An invisible tide which turned out to be Stumper, shaking her awake.
"Come on, doe," she grunted. "You've had your rest. Now we need to-"
She was cut off by Wallflower grabbing her hand and pressing it to her tear-streaked cheek, staring at her in distress and making soundless shapes of grief with her mouth.
"Doe?" Stumper asked. "Wallflower, what's wrong?"
She could do no more than mutely weep in reply; Everfree had stolen her voice, and now it looked like her life.
"Hold on," Stumper tried to soothe her. "Start dreaming, we can talk there. It sounds like you could use it."
Wallflower nodded, then cast herself back on the ground, frantically crawling into the aether...
Her sobs rent the ethereal plane, cries of anguish and grief tearing through the mental realm.
"Sh," Stumper tried to comfort her, eyes dimming in shared pain. "Sh, sh sh sh sh. It's alright, Wallflower, it's alright, I'm right here. I'm here for you, Wallflower, I'm right here."
Eventually, her friend's gentle embrace and soft words managed to help her tears coagulate, until her sobs turned to clots of mucus. Her emotional wound staunched for the moment, Stumper released her and asked, "Now, can you tell me what made you so upset? Did you have a nightmare?"
"N," she sniffled. "no. I-I didn't sleep, actually; I-I used it as a chance to test my casting."
Stumper sighed, shaking her head. "Too much training is just as bad as too little, doe. Anyway, so you were practicing your casting, what upset you so? First host-death?"
"I got lost," she sobbed. "I was trying to find a road someone mentioned, but then something started hurting me, forcing me away, and by the time I managed to stop I didn't know where I was. There," she sniffed. "there was a host there, though, one that it felt like-like Gaea had used a while ago. I-I used it, but-but it was a trap, or something."
"A trap?" Stumper asked. "Set by who?"
"The deep-lairds," Wallflower cried.
Stumper's eyes widened, glowing like two miniature Suns. She scrutinized Wallflower closely, then sighed. "It's true," she murmured. "There is a touch of elvish about you, now. They left their scent on you, doe. Not a bad one, though; seems almost-"
"'I will marry none so much lesser than I,'" Wallflower whispered, causing a hush to descend over the aether. "They told me, Stumper, told me why they were so angry at Gaea. And," she swallowed. "they told me about you, about why you've lived so long. About how I," she looked down at herself. "might live that long, too."
Stumper frowned at her. "You didn't know? I thought Gaea would've told you."
"She doesn't tell me a lot, it seems," Wallflower spat. "I learned more from talking with the Nilfin than I have from her. Your condition, my lifespan, what she said to Obyrn that started this all; what else is she keeping secret from me, Stumper? What else isn't she telling me?"
"Nothing that she thinks will hurt your performance," Stumper reassured her. "She wouldn't hide anything that would stop you from doing your duty, doe, don't worry."
"I'm more than my duty," she snapped back. "I'm more than-than a tool Gaea can throw in the shed whenever she doesn't need it. And-and some of the stuff she hasn't told me has hurt my performance, even-even if she might not have thought it would. If I hadn't been so caught off-guard by what Tein told me, I might've been able to learn more useful stuff, like-like when the Nilfin are actually planning to attack or-or whatever the Ungocalar is. If Gaea had actually told me about those things, or if you had-"
Stumper shifted a bit at that, causing Wallflower to sigh. "Except she ordered you not to, didn't she?" she asked rhetorically. "Didn't want you to 'distract' or 'confuse' me or whatever excuse she came up with."
"I thought you didn't need to know," Stumper murmured. "You're more than your duty, yes, but not right now; the Windigos are coming, and the deep-lairds are going to help them. There is no time for distraction now; either we stand or the world falls, and we cannot afford to waver. I... I didn't think you needed to know some of what the Nilfin told you, and what I did I thought Gaea would tell you." She looked down at her heavy, wooden feet. "I was only trying to help."
Wallflower stared back at her, jaw agape. Stumper, the woman she'd so recently thought of as her friend, had stabbed her in the back, keeping secrets from her, forcing her to make a decision she couldn't take back without all the facts. Tein, the leader of the people who were planning to, indirectly, kill her was more trustworthy than the woman she'd called a friend.
"I'll talk to Gaea about this," Stumper offered. "let her know how upset this made you. I'm sure once she knows about this, she'll-"
"I need some air," Wallflower blurted out, her phantasmal breath coming in short gasps. Before Stumper could stop her, she rushed away in a stream of tears, throwing herself heedlessly into the aether. She didn't know where she was casting herself, and she didn't particularly care; all she cared about was that she needed air, to get away from her betrayer, from the thing that had deceived her, from the liars who'd stolen away her voice and her life.
The Everfree River ran through the forest, divided into three branches; Dyma and Dymo flowed from hidden pools and streams in the north down into the Everfree Lake basin, pooling together and then heading south united. Near the edge of the forest, at the Frayed Ford, they joined with the last of their number, Megalos, then rolled away east to eventually join with the Neighagra and flow into the Sea.
The River and its branches were the heart of the forest; fueled by snowmelt, rain, and stray runoff from the Canter, the thunder of the water was the Everfree's pulse, pumping lifeblood through the veins of the various streams and pools that lurked under the branches. Without their rushing bounty, Gaea's kingdom would have been barren, not even her power being able to sustain the magnificence of the Everfree unaided. If she was the queen of the forest, then the River was its king.
Beside the broad Megalos one of the River's subjects, a thin willow, dwelt in a patch of sunlight, its leaves tasting the foam as the river rolled along. Every so often, one of them was swept away, sailing south in the crashing foam. Long- and light-limbed, Men called it a weeping willow, for its loose sheaves reminded them of tears.
Its name was even more fitting now, as Wallflower cast herself inside of it and wailed to the sky.