The man standing over Beth tucked his blade into the belt around his waist and turned his back to her in disgust. She pulled herself up still slightly in shock from the recent turn of events. Memories of the dreams induced by the plant faded into hazy memories as she stood up and shook off the white powder that had settled in her hair and eyes. She was drawn out of her heady state by the man who had rescued her from the tree who was now whisper shouting at her.

“What are you doing out here! Do you know how many dangers there are for a naive wannabe explorer? Naia! If I hadn’t intervened you would be plant food right now!” the man said, gesturing at the remains of the leaves Beth had called home for the night.

Beth released his hand and began to brush herself down.

“I’m sure I would have managed, this isn’t my first time dealing with danger. I would have worked out how to escape eventually.”

The man, no boy, scoffed at her. Now she was paying attention it was clear to her it was just a boy, around Guliveneir’s age at roughly 11. Though clearly he was the result of a very different lifestyle to her sheltered friend. He was tall for his age, with green eyes not dissimilar to that of the leaves around him. They held a wildness that matched the surroundings too.

He wore a simple tee-shirt and short combo that was tightly fitted to his body, adorning the outfit were a pair of small satchels strapped across his body holding the shirt material even closer to his body. His hair was barely more than stubble on the top of his head and he worn thin ankle length shoes that seemed to have a metal base and toe that stood in discord to the rest of his light airy outfit.

The boy, [Nate Burville, 0], took a step or two away from Beth before slowing and turning to face her once more.

“I’ll get you back to my village but thenIsuggest you either accept a new life living there or use whatever device you used to come her for your little sightseeing trip to head back to wherever you came from, while you still can.”

It was clear to Beth the boy thought of her as some sort of tourist who’d come to the planet for a fun adventure rather than the Trial she was actually taking. Though it wounded her pride slightly she was willing to go along with it if it got her more information about the situation she was in.

They set off together slowly, which given Beth’s levels of possible speed and ticking deadline set her on edge. As they walked Nate continued to looking around fairly frantically and seemed to be conscious of every step he took. Stopped only in his frantic looks to give an occasional death glare to Beth. They had walked for barely 5 minutes before Nate once again turned to Beth sharply.

“Are you trying to get us killed or are you really that clueless. Your footsteps are louder than the call of a cocaphant”

Beth stared daggers right back at the child. Her footsteps hadn’t been intentionally loud and she hadn’t particularly notice the difference between her steps and Nate’s. She’d been fine so far on the trip and hadn’t been watching her step then either. But she decided to humour the boy and started coping the boy’s steps. To begin with it was more pantomime than anything else but as they continued to travel the steps continued to improve and she got slightly more aware of how to place her feet to reduce the sound they made. It wasn’t as silent as Nate’s steps even with his metal shoes. But it was an improvement and he had stopped physically cringing with every step she took which she could only see as a win.

Fortunately for Beth given the slow pace of the walking she felt no real exhaustion from the journey beyond the mental affect of being careful with every step. She took not inconsiderable pride in the fact it was eventually Nate who called for them to stop clearly disgruntled that he had given in before Beth had. Stopping to rest, he scuttled up a tree climbing it with so much ease you would assume it had an inbuilt staircase. Beth followed up, and soon the two were sat next to each other on a pair of the large leaves. Being above the canapé, Beth figured it was time to ask the most burning question of all

“What are we trying to avoid? I’d already walked for a full day without any encounters and had, admittedly foolishly, assumed there wasn’t anything all that dangerous in here.”

Nate again started his response with a snort of derision “Did you do any research before coming here. We are primarily avoiding the Volisear. It’s a small rodent creature that can strip flesh from a bone in 30 seconds flat. They have burrows in this area and though they are primarily nocturnal they have been know to come out during the day if people are particularly careless they are fairly uncommon but not uncommon enough to take any further risks. Obviously travelling along the ground is an additional danger but I need to finish scouting the area and you would be dead without me so don’t exactly have a choice. Once I’m finished we’ll switch to a more safe, and fun, route. The berry bushes you’ve been snacking on while a great source of food within the forest but will kill our crops if they get too close to the village so I’m just marking their progress. Once we stop coming along them we will be able to travel in relative safety.”

Nate’s statement answered Beth’s primary questions but didn’t sate her curiosity about the boy and his world. She didn’t however, feel comfortable asking him anything personal. Some part of her acknowledged she owed this boy her life even if she wasn’t consciously accepting that fact and as such she didn’t want to impose further.

She did however, offer him some water and the two sat in relative silence as they ate and the sky grew dark.

“How many days out from the village are we?”

“What ready to go home already?” Nate asked, though his statement lacked it’s previous edge.

“No honestly I’ve been out for almost a week and I’m ready to be home again too." Nate said sounding almost tired "If not just to have something other than these berries to eat. We are roughly three days out. Though it will be much faster once we reach the end of the bushes. They are getting fewer and further between so I think we will reach the endpoint of our ground journey shortly.”

“We will stop travelling along the ground?” Beth asked, then peering behind the boy asked disbelievingly “Wait can you fly?”

Nate let out an honest to goodness laugh at that. A sound that bounced over the trees and carried a lightness that Nate hadn’t shown to Beth yet.

“I wish I could fly. But what we will be doing. Well it’s not as far off as you’d think.”

Nate refused to expand on that and Beth was too tired to properly push him on it. Especially as the secret seemed to make Nate’s eyes twinkle as though the eyes themselves were dancing with glee.

Nate showed her how to twist and break off enough of the large leaves to create a multilayered covering also highlighting another pod similar to the one that almost caused her demise the night before. The leaves of the pod were aligned more directly than others on the tree and both had a small trio of darker spots towards the base. Wrapped up in leaves that provided shelter from the potential elements Beth couldn’t help but pull up and check her time limit. Two days were already down and all she had really learnt was that people lived locally and didn’t think all that well of any outsiders. Not something that was all that positive when she didn’t have enough supplies to climb the mountains and would need their support even if it’s just them giving her reasonable prices for the resources she required.

She fell asleep facing towards the glow of the mountains, and slept deeply undisturbed by the fitful sleep of the small boy next to her.