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Arden stood a small ways off, sniffing a flower appreciatively. He enjoyed the beauty of it, the symmetry. This flower was not just any flower, it’s roots-it’s very nature could be used as a cure. This was the gift Mother Nature gave unto her followers, and he had always heard the call of the pure. Soquili were only as pure as their corruption. Civilization, that was the corrupting force. To fight for possessions to become the petty object of someone’s jealousy….

Turning his head, he looked toward an approaching female. It was Acacia. She was always a bit uptight, part of his referencing the problems with society. She was dependant on the idea of a saviour, but she did also enjoy nature. She had the best of both worlds it seemed, yet she blamed nature---fire for the death of her family. It was the cause of their death, but it was not an evil force. He opened his mouth to speak, and paused. Arden decided not to bother her with his ramblings, she always became furious with him.

Acacia was standing there, they had asked to meet. She didn’t know why, she didn’t particularly understand what their odd connection was. However, since they had all met so long ago….Arden had found her in the forest, barely conscious. She remembered how he prayed to the Great Spirit for days, how he hoped to help her and begged the spirits to soothe her soul. She had heard him beg the Great Spirit to soothe her tormented cries.

It had been then that she had realized that she had spoken during her tortured dreams, that she had cried. It was not something she had wanted to share with him, or if she had it would have been in that way. He didn’t know the boundaries of what to say, he just assumed that since he knew they could talk about it.

It was not the case, it was a private matter between her and…well, herself until she chose to share it. But one thing his incessant chattering had provided was that she was now able to at least speak about it, some. It was progress. Maybe that was his point, all this “let nature take it’s course.” He’d always said that. He’d always been open about anything that had bothered him, because he felt it was the only way to heal. She had thought he was weird, a glutton for punishment.

Yet, a part of her envied him.

Whatever past he had---it didn’t hurt him like it did her. He didn’t close his eyes in pain, sob into the night or think about how things would never be okay again. He didn’t search for clues that were never there and would never come. The past was the past for him, and he had accepted whatever was in it. Whatever it was.

He was at peace.

She turned her head, as Bedford entered the clearing. They got together, once every few months to touch base--to associate. Again, she wondered about how Bedford and Arden had known each other before. She hadn’t ever asked them about it, it didn’t seem right to. They had been open about everything, but they’d never mentioned how they met or anything about--well anything.

Bedford came into the clearing, tired and slowing. He smiled at Acacia and nodded to Arden who seemed currently enraptured with the study of some “interesting” flower. Acacia looked concerned and distant as usual….He remembered when he had found her, taken her to Arden. They guy could be bat-crap crazy about nature and his odd beliefs but he knew about healing--about helping. It was the only way he knew to take care of the small girl he had found.

He’d never really liked Arden, never really felt at all akin to him in spirit or well--in anything other than they had similar horns. But Acacia was the tie between them. A very odd tie, her life was an open book for them. They’d both heard her tormented dreams, seen her anguish--she had been like a little sister to him. He knew it had been different for Arden, he was more fatherly--more a teacher to her. He watched over her, cared for her wounds--tried to help her heal in his own ways, but he never quite understood others from his lack of experience with them.

Bedford's voice was pained, "Do you think...do you think she'll ever forgive us?" Would he if it had happened to him? Would he forgive the ones who had raised from possibly keeping the only family he had from him?

No. Probably not. How then, could he expect her to forgive him?

Bedford spoke lowly, "You don't think she'll forgive you?"

Acacia had to know that Arden was the one behind this deception. She would know that he had played along because--well he didn't even know himself. "Why do you think she'll forgive me?"

He loved her like a daughter, though she wasn't that much younger than him. He'd done everything he could do to save her from any pain, but he had wanted her to know the truth. That her sister could be alive, though it was slim. It had been against Arden's nature to not tell her. That was why he caved. It was so strange for him to want to do to be deceptive that there had to be a reason.

But he had never discovered why.