A few weeks after Aiko got the Spell chaos substitution things started to change around the elven village. It had gotten a lot warmer outside which indicated to everyone that spring was nearing. Of course, you couldn’t tell the difference really.

You couldn’t tell too much of a difference because this was an elven village so the temperature was always much milder within this protected grove. However, Atha had told Aiko that spring was definitely nearing. Aiko made up her mind that it was time to leave, even though she very much enjoyed her stay with the elves.

She knew that she had something that she was supposed to do and she didn’t want to put the elves at risk because she felt like staying too long. She was fairly certain at this point that she had actually put herself at risk when she stayed around too long in the forest before reaching the Elven village. in fact, she was pretty sure that she might have been safer and not gotten as badly hurt if she’d have just kept going instead of stopping to try and save up nuts for the winter.

When she told Atha that she was planning on leaving, Atha told Aiko that she had received a divine dream just the night before and she knew that she would be leaving sometime soon. In this dream, she was given directions that Aiko was supposed to travel in. She was supposed to go to the right of the rising sun.

Aiko thanked Atha profusely and spent the next few days going around the elven village thanking the many elves that she had both helped and been helped by for everything. She then gathered up all of the belongings that had been given to her in the elven village. At this point, she actually had quite a collection of clothing and other various items.

She had to sort through the mountain of things she had been given and decide what she could really use and what she could not. Obviously, anything that didn’t actually fit her she left with Atha. Among that pile were a few items that were made by the various children of the village. And some shee had helped make herself.

All of those things were pretty cute in a crude, childish sort of way. She very much appreciated them and wished just as much that she could wear them. However, Atha told her that it was better that she didn’t take things that she couldn’t use.

The things that she decided to take were all practical with only a few tiny trinkets as mementos of her time with the elves. Atha helped her sew most of those trinkets to her clothing or gear so they wouldn’t get lost or in the way. She was going to dearly miss her time with the elves but Atha, she would miss most of all.

Of the practical gear and clothing she took, she selected a pair of leather pants that were soft but durable with hardened patches sewn into the knees. She had been given a bit of torso armor that was made from the shell of a turtle. She also had a helmet that one of the craftier children had made for her out of the seed of a big fruit tree.

A rather nice backpack, that was sewn by the seamstress of the village, was her largest piece of gear. It had been crafted from the supple skin of some flying monster. That meant that it was actually a lot tougher than it appeared to be. The elves would have used those skins for a great many things but unfortunately, the monsters in question were too small for their skins to be much use for most things. They were perfect for her items though, and it turned out that her pants were made of the same material.

Aiko pondered on it for a bit. Perhaps, it was better that they weren’t large enough to be all that useful. At least the monsters were too small to cause more than minor injuries and startle people. They could still injure children though and often did. That was why they were hunted instead of being ignored.

Into her backpack, a number of smaller items had gone. Some of them were for working wood and plants into useful crafts. She also placed a small mortar and pestle to further her herbalism if she needed it. Lastly, she stuffed several bags half the size of her head into her backpack. Those bags were filled with a bunch of fruit and vegetable seeds that she would be able to grow on her own. Especially with her ability Green thumb.

To the top of her backpack, she tied a blanket with some twine. The blanket was cut from the corner of Atha’s own larger blanket and was warm and furry. The cutting of a blanket from a larger one was something that Atha said was a tradition amongst her people. Apparently, she would have it repaired later and the odd patch would always be a reminder of Aiko. Aiko bawled when she was told that and for part of the day her resolve to leave wavered as her heart ached.

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Aiko found out, later that day, from the seamstress, that this was a traditional method of making blankets for the children of a family. The child’s blankets would be cut from the material of their parents’ blankets. Aiko burst into tears once again and the older elf, who still appeared as young as Atha, comforted her and told her that everyone in the village would miss her, especially the shaman.

With many tears and much fanfare, between both her and the elves Aiko left the village that had been her home for the past few months. She headed, just as Atha had said, to the right of the rising sun. At first, she trotted along on the ground and didn’t think too terribly much of it. After all, this was the means by which she had been traveling most often in her journey to get to the Elven Village. However, it occurred to her fairly quickly that she was meant to be in the trees.

Before very long, Aiko ran up a tree and took to the branches. It didn’t take her very long to get back in the hang of things and take off running from one branch and springing to the next. Back and forth, up and down, ever onwards and very, very quickly.

She was in the midst of running along a rather large tree that had only begun blossoming out when she realized this was the type of tree that should have nuts on it. Aiko stopped at a cluster of blossoms growing from a nub along the branch and sat down. At first, she tried to use her magic on them but to no avail. The flowers wouldn’t do anything.

Aiko didn’t really understand, at first, why they wouldn’t do anything. But before long, Aiko remembered the lessons that Atha had taught to her. Lessons about why the forest needed all of the bugs that went from flower to flower and why the great divines created the world the way it was.

And so, Aiko gingerly reached out her arm and brushed the reddish-orange fur of her arm over some of the flowers and then over others. Back and forth and back and forth she swept the tufts of fur on the underside of her arm around. As she did this, she saw a light dusting of powder clinging to her fur from each flower. This made had smile at the wisdom of Atha and the divine deities.

Before long, she tried her magic again, only this time, it worked! In a matter of moments, she had a full cluster of nuts that had come fully to ripeness on the tree branch in front of her. She plopped down on the branch with a big grin and began munching on her meal. It wasn’t as appetizing as she had hoped though because the nuts were all a bit bland. That’s what you get for doing it all at once, she thought to herself.

After lunch, Aiko took off bounding from branch to branch again. From tree to tree, onwards she went till she reached a part of the forest that seemed to be thinning a bit. The branches were a little bit farther apart, to the point that she couldn’t just bound across them.

Now, of course, she knew that she could stop and go from one tree trunk to the next but that wasn’t exactly ideal. Every instinct told her that it was more dangerous to walk across the ground than to jump between the branches of the trees. She looked forlornly at the gap between the trees around her.

Suddenly, Aiko got an idea! If she could make a grasping hand that could grab a branch or even lift a log that was bigger than herself, then why wouldn’t she be able to jump on that same hand? It just needed to give her a little bit of a boost to get to the next branch over.

Now obviously, she was not stupid enough to go jumping across a wide-open stretch without even knowing if she could accomplish the thing she had in mind. Instead, she turned back towards the trunk of the tree and found two branches that were roughly in line with each other, one above the other.

Aiko scooted around the trunk of the tree till she got onto a branch that was a little bit away from those other two and backed up to get a running start. She imagined in her mind what it was that she wanted. A bar suspended in midair between the two branches that she could stand on or jump on to get to the next branch over.

Since she had a running start if she missed, she would still land on the branch below. She backed up and took off at a full run. Then, just as she got to where she thought she should leap, she grabbed onto the tree hugging it, and skidded to a stop.

Her heart hammering in her chest and she realized that she was about to jump into an area that didn’t have anything to support her. Aiko suddenly remembered the way that she had woken up, without any memories. The paralyzing realization was that she had probably fallen, almost to her death, from a branch in the tree.

It took her several moments to talk herself into trying it again and she made a couple more false starts before she finally worked up the courage to actually make the jump. Aiko was totally expecting that she was going to have to claw her way back up onto the lower branch after she missed.

However, to her surprise and delight, the moment she jumped for the tree branch that was too distant from her, something just clicked. Aiko placed her little clawed feet onto the spot where she had imagined a branch between the two widely spaced ones. Instantly, a ghostly glowing purple branch appeared right beneath her feet and she was able to bound to that next branch over without a hitch.

Aiko stopped on the far branch, tail springing back and forth and flicking her ears. She looked around before turning to stare wide-eyed at the impossibly wide gap that she had just jumped across, using her own magic. This was doable!