I Am A Carnivorous Plant

AN: Aaaand we're back! Thanks for waitin for me!

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=Is… Is it so bad if I don’t have a land?=

 

Will I like die or explode or something if I don’t have one? Oh no, is me not having a land yet why I haven’t grown any taller recently?!

 

“No, it’s not necessarily bad for any reason, it’s just… very very strange. I’ll have to speak to the elders about it.”

 

Oh phew, okay. Crisis averted! Yay!

 

I wiggled my tentacles in relief, but I stopped when Til gave me an odd look because of it. What, do you not like my tentacles moving in that way? Are they too snake-like or something? Or maybe it looks gross somehow?

 

Ah, who cares if it looks gross?!

If I’m gonna stick around Til, he’s just gonna have to get used to seeing it!

Hmph!

 

Anyways I guess that marked the end of our conversation, because Til finally remembered that the fox was getting cold, and he started quickly eating it. Real hard to have a conversation when your mouth’s all stuffed (unless you’re me, of course), so I just let him go at it and did some light wandering while I waited.

 

Yes, it’s me, the odd corpse plant with wanderlust! Completely unstationary~! You can’t tie me down~!

 

Man, but I really do wonder why I’m so different from the others…

What are the chances that Til could be wrong…?

 

~~~

 

=Hey! Hey Til! Get up!=

 

I basically bulldozed my way through the tall grass to get back to him, and almost immediately picked him up like a snake, or well, I guess like a plant.

 

=Til, come look at what I found!=

 

He tried to talk to me, but the way I whipped around and started jogging back the direction I came from probably didn’t leave him much room for words. Ah whatever, I’m sure he’ll forgive me once he sees what I see!

 

=Look, look! Isn’t it crazy?!=

 

I suddenly stopped and crouched down into the brush, hiding the both of us as we peeked over, and thoughtfully let go of Til so that he could raise or lower himself as he needed. Til spluttered a bit since I guess I kind of got him covered in some grass from the way I tried to keep low as we moved, and then gave me one heck of an exasperated look.

 

“L’Lan’e’frea, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just take off with me like that-!”

 

=Okay okay I get it, but shh! We have to be quiet!=

 

“What? But you… Wait.”

 

Oh, mhmm yup! He totally sees it now! I mean, it’s kind of surprising that he didn’t see it already, you know? It’s really really big after all!

 

There, in the middle of a slightly sunken part of the terrain that was filled with random boulders, a big, furry, dragon-wolf thing was curled up and sleeping. It was the same slightly washed out yellowy color as the rest of the terrain, but the obvious difference in texture it had (along with the way it was completely the size of a house in both width and height) really made it stand out.

 

=Look look look! Do you think that’s the thing that could have won this territory?=

 

From the way Til’s face got super super serious, I’m sure that I made the right guess.

 

“The wind’s avatar is still here…? This is very terribly bad…”

 

=Yeah probably. I mean, doesn’t that thing look totally dangerous? No wonder it was able to beat up all those swamp lizards and took this place over. The Spirit of the Wind sure wasn’t messing around, huh?=

 

Til’s eyes slowly began to move back and forth between me and the furry dragon like he was trying to calculate something, but eventually he just closed them and looked really upset. Honestly, it kinda made me upset, too, because I think he just did some math and decided I came up short! …Although really, right now I think he’s probably right.

 

“For now I think it’s best that we retreat. I need to let the elders know about this as soon as possible... We’ll have to take an unfavorable detour now, however…”

 

Yeah yeah, he's probably right... A detour is definitely called for. If I could, I’d put a big warning sign down here, or like one of those road crews signs that says ‘Caution, huge furry dragon ahead, turn back now’. Pretty sure Til took us this way because this was the faster path, though, so who knows how much more time this detour is going to add.

 

Oh well, means I get more time to convince him to keep me before we get there!

 

~~~

 

=Hey, Til?=

 

We’d been skirting the border between the wind and forest territories for the past day now, getting randomly attacked by lizards and gangs of foxes left and right. Honestly I don’t think Til got to get any sleep in, so I was getting a bit worried about him for a little bit, but he’s actually been doing surprisingly well. I got to watch him really fight with something for the first time, and he’s surprisingly good, you know? It’s a total ‘magic swordsman’ sort of feel! Really really fantasy stuff~. I even sat back and stopped hogging all the fighting so I could get to watch more of him doing it, just because it looked so darn impressive. Well no... That’s not really why. In the first place, the real reason he even got to step up and fight before I did was because I had my tentacles full carrying around all the foxes for later. Really sad that I couldn’t carry along all the big-ass lizards too. And now, since things had calmed down a little and I was getting a bit bored, it seemed like a great time to ask another question~!

 

=If the forest made me to protect it, then why did it need to make the elves?=

 

It’s a valid question, right? I mean, even if I saw a bunch of elves get decimated by that weird super armed newt thing, it’s still pretty impressive that they even brought down such a hulking monstrosity in the first place. And from what I’m seeing from Til, it really seems like the elves know how to fight, even if I still think I’m a bit more powerful than them.

 

Til, who had just finished fighting off a handful of foxes, stopped to look at me, and then slowly tucked his blade into his belt and kept on walking. It kinda looked like he didn’t want to answer my question you know, like he was pretending he didn’t hear it. I was debating just giving up on getting an answer and having a few of the foxes right now as a frustration snack, but suddenly Til started speaking.

 

“...We weren’t made by the forest, we were simply allowed to become a part of it.”

 

Oh? Oh right, yeah, I think I remember him saying something about the elves receiving the blessing of the forest before? Yeahhh, I think I also remember him specifically calling the elves ‘wood elves’ before. So the elves weren’t created by it like me, only ‘blessed’ by it? Neat. Makes sense why they don’t look too terribly leafy like the other things around here, I guess. Then that means there must be other, non-wood elves in the world, right?

 

As I was nodding the tips of my tentacles to his words, Til slightly glanced back at me for a second, and then continued walking and talking.

 

“The forest accepted us when we escaped from the Spirit of the Fire. We pledged ourselves to always serve it and protect it, and we… We failed.”

 

Oooh. I see, I see! So the elves originally came from somewhere else? And the Spirit of Fire no less? Interesting, interesting! Didn’t know you could just change sides like that!

 

=So then if I wanted to go to some other Spirit and-=

 

“Don’t joke about that.”

 

=Oh…=

 

But is it possible though? Like, is it????

 

I internally pouted for a while for being cut off like that, but after chugging a few foxes and walking in silence for a bit, I got bored again and decided to try my luck with a different question I’d wanted to ask.

 

=Okay, so then did all the elves come over to the forest, or did some of them stick behind and stay as they are? Like, there are still other types of elves besides just wood elves like you, right? You guys would probably call them ‘fire elves’ or something, wouldn’t you?=

 

Til stopped walking and gave me such a silent glare that I instinctively tried to turn my head away and whistle, which let me tell you, is way way way more difficult for me in this body than I thought it should have been! Guess that’s another one of those taboo things I’m not supposed to mention to him, huh? Or maybe even to any elf I meet in general…

 

If this were a dating game, I’m sure I would have lost points with him just now.

Ugh, really… Why does interacting with people have to be so hard?!