The Hovering Ingress: The Hidden World

Chapter 53

Small Fire

Three Sune Cycles Later

A fire crackled in the middle of the group as they watched Olwen bring in marshmallows and meat (requested by Xengu), handing a metal spike to everyone except Latif. The blind brother simply wanted to enjoy the warmth of the fire in the cold as everyone enjoyed the rare occasion. Xengu sniffed the air, mostly to the smoke and tilted her head.

"Why does the smoke here smell so different compared to the- erm..."

"Rocks, that's why," Favi explained quickly.

Olwen had a confused gaze as the winter lynx glared at the winged panther before sighing and passing the chunk of meat to Xengu. Sitting down, she leaned back in her chair and sighed, the snow leopard's ears lowering in relaxation. Favi, Jasar and Marsh roasted their marshmallows quietly whiles Xengu fiddled with her meat and stabbed it with the metal spike.

A sudden laugh escaped Favi as she lifted a perfectly brown marshmallow from the fire. Marsh's eyes widened before quickly looking away.

"Don't- "

"I guess Marsh isn't from the biome, but from marshmallow!"

The winter lynx went into a fit of laughter while the forest lynx rolled his eyes and shook his head. Only a small chuckle came from Olwen and Jasar while Latif groaned and Xengu glanced to Favi in confusion. As the group started to quiet down and eat their treats, Olwen went back inside her house.

It didn't take long for her to return with an old, flimsy screen, glowing a dim grey with age. The others perked up as she sighed and sat down, fixing the sheet and seemingly dusting it off.

"This would have to be my teacher's old recipes for herbs and medicines, she was a specialist after all," the snow leopard explained as she handed it to Favi.

"No way! Your teacher really used old remedies for wounds and sicknesses? Neat! We'll have to keep this in mind while we head back out," the winter lynx exclaimed as she scanned over the screen.

"Did she ever support technological remedies for healing?" Jasar asked nervously.

"Of course! Riverala heavily recommended that people used those techniques first before going to her, but sometimes they just needed something small to treat and it wasn't a big enough deal to go to the doctor or hospital over," Olwen explained, though the words 'doctor' and 'hospital' seemed to make Xengu's fur bristle, so she quieted down.

"Can we find some of these things out in these forests?" Marsh asked as he looked over Jasar's shoulder to read the screen.

"No, some of them are from the Exotic Region apparently."

The other felines widened their eyes at the statement.

"Your teacher went to the Exotic Region?!" Favi squeaked. "I noticed some of those names were so out of place but- "

"Riverala would go on trips that seemed to take ninth sunes to complete during the summer, she said that's when everything she needed were at their best quality. She was very strange to say at the very least," Olwen rumbled nervously as she scratched the back of her head.

"I wonder how she managed to go to that jungle in the first place, wasn't the border heavily guarded?" Marsh asked.

"Well, yes, actually. But she was a bat, so she could fly over them at night and manage to get by. That was until she got older, when she got caught in a net mid-flight and fell into some thorny plants. Her wings got ripped up and she was sent home by helicopter."