The Gunari claimed dominion of all lands bound by the Emerald Sea, however, large swathes of Jungle still covered the Eighth Empire. Untamed, unclaimed and most of all, unsafe. Filled with bloodthirsty predatory insects and even nastier giant flora. As such, the only people who willingly ventured off the highways, water road or air, were generally desperate or mad. Sometimes both. Rei and Nana were neither, but found themselves in the overgrown forest nonetheless.

Rei had taken point, leading Nana towards, where Rei thought, was the Capital. Rei was using Nana’s short sword, cutting her way through vines and other foliage blocking their road.

“Are we there yet?” Nana demanded to know, reminding Rei why she didn’t like to be around people who willingly used the herb for their mind-numbing effects. Not all regressed to childish behavior, but she knew it was common enough. She also knew there was a folk remedy in slapping the users to their senses, but that rarely lasted long.

“We definitely won’t make it by noon,” she mused, echoing Nana’s plan to report as quickly as possible, “Especially with you like that.”

“Like what?” Nana asked, cocking her head.

“Shush,” Rei said suddenly, “I hear water…”

“It’s raining,” Nana pointed out.

“Running water,” Rei sighed impatiently.

Nana stopped to listen and found Rei was right. The dull roar of flowing water cut through the other sounds that filled the dark rain forest.

“Maybe it’s the Kan,” Rei observed, “Then we can simply follow it to the Capital.”

The Kan was the largest river in the Empire, which connected almost all major trading hubs to the Capital, which was led to Nana's next thought.

“Or hope for a river merchant?” Nana suggested in a moment of lucidity. She shook her head as if there was a mosquito buzzing around her ears.

Rei nodded and took point again, now leading her to the soft sound of flowing water. It was only a small trickling stream, possibly a short tributary of the Kan, that led into a large cave.

Even though it wasn’t what Rei wanted, she’d take the providence. She peeked in, found nothing but the thin water and smiled.

“We’re staying here till you clear your head.”

Nana didn’t listen. She was waving to a bee that passed over them. Rei followed the eyes, hoping for a traveler, but it was just a wild bee on her way back to the hive for the knights.

“Nana,” she called, “In there.”

“I don’t want to,” Nana replied, petulance dripping from her words.

“Or no dessert,” Rei finished.

“Dessert’s icky,” Nana threw back.

Rei simply took the regressed woman by the hand and dragged her into the tunnel, where she told her to stay put.

Nana sat down, folded her arms and made a show of not looking at Rei. Rei meanwhile considered how to deal with people on joyflower. There was the main rule of never leaving them alone, but Nana would just slow her down if she went foraging.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Right,” she said, clapping her hands, “Overwhelm their senses.”

She rushed out the cave, collected a handful of leaves and flowers of all varieties, then dumped them in front of Nana.

“Stay,” she said very slowly, “Put. Don’t go anywhere. Play with this. I’m going to get food.”

She took Nana’s long sword to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself with that either, then headed into the forest to get food and something soft to sleep on.

Meanwhile, Nana was still struggling to escape the hold of the joyflower’s spores. On a rational level she knew she was an adult and definitely not in her ancestral home, but…

She blinked and the damp walls of the cave came into view. Another blink and she was in her childhood bedroom. The paper walls, beautifully decorated with ladybugs and butterflies shifted in front of her eyes. The bugs crawled and fluttered over the painted grass, then one of the ladybugs wandered onto the floor. It scuttled around for a bit, then cocked its head at Nana, before jumping in the stream where it swam away with a neat breaststroke.

It splashed Nana’s face as it did and she returned to reality for a moment. The actual creature that had splashed the water was a fat dragonfly that had flown into the cave and now desperately turned around to get away from the darkness.

“Oh,” Nana said, watching the yellow and green banded bug, “That’s me. I’m a Dragonfly.”

There were a few moments where her spore-addled mind processed this until she finally came to a decision. She stood up, spread her arms as if she were flying, then hopped into the stream. She chased after the dragonfly, that was already speeding up, towards the deeper water.

She was about to put her foot in, when she suddenly heard her mother call.

“Nana! Mushi! Dinner!”

Nana stopped in her tracks, trying to figure out if she had really heard it.

“Nana!” her mother called, more impatiently now, “We’re having candied grasshoppers for dessert if you eat all your torokka!”

Nana did a little pirouette, rotating twice around her axle before rushing towards the dining room. Candied grasshoppers were a rare treat she’d face the bitter torokka for.

It was weird there was a river running through the hallway of her parents’ mansion, but it was fun too. She skipped through it with her bare feet, then felt a sharp pain run through her foot.

Flinching, she looked at her foot, now penetrated by a sharp rock. She looked around and found herself in a dark cave, which definitely wasn't her parents’ home.

“Nana!” her mother called, more sharply this time, “Hurry or your brother will get yours!”

“Coming!” she replied, running down the hallway she was back in.

“Wait,” she thought to herself, “Do I even have a brother?”

She considered the question, skipped out of the wet path and came to the conclusion she simply did not know. It didn’t matter anyway, candied grasshoppers were waiting for her. She clapped her hands in delight and smiled when she saw her mother waiting in the doorway.

“Did you wash your hands?” her mother, who was smaller and fatter than she remembered, wanted to know.

“I washed my feet,” Nana laughed.

Her mother tutted and took her by the wrist. Her hands were an odd rubbery texture, but there was still something comforting about her touch. She let herself be lead to the yard where a bucket of warm water should be waiting…

Rei returned, enthusiastically announced she had found fruit to eat and discovered Nana was missing. She dropped the fruit she was holding, reddish-purple berries the size of her first, that splattered her legs as soon as they hit the floor.

“That tantuo…” she started to herself, then immediately scanned for traces of Nana. She dubiously looked at the river, then assumed that even if Nana had drowned, the river’s flow would have brought her back there.

She checked the wet sand along the banks, finding no trace of Nana, until she suddenly saw a heel print leading deeper into the cave.

“Tassi,” she sighed. She left the cave, quickly made a torch of a slow burning leaf, then furthered her way into the cave.

She quickly learned she had no need of the tool, as most of the cave was lit by the luminescent puprle mushrooms that covered the walls. She decided to keep it on her anyway, which was when she suddenly noticed two sets of footsteps.

One set was human. Going by size and weight, and the fact that she couldn’t imagine anyone else being here, she assumed they were Nana’s.

The other set however were distinctly non-human. Four-toed with weird circles at the end of the toes.

“Pagga,” she said to herself in shock and hurried to follow the tracks into the cave.