— POV Taeya —

Ugggggh, what happened… where… am I? It’s so dark… I can’t see anything, but I feel warm, so warm. I’m enveloped by something, I feel… so tired, and it’s so comfortable here. I’m not hurting anymore… This is a lovely dream…

…

…

…

I still feel so warm… and I still don’t hurt, but I’m not tired anymore. I feel strange. I can also see now, it looks like I’m being cradled by gigantic, soft leaves. There’s sunlight highlighting the veins in the leaves above me, I can almost even see the movement of the fresh liquid inside. They are also moving gently in a breeze that I cannot feel, but I can somehow know that there is a breeze creating this swaying of my cover. It’s so comfortable in here, but I should probably leave. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but strangely, I don’t feel hungry or thirsty, or even dirty anymore. I don’t know where I am, or how I ended up her, but I should probably leave. I need to keep going, until I can find someplace safe.

Mmmm?

There’s leaves attached to my arms, holding my arms down. But when I started to move around, they started to restrict me, but now they are slowly letting go. If I didn’t know better, I’d think these leaves could feel, but that’d be silly. Only trees can talk, and only to the legendary dryads. Every other plant is silent, unmoving.

Ouch!

As the leaves were pulling back, it felt like something was tugged out of my skin! I can’t see any blood, and the leaves are still retreating, it must have been a bug or something. Weird. It also feels like as the leaves are retreating, they are squeezing me all over the place, it feels really strange and ticklish. It looks like I’m naked - my clothes are nowhere to be seen. I need to fix that soon, I feel really vulnerable. All of a sudden I don’t want to go out of here - what if my parent’s are out there! They’ll beat me again, and yell at me for losing my clothes. No, I don’t want to go out! I need to snuggle in deeper!

Success, it looks like the leaves are again winding about my body, letting me stay in here. I feel safe in here - all that’s out there is pain and hate, in here at least I don’t have to see the ugliness of the world.

No! Nonononono! Stop! Stupid leaves are starting to push me out, and the leaves above are starting to open up as well! It’s so bright! I don’t want to go out!!!!

It’s so bright!

…

Nothing happened - I can feel the sun on my cheeks, and a cool breeze on my arms. I’m being supported on my back from the leaves below, almost as if they were urging me up. I can feel one or two leaves wrapped around me - covering my important parts, barely, but I guess that’s good enough.

…

Still, nothing’s happened to me. I guess I can take a look out.

Whoa - everything is so clear! And so bright! At first I was blinded, but for some reason it went away super fast. I was holding my right arm out pushing against the last leaf around me, and when I looked at it finally I was shocked! My arm was straight! And there are no scars on it! My skin - it’s so smooth, almost see-through white. Before my skin was a mottled white and tan - white from the scars, and tan from my less-damaged skin. I’ve never seen skin so white before - and it almost sparkles in the light! I, I can see so well, even into the pores of my skin, I can see my blood being pumped through, but not the color of veins or arteries, nor the slightest blemish adorn my skin.

The rest of me appears to be like that too - extremely white, smooth, and most of all, free of those accursed scars! Yay!

Is this really me? Just… What happened to me? My bones don’t ache anymore from all the places that they’ve been broken before. Twisting my back also doesn’t cause me to fall down and lose control of my left leg - it all moves so smoothly. I move so smoothly.

I’m so confused - what happened? I guess I won’t find out unless I step out of this leafy cocoon. I should face whatever is out there - I have to show confidence! I can do this!

“Eeek!”

I jumped out, totally forgetting about twisted left foot, and automatically winced when my foot hit the ground from my small hop. It didn’t hurt, but made me start sweating from just thinking about the possible pain. But when I landed and looked down at my feet, again I was shocked. My twisted left foot wasn’t there - instead there was a small, delicate white foot with a large grass leaf wrapped around it. Both my feet were there!

“Yippee!!!!!! Ahahahahaha! Woooooo!”

I couldn’t help myself - I started running around my big leaf cocoon - I can run again! And I’m so fast! There are a lot of bugs flying around me, like they’re racing me! I’ve never seen anyone run this fast - with the wind blowing my hair up behind me, my beautiful brown… I mean golden hair!

‘Thunk!’ “Ouch… Sniff”

When I turned my head to look at my hair, I tripped and fell, skinning my knee a bit. Noooo! My new skin is ruined again! Noooooooo! I don’t want to go back to how I was!

“Sniff, waaaaaaaaah! Huh?”

What’s happening now! The grass below my knee is wrapping around my leg again, and a cooling sensation is wrapping around my leg. The pain is going away… And now the grass is retreating again. And it’s gone! My leg is healed again! Is this a dream?

“EEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!” What is that! That spark of coolness seems to have unlocked something inside of me - I can feel two extremely dangerous animals around me! And this field - this field feels like there’s a raging beast just waiting to eat me, not to mention the other two presences I feel!

I don’t know how to explain it - I just feel like I’m in so much danger right now! But I’m surrounded - there’s nowhere to go! My cocoon! The only place that seems to have a lower concentration of that bad feeling! I’m safe in here, right? Right?

Oh nononono, the two presences are moving over this way! They must have seen me -quick I need to hide! Come on cocoon - wrap around me again! Please!

Ok, I’m mostly covered now! Please go away! Please go away! Don’t eat me please! I’ll be a good girl - just please don’t come any closer!

If I pretend I’m dead, they won’t bother me, just like how I used to curl up when my parents used to beat me until they eventually left me alone.

…

…

…

“Ehehehehe, gigigigi” That tickles! They’re licking my feet! They must be outside of the leaves! I can’t make noise, but I feel like I’m a lot more sensitive than before, my thick bottomed feet have no hard parts anymore… “Hahahahahah! Stop it! Stop it! Hahahaha!”

I can’t take it anymore! I have to see what’s licking my feet! I can tell it’s the two presences that were earlier, and they haven’t attacked me yet… Maybe a peek?

‘Shuffle, shuffle’ There we go - ‘Gasp!’ what in the heavens are those? There are two, beautifully colored winged small tigers at my feet! One’s as black as night, while the other is striped with gold and white, both giving off a terrifying pressure. They look so cute, but scary at the same time. Uh-Oh - looks like they can see my eyes! They’ve stopped licking my feet and seem to be looking at me! The leaves are starting to move again - and I can’t stop them from revealing me!

Well, I did my best. At least I tried to find a better place. The best thing I can do now is to close my eyes and accept my death - they say that struggling will only make it more painful, tigers go for the throat.

…

…

‘Huff, Puff’ ‘Hehehe’ their breathing is tickling my neck - just get it over with! Their paws are heavy, and pressing on top of my shoulders as their sniffing my face and neck! I can’t stand the tension - if I had anything in my bladder, I would have wet myself already!

‘Slurp!’

Huh, they’re licking me! “Stop it, stop it! Eheheheheh! That tickles!” As I open my eyes, I see the two tiger cubs looking at me, and licking my face alternatively. Unconsciously I start rubbing their fur with my hands, and it looks like they like it! They start purring in my chest, and they both lay down together with me in my grassy cocoon. They are almost as big as me stretched out, but they are so cute. Maybe, this is where I belong. It’s a new place, that has a lot of scary things in it, but for some reason, it seems like this place, and these two tiget cubs that live here, are welcoming me here. Even the grass seems to be happy to see me.

I thought I wasn’t tired, but with these two big, warm cubs basically making me unmovable, and to be honest a tad bit too warm, I’m starting to feel really sleepy again…

Zzzzzzzzzz……

— POV Jard —

The animal we brought back to papa was put into a big, grassy thing. Then it got really scary as everything around us, all the energy I could feel, started to be dragged towards that spot. Blue, Yellow, Green, Red, a black so dark that it seemed as if anything that entered would never leave, a light so bright that it could counter that darkest of blacks, and so many other shades and colors as well, everything seemed to be converging on that very spot.

I dragged Torgue up into papa’s leaves, so that we could be safe from that big storm of mana. It was really scary!

After that day, it was a whole week before anything happened inside of that cocoon. It started to bulge out a little bit, when a white arm was thrust outside into the sun.

‘Torgue, what is that?’

‘I don’t know, it looks kinda like the animal we brought back that made papa give us a really good set of bones! It must be that thing!’

‘That’s what I thought - but it feels really different from when we brought it back to papa. The color is all wrong, and it doesn’t feel weak anymore - it has a lot of mana now! Not like us, but still a lot!’

‘Well, it looked broken when we first brought it back to papa. Maybe papa fixed it? That’s so cool!’

‘Huh, maybe you;re right Torgue! That must mean we can’t eat it - we can’t break what papa fixed, now can we?’

‘I guess not, huff. But we found it! But he did give us really tasty bones…. Arggh! Fine. Even though we can’t talk to dad like we used to, I still remember when he got mad at us for scaring away prey that one time!’

… That was totally just your fault. Thankfully papa now doesn’t seem to have the same temper as he used to.

‘Jard, look! It’s stepping out! I think it’s a human!’

‘A human? Papa used to say humans were kind and helpful, maybe papa fixed it for a reason!’

‘Wow! It runs really fast! Hmmm, and it has long hair, so it’s a girl human? At least that’s what papa said.’

‘Sniff… It smells like a girl, so it must be. She’s running around now, that looks fun! Oooh, ouch! She fell, and it looks like she’s hurt. She must be really weak.’

‘Yea, that wasn’t even really fast! Oh, look at that, it looks like she’s being healed again. Dang, looks like she is protected by papa, just like us? Does that mean she’s part of our family now?

‘I guess, I don’t know. Let’s go look at her up close.’

I’ve never smelled this type of human before. I’ve heard there are different types of them, and papa brought us near some places so that we could remember their smell, but I still can’t recognize the smell. Hmmm, it looks like she got scared by something - don’t worry, everything in here is protected by papa!

Ooooooh, looks like she’s covered herself in leaves. Is she okay? ‘Torgue, she must be scared of something! We need to comfort her, I guess let’s groom her some.’

‘That’s a good idea! With us around, nothing can happen!’

‘Lick, lick’

Oh, it looks like she’s come out partially from the leaves, but she still won’t come all the way out, and it seems like she’s still scared. I used to feel safe when papa licked me on my head when I was scared, maybe we should do that too.

It looks like Torgue is thinking the same thing. We both stepup to her head and sniff her again, remembering her scent.

‘Lick, lick’

‘Ah! She’s laughing! That’s good, right? She seems happy, right Jard?’

‘I think so! Ah, that feels so good! She seems to be grooming us too! It must be all right!’

‘Jard, she’s so good at this, and so soft and comfy. I don’t think we should let anything happen to her. I really like her, and papa must like her too to heal her.’

‘I also think we should accept her as well. She’s really good at scratching the places that I can’t reach. Ahhhhh. She’s really weak, so we need to protect her, and make sure she doesn’t get hurt anymore!’

‘I agree! Also, if we need to sleep, we should sleep with her to protect her! Plus, she’s soft and comfy too!’

‘Yaaaaawn, again, your’ve got a good point. And her scratching skills… are making me very sleepy right now…’

Zzzzz.

Zzzzz.