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“You know Latin?” Raiden asks, looking impressed. “I think I remember you mentioning it before.”

I nod, “Yeah, it came in handy for what I did. A lot of supernatural stuff is in Latin, or a language that is close enough that you can figure it out.”

“You mean Fae?” Doc asks, his eyebrows lifting in surprise.

I nod, “Yeah, it’s pretty close to Latin.”

“You can understand Fae?” Reed asks.

Again, I nod, “Yeah, well, I could probably get by easily enough, but it’s only by picking up bits and pieces here and there. I probably know far more curse words than anything else, but that’s mostly because I’ve had to curse a couple of Fae out a few times.”

“You’ve cursed Fae out?” Griff asks. He then quickly adds, “Don’t answer that, that is probably a conversation best had at a different time.”

“Griff’s right, we need to find this cave, something tells me that’s not going to be as easy as simply taking the gem there,” Doc agrees.

“Oh, it definitely won’t be,” I reply.

We all start heading north, that’s where the glowing words said that we should head. Currently, all I can see are trees. I feel like this trial is going to require a lot of walking.

We’ve been walking for a while, with nothing but the sounds of the forest accompanying us and my colorful curses, ruining the apparent peace. It’s not my fault, I know that we should be moving stealthily, and I have been, but it seems that every branch and every root, hell even the fucking bushes, are intent on tripping me up or snagging my clothes. I am not making a good impression at all, and I don’t mean on the supernaturals watching, I couldn’t really give a shit about what they think of me, they’re all strangers that it’s very unlikely I will ever meet. I mean that I’m not making a very good impression on the guys.

Crashing through the woods and having to be caught so I don’t land on my face, is not exactly showing them how capable I am and I’m actually still new to their team, and because of that I want to prove to them that I’m worthy of being on the team, even if I know that I don’t need to prove it.

They know what I’m capable of, we’ve actually done quite a lot together at this point, but it’s still important to me to show that we can work reallywell as a team. For the Choosing as well, I really don’t want to get put on the Draconian team.

After the third time that I trip over a root, I mutter, “I swear the trees are trying to get to me.”

Reed looks over at me, watching as my clothes get tangled in branches again, and frowns, “I think they’re reaching for you.”

“What!” I exclaim. “I was joking, I didn’t seriously think that the trees have it out for me.”

Ransom frowns, “I don’t think they have it out for you. Meaning that I don’t think that they mean any malice by it.”

“Well then, why are they making it exceptionally hard for me to walk?” I ask, as I continue to walk forward.

Ransom shrugs, “I have no idea.”

Griff frowns, “It is curious. Try asking it to give you some space to walk?”

“It, who?” I reply.

“The forest,” River confirms for Griff. “It might just be curious.”

I hear what he’s not saying, the forest is curious about me because I’m an oddity, either as a nearly human, or it can sense my mom’s angel blood, and it’s reacting to that. It’s very unlikely that the forest has ever seen either of those things, or if it has seen an angel, then it hasn’t seen one for a very long time. Which means it’s curious.

I shrug, it’s worth a go, “Forest, I appreciate that you’re curious, but I really do need to be able to move easily, so that we can accomplish our task, and I don’t die or give away our position.”

Sure enough, the forest immediately retreats to normal, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I’m no longer tripping over everything or getting things tangled in my hair.

“Huh, it worked,” Raiden says, with surprise.

“Thank you, forest,” I tell the trees before looking at Raiden and raising my eyebrow. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

He shrugs, “Because I didn’t think it would, forest spirits like this rarely listen to anyone and tend to just do their own thing.”

“Oh,” I reply. Looking around at the forest, I add, “In that case, thank you for listening, I really appreciate it.”

I have no idea if it can understand me, but I think it’s important to say thank you when it’s needed. Unless you’re dealing with certain types of Fae, and then it’s really not a good idea. Those ones take your thanks as a sign that you are indebted to them until death, and then can ask of you whatever they desire, and it’s very rarely simple or nice things.