Chapter Fifteen

What do you want to do, little one? Mister Greeny asked Nia as he watched her push around the half-eaten meal in front of her with the wooden fork held loosely in her hand. She had barely been eating anything over the last several weeks, and he was worried deeply about her wellbeing.

Nia’s eyes never left the vegetables she was stabbing; she never liked them anyway. “Does it matter?”

You cannot sulk forever. He said with enough force that she flinched. Still her eyes never left her plate.

“I’m not sulk—”

You are. He cut her off. Speaking to her with such force hurt him more than she knew, but something had to change. What your mother said was in anger and grief. I am confident she did not mean those words, and if you were to return, it would be into her waiting arms. He lowered his voice, I know you are grieving as well, but you must move on.

Nia snapped her head up to look at him, her eyes red and wet, and her lips trembling with emotion. “You don’t know anything! Just leave me alone!”

Nia threw her fork across the small table before snapping to her feet and storming out of her room. Mister Greeny watched her leave, his core roiling with concern. He knew that she was hurting, and he wanted nothing more than to help her ease her pain, but he was finding it difficult to comfort her. He was simply inexperienced with emotions. He hardly understood his own, let alone a young girl’s.

She wasn’t the only one who had much to learn.

He took a moment to clean up the mess left behind on the table before padding out into the clearing. Nia was nowhere to be seen, but he knew she wouldn’t have gone far. It was cold outside of the barrier. He would give her more time to herself, but her solitude couldn’t last forever.

Something needed to change. Perhaps another village would take her in? He quickly dismissed the idea. She would be a stranger to them, and the village she grew up in already disliked her. He could scarcely imagine how ostracized she would be if forced to start over in a new village.

She could always stay here. He hadn’t planned on her staying permanently; he only wanted to teach her his magic and the many other skills that might prove helpful to her. But if she had no other place to go, he would be more than willing to accommodate her.

He shook his head. What life would that be? She would never reach her full potential staying here, with only himself for company. After more thought, he knew what to do.

He found Nia sitting on a boulder as close to the barrier as possible without crossing over. Her knees were pulled to her chest, and her head rested on her crossed arms. Her loose, brown hair fluttered in the gentle breeze like tawny ribbons of silk, and her long dress of green and gold satin shimmered even underneath the overcast sky.

When the snow melts, he started, his groaning voice disturbing the placid clearing like tossing a stone into a still pond. We will leave the forest.

“What?” Nia asked as she lifted her head from her arms. “Leave the forest? But why?”

The world is vast and brimming with the unknown. I am sure you will find yourself in it, and when you do, your heart will be at peace.

“Stop talking nonsense,” her words were muffled as she buried her face back into her crossed arms.

Mister Greeny padded before her, his body moving silently like a verdant liquid. He put a large paw on her head and spoke with as much love as possible. We will return to your village, and you will make peace with your mother, and then you will walk into the world with a light heart and a clear mind.

“I… I can’t leave the forest.” She said with a trembling voice, “No one ever leaves the forest…”

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You will because you must , he told her firmly, removing his paw. And I will be with you every step of the way.

Nia’s heart slowly healed, but not entirely. Deep scars were left behind, hardening her and transforming her in ways that would linger with her for the rest of her life. It pained him to see her lose a bit of the light in her eyes, but he was hopeful that when she spoke with her mother and reconciled, she would gain a bit of it back. That time was soon approaching.

The days were growing longer, the deep snow unable to withstand the warmth of the rising sun. Traces of winter were still all around them; the trees were barren, and the nights brought with them frost that coated everything in a thin layer of diamonds, but the change was inevitable.

The significance of the coming of spring wasn’t lost on him as he willed his magic to return the ruins and the surrounding clearing to what it was before he arrived. Spring was change, a new beginning, when so much life was brought into the world. He could only hope that his little one would flourish during this time and embrace the lasting changes that were coming so quickly.

Are you ready, little one? Mister Greeny asked Nia as a cold gust of wind blew away the warmth of the clearing as the mana-fueled barrier fully dissolved from around it.

Nothing separated them from the last remnants of winter now. A sharp line of tall, healthy grass that encircled them was the only sign of anything unnatural occurring, but it wouldn’t last long against the biting cold of the early morning.

“I think so,” she answered distractedly as her nimble fingers brushed a string of hair behind her ear, dislodged from her tight bun by the sudden inrush of chilly air. “Are you certain that this is a good idea? I’m happy just staying here with you. We don’t need to go anywhere…”

Come, little one. He said to her, ignoring her nervousness. Our journey begins.

“You know,” Nia huffed as she walked after him, jostling the pack strapped to her back into a slightly less uncomfortable position. “Maybe we should wait a little while longer? I mean, it’s still cold… and I think— I think I might be coming down with something. I’ve got this tickle in the back of my throat…”

Her words fell on deaf ears as the trundling bear made of twirling vines and fluttering leaves never paused its steps. She was forced into a light jog to keep up with him, her heavy pack weighing her down.

Something wasn’t right. A tepid stillness hung heavily in the air between the leaf-bare trees. It was stifling and unsettling, like stepping foot into the bowels of a den of wolves where no other creatures dared enter.

Stay here. Mister Greeny told Nia, his vice clipped and harsh.

“What?” she asked but was immediately silenced by the living golem slithering from someplace nearby, coiling around her protectively as if defending a clutch of eggs.

They were close to the village, and that concerned him. He waded through the wide river, its banks swollen with melt, causing the previously lazy currents to become swift and powerful. As he walked, his thorny claws extended into deadly anchors that held him firmly onto the riverbed, preventing his heavy body from becoming nothing but flotsam being swept downstream.

As he ascended the opposite bank, his body shifted into the most diminutive form capable of holding his core. His hunched shoulders and thick legs constricted, squeezing the massive body of the forest bear down into something that reached no taller than a man’s knees.

Eight legs curved out of a wide and flat thorax, skittering along the ground with pointed tips digging into the thawing forest floor. Viscous sap dripped from a thorn protruding from a fat, leafy bulb held aloft by a whip-like tail while two atrophied arms made of what looked like desiccated twigs swayed limply beneath a small mouth resting just beneath four glowing, emerald eyes.

The elves called them Burrowing Chitters, and they were nasty things that liked nothing more than to eat the roots out from underneath the most ancient trees. Almost completely blind, they mainly lived underground, digging complex tunnel systems with their many legs. They were nothing more than pests, even with the intimidating stinger on the end of their willowy tails.

They were pathetically weak compared to the wyrms that claimed the forest as their own, and the forest bears would tear them apart with their long teeth and ripping claws. Still, their squat frames and plain appearance let them fade amongst the forest's misshapen brambles and arching roots like chameleons.

He moved quickly from bush to hollow, his body low to the ground as his eight reedy legs churned furiously. It was only a few minutes before the village came into view, but as the wind shifted and brought the cloying smell of death along with it, he stopped. It was old death, still rotting but nearly gone.

His many legs carried him forward. No signs of fire were evident in the elves' squat homes; the joined timbers and thatched roofs remained the same as when he last saw them but were as silent as gravestones and equally as ominous. He paused just inside the tree line, watching and listening and seeing nothing. He thought it was far from safe but knew that whatever had happened had happened some time ago.

He waited and watched. His eyes scanned for movement, and when he saw nothing, he stepped into the village.