Chapter 26: Travel
“I think it will be good for you,” Her dad tried to explain.
“But I don’t want to go to Auntie’s land! Christena’s lessons just started back up again and we were actually having fun.” Addie tried to counter her father’s demands.
Her dad frowned, “Christena’s father owns an Area nearby, and Christena wants to join the expedition. She’ll spend some time visiting her father, and she’ll be able to continue with your lessons.” Addie opened her mouth to reply, but didn’t get the chance as her dad barreled on, “It’s tradition to spend four weeks as an exchange student within another Area Lord’s domain. And in this case, you’ll be quite close to two Area Lords at the same time. Christena’s father and your Aunt share bordering pieces of land. You’ll have the chance to meet your cousin, Nettal, too. She’s your age so I’m sure you’ll be fast friends.”
While the idea of making friends did appeal to Addie, she didn’t want to leave her home and lessons behind. Besides, she remembered Nettal from when she was younger, and not all of it was good. It was frustrating. She had even just committed to trying her best! In the end, the decision wasn’t up to her, though.
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The carriage ride was super boring. It would take them nearly two weeks to cross through the forest and enter the Area Auntie Lomain held command over. It was lucky, in the sense that Addie had gotten what she wanted, a way to continue her magic lessons. Unlucky, because she had to continue her other lessons, too. Whether or not Christena’s presence was lucky or unlucky was still up in the air.
“Math is so boring~!” Addie declared with a huff and a cross of her arms. Obviously, her previous dedication didn’t apply to math.
“When I heard you were coming I thought we were going to do something fun. Like magic!” Addie had to readjust her position in the cart. The wooden bench desperately needed some kind of pillow.
From her position at the driver’s seat, Christena held tightly to the reins of a pair of Gigantic Fillow. They were excellent magical creatures for driving a cart in rough terrain. The wilds between Areas had no roads to speak of, and the hardy nature of the overly huge moose-like creatures was perfect for walking the cart through the thick brush. At least the carriage could float somewhat decently and did not need wheels. That, combined with the towering height of the fillow meant that in the majority of cases, the passengers simply floated over all the wildlife— the cart itself reaching the fillow’s shoulders at nearly ten meters above the ground. The fillow themselves didn’t get to just float over the forest floor, though. They had to practically trample everything underfoot—which often meant the ride was slow-moving. With her practice traversing through the forest and learning from Squishy, Addie suspected she could run faster to their destination than the cart could carry her. It was fascinating to watch them walk, though. Instead of hooves, they had big paws, more like a giant cat, that they used to walk through the brush of the forest— well, more like trample the forest underfoot. Addie admired the deep paw prints the fillow made each time they took a step. Addie thought she could lay down in one of the paw prints without so much as reaching any of the edges.
“I know you would ignore all subjects other than magic if you could Addie, but that would leave you a terribly unrounded individual.” Christena sighed yet again. “Trust me when I tell you: math will help you with your magic too. Problem-solving is an important skill.”
Addie rolled her eyes in response. Christena didn’t notice, since she had to face the forest ahead of them due to her position as the driver holding the reins.
Christena continued, “Just be glad we are taking a break soon. We’ll stop for lunch in about half an hour, so please try to be patient. These fillow are becoming increasingly frustrating to manage. I suspect they’ve been spooked by something. Such excitable creatures. They weigh nearly ten tons! If these stupid things were any smarter they’d realize nothing is big enough to threaten them.” Addie could hear her frustration.
Addie diligently remained quiet after that, but regardless of the silly fillow, she wasn’t worried in the slightest. Transport animals seemed to scare at the slightest provocation, and regardless, Christena was more than powerful enough to deal with anything in the surrounding lands.
Sure, there was an occasional rustle in the surroundings, but both Addie and Squishy chalked that up to the wind. Neither of them saw anything with their spatial sense, after all.
Soon enough, they stopped for lunch. Squishy tore into his dried meat voraciously, constantly going on about the ‘mystical wonders of human food’.
Oppositely, Addie couldn’t wait to be rid of the trail rations. The tough seasonless jerky and dry hardtack were only palatable if she forced them down with some water. At least it was better than raw rabbit. That wasn’t saying much, though. Squishy would get tired of this ‘fancy human food’ too once the novelty wore off.
The day went on much like this, with Christena and Addie talking from time to time. Squishy mostly just observed the forest around him as he got used to his newly enhanced cognition. It was hard to say since he used to be just a simple animal, but Squishy suspected he had lived for quite a long time before meeting Addie. Perhaps even decades.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Despite his possible age, this world of logic and thinking was entirely new to him. Whereas before he thought of things in terms of danger, not danger, or food, and not food, now he had a much broader perspective. Things like future planning and honing his battle sense were at the forefront of his mind. He still had to get used to complexities like problem-solving and multi-faceted emotions.
While all of that was endlessly fascinating to Addie, she didn’t understand his perspective all too well. For as long as she could remember, she could always reason and use logic. Even if it was pretty rudimentary when she was younger. She logically knew that when she was just a baby she wouldn’t have had any developed sense of logic, or any kind of advanced thinking really, but Squishy’s situation was entirely different. Addie never remembered her time as an undeveloped baby, but for Squishy, he magically received a brain and all that implied without warning. As such, his memories of his lesser advanced self still remained. He could easily compare the before and after in a way Addie couldn’t.
Other than those occasional conversations with Christena and Squishy, Addie mostly watched the scenery go by. She couldn’t leave the cart due to it floating so high up in the air, so she had to occupy herself while remaining mostly immobile. She tried working on her spatial sense to an extent, but now that she somewhat knew where its limits lie, she tended to get bored of it after a little while. It didn’t help that she couldn’t sense anything smaller than the veins of a leaf, either. She knew there were smaller parts that made up the veins of the leaf, and even smaller parts yet that made up those parts, but she just couldn’t get the hang of sensing those. Squishy gloated endlessly about how he could so obviously sense tiny little spheres making up the whole leaf, but Addie couldn’t see that small down and only had his incessant bragging to know she was still missing details.
Rather than focus on that frustration, she decided to take a break for a while. She wanted to practice going in and out of Realmspace some more, as well, but couldn’t do it while on the cart for the same reasons she couldn’t get off the cart mundanely—
she didn’t want to plummet the ten or so meters down towards the floor. The pair of Fillow certainly had their uses, but they definitely didn’t make it easy for her to explore.
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Lunch passed like this, the party safely floating up and above the most obvious dangers of the forest. Even if something had tried to reach them, Christena would have bonked it back down to the forest floor. Nothing did, though.
Their first night in the forest came soon enough, and with it, a welcome break from the cart travel. While the cart was remarkably steady, floating as it did, Addie still felt prone to motion sickness if she tried to sleep. Thus, Christena agreed they could make a proper camp on the forest floor. They used the cart as a pseudo roof over their heads, though it was too high up to properly block the elements, so they also set up a large tent for everyone to pack into.
Christena laid down on Addie’s left side, with Fluffy curled up into a ball reminiscent of her namesake near Christena’s feet.
Squishy, on the other hand, was enamored by the ‘floating pieces of tree’ they had ridden on during the day, and still couldn’t get over how the humans managed to make the cart float up in the air. As such, he decided to study the cart for a while longer.
He also mentioned that the significant height made for a perfect ‘vantage point to guard the camp’.
At first, Addie thought she might feel lonely and unprotected since he wasn’t sleeping next to her, but she actually felt reassured to know that Squishy would be guarding them tonight from overhead. It comforted her and reminded her a bit of how her dad would sometimes stay awake in his office during the night. She always felt comforted that he was still awake as he worked in the office, watching the house as she slept.
The normal forest sounds serenaded her as Addie drifted off.
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Addie really had to pee. No, she urgently had to get up right now and go to the bathroom. It was still pitch black in the tent, though, and she didn’t want to have to wake up Christena in the middle of the night just so she could relieve herself.
With those thoughts in mind, as quietly as she could, Addie wiggled out of the thin layer of furs they used to keep warm at night and reached for the tent flap. She didn’t bother putting on any thicker clothes since it was still summer, and the night didn’t feel too cold.
Just before she could open the tent flap, Addie sent a quick soul ping to Squishy, the soul bond equivalent of a poke to get his attention.
He was still awake, and pinged right back, then spoke telepathically, “Everything still appears as normal, my lady.”
With that reassurance from her partner, Addie finished moving the tent flap aside and stepped out of the tent.
She took care of her business quickly, and the less said about that, the better. In this dark of night, with the rustling of bushes nearby, Addie felt increasingly eager to hurry back to her tent. She started with a quick walk, but she nearly broke into an all-out sprint by the time she was a few paces away from the tent.
Squishy sent a bemused feeling out to her through their bond. Both of them knew nothing suspicious could possibly be nearby, otherwise they would have noticed it with their spatial senses.
Addie closed the tent flap behind her, and let out a breath. She got comfortable back under the furs and wiggled herself until she got her position just right. She let out another breath and found that her breathing had increased its pace substantially. She giggled to herself a bit, with the sudden adrenaline rush getting to her head a bit. She was so silly for rushing back to the tent like that.
Soon, her breaths slowed back down, and the dark edges of sleep started to overtake her once more.
It felt like she was falling, and with a sudden jolt, Addie woke back up. Wide awake, her heart hammered against her ribs and pulsed in her ears. She frantically moved her eyes around the tent, but otherwise didn’t move a single muscle. Nothing seemed to be amiss.
Just for good measure, Addie prepared to send another telepathic ping to Squishy, and see if he was still awake and watching over the camp. Before she could, the rustling of the bushes started up again. Addie opened her mind to her spatial sense, which expanded even beyond the confines of the tent, but still, she didn’t see anything. ‘It must be the wind,’ she tried to comfort herself.
But the rustling didn’t die down. It came closer and closer to the tent, seemingly every bush to the right of the tent gained a life of its own as she saw their tiny branches undulating through her spatial sense.
Then, the right side of the tent, just next to Addie started to rustle. Addie froze completely, not even daring to take a single breath. She closed her eyes tightly and focused incredibly close on her spatial sense. Nothing was there.
Finally, she sent a ping to Squishy, probing him to ask if he saw anything strange. He didn’t bother with any words, instead, he sent over the feeling of a comforting embrace and reassurance. After that, he said simply, “Nothing is amiss, little Addie. Worry not, if anything suspicious appears I shall alert you immediately.”
The rustling died down, and Addie’s heart rate once again started to calm. Between Squishy’s reassurances and her own observations using her spatial sense, she knew nothing was out there. She let out a big sigh of relief, which slowly turned into an even bigger yawn. Then, Addie went back to sleep.
By the time morning came around, and as she ate breakfast with Christena, Addie had completely forgotten about the mysterious rustling of the bushes. She logically decided it must have been the wind.