She didn’t know how many humans had died. She didn’t know how many trees she had burned down. She didn’t know how much time had passed. The only thing Robin knew was that Edhyr was dead, and she could do nothing about it. “If I had chased off- Even killed those humans sooner, she would still be alive,” she thought sadly, pulling her knees closer to her face. She could feel the dampness of the air around her , but she didn’t care about that either. She just sat there, on the ground, next to Edhyr’s still net-covered body, the dragon’s wing covering her a little bit from the soon-to-come rain. Robin’s forest hadn’t had rain for a couple weeks. Usually she would be happy that it was going to rain now. But now was no time to be happy, because Robin’s friend was dead.

 

 It wasn’t a long time that they spent together, but Robin cherished it. It had been her first time seeing a dragon, her first time flying so far up in the sky, her first time someone truly understood her, and they hadn’t even spoken a single word. After all, dragons couldn’t talk. There Robin sat, stuck in her own mind, thinking of what she could have done differently, something, anything, that could have saved Edhyr’s life.

 

 Robin hadn’t seen Fluff for a while either. “Of course. Why should he come back? Everybody leaves me eventually, don’t they?” Small droplets came down from the sky, one hitting Robin’s nose. She closed her eyes. It was cold, and now it was also wet. Robin didn’t like it, but she didn’t bother to move either. She would stay with Edhyr. Always. Tears sprung to Robin’s eyes and she didn’t even try to hold them back. In the rain, the sun setting and rain clouds covering up the stars, Robin cried for many hours.

 

☯

 

She didn’t know how many hours or minutes had passed, but Robin had fallen asleep next to Edhyr and just now woke up. She didn’t bother to sit up anymore, instead laying down on the ground with her back touching Edhyr’s body. It wasn’t warm anymore, all the life having drained out of it. Robin’s eyes were closed and she listened to the birds chirping, the water droplets falling to the ground, the gentle noise of the river flowing in the distance, animals walking around. Life was moving on. Robin wasn’t. She refused to. Edhyr was the best thing to ever happen to her and she didn’t plan on letting it go. She would stay here, by Edhyr’s side.

 

 Yet it felt wrong. Robin made the choice to stay, but it didn’t fit right with her nature. Subconsciously, she didn’t want to dwell on it. Deep down, she wanted to move on. But how could she? How could she just leave her friend? Edhyr was too big for Robin to bury, too. The area’s grass was covered in blood and Robin didn’t even want to look at the direction Edhyr’s head lay, detached from her body, eyes now glassy and void of life. How could she just leave her here like this? She couldn't, it was that simple. She couldn’t- Wouldn’t leave Edhyr.

 

“...you know you want to.” Robin told herself. She did know. She wanted to skip by the riverside and hunt fish with Fluff like she did before humans came to meddle with the forest. She wanted to curl up in her hollow tree to sleep again. She wanted to walk through her patrol routes every day to see what had changed in the short time she had been away. She wanted to be the lively and happy Robin who always expected the best and never yearned for violence, looking for peaceful solutions every time she came across a problem. 

 

 It wasn’t going to happen, Robin knew. She could never forget about Edhyr. This would stick with her wherever she went, however much time passed. So it just made more sense to… Pause her life? Just stop it altogether? Stay here, in one spot for the rest of her life, however long it would be? No, Robin didn’t like that idea either. It was too… Boring? Sad? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t like it.

 

 A grave. She could make a grave for Edhyr. She had to. Even if she couldn’t bury her, she had to at least make a grave. Robin gathered enough motivation to open her eyes and sit up. She had a quick look around. The nearby trees were still burnt to some extent. The grass was still bloody, but most of the red had washed away with the rain. Robin was surprised to see the blood still red and not the tone of brown that dried blood usually takes. “Dragon blood must be special.” She yawned widely and loudly, inhaling a dose of oxygen before doing anything else. Robin stood up sloppily and stood for a couple seconds, hunched over a bit more than she usually would be. With a newfound determined glint in her eye, Robin walked further into the woods, looking for a fitting stone for a grave. Not too far from Edhyr, of course, but further than she had been for… Hours? Days? Who knows how long had passed by this point.

 

 For a while Robin walked around, looking for a stone of good size that would fit a grave for a dragon. Not really paying attention to the forest anymore, she only kept her eyes on the ground, scanning the grass for bigger rock pieces. She knew a couple of them were around here. That’s why she was so shocked when she suddenly saw boots, of all things, from the corner of her eye. “Hold on- Boots?!” Robin flinched back in a split second, hands already prepared to attack. Only humans wore boots in the forest, after all. Robin herself was barefoot most of the time, though sometimes she used magic to mold small shoes out of some water. It was a fun pastime and she could walk on water with them, so they weren’t useless either.

 

 It took a few seconds for Robin to register that the human was holding their- No, his hands up in surrender. Robin dropped her hands to her sides, but didn’t step closer. “...Jason?”

 

“Robin! I finally found you!” Jason had a beaming smile on her face. Robin was just numb and kind of confused why Jason was so happy to see her. She sure remembered Jason trying to kill Edhyr just a couple days - or however much time had passed - ago. “How are you back already? It took almost a week to get to the cave,” Robin wondered out loud. Jason also appeared confused, giving a worried look at Robin’s words. “Robin… It’s been two months since you flew off with that dragon.”

 

“Oh. How?” Robin didn’t really feel anything special at the revelation that she had slept for two months and hadn’t even noticed other than a spark of curiosity.

 

“I have no idea. Did you mess up your sense of time that bad?”

 

“I- I don’t know- I took a nap but-”

 

“That must have been one long nap. Anyway, I couldn’t find you by the river anywhere so I’ve been coming to the forest every couple days and walk around looking for you. Looks like luck is finally on my side! Where did you disappear to?” Jason asked, the smile back on his face. “I wanted to ask about that dragon, it doesn’t appear they’re with you. People were talking about one it town so I figured that’s the one. Where is it?”

 

“She’s… Gone,” Robin said simply, not meeting Jason’s eyes. His smile fell yet again. “Something happen?” he asked, genuent concern in his voice.

 

“It’s nothing. Why did you try to find me?” Robin asked instead, changing the topic.

 

“Well, last we saw you, you prevented us from killing a beast that we had travelled nearly a week to slay, then ignored all common sense and went way too close to the beast and then it freaked out and pulled you with it when it left. We were afraid you might be dead in the cave already, so a dragon kidnapping you tripled our worries. I’ve been trying to find you forever. Evelyn also came back, she’s keeping an eye out in town. Firo is at the library, researching something again. Nyx is going ‘round doing quests and Mona… Well, Mona has been feeling down lately. She liked you, so when you left she got really sad and has been ever since. But I’m pretty sure seeing you would cheer her right up!”

 

“...Right. I don’t- Sorry, Jason.” Robin didn’t really know how to put her feelings into words, so she opted to just turn around and walk away, leaving a confused Jason behind in her wake.

 

“...Robin? Robin!” Jason didn’t run after Robin, thankfully, but he still yelled her name in confusion, trying to figure out what he said wrong.

 

Robin walked off to find the gravestone she had been looking for previously. She still hadn’t found a stone of good size. It was difficult to find one, so Robin thought that maybe she could chip a part of the cliff free. If she didn’t find one soon, she would probably do just that. A couple minutes passed with her scanning the ground - no result. Robin gave up on finding one and went to chip a piece out of the cliff instead.

 

 The walk to the small cliff wasn’t a long one, but it felt like forever. It had been just days- No, two months ago that Robin sat here with Edhyr before the human adventurers came to chase down the dragon. She couldn’t help but feel sad again as she chipped the cliffside with sharp rock pieces of her own. The elemental magic really came in handy most of the time. A good chunk of rock soon fell free of the cliff, leaving an indent where it had been previously. The rock reached Robin’s knees from the ground and it looked heavy, but Robin wasn’t worried about the weight. A combination of air manipulation and rock reshaping would get the chunk to the right place no problem. 

 

 Robin first reshaped the rock to be a flat slate, then created small wind currents to direct the slate towards where Edhyr was lying, holding the piece of stone in the air with her fingers. It weighed much less with the air around it also lifting it up, but Robin couldn’t rely on that alone. It took a bit longer than it usually would to get to Edhyr from the cliff - about half an hour to walk by the same road they went with the adventurers chasing them. Broken down trees showed her the path and she followed it without further direction needed.

 

 A wave of sadness washed over her when she saw Edhyr again. She set the stone down next to the small area now clear of trees, leaning it on a burnt one. She used a spell to light the tip of her finger on fire and burnt Edhyr’s name into the stone.

 

Edhyr, the dragon of gems

May your flight be eternal.

 

 Robin was happy with the message. Well, not happy, but satisfied. She couldn’t be happy anymore at this point. She looked back at the dragon. Edhyr’s scales had lost their shine, but the blood still looked fresh. Now that Robin thought about it, the body wasn’t even decaying. “Dragons must really be unique.” Robin stared at the stone for a good amount of time. She didn’t know how long it was, but she just thought of the moments she spent with Edhyr.

 

“So that’s what you meant when you said they were gone,” a male voice said from right behind Robin. She swooped around, ready to throw a punch at the person- “Just me! Just me! Sora, you’re easily aggravated.” Jason stood there, hands up in surrender and flinched back. He had obviously been eyeing Edhyr’s head lying severed from her body. Robin lowered her hands. “I didn’t hear you.”

 

“You sound so tired,” Jason noted.

 

“I just slept for two months,” Robin replied in a deadpan voice.

 

“You still sound tired.” A moment of silence passed with the two staring at each other. Jason sighed. “Actually… Today is one of the last days I could come to the forest. It was my last hope to find you and it was pure luck that I actually did,” he admitted. “I’ll be going on a bigger mission with the team, back to the capital. This is just a smaller border city that I happened to stumble into.”

 

“I see.” Robin didn’t really know what else to reply. Would she miss Jason? She wasn't sure. She was doing just fine before meeting him and she had actually spent only a week with him, travelling and such. She hadn’t known him for long. Yet a piece of her shattered even further. “Jason is leaving too.” Robin stayed quiet. She didn’t trust her voice enough to not shatter halfway through a sentence. This should not impact her as much as it did. Robin was too familiar with this feeling lately. Jason stood next to Robin for a little while before stepping closer and giving Robin a hug. “I’ll come back to visit you,” he said quietly to Robin’s ear. Robin’s eyes started to water a little, but she didn’t reply, just grabbed Jason around the neck and nodded barely noticeably. They stood like that for a couple seconds. Robin was first to let go. She looked away, anywhere other than at Jason. Said adventurer took his leave shortly, leaving Robin alone in the area with Edhyr, the metal net she was still under, and the dragon’s gravestone.

 

 Robin stood alone for a couple minutes, mulling over the day’s events, before deciding to go for a short walk on her patrol route. She headed back through the woods, crossed the river and to her hollow tree. It reminded her of Fluff. Robin hadn’t seen the fox in ages. She wondered where he was.

 

 From her tree, Robin again walked upstream of the river to the old oak tree and right, straight until a tall pine tree and right again. Straight until the cliff, the very same one she and Edhyr had spent the night at. Down from the cliff, towards the human city for a little while until a clearing. Robin navigated by the big bush already familiar to her and found herself back by the river. 

 

 Usually there wouldn’t be much to note about the patrol other than maybe a tree had fallen somewhere or a new animal trail, but nothing exciting. But today was different. Today she saw arrows sticking out of trees near the river, the old oak had a couple of snapped branches like someone had tried to climb it and the tree had snapped under the weight - it was old, after all. A small shelter was built under the pine tree - someone had spent the night there recently. The clearing she walked through also had a few slashes on the trees as well as burnt grass. Clearly, human activity in the woods had tripled, if not more, in the 2 months that Robin had been asleep.

 

“Great sleep that was, I’m more tired than I was before,” Robin thought sarcastically. She didn’t use sarcasm often, but she wasn’t in the mood to be nice today. She was tired and sad. Robin kept an eye out for humans in action the whole time as she walked, but couldn’t find any more signs of human activity on her way back to Edhyr. 

 

 Robin made it her mission to get the metal net off of Edhyr - even if it meant climbing up using the scales and heating the chains until the connections melted down. But that was just really hot fire and Robin knew fire magic, so it wasn’t a big deal. The most troubling part was not falling off, since the scales were shiny and smooth, but Robin didn’t really care if she was hurt - it was just bothersome to climb back up just to fall again so Robin did her best not to fall.

 

 It took forever for the chain to actually get to the point of heat where Robin could pull it apart without problems and Robin had to melt it in quite a few places - the net was huge, as was the dragon it was meant for. Overall Robin counted 27 different spots where she would have to break up the chain to make the pieces light enough to be able to slide them off and down to the forest floor. Sometime during her work the Sun started to set too, making her job even harder since it was harder to see in the darkness. Thankfully, Robin had her trusty magic to fix her problem - her hands were glowing like stars just seconds later.

 

 When Robin finished, it was pitch black. If not for Robin’s enchanted hand, she wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. The clouds were covering the moon completely, so no light reached the ground at the moment. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, Robin shut off all lights and enjoyed the darkness. After all, it wasn’t every day it was dark like the bottom of the ocean, where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. It was mysterious. Robin enjoyed it.

 

 This time, Robin sat in front of Edhyr’s gravestone, eyes closed as she tapped her foot lightly with her finger, waiting for something to happen. Anything, really. She was done with her task and had nothing else to do at the moment but just enjoy the darkness as much as she could with her constant state of sadness. Robin waited for daylight to think of what she could do next. Maybe she could meet a couple of adventurers in the woods? Who knew? There, sitting on the ground, Robin fell asleep yet again.

 

 She jerked awake when light suddenly hit her eyes. “Augh-” Robin jerked upright and rubbed her eyes. It took a few seconds to get used to the sudden lightness of the world around her. Robin had a quick look at the sky. The clouds were still mostly there just as they had been last night, but a couple gaps allowed sunbeams to cut through and apparently hit sleeping forest spirits in the eye. Robin stood up from the ground with a small grumble. It was still pretty early, the Sun was barely high enough to reach over the treetops. Robin wasted no more time to walk to her daily patrol route, only after having a glance at Edhyr before she left.

 

 It still bothered her how humans had just taken over the forest. Plants were trampled here and there and entire berry bushes had gone missing in Robin’s absence. The forest spirit’s activities were more important than Robin ever thought, it appeared. She wondered what would happen if she disappeared entirely. Would the forest keep growing? Would it just die? Would it stay as is? Would it stay as is and humans would ruin life and kill the forest? Robin didn’t know. She just walked along the riverside in search of humans. Humans that were alive, that she could talk to. Humans that would tell her why there were so many adventurers in the forest. Humans that wouldn’t attack her on sight. She couldn’t be sure how many would. Some preferred to run when they noticed her antlers and scream about Sora something or the other. Robin had picked the word up for cursing a couple years ago after she heard one adventurer say it when it started raining all of a sudden. It was a short word and it had a nice aggressive jingle to it.

 

 Luckily, Robin didn’t have to search for long. She heard footsteps a bit further onward and decided to observe whoever was there from afar before confronting them. Robin dove into the bushes and crawled along the forest floor, closer to where the noise originated from, stopping behind a medium-sized tree. What Robin noticed first was the long hair of the person - it reached their lower back and was a nice shade of really dark brown; Robin almost mistook it for black. The person’s clothing looked fancy, the edges were decorated with patterns and the colours were way brighter than what Robin was used to. She herself wore a simple black shirt and a purple skirt - they complimented her hair, she found - but her clothes were of course magically made. All the adventurers on the other hand wore brown, orange and other yellowish tones as well as some white. A select few stood out with their fancy blue scarves, but really only a couple. This person was wearing a red robe though, the upper edge was covered in fur and the bottom had a beautiful repeating floral pattern of yarn. It looked very detailed and left Robin staring in awe for a couple seconds. “Such beautiful things exist…?” 

 

 Robin couldn’t see the person’s front, since they were standing with their back turned to Robin. She noticed they were wearing one big sword on their back and they had no visible bag. The coat looked like it would have big pockets, Robin thought. Ah, pockets. Robin always wished she had pockets, but her skirt wouldn’t allow it. Maybe once she got pants… “Stop daydreaming about clothes! Focus, Robin!” she told herself, directing her attention back to the person by the river. They were holding a… Map, maybe? It was a big piece of fabric and it looked pretty worn out. It had smaller and bigger symbols on it and many lines that often crossed as far as Robin could see. The only logical explanation would be some sort of map. The person was spinning it around and scratching their head while trying to figure out what direction they should move in - at least that’s what Robin thought they were doing.

 

 She didn’t dare go any closer just yet, she had to see the person’s face first to determine if they were aggressive or not. It was tense, waiting for them to finally turn around. The person stared at the map for what felt like ages before throwing their hand to their face and sighing deeply, the map falling to their side in their left hand as the right one grabbed their own face. Robin could get a peek of their mouth, but their hand was covering their nose and eyes, so she waited longer.

 

 The person walked around in a small circle for a couple minutes, still trying their best to make sense of the map and clearly not getting anywhere. At some point they crouched down and set it on the ground instead of holding it, again sighing deeply in resignation. It seemed that every couple minutes they abandoned the project, only to turn back when they remembered they had nothing else to do and had to figure out where to go. Robin found it funny.

 

 After a few minutes of careful observation - and still not managing to pinpoint the human’s gender, to Robin’s frustration -, Robin deemed the human safe to approach. She stayed as quiet as she could as she navigated around the tree, still crawling just to be safe. Robin ended up standing in front of the very same tree, faced with the scary thought of socialisation. “I have to say something now, right?” “You need help with the map?”

 

 The human visibly jumped and yelped, spinning around on their spot, hand flying to the hilt of their sword on their shoulder. Both Robin and the human froze on the spot, neither daring to move. The human was first to break the silence: “Where did you come from?” Their voice didn’t give Robin any clue about their gender either, landing in the tiny middle space of them.

 

“From the forest,” Robin replied, gesturing to the general direction that she had come from. “You need help with the map?” she repeated her question, pointing to the map on the ground by the water. The person seemed to hesitate. “I do need help, but you’re a little young to be wandering the forest on your own. Plus you have antlers. Which is not normal. So I don’t really trust you and I doubt that you can blame me for that.”

 

“No, I can’t. I’m the forest spirit.”

 

“Oh.” The person seemed to think over the title for a little bit. “So, you’re not going to kill me?” they asked, their voice rising a bit at the end of the sentence. Robin shook her head. “I don’t generally kill humans.”

 

“Alright.” A few seconds of silence pass with the two staring at each other. “So about the map-” Robin started again. The human quickly picked up the map and brought it closer to Robin, still flinching away when she bowed down to have a closer look at it. The map was much more detailed than the one Robin had tried to draw once. The lines were smoother and there were many more details than Robin’s map had - she had just marked the clearings and cliffs, not specific plants in their appropriate spots. “Who made this?” she asked, curious about the creation.

 

“Well, I got it from a merchant so I’m not sure but he mentioned that a person who often visits the adventurer made it.”

 

“Interesting. It’s very accurate, so they must have spent quite a bit of time mapping everything accurately.”

 

“Huh? Do you really know the entire forest that well?”

 

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Robin replied nonchalantly. The person seemed to retreat a bit, giving the reply some thought. “How old are you?”

“Thirty one winters.”

 

“Why not years?”

 

“I don’t know how many years have passed, for I don’t know my exact date of creation,” Robin explained shortly.

 

“You don’t have a birthday?” The human seemed to sadden a little.

 

“No. Where are you headed?”

 

“Huh?” The person seemed confused for a moment. “Oh, right! The map! I have to get to wherever the spider lilies grow, but I can’t seem to find them on the map.” Robin nodded along. “Describe them to me.”

 

“They’re this high,” the person gestured just above their knee, “and grow near water, I'm told. I think they were red and looked like these messy baskets in the middle with arches coming from the bottom and facing up-” Robin spent no more time listening and turned to walk away. She knew exactly where these plants grew and it wasn’t far at all. “Wait- Where are you going?” the person asked in confusion as they ran up behind Robin.

 

“I’m taking you to these plants.”

 

“You know where they grow?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That’s awesome! Thank you!” They seemed actually happy and brightened up visibly. “What’s your name by the way?”

 

“Robin. Yours?”

 

“I’m Jordy! Nice to meet you!”

 

“Right.” The two walked by the riverside, going upstream. Robin wasn’t sure if asking for one’s gender was appropriate right now, so she didn’t. Even the name didn’t give any clarity! Robin truly had no idea who this person was. Nothing about them gave anything away - not the voice, body shape, hair, name, nothing! It frustrated Robin, but she decided to stay out of it for now and just show the person where the spider lilies grew. “Nice to meet you too, I guess,” Robin mumbled.

 

“So, how much do you know about the forest?”

 

“Humans come here too often. There are too many quests here. Take your lilies and don’t come back here, I have enough trouble as is.”

 

“What do you mean? Everyone knows that all the quests are in the forest! I can’t just never return!”

 

“That’s exactly my problem. All the quests are here, which brings adventurers here, which means humans are destroying the forest bit by bit! Plants and animals are dying, the River’s flow has slowed down quite a bit due to makeshift bridges everywhere and the trees show slashes and arrows in them as if they were some sort of practice dummies! This has to stop as fast as possible.”

 

“Oh, I see.” Jordy stayed quiet after that, clearly deep in thought. It didn't take long for the two to arrive at the designated area. It was an even patch of land with a couple trees littering the vicinity. The ground was moist and partly muddy. "Here you go," Robin said, pointing at the cluster of spider lilies already in sight. "Take your flowers and get out of here." She left Jordy alone with their flowers with the unsaid threat hanging above their head along with Robin's words.

 

 Robin continued her explorations of the forest, telling every adventurer she saw to leave. Unfortunately, so far she had only seen one: Jordy. The riverside didn't seem to have any humans near, though signs of activity - mostly makeshift bridges - were present every now and then. A chopped tree hanging over the water or a big boulder blocking the flow of the river altogether, clearly the work of a beginner mage. Since the riverside was clear, Robin headed over to the clearings to check them one by one.

 

 The first clearing, closest to the riverside, was clear of live humans but another row of slash marks was visible along the trees. Robin scowled at them for a moment before moving on to the second clearing, more towards the cliff she visited most frequently nowadays. That clearing wasn’t so clear - Robin could hear loud speaking and even yelling quite the distance away. She didn’t slow her pace as she walked to the clearing, determination shining in her eyes. The humans took a couple seconds to notice her, about the same time it took Robin to count how many there were. The three humans in the clearing, all male, took a look at Robin and… One started screaming? Indeed, one of them just screamed and turned to run away. The second looked between Robin and his screaming teammate in confusion before noticing the antlers on Robin’s head and joining the former in a quick exit from the area. Fortunately, this one didn’t scream bloody murder. But the third human didn’t run. The final man instead grabbed the bow that had been resting on his back as well as an arrow and swiftly aimed at Robin, who had stopped walking to observe the fleeing humans in confusion. The arrow took off just a second later and Robin barely managed to duck so she wouldn’t lose her head. Clearly, this one adventurer was hostile and not fooling around and, for whatever reason, figured Robin a threat. Robin didn’t really care for what the humans did as long as they left the forest, so she responded to the arrow with a wave of ice between her and the human, blocking off any further attacks. “I should freeze water more often. It’s way more useful when it’s solid,” Robin thought with a small smirk, already scaling the wall to send further attacks at the human. “Some sharp rocks would get the message across, would they not?”

 

 It didn’t take long for the adventurer to leave offense and focus only on defense, since Robin gave him no time to aim whatsoever, sending rock shards flying every few seconds. He soon bailed, leaving the area entirely. Robin, happy with her accomplishment, started melting down the huge ice barrier she had made, all the while thinking about how the first two humans had run away from her when they had noticed her antlers. Why would they run away from her? She didn’t remember meeting them before so Robin had no idea why they just ran. Either way, she wasn’t complaining. It made her job easier, after all!

 

 It took a good 20 minutes to actually melt down the wall to an acceptable size - a little bit shorter than Robin herself was -, but Robin didn’t bother going even further. Her hand had been on fire long enough for today! Instead, she moved on to check the next clearing.

 

 Her odd day continued in the same direction. The third clearing was bare of humans, but Robin decided to stay there for a little while to make sure that nobody was nearby either - which was when a group of adventurers rushed past, all jogging and panting as if trying to get away from something, headed towards the city. Only one of them noticed Robin sitting in the grass, but them adding to their speed suddenly urged all others to look around in confusion, resulting in the whole group glancing at Robin from the corner of their eye and trying to get away as quickly and quietly as possible. Robin was left confused by their behaviour yet again. “Wait- They recognize me! The adventurers recognize me and fear me!” Robin thought, punching the air lightly to celebrate her new discovery. She figured it out! The fist was lowered pretty quick. “...Why do they fear me?”

 

☯

 

 Robin continued to explore the forest for the next couple of days, observing the reactions of the adventurers she spotted. Some of them prepared for a fight as soon as they noticed Robin’s presence, but most just ran from her and she still didn’t know why. And so, being fed up with the humans being so damn complicated, Robin decided to ask one about what in the name of Sora was going on. Which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. When anybody - and Robin did mean anybody - crossed Robin’s determined and almost angry gaze, they immediately turned to flee. Not just humans either, animals also avoided Robin. That, of course, made her even angrier. What was before mild annoyance was now a small grudge against anything and everything living she crossed in the forest, be it humans, birds, or squirrels.

 

 The next time she met a human wandering the woods, Robin didn’t give them time to notice her, instead restraining them with vines almost immediately. The adventurer had been walking down a small forest path when Robin noticed them from her new favourite hiding spot - on top of the trees. It was laughably easy to grab a hold of their ankles and stop them from going anywhere. Robin found it funny, but now was not the time to laugh. Now was the time for some answers. She jumped down from the tree, directly in front of the human. Said human, who had previously been tugging on the vines holding their legs in place with confusion, yelped and tried to jump back, which didn’t really work out since their legs were stuck to the ground. They instead ended up losing their balance and falling over with a loud thump, their legs bending at an angle that was painful to even look at. Robin decided to loosen the vines a bit, giving the adventurer’s feet space to move a bit.

 

“Look at me,” Robin demanded, standing on the pathway with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the poor adventurer in a heap on the ground. It looked like they were struggling to get up, but Robin didn’t care. She wanted answers. Now that Robin had time to notice the human’s appearance, she briefly looked it over. It appeared that they were a male, though pretty short for the age they seemed to be - Robin estimated about 19, but from the height she could also guess 14. He had blond hair, only reaching his jaw and no further, so short as well.

 

“Ugh, you’re hopeless.” Robin grabbed a hold of their wrist and pulled them back up on their feet again, not willing to wait for the human to finally get up on his own. “You’re pathetic,” she commented in a mutter. The human seemed to hear and his shoulder slumped just a little. A ting of guilt sounded in Robin’s mind, but she ignored it for now. “Look at me,” she repeated, staring the man in the eye. The adventurer finally looked up to meet her stare. “Good. I want you to tell me why-” Robin didn’t manage to finish her sentence, since the human suddenly started pulling on the vines still keeping his feet in place violently and struggling to get away. His gaze had probably wandered away from Robin’s eyes and to her odd colour of hair instead, where he had noticed her antlers. Robin sighed in frustration. “That! That is exactly what I want to know. WHY, pray tell, are you so SCARED of me?!” Robin sounded almost hysteric, even to herself.

 

 The blond stopped struggling for a moment and looked back at Robin, whose eyes were watering slightly by now in frustration. “Why are you humans so scared of me?” she asked again, throwing her hands in the air and letting them fall back to her sides. She took a few seconds to stare at the adventurer, waiting for an answer, but she got none. “Whatever. You’re all useless anyway. Killing the forest. You do no good to anyone.” Robin turned away in her mutterings, calling back the vines restraining the man and already walking away from the human.

 

“You’re the forest spirit.”

 

 Robin halted, stopping in her tracks. “He replied? He replied to me!” “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked. The human averted his gaze. This topic was clearly uncomfortable to him.

 

“Then you’re the one who murdered over a hundred men two months ago.” “Oh…” Robin suddenly understood why humans fled from her. If she had truly killed that many of them in her fit of rage after Edhyr died-

 

 It made perfect sense why they would be scared of her. The men that had been tasked with killing the dragon had all been adventurers, had they not? When a bunch came back from the forest, saying that a green-haired girl with antlers was murdering other adventurers left and right, it would make sense that all other adventurers would keep an eye out for that girl with antlers and stay away in fear of also being killed, while some would look for revenge or just fight in self defense.

 

“Oh dear. Well, my job is easier now at the very least, since humans stay away on purpose,” Robin thought. She shifted her attention back to the blond standing just a couple meters away from her. “...Thank you.” Without further communication, she loosened the vines to let the human go, scaled a nearby tree, and got away from the blond adventurer.

 

 No adventurer entered the forest in the few following days, the word having clearly gotten out about the forest spirit being active once again and telling adventurers to leave. Robin wondered if the reason there were so many humans in the forest in the first place was that she just wasn’t anywhere to be seen and didn’t send the one or two morons practicing their archery on trees back home for two months. They must have gained courage and gone deeper into the woods and upon no further resistance, gone even further. Nobody was stopping them either and the Adventurer's Guild ended up posting quests for the woods since it was usually an area off limits for adventurers. The forest spirit would make sure of it.

 

 So, in the end, it all came back to Robin. Her influence was indeed greater than she ever knew. Her presence was what kept the forest alive and safe from humans. Morbidly, Robin again wondered what would happen to her or the forest if one of them were to stop existing one day. Would she die without the forest? Would the forest die without her? She didn’t know and hoped she would never have to find out either.

 

☯

 

 Robin was tired. Robin was very tired. But she could not rest now. For the past week - or, at least Robin thought it was a week, it could be more than that - she had been patrolling the very edge of the forest and doing her best to keep any and all humans out of the woods. The forest needed time to recover. During the day Robin would walk along the forest edge, turning everyone approaching away and making it clear that the area was off limits. During the night, she went around and did her best to recover nature from human activity. She destroyed bridges the adventurers had made, removed arrows from trees that humans had shot and covered up damaged plants with grass and vines. A few humans managed to sneak past sometimes, but Robin always hunted them down and deposited them, not quite gently, outside the city walls in a not-so-neat package of vines and ice. And so she continued, on and on, without breaks for sleeping or eating. She was dead on her feet and not quite present. Robin was forgetting how she got to places, often sleep-walking and even sleep-fighting to get all her tasks done. She hadn’t seen Jason or any of his friends for weeks, she suddenly remembered one time. She wondered how they were doing.

 She still visited Edhyr every day. Well, she thought and hoped it was every day, but it was quite possible she accidentally missed the sky turning dark a couple of times and it had instead been 3 days, but who knew? Thus; every day. Robin had noticed that Edhyr’s scales had started to come free, now falling off and revealing a layer of tough skin underneath pretty often. She collected a few of these scales from the ground and buried them under a tree nearby, saving them for a time when she might need them. She actually gathered quite a good amount of these, enough that she could even make a glove out of them. “Wait. You can’t make gloves out of scales-” Yeah, Robin was pretty sure now was a good time to take a nap. “But I can’t sleep! I have to make sure the adventurers don’t-” Robin was out before she knew it, having passed out from exhaustion.