Chapter 27

"See," Gazeas snapped, touching Haledon's head and pressing it back against the floor. "Your companion plant is right there. Now stop squirming."

"Witch-Hazel," Haledon spoke softly as he struggled against the thicket. "Thank you...I—"

"Hey, I know." They waved their hand in reply before rubbing at their face. "I mean, I'm as fresh as a spring sprig, so that's a bit strange—"

"But how?"

"I was in my bramble clone—like you should have been." They reached down and poked at Haledon's forehead. "But even at that, it seems the attack triggered my oath."

Witch-Hazel squat down beside him, showing off their appearance before continuing. Their face had slimmed and appeared more humanoid without the extra layers of bark covering them. Their mouth and brow moved more freely as they spoke, needing less foliage to represent the expressions. It was as though Witch-Hazel had transformed into a younger, less overgrown version of themself.

"So that means I was regenerated and lost my weathered good looks, thank you very much." They laced their last few words with sarcasm.

"What would have happened if you hadn't been in a clone?"

"I signed up for the long game and won’t rest until we’ve purged every Mecharrion from our galaxy. So, as long as there's organic material to regenerate me, Mecharrion tech can only slow me down."

"But what if you're not killed and stuck out in space like I was?"

Witch-Hazel's face grew solemn as they pondered the idea.

"Well, I guess I would be a frozen stick adrift in an endless sea for eternity and finally able to get some rest then."

They laughed as they stood, patting at his bramble before walking away. Haledon heard the chitinous iris at the Gravodonata's tail open and close as the arbornaut departed. Immediately, he began to struggle against his restraints once again.

"No, wait, help me—"

"No," Gazeas interrupted, pushing her hand against Haledon's forehead again. "You need to rest."

"Honestly, I'm fine—the chills are even gone."

"But you barely radiate any heat. I'm not letting you go until I have at least a basic understanding of your ecosystem changes."

"It was Birchbark."

"The hallucination?"

"The Astralaceaes. Birchbark is the Astra."

Gazeas lifted her hand and looked into Haledon's eyes. She inspected his face closely.

"Still no sign of concussion, so you truly believe Birchbark is our home?"

"I know they are."

"They?" She asked.

"Well, what we called it really isn't an it, is it?"

"That was unnecessarily redundant."

"Redundancies are fundamental to the success of a system." Sparrow interrupted as she approached through the tail. "Principle eight of Permanent Druidic Culture is to integrate rather than segregate. Build redundancies into systems for better—"

"Sparrow!" Haledon yelled out as she came into view. "Sparrow, Birchbark is the Astralaceaes."

"Interesting," She hummed to herself, seemingly unfazed. "How have you come to this conclusion?"

"They approached me while I was in space. Birchbark spoke and diversified my SOIL."

Sparrow looked at the thicket holding Haledon in place. Her eyes darted wildly as though she was navigating the gaps between the twisting vines to stare at his armour.

"The pale bark must represent their time in the void." Sparrow finally mused, looking back into Haledon's eyes. "The Astra doesn't need chlorophyll for photosynthesis, so why would they be green? And the dark eyes you once mentioned—who needs sight when you navigate with other senses."

"Yes, exactly."

"Did you glean anything else?"

"I am a descendant of Hawk."

Her eyes widened as she leaned in closer.

"What did you say?" Sparrow asked, inspecting his eyes closely.

"Hannar and I are descendants of a Primeval Druid Hawk. Did you know him?"

"Yes, yes, I did, very well. I trained Hawk and the dozen other Primevals that acted as the mother trees for the first Astras—your Astras."

"Was he nice?"

"Was he nice? What kind of question is that? Those Druids were the most resilient among us. They understood the extent of what they would face in the void and how to harness what little Nature they had to survive. Hawk was the most gifted among them, with his senses so keen he regularly grew ahead of the rest."

"And he's my ancestor..." Haledon said in awe.

"Yes, I know—what happened?" Sparrow chirped in response and pulled away.

"Hey!"

Gazeas snickered beside him.

"Hey!" He said louder, this time towards her, before turning his attention to Sparrow. "Well, Birchbark wants me to go to the Nexus."

"And for a good reason," Sparrow straightened herself, and her tone sharpened. "Do you know how ill-planned it was to go against what I said? It's bad enough that Mesa had reason to enter my lab and confiscate my Broadhead—the Broadhead we had just made progress on, mind you. But I also had to waste valuable energy thinking about who to replace you with."

"Well, I apologize for the inconvenience—" Haledon replied sarcastically.

"Don't apologize. Adapt more wisely. I will tell you what I told Mek-Tek—we are in space. One mistake out here could kill everyone." Sparrow replied and waved her hands.

The brambles that constricted Haledon began to decompose.

"What?" Gazeas spoke up. "Hey, he needs to rest."

"Haledon appears fine, and the Astra wishes to speak with him. I am quite intrigued to see what about."

"But what about Mesa and the Broadhead and—" Gazeas began only to be cut off.

"There is no reason to mourn the forest caught in a wildfire. Life returns to the land...eventually. Mesa can toil with the Mecharrion ship. Ultimately, it will be ours again." Sparrow explained to the Druid.

"Haledon's body—"

"Will be fine. But the only way for you to be sure is to follow...Haledon—" Sparrow turned and began to walk.

Pushing himself up, Haledon felt his stiff body fighting against the ship's gravity. He released a strained grunt before silencing himself and looking to Gazeas, who watched him with an eagle's stare.

"I'm fine." He said.

"Mmhmm." She replied, unconvinced, as she helped him along. Vines crawled from her SOIL and began to latch onto Haledon. "Sparrow may be okay with destabilizing your ecosystem, but I am not."

"Oh, don't take my calm demeanour as being passive in this situation." Sparrow chirped back. "Haledon's in deep vastum."

"Hey, look—" Haledon grumbled as he moved with Gazeas' help for the first few steps. "I know I made a mistake and will accept feedback, but observe this...Birchbark says the wolf is on the ship—"

"Haledon, we've been over this. No uplifted wolves are onboard. There's no canine of any sort anywhere in this fleet."

"But what if it wasn't a wolf. Birchbark said something was stalking in the shadows, hiding from their senses. Have you ever heard of anything like that on Earth?"

"Hmm," Sparrow thought to herself as she led the two down the narrow boarding passage and back into the familiar corridors of the Megacolides.

"No." She replied unconvincingly after a long pause.

"Well, there’s a first time for everything."

"Hmm?" Sparrow grumbled in reply.

"You are very obviously withholding something."

"It is inconsequential. This 'wolf' is obviously not a lycanthrope."

"A what?" Both Haledon and Gazeas replied as they looked at each other.

Sparrow sighed and shook her head.

"How do I explain this..." She muttered to herself at first. "Long ago—in the Canis-Sapien wars—sleepers existed on both sides. Infiltrator consciousnesses that defiled Druidic teaching. We don't know which group created the first, but ultimately they were humans or wolves with the other's forced consciousness in its place."

"How is that even possible? Like bramble clones?"

"No...we don't know exactly how they did it...but we have speculated for many years."

"Yes—and...?" Gazeas probed.

"We assume that either a human or an uplifted wolf gained access to Druid traits through the Arbornaut process—"

"Arbornaut process?" Gazeas asked.

"Witch-Hazel and the other juggernauts," Haledon replied.

"Ah, understood."

"—Upon completing their oath, they were reborn as a Druid. And after completing the Primeval training, they could be reborn into any uplifted creature they willed. A few lives and a few hundred years later, you have a wolf posing in human skin or worse—the other way around."

Sparrow paused for a moment as she continued to stare forward. With a clearing of her throat, she continued. "The Druids of Sol banned lycanthropy from being weaponized after what happened on the moon of Titan."

"What happened?" Gazeas and Haledon asked, their voices overlapping.

"The chaos of Nature—and over a hundred million dead Druids because of a senseless war." She chirped.

"Who started the fight?" Haledon asked.

"Again, with the wrong questions. It's never about who attacked first or who won. The question should always be who lost the most. And the Druids who were seeding Titan lost because of that war. Humans and Wolves met at the center of the moon's only habitable areas. Man razed the forests, and beasts destroyed the transit pads. And the Druids?—The families living in that sphere, hoping to make it a livable world for everyone to share. None of them made it out alive. Slain as conspirators or left to suffocate in the alien air—there was no mercy for them. War grows no mercy."

Sparrow released a huff and marched on silently.

The two looked at each other as they walked along in a similar quiet. But it wouldn’t be long before Haledon's eagerness to break the silence welled inside him and burst forward. He talked with Gazeas more about his experience in the void and the strangeness of Birchbark. Trying to draw his Primeval back to the conversation, he often said something to pique Sparrow's curiosity, but her rigid demeanour remained constant.

Crossing the threshold into the Astralaceaes, the three were stopped by a message in their minds.

"Primeval Druid Sparrow and the Asteraceae Guild," Mesa's cold, commanding voice whispered. "You are summoned to the Primary Ventriculus."

"Ugh," Sparrow grumbled and looked at the two Druids. "You both go to the Nexus to start integrating with the Astra, and I'll bring the rain to quell this fire."

With a quick spin, Sparrow swung around and began her march back into the Megacolides. As she stomped, bits of moss fell from her leathers and impacted the floor with a gentle bounce. Haledon watched as they quickly took root, growing into burdock burrs.

"Someone's going to step on those..." Haledon remarked.

"I don't think she cares," Gazeas replied as they both continued their walk to the Nexus.

Looking around the corridor, he noticed a rigid separation between the members of the Astralaceaes and Megacolides. Once-integrated groups were now huddled with like-pairs and gossiping away. The glances from Sequoia Squad Druids put Haledon on edge as he followed their eyes, tracing his and Gazeas' every step.

"What the forswyn happened while I was off the ship?"

Gazeas watched the Druids as they monitored them both before focusing their glare on Haledon.

"After Sparrow healed the wound done by the Broadhead, Mesa entered her lab with a squadron of Sequoias and Juggernauts. She was shouting with him, and we escaped without being felled."

"So we're...what? Mecharrion to them?"

"I'm sure if we were, we'd be feeding the nutrient lines already."

Rushing through the whispering corridors, the two Druids found their way to the silence of the Hypogeal Nexus. Haledon quickly brushed through the grass screen and entered the evolving nutrient hub with a relieved sigh.

Immediately diving into his work, he examined the two-tiered room. He started at the base of the nutrient tree’s trunk, allowing his eyes to follow the bark up to the canopy-covered ceiling. He eyed the faint glow behind the leaves, gently illuminated by the orange veins of nutrients drawn towards the trunk.

Haledon moved to the front and continued his examination of the nutrient density. He quickly inspected the tree's moss to confirm the flow was stable. Leaning in, he noticed a patch of lime-coloured moss. He ran a hand over the spot that had revealed a minor irregularity, but as his SOIL made contact, the colour changed back to a steady green glow.

"Haledon, it is good you have arrived," Birchbark announced, catching Haledon's attention and making him jump. "Please, follow me." They exclaimed and walked through the central trunk as quickly as they had appeared.

"Gazeas," Haledon adjusted his gaze and noticed the terrified look on her face. "You okay?"

"W-what the forswyn?" She stuttered as she approached slowly. "Was that Birchbark?"

"Yes—you saw Birchbark?"

"Uh—yeah. They're a little spooky, aren't they? Like a petrified tree—"

"Or something." He took her hand and pulled her towards the glowing moss of the nutrient trunk. "They want us to go through the tree."

Stepping forward, the bark curled in on itself, revealing enough space for Haledon and Gazeas to fit into the dark opening. He walked in without hesitation, feeling the cautious tug against his hand as Gazeas gently resisted his pull.