The Forest

-38-

She touched her feet to the nearest branch to catch her breath. It was easy to forget how long a journey it was from the station to Quercus, always a little nerve-racking when she was alone. Azure didn't have a map of the forest imprinted in her mind like Rosin and Lucius did, and distinguishing the trail markings was near impossible in the deep of winter when all surfaces were buried under a cap of frost. That aside, Quercus didn't have any trail markings yet. It was such a new tribe that etching directions had hardly been her priority. Even now there were still so many things to be done.

The air smelt of night. A cold and restless smell. A fretful journey of weaving through shadows and ducking away from sudden gusts had brought her to a tangled copse of trees, where metre-high brambles formed a sea below. She panted for a moment to get her breath back.
Something twinkled below her perch, and if she hushed her breath, she could hear the gentle clatter of water rolling over pebbles. The stream was too swift-moving for ice to form. The sound was one she had fallen asleep to many nights cuddled in bed with Aspen, and it meant home.

She leant her head against the bark and closed her eyes for just a breath. A deep ache throbbed in her wings. It really was a long way— she couldn't fathom Rosin's endurance, sweeping around the lake every single day on her round... she really was something else.
And if the gods had mercy, she would be awake and healed by now.

She straightened and flared her sore wings wide open, wide as they would go, stretching out her arms along with them. Ready for the fuss, then. Because there would be a fuss. The title of Elder was still... a lot, and so were the expectations that came with it. But being the person with the honour of watching over these thistles, this home that they had all built together, that wasn't such a bad thing.

She had to smile to herself in that brief moment of quiet, in spite of it all. Two years ago she had flown about the forest under an Elder's command, simply because she was a good Winged, and she did as she was told. Now, she was the Elder. But she still sometimes wondered if she was that same timid girl at heart, just playing the role the tribe demanded of her.
Maybe.

A few days of being away in that horrid human city made Quercus a paradise in comparison, expectations or no. Yes, it was a headache sometimes. Or... maybe most times. But it was home, and peace had grown with these brambles under her leadership.

She shook off the snowflakes from Aspen's cloak, stomped her feet to make all the dry mud clatter off her boots. The only home she and him had ever known had been breached by a human creature, then swiftly demolished by the rainstorms that followed, a safe place they had been told was impenetrable.
Every thatched roof and cobbled wall beneath these thorns had been built up from the forest floor by her people's hands— wounded and hurting and fear-stricken hands. Maybe it wasn't impenetrable, but there was no lost history or blurred rules, it was all new, and it was all theirs.
Maybe this was what Wren felt for Hawthorn. What Aspen felt for his scouts. When people you care about look to you with trust, you want to do them proud. Even if they're sometimes a headache. So she brushed herself off, kept her spirits high, and prepared to face the fuss of her return.

The human that was standing not five steps away found her entirely mesmerising.

Nica stared, awestruck. Its hair was poppy petals. Its wings were unfathomably thin, looking delicate enough to snap in the wind where they spilled from a slit in the leaf cloak that draped over small shoulders. It was so little. Tiny hands combed through its hair and brushed at its clothes, cleaning itself. It scattered the remnants of snow from its wings with a flick.

"Well?" The man beside her demanded, his voice hushed. "Are you just going to stand there staring at her?" The accent was thick and tuneful, and she couldn't help but smile. The woman poised at the front of the group was less amused.
She cast a dirty look over her shoulder. Keep your voice down, it said.
"Shh." Nica teased him.
The man clicked his tongue at her and smiled.