The days continued to slip by as we practiced. Everyone started to glance up at the sky when they weren’t in the shadows as they tried to judge if there were more clouds than normal. Quiet discussions about whether the air had more of a cold bite to it or what the weather had been like during the days leading up to previous cold seasons crept in around meal times.

There wasn’t an infallible way to predict how soon the First Flurry was going to come, but that didn’t stop people from trying their hand at it every year. Somehow the tribe Grandmothers always had warning, but that was a matter of hours, not days’ notice.

We ate through the last of our preserved food. No one, not even Breck, seemed as keen on hunting and gathering now that we weren’t moving and we had a timeline breathing down the back of our necks. However, with our limited stores dwindling, Fern mandated a rotating schedule where half of us would have to go collect food for at least a few hours while the other three got to keep practicing. The next day the other half had their practice time cut into.

Fern said she couldn’t help with the hunting and gathering because she was already stepping in more than she should. So she got to have her own practice sessions and judge our attempts at shadow walking without interruption. Colm and Sid kept us supplied with water, cooked meals, and a tidy campsite.

After everyone learned of—and witnessed—my new skill with shadow walking, the competitive drive to get better faster stepped up. More so than I think it would have if anyone else had achieved walking through two shadows before me. Apparently no one thought I would be true competition when it came to shadow walking, which wasn’t surprising after my struggles over the past two months, but it still stung a bit.

Now I was determined to continue outpacing everyone else and they were determined to become second. Wren spread the word that I had mentioned ‘imagination’ while brushing over the rest of my comment. I still got the occasional odd, considering look from her and Fern though. Juniper kept herself impassive.

I kept my focus on expanding my ability to sense the shadows around me, and making my transition in and out of the shadows as smooth and quick as possible. I had mixed success.

Faint shadows still escaped my general notice and the couple times I managed to sense one I had to pour all of my focus on it—even then it felt like a small tent entrance that was closed tight with multiple layers and difficult knots. It didn’t matter how I tried to shift my perception of it to a pool of water or a hole in the ground; the tent entrance image overrode everything else and kept me locked out.

I could pass in and out of dark shadows of regular pine trees without too much trouble. Middling shadows were on a case by case basis when I tried to pass through more than one, but if I just wanted to enter and exit the same one then only the small sized ones gave me real trouble. Somehow I couldn’t get the paths between those shadows to…catch as easily as when I created one between the shadows cast by the yellow and green pine trees did. Like I didn’t have the strength to hold the path in place yet.

Otherwise, I could feel my awareness of the shadows around me slowly improving and expanding as I tested my boundaries again and again, both in and out of the shadow paths. Outside the paths, it was a constant awareness of shadows that I could use as gateways in my vicinity. That awareness could be dulled so that it could be comfortably ignored until you needed to step into the shadow paths. Within the shadow paths, I had to direct my awareness more. There the only shadow that stood out right away was the one I had entered. After that I had to cast out my awareness with a mental picture of what I wanted and focus. With some experimentation I learned that I didn’t need to picture a tree I had already seen. Instead I could picture the area I wanted to go to or shadows with certain characteristics, like large, dark shadows, but, more often than not, I could feel myself butting up against my range when I tried that. The shadows I wanted just out of reach, too resistant for me to open up into a pathway when they were just fine being simple shadows.

My ability to control where I left a shadow left something to be desired, but I stopped dropping out from the bottom of branches. The same could be said of my path creating speed. I could consistently make pathways between the two bi-colored trees, but it took me a matter of minutes. Which was annoying when I knew it took whisper women a matter of seconds. Still, I knew better than to try to fix everything at once. There wasn’t enough time.

Wren won second place. I was coming back from a gathering trip when I saw her slip into one shadow and pop out of the other one a handful of minutes later. She squealed in excitement as Chirp fluttered around her and I bit back a smile as I gave her a nod of acknowledgment. Juniper pouted. Ulo pouted. Breck and Nii kept their focus on their own training after congratulating her.

It didn’t surprise me that she beat everyone else. Out of all of them she seemed to have the most vivid imagination and she had navigation training.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The rest of the group started improving quicker after that. I think Wren described her experience and tried to help them along, but I didn’t pay much attention to that. I only noted when I saw or heard about someone else traveling through the shadows. Nii and Breck managed the feat later that same day and, disappointingly, Ulo traveled through the shadows the next morning.

No one made the crossing to the statue. I don’t know if they were simply holding off or, like me, they could tell that they needed a bit more practice before making the longer path even with the shadows straining towards each other.

By the fifth day in the clearing Juniper was the only one still stuck to one shadow. Her usual self-important posture and composed features were utterly gone. Her sullen air radiated outward in full effect, though any bit of tranquility that normally softened the resignation was missing entirely.

I overheard Wren trying to cheer her up by the tents, but that had the opposite effect more than anything else. I don’t think Juniper appreciated the earnest platitudes and bits of advice anymore than I did as Wren’s voice drifted over to me. Not when Wren’s success was part of why she was feeling like a failure.

I glanced up at the late morning sky. Clouds didn’t seem to be gathering up, but I could have sworn there was a chill to the air. My instincts insisted that the First Flurry would be coming soon. Maybe not in the next few days, but perhaps in a week or so. We were running out of time and Fern wouldn’t let us leave until Juniper made the call. The way things were going it seemed like she had either somehow forgotten about the deadline or was determined to take us all down with her if she couldn’t walk the shadows.

After awhile Wren gave up as her help was met with silence and noncommittal noises. I waited, but when I didn’t hear any more movement I got up and made my way over to Juniper. Setting my new walking stick down next to me, I sat by her side and kept quiet too.

I felt like Prevna and the idea made an awkward feeling of warmth and embarrassment spread across my chest. Motivational speaking wasn’t my forte and I never wanted it to be, but my best bet for pulling Juniper out of her head had just failed, so now, unless I wanted to rely on hope, time, and wishes, I had to do something.

I knew disappointment and failure. High expectations and watching others achieve what I couldn’t with ease. Perhaps I couldn’t encourage Juniper to get her pumped up and hopeful, but I knew about self importance and spite and holding onto a sense of control with a death grip.

Juniper spared a glance for me and I waited for her to get up, move away, but instead she kept sitting in the tent’s shade until her patience broke.

“What?” she snapped.

I met her gaze. “Are you the type of person who can only do well when things are easy for you?”

“Wh—”

I kept going as if she hadn’t started speaking and swung my gaze back onto the yellow and green pine tree in front of us. “Because you did well on the shore. You kept your head during the fights and didn’t slack when we practiced, but you seem to have a special vendetta against the fish.” I waved my hand in a circular motion, taking in the woodland around us. “But now without the ocean in sight you seem to be giving up after every little thing. You were all for responsibility until the festerlings and now you hand it off to anyone who demands a scrap of it. Maybe you really can’t think for yourself.” I shrugged. “I didn’t think you were that weak, but now—”

“I’m not.”

I waited for more, but when she didn’t say anything else I huffed out a breath. “Could have fooled me.”

Juniper’s voice became harsher, more brittle. “I’m not.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Prove it.”

Her glare bored into me and out of the corner my eye I could see that her posture had straightened. “How?”

I did look at her then, matching her glare with indifference. “Walk the shadows. Lead the team. Get more skilled than everyone else—I don’t care. I shouldn’t have to tell you if you really aren’t weak.”

I got up with my walking stick and looked down on her before saying my last piece. “All you’re doing now is proving that your tribe shouldn’t have bothered wasting resources on you.”

Juniper kept sitting there as I walked away, but I allowed myself a bit of pride. Rather than the dull look she had started out with she now had the look of someone determined to fight injustice.

Wren’s hand snaked out from around a different tent and grabbed me by the arm. I froze at the unexpected contact, just barely managing not to stumble, before I ripped my arm from her grip. I scowled at her and bit back the need to tell her not to touch me. She didn’t need any more reminders of my oddities after my recent comment about tents and what had happened when she chased me through the rain. Even if she really should remember what I had told her then too.

She shook her head at me and asked in a low voice, “Did you really think that would help?”

Juniper stomping toward the pine tree saved me from answering, so I just lifted my eyebrows at Wren and then kept heading toward the cooking area. The midday meal would be ready soon and food would help settle the flutters that had bubbled up in my stomach. Not that I had any need to be nervous. I had barely spoken to Wren even if she had startled me, and all I had really done with Juniper was antagonize her—which was what I did with everyone.

Really, I shouldn’t have been surprised that it worked so well.

That afternoon Juniper grudgingly allowed Wren to walk her through what she had done to shadow walk step by step. Then practiced for hours on end. She didn’t even stop for the evening meal. No one realized that she was trying to shadow walk to the tree on the statue until the moon was rising high in the sky and Wren woke everyone in camp yelling that Juniper hadn’t appeared from the shadow for nearly a half an hour. That wasn’t too concerning, given that we all had spent that long in the shadow paths at one time or another while we practiced, but what echoed through the air was.

Thin, high pitched screams that came from the direction of the statue.