Vine seemed to consider that for a moment. “We can, but need to be careful.”

“Careful?” Flower asked, uncertain. Was the smoke or smell going to bring monsters? It looked pretty peaceful though, she hadn’t seen a single monster since entering the forest. Maybe it was people? People do say the scariest monsters are people themselves.

Vine nodded in agreement. “Giant tree monster” she explained, pointing as she spun a full circle to indicate the full tree line, than she pointed at the red leafed tree in particular. “Strong monster, maybe a god, we need to follow the rules. Fire is” she considered how to word it “a grey area.”

“Oh.” Flower replied blankly. “Wait, we’ve been surrounded by a scary monster this whole time and you didn’t warn me?”

“Yeah, I guess so; I mean tree monsters don’t move much so it’s probably fine right?”

“Probably?” Flower asked, hunger once more forgotten. “You let me sleep right under a giant hungry monster?”

“Well, yes, but I was here, so it was alright, right? Plus you looked pretty tired, how far would you have gotten; sort of like you look hungry now.” Vine gave her a knowing look

It was frustratingly hard to argue against that. After all, her own stomach was arguing against her here. “So should we go then?”

“I’m not sure.” Vine admitted. “I found where the trees end, but we don’t know what’s out there. It looks like most things are too scared to approach these trees, so perhaps there’s safety in danger here. I found a cave closer to the edge of its reach which would probably be better than staying here, or we could try our luck beyond that.”

“Um, cave sounds safer but, uh, can we get food?” Vine looked questioningly at the rabbit, but Flower shook her head. “No, good kids don’t play with fire, and humans get sick if we eat raw meat.” Flower readily rejected.

“What’s a human?” Vine asked back

“Me, I’m a human.” Flower glumly admitted.

“Oh, so no raw meat huh?”

“Nope.”

“Well that’s hard, what do humans eat?”

“Pizza, burgers, French fries, sesame pork, soda, lemon chicken and pasta, all kinds of things.”

“Oh, um, where do those grow?”

“I don’t know.” Flower was beginning to feel sad, it wasn’t homesickness, not really, it just felt like she didn’t fit here. How was she meant to live where she couldn’t even find food?

“Oh, I know, we can do that!” Vine exclaimed.

“That?” Flower asked.

Without explaining Vine took off the coat and passed it back “Here take this.” She said, and then she began to shrink. It was a slow, awkward looking process, her hands rounding into softer appendages, her hair raising up and fluffing itself before bending into curls, her tail pressing up against her back and melding into it. While she shrunk, her rags began to twitch and stretch, like a sleeping beast their hair began to grow longer than weave together as they stretched much like skin or a soft insect egg might stretch. “Vine, you’re my close friend and I love you, but I’m losing my appetite.” Flower admitted. Maybe that was the point?

Unfortunately Vine didn’t reply, her skin was paling as her hair turned brown, her rags were even beginning to look like real cloths, thick and appropriate for a damp humid forest. Than Flower realized something, Vine was almost her own size, was she going to become the older sister? Was she ready for this? It was too sudden; maybe if they were still on earth she could manage, she was a good older sister after all. She could make toast and wipe stains, she could make funny faces or teach about what not to do, but but but, she was in a forest, she didn’t even know how to survive, let alone help someone else. No, no, calm down, you can do this, you can’t lose your dignity as an older sibling, you just have to do your best and put on a brave face for both your sake.

Puffing up her cheeks and puffing out her chest Flower tried to appear brave and confident, but the reflection in front of her didn’t look right. She tilted her head higher, and after a moment her reflection did too. Was there a lag in the mirror? Slowly she moved her hand closer to her reflection, but for some reason it never hit the glass. Then it touched a cheek, soft and warm. Her reflection smiled a big childish grin and waved. “Hi flower, it’s me, Vine!”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Woah!” Flower exclaimed in shock, taking two quick steps backwards. Looking wildly around, she couldn’t see Vine, only her reflection, but, was that really Vine? She looked suspiciously at her doppelganger. “What were you doing when I met you?”

“Crying!” Vine happily admitted without an ounce of shame, like a child reporting to a teacher. Did she really look like that? “Wow, your arms and legs are so short!” Vine happily exclaimed as she began swinging her arms with her gaze fixed on one of her hands. Then she began teetering on her legs, letting her weight carry her to the side and twisting her hips to put the other leg between her and the ground in time to catch herself. It looked, vary clumsy, unbalanced, and disorienting, but at the same time it looked like she should have fallen long ago or regained her balance. She wondered if she could do that. Then Vine did fall, but not really, her hand was on the ground and caught her weight, her wrist twisted, and with it her body twisted before she pushed herself back onto her feet. Flower had to admit, she defiantly couldn’t do that. “Wow, and your skin is so soft and thin! How do you live like this, you can’t even twist it against rocks let alone scrape them!”

Flower didn’t know what face she was making, but it seemed to catch Vine’s wandering attention. “Well sorry for being a soft and weak human who can’t scrape against rocks and eat raw meat and turn into whatever I want!” Tears were starting to bud in her eyes again, but they were swiftly hidden as Vine swept her back into a hug. It felt different, instead of Vine’s ample bosom her head was pressed up against her own flat chest, instead of warm scales it was scratchy wool, and if she looked it wasn’t Vine’s alien face, but her own. Did this count as hugging herself?

“No, no, that’s not what I meant, you’re really great! Look at how cute you are, that’s great for luring people into a trap, and being weak is sometimes better, it means people will think you need help and underestimate you, and, um, look at how good you are with languages! Do you remember how bad I was with yours?” Did this count as consoling herself?

Flower laughed, she couldn’t help it. “Thanks, I guess, but you’ve got it wrong, I didn’t learn anything, that was all the system.”

“The system?” Vine asked. “How many points did you put into it?”

“Seven.” Flower admitted.

“Seven!” Vine exclaimed. “I only had three, and one of those I only got after killing the rabbits! Did you, um, do anything to get those? Oh, and don’t add more, you’ll start sounding snobby and grammatically anal.”

“Do anything?” Flower asked, confused. “I don’t know, it was in the welcome message, it said I get to start with seven.”

Vine held her cheeks in warm little hands and turned her head to face her own with a happy smile. “Wow, seems you really are trapping people!” She exclaimed excitedly.

“Trapping people?” Flower asked, unable to follow the train of thought.

“Yes, the system awards travelers with points to spend because they are adding their soul to the pool of souls in the world, that’s why there’s a checkout procedure, so that the world won’t lose out too much when you leave. So getting more points means you have a stronger soul, and a stronger soul usually means a stronger power. It’s more esoteric so it could be anything, but congratulations Flower, you’re super strong!”

“I’m super strong?” Flower asked, confused. “How am I super strong, I’m obviously weak!” but now she was laughing. She didn’t know why, but she felt better after the silly discussion, maybe this was what sisters were for. If someone saw them now they’d probably think they were sisters too given how they looked the same.

“Exactly! Just like that you’ll lure them in!” Vine teased. “Well, it doesn’t need to be strength, could be you’re just talented with magic or whenever you make a boat it becomes able to fly, there’s all sorts of weird powers and abilities out there.”

“You’re ridiculous!” Flower countered, and they both laughed.

When they let go Vine took the rabbit corpse and tossed it into the grass. “Well I guess we don’t need that if we’re not using it, how do humans usually survive out here?”

“We don’t, when we’re lost in a forest we’re supposed to in a city, more humans to work together with.”

“So you’re pack animals?” Vine asked.

“Kind of” Flower thought about it. “I guess so.”

“Well, is there anything else humans can eat? Grass maybe? The teeth feel weird for it.” She stuck her hand in her mouth, feeling her teeth. “The front ones are for chopping and cutting, the side ones are for tearing meat, and the back ones are for grinding vegetative matter, so omnivores?”

“Omni what?”

“It means you eat meat but not just meat.”

“Oh, that’s true!”

“…but not grass?”

“Not grass.”

“No raw meat?”

“No raw meat.”

“Nuts, seeds, berries, fruit?”

“Oh yeah, we can eat those!”

“I guess that sets it then, we can’t pick those in here, we’ll have to go out past the monster and look for regular plants.” As she spoke Vine pulled off the heavy boots. Flower watched in shock as they broke down into loose hairs and disappeared as soon as they were off. The same was repeated with the heavy socks until Vine could flex and wiggle her toes freely in the air. “Okay, gather your stuff and get on my back, I’ll carry you.”

“I’m not a baby you know, I’ve done plenty of walking; you’ve seen me do it!”

“Not through a tree monster I haven’t, it’ll be easier to carry you than to explain all the little things. Just be careful not to touch anything or talk while we move okay?”

Flower seemed to deflate slightly; maybe she wouldn’t get to be the older sister after all. She put the coat on, picked up the rucksack and put that on too, when she looked for the silver knife it appeared in her hand again, but quickly disappeared again, if she was honest it unnerved her a bit when it did that.