Seeds of Protection

The air in the Whispering Woods grew thick and sweet, perfumed with the scent of damp earth and unseen blossoms. It was a place I’d only heard about in hushed tones from my grandmother, a hidden pocket of the forest where the sunlight filtered through the leaves in dappled, dancing patterns, and the silence was so profound it hummed. After weeks of chasing shadows and deciphering clues, it was here, in this secluded grove, that I felt a pull, a certainty that I was close.

I moved with the practiced quiet of someone trying not to startle a butterfly. My specially tinted goggles, a clever contraption Elder Elara had helped me fashion from polished river stones and woven reeds, rested comfortably on my nose. They weren’t perfect, not yet, but they dulled the harshness of Kelly’s glow, making its presence less of an assault on my eyes and more of a gentle shimmer. The ‘screen hurt’ was no longer the blinding white void it had been initially; now, it was more like looking through frosted glass, a hazy barrier that I could, with concentration, look beyond.

And then I saw it. Or rather, *them*.