The Reluctant Conquest of Ruby Snow Chapter Five

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Ruby

I blinked awake, looking up at an orange sky peaking though blood red leaves that scattered the light of the glade into an eerie hue. I sat up scanning my surroundings as I winced, a dull throbbing pain pulsing in my head as I hissed through dry lips. The air was still, quiet, an odd and pervasive weight filled the air as I stood slowly. 

A dozen eyes looked upon me with varied expressions, winding and venerable weirwood trees intertwined with each other to make a winding carpet of roots underfoot. All the while a warm and richly floral breeze offered some small relief against the heat.

I stepped forwards, swallowing nothing in an effort to wet a dry throat as I made my way though what could only be a godswood, quickly finding a bush ripe with familiar wild gooseberries that grew in the orbit of Grumpus back home. However, not nearly so large or sweet.

I struggled not to gorge myself on the berries as I kept watching the treeline around me, a very real sensation of being watched. But whenever I thought I spied eyes peering out at me from between the trees and bushes I only saw another Weirwood staring back at me.

“Okay, okay... somewhere new, I need food, water, shelter and an idea of where the heck I am.” I said to myself, loud enough for any grumpkins to pop out of the ground and offer me advice. Sadly, none were forthcoming.

I activated my Aura and felt a weak, anaemic barrier form between the world and I. I dispelled it just as quickly, I would need to save my Aura if I was going to use my semblance again. I stuffed my hands into a small pocket disguised by the hem of my petticoat and pulled out a small and crude multitool. 

It was a shabby steel construction that I had to keep in a small cloth bag and keep all oiled up all the time. While it was super fun to make I found myself gravitating to the shorter inch long blade in day to day activities and leaving most of the tools unused. Robb made much better use of the one I made for him for his fourteenth birthday.

I unflipped the little workblade and locked it in place before approaching a tree and working the blade under a piece of bark. Peeling the skin of the weirwood tree off in a big chunk I turned it over to look at the sticky blood red sap, picking some of it up onto a blade I wiped it onto the un-skinned section leaving what looked like a bloody smear on the white wood.

“Sorry Mr Weepy.” I offered the tree with a super sad expression. “But I need to be able to find my way back to this spot.” With that I turned about and picked a likely direction, holding the chunk of bark in my hand like a pallet and marking trees as I made my way though the wood.

It was quite some time before I began to hear anything other than wind rustling leaves as I made my way in what seemed to be a generally clear and easy to backtrack from. I needed to be able to find my way back to that grove to find out what the heck happened. One moment I am trying to use my semblance to transform fully into my cloud of petal form and reform on the other side of Grumpus the next I am in some strange new place.

...Surrounded by Weirwood trees...

I rolled my eyes and winced as my headache got slightly worse. I could only assume that my semblance had interacted with Grumpus in some way that led me to teleporting to some of his siblings somewhere. It would stand to reason then that when my Aura was strong enough enough to support my semblance I could go back the same way.

But first I had to keep myself safe, watered and fed wherever I was at the moment. It was warmer so it was likely that I was somewhere south of Winterfell. Considerably warmer too. Winterfell itself was much warmer than areas just a mile or so away from the fortress.

I stepped out from the thickly winding wild trees and undergrowth to step onto a thin bank of silt and sand that touched upon a vast and placid lake. The sky was a brilliant orange shifting into pink upon the horizon line that was reflected in the glassy waters that stretched out to the green and lonely banks of land far away. The only structure upon the horizon was a dread scar, black and bowed. No smoke lifted from the colossal castle in the distance and birds, tiny specs in the sky circling a corpse in grim procession. 

Harrenhal, a colossal castle that sat upon the bank of the gods eye lake in the middle of the Seven Kingdoms. That would mean that I was currently on the forbidden ‘Isle of Faces’ one of the last bastions of Weirwood trees that had not been cut down in the south over some ancient religious conflict between the ‘Old Gods’ of the Weirwoods and the ‘Faith of the Seven’. 

Blegh, politics. 

“Water, water water water.” I mused as I turned to the right and began to walk. I could not drink the lakewater. Well, I could, but it was standing and likely a fantastic environment for all sorts of little buggies and microbes regardless of how clear it looked. If I had a pot or something I could boil it and drink the water with some confidence but at the moment drinking the lake water was going to be something of a last resort.

I don’t want brainworms! My brain is not a tasty fatty treat!

I kept a constant pace as I began to encircle the island, working out how far I had traveled over a course of time was pretty easy even if I had to learn it again in this life because my legs were longer now.

I traveled roughly two miles from where I had first stepped onto the beach and had almost run out of red sap to mark my way when I came across a narrow inlet shrouded by oak trees. It took a little bit of clambering up eroded dirt embankments supported by a timeless wall of roots that seemed to protect the island from the erosion of the lake before I could enter the inlet proper.

I found myself in an abandoned campsite, unused for what must be years at least with a wooden boat rotting away in the mud next to a buried firepit. Smashed boxes and tools corroded beyond usability were scattered around the brook bubbling its way to the lake. 

I hurried forwards to a crystal clear waterfall with a cute little pool next to the abandoned camp and greedily drank down a few handfuls of that good ole’ H2O. While it was almost certainly a placebo I felt the headache that had throbbed at the back of my mind fade somewhat as I settled down on the soft grassy bank. 

So.

I could teleport using the Weirwood trees somehow. What the heck?

Why would I arrive here? Was the Isle of Faces some kind of... hub zone? There are a ton of Weirwood trees here I guess. A bigger question is why would my Semblance interact with the Weirwoods at all? 

They were worshiped as the Old Gods, was Grumpus actually conscious or something? Or was this just something that can be done with the trees? My sudden arrival on a forbidden island could simply be a freak accident, but what was the chance of that?

I looked around at all of the stuff scattered about and began to pick through it as I considered my situation. I had to get home soon, I had promised that I would train with Arya around now. While I did spend a lot of time in the Wolfwood, sometimes weeks away from civilization at a time. I always made sure to tell someone I was leaving. 

My absence would be noticed and making people worry was very uncool. 

I was going to have to use the trees again, it would take over a month for me to get back to Winterfell normally... How was I even going to get across the lake? No, going the normal way was out of the question, I could come up with something to excuse being gone for a day or so.

I had to use the Weirwood trees to get back to Winterfell and somehow keep my ability to use them like this a secret. I looked through the smashed crate nearest the fire pit. Splinters bit my fingers, but all I found was a rusted hook and a coil of rotten rope.

My empty stomach protested as I searched but I forced myself to keep moving, peering into overturned barrels and scattered tools. An axe head without a handle, bent nails, a broken lantern. No food. No food at all.

Survival training I had undergone back in remnant told me that I could still operate effectively without food for a short time as long as I limited my exertion, but an empty stomach brought its own problems. Not to mention that a full belly always made my Aura recover faster in the past.

I watched as the sun slowly began to fade beyond the horizon as I grit my teeth in frustration. I was never going to be without a waterskin and some rations from now on, this sucked!

But there was nothing I could do about it. Even without food my Aura will have recovered a fair amount if I sleep for a while, enough to attempt to use my Semblance to turn into petals and try to go into the Weirwood trees again.

I settled down onto the soft mossy earth well above the waterline and closed my eyes. The air was warm enough that I did not even need a comfy blanket even if a lack of something soft to cuddle with while I slept was sorely felt.

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I felt stronger when I awoke, but much worse. The hunger had become dull and distant, but I knew from experience that this was the prelude to genuine pain. Thankfully I had... somewhat clean water to drink and did so, careful not to overdo it. 

With the morning light I could see the camp a little better and noticed what looked to be an old trail that was being reclaimed by the woods leading deeper into the island. Without knowing where I would be sent to when I used my Semblance on the Weirwood tree, or even if it would work, I decided to follow the trail.

Perhaps it would lead to some kind of... supplies. Or buried treasure! Or a cabin in the woods, that would be great! I got to my feet and made my way into the forest following the trail only a few dozen paces before I entered a small clearing with a number of stumps and a pile of rotting wood stacked up with some stakes hammered into the ground keeping them in place.

In the middle of the clearing a number of woodcutters' axes and fairly good shape were left embedded in a wide and pale tree stump. I suppose this is where whoever made that hidden camp was getting their wood. No cabin sadly, it seems that they might have intended that with how many trees had been cut down but they never got around to... it...

I blinked and calmly walked forwards to grasp the handle of the axe and pry it from the stump testing its weight.

There were also five desiccated corpses tied to the trees at the edge of the clearing, parts of them having been torn away by time or scavengers. I suddenly found it a bit difficult to breathe. What remained of their eyeless faces contorted into expressions of pure agony.

“Nope.” I said after a moment and turned around. My voice was little more than a startled squeak as I trudged back towards the beach as I struggled to keep my breath steady.

The dread weighed down upon me as I kept walking, my eyes affixed to the treeline as I urged my Aura to recover faster. I could feel it, slowly recovering from when it had shattered. I felt my teeth press against each other and my hands grow clammy on the well used axe handle as I forced myself to continue my unhurried stride. As if were I to give any indication of weakness it would spell my doom.

The dense Weirwood forest bore down upon me with a malicious and thick silence. Faces peaking out behind every tree and bush watching my passage as I marched through the primordial wood with a confidence that I did not feel. 

I arrived at the clearing after what felt like an eternity, the blood red markings I had left on the trees leading me right back to where I had arrived on the island. I took a moment to look at the trees and try to work out what tree I had somehow come though when the Weirwoods had interacted with my Semblace. 

CAAW 

I almost jumped out of my skin as I whirled about and brought up my axe of furious vengeance only to see a raven sitting smugly atop a familiar looking Weirwood.

I stared at the bird for a moment as I struggled to get my heart beat under roughly four thousand ba-bumps a second before I puffed up my cheeks and glared at him.

“Shut up.” I said simply before I took a moment to consider if I was making a sensible decision.

CAAW-CAAW 

Probably not, but I am not staying on dead people island thank you very much!

With what little power I had recovered of my semblance I shouldered the axe and threw myself forwards towards the Weirwood tree the raven was poaching atop. Any fear that my sudden transportation so far from Winterfell might be a fluke vanished in a flurry of blood red petals.

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