The jungle had a way of swallowing sound.
Aya walked at the front of their little procession, her senses spread wide like a net, every whisper of leaf and pulse of air tugging at her awareness. Tessa followed behind, quiet but watchful, arms clutching the small satchel she carried as though it were a lifeline. The canopy above was thick, strangling the sunlight into fractured beams that danced on damp moss and roots. The air smelled sharp with wet soil and something faintly metallic, like rain yet to fall.
Aya liked it. Or rather, part of her did. The world around her was dangerous, but danger was familiar, grounding. The weight of her awareness sweeping outward — that sense, sharpened by whatever strange systems governed this world — gave her the reassurance that nothing could sneak up on them.
At least, that's what she believed.
"Stay close," she murmured without thinking, then realized Tessa couldn't understand a word. She glanced back. The girl gave a faint nod anyway, reading Aya's tone more than her language.
They had traveled further than they'd ever dared from the riverbank. Aya wanted distance, walls of green between them and the mercenaries that had sniffed after Tessa's trail. Survival meant denying the enemy any thread to follow.
It meant pushing deeper.
The terrain became harsher. Vines hung thick across their path, insects hissed in unseen nests, and once Aya spotted a snake coiled lazily along a branch — its scales a mirror of bark, its tongue flickering at the scent of them. She steered Tessa away with a sharp gesture.
Hours passed like that: steady movement, silence, gestures where words could not cross. A quiet partnership stitched from survival. Aya noted how Tessa began to mimic her movements — crouching lower when Aya crouched, stepping where she stepped, holding her breath when the forest went too still.
It almost felt like… trust.
The air changed.
Aya felt it first — that ripple, the unnatural hush that cut across her heightened senses like a blade dragging through fabric. She froze, one of her forelegs raised in warning. Tessa stopped behind her, eyes wide, body tense like a deer.
Something was here.
Aya extended her perception further. At first, nothing. Then a weight pressed against her awareness: low, predatory, patient. Her carapace prickled.
She shifted her stance, mandibles of instinct sharpening in her chest. "Stay—" she started, then bit it off. Words were useless here. Instead, she raised her foreleg, flat, telling Tessa not to move.
Leaves shuddered.
A blur of muscle and fang lunged from the undergrowth.
Aya reacted instantly. She shoved Tessa aside and pivoted. Her claws —strengthened by skill — slashed outward. The predator, a sleek beast with mottled fur and eyes like liquid amber, twisted mid-pounce. Aya's strike glanced across its shoulder.
But it was fast.
Its second swipe came like lightning, claws arcing. Aya brought her arm up to deflect, but the impact ripped across her side. Heat flared. Flesh tore.
Pain.
Real, hot, red pain. Aya hissed and staggered back, stunned. For a heartbeat, disbelief overtook her — she wasn't immune. Not to this.
Blood welled, soaking the side of her tunic.
The predator snarled, circling for another strike. Aya bared her teeth, forcing herself steady, but before she could re-engage, a voice cut through the chaos:
"Aya!!"
Tessa's cry, high and desperate.
The beast hesitated, its focus wavering. Aya seized the moment, surging forward with a feint. She snapped a kick into its muzzle, forcing it back. The creature hissed, ears flattening, then — perhaps spooked by the unnatural resistance — it bolted into the brush.
The undergrowth swallowed it. Silence returned.
Aya stood panting, blood dripping from her side.
Tessa's Panic
"Aya!" Tessa rushed to her, hands trembling. Her eyes were wide, shining with horror as they locked onto the wound.
Aya grimaced, pressing her hand to her side. It wasn't deep, but it bled more than she liked. She forced a crooked smile. "Just a scratch," she muttered. Pointless words — the girl didn't understand.
But Tessa wasn't listening. She was already kneeling, pressing her palms close.
Aya blinked as soft light spilled from the girl's hands. It was subtle at first, a dim glow, like moonlight captured in water. Then it brightened, threads of radiance weaving between Tessa's fingers.
Aya stiffened. Her senses screamed at the energy, something not physical but undeniable. It slid across her skin, sank deeper, brushed something inside her she hadn't known was there.
Magic.
The light pressed against her wound. Heat spread — not the burn of injury but a gentle warmth, like sunlight on a cold morning. Aya's breath hitched as the torn flesh knit slowly beneath her eyes. The pain dulled, the bleeding ceased.
Her mind raced. What—what is this?
She'd seen strange abilities before, but nothing like this. Not manipulation of the body, not direct defiance of blood and pain.
She stared at Tessa, at the girl's trembling concentration, lips moving in words Aya couldn't parse.
Then it was done. The glow faded. The wound was closed, only a faint line remaining where claws had cut.
Aya touched the spot, stunned.
Tessa sagged back, breathing hard, sweat beading at her brow. She looked at Aya anxiously, searching her face for… approval? Relief?
Aya swallowed. Her voice came out rough. "You… fixed it."
Of course Tessa didn't understand. But she smiled weakly, her hands lowering.
Aya sat back, still reeling. The impossible had just happened in front of her. No — not impossible. Here, it was clearly normal. Tessa had done it without hesitation, without ritual. Just focus and will.
Aya clenched her fist. If this world ran on rules like that, then she needed to learn them. She needed that power.
She looked at Tessa, then pointed at her wound, then at Tessa's hands. Slowly, she forced out the crude words she'd picked up from their days together.
"Tagan… mkadu… mana… lkia?"
The syllables were clumsy, broken, stolen from overheard fragments. Aya felt ridiculous, but determination held her steady.
Tessa blinked — then her eyes widened. "Mana?" she repeated, as if surprised Aya had even tried. She pointed at her own chest, then at the air, then at her glowing hand. "Mana," she said again, firmly.
Aya nodded eagerly. "Mana." She repeated it, savoring the shape. She gestured at the healed wound. "Lkia?"
Tessa bit her lip, then shook her head. She touched the faint scar with gentle fingers. "Tagan," she corrected softly.
Aya mouthed it back. "Tagan."
The girl's eyes brightened. She pressed her hands together, then spread them as if unveiling light. "Mkadu," she said carefully. Then again, slower: "Mkadu."
Aya echoed it clumsily. "Mkadu."
Tessa smiled, relieved.
Aya grinned despite herself. This was working — crude, awkward, but working. Each word was a bridge. Each repetition hammered a plank into place between them.
The predetory creature had lost sight of them by now.
For the next hour, they stumbled through a lesson of gestures and sounds. Tessa demonstrated, her hands glowing faintly as she whispered syllables Aya struggled to mimic. Aya repeated them, sometimes wrong, sometimes hilariously off, which made Tessa laugh — the first true laugh Aya had heard from her.
Aya didn't mind being laughed at. Not here. Not with this.
When the lesson slowed, when exhaustion tugged at both of them, Aya leaned back against a tree. She touched the scar on her side, then looked at Tessa with a crooked grin.
"Thank you," she said softly.
Tessa didn't understand the words. But she seemed to understand anyway. She smiled back, a little weary but warm.
The jungle pressed around them, dangerous and alive. But for that moment, Aya felt something shift.
They weren't just surviving side by side anymore. They were learning each other. Building something fragile and real in a place that wanted them both dead.
Aya closed her eyes briefly, letting the hum of the forest settle.
Magic was real. She had seen it, felt it.
And now, with crude words and stubborn persistence, she would learn it too.
One way or another