It was night in the dark forest, the only creatures disturbing the calmness of the woods being seven large ants trailing over the hills in a straight line, carrying large chunks of insect meat between their mandibles.

“Hurry up! We need to bring food back, quickly!” One of the largest ants in front of the procession signaled the others with its phermones.

“We must feed the colony! Bring the food to the nest!” Another one shouted.

“For our queen! For our Mother! Run fast!” The third one said excitedly.

All ants behind the three largest ants sped up even more, making some of the dry brown leaves on the floor twirl up as they cheerily scooted through the forest. Carrying their precious food, they made their way over to their nest, trying to ignore of the small figure trying her best to keep up with them without being spotted.

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Gaia watched cheerfully from a distance as the ants finally arrived safely from their mission. She observed them as they made their way through the tall grass over to their nest, unhindered by the firm blades pointing out of the dirt. The procession, lead on by the three Daredevils of course, halted in front of her, greeted by the rest of the colony.

A few soft slaps on the head were being exchanged before the procession were allowed to pass, but Gaia had no trouble identifying them. She waved at the ants, who all turned around to wave back at her with their antennae, which made Gaia’s heart overflow with joy.

“Welcome home,” she said, after which the ants nodded, peering up as they made their ways inside the nest.

Gaia watched the remaining spider bits the procession had carried along. This morning, Scarlet had ordered the ants to find the their nest and destroy any of the remaining spiders, which wasn’t something Gaia had been very happy to hear about. She had learned her lesson though, and knowing about the threat that even the weaker spiders posed, she hadn’t complained about it. Still, it didn’t sit well with her, exterminating an entire group of almost sentient creatures.

Those thoughts vanished when she remembered the sound of the Cyclops crunching on the bodies of the helpless ants. If the ants killing these spiders meant preventing another Cyclops from emerging, she was willing to let it happen, even though it didn’t sit right with her.

Gaia decided to leave these thoughts alone for now and focus on other things instead. Luckily for her, she didn’t have to tire herself out again by healing the ants, since none of them had sustained any wounds in the fight. Scarlet had only allowed evolved ants to participate in the raid, just to make sure there were absolutely no casualties this time.

Gaia had been a little unsure if the seven ants, two of which had only evolved overnight, were able to pull this off all by themselves, but she had worried for nothing. The evolved ants proved to be more than capable, especially the Daredevils. Gaia had seen them handling the mighy Cyclops, so the smaller spiders should have been no problem for them at all.

Gaia felt stupid for doubting the ants’ capabilities, but she couldn’t help but worry for them sometimes. She had sworn to prevent them from dying after all, but she couldn’t do much more than healing them when they got hurt. She wished there was something else she could do, but sadly she didn’t have the magic to do so. If only she had someone to teach her…

Mentally leaning back in her chair, Gaia wanted to watch the ants some more as they carried out their daily routine and such, but a strange feeling suddenly washed over her before she could even start. She felt as if she was being watched, from really close by…

Quickly turning around, Gaia expected something to attack her from behind where she wasn’t looking, but she was surprised to see that wasn’t the case. Instead, she found someone laying on the ground, sitting on their knees with their face flat on the dirt and their arms protruded forward, completely unnoticed by Gaia in the night.

Gaia was too shocked by the creature’s humanoid appearance to say anything for a while. Instead, she observed the person in front of her with wide eyes. Although their form resembled a human, Gaia spotted too many differences between the two species.

This person was shorter, balder and far more skinnier. The person’s arms were as thin as bones, and their entire torso was as thick as a young tree. Actually, now that Gaia looked a little closer, the person’s brown skin reminded Gaia of bark as well. She even saw a few tiny leaves scattered across the person’s body.

Gaia was aware of how much she was staring, but she couldn’t stop eying the strange humanoid creature in front of her. She looked behind her and saw the ants still carrying out their tasks, ignoring the strange person this close to their nest.

Gaia remembered her own rule of not fighting in her little area and was surprised the ants still remembered that after all this time. She turned around again and focused back on the strange person, who was still in the same position, apparently waiting for her to say something. Gaia nervously tried opening up a conversation by asking for the person’s name.

“Um, hi there. Who are you, if I may ask?” She said carefully, after which the person seemed to tense up a little.

“M-my name is Wyne, Mother. I’m at your humble service, I-I mean, I’m humbly at your service,” the strange tree like creature stammerd in a high voice, making it clear for Gaia the person was female.

“Well um, hello Wyne. My name is Gaia, nice to meet you. May I ask what you are doing here? Or rather, why are you sitting like that?” She asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible while also masking her bewilderment about this whole situation.

“Prostating myself,” Wyne muffled softly in the dirt. “I’m prostating myself before you, Mother.”

She seemed nervous to say the least, and probably embarrased about her slip of the tongue. Gaia tried to ease her so she could explain her who she was and what was going on.

“I see. Well, you don’t have to go that far actually. Just sit down and relax, and please tell me a bit about yourself, if you’re comfortable with that at least. I’m really surprised to see someone like you suddenly appear out of nowhere, and I would like to know more about you, but not while you’re sitting like that,” she said in a friendly manner.

“Is that really okay?” Wyne mumbled hestitantly and lifted her head so Gaia could see her face.

Because of her humanoid shape, Gaia had expected Wyne to have similar facial features as humans too, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Wyne’s face was almost completely flat, lacking the usual nose and eyebrows. Her mouth was lipless and looked more like a fissure in her face, and Gaia was surprised Wyne could even talk like that. Her eyes were completely black too, reflecting the moonlight falling on her face.

Gaia didn’t scream at the sight, she wasn’t that insensitive, but still, she was a little taken aback to say the least. Apparently Wyne noticed her surprise, because she bowed her head down again in shame of her features.

“Does my face disturb you, Mother?” She asked with a sad voice.

Gaia felt really bad to think it, but by human standards, Wyne’s face was indeed pretty ugly. She wasn’t a human anymore though, and she knew better than to judge people by their looks, so she smiled and shook her leaves in denial.

“No it doesn’t, I was just a little surprised, that’s all. Will you please rasie your head again? I would hate having to talk to you when you’re in such a discomfortable position,” she said.

Wyne slowly looked again up and nodded softly. She got up and tried sitting up straight on her knees, but she flinched after she put her weight on one of her frail legs. Gaia looked down and saw some sort of bandage wrapped around one of her legs, covering what seemed to be a pretty nasty wound.

“You are hurt,” Gaia said confused. “Why didn’t you say so? Here, take the bandage off, I’ll heal it for you.”

“Oh no, there’s no need for that,” Wyne exclaimed. “It’s just an- Ah!”

Wyne clasped her leg when she tried to move it, the wound clearly hurting her a lot. She tried to mask it by smiling awkwardly, but she didn’t fool Gaia. She turned to one of the ants, who had been observing the scene from a distance for a while now.

“Help her take off the bandage please, and make sure it doesn’t hurt her too much,” she said, after which the ant nodded.

It started walking over to the frightened girl, who had apparently not heard Gaia talking to the ant and was now asking herself how she had somehow offended the almighty tree. Wyne closed her eyes in fear as the ant came closer, dangerously moving its mandibles. With a quick snap, it cut the bandage in two, reavealing the nasty wound underneath as well as making Wyne yelp.

The ant returned to its place without a word while Wyne slowly opened her eyes again. Gaia inspected the wound more closely, recognizing the creature that had caused it. She knew all about spider bites by now, having healed pretty much the entire colony after the fights with the overgrown arachnids. The wound on Wyne’s leg wasn’t deep, but then again, the girl’s leg wasn’t exactly thick either.

“Yikes, that’s looking pretty bad,” Gaia said. “No wonder you can’t sit on that leg. Come a little closer, this won’t hurt a bit.”

“I said I was fine,” Wyne wispered softly, but she moved closer to Gaia nontheless.

Gaia placed one of her leaves on the wound and started the process of healing Wyne’s leg. Her leave began shining with green light as the… wood around the wound slowly closed. Wyne watched with marvel in her eyes as her leg was being healed at a rapid pace.

“Amazing,” she said after Gaia was done while touching the place where she had been bitten.

All that remained of the former wound was a small spot, slightly lighter than the rest of her skin. Wyne tried standing on her leg and happily realised it was working fine again. She hupped from one leg to the other and laughed, before turning to Gaia again and bowing once more.

“Thank you Mother, I really mean it. Please tell me if there’s anything I can help you with, and I, I’ll-” Wyne began stuttering again, which made Gaia smile a little.

“Actually, I have some questions if you don’t mind. I’m extremely curious about this world you see, but I can’t exactely move myself, so…” Gaia said, giving the girl time to restore herself.

“Of course, no problem,” Wyne answered with a relieved smile. “What do you want me to tell you about? I’m not the smartest person, but I’ll try my best to help you.”

“We’ll just start with yourself,” Gaia said. “Tell me about your kind, about your habits and such. Do you live with others too?”

“I do, I live in a village with others of my kind. We call ourselves the Treefolk, which probably won’t come as a surprise to you,” Wyne laughed awkwardly.

“I see. So you build houses and such? Made of… wood?” Gaia asked a little uncertain. The thought seemed a bit strange, like humans living inside homes made of flesh.

“Oh no, not at all. We just sleep in the open air, usually against trees and things like that. You see, our kind is actually very weak when you compare us to other humanoid races, so our only way of surviving is by hiding and keeping us to ourselves as much as possible, so building houses is kind of out of the question.”

“Humanoid races?” Gaia peered up when Wyne mentioned them. “So there are humans in this world as well? Sorry, I mean, are there other intelligent races beside treefolk?”

“Yup, there are,” Wyne said, a bit uncertain about Gaia’s reaction. “Or at least I think there are. I haven’t seen any of them myself, but some of the villagers say they have. At least I know there are Ents, High Ents and Dryads as well, but they are simply higher evolutions of us Treefolk,”

“So Treefolk can evolve as well?” Gaia asked, interested about how these seemingly weak stick figures would improve through evolution.

“Yes, although it practically never happens,” Wyne said, averting her eyes a little. Gaia guessed it somehow was a sensitive topic for the girl, so she didn’t ask any further.

“Well, it’s good to hear there are other races too. I wonder what they are like though…” Gaia murmured. “By the way, do you know someone who can teach me things about magic? I need someone to tell me about how to use it, so if you know anyone, it would be greaty appreciated.”

“You don’t know how to use magic? How were you able to heal my leg then?” Wyne asked surprised.

“Yeah, it’s a bit complicated. Well, do you know anyone?” Gaia asked a bit impatiently.

Wondering about what types of magic she might be able to use besides healing made her excited to learn more about her newfound powers, so much that it kept her up at night. Not that she was able to sleep anyway.

“Well, you’re very unlucky. Treefolk absolutely suck at using any type of magic, even the basic ones. I’m the only one in the entire village who can use magic, and I can only use skill. Not even a very useful one at that can you imagine,” Wyne said as her face slowly fell.

“What kind of magic is it then?” Gaia asked, dissapointed about her answer but a bit interested as well.

“Ah, I appraise people by looking at them, meaning I can tell how strong they are and what type of magic they can use. Not that it’s very useful in my daily life, since I can’t fight my enemies anyway. It just tells me how fast I should run away,” she said a little shy.

Gaia’s mouth dropped mentally before her expression slowly turned develish.

“I have a feeling we’ll be getting along,” she said to the confused girl with a smooth voice.