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"I think it would be beneficial for you to engage in some of your old hobbies."

Natzathil rubbed circles at the corners of his clenched lids. There was an argument on his tongue, hardly a breath away, stifled only by the long groan that managed to escape first. Anything he'd done previously, he'd done with his sister. Repeating those tasks without her would not make Aeris' disappearance easier. Or better, as the elder man seemed to believe they would. If anything, Nat felt assured that his mood would only worsen. He missed his sister’s nagging, her laughing, her tottering through the grass. He missed the shadow she cast when she stood over him, aghast at his carelessness.

Granda’s intentions were admirable, Nat was sure. But despite losing his wife and his children, the old man did not understand losing a sibling. He particularly did not understand losing a sibling he'd shared a womb with; one that he'd never been apart from; one who’d known all his secrets and ambitions; one who’d been taken from him; one he’d done nothing to save. Granda’s concern for Nat’s well-being and happiness was appreciated. However, his interference in Natzathil's brooding was not. The young archer looked up, gaze narrowed and lips drawn into a tight, stretched line. A thousand rebuttals sprang to mind. Copious refusals and denials, arguments that if simply given space, he would sort things out in his own time.

He remained silent. Butting heads with a stubborn old man over such a trivial things as ‘space’ and ‘time’ and ‘patience’ seldom yielded results worth the conflict.

If Nat had learned anything over the waning moons, this was it.

Against his own desires, Natzathil rose with a sigh. Hands slipped from his face, finding their way down and into his breeches’ pockets. He shifted to his heels, perching there in a half-slump against the outer wall of the house, looking out from the porch and into the trees beyond. ”You are a great pillar of wisdom and knowledge. Of course you are right,” he acquiesced as honestly as he could, dipping his head slightly to the side and diverting direct visual contact away. Granda would likely take him at his word, sarcasm-filled or not. ”Maybe I should like to venture out again.” There’d been many things he was interested in… sampling while Aeris was around. Her good sense had prevented much of it. Without her, he wouldn’t be hindered, at least.

Though Nat expected he’d suffer many more adverse side-effects as well. All for the sake of curiosity. He rolled his shoulders, creaking his head to the side and earning an array of pops and snaps as his bones resisted the movement. Sucking in a deep gulp of air and letting it out at length, the thin male decided, ”I think I will. I’ll probably learn more without her hanging over my shoulders...”

That was that. Natzathil packed a satchel- a book for classifying his findings, canteen of water, a mix of nuts and dried berries for a snack, a quiver of arrows and bow in hand as well. And after a muted murmur from Granda of, “If you’re going out, best go into the city to pick up dinner,” the young man set out to spend the duration of the day traversing through Soudul’s forests. The terrain was not unfamiliar to him. The proximity of Granda’s house to Nat’s own childhood home meant the area didn’t exactly sport anything that left him feeling particularly wary. Yes, dangerous creatures always lurked in the dark forest, but if they hadn’t attacked a tottering toddler and his sister holding their first exploration outside the home, it stood to reason that they wouldn’t assault a well-equipped teenager.

He made his way through the brambles and foliage easily, taking long, sweeping strides over the grasses and roots that stood between him and the still, murky expanse of water that lay on the outskirts of the property.

The swamplands held the most interesting plants and roots. And yet it also had a particularly repugnant scent that dissuaded him from opening his mouth at all, let alone to actually taste any of the multitude of sweet, bitter, minty, and strong smelling herbs that held Natzathil’s interest. His book held names, written descriptions, visual depictions, and a few sentences worth of facts about certain plants. Not all of them. Some he expected were utterly useless. Others he suspected escaped notice because their effects weren’t immediate or strong enough. Or at the very least weren’t strong enough when sampled alone.

That was where the brunt of his interest lay.

Originally, he’d been curious of poisons simply for the sake of knowledge. Why did some herbs cause harm and others cause relief? What was in them that made them different, when many looked so alike? Why did some of them taste so good and others taste rotten? Now he wondered for the sake of vengeance. He doubted mara could be tortured and questioned. They hadn’t seemed particularly sentient, and with bodies made of rock, likely didn’t feel pain. Their creators could be.

Orderites, with their high-handed and back-stabbing ways could be made to pay for Aeris’ disappearance. They could be made to answer for what they’d done, even if the rest of the world seemed content enough to forget about it. In a time of relative peace and standoff they’d released their creations on the world… They, unlike their mara monstrosities, could hurt. ”How dare they,” Natzathil muttered, fingers crimping in the moist grass from the place he’d taken up on the ground.

His answer came as a croak, low and vibrant. The archer’s attention flicked down immediately, to where a small clan of bulbous knobbled creatures sat. The cavities of their throats expanded and retracted as they stared back at him. While initially uninteresting at first glance, the amphibians seemed capable of sustaining plant life on their backs. Natzathil’s gaze narrowed in on them. At once, they moved to hop away, and Nat stood. As one of the the toads bounced toward the water, the Oblivionite followed.

Was it sustaining injuries from those plants? Could it eat them? Could he eat them? They could be parasitic for all Natzathil understood, hindering the creature’s movements and feeding off its life. The plants- mushrooms, seemed capable of producing spores, as most fungi could; likely toxic. Except not to the toad, it seemed.

Marvelous.

A mutualistic relationship between plant and animal, in which the plant protects its host with its toxin, and the toad, in turn, provides nourishment for the plant to survive. Fascinating. And to Natzathil, it was. So much so that the young Oblivionite refused to allow all of them to escape without further study. He extended a hand, sweeping it forward and knocking one of the creatures away from it refuge. They were spry little things… With quick, powerful legs that retreated hastily from him. ”I only want to look at you,” he complained. ”It won’t even cause you any harm.”

Natzathil leaped after one, tossing his arms out as he jumped and slamming them down into the mud, earning him a wet ’slop’ of sound as his body connected to the moist earth. A toad wriggled from beneath him, escaping rapidly before Nat could rise to continue the hunt. In only a bat of his lashes, it fled into the swamp.

What it left behind, half-crushed and covered in mud, was a bulb half the size of Nat’s palm, protected by a sheet of questionable film that the Oblivionite male knew was probably not great to touch. But it was interesting. Something he wanted. He reached for his now-filthy satchel and produced a small silken bag, adorned with a thick thread. After depositing his findings in the pouch,he smiled in spite of himself.