I awoke to a fluffy-like buzzing sensation flowing in and around my body as I feel very tired and dizzy. I bare register the noise of someone either mumbling or moaning off to my left and my initial surface thoughts of Rue bubble forth. Then worry hits in and the weird sensation relaxes a little when I sit up. It's just becoming dusk and I'm aware enough to be looking for Rue, but when I look in the direction of the moan I just heard, I realise the forest feels a little different.
'Where are we?' I thought groggily as my anxiety levels level out. 'This forest doesn't look like any I've been to before.'
*'Mmnngh'*
The moan snaps my attention back to the moment and I slowly feel around with a mild tingle of pain in my legs while in the dark but soft, orange light of the sun rising. I rummage around then as I go to stand up, I find myself falling back down in intense pain.
'Oh.. you gotta ... be kiddin' me!' I whimpered, as my left ankle shoots out another pain spike, more extreme than the last.
Looking down at the sore ankle, I almost puke at the image before me of ... well, my foot badly broken and my shin snapped in half. I'm desperately wishing that it could heal, when a thicker but not as overwhelming familiar feeling flows all around and over me exactly after I stopped wishing for the pain to go away.
A faint but noticeable noise I recognised from a few seconds ago emanated from the thick grass ahead of me, so I slowly walked and crawled my way towards it without putting too much pressure on my ankle. I don't know how, but this feeling from earlier that I'm remembering again is constantly coursing through my body as I move, forcing me to stop. The weird feeling feels like it flows strongly down my leg and towards my ankle while I feel the pain receding.
When the sensation dissipated, I find my ankle doesn't feel as sore, but by looking down towards the sore leg, I can see it just looks very bruised compared to what it was previously. But my worries are now on the focus of the voice I hear ahead of me.
Slowly getting up, I cautiously make my way over to where I last hear the noise when I hear something else rustle in the grass taller than my crawling position. I dare not make a move, as this could be a very real threat not just to me, but Rue as well. As I slowly and quietly find my way up to the edge of the long grass, I hope to find her awake and safe, only to see her unconscious and laying on her side while being nudged by a small, familiar but even scarier in person wolf-like creature made entirely of timber.
It looks more like a pup from its size and it took a few more seconds to notice a bigger one, likely a parent, sitting like I am but in shorter grass just off to my right. If I were a military compass, it would be roughly off to my two o'clock.
'How do I make it to her?'
Without knowing it, the parent creature creeped slowly out of the dark zone into the small open land before me and begins to help the oak pup with my unconscious friend. I feel a little bit petrified watching it creep across the grass slowly, but then I notice the slight limp as its read end comes into view. I took a few seconds to calm my anxiety and my nerves as I watched it get closer to her.
I don't notice at first, but I realised I've stepped out into the clearing enough that the two creatures recoil from my quiet arrival. I immediately raise my hands and stop moving or doing anything while I watch the bigger one protect the smaller one.
'It's okay, I won't hurt you. Or your pup.' I call out gently, in the hope that I'm not seen as a threat. 'I just want to see my friend.'
For a few seconds, I waited for the parent to register my words, or if it even understood my words, until it started to relax and let me get closer.
'Thank you. I might jump or move suddenly, but please don't take it personally.' I add after the shock of awkwardness wore off.
The creature seemed to acknowledge my words, responding with a curt nod after a good fifteen or so seconds before laying down, with the oak pup nestling beside it. It whimpered a little at some kind of unknown pressure on her rear-left leg. Only for me to notice the lack of wood the would be considered the area of said leg.
I frantically over to Rue as quickly as I dared without scaring the creatures. However, while in the process of turning her over, another wood creature barrels into the grassy clearing. I notice it's eyes are different to the creature before me with its oak wood pup. T
he eyes on the new, bulkier looking beast were dark green, yet behaving like a neon light, and leaving a small, wispy trail out of what I thought should be where the edges of the eyes would be. On the one I'd unintentionally bonded with, I finally noticed that it had purple neon eyes with a more dominant wispy trail coming off of the eyes.
Without thinking, I reacted a moment too soon because right as I picked up a thin but strong log-like stick, different in nature to the living wood before me, as I stupidly barrelled my way towards the green eyes one yeeling me head off. That was when, out of nowhere, I just fall awkwardly and close my eyes as the feeling of the green eyes glared into my mind before immediately . After what I think was just a very short nap, a yelp snaps me back to the world around me and a flash of wood covers my view as the pup ran in front of me. I just fell on my butt as the pup tried to protect me.
The green-eyes creature moves a little closer towards the hurt creature. I'm just sitting there, a tear in my eye as the hurt creature howls in pain as it gets bitten in the sore leg again. After a minute, the green eyed one has disappeared back into the thick forest and the purple eyed one is still here, but in a worse shape than before. The pup immediately started yelping in a very worried noise of somehow squeaky howls. I got the feeling this was a mother, as it was trying so hard to keep the pain and from worrying her pup too much.
'Oh god, she's in so much pain.' I thought, silently kicking myself for falling asleep and being useless in trying to help her.
It reminded me of Rue's condition. and I desperately wanted to help. I wished I could have helped save her, but it felt like I wasn't going to be able to do anything and I focused on the caring and emotional feelings I currently had and openly aimed them towards the hurt mother. That's when it felt like my senses open up to the world around me and I'm briefly aware of a surprised but sore yelp as I simply raise my hand up and continuously wished for her to heal.
The sensation of everything flowing around me and through me makes me extremely woozy and light-headed as a ball of white light appears from nowhere, as if it came from my raised hand. I feel an extremely tiny part of my soul flow from me to the hurt creature. The weird sensation felt mentally burning yet simultaneously soothing.
All of a sudden the burning feeling is replaced by the feeling of extreme fight or flight, yet it doesn't feel like my own. The background feelings of motherly love and a bond with the pup was followed by the feeling that instinctively knew something was helping. However, the strength of it alongside the weird, soothingly burning sensation is enough to wear me out to the point of passing out and after a few hobbling step, I fell to the floor right beside Rue.
I felt like I've been sleeping for ages, the sleepy awareness of this black void of nothing. I suddenly hear a wolf-like but recognisable female voice, followed by a weird purple crystal appearing in this void with me. It was surrounded with purple runes floating around it in front of me. I felt dreamy as I looked do to see what feels like an aura of white being surrounded by many rings of runes and numbers floating around me. I felt at ease in this dark void with the crystal and I, until my senses somehow detect something prodding at my consciousness, forcing me to wake up from this place.
The sensation of a distant thudding that isn't my own heartbeat brings me to the point that I can only hear my surroundings, when I become vaguely aware of an unusually very soft-spoken, female voice with the voices of one or two other females before losing consciousness again. All I can barely remember them saying, is the following:
" --irls? I think I found the source of the magic we sensed last week."
"Sweet Celestia! Who... or what are they?!"
"Oh dear, they're not looking so go--"