Camdyn sat restlessly on a tree stump, his leg bouncing as the minutes dragged on. He was beginning to worry she wouldn’t show.

  “Camdyn,” came a soft voice from behind him.

  He stood up a little too eagerly, spinning to face her. “H-hey.” he smiled, “I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

  “I almost didn’t,” Flora admitted. “They know about you.”

  He matched her concern. “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “My people.”

  “Ah… and I’m guessing that’s not good?”

  She shook her head. “They fear your kind. They believe you are the enemy. And they feel I’ve lost my way. For speaking to you. For saving you.”

  “I see…” Camdyn scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I can’t say I blame them. I mean, humans kinda did end the world after all with the pollution induced climate shift, the ecosystem collapse… and then the whole resource war on top of it. Even now we’re still fighting. It must look like history repeating itself...” He trailed off, then looked at her more softly. “But… if it means anything, I’m really glad you saved me. I never got the chance to thank you for that.”

  “I suppose I felt you were worth saving,” Flora said quietly. “If only I could show them that as well.”

  “Well, if they’re always watching—and it sure seems like they are—then maybe they’ll come to that conclusion on their own,” he said with a crooked grin. “I’ll try my best to prove them wrong, I swear.”

  That made her smile, a soft break in her typically stolid expression.

  “Also,” he added, tilting his head, “how is it they’re always watching? I’ve never seen them.”

  “Humans are among the most unobservant, heavy-footed creatures to ever walk this soil,” she said, arching a brow. “And yet, somehow, you pride yourselves as ‘great hunters’ and ‘protectors’. You are easy to hide from. We’ve done it for centuries.”

  “Okay, ouch. Noted,” he said in mock offense. “But seriously, how did you do it? Vanish like that?”

  Flora’s expression softened. “Mother provides refuge when asked. We hid deep in her roots, sleeping. Others took to the sea, the hearts of jungles, or the crowns of mountains. Anywhere we knew humans couldn’t follow. There we stayed, waiting.”

  “So, you were hibernating this whole time?”

  “In a sense.” She nodded. “Magic dimmed with man’s rise. It suffocated us. We grew weaker, and waiting became our best option. We called that terrible fading the Absence. So most withdrew from the world. Some stayed behind, left to the mercy of man and a changing landscape. A few adapted… most met their demise.”

  He hesitated, searching her face for something. Reassurance, anger, maybe sorrow. Silence stretched between them, thick and fragile.

  “Then why come back now?”

  Flora’s gaze drifted upward, as if searching for an answer in the shifting canopy above.

  “Because the world is quieter now,” Flora said softly. “The noise, the smoke, the cities... they’ve faded. And with them, the walls between our realms. Magic has returned. Humans are no longer dominant—one of the few species to nearly drive themselves to extinction. And you nearly took the world with you.” She rested her hand on the rough bark of a nearby tree. The branches above swayed gently, whispering overhead. “But she endured. Life always finds a way. And now, she’s begun to carve out space for us once more. Nature is reclaiming what was once rightfully hers. And so are we.”

  “...Was there ever a time when humans and the others lived in harmony?”

  Flora didn’t respond, not at first. Her eyes met his, filled with something he couldn’t quite name. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I want to show you something.”

  Before he could get a question out, she reached for his hand. Her fingers were warm and delicate, yet steady with purpose. With her free hand she motioned to a towering tree, it must’ve been centuries old. Its trunk groaned open at her will, revealing a sliver of soft, otherworldly light.

  Her grip tightened around his. “This may feel strange.”

  With that she entered the tree, pulling him in after her.

  Camdyn barely had time to register the sensation before the light enveloped him. The air around him shifted—folding inward, stretching outward. He felt weightless, as if suspended in something vast and unknowable, yet achingly intimate. It was like his soul was being gently pulled away from his body, as though passing through the threads of a memory too old to belong to him. Time unraveled. It felt infinite and then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

  His feet struck solid ground and he staggered, nearly collapsing to his knees. The air here was different. Thicker, more humid, and laced with something ancient.

  “What the—” His voice cracked as he looked around. “What the hell just happened?”

  “You passed through,” Flora said calmly. “It’s one of our gifts. So long as the tree is old enough, and willing, we can travel between them.”

  Camdyn gawked at her, eyes wide. “You just dragged me through a tree.”

  “You’re fine,” she said with the faintest smile. Honestly, she was surprised he was fine. She’d never tried bringing anyone else with her.

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  “I’m not fine. You can’t just casually yoink people through portals without warning. I feel like I just got reborn or something.”

  He straightened slowly, eyes flicking around, trying to make sense of their surroundings.

  The grove was untouched, wild and solemn. Trees loomed like sleeping giants, circling a quiet clearing where the land dipped into a shallow hollow. At its heart were remnants. Not ruins in the traditional sense, but raw, primitive arrangements of stone and bone. Tall totems jutted from the earth, half-swallowed by moss and time. A low stone ring sat at the center, blackened by fires long since gone cold. The entire place breathed age and memory.

  “…Where are we?” he asked, his voice barely rising above a whisper.

  “This is one of the first places,” Flora said. “Where humans and Others met in peace.”

  Camdyn stepped forward slowly, wary, like the ground itself might shift beneath his feet.

  “It’s so… raw. Just how old is this place?”

  “It’s from the beginning,” she said. “Before cities. Before kingdoms. When your kind still listened to the wind and the soil. Before you forgot the language of the world.”

  He crouched beside one of the totems, his fingers tracing the grooves etched deep in the surface.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “You weren’t meant to,” she replied. “Your kind buried places like this. Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of pride.”

  He glanced up at her. “And why bring me here?”

  “Because you asked if we ever lived in harmony,” she said. “And I wanted you to see… we did.”

  She drifted past him toward a vine-choked stone wall. Hidden among the green was a cave mouth, dark and yawning.

  “This is where they gathered,” she continued. “When the world was young, and the veil between realms was thin.”

  She slipped inside, and he followed.

  The air within was cool and dense, like stepping into a held breath. Faded colors clung to the cave walls. Handprints, figures, and symbols drawn in earth pigments. They depicted humans and otherworldly beings standing side by side, beneath stars, around fires, sharing life.

  “This is our story,” Flora said softly. “A long time ago. Before memory. Before written word. When the world was still wild and untouched, and you were just beginning to understand fire and shelter.”

  She closed her eyes as though trying to conjure the memory. “We shared the same rivers. Danced beneath the same stars. There was fear, yes, but also trust. Wonder. We lived as one.”

  Her voice faltered, growing faint. “But as your kind grew hungrier and louder…you stopped listening. You built over the sacred places. Drove us deeper into hiding. We watched the balance slip away, watched the world grow sick under the weight of your ambition.”

  She opened her eyes again. They shimmered, distant, sorrowful. “By the time you realized what you were losing, it was already too late.”

  Camdyn stood in silence, the weight of her words settling like dust in his lungs. He looked around at the cave walls—at the ghosts of a world he’d never known, yet somehow mourned.

  “It’s crazy to think it was all true. All this time we had myths, fairy tales, scraps of forgotten history dressed up as stories. And buried underneath it all… there was truth. Real magic. He shook his head slowly. “It’s something tragic. We could’ve lived in a world full of wonder, full of you… but we chose not to.”

  Flora watched him, something gentle and aching in her eyes. “You still can,” she said quietly. “Live in a world with us.”

  “I’d like that,” he gave her a small smile.

  For a breathless moment, neither of them spoke.

  “Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s go home.”

  Camdyn steadied himself as Flora took his hand again. He’d braced for the disorienting feeling, but this time, it wasn’t as jarring. The sensation was still surreal, but now that he knew what to expect, he felt more grounded.

  They passed through the light again, and this time, it felt more like stepping from one room to another.

  When they emerged back into the clearing where the giant tree stood, Camdyn blinked a few times, adjusting to the change in light.

  As she led him back toward the treeline where Raya waited for him, Camdyn tossed her a playful grin, curiosity still tugging at him.

  "So, what else can you do besides... command plants and open wormholes?"

  Flora’s expression softened. “Some of us can channel her energy to heal, but that’s not my gift. I protect, I preserve, and I guide. Those are my gifts.”

  He smirked. “Alright, modest. I see you. And language? Did you just… pick up English from the wind?”

  She let out a quiet breath, almost amused. “I don’t speak your tongue, not truly. What you hear is not words, but meaning.”

  “How does that even work?”

  “It’s Old Magic,” she explained, “Common Tongue is older than speech. I share intention, the shape of thought carried by spirit. Your mind gives it form in whatever language it knows. Your kind once did the same, long ago.”

  “Really?” he breathed, clearly awed. “So you’re basically… speaking soul to soul?”

  She nodded once. “Exactly that.”

  He let out a soft whistle. “So you could talk to anyone?”

  “In a sense,” she said. “But you’d find creatures don’t have a need for conversation. They speak in feeling, instinct, and memory. There’s little use for words in their world.”

  “So… could you read minds then?” he asked, a hint of nervousness creeping into his voice.

  Flora’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “No,” she said, “but I don’t need magic to read you.”

  His face flushed instantly and he was never more happy to see the treeline.

  “I’ll see you… next time…” he started, only to realize she was already gone.

  Raya emerged a moment later, eyeing him with suspicion. “Your face is red.”

  “What? No, it’s not,” he said too quickly.

  She smirked. “Sure, kid. Just… drink some water. Pretty sure you’re getting dehydrated.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He smiled, mind still somewhere else entirely.