As Kurt crossed the threshold of the barrier and into the clearing, the wyldfae slowly standing up and Mila rushing towards him, it ocurred to him that he didn't really have a plan beyond 'Beat the tree bitch up'.

  He knew that she would be the strongest foe he would have faced yet, considerably stronger than even Melalo had been, and that they would be fighting her in her own turf. Facing a plant manipulator in the middle of a forest. The idea sounded so colosally dumb that Kurt almost wanted to punch himself for going through with it.

  Of course, leaving Mila on that thing's hands wasn't an option, so he went through with the colosally dumb plan.

  "Ruth Watlin!" He screamed at the once human creature, as Mila reached his side. He saw the wyldfae tense at the mention of her name. Good, he thought, anything that keeps her from thinking straight. "Your transgresions against us are over! We are here to retrieve something, and you won't stop us! Otherwise-" He raised his hand overhead, conjured foci held tightly, and cast a fireball the size of a pumpkin. Its heat fell over Kurt and Mila like july's sun. "-I will set this entire forest on fire! With you in it!"

  It was a bluff, obviously. Kurt considered himself a pragmatic fighter, not in a prideful or boastful way, but a factual one, seeing it as the natural way to approach life-or-death combat against the kind of inhuman monsters he usually fought. It had been an outlook born of necessity, more than anything. A remnant of that hazy period of his life when he had been an active and voluntary participant in the missions issued by the order without the crutch of some latent magical talent to push him forward.

  Despite this, he had never taken to things like setting traps, or even attacking from a distance with a gun, a bow, or even a spear. No, he had taken the sword, the weapon all heroes wielded in the stories, the weapon that was so much harder to make good use of than the spear, trained with it on his lonesome until he could kill a wight on his own, and stayed on the front line of any battle the order could send him to.

  It had been about pride, he knew. Him fighting up close, with a sword, and with just the right amount of pragmatism to be considered smart and not sneaky. It had all been to prove to everyone around him, and to prove himself, that he was strong. He was only just seeing how bad a reason that was to risk his neck, and the implications of putting his everything into becoming a better warrior. The best warrior would be, after all and when stripped down of any ostentation and glory, just the best at killing.

  Killing magic beasts. Killing demons.

  Killing humans.

  But he had limits, both to his pragmatism and desire for victory. Killing another human had been one of those limits. In many ways, it still was. Burning down an entire forest, with all of its plants and animals, just to hurt the creature that stood before him? Even if that creature had threatened his most precious person? Kurt was pleasantly surprised to find that moral barrier standing tall and proud.

  Bluffing about it to scare that creature into submision though? That one he found easier to break through.

  But something told him this tactic wouldn't work. That something being the lack of fear, obvious even through her factionless face, that the wyldfae was displying.

  "You…" Snarled the creature, the word sizzling with rage. "How do you know that name, you bastard!?"

  She was almost feral with rage. Kurt, it seemed, had underestimated just how much of a sore spot her human identity was, even taking into account that he was talking to a wyldfae.

  "That's not important." He declared, punctuating the no with a flare of power from the fireball. "What's important is this thing over my head, and what can you do to keep it from turning this place into a field of ashes."

  He felt a slight pang of guilt at his own word, even if he didn't mean to go through with them. He looked aside, at Mila, who hadn't said a word yet. She looked him in the eye and nodded, in a gesture that must have seemed like she was telling him to go through with it to their foe.

  Kurt, though, knew better. He wasn't going to set anything on fire, he knew that much. And if Mila, who would never advocate for burning a forest down no matter what, was nodding at his hollow threats, well, he simply took it as proof of how well she knew him.

  The wyldfae eyed the crimson sphere, before looking at the caster beneath it. "What do you want?" she said simply. Her tone was neutral. Not the kind that denoted boredom or disinterest, no. It was a tone that all but screamed ' I have to supress all of my emotional thoughts, because all of them are about gutting you.'

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "We have a companion." Began speaking Kurt. "The three of us were on an important quest to protect a Power, a blessing from nature that's at risk of being defiled by a coven of warlocks, evil humans that use magic for their selfish gains. They… Their group passed this region a few days ago, didn't they?"

  "Yeah." She answered. "They were carrying some kind of… coffin or something that was just brimming with the power of nature. Every spirit in the forest went wild when they felt it, like it was some kind of catnip or something, so I went investigating. When those… warlocks saw me, they attacked me, so I attacked them. All escaped." She made a 'Tsk' sound that could have been called a click of the tongue, had she had one. "They were weak as hell, but they sure were tricky."

  "They sure are." Agreed Kurt. "One of the warlocks that escaped, a woman whose leg you took, and that was abandoned by her coven because of it, set herself in the town nearby, and was using a familiar, uhm, a magical creature bound to her by magic, to prey on the townsfolk." Kurt looked aside, and felt his mood sour even more at the memory of that kind woman in the grocery shop, and her horrible death. It just ocurred to him that he hadn't bothered to ask her her name before she died. Or just look above her head to read it. His mood soured even further. "We… found that thing at work, and decided to follow it to its master's lair. Long story short, we managed to take her out, but our friend Conrad, Conrad Walker, suffered great wounds-"

  "Protecting me!" Jumped Mila, stepping forward. "That woman threw s spell at me, and Conrad shielded me with his body. Hadn't it been for him, I… wouldn't be here right now. I probably wouldn't even be in an ICU like he is." Mila looked at the wyldfae's face, and brought both her hands together in a pleading gesture. "That warlock thought… She thought that you had some form of magic capable of healing people. We need that magic to save our friend."

  "Are you done?" Asked the woman derisively. Not a single speck of empathy could be heard in her words. "Because I think I know what you're looking for."

  She raised her right arm, and her outstretched pinky began glowing with a soft gold hue, until the tip of the apendage looked like it was made of gold. "As the years passed by, after I turned into a wyldfae, I felt that some of the sap that now acted like my blood was beginning to… curdle. At first I thought it might be some kind of disease, of course, having my 'blood' curdling while still within my body. But my connection with nature told me otherwise. My magical senses told me that the sap that had gone through that process was charged with natural energy of a purity unlike anything else in the forest."

  Kurt turned to look at Mila, whose eyes were fixed on the wyldfae's finger. She caught his look, and simply nodded at him, as if to say 'That's what we came for'.

  "Good then." said Kurt, turning to look at the wyldfae. "We just need some of it for our friend, not even the whole of it, and then we can all go our merry way. Simple as that."

  The woman began chuckling, and the amber-like tip of her finger pulled back into her body. Kurt saw the golden light emanated by it travel up her arm and into her torso, where he lost track of it.

  "Simple?" Asked the woman in a mocking tone. Her tone was mirtless and full of malice. "Let's make one thing clear, brat. The only 'simple' way this is getting resolved is if that girl besides you stays in this forest and you don't. You want my amber to heal that friend of yours? Deal, you can have it. But the girl stays. Otherwise-"

  "Fuck off!" Kurt yelled at her, the words escaping his mouth almost through instinct. "You are in no position to demand anything, you goddamned tree-bitch!" Above his head, the mass of crimson heat he had conjured began pulsating, resonating with his anger. "Here's the deal we are making: You give us that amber, and I don't burn this place to the ground!"

  The wyldfae turned to look at Mila.

  "Seriously? This is the one for you?" she said, her tone dismissive, almost bored. "You know, I'm surprised you seem to be so chill about the whole 'burning a forest down' thing. I mean, you too can hear them, right? The spirits that inhabit each and every plant around us? So innocent and carefree, sounding almost like children, and you are okay with setting them on fire? Something doesn't quite add up."

  She turned to look at Kurt before Mila could say anything.

  "You are bluffing." She stated simply. "She knows you're full of shit, and that's why she isn't saying anything."

  Kurt tried his best to keep his mounting shock from showing on his face. By the way the wyldfae began snickering, he guessed he wasn't doing a good job at it.

  "See? You can't go through with it! On the other hand…" She raised her hand, and the forest began trembling. A green glow of pure life force began emanating from every single tree, bush and blade of grass in and around the clearance, covering the world around them in an emerald hue. "… I have quite a few options to deal with you. You are more or less on the palm of my hand right now."

  As if to illustrate her point, she half clenched her hand in a fist, and once again the forest moved with her. The trees thrashed and twisted, their branches untangling before beginning to tharsh around like whips, and the grass beneath their feet elongated and twined around their ankles, keeping them in place.

  Kurt felt his breath grow unsteady at the display of power, and knew that her words were true. Her connection with every spirit in this forest, and with the vegetal matter that they inhabited, was so deep that the forest itself could be called an extension of her body, or at least the area around her could.

  He couldn't win. The simple reality was that none of the tools in his arsenal, from his use of Od to his swordmanship, and even the sorcery he had recently acquired, none could compete against the veritable genius loci that stood before him. None but one.

  His attention went to the fireball above his head, and suddenly the idea of using it didn't sound so far fetched. The wyldfae's words had never dismissed the damage the spell could do to her forest, just his willingness to actually use it.

  It could work. It could give them the chance to beat her, the only chance they had. Even if it involved starting a wildfire that he had no means of stopping, or even predicting its potential scope. The town was all but surrounded by the forest, how would it be affected if the fires reached it?

  Was he really going to cross another line tonight?

  The grass around his ankles tightened its grip on him, and so did the grass around Mila's, if her suddenly pained expression was an indicator. His mind went to Conrad, to the horrible wounds he had received while protecting Mila, and to the quest that had been placed upon their shoulders, and he then received the answer to his question.

  The fireball above his head flared at the same time he made his choice.

  He pointed his wand forward, at the feet of the wyldfae. He saw her recoil in fear, and knew at that moment that her previous cocksureness at his threats was banking entirely on the idea of him not going through with his threats, and that she had no way of countering it.

  Even with the horror of what he was about to do, Kurt couldn't help but feel a certain satisfaction at her fear. She wasn't so invincible now, was she? Being a plant manipulator in the middle of a forest wasn't that sweet a deal now, right?

  These and more malicious thoughts crossed his mind as he prepared himself to lug the fiery spell at his enemy. That, and one last thought, more akin to a prayer than to a curse.

  Please, let the fire be a small one.