ғallιng

12

mary desperately ran through the snowy woods, tears welling in her eyes and falling down her face.

"nat! nat, please! nat!" she shouts out, sobs cutting off some of her cries for the nature spirit. she didn't know if the girl she admired so much was able to hear her, so she'd shout until her throat was hoarse.

falling to her knees after tripping over a tree root, the little girl's body shakes with the force of her painful cries.

"nat..."

she laid there for a few moments, crying, but her attention caught on something in the distance. raising her head, mary sees the buck she had followed home that one day, staring at her. the buck nodded at her and turned to leave, disappearing into the leafless trees, and giving mary a new urge to follow it.

getting up, mary pushes her heavy body after the buck, panting hard and wiping the tears from her eyes.

in a matter of time, the little girl arrived at a humongous tree to see the buck standing at the foot of it, staring at her. it nods at her once again before dashing off, and mary looks up at the tree only to see what looked like an opening. with shaky hands and a heavy heart, she climbs the tree. she almost slipped once or twice, what with the frost on the tree and her own clumsiness from her not focusing on where she was stepping. mary eventually manages to get in the opening of the tree, letting out a small cry as she fell through and hit soft ground not long after.

she landed on her front, giving a shaky breath and almost beginning to cry from her mental stress, when she heard, "mary? what are you doing here?"

looking up, mary spots the nature guardian leaning against a giant fuzzy beast that was snoring quite loudly, giving her a confused and worried look.

standing from her position at the beasts' side, nat slowly moves closer to the little girl she considered a sister, and mary scrambles to get to her feet.

seeing the pained look in her red rimmed eyes, her almost frozen hands and the frozen tears on her face, nat immediately knew something was wrong. mary stumbles forward, collapsing into nat's arms when she was close enough and beginning to sob again.

nat slowly falls to her knees with the girl in her arms, running her hand through her hair and rocking her back and forth. the spirit placed comforting kisses on her head and whispering comforting words to her. rubbing her arm, nat tried to calm her down, but her worry grew with each cry that left mary's mouth.

when mary had calmed down enough, she took a deep breath and looked up at nat with big, sad, familiar brown eyes, and nat sucked in a breath.

but mary takes a deep breath and opens her mouth to tell nat what happened, only for her voice to come out in a whisper.

"something happened to jack."