She cries as she processes it. On some level, it's not that much of a difference, really - they only really see each other a couple times a week. But she misses knowing he's there if she wants to drop by, misses working together with him in their shared purpose even when they're miles apart, misses him. The Forest feels emptier without Zisel in it.

Bestfriend is SAD and he DOES NOT LIKE IT. Presumably he can make it better with LOTS OF LICKS AND NUZZLES.

"I love you," she whispers, face buried in his thick, comforting fur. 

She does her best to shake it off. First snowfall isn't that long. She waited longer, when she first decided to run away.

On her own, the trip to the grove where the druids meet up each summer solstice is more stressful. Zisel taught her that hernes are intelligent, vicious, and good trackers, but no faster than her, and not likely to chase them too far out of their part of the Forest. She asks the Forest for Longstrider and runs through the trees and brushes at unnatural speeds, leaving no trace of her passage. She keeps watch all night, when she's near herne territory.

She's exhausted in a way Lesser Restoration doesn't fully fix, by the time she makes it to the grove, but she's safe. She collapses onto the grass with Damisa and sleeps soundly under the stars.

GOOD chase! LOTS of running! Now zzzzzzz.

She tells the other druids that Zisel has gone adventuring, when they ask where he's gone. Some of them are a bit surprised - didn't think he seemed like the type. 

She doesn't like the gossip. She spends more time with the storm cloud halfling. They don't talk much, but it's a nice silence, watching the clouds roll across the blue sky together. 

The meetup goes on. She learns the peach-loving ranger might be coming through Zisel's territory in a few weeks. Avocet mentions offhandedly that if she's getting second-circle spells she's pretty close to being able to turn into an animal soon, which is exciting. (It is exciting, right? She should be excited about that...)

It's good for her, she thinks distantly. 

In the morning, she prepares spells with the others and then runs all day long back to her home. She makes it past the edges of herne territory without incident. She's exhausted, when she gets home, but she still wanders through her and Zisel's lands to make sure all is well before collapsing into sleep. 

Long summer days are a great excuse to not sleep or stay in one place thinking too long. She patrols her expanded territory, somewhat excessively.

She finds the ranger. Damisa and his oversized dog end up enjoying each other's company. She doesn't exactly enjoy his (she wishes he wouldn't look at her like that), but he has some interesting tidbits about how the villages nearby are faring (a good harvest, this year, but the Queen's recruiters have come around again, which is always hard).

He is WORRIED about His bestfriend. It is normal for her to sleep MUCH LESS than he does, but she has been sleeping EVEN LESS than that, only coming back to sleep LATE every day. And she smells STRESSED.

Kaitiaki is tired all the time, lately, but that's fine. She's feeding herself and she's feeding Damisa and she's making sure there aren't any problems in Zisel's lands. (Or hers. She has to make sure both are perfect.)

The weeks pass in a haze, both too slow and too fast. She's almost blindsided by RJ's arrival, though she remembers with a day to spare. She hastily cleans out the place they stay, and then makes her way to the meeting point.

RJ is excited to see Kaitiaki again, with several different things to say bouncing around in their head, but when they see her they forget all of them, because something's obviously wrong. She has massive bags under her eyes, and there's am air of quiet misery about her.

"...can I give you a hug?", they ask softly. 

She freezes like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar, then nods jerkily. (How did they know? She hasn't even said anything...)

RJ holds her tight, making soothing noises. 

...gosh, she's really squeezing...

(They gently ask her to ease up so they can breathe properly. She flinches and apologizes, but RJ reassures her that it's ok, both verbally and by squeezing her as hard as they can.)

Kaitiaki doesn't really say anything on the way back to their cave. (RJ gives her some worried looks, but doesn't say anything.)

They start unpacking, and she realizes she forgot to stockpile food for their visit. (stupid, stupid,)

She should catch them some fish. 

"I'll go catch us some fish," she says.

Instead, she is going to sit on the floor and stare at her hands, apparently. 

Shortfriend is here! Damisa LIKES shortfriend! They make bestfriend happy, and more importantly, they bring him TRIBUTE. Today, the tribute is a FUN FAKE PREY to BITE and BITE and BITE (a specially-ordered large animal chew toy).

...Usually, bestfriend and Damisa hunt BIG PREY when shortfriend is here. But bestfriend is NOT DOING WELL.

No matter. Damisa is MIGHTY. And also SNEAKY. Neither bestfriend or smallfriend notice him leave. 

RJ sits across from Kaitiaki (she hasn't moved from her spot on the floor) and takes one of her hands in theirs, rubbing it soothingly.

"...tell me what happened?", they ask softly. 

"Zisel is gone," she whispers. Just saying it out loud hurts, makes it feel real, but also - RJ is listening, RJ really seems to care about her, and... it helps, a surprising amount. 

...it's extremely like Kaiti to fail to notice that she hasn't provided important context in a conversation, and despite it all they do find it weirdly charming! Buuuut they really do need more info, so.

"Tell me about Zisel?", RJ asks patiently, once it's clear she's not going to get there on her own.

Their best guess is that Zisel is the druid friend she's never mentioned but was obviously consulting with, the first time RJ was here. But druids are weird, and Kaiti is weirder - for all they know, Zisel could be Damisa's mother. Or an unusually important tree. Or some kind of crucial moss.

...right. She's never - augh. 

She tells RJ her story from the beginning. How she'd been shunned by her village for her feathers and eyes and voice. How she'd decided to run away into the Forest, because they said it was full of monsters and they called her a monster, too. The year she spent preparing. Stealing from the butcher and running away in the night.

 The early weeks - living in her Tree, scavenging at the river, taking care to not get lost. Finding Damisa, moving her camp so she could nurture him back to health, learning to fish to keep him fed. The snake bite. Damisa gone after the first time she passed out from the pain, being sure she was dying alone. And then - Damisa returning with Zisel. 

...She looks around. Where is Damisa? 

Damisa is a MIGHTY HUNTER and has JUST RETURNED with FOOD for his FRIENDS.  (He's making proud noises outside the cave - when they run out to check, he's got the corpse of a freshly-killed deer balanced on his back, and licks both of them with a bloody mouth.)

...they can take a break in storytime to Prestidigitate the messy tiger clean, and carve up the deer. 

RJ activates the campfire bead and starts slow-cooking the meat in a soup cauldron they brought with them. They're looking forward to making soup, but it also has the important property of being something they can leave cooking for an hour or two so they can focus on Kaiti. 

They take her hand in theirs again, and pull her into a sitting position by the fire, right next to them. 

She tells them about how Zisel saved her life with druidic magic. How he told her she was going to be a druid, and he might as well make sure she was good at it. Foraging and camping lessons, learning the names and lives of the flora and fauna. Archery, hunting, her first deer becoming the backpack she carries everywhere. And then her first orisons, the wonder she felt (and still feels, every day) at being granted a piece of the Forest's magic. 

(Tears are rolling down her face as she talks, now. She's not sure when that started.)

...RJ climbs into her lap so they can hold her properly. (Their romantic feelings for Kaiti are too deeply buried under concern for her for them to feel embarrassed or self-conscious about doing this.) 

"A-and then - right after you left, I went to bring him his bag of holding a-and when I found him -" she swallows. "He told me he was leaving with the adventurers who'd been moving through our lands. Said he would be try to be back before snowfall. Asked me to look after his part of the Forest for him." Her breath hitches.  She's crying on RJ, clinging. (...but not too tightly. Careful. Don't hurt them.)

"Oh  Kaitiaki, I'm so sorry..." they hold her tight as they think about the situation. (Zisel was clearly the closest thing she's ever had to an actual parent, though he. probably didn't think of it as anything like that. poor Kaiti...)

"I just - I'm scared something will happen to him, but even if it doesn't - I just - I didn't think he would just leave like this, and I don't know w-why, o-obviously he's allowed to, I can t-take care of his lands, but - maybe he'll decide next year that he'll stay with those adventurers forever and and and" she's knows she's babbling. She can't seem to stop.

They hold her. "It's really really hard, when something or someone that's an important part of your life suddenly changes without warning." Pause to stroke her hair, carefully picking a few leaves out.

"When I was young, mom kicked our dad out. It was good for her, and in the long term I think it was good for me and my siblings as well, but - we were too young to understand, and it was really scary and stressful." 

This breaks her out of the babbling, as she thinks about it. "Oh."

She leans tiredly into RJ, sniffling. "Sorry." 

"It's okay. I'm just saying... I know how hard it is, when someone important is gone without warning. And I'm here for you, ok?" 

She nods hesitantly. (Her Prestidigitation is still active - she cleans up her tears with a flick of her hand.)

RJ makes a delicious pot of deer stew for them both. 

They talk more. Kaiti gives them a description of the adventurers - RJ vaguely recognizes the wizard, she's bought pearls from him before. They promise to be on the lookout, on her behalf. 

She apologizes for not harvesting the crafting plants yet. RJ says she obviously needs sleep before they can work anyways, and that - she needs stop working herself this hard as a way to cope with the change, because -  because they're really worried about her.

She thinks about it quietly, for a long time, and then nods.

They sigh with relief. "Let's get you to bed, ok? you look like you need to sleep for a week."  

She curls up against Damisa, face buried in his soft, soft fur.

...On a whim, she reaches an arm out for RJ, just for a moment. (She drops it when she doesn't hear them move).

... she hears them walk around the room - even with her eyes closed, she can visualize the path they're taking through the room, just by the relative volume of the footsteps. 

They head to the magical fire - she hears the clang of the pot, as they take the stew off.

They head further in, to where their bags are, and she hears them rustling though them.

She hears them... walking back her way...

"Still want company?", they ask softly, hands full of blankets and pillows. 

She nods, not looking up but raising an arm. (...she wants to be held...).

She feels a blanket gently settling on top of her, and then RJ slips their arms around her and she relaxes, pulling them tight against her. 

uMM.

She falls asleep pretty quickly after that - snuggling with two of her only friends is a soothing balm for the unexpected disappearance of her third. 

It takes a while, but RJ does eventually stop being so aware of the specifics of how Kaiti is holding them against her (it's just. really clear that she's not thinking about this kind of thing...) and falls asleep. 

Kaitiaki wakes up at dawn still holding RJ's sleeping form, and meditates for her spells without letting them go.

She doesn't want to wake them up, and she's not tired enough to fall back asleep, so she thinks, stroking Damisa's fur as she does.

She hasn't been this well-rested since Zisel left. Which makes it easier to notice that... she's been being really stupid. 

Tired animals make mistakes and sometimes die of it. She's not any different. And more aggressively checking in on Zisel's territory isn't going to make him come back sooner. It's not what he asked of her, and it's not doing her or the Forest any really good. It was just a thing for her to do so she could make sure she was too tired to think. 

When RJ wakes up, Kaitiaki tells them she's going to go do a quick check over the Forest while harvesting the plants they'll need while crafting. She doesn't think it'll take longer than they need to prepare spells and make some breakfast. 

(She doesn't say anything about what they talked about last night, but she does seem like she's doing a bit better.)

Apparently they're also not going to talk about sleeping together like that, huh Kaiti seems like she's doing a fair bit better, and that's what's important. RJ nods happily and promises her an interesting breakfast when she gets back.