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xx : months

The rainforest looked exactly as you expected it to. There were trees taller than you could have ever envisioned.
You knew that if Hisoka were here he would've found the scene rather boring. Still; you imagined how fun it would be to swing on the trees with his ability. You felt your lips curl to smile but you stopped it, despising your brain for the reoccurring thoughts of the magician. You could be far away from him, but it felt like you could never quite get rid of him.

You rented a small house in a village near the rainforest you were going to explore. The village was so lovely and welcoming to you, despite not having any clue why you had ventured so far. You decided not to go out exploring until you had settled in for a while, buying yourself necessities and meeting the people in the village.

You met a woman who called herself a witch, who was thrilled to find out that you were going to be exploring the area.
She greeted you by saying, "I'm so glad a girl finally came to our village.. There's way too many men here, don't you agree? Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable? I just can't stand how arrogant some of the guys are around here.." She continued to rant to you while inviting you in her house which doubled as her private practice. The room was lit up with numerous candles, each of them a different color. The room was alive with many different decorations and objects you didn't know the names of. She had wooden shelves stocked with glass jars filled with spices..?

You voiced your question eventually as she was showing you around, "Hey, uh, what's in the jars?" You paused when you realized she never told you her name.
"Sorry! I forgot to mention my name, it's Thea. Those are the plants and fungi I use for medicine, potions, you name it. I use them to heal and help people." She brought a jar down and opened it, "Some of them just smell nice." She giggled, letting you smell the aromatic plant, "So, that's why I wanted to ask a favor of you. Some of these I can grow in my garden or just buy at the market.. others are exclusive to the rainforest. I'm low on a few jars.. You think you could help me out?" Thea smiled sheepishly.

You chuckled softly at the way she tiptoed around asking. "I'll make it worth your while! I'll give you free potions and anything else you need. I just reallyyy don't want to go there."
"Deal. Just give me the jars that need filled and I'll get it. I'll be out there anyway, it's no big deal."

Thea squealed, "I'll make sure you have the best luck out there!" You smiled awkwardly at her enthusiasm, but enjoyed how joyful you made her with a simple answer. She handed you a handwoven bag and filled it with the jars she wanted filled. "You won't regret this, (y/n)! I'll have a big meal ready for you when you come back."

You thanked her and turned to leave, "Wait! One more thing.." She reached into your bag pulling out the jar with pink petals and yellow pollen. "Be careful with this one. It won't hurt you.. but you wouldn't want to ingest it. Especially alone. I can tell you more about it later, but I'm still learning about it myself." She placed the jar back in the large bag, "Thank you, (y/n)."
"You're welcome. Have a good day."

You continued on with the rest of your day, buying groceries from the market and everything else you needed for your stay. The next day, you found that people were even more neighborly to you after finding out that you were helping their local witch collect plants.
The day after that, you took a backpack and the bag Thea gave you and went into the rainforest. It was a bit anticlimactic to you, but was still a drastic change from being in the city for so long.

You wondered if Hisoka had ever explored a rainforest before. You hit yourself for thinking about him again but as the days had past you found yourself thinking about him more often. It was annoying.

You were out exploring for a couple days. finding that the plant with pink petals and leaves with yellow pollen was the most difficult to find. They were found higher up, growing in the cracks of tree bark. You wondered what was so special about it, so curiously you got closer to it. The pollen made your nose itch but nothing dramatic happened yet. A couple hours later you were feeling feverish but nothing particularly bad happened. You still needed to find more to fill the jar.