Following the spirit, we were only able to advance because of it finding paths through the thick vegetation, that my inexperienced eyes would have never noticed without it helping me visualize them. As it's interpretation of a path overlapped with what my eyes were seeing, trails, made by animals or carved by the flow of water, suddenly became obvious to me. The progress through such complicated routes was slow, but it seemed that our heading was steady.
Only an increase in sunlight reaching into the dim forest heralded the clearing that we soon unexpectedly emerged into. I stopped instantly, and Sahra only a moment afterwards, as we saw several people strewn about haphazardly across the clearing, laying down on the open patch of grass. But perhaps even more shocking was that there was a familiar figure sat down on a root on the other side of the clearing, her eyes closed, but clearly quite awake. She was humming a calming tune, like that of a lullaby, that somehow clearly reached my ears over the distance. Before I could exclaim in surprise, Satin put a finger across her lips, to indicate for silence, as she opened her eyes and looked straight at me.
"Shh. You shouldn't be loud when others are sleeping."
Again her quiet words reached my ears easily, as if the whole lively forest, and even the wind, fell silent just to listen to her. Satin's friendly smile wasn't all that different compared to when I first met her, in a clothes shop that I visited weeks earlier with Celine, but in that moment it seemed to have a distinct mysterious quality to it.
Perhaps it was more that her whole impression had changed. The lively young woman, that had greeted a new customer eagerly, had been replaced by a serene, albeit still friendly, presence. Her elegant manner of dress suddenly seemed to come with a great deal more dignity, compared to her previously approachable character. Despite the urgency of the situation, I felt compelled to follow her indication, and calmly stopped to consider the situation first.
It was obvious that Satin wasn't nearly as surprised by the encounter as I was, but I had a good hunch for why that was. Even if she didn't look very different to my eyes, the impression that she made to me was thoroughly different, since she was clearly tapping directly into the vast quantity of mana flowing through the forest, so that a far greater quantity of mana streamed through her than I'd ever seen a mage utilize.
The flow of mana also covered all the people that were sleeping on the ground. I paid close attention to make sure that it didn't get any closer to me or Sahra. It was clear that Satin was tapping into the surrounding mana for magic, but it didn't look like any sort of magic that a human could use. Satin's mana flow still wasn't quite as alien as Nerna's had been, but it was drastically different from that time at her shop.
And in particular, it was rather telling that most of the mana seemed to flow through a network of roots seemingly grew out from right inside her long dress, and spread out to all of the nearby trees. It seemed Sahra, whether she was sensitive to mana or not, had also noticed that something was off, but I hurried to speak to occupy both of their attention as she was tensing up, even as I was myself still trying to figure out just what was going on.
"Are they really just sleeping?"
The people scattered around the clearing seemed to be students and instructors from the academy, most with familiar types breastpins. It seemed likely that they were part of exactly the group that we were after, as it seemed unlikely that we'd have found anyone else in the forest. At a glance it was good news that they were sleeping, rather than causing trouble, but in that moment Satin seemed to present a bigger cause of concern.
"Yes. They are just a little intoxicated, so they'll be more or less fine when I let them wake up."
Satin wasn't exactly dismissive, answering my actual concern poignantly, but the casual manner in which she spoke about such a subject was still unnerving. Looking at the sleeping figures, they didn't seem to be having the most peaceful of naps, some appearing more like they had passed out from drinking too much. I didn't particularly want to know what kind of dreams the others were having, to be so flushed and fitful in their sleep. Intoxication seemed like an appropriate descriptor, and I didn't think they'd really stir even if I tried to wake them, until whatever Satin was doing was gone.
Maybe some of my anxiety and distrust passed onto the spirit through the mana link that we'd maintained, as it hurried to tell me that Satin could help us and open a path through the forest. I related my apprehension to the spirit, as knowing that didn't necessarily reassure me. I didn't understand why she would help us, much less why she was there and capable of doing such a thing in the first place.
"Do you really need to go into the forest right now? Your grandmother should have things well in hand by now. I don't think she'd want you to get into danger."
I was startled when Satin interrupted my train of thought, her words indicating that she had actually overheard my communication with the spirit, as she stared right at me. I quickly deduced that she was able to listen in, because of how she was tapped into the all the mana flowing through the forest, but Sahra of course looked even more bewildered, not even knowing that there was another, unseen, participant in the conversation.
And Satin was indicating further knowledge of the situation, compared to what even I was aware of, as she was expressing her apparent concern for me through a frown. I wondered if she was somehow able to see what was going on elsewhere in the forest as well, through the magic she was employing, or if was she actually another unexpected ally of Mary's.
"Yes. I need to go."
What she told me only strengthened my resolve. If she indeed knew what was going on, then it was a relief to know that Mary was able to handle things. But knowing that going into the forest could be my chance to finally meet her only meant that I was more determined.
Satin did not answer immediately however. Instead I noticed a small amount of mana linking her and the scarf where the spirit resided. After a moment she sighed dramatically. I was at first confused, when her following words didn't seem to connect to our conversation, but soon I realized that she was doing us the favor of at least letting us in on her side of her conversation with the spirit.
"It's not appropriate to bargain for a favor when you are going to ask someone else to exchange for it, little one. You've already departed the nest. It was your choice to go with her. Fine, I'll do it just this once. But first you must at least introduce yourself properly to the one you've made a deal with."
I was startled when I felt something squirming against my arm, but, before I could do more than give an annoyingly high pitched sound of surprise, that something burst out through the loose opening of my cuff. The green scarf that I'd started to keep tied up around my arm found its way loose all on its own, and then flew away, as if carried by a strong gust of wind. There was no such movement of air of course, the scarf seemingly carried by mana in another confusing display of spontaneous magic, until it was floating in front of us in the air.
As the scarf started to suddenly contract and shift into a different shape, I could see from the corner of my eye Sahra's baffled look, as she saw for the first time the odd entity that had actually been accompanying us all the way. But I had my eyes nailed on the spectacle myself as well, because it was also in fact the first time that I could actually see it with my eyes. Before I hadn't even imagined the spirit as actually capable of having a physical form.
I had thought that the spirit was simply possessing an inanimate item, yet before my eyes that simple fabric seemed to very much come alive, serving as the core to the spirit's new, visible, shape. Whether what was an amalgamation cloth and concentrated mana could be called a body was an interesting philosophical question, but it certainly looked like one. It seemed like a direct imitation of the human form in fact, same as I presumed the body that Nerna had shown to be. It had more or less the proportions of an adult human female, in fact with an accuracy that would have been quite impressive in a piece of art.
Mind you, it was small, its height comparable to the length of my rather small forearm. I supposed it to be a limitation of the size of the scarf, which formed just an outer layer for an otherwise hollow form, within which was only intangible mana. Mana that, notably, now had taken an actual shape, seemingly corresponding to the shape of its new body, unlike the way in which it had simply evenly clustered in the scarf previously.
To Sahra it probably still appeared like nothing more than a floating doll made out of cloth, but to my perception the strong layering of mana along that cloth gave it an oddly lifelike feel, as if it was part of an actual living organism. Though with the cloth's distinct sheen, where the rays of the setting sun hit it, it's newly firm surface almost looked like the chitin of an insect, more than it resembled human skin. And the pair of strong concentrations of mana in its head overlapped with my sight to create the impression of eyes, that were seemingly staring straight back at me with a mischievous glint in them.
I had a hunch that the twin protrusions extending from its back, that had the shape of a pair of insect wings, was just an interpretation of certain artistic depictions of the fae, to go along with its small size. It didn't seem to need to move them to float in the air, any more than it would have needed the dress that seemed to flare out around its legs, made of the very same cloth. That skirt, instead, seemed to exist solely for the purpose of it performing a neat curtsey, which looked rather adorable with its small form.
"Please call me Chiffon."
The echoey, but oddly musical and lilting, voice, with which she introduced herself, didn't seem to come from her mouth itself, but rather from a momentary breeze of wind flowing through the cloth. Her mouth instead formed a cheeky smile, as she seemed to take a great deal of pleasure at the impact of her introduction, that was seen from my and Sahra's surprise. She certainly seemed a lot like the occasionally mischievous spirit that I knew.
Satin seemed rather satisfied at Chiffon's self-introduction, nodding approvingly at its little curtsey, and smiling in the same way that she'd smiled when I'd posed in one of her dresses, back at her shop. Was she the one that had taught a spirit human manners, or even to take a humanlike form? And the name as well, corresponding to the fabric that the scarf was made of it, must have come from Satin as well – I thought that she herself surely had another name, one that wasn't quite as on the nose, and perhaps wasn't quite as easily pronounced by humans.
"Well. Nice to meet you. Please do call me Mela."
"And I'm Sahra! Pleased to meet you as well!"
It did seem rather too rude to not to respond in kind, but I did hope that my words conveyed that I was somewhat miffed, to have only just discovered that the spirit was able to hold a regular conversation, after all the effort that I'd put into learning to interpret its usual form of communication. Sahra on the other hand seemed to be adjusting remarkably quickly, introducing herself with her characteristic eagerness right away, once she realized that we were actually faced with an intelligent being.
"Nice to meet you as well, Sahra. You can call me Satin."
Satin then finished the round of introductions, bringing our attention back to herself as she stood up. Her movement seemed more guided by the numerous roots, that became more clearly visible from under her dress as she moved, than by her actual legs. It was as if they were strings controlling a puppet, as she walked over to another side of the clearing, stepping past a pair of unconscious instructors of the academy on the way.
"I can open a path, so that the forest will not obstruct you, but that is the extent of what I can do to help you. The town is my territory, and my roots have yet to extend deeper into the Faewood, so you'll be on your own once you enter."
Before our eyes she opened a very literal path. Upon further thought, the clearing in which we were stood was in itself seemed unnatural in such a wild forest, but I still didn't think that the thick undergrowth would just shift out of the way at her whim. The thicker branches of the bushes bent to the sides, whilst the smaller plants laid down to form a level surface, until a more or less straight and relatively sunlit path led deeper into the forest, in the direction of the Fae rift.
"There will be branches in the path, but I won't be able to guide you further with this body. It's hard for a dryad to move much, after they've set their roots, you see. I'll leave it to Chiffon to fulfil that part of the bargain on her own. She'll know the right path."
"Leave it to me, mistress!"
Chiffon declared her intent with childlike pride, puffing out her chest, as if she was doing her a service, instead of the other way around. Flitting onto the path with a rather erratic pattern of flight, it stopped to wait until Sahra and I followed it with awed hesitance. But before we continued on, I turned around for a bit to inquire about something that was bothering me.
"Satin, does Celine know that you are a fae?"
"No. She sees me as just a friend. I'd like to keep it that way, if at all possible."
She shook her head, showing a troubled smile. Perhaps she appreciated that sort of relationship, and didn't want to ruin it. But I had to wonder if the feeling was truly mutual. If she really understood what a friend was. The knowledge that my sister had made friends with a fae didn't quite sit at ease with me, no matter how friendly said fae looked. It also occurred to Satin to ask me a question in turn.
"And when we first met, did you already know that I was a fae?"
"Ah. Maybe I had a hunch."
It hadn't been nearly as obvious as when we met Nerna. Satin still looked like a flesh and blood human to me, unlike the other one. Even if the mana inside her had seemed a bit too attuned to the Faerie, I didn't really understand that difference so well back then, and in the end the mana flow in her body still wasn't that different from humans. Though it seemed like it perhaps wasn't really Satin's body, in the same way that Chiffon's present form wasn't hers either. It certainly was an expertly crafted disguise however, one that a normal human surely wouldn't easily see through.
A dryad, huh? And, given the similar naming theme, as well as the other factors, I assume Chiffon is Satin's relative of sorts, maybe an offspring?