“Do you know what the treasure is?” Fiorente asked.
Mabel huffed softly. “No.”
They were following the map
not to the Crescendo, as they’d both decided they’d put that one off for a bit. Instead, they were headed towards a heavily wooded portion of the Zephyr Steppes. Night had well fallen by the time they reached even the Steppes’ edge, Mabel landing amidst a cluster of bamboo with a tired sigh.
“... it has been a big day,” Fiorente said.
“Aye.” Mabel found an acceptably soft pile of leaves and plopped down.
Fiorente, meanwhile, was gathering up some tinder and beaming. “We can make s’mores! And tell stories! Are you a pirate? Do you have pirate stories?”
“Maybe one s’more,” Mabel agreed sleepily. She found herself nodding off despite this, nudged awake by the still eager Fiorente and the smell of burnt sugar and chocolate. “Thanks.”
She gulped it down, then buried her face under a wing and went back to sleep.
It did not feel long at all before the sun was washing over them, Mabel groggily lifting her head. The spiral was curled up nearby, bright flowers blooming in a circle around her.
“Hey,” Mabel croaked, stretching and oohh, yes, that was a nice back crack. “It’s morning.”
“No morning,” Fiorente mumbled, curling up more. Mabel rolled her eyes and shook her shoulder. “Fiinee.”
They set off, a calm breeze ushering them along. “Aww,” Fiorente said, pointing at a clutch of hatchlings making the
very scary jump off a one-foot tall ledge, wings churning before they flopped into a pile of leaves.
“Precious,” Mabel agreed.
The forest proved much thicker than they had expected, a lush canopy forcing them to land and investigate it from the ground. “I thought Wind was mostly bamboo?” Mabel complained.
“I think it’s nice. We could use more groves,” Fiorente said. “I actually planted a few… oohh. I probably did this. It’s doing so well! I’m so proud of it!”
“Moving on,” Mabel muttered. They pushed their way through branches and undergrowth. It was much more spacious several meters in. Despite the canopy blocking the sun above the forest was not dark at all, light twinkling around them and colorful plants dotting lush grass, insects humming and various animals darting about. A brook babbled over glimmering stones.
“Aaww, this must be how they are all getting enough sun!” Fiorente cooed, cupping one of the floating orbs. “Ooh. Hot. Hot hot hot.”
“The map,” Mabel said, drawing the spiral’s focus back. “Suggest it should be at this forest’s center.”
“Heart,” Fiorente corrected. “Maybe it’s a special flower.”
“... I do like flowers.”
“But there can’t be only one! If there’s only one, we can come back next spring…” Mabel started to tune the spiral out as she rambled about the nuances of pollination and cross-pollination.
Eventually they found themselves at the shore of a pond, yellow and pink flowers growing in spiraling circles around it. At the pond’s center was a mossy rock, its top concave. They flew over.
Nestled in the moss and stone was soil, from which a single flower grew. Its petals swirled like a pinwheel, each petal a blend of orange and green, its center a bright yellow. In a small, wooden bowl next to it was a pouch, Fiorente carefully wrapping herself around the rock and opening the pouch. Inside were seeds.
“The treasure is flowers!” she chirped, lofting back into the air. “It’s so pretty! It kinda looks like… aww, it kinda looks like spring and autumn.”
She passed the pouch to Mabel, who tucked it into her coat. “Where to next?”
Mabel unrolled the map. “It looks like… isn’t that a shopping center?”
Fiorente squinted at it. “It is. Are you sure this isn’t a convoluted grocery list?”
“I hope not,” Mabel muttered. “Well. The X is over a particular building. Maybe it’ll make sense when we get there.”
“You are a pirate,” Annona decided flatly. “Based solely on how many chests you have.”
“Pppfftt. I don’t see it,” Vera said.
“There are-
there must be over a hundred chests here.”
“Okay. So. Maybe. But it just means we have more than enough to give out,” Vera hummed, carefully stacking yet another chest on top of an already staggering pile.
“
Raac! Help fix our airship! Get money! Maybe win prizes!” Biscuit crowed from the makeshift stand the two dragons had built. He pointed a talon at a passing imperial. “Yes! You!
Raac! Don’t walk away from me!”
It took the two a good while to travel back out of the Steppes, through the entirety of Reedcleft Ascent, and up to the entrance of the Cloudsong. Near its center was a large shopping plaza, the Cloudsong Market, platforms tied together with swinging rope bridges and held aloft by kites of various designs.
“How are we supposed to tell which one it is?” Fiorente asked, tucking out of the way of drifting donut stall.
“Maybe it’ll be easier if we’re above everything,” Mabel said. They carefully picked their way between stalls and dragons and familiars and kites, looked down, then flew even higher.
“Okay,” Mabel said, straining the tiniest bit. She pulled out the map.
The map wasn’t color-coded, but it did have shapes that vaguely matched some of the kites below. “Oh no,” Mabel muttered. “These all
move.”
“That’s okay. We just have to find a…” Fiorente tilted her head a bit. “Jar?”
“A jar,” Mabel repeated.
“That’s what it looks like!”
They drifted back down. Mabel thought she saw a spark of green, but when she turned towards it there were just more dragons and stalls. One, though, had a jar-shaped sign that read
Jammin’ Jams.
“Oh,” she said, pointing. “I think I found it.”
“Did- ooh. Yes. I think so too!”
Getting around a sudden swarm of hatchlings made reaching the stall tricky, but they managed. The stall sold… jams. Jellies. Some sweets containing these and loaves of bread. Pinned to the side was a signed poster of the Windsinger’s messenger, Eris.
“Hi there!” a bright green spiral singsonged. “Happy Mistral Jamboree! Can I interest you in some jams?”
He picked up a jar of strawberry jam, then blackberry, then, “And we sell these pastries!” A box of buns labeled “apple,” a green ribbon tied around it.
Mabel felt an overwhelming urge to have them.
“I need it,” Fiorente whispered. Mabel dug through her coat and slid some treasure on the counter.
“An excellent choice! They say the recipe was made by the Windsinger himself,” the spiral said, pressing the jar into her paws.
“Wait,” Mabel said, turning towards Fiorente. “What sort of treasure hunt costs
us treasure?”
Fiorente shrugged. Mabel turned back towards the stall, then hesitated. The other spiral was gone.
“Might as well eat them?” Fiorente suggested. Mabel sighed and opened the box.
They were, at least, very delicious. Well. Mabel said
at least, but the warmth and taste reminded her of home and journey, somehow at the same time, creating an odd but welcome peace.
@
Kunikida @
MandragoraAutumn @
Finlandia @
HurricaneWinds @
Trilonyte @
Lundlaeva @
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