Disciple of Fire

Chapter 6: The Forest

My eyes flutter open as I lay in bed, beginning to doubt what I saw the night before. Why would Raina be out in the middle of the woods like that? Late-night hunting? No, that wouldn't make sense... Maybe she's looking for something? I don't get much further in my thoughts before a knock at the door snaps me to attention.

"Hey, hurry up in there. We let you sleep in a little 'cause of last night, but we're just about ready to move out." Joffrey calls through the door.

"Sure, sorry, here I come," I swing my legs off the edge and put pressure on the ground, a stinging sensation travels up my leg. I let out a gasp, and push myself up off the bed, almost falling forward from the painful feeling in my feet. I walk to the door and grip the handle, and another stinging pain courses up my arm. Fighting the pain, I pull the door open and step out, the sun shining brightly overhead. Joffrey is standing by the door, and I see the rest of the group packing up necessities over by the firepit.

"You alright, kid? You look like hell," He smirks.

"It's just... my feet. And my hands. They're like... burning still," I examine the scars, noticing they've faded ever so slightly. These just happened, how could they be going away already?

"Well, we'll just give you a light load then. Silven and I can pick up the slack," he runs his thumb under the strap across his chest, attached to his bag.

"I appreciate it..." I start to walk to the group, but Joffrey stops me with a tap on the shoulder, "Yeah?"

"Hey, look... I just want to say thank you," He hangs his head, hair halfway covering his face.

"Uhm... Okay, but what for?" I gaze inquisitively.

"For saving my life... last night," His voice made my heart feel warmer, he really means it, "That beast had winded me and I wouldn't have been able to move fast enough. If you really did stop it, then I owe you."

"Oh, yeah... Of course. Why wouldn't I want to help you guys, you've already saved me from the outside here." I smile wide, ignoring the searing feeling in my hands and feet.

"Yeah, I suppose we did," he lets out a chuckle, "But I still owe you one."

I walk off to the others, who are wrapping up packing the last few things, and go directly up to Silven, making sure to acknowledge Raina and Gontu with a little, "Good morning". He's already packed me a smaller bag and he hands it to me by the strings.

Joffrey walks up to the group and announces, "Alright guys, are we ready to head out? Got everything we need from here?"

"Yeah," everyone says unanimously.

"Perfect, let's get moving, we need to find a spot before sundown." He starts to walk South, directly away from the Kingdom, with the rest of us in tow. I turn around to see Gontu wandering in a completely different direction and I tap on Joffrey's arm. He follows my gaze and sees Gontu as well, shouting out to him, "Where are you going, Gontu? We're going this way!"

A slew of incoherent rambling comes from the old man, who is waving his walking stick around in the air before he finally metaphorically shoves us off and disappears into a different part of the forest. I turn to Joffrey with my face stuck in a "Huh?" position, and he just shrugs.

"Guess we'll just keep moving, he somehow manages to just kind of... turn up... perfectly fine," Joffrey states before starting to walk off again. I glance at Raina and see her expression disguising disgust as she turns from where Gontu entered the forest. I wonder what that look was for?

As we traverse through miles of the thick forest, Joffrey occasionally stops to pick a few leaves or berries off of plants, telling us things like how the Vitrablossom leaves are good for bandages because they secrete a gel-like substance that has healing properties and the leaf itself acts as a binding, or these berries are really good for roasting, or avoid these plants because they can kill you with the hundreds of very tiny spines coated with toxins.