil grin.
Onion twitched his face in annoyance “Don’t know, don’t care.” He sank into the ground as if it was made of water, the grass rising back up from where he had disappeared.
“Seriously Devourer?” Descendre rolled her eyes “He’s gonna sulking for hours now. Gus told you to stop that and I am now supporting his order, we don’t have time for that type of childish behavior where you tease him about math.”
The cat walked away still arguing with the Auris.
Mrs. Strawberry walked to the place where the Silken had disappeared, several pretty flowers had sprung up, she sat down beside them and rested her hand on the ground “I’m sure you can hear me, it’s okay to not be good with math. My Late Husband Marshall, terrible at math, but a genius with creating furniture. We worked as a team, he would draw up the designs, I would figure out measurements and he would cut and carve. There is nothing wrong with not being smart at everything. I only know a little Spanish but that doesn’t make me any less of a cook.” She felt the ground shift slightly “Next time he asks you a math question just ask him the square root of zero.”
Onion’s head emerged from the ground, his curiosity getting the better of him. “Why?”
“It has no answer. It’s a trick question. You can just say ‘nope’ to anything he says.” Mrs. Strawberry rested her hand against the Silken’s cheek, “You might be better with calculus that is more conceptual math. Easier to comprehend for my husband, might be the same for you. Or you don’t have to learn at all, up to you.”
The linguist climbed the rest of the way out of the earth, the plants resettling where he had emerged from between them. “I like the sound of conceptual math.”
Descendre came bounding over with surprised smile “Glad to have you back, Onion. Sorry about Devourer, he is a moron sometimes.”
Onion sprouted a few berries on his left hand as he experienced something new “It is fine, we can enjoy some food.”
They setup things beneath the blue leafed trees, with sap that tasted like milk chocolate and leaves that tasted like deep fried mint leaves. Mrs. Strawberry took some of the sap, leaves and some packaged pectin she had brought to make desert and put it in an airtight container to be chilled by the river water. As she was preparing to gather kindling the Silken stopped her “I can use rootfire to cook tonight. No need to gather sticks.” He extended a leafy hand and summoned a ball of green fire “Rootfire. It only will burn dead things. You can run your hands through it without any worry.”
She ran her hands through the fire, not feeling a degree of heat on her exposed skin. “The flames, they tickle.”
In short order the Silken took a fish caught earlier and place it in a pan and engulfed both in rootfire, the skin started to crackle and sizzle, a delicious scent wafting up. She lifted her hand above the fire, the heat coming from the fish but not the flames “Rootfire only can affect bio-organic material, that is what my magic revolves around; speeding up decay and making way for new things to grow. So, don’t ask me to melt any armor or anything.”
“A new cooking medium!” The cook murmured thoughtfully. Working with the Silken as they tested and tried out various styles of cooking. Much to the delight of the cat and three-ear.
After the short rest they broke camp and followed the river. They crossed a few hills, the river cutting a path deeper and deeper, turning into a waterfall here or there until it was so far below them that they could only partially hear the rumble of the latest falls. Though overcast and cloudy the air still wafting up with a pleasant mist from below.
“I love how this feels on my leaves.” The Silken preened himself in the dew, his leaves becoming shiny with moisture. The beetle emerged with a chirp of interest and started cleaning her mandibles and horns with fastidious care.
Devourer stood on the edge of the abyss with his tongue stuck out to catch the mist on the tip “Tastes a little sweet. I like it.”
Descendre appeared at the cook’s elbow “I scouted ahead, this side of the river keeps going up into the mountains, I found a bridge up a ways that leads to the other side of the river. That side goes downhill into warmer climates. Which I am sure you would appreciate, Onion.”
Onion perked up “It would be nice to get some sun on my leaves for sure, didn’t notice how cloudy it’s been.”
Descendre peered up “I’ve been through this region a few times over the years, I don’t remember it ever getting this cloudy during this season. Should be bright and sunshiny.” The cat’s voice trailed off as she looked at the clouds.
Devourer was non-too-concerned however “Well we won’t get warm just standing around, let’s get a move on and then we can wiggle our toes in the sunshine below.” The Auris did a handstand and made a point of wiggling his long-gloved toes at his companions as he walked on his hands in the direction of the bridge “Hup two tree fore!”
Descendre bumped him with her tail, sending him tipping over, the Auris made a playful growl and gave chase after the cat. Holding his hand on his bowling hat to keep it from flying off his head.
The Silken watched them curious “I haven’t seen Descendre this playful before, usually she is all snarky and attitude. And snapping at Devourer to not do whatever hare-brained scheme he is cooking up.”
“Devourer hasn’t seemed to do anything too wild.” Mrs. Strawberry noted.
“Yeah, it’s not like him at all. By now we would have been chased by some creature that he ticked off or gotten trapped in some magic maze.” Onion walked in circles around the cook, making little hops that sent the beetle sailing into the air after the third circuit. She made a rebuking melody and alighted on Mrs. Strawberry’s proffered finger.
“He can be rambunctious for sure.” The cook said with amusement in her voice, she moved her finger over onto her shoulder, the insect took the cue and settled on the handstitched shirt with another little chirp of thanks.
“I think it’s you.” Onion announced as inspiration struck him, causing him to freeze mid step to look at her.
“Pardon?”
“Devourer is behaving is because of you, I think he isn’t sure what to do around you yet, so he is behaving like a gentleman.” The Silken flicked his long tree tail, the bark shifting back to his cyan skin until there was only a small branch of leaves on the end, allowing him to reduce his moisture loss in the cold. “This air is getting super chilly, we might wanna pick up the pace before it starts snowing.” He bounded ahead then froze and watched for her, with one front leg raised in an alert position, like he was a dog pointing with his leg at prey.
The woman shooed him forward, “No need to wait, dear. I can keep up well enough. You can run on ahead.”
Onion spun around and dashed towards the other two, joining in the chase still occurring between them. Mrs. Strawberry close on his heels. They crested the steep hill finally coming into view of the bridge that crossed the giant chasm. The bridge was made of a dark rich brown metal, sturdy design with red veins of crystal growing throughout the structure.
Onion took one look at it and four copper acorns sprouted from a branch on the top of his head “This is an amazing experience.” He breathed in awe.
Descendre looked at the behemoth of a bridge suspiciously “This reeks of magic, and I haven’t ever heard of this type of structure either…”
Onion sank beneath the ground and popped up a few feet away from the bridge. Little metallic acorns sprouting across his body as he investigated the towering viaduct. “I wonder what type of metal this is made of.”
Before anyone could stop him, the Auris confidently walked past Onion and licked the red crystal.
Descendre turned his head back and forth between her paws gently, watching for any dangerous signs “You better hope it isn’t toxic.”
Devourer wiggled out of her clutches and gave another testing lick to the structure “Tastes fine.”
Mrs. Strawberry walked up and rubbed the metal with her fingers, then shifted from side to side getting the light to refract through the stones “It’s not an edible material, you are gonna have a killer headache in about thirty minutes unless inducing vomiting.”
Devourer gulped slightly but gamely responded “That doesn’t sound so bad. I can live with a headache, no need to throw up.”
“In an hour you will have involuntary vomiting and then you will die in about a week.” The cook continued grimly. She wiped off her hands and then rubbed the bridge of her nose as she tried to think.
Onion stared at the structure, sank into the ground re-emerging beside the cook “How do you know that?”
“My Marshall wanted to be a geologist as a child, and he succeeded in that dream. Even as teens he showed me extremely rare minerals and crystals, that one happens to be my favorite from the ‘Oh My God That’ll Kill You’ group.” She explained with a nostalgic smile.
Devourer looked at her suspicious “I thought your husband was a cabinet maker.”
“Oh no, we did that for fun. Geologist for him and I took a job as a forest ranger/conservation officer so we could work in the same location and circles. It was fun.” She trailed off as she started fiddling around inside her larger pack “I brought an advanced first aid kit, wasn’t sure what we were going to run into on our adventure so I wanted to be prepared.”
Descendre peered curious as the cook pulled out the kit, the cat appreciating the woman in a different light. “We’re lucky to have you.”
Mrs. Strawberry winked “Well it seemed that I might need to save Devourer at some point in our adventure.” she pulled out a vial and handed it to Devourer “Chug it all down.”
The Auris took the vial and swigged it down, his face brightening as he took it from his lips “That tastes amazing.”
The ex-forest ranger picked up her kit and took a few hasty steps back “Well, just because it’s an anti-toxin doesn’t require it to taste nasty.” She shot him an encouraging wink. “Lucky having me as your medic.” She sounded sympathetic “Sorry all the same.”
Devourer looked at her confused “Sorry for WHAAaaaaaghhhhh--“ he turned and vomited into the chasm.
Mrs. Strawberry grabbed him by his belt and held him steady as he emptied his stomach into the mist. “--why did YOUaghhhhh!”
Mrs. Strawberry patted his back until the heaving stopped. She offered him a clean washcloth as she explained “The anti-toxin tastes good, that way when it comes back up it doesn’t taste nasty; it also numbs your taste buds.”
They started to cross the bridge when a six-meter tall creature stepped out of the shadows on all fours.
“I don’t recognize that creature.” Descendre analyzed the white furred beast “An ambush, looks like this creature figured out she could use the bridge to have prey come to her.”
Devourer lethargically groaned from his seat on the cat’s back, “I could try to take her on, but that hide looks like it isn’t gonna take a dent from my ill intent.” He chuckled slightly at the rhyme, then looked nauseas and sank back down into the cat’s fur.
Onion held up his hand as he rose onto his hindlegs “No need. I think I can deal with her.” He plucked two red berries from his shoulder, he crushed them together in his fingers as he chanted “Chaos Mother and Whispering Father, heed my call.” The green rootfire spun around his hands as it yipped like a fox. The large white beast snarled and charged across the bridge. Onion didn’t change his stance, his tail unfurled like a peacock’s, changing from cyan skin to living tree as it grew larger and larger; the rootfire growing in relation to the tree’s size.
The white haired beast froze uncertain by this odd display. Of green rootfire spinning around her. Holes appeared in the air and armored arms sprang from the holes and slashed.
Caught her.
Immobilized her.
Onion dropped to all fours and charged the giant beast. His roots to cut through bone and sinew, each section dragged off into the dark holes by the clawed things. Once every piece was gone the holes faded back into green rootfire. The Silken shook like a dog as his leaves absorbed the emerald flames “She was a tasty morsel, killed more than fifteen groups travelling across that bridge. Not a pleasant beastie.”
Descendre peered at Devourer “I was pretty certain I knew most of the species on this continent, that makes two that are unknown.”
“The Songbeetle being the first one, right?” Devourer asked with a little more energy in his voice as he started to feel better.
Onion looked at him curious “I thought you didn’t recognize the beetle.”
The three-ear chuckled and then winced in discomfort. “I didn’t, I just made the name up, figured since we discovered her, we should get to name it.”
“Onion should have gotten to name the beetle then, he found it.” The Derkaz pointed out.
Devourer looked at Onion “Do you mind?”
“Well, I don’t mind you naming the beetle, or the white furred beast I just ate. But the next one I get to name.” His voice was firm as he said the last part of the sentence.
Devourer looked a little surprised, but then smiled mischievously “Righty oh, we will let you name the next beastie. The one you ate is called a White Terror by the way.”
“I like it.” The Silken said as little white star flowers blossomed across his leaves. The Songbeetle circled around him once then dove into the leaves on his shoulder without stirring a leaf.
They moved downhill at a leisurely pace, the weather quickly shifting from foggy and overcast to warm and cheery. Within an hour of walking Devourer was back up and happily marching alongside the cat while they discussed next steps.
It was as they were coming to a crossroads area that Onion’s head snapped around to stare behind them and Descendre’s hackles rose, in unison the two said “Something’s wrong.”