Roseblood

?Preface?

*Deep breath*

Well, take a go at it you guys!

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This dumb snake needs to stop hissing at me.

But I's hungry.

"I know!" I growl, sounding very much like my Vinculum, Elang the hawk. His night black feathers are ruffled and his beady eyes are glaring at me from the sky, grumpy as always.

As his human Vinculum, we're bound to each other until death, able to specially communicate and—the most annoying—get a taste for the other's feelings. Countless times, I've been in a meeting with my parents and felt a surge of adrenaline as Elang advances in a hunt, or frustration as he fails to catch whatever lucky vermin escapes his talons. At the moment, he's definitely angry at me.

"Stop brooding," I bark up at him before turning back to the snake. I don't remember ever seeing anything like this before. Its silvery blue scales mark him as a shore creature, maybe even all the way from Aqua since there are none of these kind this far away from the ocean. It makes no sense that it's here, but I'm glad I saw it before it died of dehydration or even fatigue.

"I'm going to get you to the ocean. Or try," I add as an afterthought. The Wavebloods are friendly, but not so much that I could strut up to their land just to dump a snake there. At the very best, I can drop it off at Speculo Lake.

I wonder how the marine creature wandered this far away from its home, found its way past the Aqua-Hortus border, and wrapped itself around the roots of a tree deep into the Pathless Forest.

Obviously the snake is smart, Elang crabs from above.

It is, I agree, ignoring his attitude. The Pathless Forest lives up to its name, being so damp, muddy, humid, and slippery that no one has ever tried to make a trail here. There are even legends about a band of Wavebloods cursing the area to be forever wet. Maybe that's how the snake found its way here.

Don't be an idiot, Elang says like it's impossible for animals to have survival instincts.

Why do you always act like an old man? I mentally groan at him.

Because I am old , he says. And we are getting close to home.

He's actually right about the last part. The tips of the Terra Palace are beginning to poke up amongst the forest. I look down at myself and see it's clear that I'm not ready to go inside. The easy clothes I'm wearing are obviously not meant to be traversed around a forest in. And I smell.

Great idea, Pele, I scold myself. Absolutely brilliant thinking.

"Elang!" I call aloud. My hawk swoops down and perches onto my shoulder with an air of annoyance.

What do you want?

"Well, sourpuss," I say. "I need you to get me a change of clothes."

No.

I roll my eyes. "Please?"

He lets out what I've come to known as his version of a grunt. Fine.

Elang makes a show of leaving, cawing and smacking me with his wings before launching into the air and leaving me alone.

I look around me at the forest. Out of my many unsupervised sneak-outs, I can only remember coming through here twice. Clearly I had some sense to avoid this place.

I's be wanting food.

Whoops, forgot about the snake.

"You're still hungry," I say, "but I don't know what you eat." An idea slowly starts to form in my head as I stretch my arm out and twitch my fingers. It takes a second, but soon a small tree bends its trunk down towards me. As it meets me, I stand on the tip of my toes and lay my face against the wet wood. I start to stroke it gently, feeling comforted at this tree's skin. I can feel how it's still groggy, like it hasn't had the chance to be fully awoken after a long night of restful sleep. Maybe it hasn't, since no one ever comes here.

"I'm going to need something from you," I say, and whisper a set of instructions. Then I double tap one of its branches and take a step back. From here, it can take control.

I's be losst and hungry.

"I know, I know." I pick up the snake and watch as the tree twists and bends and shakes itself off in a dance of gentle movements. It leans to its neighbor, and a rustle of wind passes between them. The other tree repeats the message to another one, that one to another, and soon the whole forest is whispering with the wind.

Wind.

"You like the wind," I translate. In response, the snake slithers up my arm and dangles itself over my neck. As it gives a satisfied hiss, I wonder where Elang is—he's been gone for a while. Most likely he's trying to put me off. In fact, everything's going slow today: my walk, my Vinculum, the trees even though I should be thankful they even considered my request.

I try to make small talk with the snake—is Sey a good name?—which turns out as well as I would ever expect. He doesn't even seem to look at me now.

Finally, a tree branch tickles my face. With a burst of wind, it whispers to me that the forest had searched the ground for as far as they could, but strangely couldn't find any creature like Sey.

I thank the tree and plant a kiss to the ground, a habit most Rosebloods get into from a young age. Showing your thanks is twice as important as saying it. Then I give my attention to Sey.

"You, my friend, are a bit of mystery. But that's okay, we'll get to the Terra Palace, find Elang, pluck out every one of his feathers for taking too long, and then ask around to see if there are any more of you. Alright?"

I's be needing resst.

"Of course you do." At this point, my clothes are more dry than wet. I'll still turn heads, but I'm not so messy to be unrecognizable as the princess. But now my father has a better chance of catching me from sneaking out.

I sigh, feeling kind of uneasy. Where is Elang? We've been connected at the hip—okay, more like shoulder—for years and though we've been separated plenty of times before, he's aware of how much we both hate it. Something squirms inside my stomach, and I know that something is wrong.

Woah. Calm down, I order myself. It hasn't even been that long; it just seems like that because you've been alone with your thoughts.

That doesn't explain how my clothes are dried.

It's a light fabric, it probably just dries quick.

But that weird feeling is still lingering in my gut. I try to tell myself that it's hunger I feel, sleepiness, an effect of being surrounded by old and wet wilderness.

Pele, get it together. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, don't worry—

Too late. I look at the snake. "Sey, we need to get to the Terra Palace now."