[crow]

Alain didn't know what to tell him. He certainly couldn't deny it. Besides the shaking, there had been an absent-minded note to his service at the counter as of late, which was also growing worse as time wore on. But how did he explain the truth of it? The absurdity of it, even for himself, made him giggle suddenly. "Blake, I've been having such awful dreams," he said in a sing-song voice. The look on Blake's face grew more worried. Ah, no, that wasn't good. Alain didn't like it when Blake made that face. It must have been something he said; there must be something he could say to fix this. It just didn't occur to him in that moment as to what that thing might be.

[crow]

The best that occurred to him was to try and explain more, to clarify what he had meant. “There's this woman, sometimes---” he began. No, maybe that wasn't the best way to put it. “I see a forest... It's familiar, but I don't know why. It's not anywhere that I can remember seeing before, at least when I was awake.” The forest must have been important, somehow. Out of all the disjointed pieces that comprised the visions that disturbed him, those were the ones that stuck with him the most. He had this sense, which came and went, that if he just managed to decipher what the forest was all about, then he'd have the key to the rest of it. “Blake, have you ever seen it? A forest wreathed in gold.” It was a vague description which did no justice to what he had seen, but it was the best he could do.

[crow]

Blake was silent for an unusually long time. Alain supposed that he must have said something terribly strange after all. At last, Blake said, "No... I've never seen anything like that." Alain was disappointed, but only a little. If he hadn't seen such a thing in all his long years of life, then what hope could he really place in Blake, whose life was so short? It had been a foolish hope to begin with. He laughed at himself, which turned out to be the wrong thing to do; the baker was staring at him strangely again.

[crow]

That night, Alain could hear Blake speaking to someone--- his ghost, probably. She was still here. He wondered that she hadn't left yet, with or without Blake. It had been quite some time since she first arrived. He had the faint hope that with her disappearance, his torment might be at an end. He hadn't wanted to place any faith in such a hope, but there did seem to be a correlation between the beginning of her presence and the beginning of his disturbed dreams. He had exhausted almost all the other explanations within his control by now. Blake's ghosts had never had any sort of effect on him before, but there was a first time for everything.

[crow]

And yet, what could a ghost gain from tormenting him? He hadn't killed anyone. He very much hoped that Blake hadn't killed anyone, and there was no one else still living with which Alain had any significant ties.

He remembered that Blake had wanted to tell him something, when the time was right. Alain hoped that that time came soon. Even if it had no bearing on his current condition, he feared he might no longer be in a state to hear out his friend if this persisted much longer.

Whatever they had been speaking of, they must have come to a conclusion. That morning, when Alain left his room, he found Blake already hard at work baking what could only be a stockpile of goods.

[crow]

He was leaving again. Alain took this in stride, though he could hardly be said to be happy about it. At this point, what was one more gripe to be added to the list? "I hope you'll be back soon," he said, without much feeling.

"I'll do my best," Blake said. There was an unusual weight to those words, and the expression on his face was strangely grim. Alain could not account for it, but he hadn't the heart to ask. He sent the baker off as best he could, glad in a detached sort of way to discover that his control over the cafe was still more or less what it had been before his decline.

[crow]

Akala had set off for the lofty goal of reaching the Whisper Forest, but getting there was easier said than done. He wished, briefly, that his ability had manifested in something more like Faber's form--- teleportation would certainly have saved him a great deal of trouble. He dwelt on that thought as briefly as he could, however. It was in the realm of wistful thinking, and therefore useless; besides that, he had gone his entire life thus far without any powers whatsoever, and had got on just fine. There was no justification for the sudden need of a flashy ability for something as mundane as convenience.

Traveling in the rickety caravan along the road from Lamenolai to the Tengel, however, he did find his thoughts drifting through that wistful vein again. Much as there was to be enjoyed about the adventures of travel, this wasn't exactly what he would call a highlight.

[crow]

It had been winter when he had left Lamenolai; the winters there were mild, but they still constituted a distinct change in temperature. The Tengel knew no such winters, and as they had progressed further into its reaches, the air had gotten warmer and muggier. It was fortunate, therefore, that there was no sun to beat down on them during the daylight hours to worsen the heat. Unfortunately, that blessing came at the price of overcast skies and high humidity, which had in turn given way to greater and greater quantities of rain. There was hardly an article of clothing that Akala owned that could be considered entirely dry now. The threat of mould, so the caravan owner told him, was a real problem during this stretch of the journey.

[crow]

Akala sighed. He wasn't unfamiliar with such trips; they had been a staple of his childhood. His father had taken him on many of his expeditions, and when he was very young, his grandfather had been well enough to come along with them. Not even the filter of nostalgia could make those journeys less miserable, but they did offer him the comfort of the knowledge that he could get through this.

"So," he said to the young woman sitting beside him, "are there any legends about this place?" He was trying to make some conversation to pass the time, that was all. She gave him a strange look, and Akala was beginning to wonder if he had breached some rule of social etiquette.

[crow]

But then she said, "You didn't know? I thought you said you were looking for ruins." Yes, Akala had said that, but he didn't remember saying so to her. The grapevine sure was quick in the caravan. Akala also recalled saying that he was bound for the Whisper Forest, but he supposed that detail hadn't been as interesting.

"Are there ruins here too, then?" he asked. The woman nodded.

"There's all kinds of strange things in here. Each year, we hear something different. Bernard found something himself a few trips back, though we don't know what to make of it." She looked around as if searching for something, then added, "In this part of the forest, sometimes people see witchlights in the distance. But no matter how much you walk toward them, they never get any closer."

[crow]

A year ago, he might have dismissed her words as mere folly. He would have liked to now, too--- old habits died hard, after all. But he did wonder whether there was some truth to her claims. Discovering one strange magical thing didn't make all the others true by default, but he was more inclined to believe that they might be possible now. While the news of the ruins themselves didn't spark any ideas in him, the moving lights sounded like something that might be possible with a power like Faber's. Akala's ability hadn't been the same as the boy's, so it was likely that each fragment had a slightly different function. Perhaps one such fragment was responsible for the witch-lights.

The difficult thing about that hypothesis was that he didn't know how likely it was. How many fragments existed out there anyway?

[crow]

That was a question he hadn't thought to ask, but then again, it didn't seem like something Faber would know either. He supposed he wouldn't get any answers until he reached the Whisper Forest at least--- perhaps not even then.

Still, the story of the witchlights made him curious, and he privately made plans to investigate them a little when they set up camp for the night. There wouldn't be enough time for him to do much more than poke about in the underbrush, but who knew? The last time he went haring off on a hare-brained venture into the unknown, he ended up meeting Faber. Maybe luck would deign to smile on him again if he did something else dumb.

"I'm going to an early grave if I keep up that line of thought," he muttered under his breath.

[crow]

By the time they stopped to set up camp for the night, Akala was ready to roll into bed. However, he knew that they would only be here for the night, and tomorrow they'd be getting ready to move on. Funny how for the most part, the trip couldn't go by quickly enough for him, but now he was kind of hoping they'd dawdle a bit. Still, it was better to travel fast. He couldn't forget his true goal of reaching the Whisper Forest. That was where his journals said to go, and he wanted to get to the bottom of his own family's mystery before he went on exploring other things.

[crow]

With that logic, he really should have just gone to bed. But what the woman mentioned intrigued him. He pitched in with the set-up of camp, ate his dinner as quickly as he could, and wandered off by himself into the forest. A few of the caravan's drivers told him to mind himself out there, and to be sure to find his way back--- if he wasn't back by morning, they'd leave without him. He nodded, fully intending to do so. He was just going to go for a short, exploratory stroll. He wasn't stupid enough to try getting himself lost in a place like this. He wasn't Faber, after all; once he was in, he might never find his way out.

[crow]

The underbrush was thick and the air was muggy, if not hot, even at night. Animals called to each other and ran about in the canopy overhead, rustling noisily through the branches. It was all very unnerving, but Akala steeled himself. It was likely only a bird or a monkey or something. Or... it could have been something poisonous... Rainforests had plenty of poisonous things, didn't they? He quickly checked underfoot, but it was too dark to see anything. If he got poisoned, at least he wouldn't see it coming. But then again, was that really a good thing?!