Chapter 133: A Delightful Detour
"Do NOT condone this!" Vuvi snaps. "We are never going to reach the capital at this rate!"
"To be fair," Sera says, "we haven’t actually agreed to anything yet. Penelo’s just standing there looking distraught."
"She’s always going to agree. All of you! Look at Pip!" Vuvi points, exasperated, to Pip, whose eye-glow has gone a soft, sympathetic pink. "Look at his face! That’s his ’I’ve already agreed to help you’ face."
"That is a very specific face to have memorized." Veena points out.
"I have catalogued all of his faces, Veena," Vuvi groans, " it’s a survival skill at this point."
Pip steps up beside Penelo, resting a hand on her shoulder, and sends a warm wave of sympathy and support rippling out toward the assembled beast-kin.
Every single one of them swoons in perfect unison, bows and blades clattering to the grass, ears drooping, one particularly smitten fox-kin’s knees giving way completely as she flops flat onto the ground.
"NOBODY," Vuvi bellows to the sky, "RESPECTS THE PLAN!"
Everyone, without exception, ignores her completely.
Even Frostlick, already back beside the bunny-kin leader getting chin scratches, despite Raikya’s protests, thumps her tail against the ground, as if to say she’s not particularly bothered by the plan either.
Vuvi throws both hands up and stomps off toward the tree line ahead of everyone else, muttering something about scheduals, flasks, and the sheer indignity of working with unprofessionals who have never once, not a single time, respected her six-point plan.
"Five-point plan." Veena calls out after her.
Vuvi only bites back another scream in response.
The beast-kin leads the team into the forest, Penelo and the bunny-kin walking point together, trading quiet words in Green Tongue as they move through the thick, green undergrowth.
"Her name’s Sha’Rona," Penelo translates to the rest of the team in real-time as the bunny-kin speaks. "She’s from the feral tribelands to the south. She was forced out... small beast-kin like us get treated terribly there." She sniffles. "We’re so alike. I had to leave the feral lands too, you know."
Sha’Rona pokes a paw into Penelo’s chest and says something short and pointed causing Penelo’s ears to droop.
Sera steps between them, arms crossed. "Is she bullying you or something?"
"N-No," Penelo mumbles under her breath. "She says she’s nothing like me. She’s a warrior." Penelo’s face folds into a pout. "And... she says... I look like I couldn’t fight my way out of a bathtub."
Sera, Veena, and Vuvi all choke back laughter at once while Rikya buries her face in Frostlick mane to hide her giggling.
Penelo’s pout deepens even further
"Sorry," Sera says, raising both hands. "That’s... I mean, you have to admit, bunny, she’s not wrong."
Penelo gasps, clutching her mouth with offence, but Pip and Lula both fold her into a hug, assuring her she’s perfect exactly as she is.
"You’ve got other talents," Lula says loyally.
"Name one," Vuvi says.
"She’s very good at oil drubs. The best!"
"That’s... entirely true. Good point."
Penelo blows a raspberry at her teammates over Lula’s shoulder before returning to translating duty, ears still pink with lingering embarrassment.
Sha’Rona explains she wandered north, taught herself to fight, survive, hunting food and felons alike, until she ended up here eventually and found this cluster of beast-kin barely surviving while their home was torn apart around them. She’s stayed ever since, teaching them to survive, to commune with the forest, to fight back against the people destroying it. She couldn’t leave them to suffer the way she once had.
"What, exactly, is happening to the forest?" Veena asks.
"She won’t say," Penelo conveys. "She wants to show us instead."
Hours of walking later, they reach the western tree line and look out over what used to be forest. Only, there now stood hundreds upon hundreds of raw, splintered stumps stretching for miles.
"Oh no! It’s horrible." Penelo whispers.
Veena spots smoke rising in the distance and points it out to the rest of the team. Vuvi pulls out a spyglass, squints, and confirms.
"Some kind of steam-powered logging rig," she mutters, "It’s cutting and hauling timber away by the wagonload. Impressive, really. Wonder what they’re using to transmit that much power to the trans-ax... oh... right, Sorry." Vuvi breathes when she realizes Sha’Rona had leveled a death glare at her.
Veena shakes her head and turns to Penelo. "Ask her what exactly she wants from us. We’re a pleasure service, not a lumber dispute mediation team."
"We’re also not a mercenary company, a monster-hunting guild, or a demi-goddess summoning crew," Zora adds, "and yet somehow we’ve been all three this month alone."
"That’s different."
"Is it, though?"
"Yes." Vuvi cuts in, "Because this time I’M saying no. FIRMLY. With my WHOLE chest."
"You said that last time too," Sera points out.
Penelo, instead, just turns her biggest, saddest eyes on Vuvi and begs the team to help stop it.
Vuvi opens her mouth to decline, and Sha’Rona cuts in first, in Common tongue. "Would you rather," she says slowly, deliberately, "see innocents suffer?"
Silence.
"Oh... that was good," Veena admits. "The timing, the drama. Genuinely hard to argue with."
"That’s emotional blackmail," Vuvi says flatly.
"True," Sera agrees cheerfully. "Very good blackmail, though."
Vuvi throws her hands in the air. "Fine. FINE! Sha’Rona, please, lead the way to our next incredibly important and time consuming side-quest."
Sha’Rona actually chuckles at that. "You are a strange group," she says, "But amusing. We are grateful."
"See, she gets it," Sera says, throwing an arm around Vuvi’s shoulders. "Weird, funny, and ultimately soft-hearted pushovers. That’s basically our whole brand at this point."
"I am not a pushover."
"You just agreed to fight a logging operation to stop our favorite bunny from crying."
"That’s leadership." Vuvi retorts.
"Sure." Sera chuckles, patting her shoulder, "Let’s call it that."
As night fell over the forest, the beast-kin guides them through the darkening woods by lamplight, poles held high, until they reach what looks like a solid wall of trees and hanging vines, a sheer, shimmering veil of magic hanging over the entire growth.
Sha’Rona presses her palm to the ground and whispers something in smooth, flowing Green Tongue.
And the forest folds opens like a curtain before them all.
Their team share a series of gasps, clutched chests and wide, bright eyes as they soak in the view before them.
A hidden village unfurls itself, grown from the forest itself. Homes built into tree trunks, dens dug through the earth, cottages tucked among high branches, all of it glowing softly with bioluminescence shed from fungus, flowers and ferns.
A breathtaking melding of nature and questionable civil engineering.
Everyone gapes as they walk through it. Even Vuvi’s eyes sparkle.
Zora drifts by, scribbling furiously. "You know, we very nearly missed all of this. Because of you." he says, pointing a quill at Vuvi.
"Yes, I admit it. I was wrong." Vuvi turns in a slow circle, soaking it in. "This detour might actually be worth it. This place is looks... magical."