“What do you mean, we are closer to our goal? Zan, who do you know who can translate this?!” Jiehong shouted, his nerves getting the better of him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Zan said. “We are closer to our goal once we find a guy who can translate. We might now know who that guy is, but once we find him, we are closer to our goal, since we will find these hidden bases. How does this not mean we are closer to our goal?”

Jiehong grunted. And returned outside. He fired up his pipe and had a smoke. It smelled to Zan of low-quality tobacco. I didn’t know he smoked… I thought it was only the herb?

Zan didn’t know what he should do.

Jiehong had been willful and conflict-prone for so long now. Days? A week? It seemed longer, but the strain of war took its temporal toll, making even a day seem like a month.

He had tried talking to him. Thought he had gotten somewhere talking to him, only for Jie to swing around again to become pissy. What was it with him? Zan thought. Was it only because he couldn’t be the leader? Or were there deeper elements at play?

Heading outside after telling Mac they would contact them if need arose, Zan stood by Jiehong for a few minutes, waiting for his smoke to finish.

Seeing his smoke had done and the pipe had been put away, Zan said, “Anything you want to talk about?”

“No,” was the plain answer.

Standing in silence for a while, Zan debated on whether he should try talking, anyway. Deciding it was not worth it, Zan simply said, “If that’s how you feel, fine. We’re sleeping here tonight. Get cozy wherever. I’ll be inside.”

“Shouldn’t we use this time to get back to the command center?” Jiehong asked.

“No,” Zan replied, then left.

Back inside, Zan felt his emotions torn. Something was truly wrong between him and his best friend, but he didn’t know what. Thinking about it caused Zan to become flustered himself, however. Being the case, Zan did not want to think about the tension anymore. He and Jie were part of an order of warriors. Though the order was new, and they were not exactly warriors, they had their mission.

Inside the base, they discovered, space was small. Settling his sleeping gear to the side of the entrance, Zan settled in for the night and found sleep quickly because of the day’s stress. Before he fell asleep, he heard Jie come in and do the same on the other end of the room.

When the morning came, Zan looked at Jiehong. He had seen better times. His hair was a mess. His bones click-clacking from immobility and hungry bellies. Zan was used to sleeping this way since he had always slept on the floor back during the peace, when Jiehong’s family had taken him in as one of their own. Jiehong himself, however, always got the bed.

“Let’s finish those berries and crackers… plus, I think we have some dried meat? Then we can get going back to the base,” Zan said.

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Jiehong said nothing. Zan wasn’t expecting him to talk, though.

Eating in silence, both boys could feel the tension in the air. Though to Zan, he felt a curious sensation in his head. Something like an emotion. It told him to ‘not give a care’ about Jiehong’s attitude problem.

I’ve tried so hard with him and I am so tired. We are fighting in a war and yet it feels like the enemy is here with me as much as it is on the battlefield…

Eating as he thought about these things, Zan felt bad for comparing his friend to the enemy. Jiehong might be a prissy man right now, but he was still his ally, and would always be his ally short of him turning coat and aiding the enemy.

A curt burp later, and the two were ready to head home.

“Will you be alright by yourself?” Zan asked Mac.

“Affirmative. You and Jiehong are the first life-forms to communicate with me in many cycles. I will be fine. In the event of other Life Forms discovering my location, they cannot enter the structure; when I turned the security codes over to your Order, it also connected to your Power and thus will filter anyone not meant to be here,” Mac replied.

“Okay. Cool… until next time, then!” Zan said, heading out the door.

The boys walked in near total silence as they retraced their steps through the forest. It was a skill they learned over their lives and from people much more experienced than they, both in age and knowledge. Difficult as they had been in the past when the elders attempted to teach them, they both were happy now they paid attention. That knowledge of the woodland path served them well here.

Figuring he ought to let the Wardens know they were on their way back, Zan said into his earpiece, “Simulacrum, we are on our way back. See you soon-ish.” Zan received a confirmation bing, but nothing else. He took the ‘bing’ as the Wardens shorthand for acknowledging their status.

Although the trek back still took them hours, this time, they at least knew what they were looking for as they retraced their steps through the murky wood.

Taking a slightly different way up the waterfall than they had come, one which had looked safer than it actually was, Zan slipped and hurt his ankle. Blessed be to both! They were already near the top when Zan hurt himself.

Falling to his knees and then legs, resting on them, Zan could only crawl forward on his hands and knees in jagged humps which lurched himself forward. By the time he had reached the top of the hill, Jiehong noticed his position and rushed over to help.

“You proud donkey!” Jiehong said. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“I would have thought my agonized ‘gaaaah!’ was enough!” Zan said with hurt in his tone.

“Well, sorrrrry!” Jiehong spoke sarcastically. “I couldn’t hear you over the roar of the fall! …but I got you now. Hold on a minute.”

Jiehong dragged Zan further up the elongated slope to tend to him. Pushing back the leggings up on his pants, he quickly found the wound.

Gripping the ankle gently with his oversized hand, for it only took one hand, Jiehong closed his eyes and chanted under his breath a holy hymn. It was what Jiehong always did when he used magic, though Zan never needed to recite the hymns when he used his magic. Differences aside, Zan felt the holy energies enter his body. The pain faded. After another minute of concentrated healing, the pain removed itself completely while allowing Zan to stand once more.

“Thank you, Jie,” Zan said with genuine thought.

“You’re welcome… bud,” he replied.

Not wanting their special moment ruined, both continued their trek.

By the time the midday sun hung lower in the sky than higher — the many gods of their world fully obscured by the foliage line — they located their shimmering portal into the Backroads.

It hadn’t been easy locating a shimmering cloud of air which hung ominously in the bramble, but the darkness provided from the wood helped. “Okay, just through the portal, through the strange wood, and we are home clear.”

“Assuming we don’t get caught in whatever caught you and swept you to that weird place…” Jiehong said in a deadpan.

“Yeah… here’s hoping!”