Spirit Animals: The War For The White Bloom

Nothin' Was There

It'd been a couple of days since Raisha had left the Redcloaks' Euran base, the Range. It was apparently named as it was located at the base of Erdas' longest mountain range, the Evros. 

Raisha was fairly sure that she wouldn't have been alive if they hadn't taken her in. The Range was a friendly place, she had made good friends there, and they had accepted her. Enough for Raisha to love them.

What she did not love was her current situation.

Tilt had said that her rations were about enough for a two-day trek. The rations were over. She should've checked it earlier. Tilt was also cartwheeling around the room and using her tail to hold her comfort branch when she packed it. 

She made a mental note to tie up Tilt's tail the next time she had something to do.

The trek was gonna be of a maximum two days anyway. Or so she thought. She hadn't expected the Euran forests to be so confusing. 

The map at Nottingshere had been clear enough: continue east. And yet, Raisha had been walking east for a day now, and she was yet to find a human settlement. Or a human. If only she'd gotten a map for herself.

She'd tried to buy something from Nottingshere, but she found no shops in the town, and no one opened their doors when she knocked. Then she read the city's name.

"Of course." She'd sighed, in anger. "Of course there'd be nothing at a place name Notting-'s-here!" She kicked at a stone in her frustration. An act that she'd seen many people do, but the stone was a real big one. 

Her toes now looked funny and the dried blood attracted insects. Now those darn things were buzzing around her feet, and the sound was the single most unpleasant thing she'd heard. 

She stood in front of a big oak tree and leaned her head on it. Now would be a good time for the memories of the time she rode through these forests to resurface. The only memory that surfaced was of a cut along her scalp. 

Gerathon seemed to be amused at her human's struggles. She seemed to be in no hurry to find a town. Socializing wasn't her idea of life anyway. She could get her food from her wild and had managed to find a fresh water source on the way. Actually, if not for her, Raisha would not have been able to cover so much ground. 

Actually, she realized, after a bit of thinking, that she'd never have been in Eura if Gerathon wasn't there. She was her only support for the big risk Raisha was taking. Having a Great Beast by her side gave her some real confidence.

But Gerathon was not exactly playing the role of a Great Beast that well. She had a bad practise of ruining Raisha's hair, and sometimes felt like she wanted to go back to being the controller of minds. The way she used to control people bonded with the Bile. 

Apparently she even controlled Meilin's mind once. She had always wondered how Gerathon had managed to control a Great Beast summoner. 

Anyway, Raisha didn't feel like being mind controlled. Her experience with the Wyrm had been enough for a few lifetimes. The feeling of something in her head, overpowering her own wishes, controlling her body... Raisha did not want to think about it. 

She tried to think of happy thoughts so she could clear her mind. The first one that popped into her head was the creepy seer who'd gripped her shoulder and said, "Talon, ooh Talon, that girl's in trouble!" 

Not a happy thought. 

She tried again. This time she was flooded with images from the last time she tried to go to the Torch, the original Redcloak base.