The next morning, none of the sun’s rays reached the gray trees of the Wilds. Pyrite led the four of us down the dirt path to Banyan, on black horses that blended with the environment. Sharp and I sat astride the largest, a steed called Midnight Bloom, while Pyrite rode alone on a smaller one called Nightfall.
“Your friends are rather odd,” he muttered under the hood of his thick grey cloak. He was referring to Willow and Piranha, who were scouting ahead.
“Give them enough time,” I said, trying to be cheerful. “They’ll grow on you.”
He only grunted, like he didn’t want them growing anywhere near him. There were not many people from the Jungle who visited the Wilds, and based on the conflict with Wyvern, just as few Wind people.
The horses glided through the forest. The ride was so smooth, I wrote a message to my mothers to assure them we were headed to the doctor, and that Pyrite was alive.
“Is that a golden scroll?” Under Pyrite’s hood was a tired face and unkempt hair. “Who has the other one?”
“My moms.” I showed him the message. “Is there anything you want to tell them?”
“That’s not necessary,” he muttered, turning away. I grimaced but didn’t say anything. He was almost chipper at breakfast, but once we started the journey to Banyan, his mood turned downhill fast. He didn’t explain why the Sapphire Clan was creating this level of paranoia, as if something was preventing him from speaking about it.
The trees rustled above us. Piranha fell through, landing with grace and silence. The lights produced by the tree flowers brightened their oranges scarf like a burning flame.
Pyrite pulled the horses to a stop. “Is someone up ahead?”
The wildcat pulled a thick wad of grass from their bag and fed it to Pyrite’s horse. “No, but we found some lunch.”
“Do you have some grass for us too?” joked Sharp.
Nightfall finished the treat and nuzzled Pir’s cheek. “Heh heh, good horse,” they chuckled, patting its nose. “You can eat the grass if you want, but I also managed to catch us a rabbit.”
As they removed it from their bag, it was like the air around us closed in and created an inexplicable pressure. My godfather leapt from his horse and yanked the brown hare from Piranha’s hands, causing my friend to yelp and fall backward.
“What in the deep hell do you think you’re doing?!” he spat.
Piranha’s pupils narrowed into sharp lines as they scrambled back up from the ground. This was the first time I’d ever seen them cower.
A voice rang out from above. “Hey! What the deep hell do you think you’re doing?”
Pyrite redirected his fiery gaze at Willow, who landed unfazed in front of him. The glow in the older man’s eyes was poisonous as he growled, “This is not the Jungle. Hunting here is taboo. Don’t you have an ounce of respect in your body?”
Snapping out of my shock, I jumped from my horse and grabbed Pyrite by the arm as gently as I could.
“Be calm,” I said, trying to move him back. “We didn’t know. It was a mistake!”
“Take this to heart,” he hissed, yanking his arm away. A harsh face juxtaposed the tender way he held the dead rabbit. “Humans only live in the Savage Wilds because the trees allow it. The animals don’t belong to us, and killing them has consequences. If you’d eaten this, you would have been poisoned.”
“That’s preposterous!” argued Willow. “Animals and humans live in the same ecosystem. Hunting is a necessary part of the delicate balance of life and death.”
Sharp’s armor jangled as she dismounted, and her face had remained neutral. “No, Pyrite is right, Willow. The ecosystem of this forest doesn’t follow the natural laws we’re used to. Unless you count humans, there are no predatory animals here.”
Pyrite's shoulders relaxed, but Sharp turned on him. Her youth didn’t matter, because she was bigger, stronger, and the sun engraved on her armor set indicated a mastery in Warrior martial arts. Her cold voice said, “There was no need for you to act so unkindly. We aren’t familiar with your customs. Maybe instead, tell us what we can do to make it right.”
These words dissolved most of his fury, replacing it with embarrassment. He sighed and looked at Piranha, who was nearly in tears. “I’m sorry, little cat. I see I reacted too strongly, but the poisonous animals have caused the death of too many ignorant tourists who travel through here without someone to guide them. I hope you understand.”
Piranha bowed their head. “I’m sorry for misunderstanding. The custom from the Jungle is different, you see. The power of Wildcat makes me a carnivore, mostly. People like me have a duty to be hunters and provide food for their families and friends.”
Pyrite returned the rabbit to Piranha’s gentle hands. He cleared his throat and said, “If you want to make it right, bury this rabbit under a tree. The animals are like companions of the forest, like these horses are to me. If someone were to hunt and kill one of them, I’d be very upset indeed. The trees in the Wilds provide everything a human in this world needs to survive, even for carnivores like you. From now on, you must trust them to take care of you.”
We buried the rabbit under the nearest redwood. Piranha said a few words of gratitude, before returning the dirt by hand.
Before our walk continued, Pyrite insisted we learn how to properly find food in the Wilds. We tied the horses close to the path, and he hung a seasick green light to Midnight Bloom’s saddle.
“We won’t go far,” he assured us, “but this light will make it easy to find our way back.” The horses, despite coloring that suggested otherwise, were not a native species to the forest, and tended to get jumpy when they strayed too far from the unlit pathway.
Pyrite’s personality brightened with the chance to teach us about plants and wildlife, including the four categories of trees. The first type, common trees, were any species not exclusive to the area. The second type were called colony trees, redwoods with long reaching roots that hosted a large variety of edible mushrooms and other fungus. The third kind, massive Phantom Oaks, were thirty feet around and created a thick canopy of velvet black leaves and glowing Moonlight Fruit.
The Ghost Trees were the last type, the giant beings native only to the Deep Dark, who danced an elegant dance between life and death. They were often more than a hundred feet around and able to produce the same types of vegetation, as well as the powerful Wild Fruit that had gotten us into this mess.
Pyrite knelt by a looming Phantom Oak, overgrown with clusters of fungus at the root. “You can find all necessary nutrients in the mushrooms that grow here,” he lectured. “The Moonlight Fruit is important as well. It tastes bland but can supplement the nutrients one would get from the sun.”
The mushrooms were diverse and plentiful: purple chanterelles with short stems, green morels with fuzzy exteriors, and smooth plump ones the color of fresh blood. Pyrite filled a bag with all of them, except the red, which he handed to Piranha.
“For you, Wildcat, eat the red ones for the nutrients you need. The rest of you, eat anything but the reds.” He scrunched his face. “They won’t hurt you, but they won’t agree with your palette. Trust me.”
He used some dry sticks to start a small fire, then cooked the slices of mushroom on a flat silver dish. All the while, Pir bombarded him with question after question, trying to make up for the ignorance earlier.
They popped a red mushroom in their mouths and grinned ear to ear. “I’ve been wondering. If someone tried to cross the border into the Dark without a guide, what would happen to them?”
Pyrite unearthed a small container of blackish-red seasoning from his cloak and poured it generously over the food. “It changes, based on which king is controlling the border. For the last five years, King Obsidian’s power has decayed as he nears the end of his long life, and the borders are unstable. To enter the Dark is to pass through the Unseen Dimension which can cause paranoia, nausea, or even unconsciousness.”
He dispersed the mushrooms, thick and hard to chew, but spicy and savory. “A power like Badger’s could allow outsiders to bypass the symptoms, I’m guessing. If you can learn to take others into the Unseen Dimension with you, then you could also guide them into the Dark.”
