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The Second Moonrise Part 2: Goat Girl

We first saw it as a glimmer in the darkness. Purple is a terrible color for a beacon to safety, but that's also not how we found it. No, we found her before we found the Campgrounds. Or should I say, she found us.   It was Ron who first noticed the Ants had dispersed. They had been keeping pace with us, while never straying too close. In the night behind them, we were always seeing silver eyes. That was something I had learned about Ron in our time away from Lostling's Hope: He was unusually perceptive, but didn't say that much about what he saw. Thinking back, it's easy to understand how he survived long enough to make it to Lostling's Hope. But that wasn't the last time I'd come to that realization.   I felt his gnarled hand on my shoulder. He motioned around us. Quietly, he whispered "They're gone. So are the other animals." Looking into the trees, I remember straining my eyes. He was right. While we usually heard the swarms of ants moving over dead leaves and each other, there wasn't a sound anymore.   Karen tugged at my shirt. Me and Ron looked towards her. She was pointing off into the distance, were a faint, pink glow was visible far into the trees. We all fell silent. Quietly, Ron began to shepherd us towards the deeper undergrowth, closer to one of the gargantuan trees. As we watched, the glow grew brighter and brighter. Something was making it, silhouetted against the black night and the bright glow.   It was a girl... no, not quite. Those were horns, forming a crescent behind her head. She wore what looked like an animal skin jacket, and her lower half... I gasped. "She's a satyr!" Ron clamped a hand over my mouth. We stayed that way for a while, watching the figure slowly walking towards us. She was looking around, and I realized she left a trail of glowing pink flowers on the ground as she walked. Slowly, she stalked towards us, one hand on a purse-like satchel. A few more steps, and she finally stopped. Slowly, she sat down, carefully moving the satchel into her lap.   "You can come out. I'm not here to hurt you. The Ants told me what happened." Me and Karen looked towards Ron's uncertain face. There was no trust there. Just like all of the other adults, he was not willing to put us in danger. But something about the way that the goat girl had said that convinced me. Now that I'm telling the story, I don't know why I trusted her. Maybe it was the way she moved, different from all of the other creatures I'd seen. There was a confident power that followed her, and she looked almost like a deity from the stories Ron had told.   Maybe I should put more stock into stories.   I stood up from the ferns and roots we had been hiding in, even as Ron tried to pull me back down. "Are you also friends with the ants?" I asked, hoping for some familiarity with my strange guides. Ron quickly yanked me back down.   She smiled at me, and slowly stood up. She carefully walked over to our hiding place and knelt down. It was then that Ron made his move. "RUN!" he shouted at us, and lunged at her. Startled, the girl awkwardly fell over backwards into the trail of flowers she'd left behind her. Ron fell with her, but Karen wasn't going to stick around to find out how this ended.   Karen grabbed my hand and bolted, pulling me after her into the Forest. Scared by all the sudden action, I ran after her. We were running for only a few seconds before my sister tripped over a fallen branch, twisting her ankle in the process. She looked at me then, and I saw the pain and fear in her eyes. I stopped and hugged her, unsure of what else to do. Karen hugged me back, and for a few seconds, it flooded through us both just how much we had lost. Both our parents and our home had been taken away from us. And now, alone in the forest, we may have lost our mentor too.   "Hey, kids! Where'd you go? God fucking damnit..." Glancing back, a familiar pink glow caught my eye. I looked back and my sister. The goat girl was closing in, but what if she really was as bad as I'd heard the other satyrs were? Ron had told us stories about the satyrs of the Dark Forest. How they'd eat you alive, after binding you in vine... The thought caught in my throat. What if she was behind the vines that had grown into Lostling's Hope?   "Look, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here because of the Ants. You know them right? They gave you something." She still didn't know where we are, hidden in the undergrowth as we were. But again, I felt that aura of confidence. It was almost a visible sphere around her, but that could have just been the light from her flowers. For some reason, I wanted to trust her.   The goat girl sat down again. crossing her hooved legs and waiting. "You each have a Salamander token. You're supposed to be trustworthy." She grimaced, clearly annoyed. "Or at least I hoped you were. Wasn't expecting to be stabbed by an old fart like him."   We sat in silence for a few more minutes. She looked around, got up, and turned to leave. "Fine! Die in the Forest for all I care. See if the Ashvine is as understanding as I am. Waste of my immeasurably busy time." She snorted to herself, as if laughing at her own joke, then muttered something under her breath. "At least I can take the old man back."   Ron was alive then. It was then that I made a decision. I nodded to Karen and helped her to her feet. "You didn't hurt him? He's alive?" She turns back to me, smiling.   "There you are. No, I didn't hurt him." Worry flickered over her face. "I've been away too long though. And so have the Ants. Are you hurt? Do you need help?" She starts to move closer, pushing aside the ferns. Karen shrieks, and she stops, her face plainly showed uncertainty. "Did you twist your ankle?" Karen nodded fearfully. "Will you let me help her?" This was directed at me.   I looked back at Karen. She was all I had left now. The decision was obvious. "Help her!"   The goat girl opened her satchel and pulled out a leaf-wrapped package. "Numbing powders. It takes too long for me to make them on the spot," she explained. She walked over to Karen and knelt down. "Please, this will only hurt for a bit. It's what I can do right now. When we get to safety, you can get something better." Karen nods uncertainly. The goat girl opened the package and upends the contents onto Karen's ankle. She smiles at my sister, saying, "It won't heal it, but it will stop the pain and ensure it doesn't get more hurt. It's made from my flowers." She motions to the pink cascade behind her. "Touch it while it lives and it will put you to sleep. Useful for lots of things." Karen swallowed and nodded again, clearly not wanting to speak to the girl. The satyr stood up and helped Karen to her feet. "Let's get you back to your friend?" Both of us nodded.   Eventually, we made our way back to where we first met her. Ron was there, asleep in a bed of the flowers at the base of a tree, a small wooden stake resting in his open hands. I tried to run to him, but the girl gently grabbed my jacket. "No... I was right, we did leave him too long. Don't move, and look up." She motioned towards the tree leaning over the flowerbed. I did, and as I did I noticed a clicking and scraping like the sound that dried bones make against teeth. Perched motionless on the tree was a strange man-like figure. It was covered in bones, and was staring down at Ron's sleeping form. The satyr sucked in her breath. That air of confidence was replaced by something much more dangerous. She slowly raised her hand and snapped her fingers.   For a half second, there was a silver orb between her horns. And then it was gone, and so was the creature. It had been buried in a tidal wave of bark that had sprung from the very tree it was resting on. It happened so fast that it didn't even make a sound. Aside from roughly creature shaped mound on the tree, there was nothing left.   The girl let out a long sigh. She looked back down at us with an apologetic smile. "Lignifying isn't something I'm very good at. But you need to get redcaps instantly so it was my only choice. Go to him, but don't touch the flowers." She followed us over to Ron, who was wheezing slightly. She picked him up and placed him on her back, carefully avoiding her horns.   "Who are you?" Curiosity overcame me, and the question burst out.   "Soil. I'm a godling, and friend of the Ants and the Salamander."   "Sala- Salamandro?"   "Salamander. You'll meet it soon. Just stay close to me." She looks thoughtful for a second. "Did the Ants give you something? A token?"   I remembered the statue we had gotten from the Ants so long ago. I dug in the pockets of my tiny jacket. "This?"   Soil took the statue and nodded. "It's a sign of passage. The Ants make them, and the Salamander burns them to send you home." Soil sets off, motioning for us to follow.   "Home? You mean... outside the Forest?" This time it was Karen's turn to speak up. I helped her along, and Soil made sure not to outrun us.   Soil smiles, a big wide grin, full of sharp teeth. "You sure ask a lot of questions. But I'm not sure where they send you. I just know that you go to sleep, and when you wake up, you're not here anymore." She motions forward. "Come on, my little Lostlings, the Salamander can explain more. Or Bjorn." Turning her head back to me, she holds up a finger, wagging it back and forth. "Oh! One more thing! Let the Ants do their own thing. They're way too busy to be shepherding a couple of Lostlings around." I had the distinct impression I was being scolded.

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