Mila made it three steps towards the guardian before Kurt grabbed her arm.

  "Wait!" He exclaimed. "What do you mean you'll do it yourself?"

  Mila looked first at Kurt's grip on her arm, and then to Kurt himself. "I mean I'll finish it off myself, so you don't have to." Her tone was, to Kurt's relief, just as warm and caring as he had come to associate with her, and just as soft as the hand she placed atop his in an affectionate gesture. "Is this because the warlock thing is getting to you?"

  Kurt, neither wanting nor having the strength for lying, nodded. "It's just…" His heart began pounding faster and faster, resonating on his ears, and his breaths became shallower and quicker. He looked over Mila's shoulder, at the fallen guardian, which was now yelping in pain and impotence. Once again, Kurt couldn't help but compare it to a small child. "It seems too cruel. I started the fight because I thought it would be some mindless construct that couldn't feel pain, but…"

  He trailed off, and the guardian's yelps filled the silence he left behind. All in all, it better ilustrated Kurt's point that anything he could have thought of saying.

  "Yeah, I get it. " She agreed, looking back at the struggling creature. "It's odd that it can feel pain. It is just a mass of nature spirits crammed into a tree by the will of something else, and neither trees nor spirits can feel pain, not physically at least." Kurt felt her squeeze his hand affectionately. "It's probably just the spirits being squeezed so close together that's making them suffer though."

  Kurt raised an eyebrow at this. "It only started crying when I hurt it."

  "Maybe it was the tipping point." She answered, undeterred. "Like, whatever is pushing them together also numbed them, and your attacks were sort of… screwing with that equilibrium. It wasn't your atacks that were making them suffer, but the magical pressure that was forcing so many of them in a vessel that simply couldn't contain them. You attacking them just roused them up enough to feel it."

  Kurt pondered on her words for a moment before talking again. "And I take it that you plan to, what? Release them? Is that what you meant by finishing it off?"

  "Yup!" she said, nodding enthusiatically. "I'll simply push the spirits out of their vessel, and release them in the wild. It won't be painful to them, promise!"

  Kurt let go of her arm. "How can I help you?"

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  For something that only had half its usual number of limbs, the creature was capable of a surprising amount of struggling. Kurt had to grab its remaining arm in a bear hug and step on its chest as if it were a stool just to keep it still enough for Mila to do her thing.

  She had both hands placed softly on the guardian's chest, right besides Kurt's foot, and the usual green glow of Primeval magic poured out of them with considerable intensity. Despite the non-physical nature of her endeavor, she looked, if anything, even more strained than Kurt. Her face was screwed in concentration, with her lips pressed together in a thin line, and her brow was glistening with sweat.

  After a moment of struggle on her part, cracks began appearing all across the guardian's chest, glowing with bright green energy. The cracks began spreading throughout the creature's body, reaching its head and the arm Kurt was holding onto, and from those cracks began pouring out a mass of green energy brimming with bright spots, like steam off a teakettle.

  It lasted for about fifteen seconds, upon which the glow coming from the creature's frame had completely dissapeared and, not long after Kurt noticed this, its body collapsed in a pile of wood.

  "And that's… that." said Mila, panting heavily. "Look at how happy they are!"

  Kurt looked around, and saw the spirits that had leaked out the guardian's frame lingering around for a few moments before burrowing themselves into the ground, or entering the various bushes and trees in the area. While Kurt didn't have the intrinsic connection with them that Mila took for granted, the way the danced through the air and the giggling sounding sounds they emmited made their emotional state obvious even to him.

  At this, Kurt felt his lips curl in a warm smile."Yeah, they sure do." He offered Mila a hand, that she took. "And it's thanks to you. Your powers sure are amazing."

  "They sure are." she said in her best attempt at a smug tone. That's to say, not a very good one. Her smile softened, and when she kept talking, she did so with a calmer, more serious voice. "I could only free them because of you. You know that, right?"

  "I… do." he said, somewhat flustered at the sudden earnestness of his companion. "But that wouldn't have been an option to begin with if it wasn't for you. I mean, it's just a fact that your power has a lot of gentle uses, and that mine doesn't."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  " 'Gentle uses'?" Repeated Mila, her head tilting to one side. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean that your power can do a lot of stuff that hasn't got anything to do with inflicting violence." Kurt stated, scratching the side of his head. "You have a deep connection with nature itself, you can make plants grow at incredible speed, and you can talk with and guide the spirits that are made of natural magic, while I can wield a sword and shoot fireballs. Fighting and killing stuff is the thing that I do best, and they are the skills that I decided to hone all those years ago, so I can't exactly whine about it, but I just don't have the gentle type of power you do."

  "And you don't need to." she said. "Sure, you may be a fighter first and foremost, but what's so wrong about it? It's not like you are some kind of violence obssesed lunatic. You only fight when there's a reason, and your strength has saved a lot of lives, either directly or indirectly. I mean, Conrad's also a fighter type with skills centered on making him strong. Is that wrong of him?"

  "No, it's not." He answered. "But…"

  "No buts!" She interrupted. "Look, I know that this entire situation is kinda bleak. But believe me when I tell you that we would be in a much worse situation if it wasn't for you and your strength. So, let's stop it with the self-hating and let's go get that panacea for Conrad." She extended her arms. "Are you with me?"

  Kurt closed the distance between them and hugged her, feeling her arms loop around his torso. "Is this enough of an answer?"

  "Yup!" she said, giggling.

  Kurt allowed himself to melt into the hug, enjoying the moment of peace and comfort in a night that had, up until now, been nothing but a series of horrific scenelet's. So he allowed himself to just think about the warmth of Mila's embrace, and the mint-like smell of her hair, and the sheer feeling of peace and contentment she could induce in him with seemingly no effort.

  It lasted very little

  The sound of groaning wound exploded all around them, as if all the trees in the forest were thrashing around. This alerted the two, causing them to break the hug.

  And then they heard the voice.

  "So you are the same as me." It was a woman's voice, sounding dry and tired. They looked at the direction it had come from, and saw her.

  The figure stood about twelve feet tall. It was made out of living wood, vines, leaves and other types of plant matter, just like the guardian had been, though this figure was lankier, and quite a bit more humanoid than the guardian had been. It seemed to be wearing a long dress made out of leaves so green they seemed to glow in the dark. Her limbs, formed out of intertwined masses of dark brown tree roots and vibrant green vines, were long and thin, though not to an unnatural degree, and Kurt could see that her feet were shaped like stilettos. Her long hair, formed out of the same leaves that made her dress, framed a face that was as featureless as a mannequin's, just a solid mass of wood.

  Wyldfae

  Ruth Watlin

  LV:65

  The figure extended her arm, reaching out to them, and the forest moved with it. With a sound of groaning wood so loud as to be deafening, a mass of roots exploded out of the earth, shaped like a hand half the size of its summoner.

  Before Kurt could react to this, another mass of roots, this one 'just' as big as himself, blasted from a patch of ground to his right, hitting his side with enough force to send him spiraling through the air and away from Mila who, Kurt was just realizing, was the wyldfae's true objective.

  The giant wooden hand closed itself around Mila's body, trapping her in a sphere of interlocked roots, before darting backwards, towards its master.

  Its cargo, however, wouldn't be so easy to transport.

  A green glow emanated from within the sphere, which stopped dead on its tracks, and the roots that made its form began to untangle.

  "Oh?" Hummed the wyldfae, tilting her head to one side. "She is stronger than I thought."

  The mass of roots kept breaking apart at a fast pace, enough so that Mila's form was revealed. She was kneeling, her hands pressed together at chest height, as if she was praying, and sweat was beginning to pour from her brow from the massive effort.

  Kurt darted towards her, and once Mila saw him, she responded in kind, reaching out to him.

  "Not strong enough though." She continued, half clenching her hand in a fist. The mass of roots pulled itself back together, trapping Mila's lower half.

  Kurt looped his free arm around Mila's torso, pulling her against his chest, while simultaneously bringing his sword down at the vegetal construct, which was beginning to pull back once again.

  "Let her go!" Snarled the boy, stabbing and slashing at the wooden mass, which just kept regrowing and regenerating from the damage.

  "Kurt!" Yelped Mila. Her body was now parallel to the ground, pulled in opposite directions by the two great forces that were Kurt's might and the wyldfae's magic. "It hurts!"

  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He stammered, feeling panic beginning to set on his brain. It wasn't working. The mass kept retreating despite Kurt's best efforts. He could felt his feet, planted as firmly as he could, beginning to carve twin trenches through the forest floor as his body was dragged along.

  He wasn't strong enough to stop it and, even if he was, Mila's body would be torn apart long before that could happen. He stabbed his sword at the mass once again, angling it so that it both entered and exited the wooden mass, like a pin's needle on a shirt, before planting both feet on it with a hop.

  "I'm not leaving you!" he said, holding Mila. "Wherever she wants to take you, we're going together."

  "How romantic." Came a dispasionate voice from behind them. He heard Mila let out a mewling whimper, and a shadow overtook them. "But you are staying right here."

  A root shot from the mass towards Kurt's face, hitting him straight in the chin. His vision began spinning, and he felt his body fall bonelessly to the ground with a soft thump. He saw a tall figure, overshadowed by the moonlight, walk up to the root mass, and saw that same figure beginning to merge with it, the knots that made both their forms interlocking.

  He tried to prop himself up, but his sense of equilibrium was so screwed by the blow that he just kept falling on his back.

  And then he heard Mila cry for him, and all bets were off.

  Flaring Od through his arms, he pushed himself up with so much strength that he almost fell again, this time on his face.

  He stumbled towards Mila, reaching out for her, and saw her respond in kind.

  The wyldfae snorted. "Jeez, you sure 'love' her, don't you?" One of her legs shot forwards, slamming against Kurt's gut, doubling him over and making him fall to his knees. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find someone else you can fuck. You are rather cute, after all. But this one comes with me."

  The root mass, merged with the body of its master, pulled back once again, darting through the forest like a snake. Kurt tried to pursue, to run after them, but another bout of dizzines hit him, and he fell face first to the ground.

  He heard Mila cry for him once again, and once again he mustered all his strength to prop himself up.

  This time, however, he failed. And soon enough, the forest had swallowed both Mila and her captor.

  Kurt couldn't recall how much time he spent lying face down before his head set and his gut stopped churning. He also couldn't recall propping himself up, or how much time he spent standing alone in the middle of the forest.

  Everything he could recall from that time were three things: First, the sound of his heartbeat, pounding against his eardrums. Second, a singular, overwhelming feeling of weakness.

  The third thing he recalled, which was also the one to bring him out of his stupor, was looking down and seeing two things: His sword, tossed in the grass, which he quickly, mostly on instinct, put back on its scabbard, and an elongated trail of white flowers, that stretched in the same direction Mila and her captor had gone.