As Dark as the Forest

Chapter 14

Ori

Ori never wanted to leave this place.

The forest that surrounded her was intoxicatingly beautiful shimmering and vibrant. If she'd thought this place was stunning from a distance, it was even more splendid within. A fresh, earthen scent suffused the air with intermingled notes of lavender and mint. The most colorful birds Ori had ever seen trilled musical notes as they flew from tree to tree.

The only thing that cut through the natural beauty of the forest was a well kept path that was wide enough for their cart and horses. But even the path was gorgeous and made of smooth cobblestones that glittered slightly in the soft forest light. When she bent down to look at them more closely, she saw that each smooth stone had small pockets of glittering stone within them.

The trio walked at a leisurely pace, Pit and Flor allowing Ori to take in her surroundings. When she stopped to examine the silvery bark of a tree, they stopped for her.

"Sorry," She laughed, delighted. "This is just all so much more beautiful than I ever expected it to be. I don't know how you could ever want to leave."

"Oh, you'll see why we want to leave," Flor said, with a hint of sarcasm.

"But hopefully you won't," Pit added, giving Flor a pointed look.

Ori straightened from a crouch, smoothing her pants. "I thought you said the really dangerous creatures were deeper in the forest."

"That doesn't mean there isn't the chance of a rogue creature coming for us - they tend to stay away from the outskirts, it's true. I don't know if they just find the Inlands unappealing, or if there is some sort of magical barrier that stops them, but no one has ever seen any of these magical beasties outside of the forest. Sometimes a sick one might wander too close though." He glanced up at the trees, "But usually the Quercians take care of them before there's any real danger."

This should have made Ori nervous, but instead she was all the more fascinated by these magical creatures that roamed the forest.

As the sky above them went dark, blending in with the thick canopy above they made camp in a small clearing that appeared to be set up for travelers. A fire pit was in the center with a few pieces of wood left behind by the previous travelers. Ori, Pit and Flor had gathered kindling and fuelwood as they traveled, occasionally dashing off into the forest off the main path and coming back with firewood to place on the cart. They gathered tinder now from the small twigs and needles on the forest floor and piled it in the bottom of the pit where Flor had begun to erect a cooking fire.

Pit pulled out a pair of fire crystals and with a command of ignis, sent sparks into the tinder, sending it alight with a small burst of flame. The air had cooled around them with the approach of night time, and Ori was glad for the fire's warmth as she sat on a log.

She would leave soon after they fell asleep, she decided, as she flipped through the book of her reference sketches. She stopped at the page labeled Red Fox. Ori had seen them occasionally in the city during her nighttime explorations. She held a certain fondness for them as they were adaptive creatures that assimilated into any environment though it seemed that they preferred the farmland and forests that Ori had recently been traversing. This was what she would transform into when she made her escape.

The foxes she'd seen today in the Quercian Forest were not just red but had a distinct coppery iridescence to their fur, long tufts of shimmering black fur on their ears, and eyes that glinted green. They would have stood out in the Inlands, but here in a magical forest they blended right in.