Trek For Survival

"You"re welcome, Luan," said Carla with a smile.

"It"s so nice to finally have someone to talk to that"s not crazy or has a hidden agenda," said Tom as he picked up his cup and blew on it gently.
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"Oh," laughed Luan, "I don"t know about that! The only reason I came to this town was because I needed to see the alchemists. They make a potion I need to stay sane."

"What?" asked Tom, his cup halfway to the table.

"What do you mean?" asked Gia. "You seem perfectly fine to me."

"I get really angry when I don"t have my medicine every couple of weeks. And with the magic I control, it"s a really bad idea for me to be mad. My father sent me out of the village, when I was little, whenever I got mad, because I would do bad things with my magic. Now that I"m older, he pays the alchemists to make me my medicine, and they keep me calm."

"That"s horrible!" exclaimed Carla. "How could any parent send their child out into the forest just for getting upset? Being upset is part of growing up!"

"Oh, there"s nothing normal about my anger. My magic is plant based, so when I get mad, the plants respond. I strangled two people at the age of two. When I got mad, my dad would take me and put me in this wooden crib he had built out of a living tree. I was safe there, and no one could get hurt. I made all sorts of things in my anger, like a wooden monkey that would hop around the cage, rattling the bars and screaming at anything that moved. Things like that would amuse me and cause my anger to go away."

"That sounds awesome!" exclaimed Mikey, looking at her with wide eyes. "Well, not the killing people, but the monkey!"

"The monkey was just one of the things I made. I had all sorts of things that I made when I ended up in that crib. Most of them were destroyed, but I still keep a few, just to remind me not to get too mad at anything."

"That"s not a bad idea," said Tom, nodding his head. "I love to carve things out of wood, so I can understand the draw of making things. Especially if you keep a few of them around to remind you of things."

"I suppose I could see carving wood, if you didn"t have the magic to meld it," said Luan thoughtfully.

"When do you go see the alchemists?" asked Vonn.

"Probably tomorrow morning. It"s getting awfully late, and I"m kind of tired after fixing the tree branch that Llewel and Kilyn hurt. I still can"t believe they used those stupid vines on the tree. That hurts it so bad, it"s a wonder it will let anyone walk on the branch ever again."

"It probably wouldn"t hurt any of us to get a good nigh"s sleep," said Tom, stretching with several cracks and pops.

"Have you seen the beds in the back?" asked Luan, standing up and taking her plate over to the sink to wash. "They"re actually really nice, but they don"t have any sheets or blankets."

"To sleep in a real bed again!" exclaimed Carla with a dreamy look on her face.

"You act like we"ve been sleeping on the ground!" said Tom with a smile.

"That"s because we have been!" said Mikey, giving him a look.

Everyone laughed, as they all got up to see the beds in the back. There were eight beds in all, and it didn"t take long for everyone to pick one out. Half an hour later all of the dishes from supper had been washed, the fire banked for the night, and everyone was tucked into their own beds.

Tom"s soft snores were quickly joined by Carla"s. Gia rolled to her side, marveling at how easy it was to move again. Had the mayor not healed her side, she would have been in agony. She wasn"t sure how she would have laid down, not to mention if she would actually have gone to sleep.

Glancing over at Vonn"s bed in the dim light, she saw the lump that had to be him shift slightly. Was he thinking the same thing she was? She didn"t like sleeping on the hard ground, but she missed the warmth and comfort of having him beside her while she slept.

The sounds of Mikey finally asleep were what finally drove her over the hesitation she had been fighting. Grabbing up her blankets, she tiptoed across the cold floor to Vonn"s bed, where she gazed down at his sleeping face. There was just enough room for her to squeeze in beside him, and she didn"t hesitate.

Even asleep, he rolled to his side to make room for her, throwing an arm over her side and pulling her in close. Snuggling into his warmth, she finally closed her eyes.

The ground was getting closer!

Sitting straight up in bed, Gia looked around wildly. Vonn was still asleep, leaning away from her, and there was a huge wet spot on the bed where she had apparently been sweating. Wiping her brow, she climbed out of bed, appreciating the cold of the floor as she moved over to the fire. It had all but died in the night, so she took the time to build it back up.

It was far too early to be up, but she made herself a cup of tea in the hopes of calming down. Even now, when she closed her eyes, there was the ground, rushing up at her. Shaking her head, she took another sip of the tea. The dream was crazy! She hadn"t even been turned towards the ground to have known what it looked like!

"Gia?" asked a soft voice, and she turned to see Luan standing in the doorway. "Are you alright?"

"I just had a nightmare, is all," said Gia with a soft smile.

"Oh, I thought I might have woken you," said the white elf with a relieved look.

"Is everything alright?" asked Gia, moving over and patting the bench for Luan to sit beside her.

"I can never sleep right before I get my medicine from the alchemists here," the girl confided, giving her a small smile. "They scare me, and I never know if the potion they give me is going to be the same as the last one. What if the potion was made wrong and it doesn"t work? What if it makes me angry, instead of calm? I don"t want to lose myself."

"When was the last time you were really angry?" asked Gia.

"When I was 59. I remember it really well, even if I couldn"t do anything to stop myself," she said in a small voice. "I had just healed this little tree that got knocked over by one of the walking trees, and these elves had showed up, looking for wood to burn for a fire. They cut my little tree down, not knowing I had just healed it. I got so mad, I made the tree next to them wake up and step on them."

"Wait, do you have anything to do with all of the walking trees in the forest?" asked Gia.

"Maybe?" said Luan, wincing and hunching in on herself.

"Why don"t you put them back to sleep so they stop walking? I really wondered where they were going, and it seemed like they were just walking because they didn"t know what to do."

"I guess I could do that," said Luan thoughtfully. "I guess I never really thought about it. The walking trees never bothered anyone, and they keep those stupid satyrs away from our towns, so I didn"t think about making them go back to sleep."

"Do you want me to go with you to the alchemists in the morning?" asked Gia, finishing her tea.

"Would you? I hate the idea that you would get hurt if the potion doesn"t work…"

"I don"t mind going. As long as they don"t try to do anything to me. Could Vonn go too?"

"Sure! Though I don"t think it would be a good idea for Mikey to go. He"s so little and inquisitive, he might get into something and get hurt."

"That"s fine. We"ll tell him that his Limcheez might get hurt, so he"ll stay here."

"I am a little worried about him having that. No human has every had one. I don"t know what will happen to him once he"s fully bonded. He might not age like other humans, and he might change to be something other than human."

"Well, if something does happen, we"ll deal with it then. Worst case scenario, we"ll have him come back here."

"That would be a good idea," said Luan with a relieved nod.