Laura S. Fox
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Hungry Heart - Book #3 - Ch. 7
🕑 Added 2022-01-09 19:00:00 +0000 UTCChapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six
Chapter Seven – What It Takes to Make a Whole
Duril blinked a few times, hoping that the deep dark inside the trunk of the old oak would disperse a little if he only focused enough. Yet, even his eyes, that could usually see just fine when there wasn’t enough light, couldn’t bring up shapes and colors of any kind. “Amarant,” he asked hesitantly, “I don’t wish to sound ungrateful, but could you let at least a shred of light inside?”
“Would that I could,” the old oak replied. “These tiny things can only thrive in the deepest dark, and it is my ancient duty to offer them the best of comforts so that they can live.”
“What ties you to them?” Duril had given up some time ago on pursuing a straightforward line of thinking when conversing with magical creatures and witches. Toru was surely right about one thing; you’d only get a headache from trying to get a clear and direct answer from them. Amarant seemed not to be much different from Agatha or Elidias or Demophios. They spoke a language with roots in the mists of time, hence the need to listen to them closely and make sense of their words while using your wits and every bit of knowledge you had.
“Ah, they come from the oldest soil in Eawirith,” Amarant replied. “As ancient as my weary soul,” he added with a chuckle.
Self-irony didn’t seem beneath this magical tree, Duril mused. “Why would your soul be weary?” he asked. The questions he had about Vrannes had to wait for a bit. First, he needed to get to know his host a bit better.
“I watch her every day making the same mistakes. She forgets them, doesn’t even see them as mistakes, and thus, there is no growth,” Amarant replied, and the weariness he had spoken so lightly of moments earlier could be heard creeping into his voice.
“Has the forest stopped growing?” Duril continued. “Why?”
“It died,” Amarant said, and his words sounded like he was surprised that Duril hadn’t understood already what was going on. At the risk of disappointing the old oak, Duril needed to dig deeper.
“But why? Why are these saplings here?” he questioned.
“They were pushed, made to fly away to safety. And they were brought here by the wind,” Amarant said.
Duril pondered over his next question. “The wind, you say… Shearah herself?”
“Oh, no, she was as surprised by their coming as the rest of us.” Duril didn’t interrupt Amarant to ask who he meant by ‘us’. “You see, she’s a wind spirit, but she’s not the wind itself. She cannot be. We’re all part of something much bigger than us, something whole.”
Duril nodded, mostly to confirm that to himself. His understanding of nature had assured him of that truth for a while now. “Do you know what drove the Vranne saplings here?”
“The war, of course,” Amarant replied. “When you lost your arm.”
Duril felt a small, brief pain squeezing the arm he wasn’t supposed to have. With his good hand, he grabbed the forearm and held it for a while, in hope that the hurt would go away.
“She’s well intended,” Amarant explained. “But don’t get used to your new arm. It isn’t even really there.”
Duril was of a mind to argue, pointing out that the pain he felt made it seem like it was real, but held his tongue instead. To get to the bottom of things, he needed to be patient. “I won’t get used to it. I’ve been at peace with myself over losing it for a long time now.”
“Then you won’t mind if I do this,” Amarant said.
The pain in his forearm grew sharper, and then, as if by magic, it disappeared. Duril quickly realized that his hand grasped nothing but air. The sound of things falling to the ground and scurrying away let him know that whatever had maintained the illusion of his missing arm was no longer there. “She uses the saplings to create… new life?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes, you can say that she does,” Amarant replied. “But what kind of life would it be if you had to pretend to be something you’re not all the time?”
“Not a good one, for sure,” Duril said. “I’m sorry, I don’t think you really expected an answer from me.”
“I did,” Amarant said directly. “The most obvious truths are the ones easily neglected, overlooked, or ignored completely. Shearah doesn’t wish to see her own mistakes, and that is why The Quiet Woods rise to life and die again and again with each passing of night and day.”
“But I didn’t see it die,” Duril disagreed. “Some strange things might be happening, but the forest looks alive and well.”
“She’s putting all her soul into it, for sure,” Amarant admitted. “That is why the untrained eye cannot see that the forest is not truly there, not anymore.”
“My friends are there, out in the forest,” Duril said, with a growing sense of alarm. “What will happen to them?”
“Do not fear for them, healer,” Amarant advised. “You’re all here for a reason, I believe. What were you asking me? Oh, yes, about the saplings. They were running away from the war.”
Duril didn’t question for a moment how Amarant’s line of reasoning seemed to work, but it appeared that, as he had already guessed, the role of the Vranne saplings was essential to whatever was happening right now to The Quiet Woods. “But why would they run away from the war? The Vrannes were the ones who were attacking,” he explained. “How can they be the victims in all this?”
“They were,” Amarant contradicted him, “nothing but unwitting tools of a higher will.”
Duril remembered well how unexplainable at the time it seemed that the forest of Knaeus would rise and be on the move when the Vrannes hadn’t been known as keen to forget about their birthing place and aim to rule the world. The old oak might know more about that, so he was all eyes and ears. “A higher will? What do you mean by that? Or better said, who?”
“We do not know its name, but it is an evil so deep, so powerful, that we fear that it might take over the world unless we stop it,” Amarant replied.
The old oak didn’t sugarcoat the truth for sure, and he also seemed more inclined than other magical beings to offer clear answers. What Duril had feared the most came true with Amarant’s last words.
“Then it must be the same thing we’ve been fighting since Whitekeep,” Duril said, just as direct as his conversation partner.
“That is something I don’t know,” Amarant replied. “But once the dark power manifested inside the earth, creatures of all kinds stepped on it unknowingly every day, and it started to accumulate, bringing more and more power to itself. It took hold of the Vrannes, so they sent their young to find safety.”
“The saplings, you mean,” Duril murmured. “And did they find the safety they were looking for? Here, at The Quiet Woods?”
“That is a very interesting question,” Amarant said and fell quiet for a while.
Duril could distinctly hear the tiny saplings roaming over the floor. “Interesting how? Can’t you give me an answer?”
“I can try,” Amarant replied. “The question is, healer, what are you going to do with the truth?”
***
“They look like they are real,” Toru whispered quietly to his shoulder, where he knew the old witch was still perched. “What did you mean about that sad thing you said?”
Shearah buzzed into his ear. “I can tell you, but what about seeing for yourself?”
“Don’t be like Agatha,” Toru said. “She was annoying like that. Tell me so that I know what to expect and am prepared.”
“I’m not sure anyone is ever prepared for this kind of thing,” Shearah said in all seriousness.
“What kind of thing? What do you mean?” Toru asked, more and more curious about what was happening around him.
A deep sigh followed. “To watch the ones you love die. Over and over again.”
Toru stopped, not knowing what to say. “Die? How? They seem so alive. And they were alive before, too, when they were trees.”
“That is true, yes, but what kind of life is it when each day is new and you don’t grow or remember what brought you where you are today?”
Toru scratched his ear. “You’re talking like that old witch Agatha again,” he accused.
Claw was happy to find his companions alive and well, and he was rolling on the ground with Beast, the hairy shapeshifter with the biggest girth Toru had ever seen. Varg seemed caught up in the joyous reunion, too, and for a moment, Toru longed to be there with them.
Yet, it seemed his mission was a much more important one. He needed to find out from Shearah what was going on so that he could intervene and save everyone. His chest swelled with pride only thinking of that. Yes, the orphan cub who used to only care for the next day had a real purpose now, and powerful people like Varg and Claw, and even that big hairy man, depended on him. Of that, he was quite certain.
“The wind spirit is trying to save the forest every day,” Shearah reminded him. “But that doesn’t mean that she’s going about it the right way. That’s why what she creates never lasts.”
“But didn’t you say that she’s getting better every day?” Toru pointed out.
“I did, but a wrong is still a wrong, no matter how good you are at hiding it.”
Toru sighed. He still couldn’t understand. “What should I do?” he asked. “Can I stop your wind spirit from doing the wrong thing?”
“Maybe when the right moment comes,” the witch replied.
Toru bristled a bit at that. “What do you mean by maybe? I’ll do it,” he said with determination.
“I don’t doubt the good in your heart,” the old witch said. “But are you strong enough to follow through with what truly has to be done?”
Toru pursed his lips. “I am strong,” he insisted. “Stop doubting me.”
Shearah flew from one of his shoulders to the other. “Then I will tell you.”
***
It was quite the sight to watch that reunion of friends, Varg thought as he looked at Claw and Beast fooling around on the ground. Then he turned, curious to see if all the others were transforming into their real selves in the same manner. Unlike Beast who seemed to be a bundle of energy and was willing to spend it all in overcoming Claw, the others moved a lot more slowly, coming into their bodies like into old coats that didn’t quite feel familiar after having been abandoned for a while.
Shearah had told them that the same thing happened every night, so that unfamiliarity shouldn’t be there. On the other hand, the witch had also mentioned that they always forgot, too, so that had to be it.
For now, he was only a witness. A tall man, moving gracefully toward him, drew his eye right away.
“You must be Willow,” Varg said courteously. Indeed, Claw’s other close friend seemed of a different breed than the rest, not only because of his height, but also because of his graceful, loose-limbed elegance. His hair was dark, the color of a brown bear’s coat, and it fell in waves on his shoulders, but it wasn’t unkempt or shaggy; instead, it appeared to be made of spun silk, and his almond shaped eyes glowed in the dark like embers. His face was angular, unlike the kind to be seen in most that went around in the coat of a shapeshifter. And his lips were arched in a Cupid’s bow, enticing and more attractive than Varg cared to admit at the moment.
For a moment or so, Varg just gawked at him, without saying another word.
“Yes, I am Willow,” the bearshifter said and put one hand on Varg’s shoulder. Then, he leaned in and kissed his cheek.
Varg cleared his throat, slightly taken aback by that familiar gesture. Not that it was in any way unpleasant, just surprising. Willow drew back and stared him in the eye. “You’re Claw’s new friend,” he said.
“And you’re his old friend,” Varg said in reply.
Willow laughed and looked away in a coy manner. He and Beast couldn’t have been more at odds, as far as appearance and personality were concerned. Beast was all over Claw, holding him down and tickling the mighty bear until Claw’s laughter turned into a roar.
“We’re glad you’re here,” Willow said, following Varg’s eyes, as it seemed. “Beast knows nothing of manners. Please, forgive him.”
“He has you to compensate for that,” Varg noted. “It must be why the two of you are such great friends, right?”
“Friends, of course,” Willow said, with just a small tinge of something indefinable in his voice. “What brings you here?” he asked, changing tack and pulling Varg’s attention away from Beast’s shenanigans.
“We joined Claw for a trip here,” Varg explained, not knowing how much he should divulge, and if not, seeing how these shapeshifters were not all fully themselves, that wasn’t what he was supposed to do. Shearah the witch should have told them more about what to expect.
“He wanted to come home?” Willow asked. “We surely thought he was lost to us. The alluring mistress called adventure has had him in her grasp for so long already.”
“Well, that mistress as you call her can be fickle at times,” Varg said. “Claw realized he missed these woods for quite a while. We were happy that he invited us to see this wonderful place.”
“Wonderful,” Willow echoed, but his voice was wistful all of a sudden.
“What happened to you?” Varg asked directly. It wasn’t like him to dally when a challenge presented itself. “How come you’ve become trees?”
“That is Shearah’s work,” Willow replied calmly. “The wind spirit, I mean.”
“Not the witch,” Varg supplied right away.
“Yes,” Willow agreed. “Shearah keeps us all alive.”
“But how did it happen? Do you remember anything?”
“Not a lot. Wait, what were you asking me?” Willow asked, confusion creeping into his voice.
“I was asking--” Varg stopped mid-sentence.
Beast’s play seemed to be getting a little bit too serious. It looked like Claw was choking as his longtime friend was trying to strangle him. Varg didn’t hesitate for a moment and shifted, as a curtain of black and red descended over his eyes, making the wolf inside him howl. The next moment, he was on Beast’s back, sinking his fangs into his flesh.
***
“Toru, stop them!” Shearah urged him.
All of a sudden, Varg had shifted and attacked Beast, Claw’s friend, under their very eyes. Toru didn’t wait to be told twice. He moved into his tiger form and rushed to the rescue. He knocked Varg off Beast and rolled over with him on the ground. “Varg,” he growled, “stop it!”
But his friend was acting like he was possessed and just growled back like an animal, no words coming out of his throat. Toru pinned him down with his paws and stared into Varg’s eyes. They were bloodshot and not fierce as usual, but with a touch of madness in them.
“Varg,” he continued to call for his friend, “Varg!”
Slowly, the fight seemed to drain from the strong body under him and, at last, Varg went limp and turned into his human. He seemed confused about what had just happened. Toru licked his face.
“Hey, kitty, what are you doing?” Varg asked. “I appreciate the thought, but there are a few too many people watching.”
“You went a bit mad for a moment or so,” Toru growled at him and used his weight to continue to hold Varg down.
“Mad? How so?” Varg asked.
Not far from them, Beast was rubbing the back of his neck and mumbling something. Claw crouched by Varg’s side. He ruffled the wolfshifter’s hair. “So protective, puppy,” he said in his sonorous voice. “He just thought that Beast was trying to hurt me,” he explained to Toru. “He doesn’t know what kind of fool I call an old friend,” he added and threw a pointed look over his shoulder at Beast.
The other bearshifter was grinning at them. “You almost broke my hide,” he said, and it was clear that he was talking to Varg. “All that for a little fooling around.”
Varg groaned. “Kitty, get away from me. It looks like I need to grovel for forgiveness.”
Toru tapped his tail against the ground a few times. He wasn’t entirely convinced that he wanted to let go just yet. If Varg felt protective of Claw, now he felt protective of Varg, and he couldn’t just let his companion go when there was still a chance that he could get into a rumble with that hairy bearshifter.
A tall, graceful man was busy examining Beast’s so-called wound. “You’re fine,” he said and patted Beast on the back.
The others that had transformed were murmuring among themselves, but kept apart, like they felt the need to keep a certain distance between them and the group Toru, Varg, Claw, and his close friends were making. To him, it appeared as if they were afraid.
But what did they have to be afraid of? Toru looked over at them for a moment. They huddled together, and their eyes were dull. Unlike Claw’s friends, who seemed to be themselves completely, they were like youngsters thrown into an unknown world. They had to be shapeshifters, too. Shearah had told them that humans didn’t survive there.
Varg grabbed him by the fur at the sides of his neck, shook him with affection and then pushed him away so that he could get to his feet. Toru shifted into his human, too, and looked for Shearah with his eyes. The witch needed to answer more questions, because it wasn’t like Varg to rush in like that unless he knew that there was some danger he had to avert.
***
There had to be something strange going on, Varg thought as he brushed some blades of grass from his clothes. He would have sworn that Beast was on the point of suffocating Claw to death, but now he felt rather foolish for acting in such a heedless fashion. That wasn’t like him, to be so mistaken. Maybe it was because he didn’t know these people, and as much as Claw was familiar with them, it didn’t mean that he felt the same.
He walked over to Beast and offered him one hand to help him get off the ground. “I apologize for attacking you.” The bearshifter grinned at him and caught his forearm. Varg pulled his weight back so that he could counterbalance Beast’s hefty frame. To his surprise, the bearshifter didn’t budge; instead, he pulled suddenly and flipped Varg over, making him land on his back with a loud groan.
“Here, at The Quiet Woods,” Beast said, looming over him, “we don’t do apologies. We solve it all like bears.”
Varg laughed and groaned again at the pain in his spine. Beast put one arm under his back and one under his knees and pulled him up like he was some kind of princess. He guffawed like a naughty schoolboy and began throwing him up and catching him, all the while having a good laugh on his account.
“Claw,” Varg shouted, “get your crazy friend off me!”
“I can’t do a thing,” the traitorous bearshifter shouted back, “he really likes you!”
To his relief, Beast finally put him down. Then, just like Willow, he kissed his cheek, but not pleasantly like the gentle bearshifter, but loudly with much slobbering over his face. Varg wiped his cheek and laughed. “You’re a crazy one,” he said.
Beast patted him on the back so hard in what was supposedly a friendly gesture that it forced him to take a big step forward.
Claw opened his arms. “These are my friends, indeed. Willow, come here and give me a kiss, beautiful.”
Varg watched as the other bearshifter walked over to Claw and kissed him on both cheeks. He couldn’t hold in a twinge of jealousy at the sight. Who knew that there could be bearshifters of such astonishing beauty in the world? Varg found himself wondering how Willow must look in his beast form. He had to be just as graceful, but Varg couldn’t conjure the image in his mind.
That meant that he would have to see it to believe it. That reminded him of the conversation he had been having with Willow just before attacking Beast.
“Hey, do you people remember how you got turned into trees?” That was Toru, always ready to ask the most uncomfortable questions while others were trying to find a way to ask them in the gentlest manner possible.
But he wanted to know the answer to that question, as well, especially since the other shapeshifters around seemed not at all keen to act cheerful at the sight of their happy reunion.
***
Toru watched Beast and Willow closely, taking in their confused faces. They didn’t appear to understand what he was talking about. Varg crossed his arms over his chest, waiting, just like him, for an answer. Claw seemed interested, as well, and he was all eyes and ears.
“What do you mean, trees?” Willow asked. “We’re not trees; we’re bears.”
“But you were trees like one moment ago,” Toru insisted.
“Not a moment, but before the dark fell, you were trees,” Varg confirmed, coming to his aid.
“Are your new friends pulling some kind of trick on us?” Beast asked Claw.
The bearshifter shook his head. “I wish that was what was going on, but no. You and the rest,” he pointed at the others huddling in the dark at a fair distance from them, “were trees, as Varg here says. Don’t you remember the way you rushed to us like a pack of Vrannes bent on bloodletting?”
“Vrannes? Bloodletting? What are you talking about?” Beast asked. He grabbed his chest for a moment. “I’ll have to sit down,” he said all of a sudden. Willow helped him, and Beast crossed his legs and then his arms. He watched them all with keen eyes. “Well, Claw, what is it?”
Toru liked his direct manner. But where was Shearah? The old witch hadn’t intervened so far, and it was a good moment for her to say something. It was clear that Beast and the others knew of her, by how they behaved when they were trees.
Only they weren’t trees anymore, and they appeared to have turned quite forgetful, which was unnerving, to say the least. All this magic was not for him and, inwardly, he had to admit that he needed the help of an old witch like Shearah.
“I’m here,” she said as she landed on his shoulder, as if she knew that she was needed.
“Well, it looks like they don’t remember they were trees,” Toru pointed out. “Do they know who you are?”
“They should, but my appearance doesn’t help,” Shearah said. “You see, young tiger, as you can easily observe, I’m the only one that didn’t revert to her true self, as far as a physical body is concerned.”
“That is quite strange, isn’t it?” Toru gave voice to the thoughts in his head. “Why do you stay the same?”
“So that I can remember,” Shearah replied.
“Tell them, then,” Toru encouraged her. “Tell them how they are trees one moment, and the next, they turn into shapeshifters.”
“I will tell them. But I have done that every night for such a long time. By the time they come to acknowledge what I say as the truth, they are dead only to be reborn again, and in daytime, I go at it again, until night falls.”
Toru pursed his lips. It wasn’t like they had a lot of time on their hands then. The shapeshifters around them began to murmur, and although their voices weren’t loud, they were like a continuous buzzing in his ears, keeping him from thinking clearly. “Quiet!” he ordered, and the murmuring died down. “Shearah here doesn’t have the time to explain it to you again, although she’s done that for years. We’ll have to do something different this time.”
“I know what you have to do,” Shearah said. “And I’m glad that you are here. The old oak told me.”
***
“I will do my best to do the right thing,” Duril answered Amarant’s question.
“Will it be enough? Your best?”
The loaded question made Duril stop for a moment. “I can only hope that it is,” he replied. “There is no guarantee except my word.”
“I can see that there’s no evil in your heart, healer. That is not what troubles me, but the kindness you carry with you.”
“What do you mean? How can kindness be a bad thing?”
“It’s not, but that doesn’t mean that it might not serve you in the way you require when needed. If you wish to stop Shearah from trying to revive the forest by using her little prisoners--”
“Prisoners? Do you mean, these tiny Vrannes?” Duril asked. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around seeing them as anything else but weapons of destruction and mayhem, as he had known the Vrannes that had descended from Knaeus those decades ago to engulf the world in despair.
“Yes. You see, she doesn’t allow them to leave this place. They’re here for her and to do her bidding. You see, at first, when they came, she tried to hurt them. And she did,” Amarant added after a small pause.
“So, you’re saying that they tried to escape?” Duril asked.
“They’re young, and the only thing they know is the need to survive,” the old oak explained. “They don’t know any better.”
“I still don’t understand why the forest began to die,” Duril made an attempt to bring Amarant back to the question he was most ardently interested in of all.
“Because of the rupture in its soul,” Amarant said pointedly. “You see, Shearah has always been true to herself. To create life, to protect it. But she broke her own vows when she hurt the Vrannes. They weren’t dead, nor a pest, to be gotten rid of.”
“I cannot say I understand that. For all she knew, they could have come here to destroy the forest.”
“Any young mind might think that, for sure. But there is something else at work, isn’t there, healer? Did Shearah stop for a moment to consider why these newcomers were here? After all, she’d always been the one to bring new life from all over the face of Eawirith in her effort to make it into a paradise like no other. But, you see, she’d only pick the most beautiful of the creatures and seeds she found along the way. There was no room for ugliness in her world. What do you think of that?” Amarant asked.
Duril recognized a challenge for what it was. The question was well-founded. “The other half came to The Quiet Woods. Is this what you’re trying to say?”
“Don’t ask me for more than I can give you,” Amarant chided him, but by the tone of his voice, he was pleased with Duril’s thoughts on the matter.
“But there is conflict,” Duril continued, emboldened by Amarant’s quiet agreement. “The whole cannot become one as intended until this conflict is resolved. So, the real question is how to solve it, right?”
“You’re close to the truth. And now, do you have what it takes to follow through?” Amarant challenged him.
“I believe I do. I hail from Whitekeep and Zukh Kalegh, too,” Duril said proudly. “I’m human, but I’m an orc, too, as I have discovered. If someone like me who lived a life not knowing who he truly was can find himself, I believe that a time of healing for The Quiet Woods is nigh. Am I wrong?”
“Don’t ask for confirmation, proud orc,” Amarant said and laughed.
“So, tell me,” Duril said eagerly. “What is that I have to do?”
“You’ll have to kill me.”
***
A silence as thick as the darkest night fell over the entire group. Varg watched each and every one. He could read fear in those dull eyes, something deep and wide that wasn’t going to be easy to overcome with soothing words. After a brief exchange with Toru, he knew that his friend and lover thought the same thing. During the last few months of roaming the world together, the young tiger had grown into a new sense of patience and even wisdom, and that was what Varg read in his beautiful golden eyes that very moment.
“This is not something I can tell you with an easy heart,” Shearah continued. “It will sound so unnatural, and yet, it is the only way, as I have come to admit it to myself over the years. So far, we’ve been left out here to our own devices with no possibility that we could carry out the old oak’s wish.”
“Just what is this wish you’re talking about?” Varg asked, a bit impatiently and ignoring Toru’s silent warning.
“It is a wish that requires only the strongest to carry it out,” Shearah said calmly. “The moon is yet above our heads, gently gazing down on us.”
Varg looked up. The moon had always been a close friend. Its calling was in his blood, and for a moment, he felt that it was lending him its power. His blood surged with newly found strength. What could it be?
“We’re strong enough. Just tell us,” Toru said while Varg was lost in thought, looking at the moon.
“Once they begin to turn into trees again,” Shearah said in a quiet voice, “you’ll have to take everyone to the old oak.”
“We’ll do that,” Varg agreed.
“And then, you’ll have to kill them all.”
TBC
Comments
Laura S. Fox
Thank you, Margaret! Yes, the bear will go through a lot, but he has his new friends with him now!
Laura S. Fox
You're more than welcome, Dave!
MM
Oh my gosh! Poor Claw will suffer with this revelation. Wonderful work Laura, as always!
Dave Kemp
Thank you, Laura!
