Willow
Camp, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
Naomi gave the short version to Willow’s question, “You killed like forty of those big monsters the jimble-grimbs combine into, I helped kill two. Once they stopped coming, Jonah and I carried you between us in a circle or two before bringing you back here. We were hoping walking around the forest semi-randomly for a while would throw off any trackers. Neither of us were sure whether they could track in any case.”
Testing her body, Willow winced as she rolled her left arm. Smaller motions were no problem, it was really only movements which required lifting and rolling her shoulder backwards that caused pain. She nodded, “That’s a lot of the little freaks. That means we killed… Forty times twelve…” She paused for a moment before finishing, “Four hundred and eighty individual pop-hoppers?”
She glanced over at the choking sound Jonah had made, she saw his eyes wide in clear shock. Flashing him a quick grin, she pointed out, “Each one really only takes a punch or two to take out, it’s not as impressive a number as it sounds. If you can punch five hundred times, you can kill four hundred eighty pop-hoppers! Hm… Think I could copyright that as a slogan?”
An uncharacteristic gust of wind swept through their camp. The fire in the pit flared, casting additional heat as if in protest to the biting cold that caused all three shiver at the sudden violent chill. “Sweet Jesus it’s cold. How’d THAT happen? It’s never even been slightly cold on this planet before.” I’m not whining, just stating an unpleasant fact! And my tone was not petulant. Nope. Just ah… I’m wounded, yep! It’s a wounded tone of voice. Certainly.
Willow glanced toward Naomi, who was squeezing her body into an even tighter ball in response to the wind. Determining the current enemy would be best faced with a comrade in arms, Willow scooted her bare bottom over until her shoulder was pressed up against Naomi’s. She did her best to think warm thoughts. Doing her best to imitate a top-speed blue hedgehog, Willow looked longingly up at the clothes hanging from the line, “Do you think those are dry yet?”
Taking a deep breath, Naomi suddenly unwrapped and quickly stood to grab each of the jumpsuits to quickly check. Willow snickered as Jonah’s face turned so red she wouldn’t be shocked if he was using some kind of embarrassment night-light spell. She could just about see a red glow helping the fire fight off the darkness. His eyes snapped down admirably quickly, going back to staring directly into the fire. Willow momentarily noted that this would be a perfect opportunity for a bunch of enterprising pop-hoppers to ambush them. Given that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance she’d be willing to leave the warming aura of the campfire, though, she also wouldn’t be asking anyone else to.
Sitting back down with a less graceful motion than she’d sprung up with, Naomi began trying to rub warmth back into her arms as she resumed her wrapped posture. She shook her head, “Still damp. Would make us colder. I guess I shouldn’t have washed them, but…” She trailed off with a shrug.
“But it’s never been cold here.” Jonah repeated Willow’s earlier observation. After a moment of silent contemplation, he continued, “It’s too dark to be entirely sure, but looking around the edge of the fire light… It seems like the mist that’s been hanging above us all this time has finally decided to play by the rules of physics and fall to the ground.”
Both human-balls turned to look out toward the forest. After a few moments, Willow thought she could see what Jonah was talking about. There was a kind of movement to the air just at the edge of the light. Wish I had a flashlight. It’d be so easy to be sure. She grumbled in annoyance at the lack, but couldn’t think of anything they had which could be used as a stand-in. They didn’t have even have hand-mirrors or anything else reflective which could be used to try and cast the light out further. That being said…
She thought about the tiny trickle of discipline mana which she’d used to force her eyes open. After opening them, she’d released the mana and her eyes seemed to be working normally. She honestly wasn’t sure why they’d been so insistent on staying closed previously. Maybe they were frozen shut. She thought as another unexpected breeze caressed her exposed skin, causing her to shiver involuntarily and her skin to break out in goose flesh. She looked back toward Jonah, seeing his gaze looking out toward the forest. He was shivering so hard that he quivered like a chihuahua.
“Jonah, your jumper isn’t still wet, is it?” He glanced her way, but didn’t quite meet her gaze before looking down at the fire again. His non-answer was answer enough. Willow rolled her eyes, “Idiot, you’re going to get hypothermia and lose your… Everything! I get that you’re embarrassed but maybe you should hang your jumper with ours? And actually…” She frowned, “Why are we sitting out here? Let’s just move our tents closer to the fire and then get in them, that’s like… Literally the point of them. To protect us from the elements.”
Amusement followed another wind educed bone-chilling tremor as she saw realization spread over Jonah’s face. He groaned let his head droop, “Wow. I’m an idiot.” He leapt up and got to work, pulling the stakes out of the ground. While she knew she’d have to get up and do the same in a moment, Willow just watched for now. Not because I’m freezing and totally dreading getting even more cold momentarily. Nope. It’s ah… Oh! Cuz I’m naked. Yeah, it’d be embarrassing for poor Jonah and Naomi if I just got up and walked around. Poor guy would probably faint if he saw me in all my glory. Yep, I’m sticking here because of him. No other reason.
Before she could properly convince herself that not getting up to move her tent as soon as possible was reasonable, Naomi ruined the entire premise of her arguments. She stood up and quickly rushed to her own tent to start pulling up its stakes. Groaning in, perhaps, a dramatic fashion, Willow forced herself up too. The unladylike-like grunt she let out was a more involuntary noise. She’d somehow managed to put her battered and bruised body mostly out of her mind, but standing up was enough to remind her. The reminder was given in no uncertain terms, loudly, by every nerve in her entire body. Yeah, yeah, get over it.
Forcing herself to move as quickly as she could, at a slow shuffle, she went to get her own tent prepped to move. Before she was even half way, Jonah’s voice came from beside her. It was unexpectedly sharp, almost harsh, “Willow! Go sit back down, right now. You’re injured. I’ll get your tent.”
She turned to find him glaring at her, face red, eyes almost trembling with the effort of maintaining the level gaze. She gave a weak smile and opened her mouth to give an excuse, then screamed in pain. The unexpected sensation of someone grabbing her wrist had caused such a surge of agony that she found herself collapsed on the ground with both of her friends crowding around her head with horrified and worried expressions. She grumbled, “Fine. I guess Kent is right.”
He snorted, “Okay, you’re clearly fine and don’t need any help at all. Can you help get her up while I get her tent moved?”
Ignoring whatever Naomi replied with, Willow suddenly realized how tenuous her grip on consciousness was. Her eyelids started to droop, resisting her efforts to keep them open. Nope! A thread of discipline mana stopped that nonsense. No ‘slipping into the darkness’ or ‘letting the night claim her’ for me! This time she also split the stream off to her limbs and forced herself to gently stand back up. She took Naomi’s proffered hand as she did, using it to support herself a bit but not pulling. She knew Naomi would likely fall on top of her if she pulled too hard. I need to teach her how to set her center of gravity.
The inane thought floated through her head. She followed the gentle tugging on her hand and felt sudden warmth as she entered the yellow light. The cold was annoying. Clumsily spilling instruction mana into her ability, Willow told it to go away. The area warmed. She felt herself starting to relax in the soothing warmth.
“Willow?” Willow! Sudden pain in her cheek. “WILLOW! Use your xp, put it into your body’s healing.” It was odd that she was floating. The world was all fuzzy, this was a pretty vivid dream. “Do you hear me, Willow?…. Shit.” Another pain in her cheek, this one less.
It’d be a good time for a nap, I think. This bed is pretty comfy. Or is it a hammock? Yea, probably. Bed’s don’t sway, really. She giggled, Unless its occupants are making it sway. She felt her face redden slightly at the naughty thought.
A sharp pain, this one in her ear. Willow’s hand snapped up to defend her sensitive lobe. Her nails scraped against something. It gave way, but only slightly. The attacker had retreated before her defense arrived. “WILLOW, PUT YOUR XP INTO BODY HEALING!”
Stolen story; please report.
Blinking, Willow looked at her dojo as it danced in front of her. She waved at her avatar. Weirdly, it frowned at her. It was transparent, almost gone. That was odd. She tried not to use that mana too much. Then it did something odd, it attacked her. Her own self leapt into her and she felt herself will all of the thick gas-like xp floating around her soul to do it. She couldn’t remember what ‘it’ was. Hopefully it tasted nice. She was hungry.
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Naomi
Camp, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
It had been shocking, almost insulting, when Willow woke up and acted like she was entirely fine. While Naomi knew she was super-human, brushing off working herself near to death while taking cuts, bruises, and probably fractured bones was ridiculous. It was enough that she felt faint red streaks flow across her soul nexus. She chatted like everything was alright, so Naomi had hardly thought about it when she saw Willow stand up to follow her and Jonah, intending to help them move the tents.
Thankfully, Jonah hadn’t been as blasé about it. He’d immediately rushed over and started ordering Willow about. Jonah telling someone to do something, much less Willow, had been enough to send blue-purple waves through her. She’d turned to watch, curious, just in time to watch Willow scream like she’d had a part of her body chopped off as she collapsed. That had apparently been caused by Jonah simply taking hold of her wrist. Making her way over, she’d briefly touched her neck to check for a pulse. It had been there, still strong as ever and Willow’s eyes had opened again immediately. Her snarky use of her old ‘nickname’ for Jonah had put both herself and Jonah somewhat at ease. Naomi offered her a hand, helping Willow back to her feet and began walking her back to her area by the fire. Jonah said he’d get her tent.
Once back by the fire, she began to demand that she put her xp to healing herself. Willow didn’t respond, the air suddenly lost its biting chill, becoming just slightly cool. “Thanks, Willow. Now, can you put your xp into healing yourself?”
No answer. She frowned and was about to ask again, when Jonah arrived pulling Willow’s tent behind himself. He blinked in surprise as he entered the sphere of warmth Willow had apparently established but didn’t let himself get distracted. He answered Naomi’s question instead, “She can’t just ‘heal’ with the xp. As far as we’ve found, xp can be used to improve aspects of ourselves. Healing isn’t improving, just fixing. It’s also not permanent, the things xp does are always permanent.”
Nodding, Naomi tried, “Willow, can you put your xp into improving your ability to heal? Willow? Willow!” By the end, she was shouting. Jonah positioning the tent near enough to the fire that it would quickly warm and moved over to help her get the badly swaying girl inside. His face was flushed bright red the entire time and he tried to avoid looking at either of them. It was a task in and of itself to get Willow to crouch and duck into the tent. From there, she kind of collapsed into a pseudo-sitting position, rocking slightly back and forth as if drunk.
Putting one hand on a shoulder to keep the rocking girl from falling and hitting her head, Naomi slapped her face hard enough to sting her own hand. Willow blinked, focusing slightly. Enough that Naomi thought she might hear her, “WILLOW! Use your xp, put it into your body’s healing!”
Screaming in her face wasn’t enough. She didn’t acknowledge the demand at all. Although, maybe she didn’t even need to do that. She woke up before, she might wake fine on her own again… Though… Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. Neither herself nor Jonah had any way to know just how bad off she was.
She slapped her again. Several times. It did nothing. She didn’t reply or make any indication she had felt it. The tent was too small for Jonah to enter with them, so he was outside. Naomi thought he was pacing from the shuffling steps she heard. She tried pinching her cheeks, squeezing her arms, poking her stomach. She even tried biting her arm hard enough to draw a trickle of blood. None of it caught her attention.
Finally, desperate, she leaned in and bit Willow’s ear. She wasn’t sure if her friend’s ear was as sensitive as hers were, but she remembered when an earing had been ripped out as a girl. It had been horrible. She saw a flash of pain in Willow’s eyes as she pulled back, barely in time to dodge Willow’s hand coming up to cover the ear she’d just bit. Naomi SCREAMED her demand into her face, “WILLOW, PUT YOUR XP INTO BODY HEALING!” There was a slight delay, then she saw a flash of light behind Willow’s eyes. At least, she hoped she did, as the next moment she pitched forward unconscious. Naomi caught her body and gently settled her back onto the tent’s floor.
They hadn’t had a chance to pull the bedroll they’d had her lying on outside into the tent, but they could remedy that later. For now she focused on making sure Willow was laying in a position that was unlikely to cause any additional pain or damage. She felt flashes of blue and pink as Willow grumbled something and curled slightly. She looked better off already. Most of the long walk back to the campsite, Naomi had noted that she seemed more like a corpse than a sleeping person. She didn’t move, twitch, mutter. She was just limp. Now, at least, she seemed to be sleeping more normally. Sighing softly in relief, Naomi exited the tent.
The icy night air made itself known with a vengeance and Naomi shuddered. A mix of odd colors danced through her as she thought, Too bad I’m not empty of feeling-cold. There was something else in the air that hadn’t been there before. It was something she’d felt a few times back home, though not too often. The air smelled like lightning and rain.
Looking around, she found Jonah had finished moving both his and her own tent and was finishing hammering their stakes into the earth. A glance confirmed that Willow’s was already secured into the earth. As she watched Jonah, he glanced her way as if feeling her eyes on him. He quickly averted his gaze but called out, “Is she… Were you able to get anything through to her?”
“I think so. I saw something flash in her eyes, maybe mana? Or maybe I imagined it. But she rolled over in her sleep and curled up, I think that’s a good sign. She’s not just laying there like a corpse, like before.” Seeing Jonah flinch, she realized that likely wasn’t the best choice of words.
Keeping her eyes on Jonah, she briefly considered whether she should be embarrassed at him seeing her naked, or annoyed that he clearly had much less trouble keeping his eyes off her than Willow. She’d seen him sneaking looks, though he appeared to be trying no to. Men.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “I think a storm is coming. I don’t think we should keep watch tonight. Let’s just get in our tents and wait it out.”
A moment of silence drew out between them as Jonah clearly thought about it. Finally, he sighed, “If the fire goes out we might freeze to death.”
Although she wasn’t sure he was right, Naomi also couldn’t say he was wrong. The biting cold did seem to be getting worse. Given she’d already assumed it was below freezing, that wasn’t a great sign. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of much they could do. Their tents were on three sides, with most of the wind breaking on Jonah’s tent. Did he put his own tent wind-side on purpose?
“Could any of your new spells help?” She tried, unsure how likely it was for his gaming stuff to give him something so specific to their current needs. She shifted from foot to foot, her shivering hitting a new level of violence. “Could you check and just yell out what you find? I’m getting in my tent.”
Not waiting for an answer, she quickly slipped into her tent. Once in, she pulled the flap closed and tied the chords on the inside intended to keep it from opening. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that for Willow’s since it could only be tied from inside. That thought made her pause, as she was worried the wind would push the flap open and sap all of the warmth from her as she slept, helpless.
She undid the ties and exited the tent, pulling her bedroll behind her. She entered Willow’s tent and gently pushed her onto one side of the tent, getting a grumble and, “Noooo… Cold…” in protest. She put her bedroll down and rolled Willow onto it, then went and pulled Willow’s bedroll in. She closed and tied the flap the laid down. She groaned softly as she felt pins and needles poking every inch of her flesh as she slowly dethawed. Shuddering, she glanced at Willow who was facing away from her. She could almost feel the heat radiating off of her. Waves of green-grey rained down within her before dispersing. The cold was just something she’d have to endure.
“HAH! Thanks, Naomi! You were right!” She heard Jonah call from outside, then she heard a “WHOOSH” and the dim light bleeding through the oddly modern tent walls became bright. She could clearly see every nook and cranny. She was almost curious enough to open the flap to see what Jonah had figured out. Almost.
Instead, she closed her eyes and focused inside. The sensations of her body faded away as she entered her inner world of nothing. She stared at the mote of something in the distance. She sent all of her xp into it.
It seemed that, just like everything else with these soul-nexus things, xp was represented differently for everyone. Jonah had a literal bar and numbers like any RPG. Willow had a kind of gas or fog within her dojo. Naomi had dust. The xp was like specks of stuff in her otherwise empty world. Empty except for that one tiny little thing in the far distance. It wasn’t much, but… It wasn’t nothing.
She grinned as she felt her insight was no longer entirely accurate. She felt her inner world destabilize at the thought, the darkness somehow feeling like it was bending. Crumbling. The strange sensation didn’t worry her. Just like before, she had to give voice to her insight before it could solidify. Her insight wasn’t gone, but it was incomplete. She needed something more.
Staring at the distant point of something, she could only liken it to a single impossibly-far star in a night sky. A newly born star, perhaps. Is this what the beginning was like? Nothing, then… Something?
Within her soul, she murmured her first insight, “I am empty; but I don’t want to be.”
The inner world trembled in response, acknowledging her truth but demanding more. It felt as though time stretched in an infinite moment, as if paused to wait for her to finish. Waiting for her to speak her new insight.
The infinite moment ended when she spoke, “Emptiness is the beginning.”
It wasn’t part of her original insight, it wasn’t even exactly about her directly. Even so, she understood the connection between the two. Soft blues and pinks flooded every corner of her soul for a moment. She basked in the sensations of joy and determination. The feeling lingered until she slipped into a peaceful sleep, a smile on her lips.