My mind was pulled back by a little yelp from Leafia. I still had my arm around her but at some point she must have turned around  and her face was right in front of mine. I was glad to see that she was feeling warmer, but I think we might need to take this blanket off because she was getting a little too warm. At least she was no longer shivering so I counted it as a success. 

“W-what are you doing here?” Leafy said with a bit of a stutter. 

“I finished my work here in my woods and came to meet up with you. So we can go find Mist,” I replied.

“Mist… the water sprite you told us about… Why do we need to find her?” She then shook her head. “No. I was asking why are you in my tent sleepi- uh, hugging me?”

“Oh, that.” I thought that would be obvious, but I explained it anyway. “You were so cold last night when I arrived. I thought that this would help you to stay warm. You weren't too cold, were you?”

“Um, no, I guess I was warm enough,” she said hesitantly.

“I am glad I could help.” I smiled at her. This caused her to turn even more red. Was she blushing again? I was just about to ask her why she blushed so much around me. It was not something she did around the others. She was not just shy as I first thought. Before I got a chance to, I was interrupted.

“So what was that about Mist?” Leafia redirected the conversation back on topic.

I guess there goes my chance to ask her. I could switch the topic but it did not feel right to steer us into the verge again. Though it was much more comfortable to walk in the verge. I was surprised humans were so careful to avoid it as they walked down the paths. I tried pulling my mind out of the weeds... But why are they weeds just because humans don’t want them there? Leafy started to look at me with concern as I did not answer. Right. Mist. I sighed. “She was taken by Maximus,” I said sadly.

“What! Maximus was back in your woods?” Leafia nearly shouted. “You must be heartbroken,” Leafia said caringly and wrapped her arms around me in a warm hug. I wanted to just stay in that hug forever. It felt so calm. Like nothing could ever harm me here. 

“Are you ok?” Emily said as I felt her walk up to the tent. It seems that Leafia’s scream had caused the others some concern.

“Hurry up and get dressed. I will tell all of you what happened while you are eating breakfast,” I said to Leafia, as I made my way out of her tent. 

“Laurel! When did you get here?” Emily said with a gasp as soon as my head popped out of the tent. I guess that she does not know many people whose hair can turn the greenish-blue of the spruce trees around the campsite. Making it easy to guess who I was even if she could just see the back of my head.  

“Late last night after you all were in bed.” I smiled at her. But that smile quickly stiffened. Emily froze for a second, seeing my expression shift. But noticing I was no longer looking at her, she turned to follow the path of my eyes. Istan had just emerged from his tent and was staring intently at the moss blanket that covered him in the middle of the night. He was holding it up before himself with an expression that made me cringe. “If you dare try framing that and hanging it on the wall, I will let you shiver in the cold for the rest of this trip.” It did not seem that this threat had much of an effect on him. I could only guess that he thought this was a fair price to pay for the moss blanket. “Just leave it here. I will grow a new one tonight.” 

Istan hesitated for a moment, looking between me and the blanket, before he folded the blanket and set it neatly on the ground. I guess the promise of a new blanket was enough for him to stay on my good side. “You should have told me you arrived.” he said resolutely standing back up to face me.

“I let you sleep because I am heading back out and if you want to come with me you need to be rested.” Hearing my words Istan’s face filled with determination. It was clear that he was planning on following me whether I asked or not. 

“You are heading back out? Does that mean you have settled everything here?” Emily asked as Leafia walked out of her tent fully dressed for the day. 

“That is a much more complicated answer than you could ever know. Get your breakfast ready and I will try to answer as you eat,” I said redirecting them to their preparations for the day. 

It seemed that Emily was really interested in hearing what has happened to me over the past week. She ended up making breakfast with much more haste than normal. Leafia quickly joined her, speeding up the preparations while the men were busy packing up the tents. 

Even with the morning porridge being so hastily prepared by Emily and Leafy it smelled so much better than the mess that Ivy managed to make. Part of me was scared to try food again but I knew that if I did not eat something soon I might be scarred for the rest of my life. Well, that was stretching things a little far. It was not that the food Ivy made was horrible... It was just that I could not say anything good about it. 

But having experienced Ivy’s cooking, I wanted to see what real food tasted like again. 

“Emily, do you think you could spare a small serving for me?” I asked shyly as she was starting to dish out the food. 

Emily looked at me in surprise since I often would not eat breakfast with them. I usually only ate for show when strangers were around when we traveled together.  I could understand Emily’s surprise, since it was unlikely for us to meet anyone this early. Much less in my woods. 

“Here, you can have all of mine,” Istan said, trying to push his bowl on me. But I put up my hand to block him. 

“I only want a bite or two,” I said to Emily, keeping Istan out of the conversation. 

“Sure. If you are hungry I could make you some more,” she said with concern in her eyes. 

“No, I am not hungry, but I wanted to remember what food should taste like.” Emily looked at me confused now.

“I had a run in with Ivy’s cooking and wanted to wash it out of my mouth.”

“You should have left Ivy’s woods a week ago,” Gray said. “Surely nothing could be so bad as to leave its taste in your mouth for that long.”

“It was only just last night.” Receiving puzzled looks from everyone, it seemed like a good time to start my story of what happened over the last week. 

Katuwarrior

Sorry for the long delay. Stuff happened and messed up my schedule IRL and I did not have as much time as I would like. Editor-chan had it worse (Though she lost the sama title for delaying the release of this chapter another week). I did use that time to push through some writers block I was having. I want to make the climax amazing and that was too daunting and I was having a hard time writing it. I think it is turning out though.