Satrox watched them go. Lynn, despite her smile, had a flicker of uneasiness, and Colin… well, he just looked blur.
Zoe looked stunned also. Sandy, having arrived with some of her squad, looked horrified. She turned to Satrox once the pair of them and all their Comrades were out of earshot. "That shouldn't have happened!"
"I know."
"He should have died!"
"I know."
"He got nailed and didn't die to respawn at his Home Base?! Stuck to suffer in pain? That doesn't {happen} in Nakama World!" Sandy barked. "Satrox! Are you listening?!"
"Yes, I am." Satrox said grimly. "Something strange is going on here. Something very strange."
***
"Home." Lynn said dreamily.
"Home." Colin agreed, with a sense of great satisfaction.
They had entered the Forest of Legends, flying low under the trees on the back of Lynn's Shadow Hawk. The trees, the wind… the very sense of the forest itself seemed to bid them welcome.
{I've been wanting to come here. I didn't dare to, being so weak. Any of the Wilds here can kill me and all my Comrades easily. I shouldn't have entered the first time. But… even so…}
{I wanted to be here.}
Lynn had brought her army back with her. She had more, Colin felt sure. More than just those three flights of Shadow Hawks around them now. More than just that pack of Sonic Wolves romping over the forest floor below, with Reginald in their midst.
"Do you see that Aspenar?" Lynn pointed at a wandering tree. "It seems upset."
"We should check on it." Colin agreed, knowing what she wanted as if by instinct.
Lynn brought her Hawk down for a landing and greeted the Wild. The walking tree turned towards them and made a stiff bow, wood creaking as it did so.
"What is wrong, Aspenar?" Lynn questioned.
The Aspenar creaked for a bit.
Colin blinked. "That's sort of rude of the bird, isn't it?"
The Aspenar creaked in agreement, encouraged to complain further.
"Relax, Aspenar, I don't think it'll be coming back."
The Aspenar shifted uneasily.
Colin turned to Lynn. "Any ideas?"
"He's just being fussy." Lynn laughed. "Leave him alone. He'll be all right in an hour or so. Be well, Aspenar."
The Aspenar creaked in thanks for their attention. With that, they took off and headed deeper into the Forest.
They passed by Forest Village, waving to Professor Jijin and Florence as they flew by the Comrade Home with all those Comrades at their backs. Jijin and Florence waved back.
{It's official.} Colin thought. {I've never been this deep into the Forest of Legends before. Jijin's place was as far as I got.}
But they were going in where no roads led. They were crossing streams and flying by nests and gliding on a wind that did not stir the forest's leaves. All the Wilds of the Forest of Legends, whether plant-type, animal, rock, or even those wisps, glowing blue lights as they were… all of them were their friends.
{It doesn't mean they'd let me Tame them though. They have a strong sense of dignity, every last one.}
Lynn brought him to see them all. They went to the deep dens in the High Hills and greeted Fenrix, Lord of the Sonic Wolves, and all his clan. They landed for a visit on the branches of Aeon, the greatest of the Gigasequioa, huge trees of about two hundred feet that walked majestically and changed the very landscape of the forest they dwelt in. They stood beside the three Elder Wisps, and discussed the changes that came when Hot Sands was flooded.
She brought him to the northern mountains, where the Moss Golems ruled. Half rock, half fungi, they were pleased to see her and gave her a bracelet of unforged Coco Iron, shaped raw without ever having been (or needing to be) smelted. She showed him the deep, still pool where Silverfin, the great Salamon, watched over the young of his kind.
Silverfin nodded gravely to her, and twitched in worry.
{The water.} Colin realized. {Now that the dam at Hot Sands has broken and flooded the place, the water that comes here goes through Hot Springs Village first. That stream feeds the pool right here. It's changing the quality of the water. Debris from the flooded village is coming in… and more weird stuff will follow, now that Hot Springs Village is built. People BATHE in that water.}
"You see the kind of problems I have to deal with?" Lynn sighed. "Back before the dam broke, the water that came here didn't pass through the village. But now, we have to worry about soap water. I asked the Moss Golems to build a filter, but the water that comes here still isn't pure. Maybe we should rebuild that dam."
"But Hot Springs Village is going to collapse! It's a floating village, now. It's a major attraction for people wanting to bathe in the warm water." Colin groaned. "If we rebuilt the dam earlier, that wouldn't be a problem, but at this point…"
Lynn nodded. "Exactly. I've hired prospectors to investigate the mountains north of here, trying to find another source of water, and I've spoken to Mayor Henry about diverting some of the pure water down this way before it reaches the village, but we're still trying to figure out how that might work. This pool is shrinking already, having less water than it used to have. If we take only a part of the water, it's going to shrink even more. If we take most of it, Hot Springs Village might literally fall apart."
Colin gulped. "Being Forest Princess sounds really tough."
"It is." Lynn agreed.
Colin sighed. "I wish there was some way I could help."
Lynn gave him a close, intent look. She studied him as if he were the hints for her next pop quiz.
"There is, isn't there?" Colin realized. "You brought me here for a reason."
"More than one reason, but let's not get into that." Lynn said. "Colin, first of all, I'd like to give you a test."
"Um… what sort of test?"
"A quest." Lynn said. "To find me three things. Very specifically, three Keys. You'll need to roam the Forest of Legends, but everyone knows you here – you can think of them all as friends. You can even ask them to join you, if you like, but as you know, they have their own standards, and they'll probably have their own prices. Oh, and one more thing. I also demand a sacrifice."
"A sacrifice?!" Colin stared. "You mean I have to kill and burn something on an altar?"
"No, no. You just have to give something away." Lynn told him. "Something very specific."
Colin gulped. "What's that?"
Lynn pointed. "The Desert Wolf."
Colin stared. "Junrei?"
"He belongs to the Desert. He has no place in the Forest."
"But… but… I need him to find someone!" Colin protested. "Someone probably in the Desert."
"Who is that?" Lynn asked, eyes narrowing.
"M-3, Felice. She was last reported running off with Desert Cats around Hot Sands area." Colin said.
"Then you'll need more than one Desert Wolf to find her, Colin." Lynn said slowly. "You'll need a team of specialist Dreamers and their Comrades. More to the point, I think you'll need to search the mountains, not the deserts."
Colin fell silent. "That's going to be even harder."
"It will." Lynn nodded. "But you {have} to find Michi's Experimentals soon, no matter how hard it gets. Here's my offer; give your Desert Wolf away to someone, and I'll replace him with a Shadow Hawk."
"A Shadow Hawk?!" Colin stared. "You can do that?"
Lynn turned to her personal Shadow Hawk.
That huge Shadow Hawk regarded her silently for a moment, then slowly nodded.
"Nightwind is the Lord of the Shadow Hawks." Lynn said. "If he says it's okay, it will be okay."
"Are you sure it will even let me Tame it?!" Colin gaped.
"Normally, no. But you will be paying a price of {my} asking. Based on that, Nightwind is willing to send you one of his clan. It will be the same whenever you ask for Comrades from among the Wilds of this Forest. You'll have to speak to their leader, and pay the price asked. No fighting and taming the normal way for you. Not in {this} Forest."
"It's a rather weird price, though." Colin said. "Give up one Comrade for another. I can't give up any of the other four. They were given to me. I can't trade them away for anything."
"The price would differ, Colin. {I'm} asking you to make the sacrifice, but the Lords of the Wilds might ask for something else. Silverfin might ask you to do something about the water, or Fenrix could ask for a rare meat found far away. Who knows? You'll just have to ask them and see."
Colin fell silent. He looked at Shiro.
Shiro was looking at Lynn with wide, shiny eyes. "Yiyip!" he wagged his tail.
"All right." Colin understood how Shiro felt. Giving away Comrades wasn't something they liked to do in principle, but they would pay Lynn's price.
{And we'll get a Shadow Hawk in return…}
"Remember, Colin. I'm asking for a long-term sacrifice." Lynn said. "Do not bond any Comrades who will not belong in the Forest."
"What?!" Colin jumped. "But what about Shiro, and Raiki and Kirin and Sonia?"
"Sonia's a Sonic Wolf, Colin. She belongs here more than anything." Lynn said, amused. "Storm Swans and their kin lay their eggs in the largest branches. Many of them are hatched among these trees. For Kirin, it's like the birthplace of Storm Swans. Raiki seems happy enough here. She is a wildcat, after all. Shiro loves this Forest."
Colin glanced at Shiro and Raiki. Lynn was right.
"But Junrei…" Lynn trailed off.
Junrei was twitching very uncomfortably, always looking off to one side.
"A Comrade bought with money is not the same as a Wild you met and fought for." Lynn said slowly. "And the Wild you fought for is not the same as the Comrade that is entrusted to you by the Lord of its clan."
Colin shivered. That last category was exactly what Lynn wanted for him, and it sounded like it meant a whole lot more. It felt… special.
"But why do you want a Desert Wolf?" Colin asked.
"I don't." Lynn said. "You can give him to Katrin."
Lynn would know about Katrin of course. He hadn't been selective about what memories he shared with her.
"That reminds me…" Colin frowned. "Meek. I have to go back to Crabby Island to transfer her and Junrei over to Kat."
Lynn paused. "Come with me to my Home Base, and set it as yours too. I have yet to bring you to the Foxbears, or the White Tigers. You haven't met the Great Bees, or seen the Deep Hollow. There's a lot more you have to visit and see in the Forest of Legends."
"If I'm setting my Home Base here and doing quests around the Forest, then I'll have plenty of time to see them later, right? I'm sort of… worried." Colin paused.
"About Katrin?" Lynn smiled.
Colin reddened.
"Come." Lynn said, and they swooped through the forest on Nightwind, all the way to a cluster of tall trees with broad, solid branches.
Nightwind swooped up through a gap in the thick branches and suddenly, Colin found himself in a village without roads, with warm sunlight filtered through a veil of leaves above.
"This is my Home Base." Lynn said. "The Heart of the Forest. The Palace in all the rumors doesn't exist; my court is an open glade, my throne is a Shadow Hawk's saddle, and my castle is a clump of branches holding up the houses of my Dreamer friends. As for me, I don't even have a house, or need one. The Heart of the Forest itself is my house; a house without rooms."
"Uh…" Colin saw a few houses in that cluster of branches, small huts that seemed to be built into the trees themselves. Were those trees hollow? He'd bet anything that the houses actually extended into the trees, like bee-hives. "Where exactly do I set my starting location?"
"Right here." Lynn said. "Set this entire Heart as your Home Base."
"But this is your Home Base." Colin pointed out.
"Exactly. It will be ours from now on." Lynn agreed. "Hurry up. Katrin's waiting."
Colin set it, and Lynn approved his registration. "Um…"
"Let's go." Lynn said, and Nightwind lunged into the sky through the leaves above, and headed for Crabby Island.