#I just finished Chapter 2 and HUH? WHUH?????? HUH?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!

[nyaagolor]

Snzzz

[spinchip]

NEVER THE DARK

CHAPTER 7

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Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6

THE HEART IS A SMALL-ASS ROCK// AND THERE ARE EASIER WAYS// TO START A FIRE

Cole snaps awake to the sound of boots crunching dry sand. It’s not jarring to be awoken so suddenly, not by this- if squirrels dug up the earth near his window he’d awaken then, too. The disturbance of his element broke the trance of sleep easily, to his great annoyance. Sand grinds together and the feeling of it brings Cole back to the land of the living earlier than he’d intended. The thing that is jarring about this abrupt awakening is that he’s not in his bed, and a masked stranger is standing over him.

He swallows down his yelp half a millisecond before it escapes, gasping and grabbing at his heart where it’s trying to jump out of his chest, “You scared me!” He whisper-shouts, all too conscious of his teammates still sleeping around them.

The masked man doesn’t really react, “My apologies.” He says formally, taking the pale colored satchel off his shoulder and setting it gently on the stone next to him. The fire had gone out sometime recently, a still smoldering ash-filled ring of rocks the only indication where it once lived.

“Morning.” Lloyd greets from where he’s sat up on the other side of the campsite.

Birdy lowers himself to the ground next to Cole, sitting on the the rock he’d been sliding across the stone when he’d woken him. He begins to rummage through his bag.

Cole sits up slowly, rubbing sand out of his eyes, “Good morning. How long have you been awake?”

“I relieved Nya about 2 hours ago,” Lloyd informs him, throwing a rock in the air and catching it again just to be doing something with his hands, “Birdy woke up and took off about an hour ago.”

“I’ve been awake for several hours,” Birdy corrects, still sorting his things, “I was meditating.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I was gathering breakfast,” Birdy replies.

“Really? Great! I’m starving!”

At that, Birdy finally starts pulling things out of the bag. Fat pale blue leaves the size of Cole's head, oblong orange fruits with tiny hairs all over them, shelled nuts that look like a walnut's cousin, and a handful of pink snails. laying out the leaves as plates to start dividing the food. He pulls an ornate bronze knife out of the side of one of his boots and slices the fruits down the middle. It’s gooey inside, the meat of the fruit gelatinous and thick and a scary red. He uses the tip of the blade to stab the dark black pit, pulling it out and setting it to the side. He picks up the walnuts next, dragging the tip of his knife around the center seam until it pops open and thin stringy bits spill out the side. Not a walnut. Right.

Cole makes a face, “That’s breakfast?” He demands, “Suddenly I’m not so hungry…”

Birdy doesn’t outwardly change, but Cole gets the idea he made him smile, “It is no cake that is for sure, but it is good regardless.”

Lloyd reaches over as Birdy finishes up to shake Jay awake. Jay doesn’t rouse immediately, and it’s only after he rolls away from Lloyds insistent hand and subsequently off his stone bed onto the unforgiving stone floor that he actually wakes up.

“Huh? Whuh?” He demands, hauling himself up to blink owlishly at the gathering before him. “Morning.” He says casually, running a hand through his hair and readjusting so he’s sitting on his rock mattress.

He nudges Nya awake with his foot, who thumps him lightly on his calf, “Don’t touch me with your feet!” She grouses, stretching her arms as she rouses.

She reaches over to wake the final member of the Party, but Kai sits up before she can, “I’ve been awake a while.” He says, pinning Birdy with a harsh look. Birdy doesn’t even look in his direction. Probably. It’s hard to tell with the mask, honestly.

“Good morning to you all,” Birdy says before Lloyd or Cole can question why Kai was pretending to sleep, “I have prepared breakfast. Filler Fruit is rich with protein. A little bit goes a long way, and it will keep your hunger satisfied for extended periods of time. The inside tastes similar to oatmeal. The skin is good for you, but bitter, so you may eat it if you wish.” He speaks as he hands out the leaf plates, as he hands Cole his he points to the walnut like object, “This is called a spaghetti nut. Despite its name, it comes closer to hog jaw than spaghetti in flavor. Do not eat the shell. The snails are sweet like honey, you should eat the entire thing but do not swallow them whole. Chew.”

Finished, he waits for them to eat.

No one moves.

“Is there a problem?” He asks after another heartbeat of inaction.

“Are you not going to eat?” Cole asks finally, setting the plate uncertainty in front of him. Yes, the guy didn’t give the vibes that he would poison them to death, but Cole wasn’t keen on taking any chances.

“...I ate while I was gathering,” Birdy replies, “You do not need to wait on me.”

“What we’re trying to say is that we don’t trust these aren't poisonous,” Kai says point blank, dropping his plate to the ground.

Birdy pauses then reaches over and plucks a snail off Kai’s plate, hooking a thumb under his mask and popping the snail into his mouth. With a crunch he chews right though it, swallowing before taking a Spaghetti nut off Jays plate and using the flat side of his knife to scoop it out, tossing the shell aside to downing the stringy insides before finally picking up the Filler fruit and cutting a piece out with his knife. Using the blade like a spoon, he scoops the chunk out and pops that in his mouth next. When he’s done, he slides his knife back in his boot and swipes his thumb under his mask to clean his face, “Hopefully that is enough to satisfy you that what I have provided is safe for consumption. I do not want to hurt you. You will need strength for the coming journey, please eat.”

There’s another pause, “Well,” Cole says finally, breaking the silence, “That’s good enough for me.” And before he can overthink it, he picks up a snail and pops it in his mouth, biting down with the second crunch of the morning. He nearly gags- the crunch of the shell against the sliminess of the body is not a good texture combination, but Birdy wasn’t lying. It does taste sweet like honey. Looking thoughtfully at his plate, he grabs another snail and tries it again. The crisp outside doesn’t disarm him as badly this time and he can really enjoy the flavor, “Wow, that’s actually really good.”

At that, the others hesitantly join in. Jay spits the first snail out in surprise but goes back in for another with a better prepared expectation. Lloyd pawns his off on Nya, unable to get over the texture.

The rest of breakfast is just like Birdy described, and it’s only once Cole is halfway through his filler fruit that he asks, “So, were you a chef or something? You described the tastes perfectly.”

Birdy, who’d been sitting here quietly, shook his head slightly, “I would not have called myself a chef. I enjoyed cooking, yes, but I never received formal training or a certificate.”

He doesn’t speak again until everyone gets to the point of finishing up their meal, “If you have chosen to accept my help to guide you, I will need to be informed of where exactly we are going. Do you have a location in mind?”

Lloyd sets his leaf down, “We have decided to follow you, yes. We need to go to the poison bog- the wastelands- to the Mountain of Madness specifically.” He explains easily. “Can you take us there?”

Birdy raises a hand to his chin, thinking hard. He uses a leftover twig from their campfire to draw a winding, overlapping line on the sandy floor. He nods to himself and tosses the stick aside, “Yes, I can lead you there. I estimate it will take a week's time- five days at the least.”

Along with everyone else's jaw, Coles drops to the floor, “A week!?” He protests.

Nya cuts in, “But we just came from there! It was barely a 2 days walk!”

“What are you trying to pull?” Jay demands.

Birdy seems surprised, leaning away from their outrage, “My apologies, I have forgotten to explain a particular curiosity of the realm to you.” He picks his makeshift pencil back up and scatters the sand again, drawing a random squiggly line with perfect precision that connects to itself at the end. One continuous loop. “There is a geological phenomenon that this realm undergoes that locals have taken to calling the evershift. What this entails is a near imperceptible rearrangement of the realms biomes over the course of the day. Yesterday, the wasteland were two days away, but it has had all night to move to its current location, and it is still actively shifting north.” He draws a circle in the sand off to the side of his pathway and taps it, “There are certain stagnant strips of land that are not affected by the evershift. They are called Islands, and that is exactly where we are now.” He scratches a W next to the circle, “While we were walking through the wastelands and the desert, the evershift was in motion effectually causing us to walk in place. The wastelands have now moved with the evershift, and it will be nearly impossible to catch up with it if we chase it along the path of the shift.” He drags the stick up in a swooping line, away from their little circle.

“Impossible to catch up?” Coles feels himself pale. How were they going to get out of here?

“How does a whole swamp just get up and walk away!?” Jay squawks.

Birdy huffs out a half laugh before shaking his head and returning to his make-shift etch-a-sketch, “Not all is lost. There is not exactly an exact science to how the biomes will move, but I can make a pretty educated guess. There’s not many options for several large landmasses to move past each other. If we make good time and cross at a specific point, we can catch the Wastelands at a further point in the shift.” He puts the stick back in their circle and draws a curvy diagonal line cutting through the center of the path. He stops halfway through and hesitates before drawing a detour around an empty spot on the map.

“Bad news there?”

“Very.” He confirms, “Avoid at all costs.”

“This is crazy.” Jay objects, “I mean, none of that makes any sense!”

Birdy cocks his head, “It is not called the Realm of Madness for nothing, after all.”

He scrubs the map away, “If we are to go to the Wastelands, we must leave now. Again, my predictions of biome placement are not concrete, and we must arrive at our destination early just in case.

He stands, going into his cave to gather his things. He hands two empty canteens to Nya, “The water here is unsafe to drink long-term, it would be best if you filled these with clean water to drink as a backup to your own bottles.”

She looks at him strangely, “How’d you know I was the master of water.”

He goes still for a long moment, “I saw you refill Jay's water bottle,” then he motions to her outfit, “...And you are not exactly very subtle.” he says simply. Which… fair point. Nya can’t argue with that, especially with the wave pattern embroidered on her gi top.

After filling the canteens up and passing Cole one to hold, they’re ready to head out. Birdy emerges from the cave with his canvas bag around his shoulder and his staff in one hand. His bag looks woefully empty for having just broken down his camp. Even Maurice had personal items… but Birdy doesn’t seem to have anything. He adjusts his mask before asking them if everyone was ready. At the affirmative, he starts down deeper into the canyon. The walls don’t grow much higher, and after an hour of walking they come upon another ramp-adjacent path up to the surface.

They don’t come up into the desert like Cole was expecting. As they surface from the canyon network, he’s surprised to find them surrounded by thick grass. There’s a bit of sand, yes, but it doesn’t go but a few feet around the lip of the canyon before it’s swallowed up by greenery. Well, greenery is a little simple- the grass is multicolored and near translucent, the pale light from the sky just enough to turn the dirt under the plants to a colorful rainbow.

Birdy steps into the grass and it crackles under his foot, the blades jostled by his foot also crack and break as if they’re made of delicate glass. This doesn’t phase Birdy at all. “We’re in the prairie now,” He calls back, trudging out into the meadow, “This is open ground, stay alert. This place is host to several deadly animals.”

“Like what?” Jay asks.

“...I will point one out if we see them.” He nods his head, taking the lead. “These things are difficult to describe.”

The prairie is beautiful, rolling hills of stain-glass foliage and a light purple sky. The rolling clouds seem a bit softer, a bit brighter. Cole can almost say it’s relaxing. They haven't been walking for very long when Birdy starts to slow, looking intently in front of him.

“What’s going on?” He asks, hesitating in his steps as Birdy pauses completely.

Using the end of his staff, Birdy pushes aside several clumps of grass to reveal blackened bits of earth.

“Stones?” He quirks an eyebrow, “What’s so interesting about stones?”

“These are not stones, they are pellets.” Birdy replies, crouching down to examine the objects, “Undigested food that was regurgitated by what looks like… a vulture-bat, if I had to guess based on size.”

“A vulture-bat?” Jay laughs nervously, looking around the sky as if saying their name had summoned them, “Any chance these guys are cute and cuddly?”

“Zero.” Birdy replies, standing. “They are incredibly territorial, and have been known to attack and kill humanoids. They don’t normally nest in the prairie, and considering what time of year it is they may be on their mating journey north. That is the opposite direction we’re headed. I believe we are in the clear, but we should keep our guard up regardless.” He continues the trek forward.

“Why are they called vulture-bats?” Cole asks, worrying at the hem of his glove.

“It is not an accurate name,” Birdy starts and they all sigh in relief- “Piranha-owls is more descriptive, in my opinion.” -incredibly short lived relief.

“Y’know what, I don’t think I need to know anything else.” Cole tells him before Birdy can go on.

Not at all bothered by the cutoff, Birdy continues to lead them quietly. He calls back treacherous land like Big Worm holes (“What’s a big worm?” Jay asks. “I can’t be any more clear.” Birdy responds.) and blue roots: strange, rock-hard plants that grow almost entirely underground other than the occasional root top poking out of the soil. Perfect for tripping or twisting an ankle over.

As they crest a large hill, Birdy stops and crouches low behind a cluster of wiggling blue bushes. The others mimic him, Jay crawling forward to peek at what had alarmed Birdy. Horrified, he can’t take his eyes off of the pack of creatures at the bottom of the hill. They’re huge, the largest head easily coming up above Cole's own. If he were down there, he’d be looking up at them. They’ve got spindly, delicate looking legs compared to their thick bodies and necks, almost comically disproportionate. Their monstrous neck leads into a triangular head with a small mouth and pointed ears right on top. Hair comes out of their head in a line starting at their ears and growing all the way down to their shoulder blades, with a long chunk of hair growing out of their backside.

“What is that!?” Jay claps a hand over his eye, turning away.

“There are many terrible monsters native to the Realm of Madness,” Birdy says gravely, “The other inhabitants of this realm call that… a horse.”

Cole grimaces, shuddering as the beast seems to look up the hill directly at him before moving back to chomping on the tall yellow grass it was eating when they walked up.

“They will bite and they have a nasty kick, but they are used as transportation to those that can wrangle them.” Birdy explains, “They graze these pastures.”

“This is creepy. Let's keep it moving.” Nya suggests, turning away from the beasts.

“Am I the only one who thinks they’re cute?” Lloyd asks, smiling down at them. “I mean like, look at them! They’re just so cool!”

The others look at him like he’s grown a second head.

“As much as I would love to allow you to try your hand at taming one, it simply takes too long and we must keep moving.” Birdy says apologetically. Lloyd sighs and nods, and they move on.

This part of the walk is dreadfully boring. Cole hums a tune to keep himself preoccupied, using his fingers to drum on his thigh. He wants to ask Birdy more questions about this place, but he doesn’t. He wants to ask Birdy about himself, but he doesn’t do that either. As they walk, trees begin to pop up here and there. They’re starkly different from any trees Cole has seen at home. They have dark red trunks- not cherry, but actual, legitimate red. They grow into purple and black striped leaves and give off a faint coppery smell.

He’s so caught up in examining the trees he doesn’t realize he’d trailed off humming, and that Birdy had picked it up by muttering softly, “When you gotta glow you glimmer glimmer…”

“Hmm?” Cole asks, turning to face him.

“Glow-worm.” Birdy hesitates, “That’s what you were humming, yes?”

“Oh, yeah. You know it?”

“...Yes.” He seems uncomfortable about the questioning, speed walking away from Cole.

Kai takes that moment to speak up, “So, you’re from Ninjago? That’s a Ninjago nursery rhyme.”

Birds stay silent for a long moment until Kai prompts a reply with a hmm? “For a fraction of my life, yes.” He tells him shortly, “I have not seen Ninjago in several decades.”

“Decades?”  Nya asks, “How old are you?”

Birds stops walking, tilting his head and thinking about it for a long moment, “…I do not know.” He admits, “closer to a hundred than fifty. Age means little here- you cannot die of old age.”

That bombshell throws the focus off of himself, much to Kai’s chagrin, “You can’t die of old age? How does that work?” Jay chimes in, “You just stay young forever?”

“Sometimes.” Birds answers, circling over a particularly big pit in the ground, “Sometimes you age and age. For the most part, dying here goes 3 ways: Your body succumbs to your mutation and gives out, your mind succumbs to your mutation and you lose yourself, or you’re killed by plants, animals, or other people.”

The trees grow thicker, more dense, and Cole realizes they’re leaving the prairie behind and heading into the cool dark of a forest.

Jay wrings his hands nervously, “Getting killed by other people, that happens often here?”

“It is not typical,” Birdy reassures him, “I have been here a while and I have not been killed once.”

Lloyd lets out a startled laugh, “Was that a joke?” He questions, and Birdy just turns away coyly.

The beautiful stained glass beneath their feet is slowly covered up by a thick layer of soft white dust. It clings to their feet and leaves perfect footprints in their wake. The forest seems to be covered in this white substance from the ground all the way to the tippy tops of the trees, gathered on the surface of things like snow. Several of the trees they pass are covered in large, spider-web like vines that are just as white as the forest floor, with fat bulbs sticking off of them at every foot. At the base of some trees, rare and first but more common the deeper they trek, are large tube-like green and yellow plants that wave as if they have a mind of their own. Things closest to Ninjago mushrooms grow periodically out of trees or the ground, and there’s other random bit of foliage Cole doesn’t know enough about to be able to categorize. He wished Bolobo was there, he would probably be able to figure these plants out easy-peasy.

Without thinking, he reaches up as they pass another tree and pokes one of the bulbs on the white vines.

It explodes in his face.

The bulb seems to pop like a water balloon, releasing a cloud of white dust directly into his face and showering the ground around him. He shouts in surprise, back pedaling into Kai and knocking him over before a hand on his shoulder steadys him. He coughs and sputters, spitting out the dry dust and then some in order to wipe the taste from his mouth. When he cracks open his eyes, Birdy is in front of him with a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Cole,” He says, “…You look white.”

As if the plant-splosion to the face wasn’t enough, the innocent words sucker punch him in the heart. He’d heard them before, years ago, in Chen's dungeons. Said with the same sort of inflection by the man he loved, not a stranger.

“Does anyone have a towel?” He croaks.

Birdy had looked away the moment he’d made his other comment, to Nya, “Can you rinse him off? Sooner rather than later.”

She blasts him with a ball of water, and the spores slide off easily. Any place on the forest floor that gets wet seems to vanish, white seeping into blue soil and grass at the suggestion of the water. He shakes the wet out of his hair after Nya soaks him one more time, “Just to be safe.” (She's smiling too wide for Cole to think that jet of water up his nose was anything other than tomfoolery.)

“Perhaps I should suggest some ground rules,” Birdy says wryly, “One, no touching anything without my permission.”

Cole rubs his eyes to sweep out any water, “Give it to me straight, doc. Am I going to die?”

“Fortunately, no. You might be a bit more sensitive to temperatures for the next few hours, but the spores are harmless with short exposure.” He explains, “If we were going to be here longer than a week I would suggest we fashion ourselves some masks, but a day or two at most will not hurry the mutation process.”

“Mutation process?” Lloyd takes a step forward, concern making his brows pinch, “What do you mean mutation process?”

“Um, guys? Maybe we could put a pin in this and circle back around. We’ve got a visitor.” Jay says, voice hard and nun-chucks already in hand.

Birdy spins around to face whatever had discovered them and goes completely still, “Do not fight.” He says, barely above a whisper as the others reach for their weapons, “On the count of three, I will take off to the right. Follow me through the forest as quickly and silently as you can. Do not fight.” He stresses each word, pressing the importance of it in each letter.

Peering at them through the trees is a massive serpent. It’s the first thing Cole's brain categorizes it as, even if that is not exactly true. It’s as thick around as a car and it’s so long it disappears into the trees, he can’t see the end of it and he’s certain that it would take him a long time to go from head to tail even at his fastest. It does not have the head of a snake. Where scales would blend into jaw and temples, the hairy bulbous body of a tarantula balloons outward. CephaloThorax leads into a head covered with eyes, far more than the typical spider eight, and massive mandibles bigger than Cole's chest. The legs protruding from the spider body are covered in spines. It’s hard to see, backed up against the white of the forest- the whole creature is stark white with red stripes on the legs of the spider only. It’s watching them with an intelligence that makes Cole's heart skip a beat.

“One,” Birdy whispers.

The beast shuffles forward silently, spindly spider legs reaching up to brace itself against the trunks to two trees. It’s preparing itself to lunge.

“Two,”

“Are we running on three? Or after? Is it One two three go?” Jay panic-whispers.

“On three!” Nya hisses back.

“Three!” Birdy shouts and disappears into the forest.

Cole breaks into a sprint after him. He can hear the others behind him, and to his surprise Birdy risks a glance back to make sure they’re all accounted for. He doesn’t hear the beast coming after them.

He doesn’t know if that’s more comforting or scary.

Right as the thought passes his mind, Jay shrieks from the back of the group, “It’s gaining on us!”

“Don’t look back!” Birdy orders. Then, after deliberating for a moment, makes a slight turn and takes them in a different direction.

Cole is running into roots, being slapped in the face by low hanging branches, and he’s covered in more of the white spores They’ve been in a dead sprint for ages now- they can’t keep this up.

He’s not the only one who’s come to that conclusion, “Guys!” Kai calls, “The white spores! We can use them as camouflage!”

“Will that work?” Cole gasps out, looking at Birdy.

Birdy doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he whips out his staff and uses the sharp end to slash nearly every vine pod they pass. White explodes across the pathway, spores clouding the air and covering Cole head to toe. Once he’s sufficiently doused, he jumps off the main path and throws himself to the floor and does his best impression of a lump. He sees the others follow his lead, and the snider (snake spider) passes silently by without hesitation, tearing through the undergrowth after their guide. They stay where they are, the crashing of Birdy through the underbrush fading until they can’t hear it altogether.

Several tense minutes pass, no one wanting to move and announce their presence. It’s not until they hear the sound of boots on the ground that they poke their heads out of their hiding spots.

Birdy looks like a ghost.

The white covering his mask and cloak make him look ethereal. A bit uncanny. If Cole were to see him like this first, he’d have run away in fear of another Morro incident.

“Are you here?” Birdy calls lowly, keeping his voice down so as not to alert the beast still hunting them.

Cole comes out of hiding following the rest of his team. They all look creepy doused in all white.

“Follow me, and stay silent.” He whispers as they come close enough, “It still hunts us. It is not safe here, we must make a detour.”

Quietly, he trots away. He crouches a bit to keep himself low and somewhat more camouflaged by the foliage. As ninja, they are incredibly skilled at walking without making a sound. At one point Birdy comes to a sudden stop and when Cole peers over his shoulder, he realizes Birdy has come upon the tip of the things tail. He waits for it to pass before he continues the trek. Eventually he leads them to a small clearing. He crouches down and clears away spores to reveal several tree branches woven together that he pulls aside.

There’s a big pit beneath the trees, and he stands back and urges them inside. “You will be jumping into water, but it is safe.”

There’s a pause. Everyone knows how to swim now, so this shouldn’t be a problem. Cole reminds himself that if Birdy wanted to kill them, he’d had several opportunities at this point. It’s about time he started trusting him, right?

“No way,” Kai says right as Cole leaps in.

He’s got some sense. He goes In feet first. He expects a slide, maybe. A sloping of stone that safely and gently rolls him into water, like a kiddie pool attraction at Ninjago water park.

This is not like that. Why did he think it would be?

He slides on rough edged stone for about two seconds before free falling into open air. He kicks his legs in surprise, pinwheeling his arms in a panic. It’s pitch black, he has no idea how long he has to fall- he clamps his legs together, plugs his nose and clenches his eyes and waits for impact. A millisecond passes before he slams into water like a pencil, shooting down into the dark. When he opens his eyes, the water is alight.

He breaks the surface with a gasp, treading water to get out of the way of any incoming ninja. The water tastes sour and old on his tongue. The once dark cavern is glowing from the water, the algae on top lighting up fluorescent pink with every movement. He dog paddles over to a dark edge that must be a beach or lip to solid ground.

Behind him, Lloyd shouts in surprise as he drops down into the soup.

One by one, the others join him. Cole’s sitting on black sand when Birdy finally comes careening down tucked in a ball, one hand holding the mask over his face. He surfaces the water and shakes his hair out, using low slow strokes to get to the beach and haul himself up. He flops onto his back next to Cole, taking a moment to breathe.

“Thank you.” He says quietly, and Cole doesn’t respond.

“That was quick thinking, Kai.” Lloyd comments, “Your camouflage idea worked perfectly.”

“Running to nowhere would have gotten us killed.” Kai shoots it at Birdy, wringing out his shirt.

“We weren’t going nowhere, I was leading us here.” Birdy defends, sitting up. “And we couldn’t hide forever. It would have found us eventually, somehow.”

“What was that?” Nya asks, looking up at the hole they came in as if afraid it’d come barreling through.

“Are we gonna run into more of those things?” Jay gulps.

“No, that’s one of a kind.” He takes the feathered cape off his shoulder and shakes it out. Water slides off the feathers for the most part, “You asked me about the mutation process… well, that was a prime example of it at its worst.”

Cole feels himself pale, “You mean that used to be human?”

He reattaches his cape, “if I had to guess? Oni.”

“There are Oni here?” Lloyd asks, surprised.

“Not anymore.”

Kai frowns, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The light from the water begins to dim so Cole kicks his legs, the movement lighting the room back up.

“It’s called entropy, and everything here goes through it in one way or another. For some, the process is incredibly slow. Skulkin take hundreds of years to mutate fully.” He explains, pulling out a few small jars he kept in his bag and scooping up water with them. He gives them a shake as he talks, satisfied when they light up brilliant pink, “It depends on several factors, but species plays the main role. The Onis are shapeshifters. Their molecular structure is uniquely suited to change, and in a place like this that change happens quickly and brutally. It would take you all decades to lose yourself to the mutation… an Oni could be lost in less than two years. Any Oni sent here was dead the moment they touched the soil.”

A bead of sweat rolls down Lloyds face, “Onis mutate faster than humans?” He croaks out.

Birdy looks up at him suddenly, “Yes.” He says and then seems to swallow down the rest of his sentence, “But you should all be fine. You’ll be here less than a week- and, and you are not Oni.”

“Yeah…” Lloyd says stiffly.

Birdy hands out the jars to Cole, Lloyd, and keeps one for himself, “We should keep moving.” He says, a bit more urgency to his tone than before.

He walks over to the wall of the large cavern they’re in, walking slowly along until a crevice in the wall appears. It’s long and thin, and when Cole peers in it's a tight space that goes on well past what he can see, a pitch black corridor. Birdy turns sideways and slips in easily, shimmying through the area slowly. He stops once he realizes he’s not being followed, turning his head to look at them questioningly.

“Uh, you got this in extra large?” Cole asks, skeptical that he could fit through this.

Birdy chuckles, which makes Cole puff a bit with pride at getting him to laugh, “This will fit you just fine, Cole.” He presses a palm to the wall and pushes, and what looks like solid rock squishes under his palm, “It’s lined with a type of plant that mimics stone.”

At that, the ninja file in after him.

“Not a huge fan of this,” Kai says as they all painstakingly shuffle through the opening.

“I can help you back out to the red forest if you’d prefer to be eaten alive.” Birdy commented dryly. Soon after that,with a grunt, he pops out of the hole in the wall to a massive cavern.

Cole had been the last to go through, so by the time he manages to wiggle free the others are already taking in the cave in wonder. Birdy seems to be running interference on Jay to keep him from touching everything he sets his eyes on. The cave was huge, and it went on and on in both directions endlessly. A river ran through the bottom, glowing pink algae constantly lit because of the flow of the water. Above them, trees grew upside down from the ceiling. They looked similar to birch trees, long spindly pale trunks with dark stripes all the way down, with a scraggly canopy of leaves. The leaves of each different tree don’t connect, inter-crown spacing leaving noticeable channels between each tree's different leaves. Black lichen grows from the ceiling and seems to be where the trees are rooted in. Purple vines hang down from the trees and sit still. Along the bank of the river a plethora of plants grow, strange cattails, thick swamp grass, black sand and rocks swallowing up any other available space. Up where they are, away from the riverbank, there’s bushes with white fruits on it, tall fat-leaved plants, and squat little trees shorter than Coles shoulders taking up any place that’s not hard stone.

Birdy keeps Jay from grabbing a spiky-shelled snail and sighs, “That’s enough for today. We will camp here for the night.”

Cole had begun to feel the day wear on him as they had wiggled their way through that passage. Ending the day was a good idea.

They walk around a bit longer before they find a good place to camp. A shelf of stone offers some cover,but it's still open enough that a fire wouldn’t accidentally suffocate them in their sleep. Birdy gathers up some of the white berries and pulls out a few more filler fruit from his bag for dinner as Kai and Nya rip up a dead bush for firewood.

After dinner, they sit around the campfire talking lightly. Cole ends up on the same log as Birdy, and finds he doesn’t mind it too much. Birdy is… something else. Good, Cole thinks. Even if he didn’t see it in himself. “So this detour, how badly did this effect our five day schedule?” Lloyd asks once dinner is finished.

Birdy doesn’t sigh, but he does slump forward to rest his elbows on his knees as if shouldering a heavy weight, “This put us ahead of schedule by two days.” He says grimly.

Nya exchanged a confused look with the others, “Um, shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“Do you remember that spot on the map, the area I was attempting to avoid? We are now heading directly into the heart of that island.” He rubs at his left hand in a nervous habit, “The island is an old nesting ground for vulture-bats that was taken over by a woman named Samira and her ilk. It is a town now, a place known as Oasis, where other inhabitants of the realm flock to. Samira rules that place with an iron fist, and she is not known for mercy. I doubt she will willingly allow us to pass through her land, not without paying a price I fear will be too steep.”

“Well then,” Lloyd blows out an explosive breath, “I guess it’s a good thing we’re ninja. We’ll sneak through her territory without alerting her to our presence.”

“Yeah! It’ll be a piece of cake for us.” Jay grins.

“Don’t bring up cake,” Cole groans jokingly, and to his surprise the others laugh at his joke. He was used to his comments going quietly unnoticed. It was nice.

“So,” Kai asks in the ensuing silence, “What’s with the mask? You ugly or something?”

“Kai!” Nya scolds.

“Yes.” Birdy replies without hesitation.

“Don’t mind him,” Cole says easily, trying to lighten the mood.

With a shrug, Birdy adjusts the strap of his cape just to do something with his hands, “I wear the mask because I must.”

“Your mutation?” Cole asks carefully.

“I am not like the others here.” Birdy confirms, clenching his fist in his lap awkwardly.

Jay shrugs, “I’m sure you don’t look that shocking.”

“You have no idea.” Birdy says wryly, leaning forward onto his knees and staring at the fire.

Cole leans forward to try and catch his eye, “Well, if you ever want to take it off, we won’t judge you.” He smiles reassuringly.

A moment passes as Birdy turns to look at him, “…Thank you, Cole. I appreciate the sentiment.” He says sincerely.

Cole smiles warmly. Without thinking, Birdy reaches out and sweeps a stray hair out of Cole's face, tucking it gently behind his ear. It’s an incredibly tender motion, one that makes Cole's heart flutter and heat rise to his face. For half a second, he expects Birdy to lean in for a kiss.

“Um,” he says eloquently.

Birdy leaps up off the log, nearly tripping over himself as he shuffles backwards, “Ah, yes, I-“ He looks around and spots his staff, snatching it up, “Well, it is late. You should all rest, I am going to go walk the perimeter. Goodnight, sweet dreams, see you in the morning!” He says quickly, backpedaling out of camp and practically making a mad dash away from the group, mortified.

Silence.

“Someone has a crush on youuuu!” Jay giggles madly, falling backwards off his log seat with a thump to kick his legs.

Cole's face flushes deeper and he shakes his head, “Shut it, dude.” He playfully snaps back, rubbing the back of his neck bashfully.

“Try not to hurt him too bad, heart breaker!” Nya teases, preparing her gi pillow once more.

Cole rolls his eyes, settling down to sleep.

“I’ll keep first watch.” Kai volunteers, and no one objects.

When Birdy comes back to camp, Kai is the only one awake. He quietly makes his way to the others, setting his weapon down and sitting in front of the fire. The embarrassment from earlier has worn off, the silence is awkward anyway.

“I can keep watch if you want to sleep.” Birdy offers, feeling like they’d built enough of a rapport that the offer wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome.

Kai raises his gold eyes up to meet Birdy masked ones. A heartbeat passes, but Birdy doesn’t squirm under the intensity of his stare, “I don’t trust you.” Kai says bluntly, “You’re hiding something, and it’s something big. I can feel it. Don’t try and act buddy buddy with me, okay? ‘Cause I don’t like you either.”

The fire flickers, casting strange shadows on the walls, “You’re a good judge of character.” Birdy says quietly.

The night goes on.