Robin only knew black. The world was black. She never saw anything for a long time. She didn’t know how many hours had passed - had it been longer than a day by now? She could still hear louder sounds. She could recognize the sound of rain pouring from the skies and thunder echoing in the distance, she could recognize yelling and screaming. She would have been confused about why somebody was yelling in the forest in the first place, but she was too tired to care. She just slept, forgetting all about her questions in mere seconds. Robin felt warm. “It’s raining, shouldn’t it be cold and wet-?” That thought, too, was gone in seconds, despite Robin’s efforts to figure out the oddity. It was all black.

 

 Robin only realized later - how much later, she didn’t know - that it was getting lighter. It was still very dark, but it wasn’t black anymore. It was gray. An odd shade of pinkish gray that she felt was familiar, but couldn’t really put a finger on it. Robin could hear thunder again. It started suddenly, like time had suddenly skipped forward and Robin had just barely managed to catch up. One second it was quiet and dark, the next loud thunder struck the ground somewhere and rain was pouring. If she focused really hard, Robin could feel water dripping onto her, but not at the pace that rain usually does. It was slower. Like it was dripping from a point above, not pouring from the clouds. A loud ringing sound echoed in her ears. And just as suddenly as it had started, it was gone. It was all silent again.

 

 It could have been mere minutes that the rain lasted, it could’ve been hours. Robin didn’t know, she’d lost all sense of time. In this dark world, nothing existed. No visuals, no dreams, no colour, nothing. But it was getting lighter and that gave Robin hope. Hope for a future beyond the darkness. “If I have a future, I must have had a past. What was I in the past…?” Robin had trouble remembering. What had she been before the darkness? All she could remember was a beautiful dragon and a view of the sky above the clouds. It was just one image that flashed in her mind for a moment, but it was a visual. The first visual Robin had seen in this dark world. And so, Robin remembered it. Not in detail, that was impossible with the mere second she had seen the image for. But she remembered the view from what looked like on top of the dragon. 

 

 It was lighter, Robin could see it. Compared to the black that she had seen before, this was much lighter, more orange or pink than black, but still quite dark. She had never seen anything quite like it, but it felt familiar somehow. Robin didn’t know why.

 

 When the darkness suddenly retracted with a bang accompanying it, leaving behind only a deep orange-reddish colour, Robin was scared. “What will happen now?” So far, she had been safe. In nothingness, yes, but safe nonetheless, protected from harm. Away from anything else living. Away from the world everything else lived in. The thought of returning to that world scared her. But she had no choice, did she? She had to lift the barrier and peek behind it. And so she did, albeit reluctantly.

 

 Robin opened her eyes. She hadn’t realized that they had been closed in the first place. She didn’t remember closing them, anyway. But she closed them just as fast. The sudden light, the white in her world of darkness was so intense, it hurt. “How do I- What do I do now?” Robin didn’t know. She was brave enough to pull aside the curtain between her and the world. She wanted to pull it aside, to look at the world and to return to her friends, even. But she couldn’t. So she tried again. With a miniscule peek at the world around, the brightness was increased a hundredfold. But it didn’t hurt this time, it was just uncomfortable. Robin continued at a slow pace, opening her eyes more bit by bit. 

 She had done it. She was free of the darkness, free of the black. It was blue now. She saw light blue with little tufts of white occasionally entering her field of view. It was familiar, she remembered it from the image she saw of the dragon, just now she wasn’t up there with the clouds, but now she was on the ground and looking up. And looking up meant that she was currently lying on the ground.

 

 Robin made a move to get up, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move her hands, she couldn’t move her legs, she could only look around. It scared her. Robin started thrashing, attempting to get free of the prison she didn’t know she was in until now. It wasn’t a strong prison by any means, since just seconds later, one of Robin’s hand was free, stretching out toward the sky up above. It took a couple of moments for her to piece it together. “My hand…” With a hurry, Robin moved to push herself up. With only one of her two hands, she didn’t quite sit up, instead flipping over, but it was much harder than it should have been to lift up from the ground.

 

 Robin struggled for a little bit, but eventually managed to roll herself over so she was face up again and sat up. A quick look at where she had been laying just minutes earlier had her putting puzzle pieces together at a rapid pace. “Why was I in the ground?” Sure enough, an indent was left in the ground where she had been laying. The surrounding area was covered in moss, but this spot was just exposed dirt. Robin turned her look to her feet. They were covered in dirt and even moss, to some extent. “Eeeh?! There’s moss growing on me?!” Robin hurried to scrape it off, but got distracted in the activity when she spotted a giant rock in her peripheral vision. She turned to look at it from curiosity. Robin was promptly horrified at the sight of a giant skull five times her height. It looked like it belonged to some sort of big lizard. “EDHYR!” Robin realized a couple seconds later, standing up and rushing - well, it was more like wobbling on her feet - over to the skull to check for any other remains of the dragon that had been there just before she went to sleep. She could see just two indents in the mossy ground in a bonelike shape, but nothing else there to show the dragon’s previous existence. 

 

 Actually, now that Robin thought about it, the terrain was also different. There were small hills near the edges of where the dragon’s body would lay as if dirt had piled up next to it. That also explained how Robin had been mostly covered with dirt and underground to some extent, but Robin had no idea how the ground level rose such a huge amount. Robin could see a couple trees crossing over the ground where they hadn’t been before, probably having fallen down in a storm or something. One of them looked fairly fresh as the roots were ripped out of the ground, exposing plain dirt. Robin recalled the bang that had woken her in the first place - could this have been the cause of the loud noise? “Wait, how is Edhyr just a skeleton now?? Weren’t the scales just falling off? Wait, scales!” Robin’s thought was interrupted when she remembered the pile of scales she had buried by the tree. She walked over to check if they were still there. It took a couple of minutes of digging and Robin’s fingers really didn’t like the labour, but Robin managed to hit something hard in the dirt. She pulled out a dull purple scale. “So they’re still here…” 

 

 After a minute or two of pulling scales from the ground, Robin began to feel kind of cold. It was pretty windy as well and she was surprised - it was never this windy in the middle of a forest! With a quick spell, Robin swapped out her previously dirty skirt and shirt for a long hooded jacket and shorts underneath. It covered her nicely and was comfortable, which was good enough for Robin.

 

 Now that Robin had a jacket - with pockets! - she could bring way more stuff with her. She placed the dull and dirty scales in the inner pocket, safely away from sight. Robin decided to give Edhyr’s grave a visit as well. It wasn’t completely gone, thank Sora, but the writing on the stone was surprisingly faded. Robin took a minute to stand there and remember Edhyr before moving on to see what in the name of Sora had happened while she was asleep.

 

 It didn’t take long before she got an answer to one of her questions, but many more questions popped up simultaneously. Just a short walk away from where Robin had previously been, the forest was wiped out, trees broken down and charred from fire in places, leaving Robin to wonder what had happened here. She continued walking in the windy plains, leaving behind the giant skull in search of the city in the walls.

 

 Yet another round of questions swarmed Robin’s mind when she finally saw the city in view, but the wall was broken down on one side. It was as if it had been hit with something giant, Robin had no idea what it could have been. There were no humans in sight. Robin had no further way to reject the truth. “Oh, Sora, I did it again. I slept way too long, didn’t I? How long has it been? The city is gone, the forest has burnt down and there are no humans, not even adventurers anywhere.” Robin was scared and curious, so she kept going.

 

 The city gate was still intact, but the wall to the left side of it was gone barely a meter from the entrance. Robin wandered into the abandoned town to have a look around. The streets were partly covered in rubble near the wall. The town square was clear and it looked like people had been shopping here just yesterday, but the carts were abandoned. Robin snatched a nice white and red fabric scarf from one of the stalls. She didn’t mind that the colour had faded a bit. Nobody else was here to purchase or use it anyway, so she shouldn't feel bad for taking it, should she?

 

 The city overall looked like people had left it urgently. Robin didn’t know if humans ever came here anymore, but if so, not often. It didn’t look like people had died - there weren’t any bodies or bones around, so Robin took an assumption and said that they had to evacuate for some reason or the other.

 

 Which was exactly why Robin was so surprised when she heard footsteps approaching the town square from the same direction she had just come from. She was curious and didn’t move to hide, instead wanting to meet whoever was approaching and learn more about what happened when she was asleep, so Robin stood in her place, faced towards where the footsteps originated from. Actually, now that Robin thought about it, wasn't there some sort of odd echo in those footsteps? Indeed, it sounded off somehow. It didn’t take long to figure it out when four leather-boot-covered feet turned around the corner - two humans! 

 

 The humans looked very young, Robin noted. About the same age that she looked like if she was human - of course, being a forest spirit, Robin was way older than what she looked. One of the two had blond short hair, the other long and raven black that reached past their shoulders and probably down their back. Robin took an assumption and guessed that the blond was male and the brunette a female human, since there were no further signs other than hair indicating otherwise with the leather pants and fluffy coats covering the two from head to toe other than their fingertips.

 

 The two young humans were gazing around, expressions of wonder and sadness visible on their faces. Robin still stood there, waiting for them to notice her. The blond was first to see Robin standing and staring at them and quickly reached out a hand in front of the other to stop them from moving forward. The brunette gave the blond a confused look, but it turned to understanding when she also noticed Robin. The spirit, with no better way of communication popping into her head at the moment, decided to just wave and hope to get the message across.

 

 The male looked at Robin with suspicion, but the brunette girl happily waved back with a small smile. Robin also smiled in return, finding it only polite. “Hello. Do you mind telling me what happened to this city and forest?” she continued, hoping for some answers. The girl looked like she was about to reply, but the boy cut her off: “Who are you and why should we tell you? It’s common knowledge, so how can we trust you if you don’t even know?” His tone was demanding and Robin wasn’t really sure how to reply to that.

 

“Well, I just recently woke up from a nap and from what I remember from before, the city was fine with walls around it and the forest was green and thriving. Now it is not. I just want to know what happened.” The two humans looked at each other. “Let’s just tell him. It can’t hurt,” the girl proposed. Robin coughed to correct her: “I’m actually female.”

 

“Oh, sorry about that! Your hair is so short, I thought you were a boy!” the human rushed to apologise. Robin gave a nod. “It’s fine. So, can you tell me about what happened?” Robin kept pushing. After a momentary pause, she decided to add: “Please?”

 

“She used the magic word, Robin! We have to tell her!” the girl kept trying to pursue the boy. “Wait, did she just say Robin?” Robin’s mind halted for a moment. “Your name is Robin?”

 

“And what of it?” the boy countered.

 

“My name is Robin too.” A second of silence passed. “You’re lying.,” the human said, disbelief clear on his face.

 

“No, for real, my name is Robin. What’s yours?” Robin asked the brunette girl, now actually curious.

 

“Anna!” the girl happily submitted. “And that’s my brother Robin! But friends can call him Rob!”

 

“Can people with the same name as you also call you Rob? Because I’ve never been called anything other than Robin and for me it would take ages to get used to,” Robin thought out loud. The boy muttered for a little while, but eventually gave up with a quiet growled “Fine.”

 

“Will you tell me about the city and forest now?”

 

“Only if you tell us what you are and how you got here without knowing about what happened,” Rob countered yet again. Robin sighed and nodded. “Well, as I said earlier, I slept for a while, but I don’t know how long. What I know for sure is that I went to sleep before whatever happened here took place and I’d like to know when that was. As for what I am, I am a forest spirit of this very same forest that has now been destroyed and it is my duty to keep it alive, so I must know what happened.”

 

“A big battle. Father always said that it was horrible. This city is on the border of the country and when the trixes attacked, the defense was weak and they managed to cut and burn down most of the forest as well as break the city wall. The survivors all fled and left whatever they were doing while adventurers and soldiers were sent to fight. Nowadays people, mostly adventurers, come here to pay respects from time to time, but other than that not many people come here,” the human Robin informed the spirit.

 

“That explains a lot. I guess I’ll have to start from scratch then,” Robin replied, not bothering to ask what trixes were.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Growing the forest. I’ll have to start work on that.” Robin saddened at the thought and opted to look down instead. The cobblestone was worn out and her bare feet stood out in contrast, her toes barely visible from under her cape.

 

“Can’t you just come with us?” The human girl’s voice was higher than Robin’s or, well, Robin’s, so it stood out when she spoke. She was looking right at the spirit. “Can’t you find a new forest or travel with us?”

 

“But this is my home.” “And Edhyr is here,” Robin added in thought. Anna nodded in understanding. “But you can always come back?”

 

“You really want me to come with you, don’t you, little human?” Robin said, giving her a pat on the head. “Why are you two travelling alone in the first place?”

 

“We want to help the Adventurer’s Guild protect the towns! So we’re going around and helping with killing dangerous beasts and collecting ingredients,” Rob declared with pride. Robin sighed internally at the enthusiasm in his voice. “Kids are so energetic.” “Well, I’ll come with you then. I have nothing better to do other than plant trees, and I much prefer company. One last question, though. How long ago was the battle?”

 

“Father said that it was eleven years from now.” Robin froze. “Eleven years? That’s a really long time! A really, really long time to sleep! Even for a magical being like me! Gosh, no wonder there’s only a skeleton of Edhyr left!” 

 

“Robin?” 

 

“Eh? Sorry, I got a bit carried away there…” Robin felt sad at the years she had lost, but at the same time - this was a new life! But, still, she had no idea where Jason or the others were and how they were doing or- “Robin!” 

 

“Right, sorry. So where are we going?”

 

“We just had a look at the city, so we wanted to check out the dragon of the forest and then get going toward Citnerohs.”

 

“Great, the forest! My speciality! Lead the way!” Robin followed after the two kids the whole way from the ruined city to the forest border and then past the burnt and cut down trees, to where the last couple dozen living trees stood.