Ahren, Ahren Forest, Vinet Trail
As the homicidal Vinets cut and tighten around their arms, legs, wrists and ankles, blood lining where the thorns had been, a Vinet slowly slithers up Lydia, unease overwhelming her as she tries to remember. She knows that Vinet is the one that kills.
“Lydia!” Devan’s wings tire, sending him to the ground suddenly. Lydia tries to turn to help him, pulling on the thorns, deepening the cuts as she cries out in pain. She looks at Elara, who is still trying with all her might to reach her knife, the thorns tearing her arms and legs.
Come on Lydia, think! she scolds herself. The killing thorn slithers up her shoulder, reaching her neck. The Vinet’s thorns are tucked in, waiting until fully wrapped around the victim’s neck, strangling them to slide them out. Fear chokes her, making it hard to breathe as tears fill her eyes.
She closes her eyes tightly, bracing herself as shame and disappointment overwhelms her.
Then she hears a sharp swishing sound, and for a second the Vinets feel as if they’ve loosened. But she doesn’t dare open her eyes, waiting for the Vinet to slowly choke and cut her to death.
But the Vinets restraining her limbs loosen and eventually let go, along with the killing one as she drops to the ground gasping for air, hearing the reassuring sound of her friends doing the same. Alive… she thinks, they’re alive.
Lydia stands up quickly, joining Devan and Elara. “Oh, gods, we almost died!” Devan gasps as Elara sticks a dying Vinet to the ground with her knife out of spite, before sliding it back into her pocket and huffing as she holds the cuts she can reach tightly. “Vinets don’t attack people! They leave you alone if you do the same. And we were walking on the path. Which means…” Lydia comes to the painful realization. Elara finishes for her.
“Which means she’s been possessed, too.”
Devan groans, ruffling his wings to try and relieve the pain in them. Blood drips from his feathers and onto the ground. “So there’ll be more vine things like that attacking us!?”
“Not if I’m with you,” as soon as Lydia hears the voice of the one who saved them, she immediately knows who it is and leaps into his arms, sending him back a bit with a laughing grunt.
“Hey guys! Miss me?” Lydia giggles, hearing her friend’s voice again after so long.
“I was wondering when you’d show up! Could have appeared a little earlier though, those Vinets almost killed us.”
He scratches the back of his neck, as he giggles.
“Whose this?” Elara asks from behind the two, a smile evident in her voice. “Sage of Animals, and Forest Ranger Captain, Dorain,” Lydia says as she turns to Elara and Devan, scratching behind Dorian’s ear, “we’ve been friends for a while, and we live close.” Dorian’s tail moves in waves behind him, Elara and Devan nodding and smiling.