From the bottom of my heart, thank you to my p4tr0ns: Morpheaus, and RTB <3 <3 <3
Become a p4tr0n too and read up to FOUR chapters ahead!:
h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / t r a s h w i t h g l a s s e s
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My earliest memories were from seeing my mother's body lying in front of me, lifeless.
"She has left you an inheritance, but you're still too young, you wouldn't know how to use it properly. So, we will take care of you until you're old enough to manage your own stuff. Come back to the farm once you're done with the corpse", they said, leaving me alone with the cadaver.
Her corpse was so, so heavy in my trembling infant hands. Still, I dragged her to the nearest tree through my tear-blurred vision, and pushed her inside of the trunk, using our inhered ability to travel freely through wood. Once her corpse was one with the tree, I immediately went back to the farm, and started to work before my tears had even stopped running down my cheeks.
The first few years were the hardest, when I was but a child, and too small to carry the baskets and bottles filled with tree sap and gum. When I was too small to bear the beatings of falling short of my quotas.
Still, I never hated the farm owners, or the ones who beat me. Actually, I admired them. I envied them. I wanted to be in their position. I… wanted to be strong. And I honestly believed that if I just tried hard enough, if I just worked for long enough, I would get there.
…But my mother died because of exhaustion.
*
"Once I got my hands on my inheritance, I gladly made my own way to the bear mountain, by myself. I navigated the landscape by myself. I avoided danger by myself. I tried my damn best. But here I am", I said, as the three of us got back to the teleportation point. There was something like a string shining in and out of existence there. "Nothing but a dead weight."
"You're not a dead weight, Spruce!"
"Y- You're our friend!"
I sighed. I knew they'd say something like that, but the truth was that such politeness wouldn't help anyone. So, I turned back to Ike and Coyote, who now had a whole lock of hair tainted white.
"I am weak. And by myself, I will always be weak. And even if I managed to get strong… I don't want to become to sort of person who kills a child's mother and forces them to bury the corpse anymore", feeling my cheeks and ears getting hot, and becoming unable to maintain eye contact with those two, I concluded: "P- Please… Help me to become strong too!", I showed them the mark in my hand: Seed in a Sand Desert.
"…Well", Coyote exchanged a glance with Ike. "We can't simply make you strong. But maybe rearranging your classes would be a good start."
*
After all we went through in the Rock with Wings, during a camping night Ike opened up about his past, and that seemed to have motivated Spruce to do the same by the time we reached the portal back to the Bear Mountain. And his personality wasn't the only thing that changed, but his appearance too, as he stored away all of the gaudy clothes and accessories he used, and without the many disturbing piercings in his head, hair had started to grow back in his scalp.
Together, and closer than ever, we gripped onto the shining line that appeared and disappeared in the air, and the world become a blur as we were brought to the outskirts of the forest around the bear mountain in an instant. And, coincidently, right before one of my classmates: "Oh, Coyote…" Hyber of the Deathbed Clan said, his shoulders slanted, looking just as sleepy as always. "You haven't showed up for classes these last few days. That's not very usual for you…?"
"Well, I've been traveling a bit. I had to deal with some personal stuff."
"Where have you been to…?"
"We've been to the Rock With Wings."
"There…?", Cloudy's eyes went wide for a moment only.
"Yes, and we definitely don't plan on going back there", Ike sighed. "R-Right? Right?!", he turned to me, nervous.
"Yeah, of course, haha."
"…Hey, actually I have to deal with something like a pilgrimage like you did… Would you mind helping me out with that next time you have some free time?"