"Mila!" he called, his voice booming beyond what most humans could muster thanks to his reinforced lungs, diaphragm and voice box. "We're going! Where are you?!"

  No response came, and so, Kurt kept going. He soon found a very large rock on his path. Instead of going around it, he 'simply' jumped on top of its seven feet tall frame and, using it a stepping stool, jumped forward, determined to keep his stride.

  Until he took notice of the faint green glow that was coming from below, and a high pitched scream of surprise pierced through his eardrums.

  He instinctively tried to turn towards the source of these unexpected stimuli which, him still being airbound, just cause him to awkwardly half-spin midair, and to land shoulder first on the twig covered ground. Of course, him still flaring his Od and all, he came out of it unharmed, and quickly sprung on his feet, facing the rock.

  And the white-haired girl crouched besides it.

  "Kurt?! Are you okay?!" Mila called. She had some object clutched between both fists, the familiar light green glow of Primeval magic shinning from between her fingers.

  "Yeah!" he said quickly, a mild embarrasment causing it to come slightly high pitched. "I was just looking for you, that's all. We are gonna keep going and..."

  His attention was drawn towards the object between Mila's hands.

  "What is that?" he asked, pointing at the girl.

  "Uhm?! What is, ah... what, now?!" she asked in the most exagerated, least convincing manner that Kurt had ever heard in his life. She the turned quickly, partially covering her front, and began blowing on her clutched hands as if they were on fire, and the glow coming from them started to die down.

  "Mila." Kurt called firmly, if still affectionately. "Are you seriously gonna try to lie to me, of all people? I mean..." He began chuckling softly. "We have been best friends for like half our lives now. We neither can or have to lie to each other. So I'll ask you again, and you can just refuse to tell me if you want, but please don't lie: What is that youre clutching?"

  Mila's turned her head back and forth between him and the object in question a couple time before sighing in defeat and, throwing her head down, extended both arms towards him, palms facing the sky, to show him the thing she had been holding.

  Or, rather than thing, the creature she had been holding.

  It took Kurt a couple of seconds to grasp what he was seeing. The creature had the rough outline of a squir)rel of all things. Size, shape, even the fluffy tail were all there. But none of it was made of fleash nor fur. The 'fluffy' tail that was as large as the rest of the things body seemed to be made from dark freen moss, while the rest of its frame was formed from different types of bark, and its face in paricular looked like it had been fashioned out of a pinecone.

  Kurt would have thought it was some kind of sculpture or work of artisany if it wasn't for two things: First, the thing was moving, twitching and scratching its 'face' with 'paws' of white wood, its tail fluttering behind it.

  And the second reason was hoovering right above its head.

  Dryad Squirrel

  LV: 4

  "Holy Molly." Kurt whispered in astonishment, approaching the construct. "You made this? It's just like..."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "The thing Ruth made to that tree, yeah." Mila said quickly. "I was trying to replicate it, and this is the best I got. It was rather difficult."

  "It was?" asked Kurt, turning towards Mila, who simply nodded in response.

  "I had to create a 'core' of sorts by jamming as many spirits as I could in its frame, to give it an independent power source." She began explaining. "But I had to make sure that the plants I used for it were not rooted."

  "Not rooted?" Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

  "Because then they would simply grow." Answered Mila. "That's actually how I make plants grow normally. I start stuffing a tree or patch of grass or whatever with more spirits than it would naturally hold, and that causes the spirits within to accelerate its growth, so that they all have their own 'space' instead of being smushed against one another."

  "Because too much pressure causes them pain." Kurt said, remembering how Mila had purged the Hulking Dryad just last night, before everything had gone to hell. This realization, however, came with a new question. "And the spirits in this one aren't suffering?"

  Mila shook her head slowly, lips pressed in a straight line, her eyes averting his in... shame? "I barely put any pressure. This little guy is , like, the bare minimun of 'smushment' required to make a construct. I... could not bring myself to do more."

  "And the shape?" he asked next. "Is there any reason you chose a squirrel or...?"

  "I did not choose. I took the materials to construct its body from a tree, so I think that the spirits within it simply remembered having squirrels in contact with them and they just... defaulted to it." She shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. "They wanted to take this shape, and I couldn't bring myself to deny them that, either."

  "I see," he said, looking at Mila with some worry. "But, why were you hiding to do this? I mean, this is...."

  "Pathetic." Mila interrupted. "It's pathetic, and I knew it was going to be pathetic. That's why I didn't want you guys to see."

  "What?" Kurt exclaimed. "What are you talking about? This is amazing! Why would you..."

  He didn't get to finish that sentence, and once again it was because of Mila. She hadn't cut in or interrupted him, but she hadn't had to. The sight before him was more than enough to shock him into silence.

  Mila was crying. Her teeth were gritted, and everything below her eyes, from her nose to her cheeks, was blushed a dark shade of red. But the eyes were the part that really froze the blood in his veins. Still averting him, those pale blue orbs were now red with bloodshot, reminding Kurt of how, not even a day before, tears of blood had been pouring from them. And speaking of tears, two fat rivulet's were now being shed from her eyes, snaking their way down her face before finally reaching her jaw line.

  "Mila," he called, his voice little more than a whisper. "Mila, what's wrong?"

  She didn't answer, instead turning away from him and trying to scurry back.

  He didn't let her.

  "Mila!" he called once again, mush more decisively, grabbing one of her thin wrists and pulling her in, his other hand going to cup her cheek. "Mila, please, just tell me!"

  The girl took a few moments to get her bearings, sucking in deep breaths. It took her nearly half a minute to answer. "I...I just..." She had to stop herself again, her eyes sealing shut. "I just don't want to be a burden anymore!"

  "A...burden?" repeated Kurt, utterly bewildered. "What are you even talking about now? How... how in God's name are you a burden?"

  "Because I haven't done shit for this quest!" she screamed, some rage momentarily shinning through her sorrow, with enouh force to startle both him and the construct she was holding to her chest like a plushie. "You are the one that's done all the fighting. Against that godmaned demon, against Ruth. You're the one that's carrying this whole quest, and you've done nothing but suffer for it. And Conrad... he almost died to save me. He was fast enough to react to that attack. He could have dodged out of the way, but he jumped on its way. He used himself as a shield to protect me. I just don't..." She chocked up again. "I just don't want you to keep protecting me and risking your lifes!"

  "Mila, that..." he stopped himself, taking a few moments to really think about what he wanted to say. There was no space for screwing up here. Not when it came to Mila. "That is just not true. You are the one that figured out how to heal Conrad, remember? And I only got to fight gainst Ruth as an equal because you were restraining her magic! You almost died because of it! And this entire quest is just possible because of you, because of your ability to talk with the spirits of nature! You are as far from being a burden as it gets!"

  The girl finally meet his gaze, and her eyes carried such a lack of reasurance or joy that he almost wished she hadn't. "Conrad only needed that cure because of me. Plus, you were the one with that woman's notebook, so you could have probably figured it out on your own. I barely gave you guys any instructions to begin with, I just told you to go southwest, and you had to fight solo against a demon to get that much."

  Kurt was taken aback by the girl's words. Not because of what she was saying, per se, because he did not agree with any of it, but because of the sheer, cold conviction she had when speaking about her supposed uselesness, like she was merely stating an uncomfortable, yet undeniavle, truth.

  "And... and what about Ruth, then?" he said, desperately clinging to the one point she hadn't refuted yet. "You were as important in that fight as I was. You almost died too and, if you failed there, then so did i! She had me at her mercy, remember?! I was two inches away from death!"

  "You did not fail," she said without missing a beat. "You didn't beat her, true, but we only convinced her of giving us the amber because of you, because you remained coherent and self-sacrificing even at death's doors, and that impressed her enough to let us go. All I did was restrain her powers a bit, suffer the blowback, and then flap and colvuse around like some fish. Plus, even if you failed to beat her, then at least you have the knowledge that you gave your absolute best. I didn't."

  "You didn't give your best?" repeated Kurt, his tone growing sharper with his increasing outrage at the girl's blatantly false statements. "You almost died! You damn nearly let yourself get captured and whisked away to Gods-knows-where just to save mine and Conrad's lifes! How in the fuck is that 'not your best'?!"

  "Because I'm fucking weak!"