My Wish at the End of the World

The Forest Looms Above Us

CW mention of fire

// food

The rain poured down on us as we continued running.

Out of the gate and down the road, too far for me.  My lungs were burning when we stopped, my scars feeling like they've cracked.  Rainfall panting and looking behind us panickedly.

"Can we..." I pant a few times, collapsing to my knees.  "Stop, please?"  I'm not sure I'm audible over the pounding of the rain, like giant drums, the drops hitting hard and fast, cold and large, pounding down on me.  "I need to."

"Okay, but we need to find shelter..." he yells and looks around.  "I don't think we're being followed?"  He says that uncertainly, but to be honest, I couldn't care less.  I can't run any further.  If a city guard could chase us in this weather, especially with Rainfall's magic, which I'm fairly certain she was using to help us, then that's good on them.  Besides, most of them should be occupied.

"What shelter?" I ask, gesturing around at the desert.  Deserts aren't known for foliage, so we'd have to be lucky enough to find some sort of cave, but that's unlikely.

"Vic, look around," Rainfall says, straightening up, her panicky stance softening.  "What is this?"

I pause for a moment, wondering what she's talking about.  Yeah, I was completely focused on the road in front of me while we were running, but there's not really anything that remarkable around here.  Just more desert.  It might be pretty, but there shouldn't be too much useful shelter.

I feel something tickling the palm of my hand, resting against the ground.  I startle and pick it up, rubbing it to get rid of the sensation.  I turn to see what had done it, some sort of lichen or animal, maybe, but find myself looking at a fern, a small fiddlehead on a short stem poking up through the soil.  As I watch, the stem grows and the fiddlehead starts to unfurl.  I stand up and look down, finding that a few more ferns have started growing, a thin moss developing between them.

"What the...?" I say, and turn to Rainfall, who's still staring, stricken.  I look around, and see a few saplings, young, yes, small and thin, but they must not have existed less than an hour ago.  I look back down and find that the largest fern is now about the size of my hand, and still growing.

"Do you know why this is happening?" Rainfall shouts.  I pause, looking around, awestruck.

"Maybe?" I yell back.  I pause and look around, watching a forest spring to life around us.  "Probably?"

"Well what is it?" Rainfall shouts, looking around.  Is he hoping that one of the young trees can give us shelter?

"Um, the shard, right?" I say, grasping for ideas, how to explain my own very loose concept of what might be happening.  "Before it got here, this place wasn't a desert, taking the shard might be returning it to how it was?"  I look down at the shard, which I've had clutched to my chest, my fingers gripping in in protest to how slippery the rain makes it.  This is... scary.  To think that the shard could create this sort of power unconsciously, enough to change a landscape, and somehow keep it changed even though there's this sort of effect trying to return it.  Whatever this is might explain why the old empire was so large.  If it also had an effect on obscuring the information about this place, that's more impressive.

"You sure?" Rainfall shouts.  I shake my head vigorously.

"No, I've got no clue, it's just my best guess!" I yell.  "Have you found any good shelter?"

"No, help me look!" he says, and I nod, peering out into the rain.  It's hard to see clearly more than an arm's length, and even within that seems dodgy.  "Don't wander too far, we won't be able to find each other in this!"