They gathered where the Trial Forest thinned into cloud and sky. The hatchling at William's hip tucked its head beneath its cloud-tail and hummed like a small, steady drum. The air smelled of wet loam and singed leaves; the island above rested on the old lizard's shoulders like a slow, breathing thing. Sys folded the map and let them speak first. He listened the way a man who reads battlefields listens—quiet, patient, cataloguing.
They told the forest back what it had given them.
Jigoku — The Ground's Language
Jigoku's voice was low and even. He did not dramatize. He described the first wave—how the earth had throbbed like a throat, how the soil's breath had told him where a snout would break surface. He spoke of the Earth Eaters in practical terms: the way their snouts tunneled, the rhythm of their charge, the smell of disturbed fungus that meant a nest was near.
"I didn't hit harder," he said. "I listened harder."
He explained how he learned to feel the micro-vibrations of a tunnel, how a root's sapline tightened before a collapse, how the ground itself could be read like a pulse. He told them about the newborn Earth Eater he'd found—blind, soft, trembling—and how he'd carried it to a root-cradle instead of killing it. He described the new calluses on his palms: thin, precise ridges where he had learned to press and wait.
When he finished, there was a quiet in the group that felt like respect. His lesson was not
about more force but about fidelity of attention: the same strength, used with a new kind of care.
Gudan and Camelio — Appetite Sharpened
Gudan's telling was quick and bright, full of small, sharp details. He rattled off gadgets and snares, the traps that folded a net without tearing it, the decoys that turned a poacher's path back on itself. Camelio's voice cut in—dry, precise—describing the chameleon's skin as a living dial.
My chamelon uses colors to tell me what arrows to use olor is language," she said, lifting her wrist as if the band were still there. "Green means bite; purple means sleep; blue means find."
They told the story of the caravan: how they had found the ledger, how they had chosen to take only what would stop the raids rather than everything that would ruin a man. Gudan admitted, with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes, that he had wanted to burn the maps. Camelio had stopped him. They argued ethics like a practiced duet—where to draw the line between taking and stealing, between stopping harm and becoming harm.
Their partnership had not softened; it had been honed. Greed, for them, had become a scalpel.
When William spoke, the forest seemed to lean in. He did not begin with the walking tree or the binding; he began with a yard of dawn light.He told them about the walking tree that had attacked him because the black branch on his temple smelled like a wound to the forest. He told them about the choice the tree offered: to become a druid, to bind a piece of what he loved to himself and learn the slow grammar of root and stone. He had chosen a hen's feather because it was small and honest and because the hens had taught him patience.
"I didn't want power," he said. "I wanted to know how to keep things alive."
He demonstrated: a tendril of vine curled at his whisper; a patch of moss thickened under his palm. Then he told them about the giants—how he had learned to manipulate foam and plush into their seams so that when they moved they left shoots where they stepped.
They did not speak much of Thimble. The absence was a presence—an empty chair at the edge of the story. When William's voice faltered, Gudan's hand found his shoulder and squeezed. Jigoku's eyes, usually unreadable, softened for a breath. Sys folded the map tighter and said nothing; his silence was a kind of watchfulness.
Sys finally spoke, not to judge but to set the next line. "You learned different things," he said. "That is the point."
They named the lessons aloud so the forest could not claim them back. Saying them made the changes real and bound them together in a way that maps and rings could not.
They did not leave immediately. The telling had loosened something—an exchange of small favors and demonstrations that felt like a private ritual.
Jigoku walked the rim and showed them how he could feel a tunnel's breath through a handful of soil, how he could tell the difference between a predator's charge and a nest's restless shift. He taught William a simple grounding exercise: press your palm to the earth and listen for the place where the soil remembers footsteps. Gudan and Camelio traded tricks. Camelio taught William to read a chameleon's micro-shifts; Gudan showed her a snare that could fold a net without tearing it. They set a practice target and split a branch in two with a single, clean arrow—then laughed at how pleased they were with the precision. William let them watch as he manipulate a small plush—no larger than a child's toy—with a thread of foam and a sprig of moss. he used the manipulation of plants and thread foam and pulush to create a tree
These were small, private things—proofs rather than proclamations. They left the rim with the hatchling's mist-wings beating beneath them and the island above steady on the old lizard's shoulders.