Crystal Folly

Forest Trip Prep

About an hour after everyone in Ender's room was awake, with Milo being the last one to get up, they decided to go check on Taylor, Sadie, and Arthur after talking about the dreams they had the previous night.

Ender decided to go first, knowing he should tell them the seal shattered. "I'm not entirely sure if breaking the seal that keeps me and Enzefer separate actually happened, but that's exactly what is was in my dream. Nightmare. Whatever it was," he told the group. He fell backward onto the bed in mock frustration.

"Jeez, the actual Enzefer is a prick," Stella groaned. She scratched behind Ender's ears to try to cheer him up a bit, but all she got was a nibble on her finger.

"Well we have to figure something out for that if that's what happened," Johann replied. Luna's gray kitten jumped from her bed to Ender's and stared at him. "Starmourn, come back here," he called out. Starmourn jumped back onto Luna's bed and ran into Johann's lap, where she walked in a circle before lying down. "Milo, you feel like sharing your dream?"

Milo looked up at Johann as if he didn't know he very rarely had dreams. "Didn't have one. Can't remember the last time I did, either," he replied. "I do know someone that might be able to help with making a new seal for Enzefer, but it's a dangerous path we've got to take to get there."

"If that's the case, what have you been writing in that notebook?" Ender asked. He got a shaky "Some stuff I forgot to write the day before" in response. Knowing it was a lie, he let it go.

"Get the others, they'll need to hear this," Luna commanded. Ender got off of the bed before realizing he couldn't open the door. Luna saw the struggle and opened the door and the next one to the room that the other three were in.

"Ender? Why are you in your cat form so early?" Taylor asked.

She must not have heard. Guess these walls are thicker than they are back at the base, Ender thought to himself. "Do I need to explain right now?" he asked her, clearly not in the mood for whatever argument she was trying to pull him in.

"Okay, sorry. Jeez," Taylor huffed. "Thought the pun guy would love to say a bad pun, but I guess this is a hairy situation anyways." She laughed at the horrible joke for so long that by the time she stopped, Arthur and Sadie were in the other room with the rest of the group. About a minute later, Taylor walked into the suite only to see the rest of the group in a circle sitting on the floor talking about something that she wasn't aware of.

"...so I'll need to be isolated at least an hour every day until we get to where-" Ender was saying before he heard Taylor creeping up on them. "Oh hi. We're just talking about some unimportant things, like Enzefer's seal being broken and -".

"What?!" Taylor shouted. Tiny flames popped up around the room, most of them disappearing before anyone took notice of them. "This...no, that wasn't supposed to happen. Dad told me that you had complete control over him and it would always be that way. What exactly happened in that dream?"

Ender had to quickly come up with a story. "Besides being stuck in the seal and getting out in my cat form, I don't remember what else happened," he lied.

"Milo, where's that person you mentioned earlier?" Stella asked. "Better to try that than to wait around while we figure out ways to help Ender stay in control of his own body."

Milo drew a map out on some papers he found lying around on a table nearby. "The X here is us, and the square there is where she is," he told them while showing the areas. The square seemed to be somewhere in the forest beyond the city behind some hills. "We can't get there by conventional means, so we'll have to travel by foot. Flying isn't a good idea either, something's in the air that can cut through dragon scales with ease, even heavily protected ones like yours, Stella."

"Alright, so when do we start? I'm ready to get this over with," Ender meowed. "Is the transport mode safe to use on this walk or what?"

"As far as I know, yes, but don't get your hopes up. I'm not sure if anyone can ride on your back if anyone besides Stella wanted or needed to," Milo answered. "I do know I can only take shortcuts whenever I'm in my wolf form, so that'll make it a bit easier early on."

"Great!" Johann exclaimed, glad that it might take less time than they thought. "I'm sure we can all follow you through them."

"There's a catch. There's always a catch," Ender told his brother before Milo had the chance to even think about it.

"There's one serious problem with it. I have to be in my stealth wolf form to do it, and you can only trace me by smell," Milo explained. "Remember that these are woods so there's bound to be other wolves or coyotes around, and any smell that isn't natural attracts things you don't want to see or hear."

Ender began kneading the blanket on top of his bed before curling up into a tight ball. His eyes were glistening in the morning sun as he thought about what they'd have to do to try to fix this, and even then, it wasn't a guarantee. "If there's a chance, we should go now," he told Milo. The blue rings that were on his thighs and forehead began to glow, and his fur changed from black to purple. "No point in waiting longer."

"I agree with Ender," added Arthur. "I wish I could fly us over there, but that'd put a lot of stress on me in either of my forms." He began inspecting his golden blade, which reflected some of the sunlight into Ender's eyes, who turned away from it instantly. "If everything's settled, we should leave now."