Judging by the rå's fleeting attention and general disinterest, Lucius wondered if she noticed them at all. After giving the nix, or rather the escaping streams of water from underneath the former windthrow an empty look, she turned her head to look at a bird passing by, followed by a glance at something further away that Lucius couldn't see.

"Say something," he whispered to Richard. "She's like... Your kin or something, right?"

"If simply being creatures acknowledged by the same faith counts as 'kin', sure." Richard did not sound sincere. "But I guess either way I'm closer to nature than you are."

"Seems like an unnecessary comment since I'd already suggested it," Lucius mumbled. "So ask her. She probably knows that mind twisting language too."

Richard frowned at him.

"The what?"

"Well that nix or what she's called talked to me and I don't even know what language it was, but I could still understand her."

"I don't know about that." Richard's frown deepened, then he looked towards the rå again and bumped Lucius' side to alert him as well.

The rå was staring at them, finally giving their frantic whispering her attention while tilting her head down.

"Fine, I'll try it." Lucius exhaled to be rid of the tension in his shoulders. "I could talk to the other one after all, and I'm the one in need of help."

The rå shifted her gaze to him accordingly, and he attempted a smile.

"Hello, uh... Lady rå of the forest." He turned his eyes briefly to seek confirmation from Richard. He had no idea how to address a creature like the one in front of him. Unfortunately, Richard pinched his lips together in mutual uncertainty. "We— Or, I... Have been searching for you, hoping you might be able to aid me, or— or bestow a blessing upon me to save me from imminent danger."

He didn't want to mention what the nix had said about cutting bark from the spirit's back. If that was the case he'd much rather play dumb.

"I was told to find you in order to avoid a... Cruel fate, to put it mildly," he continued. "Due to unfortunate circumstances I need to be cut open, and quite a lot. They said you would be able to help me with surviving that, so... I don't wish to bother you without reason but I don't have many options."

The rå remained silent, but looked over to Richard instead with another head tilt.

Richard chose to nod, backing up Lucius' request with no further explanation, and while the rå looked him up and down with possibly her first discernable emotion, unfortunately being disapproval, she gave him a vague nod back.

"I thought she was supposed to like you," Lucius whispered. "That's why you came here, isn't it?"

"It's probably because I'm in my human form." Richard scrunched up his nose. "Old, traditional creatures like her aren't usually fond of others supposedly denying their true selves."

"Is that a thing?"

"Is this the time to be discussing this?"

"I dunno, we want her to help us, right?" Lucius raised his hands. "But I'll be the first one to agree you shouldn't revert while I'm around, so maybe... Apologise?"

"That sounds worse to me." Richard shook his head. "You're the one in need of help, so you're the one she needs to like."

"But I don't even know if she understands me." Lucius' shoulders slumped. "I told her what I wanted and she's just staring."

As if to prove him wrong, the rå had turned her head away to follow a butterfly with her eyes instead, and Lucius stifled a groan.

"Please, Lady," he called for her attention again. "Is there anything I can do for you to help me?"

A twitch in the rå's drooping, deer-like ears suggested renewed interest, so despite her insistence to watch the butterfly's journey Lucius continued his plea.

"There's gotta be something, right? Something I, as a human, can do."

The rå gave him a glance, and gestured for him to start walking towards the dryer parts of the forest. Lucius was quick to oblige, but had to throw regular glances over his shoulder to make sure they were following as well. It resulted in him walking into low hanging twigs and almost tripping over uneven ground on multiple occasions, but at least he wasn't being led away from Richard to then be lost forever.

"Why am I walking in front?" he quietly asked the werewolf, who had been placed between him and the rå. "Why isn't the one who knows where we're going walking in front?"

"Her back, probably," Richard said, and Lucius once again recalled the hollowness of the creature. Perhaps her reluctance to turn her back on humans stemmed from the fact that they tried to carve pieces out of her.

It would be an understandable precaution.

Lucius' fears of getting lost kept growing the longer they walked, and they walked for an unbelievably long time. The hard, dusty ground evened out underneath them for a while only to become soft and muddy again, welcoming mosquitoes to bother them as well. As they walked past a wet, wide area with barely no trees, Lucius found himself at a stop.

"Do you hear—?" he began but Richard hurriedly pushed him forward.

"Don't listen." His voice was stern. "Just keep walking. I don't know why she'd lead us through the grounds of Unearthly ones, but right now all we can do is trust her.

"Unearth—"

"In fact, cover your ears."

Lucius didn't like the idea. Partly because the song-like whispers around them were eerily enticing, and partly because that very fact implied a dangerous environment.

"Then how will I know if you're giving me more warnings like that?"

"I'll shove you. Now cover them."

Lucius reluctantly covered them and forced his feet forward. The rå had slowed her pace as well, gazing out over the misty marsh as if looking for something. The walk continued though, and Lucius' feet began protesting after another twenty minutes. He'd had enough of walking into cobwebs and slapping his skin to be rid of insects, not to mention the twigs scratching against him now and then.

If he wasn't mistaken the forest was getting darker again. Not from a lack of sunlight, but the trees were darker, some of them almost dead. Leaves were scarce and mostly withered while the path underneath them dried out. The chirps from birds were gone, as were the buzzing of insects. It looked as though the forest now surrounding them was dying.

Richard sniffed the air, eyes darkening as he looked around.

"Something's off."

"What? No way," Lucius said dryly, gaze lingering on the remains of a deer on his side of the path. "Did your werewolf senses tell you that?"

"Why would such a large part of it die like this?" Richard ignored the snark, wrinkling his nose at a tree infested with a generous amount of decay fungi. "It's not natural."

A nagging worry inside Lucius made itself known, and he couldn't disregard the unsettling atmosphere anymore. What if there was something in the air? Something that was killing all life around them. Were they in danger just by breathing? Or walking?

He stopped in his tracks at the thought, causing the rå to bump into him from behind and it felt like being smacked by a log.

"Oh, my bad." Lucius spun around, giving the hard, yet smooth skin of her face a glance. It reminded him of carved, sanded wood. He hesitantly let his gaze wander down, noticing parts of her were covered in rough bark as well. Despite her humanoid appearance and smooth movements she really did have the body of a tree.

"Hey, eyes up." Richard gave the back of his head a small whack, and Lucius scowled.

"I wasn't looking like that."

"Even if you weren't, which I'm not so convinced of anymore, she doesn't know that."

The rå made no indication of minding, or being offended for that matter. She pointed forward again, urging them to keep moving.

"And if she's trying to get us lost?" Lucius asked. "How do we know?"

Richard shook his head.

"I don't think she is. Pretty sure I could still get us out if I use my sense of smell."

Lucius gave a fox skeleton nearby a troubled look.

"Better hope that's true."

A warm hand was placed on his shoulder shortly after, and he turned to face the rå again who gently pushed him forward while gesturing for him to walk off the path and head deeper into the dark, dead territory.

"Really, really hope that's true," he whispered to Richard, but didn't dare to disobey the rå.

Dry grass and dead bushes crunched underneath his boots, and while he tried to ignore it he was certain he could discern small bones of some kind, adding to the sound of dying nature.

The misery didn't stop there, and Lucius sucked air through his teeth as he reached what barely qualified as a forest anymore. It was a barren, dark glade with no life in sight except for one large, leafless ash tree.

"I think this is it," Richard said from behind him. "This is where she's been leading us."

A shiver ran down Lucius' spine as he spotted the bony remains of a human next to the tree's exposed roots. He knew Richard had told him not all creatures wanted to eat him, but he was once again having doubts.

"Uh..." He tried to nonchalantly bring attention to the skeleton. "... That looks interesting."

It was astonishing how the rå's already black eyes managed to darken, but she gave the remains a look of deep contempt before pointing Lucius forward again.

This time, she did not follow.

"I... Think this might be her tree," Richard said while Lucius awkwardly looked around. "They say even guardian spirits are tethered to the earth one way or another, and it would make sense that a forest rå would belong to a tree."

"So why is it..." Lucius paused, looking back towards the rå who still refused to move closer with a frown. Then he turned his gaze to the skeleton again "... It's dying, isn't it? Because of that one."

"Because...?" Richard joined his side, barely sniffing the air before catching the scent of something, and he gritted his teeth. "... Steel."

"I figured," Lucius said before heading forward to search the tree. It didn't take long for him to find an axe buried deep into the other side of the trunk, and after a nod of confirmation from the rå, he reached up to grab it.

It was lodged in deep. He leaned back to be assisted by his weight, but perhaps unsurprisingly it didn't amount to much. It wasn't until Richard walked up behind him to place his hands around his and pull that they made any progress, and with a low, creaking sound the axe finally came loose, sending them both stumbling to the ground.

"Alright then." Lucius pretended his flailing and rolling over to free Richard from his body had gone smoothly, casually standing up to brush dirt off his clothes before giving his friend a hand.

"Put it away already," Richard hissed, to Lucius' offence at first seeing how he was being kind and helping him up, but then he remembered the axe and hastily shoved it into his bag, letting go of Richard's hand in the process.

He then winced as Richard fell backwards again.

"My bad, I thought you'd found your balance."

"This is why two legs are awful," Richard muttered, rejecting Lucius' second attempt to help before standing up on his own.

"Well, hopefully once all this is over you won't have to stay human," Lucius tried comforting him, noticing how the rå narrowed her eyes at that, so he waved his hands in defence. "Just— As soon as I've solved this whole life threatening business he won't need to stay in this... Less preferable form?"

If Richard was offended he didn't show it, and the rå made no indication of disagreeing either. She pointed at the bag now containing the axe and flicked her hand as if shooing it away.

"Oh, right." Lucius backed off enough so the forest spirit could reach the tree, and he looked on in silence as she placed a hand against its trunk.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected. Ideally the tree would have sprouted new, green branches and leaves in an instant, and the grass would have grown tall and green while life was completely restored in the forest, but it was far more lacklustre than that.

The rå had a faint smile on her lips however, and she bent down to pick up a larger piece of bark that had been torn away from the tree as the axe was removed, and she handed it over to Richard.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" Richard raised an eyebrow after receiving it and Lucius pinched his lips together. The nix had said something about a protective blend, but it had also referred to bark from the actual rå. Would the piece she'd given them work?

"Maybe it could protect me somehow," he therefore suggested, still wary of revealing his knowledge while the rå was around. "Aldrik knew about the rå being able to help, so maybe he could find more information on it."

Richard grimaced.

"I don't like that man," he muttered. "Something's strange about him."

"Oh, definitely." Lucius shrugged. "But he's been possessed by a blight so I don't expect otherwise."

"Or we could ask Frey," Richard suggested. "He has some knowledge about Hrimskan lore."

Lucius hummed.

"Or we ask Aldrik."

"You'd rather ask the blight man than Frey?"

"Any time."

Richard scoffed, but was convinced enough to nod in agreement.

"Fine, let's head back then."

They were both surprised to notice that the rå had wandered off while they were talking, apparently having no interest in them anymore. Not more than the rest of the forest at least.

"Think she'll let us out?" Lucius had to ask as they began backtracking their steps.

"We did help her without being disrespectful, and she's probably just happy to see that axe removed from her forest entirely."

"I'm surprised, to be honest." Lucius wrinkled his nose. "Things usually happen in the worst way possible for me, so the fact that I can walk out of here seems unrealistic."

"Don't worry, I'm sure there are many more things that can go wrong." Richard patted his shoulder. "Like at the graveyard."

Lucius blinked, cold chill running down his spine.

"The... Graveyard?"

"Yeah, Tom said you needed human bones." Richard blinked back, equally surprised that it was news to Lucius. "From holy grounds, so... The graveyard."

"Oh," Lucius said through clenched teeth, exaggerating a smile to hide his terror. Apparently Tom had no concept of what grave robbing entailed, specifically on the topic of guardian creatures. "I guess he forgot to tell me that last little detail."

***

Author's note:

Finally! This chapter took so long to write, perhaps because it doesn't move the plot forward too much. Enough so it warrants a chapter but not so there's a lot of action going on. I'm curious to hear your thoughts still. What did you think about the rå? And what are your predictions/hopes/dreads regarding future chapters? >:D