Dio - Strolling (3)

Dio didn’t answer right away. He let his eyes wander across the droplet-shaped bushes around them and watched the wind pass through their thin leaves.

“Maybe both,” he finally said. “Although I think a lot of that fog has cleared now. Since the Sun came, Daw feels sharper to me, and the people too. Lot, Reab, Yorm, Wes… I think of them as friends. Yet with you, and maybe Des, I feel something deeper. Something more meaningful, even.”

“Yeah… although Des still didn’t come,” Brela said, her smile faltering. “There’s something about him I can’t explain. I want to know him better, to go places with him, to learn what he’s thinking. Yet every time I ask, he turns me down. You saw it earlier…”

She drummed her fingers against the log, restless again.

“Do you want to spend more time with him?” Dio asked.

She turned red, just slightly, but enough that he noticed.

“I think so. Yeah,” Brela said at last, then turned to biting her nails.

“Did you tell him that?”

She huffed, her voice rising, “I asked him to come with us, didn’t I?”

Dio burst into laughter.

“Brela, that’s not the same thing,” he said, shaking his head. “If you ask him whether he wants to go into the forest with you, sure, it could be taken as an invitation. Yet it also might not be. It’s too vague. You should ask him more directly.”

She looked even more uncertain, plucking one of the flowers from her hair and twirling it between her fingers. After a few seconds, she flicked it away.

“No. That would feel too forward,” she muttered, looking down at her sandals.

“Well, then there’s not much more I can suggest. I can’t ask him for you. I mean… I could, though it wouldn’t be right. You know that.”

“Yeah,” she said, stomping her foot with mock frustration.

As she smirked at him, Dio saw her eyes glistening. Still, she laid her arm on his shoulder, a broad, brave smile spreading across her face.

“You’re right. We’ve got eternity ahead of us, after all! I’ll find the courage. Sooner or later!”

Dio gave a small nod and leaned back. Sunlight pierced through the canopy in soft golden strands, reminding him once more of Ray’s hair flowing around her face.

As he ran his fingers over the tree trunk, the texture struck him. It was dry, gnarled, and uneven, the bark’s ridges winding like a hidden map. He traced the shapes slowly, breathing in the light that filtered through the leaves above.

Then he felt it.

At first, it was only a different texture—fine hairs beneath his touch. Yet before his brain could register the shift, a searing pain lanced through his finger. With a sharp cry, Dio recoiled, falling backward onto the mossy forest floor. The impact barely registered over the blaze in his hand. His vision blurred, and for a moment the Dream felt distant, as though he were about to leave.

Somewhere through the haze, he heard Brela scream. He barely registered how she sprang to her feet and kicked at something with a sharp thud. There was a skittering, a hiss, and something clattered into the underbrush. A warped lump of bark writhed with small antennae and spindly insect-like limbs. Yet Dio couldn’t focus on any of it.

The pain was spreading, crawling up his arm like searing coal beneath his skin. He gritted his teeth and groaned, clutching his wrist as the pain flared again. The Dream faded, and among the impressions that reached him, blind spots grew—places he could neither see nor feel.

Terror flooded his world, dulling his mind further. It was a terror that made him want to run, to escape, to flee the abyssal nothingness creeping closer, drowning all he was. Yet amidst that fear, something else stirred.

Fascination. Wonder.

What is in there… what is beyond? Is this… waking up…?

Now the blindness felt like a challenge. Even through fear and panic, he needed to explore this unknown beneath the Dream, the same way he needed to…

A sudden surge of coolness pulled him back, making the nothingness fade. Wetness, calming and thick, spread across his wounded finger. The pain dulled so quickly it stole his breath. Gasping, Dio closed his eyes and tried to relax. When he opened them again, his face streaked with sweat and damp earth, he saw Brela crouched over him. Her hands were slick with a greenish, glimmering salve that dripped in thick trails to the ground.

She applied her paste carefully.

Shaking, Dio forced himself to sit up. The fog in his head was lifting. He looked at her and saw pale fear etched into her features.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse, his breath still shallow.

Brela didn’t answer at once. Her eyes swept the forest floor, scanning the shadows beneath the roots and leaves.

“I don’t know. I think… I think it was something new,” she said at last.

Her voice was small, trembling in a way he hadn’t heard before. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Dio straightened carefully. She offered him her hand, and with surprising strength pulled him to his feet. He brushed at the dirt and leaf litter clinging to his clothes, but his eyes, like hers, kept drifting to the ground. To the swaying moss and the warped roots twisting across it. Then—movement.

Without thinking, he extended an arm slightly in front of her and pointed toward a tree. Halfway up the bark, a creature was climbing. Its motions were jittery and uneven. Dio blinked hard, trying to make sense of it.

It didn’t look like an animal. Not entirely. More like a living fragment of bark that shimmered faintly as it adjusted its color to the trunk. It hissed again and froze.

“It’s afraid,” Brela whispered.

“Yeah. Probably. I must’ve startled it,” Dio muttered. “Still, whatever it did, it hurt.”

“I think it bit you.” Brela gently took his hand, studying it with care. “There are tiny punctures in your skin, but they’re already starting to fade.”

Dio slipped out of her grasp and held his finger up to his face. The wound was indeed disappearing, leaving an odd circular mark, as if dozens of punctures had been arranged in a ring.

“Let’s turn back,” Brela said suddenly. Her voice was calm, but her eyes lingered on his injury.

“If you think so. Although we could also—”

“No. It’s too dangerous. What if it—”

“But it didn’t, Brela.”

“I’ve had enough for today.” Without waiting for a response, she guided him back the way they had come. Her touch was light, yet there was no mistaking the resolve behind it.

“Please,” she added under her breath.

Dio gave a reluctant nod, and they began retracing their steps. The forest seemed quieter now. Neither of them spoke. Dio’s thoughts moved sluggishly, and though he wanted to say something, the shock still clung to his bones.

“What do you think it was?” he asked at last. “Not the creature. That burning! It felt like someone set my arm on fire. And there was something more—far away yet everywhere. And also nothing…”

He glanced at Brela, gauging whether she was ready to talk.

“Poison, probably. The effects of poison,” she said after a silence.

“Yeah. Maybe. Are there many poisonous animals around here?”

“No. None that I know of. A few plants that’ll give you a rash, but nothing serious.”

“Hm.”

Again, silence stretched between them.

“You said this was something new?” Dio pressed.

They were just passing the tree with the lazapes, though the creatures had already pulled themselves back into the canopy. Nearby, the blossoms of the noblecups shimmered faintly in the last golden light of day.

Brela stopped and looked up at them for a moment before answering.

“Yes. It is as I said. When people arrive, new things appear in the Dream. Usually, it’s nothing to worry about. And that creature wasn’t evil, we only startled it. I think. Or maybe it was territorial…? Still…” She hesitated, then exhaled slowly. “Dio, I’ve never had a journey through this forest turn dangerous. Sure, others have come back with scratches. Even awakenings happen after hunts or accidents. But me? I’ve never faced a creature that wanted to hurt me. Never stumbled into anything I couldn’t walk away from. I always thought of the forest as peaceful. Maybe that was naïve. Or maybe it really is changing.”

She gave a short laugh, though there was a tremor in it that didn’t resolve.

“Fascinating,” Dio said with a crooked grin, though inside he was still trembling.

It felt as though something had sunk deep into him. Something cold, slow, and not yet done unfolding.

“I just hope your paste healed me completely. I’d rather not find out I’ve been infected with something. Still, I seem okay for now. Really, that was impressively quick thinking,” he said, offering a grateful smile and nod.

“Infected? What’s that?” she asked, furrowing her brows.

He blinked, tried to remember. "No idea. Maybe just a word that slipped out. A saying from… somewhere? I don't know..."

For a moment, Brela’s smile faltered. It was the briefest flicker, but Dio caught it. Then she shrugged, slipped an arm around his shoulders, and nudged him onward. There was a bounce in her step again, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Probably… And you’re welcome! I figured I’d better not let you awaken. Ray would be furious with me, I imagine,” she said with a teasing lilt.

Yet when Dio glanced sideways at her, he saw her mind wasn’t on the path ahead. It wasn’t even in the forest anymore. Her thoughts kept circling back to something she couldn’t shake, and every so often it sent a faint shiver through her.

He slipped an arm around her in return, and she didn’t resist.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Daw, she had composed herself again. Her stride steadied. She grabbed Dio by the hand and pulled him toward Des, radiant energy and dramatic gestures restored, launching into the story of their strange encounter as though nothing had ever been wrong.