Fire Scarred *Un-Edited Version*

Chapter Twenty-Two

My hand was pressed against my temple. The clammy skin did nothing to help the dizziness. It was an added pressure that did nothing soothing for me, but it seemed like the thing to do. What else was there?

The grass wavered beneath me as if I was looking at it through a glass of water. A hand was on the small of my back. Leo was my anchor holding me to the ground or else I'd float away. It felt like what I'd expect love to feel like—heavy, but weightless. Obviously this wasn't love. It was vertiginous; the aftermath of transporting through a crystal tree.

Georgia appeared near me, her arms flailing haphazardly to catch herself on something that wasn't there. Like me, she was unsteady, and the shape shifter that stumbled mercilessly into her was even more so. With Josh's added weight, the pair was propelled to the ground in a way that would've been rather humorous if I had been able to feel my face enough to laugh.

"Get off of me!" Georgia ordered, her voice sounding muffled and groggy.

A marionette to the puppet master, Josh rolled to his side and stared up at the sky. He rubbed vigorously at his forehead, scrubbing away at the fogginess in his head. "What's wrong with me?"

She stumbled to her feet. Her hand gripped into the side of a tree, her claws extending into the trunk for extra support. "Despite the normal, we went through a portal, doofus."

"Oh," he mumbled. His confused expression and tone conveyed that he wasn't fully understanding.

Leo stepped forward to explain, not looking to stable himself. "When transporting through a portal, our cells have to come apart and rearrange themselves in a new place almost simultaneously. It takes a few runs for one's body to get use to it. Until it is use to it," he shrugged his shoulders in conclusion. We knew what he meant.

By now, Ray and Noah managed to appear and had sat themselves against trees. For a few minutes we sat to regain our bearings. We strived for stillness and sanity, but it slipping through our fingers like yesterday and tomorrow. My mind raged. We need to be going, it hollered at my body that still wasn't steady enough to walk more than a few feet. Everything was coated in a sugary glaze. Fog.

Achingly, I righted myself on my feet. My body swayed slightly feeling like a skyscraper. All angles, all height, with so far to fall. "We need to be going." Who knows how long we have.

Noah rested his hand lightly on my elbow meaning to be soothing. "What's the rush?"

I pulled myself away from him. My eyes were angled down to stare at his dusty grey Vans. Thanks to our years of friendship, if he caught a glimpse of my eyes he'd instantly detect the lie brewing in me. I said, "We don't know where exactly Ciris is, or how long it'll take us to find him. I'd just really like to get him and get gone as soon as possible." It wasn't technically a lie, but the truth behind my reasons wasn't all the way there.

He ducked his head, his eyes searching for my face. I turned away out of his reach. My eyes then met Leo's probing gaze. "Are we ready?"

He surveyed our party, answering in a question of his own. "Are y'all ready?"

"Yes," Josh spoke for the group.

The trees around us swayed in a silent wind. The forest, relatively similar to the one we arrived from, hummed with life. The chilly air bit at our skin, and I shivered. A well worn path snaked its way through the trees. Leo lead the way eastward. His posture seemed confident and relaxed. He still carried the trunk and his bag, but made no signs of realizing it. He was deep in thought.

The path paused at a small lake, and picked up again on the other side. The tall grass brushed against my mid thigh in thick bushels. My fingers danced across the thin blades, winding them around my fingers and wrists. The smell of mud and water and fish filled my sinuses, but not in an over powering bad way. Not the way Ciris had when we first met. A small dock sat afloat in the crook of the trees crowding around the further most stretch of water.