"My name is Astrid Vaughan Solstice— a descendant of the Solstice clan lead by the current Grand-oracle. I am a Believer... but I have never been to an anointment. The elders see no need for me to partake in such events, as they believe it would cause me unnecessary fatigue. I have conquered so many omens, and have become honoured by nearly a hundred Havens. So what did they mean that this would cause me unnecessary fatigue. What challenges exist in this anointment that are beyond me? Me?" She ended with disbelief escaping her robotic tone.
"Well, you are not exactly in the state to challenge anything at the moment." Equinox joked.
"That is because... mhh. I am starting to make sense of their words. But still, this is but a minor set back. I will conquer this realm as I have many others, and bring a souvenir to the Lady. Surely I can find one grotesque head to drag back home with me in this blood coloured forest."
Equinox was staring intensely at the trees with glowing red leaves with suspicion when Astrid's words woke him from his stupor. He adjusted his back so she could rest properly, before continuing to walk through the forest.
"No killing anything, miss. And if we do find a dead creature, we will only take its head once they have given permission."
"But if this creature wants to kill us?" She asked.
"Then we exorcise it." He replied, much to Astrid's confusion.
"Every creature and creation is pure. So when the children come back home from playing in the mud, one must peel the filth away so they become clean."
Astrid kept quiet for a while, the rustling leaves and cool wind accompanying them amidst the silence. But to Equinox, the leaves were rustling too harshly, and the trees were crying in agony as they fell.
The woman finally finished pondering the man's words before asking to make sure, "... So you kill them?"
The thumping sounds grew heavier and nearer as a creature approached what seemed to be a battered and unfortunate duo.
A gargantuan creature with the head of a man who's face had been twisted and morphed from anger, and upper limbs too big for its legs that it used its arms to run, stepped into their sights.
The blue creature roared loudly through its oversized teeth, swinging its wide palm at its victims. This was the moment its prey would get knocked senselessly into one of the trees, half dead. However it soon found that it could not move.
The fearsome creature was now nothing but a statue— one vertical half of its body turned to obsidian littered with tiny stars, while the other half was the entire skin and bones of the creature compressed in place, pouring down heavy strips of blood.
The hand that Equinox had used to swipe the creature's flesh aside so cleanly as to reveal its soul was still in the air. So reaching out with that hand, he clenched into the folded flesh, shrinking it down into two small toy like figures in his palm.
One of the figures looked joyful and full of energy, while the other was like coloured stone, still capturing the fierce appearance of the exorcised spirit.
Astrid kept her head in the air, her sights glued to the direction the beast had come from. It seemed like her brain had not completely processed what her eyes had just seen. But in time, she was made to put her head down to rest comfortably as the grinning man carried her deeper into the dark forest.
"... Can people be exorcised as well?" Astrid had to ask.
———
After long minutes of walking in silence, the duo eventually took shelter beneath a tall tree— its leaves as red as most of the other in this forest.
Equinox took time to look around this tree, feeling that there was definitely something amiss with it. He just couldn't figure it out yet.
But his cloud of thought was soon dissipated by the golden woman sitting right beside him, asking if he had any essence crystals she could have.
He nodded towards the jumping little monster playing with the blue statue of itself and told her to ask if instead.
With a slight halt in her movements, Astrid poked the head of the night creature.
"May I have your essence crystal... since you no longer need it?"
The creature knocked its fist on the ground and shook its head with a grunt, sternly refusing and hugging its plaything.
Astrid turned back to Equinox to inform him, "If I have spirit crystals, I'd no longer need your life force as sustainance."
Equinox sighed. "The little one seems to really enjoy having company —" the spirit suddenly threw its shell to Astrid before running into Equinox's pants.
"Hey, don't go up there!" Equinox laughed as the tiny creature continued to run across his body, its careful strides tickling the man.
Astrid watched for a second as the man begun to roll on the ground because of the playful spirit, before opening a mouth on her stomach and swallowing the stiff figure.
She placed her back on the tree and then looked up at the pitch black sky through the red canopy of trees. Astrid took a deep breath, trying to put her mind to rest, using the calming atmosphere surrounding this eccentric man. Alas, even the comforting cold that Ikky's essence brought was overwhelmed by the caresses of the wind in this gloomy forest.
Even she could tell something was wrong.
"Why are you sad?" She didn't need to look to tell. The two were connected emotionally after all. She could even tell some of his thoughts.
"The trees here... they do not speak to me. They are crying, the pain diverting all focus from the world around them."
Astrid turned to him, then back at the sky with a suggestion, "Why not put them out of their misery?"
Equinox slammed his head on the tree. "I... I'm scared. I can no longer bring them peace, because once their souls detatch from their shells, they will only wither into inexistence... forgotten. They have been burdened with far too much."
"... Isn't being forgotten better than this much suffering?"
He shook his head. "I know but, at the cost of their souls turning into nothing?" This time, Astrid waited for him to answer that question himself.
And when he finally looked resolute enough, she offered,
"I can take care of it."
Equinox appreciated the gesture, but he could not put their blood on her head.
With a single swipe of his hand to the side, the tree split in two— one side, its folded shell, and the other a... a person.
Astrid leapt back. She was sure she had just seen a person's silhouette before it crumbled to dust and fell into the earth.
All this while she had thought the man was just being overly dramatic about trees because of his Totem. Well, it was only because of his Totem that he could sense the pain of these trees? People? Astrid did not know.
But if what Equinox had said was true, and that he could feel the agony of the soul trapped in this place— that their suffering was enough to make even their soul turn to dust like this, then he was rather calm about it.
How long had these people been here? Are all of the trees in this forest people, or just the red ones?
'What is this place that they have brought us all here to live in?'
Astrid had faced many omens and calamity spirits before now, yet the Realm of Augury never fails to bring back that first time anxiety.