“I’m an idiot.” She palmed her face, slowly dragging her fingers down until she could see her little babies fluttering around her. She smiled at them and asked softly, “Can you scout ahead? Look for any claw marks on the trees like the ones on that last tree. And please, be careful.” She didn’t know what other predators or traps might be waiting in the wings, so it never hurt to be cautious. They spread out in front of her, flitting along the branches in search of a scrape.
She felt a tug of mana from her ring, and with a flick of her thoughts, she was holding a mirror. She looked down at it, seeing Marcelle’s face on the other end. “Have you found anything?”
Jade exhaled softly, shaking her head. “Not yet. The claw marks indicate that they climbed the trees, and it would be easy for them to travel along the branches here once they’re up. I have my fellacai searching for any traces of a path forward. However, it’s likely that I’ll need to remain up here to follow any tracks I find, while you follow from below.”
Marcelle frowned at her. “I don’t like separating the group.”
Nodding, Jade agreed. “I don’t either, but I’m the only one who can move easily up here. Just think of me as a scout. I’ve also got my fellacai, so I’m not alone. I think I need to stay up here though. I’m probably going to go up top and see if I can spot anything from above the canopy. It’s a vantage point I can’t give up at the moment. I don’t want to miss something vital.”
“Understood. Let me know when you have a direction.” When Jade nodded back to her, Marcelle cut the call. Stowing the mirror back into her ring, Jade lightened her gravity once more. She’d been keeping it at slightly lower than normal while she was in the trees so that even if she fell, it would be a much slower descent that she’d be able to regain control of. It also helped with jumping from branch to branch.
“Found a scratch!” Willow’s mental cry was enthusiastic as a picture of a scratch was conveyed to Jade’s mind. Orienting herself to where her baby was leading her, she started running along the second branch in front of her. Easily bounding to the next tree, she quickly jumped up a branch and started running along it further into the forest, concentrating on both her footsteps and her surroundings. Three trees later she stood next to her beautiful little Willow, staring at a scratch in the tree. To her mana sight, it gleamed with only the dullest of that poisonous color, meaning it was quite old.
“Good job, Willow, you did great.” She smiled down at her tiny preening baby, who understood and flew away to find more. The others moved forward as well, their bond communicating empty trees as they branched out from the newest starting point.
While they were checking the next trees, she started leaping up branches to the top, just to see if she could. It proved easier than she thought, though by the end she’d lowered her gravity quite a bit so that she could land on the feather-light branches at the very top without breaking them. She stood at the crown of the tree, a vantage point high above what she’d seen before. Sadly, it didn’t quite give her the view she wanted, because all she saw was a sea of trees.
Glancing behind, she gasped softly as she took in the sight. The golden plains of grain they’d passed through shone in the afternoon light, and behind them rose the grand walls of Caoi. Even then, she could see the castle and Dracona standing above the city like beacons. The magnificent buildings were dwarfed by the behemoth mountain that was their foundation, reaching high into the sky crowned with snow and clouds. She realized it was far taller than the mountains that formed the bowl valley before her. She nicknamed it Mt. Augg in her head, because it reminded her of a book series she’d loved in her old world with a similar mountain.
Pulling her attention away from the castle, she turned back to the forest, but green foliage was all she could see. If she wanted to get a better idea...she needed to go higher. She was honestly a bit nervous. Going higher would mean leaving the somewhat protective cover of the branches when she was already probably three hundred feet in the air.
Steeling her will, she lifted off from the branches, pulling a steady stream of wind from below to act as her shield in a protective bubble, sheltering her from the wind high above the trees. She felt the air currrents thrashing against her bubble, wanting to buffet her further away, but she held her course steady with her own wind as she rose higher, leaving the canopy behind.
Looking down, she realized the wind was still managing to push her slightly to the side, since it blew from the southeast. She’d have to do course corrections when she went back down. Higher and higher she went, suppressing her sense of vertigo from being so far above the ground. The sea of trees stretched out before her, but to the southeast she could see that the leafy tops rose higher, and a brief break revealed a cliff face, or maybe a sheer mountain. She wasn’t sure which it was, and decided she wasn’t keen to check. She could see birds playing on the face of the cliff...but she was pretty sure that if they looked like tiny birds to her at that distance…she was probably looking at the largest birds she could imagine. It reminded her more of the hippogriffs from fantasy stories. No, she wasn’t keen to go find the flying beasties. Though if she did run into one, she was tempted to try to make it a mount. As long as it wasn’t, you know, something like a dragon.
To be fair, even if it was a dragon, she’d want it for a mount. Dragons just tended to be a bit scarier to try and tame. That was if she put their general intelligence level aside… Shaking her head, she looked south. She needed to stop getting distracted!
She stopped to stare. It couldn’t really be that easy, could it? She reached up to rub her eyes, wanting to be doubly sure she wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there, but no; when she uncovered her eyes, it was still the same. In the distance, she could see a patch of trees that looked more black than green; sickly and weak. She found the nest! Or, well, she assumed it was the nest, given the miasma of sickly color she could see radiating off of it.
About to whoop in joy, the cry died on her lips as she noticed another patch of similar trees further behind the first. As she slowly turned to survey the forest, she spotted more dark patches, some consisting of only a few trees, some covering large swathes. They continued sporadically to the west. With a sigh, she pulled the mirror from her ring, feeding in mana to call Marcelle.
The woman answered within about two seconds, and Jade figured she’d been waiting for the call. “Jade! Did you find some...why is there sky behind you?” She started to question in excitement, only for her voice to fall to a puzzled tone at the end when she noticed the bright blue surrounding Jade.
Smiling fondly at the mirror, Jade answered, “Because I’m flying at the moment. I wanted to get a better vantage point, and it seems like it’s a good thing I did. Let me show you so you can tell me what you think.” Marcelle nodded, and Jade turned the mirror around, pointing it first at the mountains with the bird-creatures. “I think those are some kind of giant birds, but probably not our target. However…” She turned the mirror, using her free hand to point out the clumps of sick trees in a slow sweep from south to west. “Those trees have the same miasma mark that the claw marks did. Like they’ve been infected.” Pausing, she turned the mirror so it was facing the fields, so she got a clear view of the castle and mountain before finally putting it back on her. There was no special reason for it, she just wanted Marcelle to see something of the beauty too. A tiny reminder of what they were here for, and what they were trying to protect.