'Why's it so hot?'

'Don't care.'

'Why are you such a bore?'

Sekafi gave a gleeful, high-pitched chortle. 'Just deal with it, pointy-ear.'

'I'm not! Stop calling me that, you stinky pile of fur.'

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

'This trip really stinks,' Aspen whined again after a moment's silence.

'Mhm.'

Sekafi Zand and Aaspaelwin Selksem, or Aspen for short, wandered through the thin underbrush of the forest. The tall trees stood like silent sentinels under the hot sun and no wind stirred their coniferous branches. The birds seemed tired in the stuffy air and only the occasional chirp could be heard. Only the bugs buzzed unaffected around their faces.

Sekafi flicked her round ears in annoyance but didn't complain. Aspen sighed, stopped at the top of a hill, and pulled out a half-finished map.

'Break?' the ikelos asked. Without waiting for a reply, she dropped her heavy pack and hunched down in the mottled shadow of a tall pine. Her thick, sand-coloured fur and dark spots and stripes made the big humanoid almost disappear against the dry forest floor. She took a long swig from her water-skin. Aspen watched her muscular frame for a moment, then returned his attention to his assigned task. Pulling out a compass, a wooden board, and a lead stylus, he studied the landscape before setting the point against the parchment and started drawing. Hilly pine-forest with sparse undergrowth, large rocks strewn across the landscape, and the far off mountain range. Just a faint blue shadow towards the horizon in the west. A river glinted through the thick canopy of trees further east. Sekafi would keep a close eye on their surroundings and warn him if anything dangerous appeared, so Aspen let that go and concentrated fully on making the map as accurate and clear as possible.

'Have you noticed something?' Sekafi said after a long while.

Aaspaelwin looked up, watched the ikelos powerful head, so much like a bear or big dog if not for the markings and colour. She stared at something. He followed her yellow gaze. A tree?

'What?'

'Does that tree look strange to you?'

'Huh?' Aspen watched it again. A pine. A thick trunk with rough scaly bark, wide branches, and a thick canopy of dark green needles sprinkled with yellow ones. The bark. He watched it some more. Bulging, like something lay underneath it, making it strangely knobbly. How had he missed it? Frowning, he brushed his ebony hair back behind an ear and stepped closer. Sekafi came up beside him, sniffed the trunk with her doglike nose.

'It smells funny,` she grumbled.

'Maybe it's carrying some disease?' he wondered aloud and made a note of it on a separate parchment. He watched the compass. 'Well, I'm almost done. Let's continue down towards the river and the open valley there,' he said and pointed. The forest looked more dense in the valley, but he'd like to get to the water to refill their skins.

'All right. You're the boss, pointy-ear.' She grinned, not a reassuring sight if you couldn't read an ikelos' expression. But he'd spent a full ten years working with her.

'Half-elf, furball,' he retorted and set off through the tall yellow grass and needle-strewn ground. Her giggle made him smile. Most people found the ikelos laugh annoying, but he'd grown quite fond of it over the years.

As they descended the rocky slope and tangled with the increasing bushes and undergrowth, the trees tightened around them, blocking out the sky more and more. The cool shadows were a blessing after the hot sun. Aaspaelwin glanced as his exposed arms, bright red. His skin wasn't made for this sun. He should cover them, but it was too hot. The stupid highelf-blood in him really wasn't suited for this climate. He almost wished he'd got fur, like Sekafi. He spotted more trees with the bulging stems. Some had egg-like boils around their trunk bases. It made his skin crawl. What had happened to this forest? Maybe it wasn't a good direction to expand towards. He'd tell the guild and the council about it when they returned.

'I don't like this,' Sekafi mumbled. 'Something feels off.'

'Agreed. It's very strange.'

As they pushed deeper into the forest, the underbrush thickened. The grass and bushes regained their greens as they neared the water but they heard fewer animals. Eventually a rushing noise reached their ears.

'I hear the river,' Aspen said and lengthened his steps.

Sekafi followed, moving quietly. They stopped on the riverbank. The waters ran slow and sluggish. Curving through the trees, dark and foreboding. Aspen shuddered involuntarily. It's just water, he thought. Don't be stupid. Besides, they had to refill their skins. He unplugged his waterskin, drank the last few drops, and plunged it into the water. After a brief hesitation, Sekafi did the same. The water froze Aspen's fingers, and he was grateful to pull it out of the river and back into the warm summer air again. He raised his eyes and settled on a tree trunk on the other side. The knobbly, bulging pine tree looked worse than the others. Some of the bulges had open sores, bleeding black sap down its trunk. His lips curled in disgust. Something was definitely not right here. But what caused it?

'Hey? Aspen, why're you staring at nothing? Let's move.'

'I... just looked at the trees.'

She snorted. 'They are infected or something. I don't like it.'

'Me neither.'

'We should head back, it's only getting worse.'

'I think...' He trailed off and studied the surrounding forest. It had gotten steadily worse, but at the same time, they grew thicker here, among more lush ground vegetation. It was probably just some tree sickness. But it had increased so much he got the feeling they were getting closer to the centre of it. If there was a centre. Curiosity leading the way, he followed the river against the flow, deeper into the woods.

'Aspen?' Her footfalls preceded her hand on his shoulder. 'Hey! You think what?'

'I think,' he glanced at her, her yellow eyes filled with worry, 'I'd like to find out what's causing it.'

'And I think we should leave,' she stated firmly.

He smiled. She wanted him safe, and she didn't think it was safe here. But it was only trees, nothing else. 'We should try to find out what's caused it. If it's a natural sickness, or if it's caused by something. Perhaps something's poisoning the forest? What good would it do if we left, only to have to come back later to investigate further?'

She growled deep down in her throat. 'It smells wrong, and I don't like it.'

'Noted.' He patted her shoulder, a full head and a half above his. 'Now let's go. It'll be fine.'

'We're going to have to stay the night here if we go too far.'

'Maybe, but it'll be worth it, I promise.'

She huffed. 'Fine, but I'll go first.'

'Always the hero.'

'Well, I can't have you die on me, now, can I? That would be such a waste of a pretty pointy-ear like you.'

He laughed. 'You know, my ears don't look elven at all.'

She grinned, showing her sharp teeth. 'And? You're still just a weak elfling.'

'I'm not weak. I'm just not a monster like you.'

Her sharp laughter echoed in the silent woods.

---

Tell me what you thought of the main characters?

What do you think of the descriptions and dialogue?

Do you like the pacing, or was it too slow/too fast?

Anything you comment on will help me improve as an author. Thank you!