Five Little Sacrifices

Chapter 39

"Alright! Assemble!"

"Right!" Felix and Chester both shouted. Not just them, but the souls of the Tiki dolls assembled right behind them, all ready to help.

Bickslow grinned leaning towards them.

"Before it will get dark, you will gather as much wood as you can", the seith mage commanded. "We went through how to find them. Tell me the first rule of gathering wood."

"Never break branches from trees that are still alive", Felix and Chester said.

"Good! Can you peel of their bark?"

"No, because it damages the tree."

"Very good, babies. Pippi, Poppo, Pappa, you three follow them and make sure they won't get lost."

"Yes!" they yelled.

"Puppu and Peppe will come with me, we will train more our speed and magic power with Laxus."

"Aye!" Puppu and Peppe grinned.

"Okay, so have fun", Bickslow cackled as he left them.

Chester looked around and he was feeling nervous. This was his second time in a real forest.

"Don't worry, everything will go fine", Felix smiled. "I've been here few times with mama and dad and Pippi, Poppo and Pappa know this place thoroughly because they train here so much!"

"We do!" the little souls assured.

"It's not like I was worried", Chester murmured with a slight blush. "How much do we need wood?" he asked as they started to look around.

"Let's just keep finding wood until Bicks says we have enough", Felix said picking up few sticks.

"We can't use those", Pippi suddenly said.

"But they are dry."

"They aren't dry", Pappa said and he snapped the stick in two, showing them how damp they were from inside. "Only outside is dry."

"Oh..." Felix said. "So where do we start looking for wood?"

"Follow us!" the little souls grinned and they started walking.

Finding enough wood was not easy, but finally they could return back to the tents and they all had as much sticks as they could carry.

"Very good", Freed smiled when they dropped them on the ground. "Did you have fun?"

"No", Felix huffed. "Finding wood is not fun."

"Might be true, but we have to do it nonetheless if we want to stay warm and have a good meal."

"I don't like camping anymore."

"Oh so it's fun only when us adults do all the job?" Evergreen chuckled amused as she brought vegetables she found from the forest.

"Yeah..." Felix murmured.

"We all have to do our jobs", Freed said as he piled up wood in the circle of rocks they had made many years ago, since the day they started coming by to train here. "But since you collected so much wood for us, you can go play until the dinner is done."

"Let's play hide and seek!" Pippi shouted.

"As long as you don't go far away or near the water, that's fine. And don't climb anywhere high."

Ever smiled looking how Felix and Chester ran along with Pappa, Pippi and Puppu.

"They're so cute together", she said.