Solo A Secret Garden

[Ines]

Spring 3rd, 520AV

It took only a day or so of hiking for Ines to get to Bala's Bowl. By now she'd taken the trek enough times that she was able to shave off bells worth of time, and she had memorized all of the landmarks. She wanted to see Adeliz, too. Her former twin soul had been hiding in the Bowl, and had said little to the Kelvic for almost the entirety of the winter season. She was hoping that she'd want to interact again, and maybe even go back to the settlement with her.

The witch had been mentally preparing to move here. She wanted to stay here, where she could be fully connected to the jungle, but it was far enough from Syka that she wouldn't be very good at taking care of the ashta. She frowned at the thought. One of her favorite things was taking care of the elephants, but she had to deal with the delicate balance of her wants and needs versus what she felt she had to do for the Goddess.

She walked down the incline into the Bowl with a small pack. The Kelvic preferred minimal supplies, and so she had only taken with her some Myrian salts, a hammock, a small amount of clothes, her machete, and various other odds and ends all stored in a backpack. She also had a waterproof tarp to wrap around her things in the case of rain.

The entrance to the trail led down right to the orchard next to the pond. Ines still hadn't explored much further than around the shore and the orchard itself, but now she was ready to really look. She stripped off her clothes and shoes and carefully wrapped everything up in her backpack and the tarp. It was almost sunset, and the bat knew she'd have an easier time finding things when she could use echolocation. Unfortunately, being a bat during the day was hard on her eyes. Though the sun hadn't set yet, she wanted to find something that she couldn't find with echolocation. Adeliz. The Kelvic didn't know how much the ghost had explored of Bala's Bowl, but she wanted to find her first so that they could do it together. If Adeliz knew anything about it, then she'd be able to help her, and if she had Adeliz helping her, she'd be able to mentally map out every nook and cranny of the place.

Ines ate a few pieces of pork jerky and began her inspection of the orchard. The jungle was still very warm and very humid. "Adeliizz... are you done hiding yet? I want to see you again..." She called out in Myrian, hoping the ghost would show herself. She was worried about her isolating, but she didn't know what to do about it. There were supposedly many ghosts in the ruins surrounding Syka, and they even had a resident ghost inside the settlement. The bat thought that would have been appealing to her soul-sister, but after a season, she didn't think that was the case.

[Ines]

"Adeliz, where are you? I want to explore with you. I miss you." Ines called out again. Soon enough, a chill filled the air and the ghost appeared. It was always strange to see her - the incorporeal version of the Akalak she had been for an entire season - like looking into a contorted mirror. The ghost looked sad.

"I'm sorry, Ines, I mean, I've just been scared..." She sputtered. The little bat wanted to give her a hug, but her arms would just go right through. Adeliz frowned. "It just felt weird going back to Syka."

Ines nodded, but she didn't really understand. "They'd all be happy to see you. You know I miss you. I was planning on staying here for a couple days." Adeliz's eyes flicked around their surroundings, not meeting Ines's own. The ghost itched at her arm, but the Kelvic was pretty sure she couldn't even feel itchy. "Want to look around with me? I was going to flit around! It's easier to find things that way."

She finally met the witch's glance and nodded. "Yeah, let's explore. We can find you a good place to set everything up. Somewhere to make home."

The sun had all but disappeared from their limited horizon, and Ines shifted in a burst of glittering lights. She flapped off, Adeliz following at a slower pace. Vampire bats were tiny, Ines was no different, but she made sure to stay in a certain range of the ghost so that they'd not get separated again. If they could find a sleeping animal of some sort, the little bat could get enough food to shapeshift all night.

What the Kelvic really wanted to figure out was whether or not there was a cave somewhere. She loved cool, dark, and damp places, and jungle caves were the epitome of that. Ines flapped along the nearby perimeter of the Bowl, looking for anything that stood out. Using echolocation was second nature to the witch, and she was lucky enough to find another group of bats that flew out of something in the cliffs. She flew towards it and spotted a small crevice. It was too small to serve her in her human form, but if there was one opening, she was hopeful that there were more. She was about to enter the hole when Adeliz called for her. The tiny bat crawled out. Her ghost-sister was nearby, gesturing to a tangle of vines a few feet away, right where the rocky beach met the grove.

She flapped over and the real cave entrance came into view. It was obscured from view of the rest of the beach by the vines, making it even more secluded than a normal cave would have been. The witch landed on the vines, giving them her intent to enter the cave, and then flew in. From the entrance was a narrow, winding entrance that went on for what felt like forever to the tiny bat, but what was actually only about ten feet long. The narrow strip opened up to a much wider room, curving outward and proving to have ample space. The bottom of the cave was littered with guano and more rocks.

[Ines]

Adeliz wandered in after her, the ghost giving of a soft glow from the remanants of moonlight that filtered into the cave from small crevices near the ceiling. Ines spied another exit across the cave from the narrow entrance she came from. This one also looked big enough for her to enter as a human, though just barely. Ines flitted through the remaining length of the cave as it seemed to curve around. A wet, constant crashing sound grew in volume until she flew around the corner and was faced with a small opening. The edge of the cave sloped down gently and ended with small pebbles and sand, like a miniature beach hidden behind the waterfall.

"That's pleasant..." Adeliz appeared behind where the tiny bat had landed. Ines shifted back into her human form, still crouched on the ground.

"I like it, but I need to learn how to swim." The section behind the waterfall was surprisingly dry in the back parts, but it progressed in dampness the closer to the waterfall it was. There was a small amount of visible space between the waterfall and the edges of the cave. It fell far enough that one could even enter the lake and splash around in the shallow water, but it was also close enough that the cave wasn't visible from shore at all.

The Kelvic splayed out on the dry bit of the floor. It was wide enough to fit her comfortable. If she got something to drive into the stone, she could even hang up a hammock. The stone was cool, almost cold. It was a stark contrast to the natural humidity in the air. The sound of the waterfall was soothing and started to fade into the background. Ines almost drifted off to sleep, but the sound of Adeliz brought her back to reality.

"Ines...? Ines, are you falling asleep?" The ghost was crouched next to the witch and poked her with her temporarily solidified finger. It was as cold as ice, something she'd only even touched once before.

"Yeah, sorry...I think we should explore the rest tomorrow. I'm pretty tired."

Adeliz shrugged. "You walked far today. It's okay."

Ines shifted back into her bat form, hooked herself onto the top of the cavern, and fell asleep.

[Ines]

It was late afternoon when she awoke. There was still light - there was still plenty of light for her to explore the orchard she remembered and even past it. From what she saw when she descended the first time she had ever come here, there were swathes of land she had yet to explore.

And the presence she felt in the opposite end. She had to explore that eventually, even if it was dangerous. The witch couldn't just ignore it if she wanted to make this her home, but it was behind such a dense thicket the first time. Ines had lots of other places to explore for now, anyway. The little bat flew out and around the side of the waterfall, careful to avoid any large splashes of water until she was clear of it. She flew across the lake and looked for Adeliz. The ghost didn't show herself until she had landed on the shore and was shifted back into her human form.

"It's boring when you're asleep, so I brought you breakfast. I've been practicing." Adeliz held out a mango to the Kelvic.

"How did you do that? You're a ghost!"

Her ghost sister just looked annoyed. "I told you, I've been practicing. I can hold things with my soulmist." She jutted the mango out towards Ines again, who took it and began her late-afternoon-breakfast feast.

"What's soulmist?" She asked in between mouthfuls of the fruit's juicy flesh. The bat could only assume it was some ghost thing, and as much as she wanted to know as much about ghosts as possible, it was difficult when the only ghosts you knew were a child and one that had been newly born into the life.

"It's what ghosts are made of, I guess." Ines was satisfied with that answer. She was made of flesh, and she could hold things with her flesh. Why wouldn't a ghost be able to hold things with their own fascimile of it?

The Kelvic washed the sticky juices off her hands in the lake. "I've already seen the orchard...do you know what's past it?" Adeliz shook her head. "I didn't want to go without you. It's nerve-wracking by myself." The witch could agree that they were an unstoppable pair, at the very least, but she held no fear of the unknown like her sister. She just headed into the overgrown orchard, looking for any signs of what might have been before.

The fruit grove was not particularly large, and there were a great deal of plants growing into it - colorful and beautiful and arranged with room to walk between them, like they hadn't sprouted there themselves. It had just as much variety as the jungle above, but there were even more spectacular visions than the plants - the bugs. Bees and butterflies and brightly colored hummingbirds flit between the myriad flowers. The butterflies numbered the most, as if the garden had been planted this way to attract them. Both Adeliz and Ines wandered the place in wonder, but the Kelvic touched the plants she passed, absorbing their feelings of calm and contentment. They had long grown here undisturbed, but they had been tended to years past.

[Ines]

Her exploration was interrupted when her bare feet touched something cool and hard. She had found a path of cobblestones, as colorful and as mossy as the garden around them. It meandered through the plants and she followed, nearly as excited to see where it took her as she was to see all of the plants and insects to begin with. She blamed the presence in the back for the strange absence of most animals. Only birds and small furry things made their home here. The cobblestones took her past most of the garden she had yet to see, and suddenly the garden wasn't her main focus. This place was balanced and in-tune, despite the feeling that grew closer, and closer, and closer as she followed the cobbles.

Though night-time had long been approaching, the dense growth that was unlike most of the rest of Bala's Bowl made it dark in an instant, as if they passed a threshold. Adeliz, who had been quiet in the garden, stood a few feet away from Ines. The little bat was trying to see past the dense thicket of trees and plants and vines that blocked her view of whatever thing was hiding behind it. Her arms did not hold enough strength to move them away.

The Kelvic shifted and crawled up the vines and trees to find any spot she could fit through. Being only two inches tall had its advantages, and she found an opening between vines that allowed her to fit. Adeliz was lucky - she just walked right through the vines once she had seen Ines make it to the other side.

"Are you sure it's safe back here? There's something different about this—" She stopped, and Ines shifted back and followed her gaze.

There, stretching into the canopy above, was a tower. It crumbled at the edges, but it was standing strong, with the spread of vines not yet tearing apart the stones. It was huge, too, and had dirt-trodden steps leading to the stone steps that led to what seemed to be a main entrance. Now that she saw it in person, the bat was able to relax. The presence was simply a building - nothing more. Perhaps it was whatever was inside the tower that was causing the prickly sensation down her spine. "So we're going inside, right?"

Adeliz shook her head, but she followed Ines as she walked up to the entrance of the tower anyway. The wooden doors were still intact despite what should have been years of decay leaving only hinges. Ines grabbed onto one of the old knockers and with a thunk...thunk...thunk...the door swung open.