As we step out of the mess hall, I turn to Naya. “Naya, I want to go back to the healers, check in on Mia. I… don’t want to just leave without saying goodbye.” They look at me, and then give me a nod.

  “Alright, she’ll take a little bit to get everything ready anyway. I haven’t seen Mia in a while either.”

  They move alongside me as I lead us through the little village.

  “You know Mia? Are you friends?” None of the people we pass pause to stare or anything, they all leave us alone. There are just a few waves here and there towards Naya; they’re clearly popular, especially with the women. I throw them a slightly questioning glance, and only get a small grin in return.

  They eventually do answer my question, however. “Kind of, not the closest, but we’ve had some good times together.” I am a bit curious as to what they mean, though I have some idea, but it’s not my place to ask, despite the small flicker of something like jealousy that almost shows on my skin.

  Eventually we reach the healer’s house and let ourselves in, two different woman from when I left are there, tending to Mia’s wellbeing. When we step inside, they only look up for a moment before returning to their work.

  We walk closer and watch for a few minutes. Worry continues to gnaw at me as I watch Mia lay there, her body broken, and her mind dark. Eventually, Naya speaks, asking the same thing I want to, but am unable to at the moment. “How’s she doing?”

  One of the women looks up at us and shakes her head. “Not much better than yesterday. She’s mostly stable for the moment, but… the curse is weakening our magic, and her own has done quite a number on her.” A door opens to a side room, and the old lady from the day before steps inside.

  “What my young apprentice here wants to say is, we can keep her alive, as I said yesterday to the little one there.” She indicates me to Naya. “But we are limited on how long we can do that. A month, two if no one else needs our attention.” She steps closer towards us. “Celine came in here a few minutes ago, said you… found something.” An old, exhausted sigh crosses her lips. “I’ll be blunt, it is a hail mary. But so was our plan to begin with. Getting all the items necessary would’ve taken at least a month, if someone went to get each of them at the same time.” She looks between me and Naya for a moment. “You’re the only two that are really available for this kind of thing at the moment. We’ll buy you as much time as we can.”

  We stay for a few more minutes, before I step up next to Mia, my voice is barely even audible to my own heightened senses. “Hey there. I… I don’t know what to say. I’ve always been bad with goodbyes, and I hope this isn’t one. I’ll try, try to find a solution to this. Hang in there, please.” I don’t know if she can hear me, or whether the slight shift in her halo is a trick of my senses, but I know that she is in good hands. I linger for a moment longer before I turn away; tears well up in my eyes as I slowly walk towards the door. The steps of Naya are right behind me.

  My mind is still quite distracted, and I just follow Naya, who has taken over the lead at some point. I am only pulled out of my reverie when we pass the edge of the village and towards the edge of the lake. Celine is there, waiting on us. “Hey there you two. I hope you said goodbye to Mia?” She looks at both of us as we approach closer, and I answer with a quick nod.

  “Yes, this is going to be a race against time. You’ve prepared everything?” Naya steps up next to Celine, they’re towering over everyone else present, though it doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

  Celine just holds out a small ring. “Everything you’ll need is in here, at least, what we had. Supplies aren’t the best recently as you know but… you two can just go hunt out there, it’s why you’re going anyway. So, just a week of food, and not much that Ada can eat.” She gives me an apologetic look. “I’ve added one of the scout maps, so you won’t get lost at least.” Naya gives her a smile as they accept the ring and put it on. Celine steps closer to me and kneels down to be on one height with me. “I wish we could do more, have you stay here but, well, we don’t have the people to send out. Not with the tension all over the kingdom increasing.” She sighs as she pulls me into a hug, her last words are quiet, only audible to me. “Save Mia, please. I know she’s not mine anymore, but… I still care, you understand that.”

  I lean into her, and my tail wraps around her in a quick hug, relaying my understanding. “I will. I like her, she’s a friend.” Celine chuckles a little at that, but just holds me for a moment longer before parting with me.

  “A friend. Alright, go make sure you save her then.” She turns towards Naya and raises a brow at them. “You ready? I hope I didn’t miss anything.” They shake their head and step up next to me.

  “Everything’s in order, we’re good to go.” They look at me and nod towards the distance. “Let’s get going. It’ll spit us out in the forest, so be ready to fight in case we drop in on something by accident.”

  I nod at them, and wave goodbye to Celine one last time. “We’ll be back, make sure Mia’s taken care of!” She smiles and nods, but doesn’t say anything more, letting us leave on our journey. A journey, I am frankly not sure how it is going to end up.

  A minute later we reach the same place where I originally arrived with Celine and Mia. Naya raises their hand and the air shimmers, and then our surroundings shift in the same way they did before. A moment later, we find ourselves in the bustling forest.

  There’s no immediate threat around, so we do not linger. We are at the edge of it at this point still, even hundreds of meters into it. Naya though just takes the lead, heading deeper into it, their steps are sure and swift, but slow enough that I have no issues keeping up. When they notice, they decide to speed up a bit, until we eventually reach a rather quick traveling pace. “Little one, you tell me if you sense anything, yes? You said you’ll be able to tell once we get close enough, so I trust in that. But… don’t expect a miracle, it’s unlikely we’ll stumble upon it anytime soon.” I give them a flicker of acknowledgement as we move through the underbrush. The animals and beasts we pass by leave us alone, going about their own business, and not bothering with the two strangers.

  We continue deeper into the forest over the next few hours. Our surroundings change a lot, but generally stay the same; a slightly thick underbrush, and a canopy that still lets in some light. It’s all in all a rather easy journey we’ve embarked on so far.

  The silence we travel in doesn’t really bother me, though eventually curiosity about my travel companion overtakes me. I dash up next to them, they give me a quick glance before focusing on their footing again. “Naya! I wanna know more about you, and the others!” I notice their grin as they continue their pace, but they do not ignore me.

  “What’s it you wanna know, little one? Plenty of things to tell, and Celine trusts you so I’ve no reason to keep many secrets.” They grin at me, their tone rather nonchalant. There’s a lot of things I want to know, like how long they’ve been with the resistance, their relationship to Mia, or how Celine has been, but eventually I settle on something more simple.

  “Celine said you like fighting, yes?” I leap over a fallen tree in between words, landing in a run. “Why?” Naya is right beside me, their steps far larger than mine, so the tree only needed a small skip from them.

  They think for a few long moments before replying. “Well, plenty of reasons, strength is one, it helps in getting better at combat. And also your magic is going to grow more potent the more you use it for things like this. Really, any usage of it is going to make it grow stronger, but combat has been the most efficient for me, and many others.” A few low hanging branches obscure their path, but Naya just barrels through them as I pass underneath. “Also, it’s fun, it’s exhilarating. I love the adrenaline of combat, of the brush with death. The exertion, the speed and brutality. I adore it” A wicked grin spreads across their face. “The creatures out here deliver well on that. Most humans, they’re weak, fighting them is pointless.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I get it, I’ve… had a lot of fun with my first few fights. It was very different to anything else I experienced, but it was fun and exciting.” I consider for a long moment whether to tell them about my magic, and eventually decide that if they’re helping me save Mia, they should know. “My magic, it consumes.” Naya just raises their brow questioningly at that. “When I killed the octofiend, it wanted me to feast, eat the heart, the brain, drink its blood. Not just because my body needs the magic, but because it makes me grow.” One of my tentacle hairs flicks up. “I didn’t have these before, I… my magic, took what we thought was helpful, and incorporated it. And then we used the rest of its magic to feed us.” Naya slows down besides me and I follow suit. They don’t seem appalled at my words at least. “We want to hunt, to grow, to become more.” A grin spreads across my face and skin as I speak.

  Naya gives me a nod besides me, before coming to a full stop. “You’re in luck then, I think there’s a treewurm up ahead. I want to see what you can do, so this is a good opportunity. They tend to be rather docile if left alone, but once you rile them up? They’ll rage like nothing else.” My curiosity is piqued, but I wait for them to elaborate. “Not rushing in, good. You say your magic makes you stronger, absorbs things, yes? Can you tell ahead of time what someone is capable of?” I start to shake my head before I stop.

  “I… am not sure? I can sense magic, see it, hear it, it’s weird. Like it overlaps with my other senses but it’s really its own sense, just interpreted in a familiar way. I think, maybe that lets me get an idea? At least for what somethings magical abilities are. But, not about the physical parts.” I take a closer look at Naya with that, their magic is almost as well kept as Mia’s. However, the small bits I can pick up on feel like I am looking at a raging inferno from behind a window. I can feel the heat, but am mostly shielded from it for the moment. Naya though just mulls over my words for a moment before nodding.

  “Alright, so no built in encyclopedia. At least, not entirely. Magic is important in this place, of course, but it’s not all. Physical strength,” They flex one of their arms as they say that. “and other biological advantages play just as much a part.” They look around and sniff the air for a moment, ears twitching above their head. “Wurm’s just a few hundred meters ahead. Try and figure out what it can do, take your time to observe it, pay attention during your fight. I want to know what you manage to figure out.” Pointing in a direction they motion me to move ahead. I flicker my understanding before calling on my magic and causing my perception of the world around me to change as it starts to isolate me.

  Naya just grins as they observe me fade from sight before I move out. They follow me with their eyes for a few meters, before losing track of me. “Wish I could do that.” I hear them mutter behind me and a grin spreads across my lips.

  It’s only a minute or so later when I finally spot the treewurm, Naya had said it is in this direction, but didn’t point it out in detail, likely to test my perception abilities. A good decision on her part, as the point where I do finally spot it is when it moves between trees. Trees that I had just walked in between. I quickly back up from the giant creature to get a more encompassing look of it.

  The creature is not quite the same size as the, frankly, entirely oversized trees in the forest, but much closer to old world trees. However, and that is likely where its name is from, it is covered in natural armor that makes its worm like body completely blend into the background of the forest and trees when it is not moving. The fact that it is leaking no more magic nor heat than the trees, makes detecting it not any easier for me either.

  Had I been unlucky, it might’ve just crushed me where I was. Though, just as Naya said, it seems rather docile, having ignored my proximity entirely and going about its normal business. It moves from tree to tree for a bit, before finally coming to a halt; wrapping its entire body around the trunk.

  I reposition to get a better idea on what it is doing, and eventually jump up onto a nearby tree, wrapping my tails around it to keep me in place. The wurm has its head buried into the side of the tree, and I see a few small traces of sap. It’s feeding, clearly.

  The wurm continues for a minute or so before it removes its head and lays it against the trunk, the wound in the tree quickly heals back up. A symbiotic relationship perhaps? Though I am not sure what the tree is getting out of it.

  Only a few more minutes pass with me unsuccessfully trying to find weak points in the wurm’s armor, before it starts moving again. This time, I try to stay ahead of it, taking a look at every tree it is heading towards.

  It moves from tree to tree, passing by all of them without showing much interest, even those of the same type as the one it had rested on before, before it finally stops at another tree. It’s different to the earlier one, but I am not sure why it chose this one.

  Leaping to a tree closer to the wurm, I anchor myself again, trying to figure out why the wurm is stopping at this tree. Eventually, while the wurm is still coiling itself around the trunk like it did before, I spot the difference. This tree feels like it is sick and weak, like it is dying.

  The wurm finishes its coiling and sinks its head into the tree, and the sap starts to flow again. Several minutes pass before it finishes its work. It is a symbiotic relationship after all, as I can feel the energy flood back into the tree, feel it come back to life.

  It is a caretaker. It makes sure the trees are healthy and in turn, the trees feed it. And I am supposed to fight it. A feeling I can’t quite place goes through me at that. On one hand, I am reluctant, the creature does not seem like a danger, it seems helpful even. But, another part of me, one that is new, yet always has been there, wants me to fight, wants to prove itself against this seemingly mighty foe. What’s more, it wants to grow from it, from this being, to absorb its essence and incorporate it into us. I have a hard time declining that part of me, but for the moment I decide that I want to observe for a moment longer. The wurm is not fleeing after all, it seems tolerant of my presence.

  I watch for the next half an hour or so, as the wurm moves from tree to tree, making sure each of them is healthy. It is an interesting behavior pattern, it seems entirely uninterested in the other creatures that pass below and above us. It’s entirely devoted to its work.

  There’s a few other things I notice as I continue to observe, however. Its tail end seems to have a hidden stinger, the contours of it are barely noticeable, and only really stand out after a few leaves got stuck on it for a moment. Its armoring is smooth, and seemingly without a weakness, outside of its belly that is. The head however has been the most interesting, there are no eyes to speak of, just a lamprey mouth it uses to dig into the tree.

  Deciding that my observation is complete, I drop from the tree and head towards Naya, still unsure whether I should truly fight the wurm.

  Naya, as it turns out, is still rather close by, though they raise an eyebrow at me when I approach. “Back already? I didn’t hear any fighting. Wurm got you scared?” I shake my head at them as I come to a stop.

  “No, but… it seems like it’s just there to help the trees? Like a symbiote. Keeps them healthy.” Naya nods their head at my words and crouches down to meet me at eye level.

  “They are! But, they’re also not sentient. And there’s plenty of them around in the forest, so many they get into quite a lot of territorial fights even. They also got very few natural predators. One of them being gone isn’t gonna hurt anything, and you need the experience. The wurms are quite powerful enemies, at least in this area. So, it’s your choice really, grow stronger, see what it has to offer you, or carry on, and stay as you are.” Naya is patient with me, allowing me to mull over my answer for a long while.

  They are right that I want strength, that I want to earn more power. And, if I am honest with myself, I do not mind fighting this creature. Fighting has been exhilarating, and if this were a person, I don’t think I’d be hesitating at all. An odd realization, that I am more willing to fight a person than a creature like this. Likely a part of me resents humanity at this point. Not all of it, obviously, I care for Mia, and Celine, for Anya. Naya isn’t bad either. But the experiences I’ve had seem to have jaded me, and this change to my body has only cemented that. The prospect of power, of more change, is eventually the thing that tips the scales. That, and the desire to challenge myself, to prove myself.

  I take a deep breath and nod my head to myself, coming to a decision. “I’ll fight it. I want to fight it. I want a challenge. And this will be my first for this journey.” Determination flickers across my skin as Naya gives me a wide grin and motions ahead.

  “Go on then, little one. Glory may not await you, but challenge and power does.” I nod my appreciation at them before I leap up, my claws barely sink into the trees bark, just enough to give me a stable place to leverage another jump, back towards the wurm.