Tall red oak trees reached up to the sky and blocked out the majority of the light that normally shone down upon the earth. However, spots of sunlight manage to break through the trees in some places. It was too dark to be able to see normally. A young woman wearing a brown robe with a hood over her head wandered through the forest. She had not lantern but was able to see. This was because she had used Pavpora's Sight to enable her to see at dark.

Otherwise she would have been unable to see at all. A large backpack rested upon her shoulders and she had a bo staff strapped onto her back. The shoes she wore were old slippers that clearly needed to be replaced. Her face was cast in shadow as she used to hood to cover up her face. Although one couldn't see her eyes, they were alight with fascination. She had been here before but every time she went she was filled with curiosity and wonder. The forest was an orchestra of her mind, playing one enchanting symphony after another. Swirling leaves danced to an unknown rhythm as the wind whispered in her ear. Everywhere she looked the places were streaming with life.

From the birds flying in the air to the humble beetle crawling on the ground. She had an urge to just sit and watch them. Which she did for a few moments. She watched the bird fly to a nest then watched the beetle disappear into a hole with a leaf. This was just how Tristana was. She reached up to the trunk of a tree and traced it's bark down until she reached where the roots vanished into the ground. Tristana wasn't just fascinated with the forest. There were also the cities and the plains and the jungle. Each had their own unique style and unique attitude. Suddenly a branch broke above her from a squirrel hopping off of it. The medium sized branch fell and hit Tristana on the head. She rubbed her head for a moment and confirmed that she had only received a small bruise.

Nothing to worry about for now. She stood up and continued on her way until she came across a small creek. The water trickled over and under rocks and through the woods. So Tristana began to follow it. She hopped from stone to stone in a playful manner. At one point she slipped on one of the stones and fell into the creek. When she crawled out she was wet. Tristana attempted to shake off the water but failed. She was not a dog after all.

Instead she twisted her robes and hair until the water was mostly out. Then Trista continued onward but began being a little more careful. The little creek led up to a large pond. Tristana crouched down to the ground and slowly approached the pond. After all she didn't know if there was a monster that wanted to eat her scull or suck out all of her brains with a straw! After watching for a moment, she could see a figure bathing in the pond. Instead of hiding or staying where she was, like a smart person, she stepped out of the bushes and waved to the figure. 

"Hello!" She said with a smile and a wave, "How are you?" 

The mid-day sun shone brightly above, bathing the landscape in light as the gurgling of brooks and streams came in front many areas into the heart of the Viren Forest, verging together into a pond and thus acted as the peaceful heart of the forest's chaos. Predator and prey can meet up in here, but it was as if they were not allowed to hunt or be hunted, nor can a predator wait for prey to wander out of the safety confines. The animals always spoke of the protective spirits to this heart, and thus had become a rule of the land itself.

One by one, articles of cloth were undone before removed from the tigerkin who made visits to these parts of the land, taking in that feeling to ensure she could not be hunted herself, though she could hardly count when was the last moon she really had to worry. Though beasts came by to drink, there was nothing against bathing, either, which meant nothing would want to stop her from stepping deeper into the waters. What fish that lived in the region swam away from the larger entity moving in, taking up more as more space as she sank down into the water's depths, letting the calm ripples envelop her body.

Still, while Eden seemed to be relaxed about it, letting the water seep into her braid to loosen and separate, the manticore rested still on the ground, watching any kind of movement that came forth. Though the body seemed translucent and spectral, and heat and flames that reside in its breath were all too real, making she challengers knew what sort of threat they would need to deal with should they present themselves as aggressive.

After a while of residing under the ripples, Eden pushed her body upwards, letting every inch of her drop with water before coming through her hair with her claws to ensure everything was separated. As she did this, a voice called, out, catching the attention of of the pair, causing both to look over at the woman following one of the many creeks as the cloth on her clung to her body, giving her a simple wave in response as the manticore simply stared.

She saw the wave in return and was glad that the person was seemingly friendly. Tristana did not enter the water but she walked around the edge of the water to get closer to the figure. Earlier she had already gotten wet and the last thing she wanted was to get the stuff in her backpack drenched in water again. She did have some parchment papers and her journal in her bag. If they got wet then she would have to get some new ones. Which would cost money and money was hard to get. Or at least for her it was. 

"It is lovely to meet you!" Tristana said loudly with a smile, "My name is Tristana!"

Suddenly she saw the manticore and the fact that the figure was a tiger girl. The manticore had large wings and had a reddish coat color. It's horns were purple and it's head was covered in a mane. The girl had tan fluffy ears and This made Tristana's eyes light up in fascination. They were both some new creatures. Which was amazing! Especially the manticore. She had only read about them in some books while traveling. Seeing one in real life was a dream come true. Tristana didn't really realized that it was inappropriate to be talking to somebody who was undressed or while they were bathing. 

"You both are incredible. Where did you guys meet? Do you live here? What are your diets? Do you both eat the same thing? How long do you guys normally live? What are your names? How did you guys meet? Isn't the water here so beautiful? What do you know about this location? Is it magical? Oh do the both of you have magic?" Tristana began rattling of multiple questions one after another. 

She stepped closer to the water in order to be able to be heard more. Her hood fell down off her head and revealed her long curly orange hair. Her right eye was a light shade of amber and her left eye was completely white. A long scar started from her forehead and went down to her chin on the left side of her face. Her scar was not small or simple. It was ugly, ragged, and old. There were freckles over her face. If there was an expert on beauty, she would be determined as downright ugly. And she was very ugly. Practically a monster. It was something that she needed to make up for. Or at least that was her attitude towards herself. But for now she wasn't thinking about that. She was excited over these new people and the new possible information they could give her. 

"Oh and do you-" She was about to say. 

Then Tristana slipped on the edge of the pond and fell right in, headfirst. 

"Ack!" She said before she fell in with a large splash. 

Such was her luck. 

An onslaught. There were no other words to use to describe the wave of questions that poured out of the mouth of this woman. Sure, she had been working hard on her name, the strain and itchiness that filled her throat trying to say it still made it troublesome, so she lifted a finger to prepare her response, adapting a "writing in air" method, but alas, the waves that came from her lungs were quite overwhelming, making Eden's tail to dip back into the water and the manticore to stand up. Well, at least until she fell under the weight of her own face face first into the shores of the pond.

While her bag was saved by the simple depth not being so deep, the rest of her was washed away by the water, causing the two to relax some. The manticore looked over to Eden and she looked back, not a sound coming from either's lips before the tigerkin pushed through the water and back to the shoreline to help the girl announced as "Tristana" back to her feet, looking her over to make sure she was okay while not making any motion to hide any inch of her skin.

Being much closer would also give a window for Tristana to see the tigerkin before her as well. Not just her figure, but the numerous scars that had decorated it for years. Some were minor while others were a bit nasty. Nothing that compared to the one that engulfed Tristana's eye, but the numbers alone told plenty a tale of survival, and it did not even come close to the one that rested underneath the metal shackle that rested around her neck: a scar formed from the years of wear that made it hard to breathe without out it because of too much intake, despite her "training."

It did not take Eden long to take hold of the straps of the woman's bag before slinging them off her shoulder, having it crash upon the soft, muddy earth before her hands moved to her waist, trying to figure out how the belt worked. The fabric was stubborn, so Eden took no shame into simply tearing it into two before finally pushing her hands into the fabric, wrapping them off the shoulders of the woman who wore it and walking back on land to lay it on a rock that rested in the sun. There was nothing else underneath it to distract Eden anymore, making sure it was nice and flat as she had seen Rizka do numerous times and imitated. Water-heavy clothes were hardly pleasant, especially when one has to travel many miles in them.

Once the robe was set out, Eden returned back to the water before lifting her fingers, just like before, and traced in the air for Tristana the characters that made up her name: EDEN.

Tristana was noticing how lovely the rocks at the bottom of the pond looked when Eden picked her up and out of the water. Her mind had only been distracted for a few moments. But distraction for her was a serious problem. Especially when it made her forget that she couldn't breath with her face in the water. She noticed that Eden was checking her for injuries. The worst Tristana had were a few bruises but not much else. But Tristana noticed something.

She was close enough to see all the scars that decorated Eden's body. Tristana's mind quickly went to the worst possible reasonings for so many scars. The poor girl must have been tortured! Or enslaved! Or tortured and enslaved! The enslavement idea came from the fact that Eden had a large metal collar around her neck. Suddenly, Tristana's bag was off of her shoulders. The weight of all the things she carried on her back was gone. Her bag didn't seem to be too wet. Still, she would have to make sure it was dry. She didn't want mold growing in there.

Tristana wasn't paying much attention and her thoughts were focused on the bag. At least until she heard something rip. Tristana became very confused on why this woman was taking off her robe. Did she want her clothes? If she needed some, she could have asked. Tristana watched as Eden laid out her now off robe carefully onto a rock that happened to be in the sun. Now she understood what Eden was doing. The kind lady was merely trying to make sure her outfit would be dry.

Suddenly, Tristana remembered her scar on her face. She reached up to her own face and tried to casually cover the scar with her hand. On her back there were many scars. Some of them ran deep while others were smaller. She had forgotten about those long ago. It was far more difficult to forget the one that everybody saw every day. She focused on what Eden was writing out. They seemed to be letters. It didn't take Tristana long to figure out what it meant. 

"Eden. That is a lovely name." She proclaimed, "It is a pleasure to met you. Also thank you for my robe."

A memory popped into her mind. Tristana walked over to the brown, slightly soggy backpack and used her available hand to open it. She set out the paper and journal onto the dry parts of the rock that had room left. Then she took out an object that was wrapped up in cloth. After setting it down and unwrapping it, she held it up three things. The three things were all dried pieces of meat. They were still good and hopefully would taste fine. The meat was cut up pieces of steak that did not have any seasoning. She offered up the meat to Eden and the manticore. 

"Here. I already ate. You both can have it if you like." Tristana said. 

Her mind still wondered about what happened to Eden and how she got those scars. However, if Eden wanted to tell… write her story then she would. Tristana would not pressure her or make her feel as though she had to explain herself. Also, Tristana determined not to treat Eden with too much pity or act as though she was a delicate flower. That would be incredibly annoying. Eden no doubt received lots of pitying looks on a daily basis and probably was sick of it. The terrible past that Eden faced did not define who she was. Of course all of these guesses could easily turn out to be untrue. Yet, it was better to just treat Eden nicely and as if she was normal than to treat her differently. Just in case. 

Eden could not help but tilt her head in confusion when Tristana tried to hide away her eye all of a sudden, something she adapted in her lessons on "emotion" and probably one that had stuck on the most, seeing as many things confused her, like those silvery disks people called "coins." To what purpose was there in covering one's eye? It affected what one can see as well as sacrifices a hand, right? That much was obvious as Eden watched the other dig through the bag to set aside parchments, books, and meats, the latter being offered to the pair. Eden shook her head at the offer, not feeling hungry just yet, while the manticore simply shrugged off the offer.

Probably in the most spectral fashion to shrug someone off, too, as the color to the translucent entity began to fade as its body dissipated into the wind. It was different from the other entities she had encountered. Most of the time, she can to call them forth, ripping up gates into reality from their homes to where she stood, yet the manticore was always able to come upon its own free will, as if it rested on another plane of existence, watching over her. It had no issue coming when needed without her roar and had protected her back on more than one occasion since their encounter with the strange rabbit.

After a  bit, Eden once again began to pace herself back to shore, her ears flicking every once in a while to remove water from her ears and her long hair clung close to her back before she settled onto the shore and sat down, water barely touching the base of her tail now. Carefully, her hands moved up to the latch on the metal object before prying it open, the detaching echo filling the still air before her breathing became much louder, breasts raising and lowering on a much more notable level. Once more, she took the time to train her lungs for more air while bearing the oldest of scars she had: One made from not just wearing the collar for many years, but for also being forged around her very neck with the notable burn line for the weld. Even if the collar itself now bore the Eye of Adraejen, which has driven off many bounty hunters alone, the marks left from her old master was left upon her as if to remind her that her life was that of captivity: that she would never be free. Though the modifications to the collar were altered with magic to let her do this in the first place, the mark left would never leave.

They didn't seem to be very hungry at the moment so Tristana wrapped up the meat again in the cloth then put it back in the bag. The manticore that had been there earlier began to vanish. It must have been some sort of magical being. More magical than a regular manticore. Her hand was still covering her scar. But with her good eye she was able to see Eden pry open her own metal collar. Why did Eden continue wearing that?

There was a painful looking scar around the girl’s neck that seemed to have been caused by the collar. Tristana dropped the hand that covered her face and instead observed Eden as she breathed carefully. It seemed as though Eden was upset. Tristana wanted to find some way to make her cheer up a bit more. The first thought that came to her mind was music.

At least until she remembered how awful she was at playing an instrument. Besides, she didn’t have one anyway. Without music, there wasn’t any sound that she could dance to. That wasn’t an option. An idea hit Tristana. What if she used a bit of her magic? She stood up and walked over to a rock, one of the ones that didn’t have her stuff on it, and sat down again. Her feet were relaxed in the pond. Tristana held out her hand towards the water. Using her Water Weaving spell, she was able to create a figure made up of the river pond water. The figure had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head.

It looked like a basic figure with no other interesting features other than it was made of water. It glided over the water and headed over to Eden. The little water figure bowed to her and glided over the water to the middle of the pond. It then started to spin around on the water the glide around as if it was some sort of dancer on the water. It took a lot of Tristana’s concentration to make this happen so she wasn’t as observant about what else was going on around her. There was a shuffling in the bushes a little ways away but Tristana had not noticed it. She was busy trying to cheer Eden up. 

Eden's focus was taken away as the water began to rise from the pond, slowly taking form and approaching the tigerkin. She could feel what fur she had stand on end, and even more start to form on the back of her palm as her nails slowly shaped into claws, just in case. However, not much else as the figured backed off to the center and began… moving? It was certainly odd motions, to be sure, Eden's mind hardly telling what was actually being done. It possessed no form of threat, and it moved in a way that could hardly be called competitive, threatening, or even intimidating, so why even bother?

Though Tristana was completely focused to keep up the shape, form, and movement, Eden's ears were quick to flick towards the sound of the rustling brush: a roguish peeper, staring down the two naked beauties. Oh, lucky day, were easily his first thoughts as he watched them linger under the open sun, not a care in the world. They probably don't have too much, but maybe enough for some more proper "negotiations," he chuckled quietly before peering off to the side. A large bag with potential goods, a robe, some exotic clothing, and… a sword as thick as a support beam and yet pure metal. A single heave of that could easily break the most protected of men, and it was clear it was not just there by chance: that edge belonged to one of these fine damsels, and bad talk can possibly go six feet under for him (literally).

Still, its not like there was nothing he could work with. The one with the cat ears and tail, around her neck: a slave collar no doubt. Maybe she belonged to the other? No, it would have been her doing the entertaining then. No, it was possible that the two were both escapees, something that can have some nice value considering their figures. "I should at least tell boss," he muttered to himself before vanishing back into the thicket.

Eden's eyes no longer were locked onto the watery stage, but instead towards the rustle, a small murr escaping her lips. From there, two small tears of reality opened up, bringing forth a songbird to fly and rest upon her finger and a squirrel who stood next to the water's edge. "Malice nearby," Eden told the two, though her lips never parted. "Track, learn, return." With the two's confirmation, the songbird took to the treetops, chirping along while the squirrel stayed low to the earth. While any of the dogs would be much easier in terms of tracking, they would have much harder time blending in.

Still, if things were to get interesting, she best get prepared. Snapping the collar back shut, Eden pushed herself to her feet before heading over to where the other items were set, joining them in the sunbathing to dry off.

Tristana noticed how Eden tensed up when the water creature came near her. But soon Eden seemed to realize that it was doing no harm.

“It is not alive. I am making a figure from the water.” Tristana explained, “I cause every movement it has.”

She then had the water move move from a figure to just being a strand of water flying through the air. Then the strand of water made a dive back into the pool and all the water was returned. She had still been entirely oblivious to the person who had been peeking on them from the bushes. What Tristana did notice was the tear of reality caused by Eden apparently. Now Eden had a squirrel and a bird friend. It seemed as though she was speaking to them despite the fact that not a sound escaped her lips. The squirrel and the bird went off into the woods. Maybe Eden was a bit nervous or maybe she was sending them out to look for something to eat? Tristana didn’t really know.

Tristana pulled her feet out of the water and made her way to the shore. She was only a little annoyed about being somewhat damp. So she used her water weaving spell to collect the droplets of water off of her body. Tiny drops of water began to leave her body and her hair. Soon Tristana was dry and there was a sphere of water out before her. She then put her hands out in front of the water. The water then flew through the air and dispersed itself among the plants. Then she went over to her robe and felt it to see if it was dry yet. Not quite. So she began to drain her outfit of its water. Then she sent the water to the plants.

After that she touched the robe to see if it was dry yet. Now it was dry. So gathered it up and pulled it over her head. A few moments after she pulled it on herself, she got stuck. Her arm was in the hole that her head was supposed to be at. Her head was still inside the robe while her other arm was still by her side. After a bit a readjusting and struggling, Tristana managed to get her robe on properly.

“I did it!” She exclaimed out loud with a smile.

Then she walked over to her bag and pulled out a mana potion. She had used up a bit of mana today and wanted to refresh it. So she drank the greater mana potion and placed the empty bottle back into her bag. Tristana walked back over to Eden and sat next to her. “Were those your animal friends?” She asked, “You don’t need to talk by the way. A nod or a head shake will do.” This time she was being careful about how much she asked. 

Eden looked back up at Tristana, who made quite the commotion on simply getting cloth on. Sure, she had her struggles with her outfit when she first wore it, but it did not really mean she should proudly claim victory over it… right? Still, it was quite interesting to see the mindsets the two had: One wanted to waste no time in getting dry (so much she used magic to assist) while the other spent the time to drink in the sun's rays and take the much slower approach. Then again, years underground and the only like from the sun or moon came upon a battlefield, it was easy for her to enjoy it in much more peaceful times.

When asked about the animals she called forth, Eden looked back in the direction they moved before up into the sky, thinking. Could she really call them "friends"? After all, with the deals she had made, they were more so with the abandoned or the weaker packs. The small bird and squirrel were not exactly "combat experts" like the bear, hawk, or manticore. At the same time, she assured them protection if they were to aid. They lived their own lives, not under her rule, and if they wished not to obey, they were free to. IN the end, only one word could come up from her readings.

ALLY. That was what she wrote in the air with her finger. To ensure her safety while she ensured theirs, ALLY was the only word she could find to describe them.