"I'm sorry to interrupt your thoughts, but could you tell me where I could find someone? I'm looking for a Woman named 'Diana'?" She asked softly.

"Why would you be looking for her, may I ask?" I responded politely, smiling.

She narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly, and then lied. "She's an old friend of mine, and I decided to pay her a visit."

I blinked. "Why did you lie to me? Surely you know Faunus and Claiborne alike can smell lies." I asked, tilting my head.

She flinched, and suddenly a knife was swinging towards my throat.

I leapt out of her range, and narrowed my eyes. "That wasn't very polite, miss..." I said gently, looking for an escape route.

She easily sidled into the only viable path out of the stone overhang, and drew a second blade in her other hand. "Perhaps not. But I have a job, and I intend to do it."

"And what might that be?" I grinned, buying time by gazing directly into her eyes, slowly enchanting her.

She smirked, and I realized she had a magical ward up, not of her own making. I frowned, as she replied haughtily. "Nothing a Mutt such as yourself need worry yourself over. My companion will find her soon enough, anyway, and then that brat child of hers." She chuckled.

I frowned again. "She has no children, save me." I was confused now.

The woman froze. "Impossible... I found you that easily? You are Samuel, the Fae child?" She slowly advanced forward.

"I'm Sam, yes, but I'm not Fae... Only blessed by one..." Wait... Blessed! I have allies!!! HEEEELP!!! I screamed into my connection to the magical fabric of the universe. My reach was pitiful, only about a hundred yards, but it was enough to reach a few streams. Hopefully Nimueh answers, otherwise I'm dead...

The woman was almost directly on me when someone spoke from behind her. "Oh? And who might be screaming into the void? Ah! Is it you, boy? I see. I will help you, boy... For a price." A sweet, yet oddly seductive voice spoke from the entrance, surprising me.

The speaker was a lithely muscled Half-Orc girl, holding what could only be an Orsinium Sword of some foreign design, easily spotted from its green and black metallic sheen.

She had dark black hair, and pale green skin, which was what led me to think she was only half orc. Her tusks were all-but nonexistent, more like small fangs, and her build was like that of a dancer or acrobat; muscled but swift. Her eyes were a startling hue of silver, and coupled with her pointed ears, they let me know she was Half Fae, and Half Orc.

She was also enchantingly beautiful, if her light-green skin didn't throw you off before you actually looked at her. It didn't distract me, and so I viewed her as beautiful instantly.

She was wounded, it seemed, from her recent battle, as her leggings were ripped on the right side, as was her wrist guard, but she didn't seem to be bothered by it at all.

The red headed woman whirled, and flinched at the sight of the warrior, or perhaps her blade, which was well chipped, and drenched in black blood.

In her left hand, she held the dripping head of what appeared to be a Chaurn, a giant bug/monster that ate mostly squirrels and small rabbits, which was most likely what she'd just fought.

She tossed the head, and when the woman went to duck, the Orc's sword was already arcing upwards, slashing in a beautiful parabola, leaving a black trail where the tip had been.

I flinched away at the sound of the sword going through flesh and bone, but I already knew what I'd see, so I looked down.

I steeled my stomach as best I could from the view of the headless woman, but my stomach won over my mind. I heaved my guts out onto the stones, and simply knelt there for a moment, trembling.

The orc girl came over, and tapped my head. "I'll have my price now, boy." She said, not unkindly.

I shook myself. "What is it?"

"I'm looking for a beast known to me only as 'The White Stag'. I'd like any information you have on it." She asked, sitting on her heels.

"The Stag? Don't hunt it. It's magic. The moment you try to chase it, you're snared in its enchantment, and you'll chase it until you die, while never actually catching it. The only way to catch it is to kill it without ever chasing it." I shrugged, giving her as much knowledge as I had.

She hummed. "I see... Interesting. Would you like me to help you back to your home? She mentioned friends."

I sighed. "I suppose I have no choice... I'm no warrior."

She smiled. "I see. Then my price has gone up."

"What is it now?" I asked warily.

She swooped down and kissed my nose. "You'll see."

I sneezed gently, and grumbled, but stood. I looked at the headless woman again, and hummed. "Silver Daggers... Well..." I picked up the daggers, and then their sheaths, and slid them into my jacket pocket, and searched her satchel.

All I found were a few vials of random poisons, and a note detailing what she'd told me. To find 'Diana - Bear Faunus' and 'Samuel - Fae ', and kill them. Alia wasn't mentioned.

I took the satchel, and then looked at Amir. "Thanks for the help, Amir." I said dryly.

She opened her eyes, making the orc girl jump, and shrugged slowly. "I would have been no help, Sam." She sighed, and closed her eyes again.

I smiled at the orc girl. "That's Amir. Anyway, what's your name? Mine's Sam." I held out a hand.

She grinned and grabbed my hand in a vise grip. "You can call me Alex."

"Hmm. Then let's go, please." I gestured to the entrance.

She nodded, and we started walking, as the body slowly turned into stone, then sand. She blinked, again, and I took pity on her. "Amir is a Claiborne, like me." I explained.

She nodded. "Ah. Hey, so what type of Faunus are you? I can't tell."

I blushed, and looked away. "I'm... ahem. That's none of your business." I muttered.

She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Yes." I huffed, and kept walking.

A slender hand ran down my spine, and I yelped as my spirit showed itself. A spectral image of the forest spread out from my body, and she gasped, looking around at the spectral animals that filled me.

"How is this possible?" She asked.

I shrugged, making it disappear. "My spirit is literally a forest. Faunus can be anything, and when you're mixed with a Claiborne, and then blessed by multiple Fae at birth... I think I was originally a simple Ent Faunus, which, while rare, isn't unheard of. But when I received the blessings, it... expanded." I explained, shivering.

"You could've destroyed that opponent without a second thought!" She accused, glowering.

I blinked. "No I couldn't have. My powers aren't useful in battle. I can turn into a forest, summon a forest, shape earth and its minerals... That's pretty much it." I shook my head.

She sighed, but turned and kept walking. "So you couldn't have used the stone around you to hit her?"

"No. that stone was controlled by Amir. If I'd've tried, I'd've died." I chuckled at my entendres.

She smirked. "Ah. So you were in the worst place to be attacked... Noted. Now let's move a little faster, yes?" She asked, and started jogging.

I didn't follow, and instead shook my head. "Alia and Diana can handle one human with magic weapons, don't worry about-"

A echoing, barking laugh-howl sounded, and then a humans scream of pain.

"-... Me. Worry about him." I finished sarcastically.

We reached the clearing soon after, and Alia was cleaning her teeth obsessively, retching into the stream. Diana was examining a pair of silver knives, just like mine.

I smiled. "Hello mother, I see you met my friend's companion..."

She disappeared, and reappeared in front of me, hugging me so hard my chest started to hurt. "OH!!! My word, I was so worried, baby!! Alia, he's alright! Oh dear me..." She comforted herself by rubbing my back, then checking me for wounds. Finding none, she looked at Alex. "And who's this?" She asked, one eyebrow raised imperiously.

"That is Alex, a hunter who happened to be nearby when I needed it. I met your Prey's companion, and she killed her. Speaking of prices, what was your price for taking me home?" I asked Alex.

She blinked. "Your virginity."

She said this with a completely straight face.

I blinked slowly, afraid I'd misheard her. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"You heard correctly. Not right now, of course, but when you're a bit older, and taller. You're what, 12? When you're 14, or when you've filled out a bit more, maybe. Oh! And I appreciate the information about the Stag!" She giggled and started walking away, whistling whimsically.

I sat down heavily. "Well then." I said, dumbfounded.

Diana laughed. "I like her, son. Strong woman, that. Knows what she wants."

Alia snorted. "And she wants our son's virginity. Humph. Brat."

Diana hummed, tapping her chin. "I suppose. Well, she's pretty enough, I'm sure he wouldn't mind, would you, Love?" She grinned at me.

I blushed and stomped away. "Perv's!" I shouted as I slammed the door to the cabin.

Her musical laughter followed me to my room, where I sat down at my workbench, and started analyzing the poisons. There was a lot of each, which meant they were common, so I inoculated myself with a non-lethal dose of each, and laid down to sleep it off.

"If they are common, I might as well make myself immune to them..." I sighed.

--- Year 13 ---

I sat in the meadow and gently let out my spirit, becoming a part of the forest. I'd recently learned how to connect with the forest physically, and become the heart of any forest instantly, which led to a discovery of power I'd never imagined.

I could commune with any animal that called the forest home, and they followed my orders, to a point. I could use the Ley Lines under the Ancient Trees to draw upon limitless stores of mana, and I could even become the animals themselves, like any normal Faunus.

Becoming the forest was an odd sensation. Your body dissolved, and became a living, breathing force, but ethereal, intangible, and connected to the very soul of the world. I imagined it was much like death, as my mother explained it to me.

But unlike death, I retained my sense of personality, of self. I was simply... bigger.

I sensed/saw a large human at the edge of the forest, holding an axe. The moment he raised it to chop at me, I lashed out with the rage only nature could express, the very grass attempting to harm him.

His boots were shredded, and then the grass ate his feet, and then his legs below the knees. He crawled away, screaming, and his allies quickly staunched the blood flow, and I turned my attention from them, looking st the axe. It was made of iron, and rosewood.

I tried to speak to the rosewood, but it was dead, completely so. The iron had killed it, and stripped it of its magic. I growled, and the stones of the forest rose up, swallowing the iron and burying it, deep down in the bedrock of the forest.

I relaxed as they all left, and returned myself to a human body, to find Alex staring at my face, not three inches from my eyes. Her nose was almost brushing mine.

I blinked slowly, and then hummed. "Was that supposed to scare me?" I asked archly, smiling.

She leaned back slightly and laughed. "No. I just wanted to watch your face. Anyway, how'd you do that? You just appeared." She cocked her head, sitting on a nearby stone and starting to tend to her sword, which was starting to look less... derelict, after a year of my adding pure Orsinium to it to fill in the cracks.

"I shifted into the forest, and then came back to myself." I explained.

"Well, one of your eyes turned green." She shrugged, unfazed as always.

I blinked and looked at a puddle of water nearby.

"Ah... interesting." I nodded, watching it fade back to blue.

She started sharpening her sword, humming a calm tune, before looking up. "Did you invite humans into your forest?" She asked me.

I shook my head. "No. One was trying to cut down trees with an iron axe, so I had my grass eat his legs." I said casually, drawing my silver daggers, and studiously cleaning them, ignoring the three humans walking towards us.

"I see..." She nodded, and laid her sword across her knees, then drew her own pair of silver daggers, cleaning them thoroughly, eyes on the humans.