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  Fire Hunter Series 1: Fire in Spring Hinata Rieko Part Two : Animal Trail Chapter 2: Spiders    Touko's hands wouldn't stop shaking.     The dragon collapsed atop the cart and rotted away, never to move again. Leaving Touko and Kaho behind, Shouzou went to look inside the cart. The first cart was damaged far more severely than the second and was on its side. Shouzou's main concern at the moment was survivors; he searched for them among the rubble.     A short time later, Shouzou emerged from the cart, ashen-faced and haggard as a ghost. He shook his head.     There was a danger that the carts might explode, or that an errant spark might spread to them and cause them to combust. Shouzou paused to get his work clothes and his tools, then led them away from the carts and into the Black Forest. Kanata remained alert to their surroundings. Touko gripped her sickle in both hands. She'd wrapped it in paper again after the attack.     No one spoke for a long while.     The attack had been loud—deafeningly loud—but now the forest was silent.     The dragon killed them, Touko thought.     Before they left, Shouzou closed Benio's eyes, frozen open and glassy in death. Kaho and Touko watched him, mute and in shock. Her body was pinned under the dragon's, so they couldn't move her. They left her behind, and all of the other dead crew members, too.     Kanata took the lead, scenting the air with his ears pricked. His strides were confident, as if he knew where they were going. Touko had no idea where they were or how far they'd gone from the carts. So far, Kanata hadn't sensed any danger from Fire Fiends, but how long would that last? People weren't meant to walk in this forest.     Touko had cut down the dragon with the sickle—a weapon that wasn't hers to use.  She remembered slicing through flesh and exposing the writhing innards. She'd never thought the inside of something living could move around so much. But slicing through it stopped that movement. Stopped it forever.     Touko's hands were shaking again.     Kaho whispered, "Touko." Shouzou and Touko stopped walking. "Where is Kanata taking us?"     "I don't know..."     They were walking blindly into danger; that was Touko's first thought. But Kanata seemed confident. Maybe this reminded him of when he'd wandered these woods with his original owner, the Fire Hunter. Even in the cart, he'd been more comfortable than Touko with their surroundings.     Kanata was their best guide to get out of the forest safely. He moved with purpose, sniffing the air from time to time. Touko wished he could tell them where they were going.     "I'm sorry," Kaho said softly. "This is all my fault. I should never have gotten on the cart. And I should never have tried to leave. That's why everyone died—even the guardian god. What do we do now?" She pressed her cut-open face against Shouzou's shoulder.     "Don't cry," Shouzou said. "We'll cry together when we have the time for it."     Touko had thought that Shouzou was uninjured, but now she noticed the blue-black bruise blooming from his temple. The side of his face was smeared with drying blood. When he'd fallen, he'd suffered these scrapes.     Touko's knees were scabbing over and exhaustion made her legs heavy. Still, she knew she'd got off light—it was nothing less than a miracle that she'd survived that without breaking a single bone. Kanata's fur had gotten singed a little, but he showed no sign of discomfort.     "You can't blame yourself," Shouzou said. "Maybe you should apologize for breaking the fan blade when you went through the ventilation shaft... but you never wanted to be married, and you didn't call the dragon here, did you? You didn't cause any of this. If you wanna make up for something, let me have a nap later." He snorted. "I think you have a fever, too. Damn it. Don't die now. No one else is allowed to die."     Touko wondered what would happen now. Benio and the rest of the crew being dead seemed so unreal. Will we die, too? Will we be attacked by Fire Fiends in the forest? she thought. Her hands shook, and she was warm all over. I could die. I could die at any moment, in the middle of the Black Forest.     Those thoughts made Touko tremble, but there was something steadying in her, too, like an affirming flame. Benio said she wouldn't die, but she still did. The crew wasn't supposed to die. But it doesn't matter what we say or do. Benio had been crushed to death so easily, like an afterthought. The crew hadn't stood a chance against the dragon's power.     So what matters now? That thought was what kept Touko on her feet. She had no name for the emotion she was feeling, but her quest for meaning necessitated that she stay alive. She stood up straighter and focused more on her surroundings. Kanata walked ahead, strong and sure-footed.     Eventually, Kanata stopped, and Touko and the others all knew why: there was strange smell up ahead, wafting toward them in the forest's stale air. Both Kaho and Touko choked a little on the smell. They were traveling over muddy, sticky ground now. Shouzou had shoes with leather soles and tread, but Kaho and Touko wore only straw sandals that squelched on the unsteady path. Touko's socks were soaked through and her legs felt numb from cold.     As they walked closer to the source of the smell, Touko recognized it. Anyone who lived in the villages around the capital would have recognized it. It was a sweet smell, but not exactly pleasant; there were under-odors of rot and decay.     Kanata let out a short bark. In response, a whistle echoed from deeper in the forest.     Three figures appeared in the trees overhead, jumping smoothly from branch to branch like monkeys. The smell became even stronger.     "What... what is that?" Shouzou asked, alarmed. He took an involuntary step back.     One of the figures carried a long thin staff in one hand. One was broad and stocky. The last looked like a child. All three had sand-colored hair, shadowed black at the temples. Their skin was an ashen gray color.     These were the Tree People—people who lived in the Black Forest, despite the danger.     The Tree People jumped from the trees and landed on the muddy ground.     "We heard a lot of noise... what just happened?" the strong-looking Tree Person asked.     The Tree People looked over Touko, Kaho, Shouzou and Kanata with their unsettling jade-green eyes. The tall figure with the staff was a woman, and the child was a little boy.     "Uh, um, who are you?" Shouzou asked, taking another step back.      "You shouldn't go back that way," the woman with the staff said. "There's a Fire Fiend coming."     "Mr. Shouzou, these are Tree People. They brought medicine to my village sometimes." Tree People had brought medicine for her grandmother and ointment for the chapped hands of the workers that made paper. Touko was trying to calm Shouzou, since she didn't understand why he was afraid.     "Tr-tree People?" Shouzou asked. "You live near the capital, then?"     The boy reached out and pet Kanata's back. "Do you know Kakurichiku? They live in the capital, I heard. Do you know if they're still alive?"     "Or their associates?" the woman asked. "The Fire Hunter's dog called us. Are you Fire Hunters?" Her green eyes fixed on Touko, who shook her head. The woman appeared unconvinced. "You are not Fire Hunters, yet you bear a scythe that only Fire Hunters can use," she said. "Curious."     How do you know that? Touko wanted to ask, but the words stuck in her throat.     The woman looked away from Touko. She and the two others had tattoos of an unfamiliar plant on their cheeks.     "There is no Fire Hunter here, but this dog is a Fire Hunter's dog," Shouzou said. "Our cart was supposed to carry the dog to the capital. The Fire Hunter is dead."     The Tree People talked among themselves in low voices, looking at Kanata all the while. Kanata looked back, his tail wagging.     Now that Touko understood that the Tree People were safe—at least for the moment—she gained the presence of mind to ask for help. "Please, please, you have to help us," she said. "A dragon attacked our carts and killed everyone but us. We ran away because we were worried the carts would catch fire."     "A dragon?" the burly Tree Person raised an eyebrow.     Kaho shuddered against Shouzou's spine.     The Tree People exchanged uncomfortable glances. Then they nodded to one another.     "You may come with us," the burly Tree Person said. "We'll need to attend to your injuries. And if you're with us, the Fire Fiends won't attack."     The woman nodded agreement. She and the man beckoned for Touko and the others to follow them. The boy climbed back up into the trees and kept pace by swinging from branch to branch.     "What is that smell?" Shouzou asked, frowning. The Black Forest always had a bit of a dead and rotten scent to it, but the smell that lingered in the air now was like boiling acid, astringent and bitter.     Touko knew that the smell came from a chemical that the Tree People used to repel Fire Fiends. She liked the smell about as much as Shouzou did and felt suffocated by the pressing closeness of the trees. She calmed herself by remembering that these people were sheltering them from the forest's dangers.     "What happened to my village?" Kaho asked. Do you know? You always came to give us medicine... I come from Mizushina <Crystal Village>. Our guardian god attacked the carts... why?" Her voice was quiet and her thoughts came out of order; she really did have a fever.     The strong Tree Person turned back slightly. "I don't know. I'll have to ask my friends who live closer to the villages. But if your village has lost its guardian god, the barrier around it is useless. I hope your friends move away before the Fire Fiends attack it."     Kaho went pale.     Touko walked just behind the Tree People in the lead and pet Kanata's back. Kanata stood up straighter, as if he were trying to project confidence. He'd led them to safe people. Maybe it wasn't too much to hope that they would wind up in a safe place. Trembling finely, Touko focused on putting one foot in front of the other.     "Don't speak until we reach the village," the boy said from behind them. "Fire Fiends are watching us." Despite the warning, he sounded cheerful.     Touko and Shouzou exchanged worried looks.     "Wh-where are you taking us?" Shouzou asked.     "To our home," the burly Tree Person said. He didn't even turn around to answer.     Touko tugged on Shouzou's work clothes to signal to him to follow in silence. Shouzou looked down, his face covered in oil and sweat, eyes bloodshot. He took a deep breath, then adjusted Kaho's weight on his back. He cursed under his breath and kept walking. ***     Tree People lived in the heart of the Black Forest, where Fire Fiends and Fallen Beasts roamed freely. They took medicines and herbs to the villages that were near their own homes. They were like Fire Hunters in that they knew how to fight off Fire Fiends.     Touko had seen many Tree People come to her village to deliver medicine, but this was the first time she had walked this close to them. She'd imagined what their lives would be like in the Black Forest, but reality didn't match her imagination at all.     "Come along," the woman said. "Fire Fiends don't come here." She pointed her staff forward, toward a building formed out of living trees. It had the same gray-black sticky bark as other trees in the forest, but the trunk appeared deformed: hollowed-out like a basket and shaped to grow wide and deep to accommodate the depression. The tree's branches were evenly spaced to support the hollow; they surrounded it like walls. The leaf canopy overhead served as a roof. It was about the same size as two small huts in Touko's village.      Three other Tree People were already inside, with another dozen or so standing outside. The Tree People looked at Touko and the others with open curiosity. All of them were gray-skinned, with light-colored hair, green eyes, and stylized plant tattoos on each cheek. Their ages were varied; Touko wasn't sure if she was seeing an entire village or if this was just a small percentage of the Tree People that lived in this area. They looked similar enough to one another to be part of a single family.     Touko's nose was adjusting to the Fire Fiend repellent. If Kanata was disturbed by any unfamiliar smells, he didn't show it. The dog was calm as he padded along a little ahead of Touko and the others. Since his owner was a Fire Hunter; he'd probably smelled Fire Fiend repellent many times.     The Tree People didn't appear hostile or alarmed, merely curious. One old woman looked at them with a wide smile.     "C'mon, kid," Shouzou said. "Let's get this over with." He entered the house ahead of Touko lay Kaho down. She was losing strength in her arms and legs and needed to rest. She'd only just awakened after her injuries on the cart, and those injuries hadn't fully healed yet. Another attack by a Fire Fiend now would mean her death.     Kanata followed Shouzou inside, and Touko followed Kanata. She felt an odd tingling sensation in her gut as she went in. She was a stranger here, and this was a strange place. Nothing about how the Tree People lived was familiar.     The first room Touko entered was a living area. The floor was lined with sturdy mats that felt like thin wood. A square chunk of the floor was missing to accommodate a tree trunk growing upwards, which allowed for leaf cover overhead. Touko had thought that the roof was part of the same tree from the outside, but that wasn't the case. The tree in the center of the floor had greenish bark, not black bark, and its leaves were bright green.     People avoided Shouzou as he walked; maybe his disheveled appearance frightened them. The children were more curious than the adults and started inching closer.     "It's a dog! A Fire Hunter's dog!"     "He looks so strong and brave!"     The Tree People children gathered around Kanata to pet him, and he let them. Touko helped lower Kaho to the floor. Kaho breathed shallowly, eyes half-closed. Her skin was warm to the touch.     "Kaho, we're okay," Touko said. "We got to a Tree People house. You're going to be okay." Touko removed her straw sandals, then knelt down next to Kaho. Shouzou collapsed to the bare earth floor. He rubbed his forehead, taking deep breaths.     "What happened to you?" a Tree Person asked. He was a man in his prime with a lean build. His tattoos covered his entire face, not just his cheeks like the other Tree People. A necklace of amber stones strung together in a complex pattern hung from his neck. He appeared to be the leader of this group of Tree People.     When Touko and Shouzou made no reply, the woman bearing the staff spoke for them. "They were riding in one of the carts from the capital. The guardian god of a nearby village went berserk and attacked them. They said they ran away."     "A guardian god... was it Mizushina's <Crystal Village's> dragon?"     Kanata edged closer to the smallest children for more pets. The boy who'd helped guide them here also pet Kanata, who submitted to the attention by sitting patiently. One of the tattooed scouts wandered over and scratched Kanata's head with his sharp nails.     "The guardian god of Crystal Village is a piece of the guardian goddess that protects the capital." There were stories that the guardian gods that protected the villages were all pieces of that goddess, split into different shapes for different tasks. "For it to go wild like that and attack people, someone must have influenced it. Maybe one of the Spiders."     Shouzou's shoulders drooped; he closed his eyes. "Spiders?" he asked.     The strong Tree Person nodded decisively, appearing unconcerned. "Strange things are happening everywhere of late. Have you heard any news as you traveled?"     Of course they had: the carts needed to stop to resupply and to drop off brides in different villages. There had been a bad harvest this year because the soil was stressed.     The Tree Person leader, the man wearing the amber necklace, appeared troubled. "The forest is descending into a state of death and decay. The world protected by guardian gods is changing its essential nature. We've never seen such a cataclysm before, but it does seem like the Spiders might be to blame."     "Wait a second," Shouzou said. "You can't just blithely say stuff like that. Why would a Spider take control of a guardian god? How can they even do that? The guardian gods protect the villages; they don't attack people. They're all part of the guardian goddess!"     The Tree People gave Shouzou looks of confusion—and compassion.     "So you do not know," the leader said. "Spiders belong to the same race as the guardian gods. They are part of the same family, but a different branch. Long ago, the family quarreled, and the Spiders concealed themselves in the forest. All guardian gods possess power over the natural world. The Spiders specialize in manipulating insects, especially venomous ones. A Spider could make a guardian god go mad with pain from poisoned bug bites."     Shouzou appeared shocked by this revelation.     While Shouzou spoke to the Tree People, other Tree People came into the house to help treat Kaho's injuries. These were a woman who reminded Touko vaguely of her mother and two girls that were roughly Touko's own age. They placed a sackcloth blanket over Kaho and lifted her head to help her drink medicine. One of the girls placed a wet, cool cloth on Kaho's forehead to help soothe her fever.     "Thank you very much for your help," Touko said.     The girls smiled, then went over to the center of the room where the green tree grew. Touko noticed that all the Tree People wore their hair loose; it wasn't customary here for women and girls to tie back their hair. The men's hair was cut short.     Shouzou sat in a corner with his back against a wall and his head in his hands. His boots were still on. "So we were attacked by a Spider..."     Touko hugged herself, tugging at her sleeves and bending down. "Shouzou, what are Spiders?"     Shouzou dug his fingers into his head and didn't answer. Not at first. Then: "No more questions. Not right now. The Tree People already told you what they are. They're like the guardian gods, only with power over insects. The guardian gods protect the capital, but if they can't even protect the villages..."     Touko understood this fear. The capital might be in danger. All of the villages might be in danger. She remembered the goddess Warashi that frequented her village's shrine: a small child clothed in pure white, with pale green eyes. Warashi was responsible for keeping up the barrier that prevented Fire Fiends from attacking the village. The dragon had served the same purpose for Kaho's village... though Touko had never heard of a shrine god being a dragon before. Until she'd decided to go to the capital, she'd assumed that all the guardian gods of village shrines looked like people.     In any event, the guardian goddess that protected the capital was the same as the one that protected the villages, only in a different form. All of the guardian gods lived in the capital, with the exception of the pieces of the goddess that defended the shrines. She understood all that... but then, what were Spiders?     They were a threat to the villages, the forest, and the capital. Any being that was capable of turning a shrine god from its purpose of protection was dangerous. And they could live in the Black Forest, too, just like the Tree People. Had the Spiders adapted and changed to live in the forest? Did they help the Tree People with their barriers? (Did Tree People have barriers?) Touko thought that someone from the same family as the guardian gods she knew of would be capable of such things.     The burly Tree Person who'd guided Touko and the others this far approached Kaho's makeshift sickbed. "We are chosen from among the people in the capital to support the guardian gods within the forest and rescue those who wander in from the villages. Spiders are as powerful as guardian gods, and it's not impossible for one to have taken control of an offshoot—not even a full guardian god—to attack you." He folded his arms.     Touko had stopped trembling during the man's speech. She knelt down near Kaho with the Fire Hunter's sickle in easy reach, wrapped in the blessed paper from her village.     "You must be thirsty," the leader of the Tree People said. "We'll bring you something to drink, and treat this girl's injuries. But you can't stay here for long. The Fire Fiends will pick up on your scent and attack this place. Tomorrow, when you are well enough to travel, we'll take you to the nearest village."     The two girls who'd helped give Kaho medicine came back to Touko and the others with water that they'd gathered from the roots of the green tree. The water was collected in jars, just like rainwater. Touko and Shouzou each accepted a jar of water.     Kanata received his own jar of water happily. He bowed his head to the girls in a human-like gesture of respect, then lapped at the water.     "Where is the nearest village?" Shouzou asked. "How can we get there from here?"     "We can't take you all the way there," the leader said. "I'm sorry. Tree People can't survive long when they're away from the green trees at the centers of our homes. The trees are the source of our vitality in this blighted place." He pointed one gray finger at the tree in the center of the room.     The green trees were like a hearth fire, a lantern in the darkness—a light that none of the Tree People could live without. Touko remembered the egg-shaped lanterns in her village. It would be hard for people to live without light.     Touko and Shouzou exchanged glances. The water in the jars was clear, not cloudy, but the jars were made of the black bark of the normal forest trees. The faint smell of rotten wood wafting from the jars wasn't reassuring.     Still, Touko was too thirsty to be picky. And Kanata was drinking. She took a single sip of water.     "It's good," she murmured as the water slid down her throat. All of her pain and exhaustion caught up with her at once. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and she was trembling again. She felt like her hands would never stop shaking—at least not for very long.     There was blood on Kaho's hands: the blood of the doctor who'd died trying to save her. Everyone had died so fast, crushed by the attack or rattled by impact. Touko couldn't accept that it had happened. None of it made sense.     A worried Kanata pressed his nose against Touko's cheek. Shouzou gulped down water, using his free hand to pat Touko on top of the head as if she were a small child. ***     Touko couldn't sleep. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was the cart in ruins; all she could feel was the shock of the cart jolting to a halt. There were dead bodies everywhere in her mind's eye: everyone was dead. She felt cold through as she remembered all of their faces.     The Tree People slept on the opposite side of the room, on the other side of the green tree. It was like they were avoiding Touko and their other guests. The three Tree People who'd brought them in were taking turns standing watch over the others.     Kanata lay next to Touko, resting his chin on his front legs. Touko curled in on herself, looking from Shouzou to Kaho. The forest outside the house was dark and forbidding. The figures of people she knew blended into it, as if the darkness were trying to swallow them whole.     Shouzou was asleep with his back against the wall, head drooping toward his lap and his mechanic's tools set within easy reach of his hands. Kaho's breathing had calmed after her injuries had been treated.     Shouzou lifted his head and called out to the Tree Person on guard duty.  His voice was so weak that Touko could barely make out what he was saying. Touko saw the woman come closer to him, stepping over the wooden floor. She wasn't carrying a staff now.      "How far is the nearest village from here?" Shouzou asked.     "If you walk and take frequent rests, it should take you about three days," the woman said, sounding confident of her guess.     Shouzou sighed heavily and ran his hands through his hair, digging fingers into his scalp. "Is it really true? Did a Spider attack our carts?"     "I wasn't there, but it seems plausible," the woman said. Her jade-colored eyes reminded Touko of Warashi, her village's guardian goddess. They glowed faintly in the dark. "It would be a show of rebellion to the guardian gods in the capital." Her voice was soft; she spoke quietly in an effort not to wake anyone.     Touko listened to Shouzou and the woman with her back pressed to Kanata's side.     "You make it sound normal or inevitable. It's not." Frustration marked his tone.     One of the Tree People came over to check on Kaho's condition.     "I can tell you what I've heard," the woman said. "The Spiders are trying to harness natural fire again, so that people can use it safely. Instead of letting Fire Hunters go into danger to harvest fuel and trapping ordinary people behind barriers, the Spiders want a return to the kind of world where people can use fire freely, like in the past."     "That's a lie!" Kaho said. Kaho was also awake; she sat up when a Tree Person approached her, staring into the darkness with an expression of anguish on her face. "It's good that people can't use natural fire anymore! When they could, they used it to kill one another! They waged war with it, and they can't do that anymore." Her voice was hoarse and thick with emotion.     Touko, alarmed by Kaho's outburst, got up and touched Kaho's shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asked. She rubbed Kaho's back to get her to calm down.     Kaho was shaking—from anger, not from fear or fever. Touko felt the roil of Kaho's emotions as if they were her own and reached out to hold Kaho's hand.     Touko had never thought that the loss of natural fire was a good thing. Her grandmother had often wished that she could go back to the ancient days, when people didn't have to flee from fire and hide in the dark. She'd wanted to see the faces of the children she'd birthed. After Touko's mother burned to death, she stopped talking about the ancient days. It was like she'd lost hope and the ability to express grief all at once.     The Tree Person turned her head toward Kaho and spoke in a calm voice. "Well... we have no idea what the Spiders are thinking. But it's hard to imagine that the guardian god of your village would go crazy for no reason."     "But her village was blighted," Shouzou said. "That's why she was sent from it to be married—the soil went strange this year. The village needed to be cleansed of evil influences. Was the soil becoming weird the trigger for this attack?"     Kaho shook her head weakly. "I don't know. The dragon always stays underground. I've never heard of it showing itself to people before. There were no outsiders to my village who visited, aside from you all in the carts. I don't know what happened to my village... only that the same thing happened to Benio's and Hotaru's." Her voice went strained when she mentioned Benio and Hotaru.     "The soil's strangeness made it softer than normal," Kaho continued. "It's been that way for years. It all started when a mine shaft collapsed, so we could no longer extract stone or precious gems. Many people died in the collapse." Tears fell on Kaho and Touko's joined hands; she was crying. Even in the darkness, Touko could tell.     "Why would the Spiders do such an awful thing?" Touko asked in a whisper.     Shouzou shifted to face Kaho. Touko set one palm against the base of Kaho's spine to support her while she sat up straight.     Kaho raised her head and looked at the Tree Person. "The Spiders are... these people aren't bad people. They treated my injuries, and they didn't have to."     Touko's eyes widened in surprise.     Kaho stopped trembling, gaining strength in her voice as she spoke. Her curly hair moved under Touko's supporting hand.     "The mine shaft was underground," Kaho said. "The dragon coiled itself in the soil, creating a barrier there. The children were the first to enter the narrow, half-dug tunnel. They weren't suited for any other work. I did the same work when I lived in my village. Somehow, the workers dug the wrong way, and the shaft wound up outside the dragon's protective barrier. Then the earth collapsed on top of us. I couldn't breathe, and I thought I was going to die. But..."     Kaho faltered.     Shouzou pressed her to continue. "You said that the Spiders... weren't bad people? Have you met one before?"     Touko felt Kaho's nod in the darkness. Touko reached out and hugged her. Kaho hugged back, still holding hands.     "The Spider looked just like a human," Kaho said. "At first I thought it was a ghost, because it lived in the forest and wore the fur of a Fire Fiend. They helped dig me out, took care of my broken leg, and gave me food until the leg healed. They told me that they found me because the bugs were burrowing toward us. He said my parents were worried about me, though I don't think they ever came looking for me.     "After I could walk again, the Spider said, 'I must return to the forest. You can go back to the village or follow me.'"     Touko's chest felt tight from too much emotion. Kaho had been through so much. And in the end, she'd chosen to return to the village that had abandoned her.     "How old were you when this happened?" Shouzou asked.     "Four," Kaho said. Her head drooped.     "Really?" Shouzou asked. "Well, the Spider you met doesn't seem like a bad person. But is doing what they did to your village's guardian god justified, even to bring back natural fire?"     Kaho and Shouzou, Touko and the Tree People sat in darkness and silence for a time. Kaho choked back sobs, trying not to make any noise.     Is it even possible to bring back natural fire? Touko asked herself. Her parents had burned up in a fire, consumed by it. Fire didn't seem safe to her.     Touko's doubts and Kaho's wracking sobs were lost in the darkness of the surrounding forest.     Outside of the house, Touko saw a glimmer of red light.     That glow was the eyes of a Fire Fiend.     Touko's heart beat faster. She struggled to calm herself and remain still. She tightened the hug she shared with Kaho. Kanata sniffed the ground and came closer to Touko and Kaho, his spine going rigid.     Kanata was close enough to touch now. Touko reached out and pet him on top of the head between his ears, seeking reassurance. Kanata licked Kaho's bloodlessly pale hands as if he wanted to heal her.     "It's warm," Kaho said in surprise. She hadn't expected the dog's tongue to be warm. "And it tickles." She laughed. Not very loud or for very long, but it was still a laugh.     "Like the others said, we can't hide you for too long," the Tree Person said. "You smell different than we do. We'll have to leave tomorrow. I promise we'll escort you as far as we can." She withdrew, returning to guard duty.     Time passed; how much was difficult to determine. Kaho fell asleep with Kanata's back supporting her head.     The forest pressed in close, even when Touko closed her eyes. Touko slept and did not dream at all.