Nawa prepared a pot of soup, and the four of them watched the little demon with uneasy glares. Now that it had dusted itself off, its appearance was now clear. It resembled a small weasel, with a long, silky tail, and oversized ears. Its large eyes, like a rabbit’s looked back and forth, catching the glares of each of the group.

“I don’t like it.” Kirtridge muttered, for the umpteenth time. “I like it even less than I did when it was fucking vile and huge.”

Kaede nodded. “A small and benign monster is the most dangerous.”

“I’ll just put it down here.” Kirtridge pulled his sword from its sheathe. “If this bastard sticks around it’ll cause issues.”

“No, stop!” Kaede jumped to his feet and waved Kirtridge back. “It’s a familiar! She’ll be hurt! Be glad she lived, that’s the best we could hope for.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if she had listened to me! I told her not to take its oath! If she hadn’t spoke to it we could have fought it off!”

Bloumen stared at her soup intently. Kirtridge was angrier than she had ever seen him before. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with him, not while her hand was still aflame with the pain of the demon’s rite. They ate in silence, watching the demon strut around the campfire sleepily with a weary gaze

“Bloumen.” Kirtridge started. He paused, and wiped at his eyes, before he continued. “I’m sorry about this. I should have been able to keep it off, you shouldn’t have been put in a position like that.”

“Kirtridge, what could you…” Kaede began.

“I could have plunged my blade into it and hacked at it until it chewed me up! That’s what I should have done! God knows what the fuck it has done to her!” Kirtridge groaned.

Bloumen sipped at her soup, watching the demon crawl about. When she focused on it its senses vaguely came to mind, the heat of the campfire, an irritation at Kirtridge, a reserve of something cold and electric inside of it. Erd-flow, she recalled those words and frowned. She directed as much focus as she could at the demon and asked; ‘What have you done to me!?’

She felt the familiar migraine coming onto her as it stirred. A chill ran down her spine, lethargy creeping into her limbs. ‘As a familiar, I am tied to thy erd, and serve thy will… Although with how thou art now, I can barely speak to thee without you fainting.’

Bloumen recoiled, and the migraine faded. A wave of dizziness washed over her. Her eyes fixed on Kaede, who had a complicated expression on his face. “Kaede. Please tell me what is wrong?! I don’t know what happened!”

“Ah..” He took in a deep breath, face twisting into a frown. “I am not sure myself. Demons make familiars from the souls of men and use them as puppets to focus their Erd. I’ve never heard of a Demon becoming one itself.”

“The Witch King had familiars when I fought him.” Kitridge added. “He would use them to relay commands. This is different though.”

“It should be limited by your Erd flow, and since you’re young, it shouldn’t be able to fight you.” Kaede shook his head. “That’s what I don’t understand, Demons are miserable creatures who never work together. No demon would willingly limit itself like this.”

There was a long silence, and the demon offered no answers.

Kirtridge broke the silence with a loud exclamation. “So that thing will be coming with us!?”

“Unless you have a better solution.”

Kirtridge shook his head, sitting back down with a labored sigh.

Bloumen stirred at her soup, afraid to speak. Kirtridge’s frustration thickened the air, and it hung in the air like a fog. She felt like she had made the right choice, but now the decision was twisting around inside of her and made her stomach hurt. The anxiety built up in her with each bite of her soup, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Kirtridge.” She choked on her words. “I’ll be fine, can we go?”

Kirtridge looked at her and then back at the familiar and shrugged. “Aye. Kaede, help me pack up the camp. How long until we make it to the forests’ edge?”

“About two days, perhaps a bit longer given how slow the childen walk.”

“Nawa, please help Bloumen clean up.” Kirtridge walked over and took her dish. She stood and followed the glum looking Silfae child as he began to pick stakes out of the ground and roll up the lines of their tents. They worked in silence, until the tent was rolled up neatly and bound to Kirtridge’s bag.

“Are you alright?” He broke the silence, giving her a half-hearted smile.

She nodded; the lump still heavy in her throat.

“Hey, I’ll help you alright? We can stay out of trouble together, that sound good?”

She nodded again.

They finished packing up the camp and formed up into a group while Kirtridge and Kaede poured over a map. They began the long and arduous walk along the great stone branches of the deep forest once more, as the vertigo inducing clouds swirled about under them. Nawa tried to make small talk with her again, before he himself grew silent.

As Bloumen’s feet were beginning to ache from the walk, he came alongside her again. “Hey, don’t worry about this. I’m sure it’ll be fine…”

She didn’t respond, she was sure he was wrong, and she was beginning to find him annoying.

Nawa sighed and slowed his pace to walk alongside her silently. After they rounded a knoll in the great stone branches, he broke the silence once again, with a more tentative voice. “You know, when I started exploring with Kaede, I found it scary too. Not in the same way of course… Back when Kaede was showing me around, I nearly died! Wanna hear about it?”

She shrugged. Her feet hurt, and the sharp emotions of the morning had died down into an all too familiar sense of fatigue.

Undeterred by her tepid attitude, Nawa continued. “So we were on a trip for great serpent bones- They’re these big long things as tall as a house- Kaede says that Elder Liwa uses their powder for magic! And we were hiking along the citadel ruins- you’ll see them as we go, maybe by the end of the day-“

Bloumen had been trying to pay attention to his tale but now felt so thoroughly lost she had forgotten why he was telling it. She laughed. “Stop interrupting yourself please!”

“Oh, sorry.” Nawa grinned at that. “Kaede was setting up a camp and wanted me to get some water from a spring. It was a little bit away, so I had to walk to it. When I was walking along the branches though, I thought I saw someone on the branches below! It started calling to me, and when I walked towards it, I slipped!”

“Oh! Were you alright?”

“Well, I grabbed onto a root that was hanging out from the rocks and clung onto it for my life! I hung onto there for so long that I thought my arm would pop out! I tried calling for Kaede but he was too far away. I guess I hung there for an hour, before I heard him yelling for me.”

Nawa laughed again. “You should have heard the talking to he gave me, yelling at me and everything. He was so worried! I think Kirtridge is the same right? He was just worried, you’re not in trouble.”

Bloumen smiled, she felt like her own situation was somehow different, but it was reassuring anyway.

They traveled until the sun began to set, casting long shadows as it sank between the tangled branches of the deep forest. As dusk fell, the path twisted again, and along the sheer cliff bordering the forest, a vast ruin began to take shape, rising from the clouds above. Hazy from distances, it sprawled along the cliff face, ruined walls running along the great stone branches of the forest and up its monstrous trunks.

Kaede pointed to it, motioning along a series of branches that led up to it. “There it is the old city of Lindwell. It was destroyed a long time ago by one Izzal, one of the demons in the Profane Quintet. It’s still infested with night creatures, but we’ll go along a route that should avoid trouble.”

He motioned up to the form of a ruined guard tower, made hazy by distance. “We will camp there tonight. It’s a good spot, and there’s a supply cache hidden up there.”

The tower was surprisingly cozy, with its rotten floor replaced by sloppily cut logs and roof held together by ropes and propped up beams. Kirtridge took up watch while Kaede made a fire. Nawa and Bloumen set up to sleep on the second floor, where Kaede said they would be safer.

She slept soundly that night.