Chapter Text
The storm had passed, and the landscape was… different, to say the least. If not for the shelter and tree just behind them, one would have thought the four mercenaries had been magically shrunken down to the size of ants. And if not for their compass, they would have been absolutely, hopelessly, utterly lost in the suddenly-oversized undergrowth.
As it was, they had to quite literally weedwhack their way forward. Orrig and Brent were at the front of the group, blades roving back and forth against the greenery, Lyra fawned over the gigantic flowers, and Thistle led their pack horse, trying and failing to forget everything she’d seen in the storm.
After a couple hours of this, the foliage eventually shrunk down to normal, waist-height plant life, and the road between the mountains and meadowy hills they’d meant to take was finally visible again.
They were a few more miles into the journey. Far off the side of the road, trees grew along the base of the mountain, and down from the peaks came a river that cut across the road.
A river that was currently swelling with floodwater. The sad, broken beginnings of a wooden bridge were all that was left to greet them.
‘Shit,’ Lyra said after a long pause.
‘Shit,’ Brent agreed. Orrig cursed in Orcish.
And Thistle started thinking.
The water wasn’t swelling all the way over the banks; time had carved a miniature canyon for the river to follow, and the raging waters were only a couple feet shy of the muddy ‘cliff.’ The width of the canyon looked about twenty feet across at the point where the bridge had been. Thistle looked back toward the trees. There were lots of evergreens, and even from here she could pick out a few tall pines.
‘Is there another bridge down the river?’ Lyra looked around Orrig’s shoulder at the map he was squinting at. Her voice did not sound very hopeful.
‘I, uh… might be able to make a new bridge,’ Thistle started. Orrig looked up and raised an eyebrow. ‘Out of some trees, or, or something. It would take a lot of magic, so I’d need a few days at least, but I think I could make something…’
‘Hrmmm… ve not have enough food to add many more days to trip…’ Right, of course, Thistle should have thought of that. They didn’t have nearly enough supplies to camp out for days and wait for her to take her sweet time-- ‘But ve only day and a half from last town, not counting delay from Storm. Original travel vas six days… two of us go back to town, buy more food, somevon stay vit Thistle and help make bridge.’
‘I call food duty,’ Lyra immediately interjected. She was looking at Brent. After a pause, ‘Nothing against you, Thistle.’
‘No, you’re fine.’
‘Alright. Then Brent vill help vit bridge.’ That made sense. Lyra and Brent would probably bicker so much that going to town and back again would take five days instead of three. ‘Is already mid-afternoon. Ve split up vat ve have and head out soon as possible.’ He began unloading a couple of the saddlebags from the packhorse.
They split up their rations accordingly, and Lyra and Orrig set off with the horse in tow. Brent watched as they disappeared back toward the path they’d cut in the overgrown flowers before he turned back to Thistle. She was looking over the river again, arms crossed.
‘So, uh, what’s the plan?’ She nearly jumped a foot in the air.
‘Sorry--’ they both said at once.
‘Hey, what did I say about apologizing?’
‘Arghhh, right, so--er, I forgot.’ She shook her head and chuckled awkwardly. ‘Well, the best place to start would be with a tree. The technique I use makes plants grow, well, more, but not necessarily in a specific way. I can’t tell a tree to reach its branches across a gap, but I can grow a really tall tree or two to cut down and lay across it. From there I can grow something over either end to strengthen and stabilize it, and…’ She waved a hand and shrugged. ‘At least, that’s what I’m thinking. We’ll see if it works.’
‘I think it will. You’re smart.’
‘Let’s hope I’m smart enough.’ Thistle was staring blankly at the river again.
‘Hey.’ She didn’t look up. Brent unconsciously lifted a hand to place on her shoulder, then stopped himself. He remembered how she’d jumped when he brushed the flower petals off her hood… but right now she looked like she was a mile away. Like maybe the echo was being mean to her again. So after a moment, he decided to rest his hand on her shoulder extra gently, and it seemed to bring her back from wherever her mind had wandered to.
‘It’ll work. Do you, uh, need help with any of it?’
‘Oh, right. Not right now, but I will later when we have to chop down the tree. Right now I’m gonna look for some pine trees. It’s not pinecone season, but I can use magic to make some, and I can grow a tree from there.’
‘Okay. I’ll start setting up camp then.’ Brent took his hand back. Thistle glanced at her shoulder when he did, just for a second, quick enough that he almost missed it. Then she nodded, smiled solemnly, and set off toward the trees. He couldn’t see the actual smile behind her mask of course, but she was expressive enough with her eyes alone, and he’d been getting better at reading them the more time he spent with her. It was the cutest thing, all the different faces she’d make when she got really into explaining something. He wished there was something she could talk about that he could let fly over his head just so he could watch her talk about it. But at the same time, there probably wasn’t a thing in the world that he wouldn’t listen to, as long as it was coming from her. There was just something about her excitement that made him want to try to understand. Maybe it was that look she had when he finally got it, that extra brightness in her eyes, that triumphant little pep in her step. It meant that she was happy. Happy about something he did. Wait, shit, he needed to start setting up camp—he’d been standing there for, like, a full three minutes, just watching Thistle walk off toward the trees. Brent felt his face turn red as he turned to the pile of their stuff.
When Thistle returned with as many pinecones as she could carry, she saw that Brent had set up both tents and dug out a pit for a fire.
‘Damn, bountiful harvest, huh?’
‘Yup!’ She knelt down and opened her arms, letting them fall into a pile before starting to sort them by size. ‘Would you please go look for some firewood while I work on this? I thought about using the branches from what I’m gonna grow, but the wood would be too green to burn, it’d just smoke.’
‘Yeah, no problem!’ In her peripheral vision she saw him jump to his feet, like he was excited to have something to do. Had she been gone long enough for him to get bored after setting up camp? Or maybe he felt guilty that she was going to have to do so much of the bridge work? Was that making him feel useless? Would he start to resent— ‘Anything specific you want me to look for?’
‘Oh, as long as it's dry enough to burn, it’ll be fine. I can light anything.’
‘Got it.’ He started off, but then called over his shoulder. ‘Don’t use too much magic and pass out before I get back!’ Brent’s tone was jokingly reprimanding, but he didn’t sound annoyed or bored at all. That was good. Of course, maybe he was irritated and he was just hiding it, the echo suggested. But, Thistle reminded herself, he wasn’t particularly skilled at hiding his emotions, and he wouldn’t really have a reason to hide if he was irritated, so the most logical and likely conclusion was that he indeed was not annoyed with her. Probably. Hopefully. But! As long as she kept herself busy with something, like she had when she was gathering the pinecones, she could avoid the thoughts worrying about the team’s interpersonal relationships and the Visions she’d seen in the storm. Not with complete efficacy of course, but partial success was better than not trying at all.
Even before he technically got all the way back to the camp with the firewood he’d collected, and despite the sky starting to darken, Brent noticed the new tree. It looked maybe twice as tall as the gap across the river needed it to be. It was only when he actually got to the camp that he realized it was actually two trees, and their trunks were grown barely two feet apart. One tree that tall seemed well within Thistle’s magical means, but two of them? It’s not like he really had much frame of reference for how much magic was ‘too much’ for her, aside from when they fought the Drath horde, but this had him worried that maybe she was pushing it. And especially after enduring a Storm… He also noticed that Thistle herself was nowhere to be--
‘Welcome back!’ Oh, there she was. She was in one of the trees. He dumped the firewood next to the pit and walked over to lean against one of the trunks.
‘Hey.’ Okay, she seemed awake and alert. That was good. ‘Got enough magic left to start the fire?’
‘Oh, plenty!’
‘Ya sure? Two giant trees seems like a lot. In Kemptson you conked out after one.’
‘Yeah, well I’d also thrown around a bunch of offensive spells right before that. And remember what I told you about cast-off earlier today?’ She was fiddling with something in the branches that Brent couldn’t make out.
‘Yeah?’
‘Turns out it’s a lot easier to focus on proper refinement techniques when you’re not in imminent mortal peril.’ He could hear the attempt at a joke in the tone of her voice. He humored her with a chuckle, even though he didn’t really want to laugh about the idea of Thistle being in grave danger.
‘Fair.’
‘Which means I also have enough to set up some ward sigils around the camp, so we don’t have to sleep in shifts! Oh, real quick, can I borrow your sword?’
‘Uh, sure, but…’
To answer his unasked question, a vine of ivy dropped down from the tree. He shrugged and tied it around the handle of the sword.
‘Thanks!’ Brent chuckled as she pulled it up. ‘You should also probably move, I don’t wanna drop a stick on your head.’ A few minutes went by of chopping with the intermittent ‘thunk’ of a branch being tossed to the ground.
‘What are those for?’
‘The ward sigils! To cast them, you need to draw unbroken shapes, and chalk isn’t exactly well-known for staying put in grass, so I’m gonna make the shapes out of vines by tying it across posts, like a fence.’
Brent heard her snap her fingers, saw a couple flickers of light, and his heart jumped up to his throat for a second as he watched Thistle step off the tree--and float down gently. She landed a little roughly, but she kept herself upright with one hand on the vine coming off the tree like it was a rope. She’d tied the sword across her back with another vine.
‘But I probably will fall asleep pretty soon after I do that,’ She continued, ‘So I’m gonna wait on that until after dinner.’
‘Do you mean that like you’ll actually go to sleep like a normal person, or do you mean that like you’re gonna exhaust yourself until you literally pass out?’ Thistle handed the sword back to him.
‘Being a little sleepy after a few spells is normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve overexerted myself,’ She crossed her arms, but she still matched his joking tone.
‘So will you make it to your tent before you lose consciousness, or will you need me to tuck you in?’
Ah, shit, now he could feel his face turn red. Thistle’s expression was also now just like what it had been when the T’Fa’Nii book had started to get…
‘I-uh—I’ll be fine, uh, thanks… but really, I swear I don’t make a habit of pushing myself,’ She didn’t bring back the humor in her voice. ‘I only did that in Kempston because, y’know,’ Thistle shrugged, but didn’t meet Brent’s eyes. ‘Mortal peril, and all that. A-and like I said before the Storm came in, that wasn’t even the same thing as what I was talking about! I have all the reserves to back up all those spells without hurting myself, my body just isn’t used to channeling that much magic that fast.’
‘Alright, alright, I believe you.’ Brent put his hands up in surrender, and Thistle relaxed a little bit. It seemed like she didn’t notice until now that she’d tensed up when she’d gotten flustered, and even more when she got defensive. ‘But maybe take an emergency snack in your tent with you, or something.’
‘That’s… a good idea. I probably will do that.’
As day turned to dusk and the warm air turned cool, Thistle put the fire together and lit it with a snap of her fingers while Brent dug some food out of their supplies. A pinch of magic had Brent fretting over her for a moment again, but more importantly, created them some fresh vegetables and herbs to go with bread and cheese. In the end, dinner consisted of delicious assemblies of toast topped with the roasted veggies and melted cheese.
While they ate, Brent appeared to be making the conscious effort not to look at her.
Thistle usually ate alone. None of the other three had asked her upfront about the habit, and she tried to avoid making a big deal of it, but of course there was no way they hadn’t noticed. And here was Brent, knowing nearly nothing about it, and trying to make her a little more comfortable, no questions asked. Thistle realized that she was smiling to herself about it.
After they finished their food, Thistle stood up and stretched her arms.
‘Alright, would you help set the sticks up? Just jam ‘em into the dirt until they stand up on their own. Just large enough to cover the tents and the fire should be good, the bigger it is the more magic it’ll take to activate.’
‘Got it. How perfect does the circle have to be?’ He followed her over to the pile of branches. She grabbed as many as she could carry, which was only about a third, and Brent grabbed the rest after she’d turned around.
‘It just needs to be circle-ish,’ She clarified. ‘The most important part is that it’s a closed loop.’
They got to work. Five minutes later, Thistle magicked up yet another vine of ivy and began tying it across the branches. A few magical incantations had it all glowing slightly, and Thistle gave the job a satisfied nod of the head.
And then she nearly keeled over.
Brent moved to catch her, one hand near her waist and the other not knowing where to go.
‘You okay?’ Thistle seemed a little unsteady on her feet still, but she’d kept herself upright.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, sorry. Just a little lightheaded.’ At her reassurance, Brent relaxed a bit. But then his face turned hot when he felt his fingertips just barely brush the fabric of her vest, so he pulled back quickly and crossed his arms. Thistle was still focused on keeping herself steady, and it was pretty dark by now, so he was stupidly hopeful that she didn’t notice the stupid tomato red color on his stupid face that he was hoping would turn back to a normal color quickly, but it probably wouldn’t because now he was stupidly thinking about how he kinda wished that maybe she’d fallen over just a little bit so he’d have an excuse to--
‘I’ve just never cast a circle this large before, is all. Usually I just cast it over a doorway. B’sides, it’s time to sleep anyway.’ Their tents were barely a couple feet away from where they were standing--Brent had moved them closer to make the circle smaller, so neither of them needed to walk more than a few steps. Thistle went over to hers.
‘Right, yeah. Uh, g’night.’
‘Night.’ She gave him a smile before she disappeared into her tent.
He smiled back, even though she couldn’t see him.