Chapter Text
Juniper had been sitting on her bed when the wind brought the message to her. Despite the late hour, sleep refused to come. The academy had long since settled into the strange quiet that only existed after dusk, when even the loudest students had finally exhausted themselves.
She was unable to rest. She had heard nothing back from legs all day, and it was terrifying her. It was all she could think about the entire day. The drifting thoughts earned her her own minor injuries from the dungeon crawling she did in an attempt to distract her overworking mind.
It didn't help at all. Nothing she did really helped the anxiety coursing through her entire being as the day trudged on with no reply from him.
No, joke carried by the wind. No, hasty rant about her sending thirty-some odd messages at a time with her nerves. Not even one of his infuriatingly vague one-line messages that usually answered nothing, while somehow making her smile anyway.
Nothing.
The silence had become unbearable.
At first, she'd convinced herself he was simply busy. Going on a mission to kill some that put a bounty on your head was easy; he had to be constantly vigilant of those very bandits, as well as managing his supplies and the like. He simply could have forgotten.
By midday, she'd started checking every breeze that brushed against her face, half expecting familiar magic to ride in with it.
By afternoon, she'd begun imagining reasons.
Reasonable ones.
Unreasonable ones.
The dungeon had seemed like the obvious solution. If she couldn't stop thinking, maybe she could exhaust herself enough that her brain simply shut down. She'd signed up for a run almost without thinking, throwing herself into monster after monster with a level of aggression that surprised even her teammates.
Normally, Juniper fought with precision. Every strike was measured. Every spell deliberate.
Today, she'd missed openings she would never normally miss.
A skeleton's rusted blade had clipped her shoulder because she'd glanced toward the entrance after hearing someone laugh, convinced for half a heartbeat that it sounded like him.
A golem had caught her ankle while she'd been staring blankly at nothing, replaying their last conversation word for word, wondering if she'd missed something.
She'd taken a fireball to the arm because she'd completely forgotten to raise her shield.
Her teammates had assumed she was tired.
She hadn't corrected them.
By the time the dungeon spat her back out, she'd collected enough bruises and shallow cuts that Violet had frowned at her and asked if she'd forgotten how to fight.
She almost laughed.
If only that had been the problem.
She hadn't bothered changing out of her adventuring gear when she got back to her room, kicking her boots off. They lay discarded by the door, one tipped onto its side.
hours later, the injuries stung beneath fresh bandages, but she barely noticed them. Physical pain was easy.
The gnawing knot wrapped around her chest was another matter entirely.
Every possibility her imagination produced was worse than the last.
Maybe he'd gotten hurt.
Maybe he'd been captured.
Maybe—
"No," she whispered into the empty room, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. "Stop."
The command lasted all of three seconds before another awful thought replaced the last.
What if he simply wasn't coming back?
She hated how quickly her mind accepted the idea.
Hated how easily it painted pictures she didn't want to see.
Legs had always had a habit of disappearing into trouble with a nervous grin and the shaky confidence that everything would somehow work itself out. Usually, it did.
Usually.
The word echoed louder every time she thought it.
Usually wasn't a promise.
Usually wasn't enough.
She let herself fall backward onto the mattress, staring blankly at the wooden ceiling beams overhead. The room felt far too quiet without the constant chatter of the academy outside. Even the crickets seemed hesitant tonight.
She counted her breaths.
Listened to the wind.
Waited.
Every faint rustle outside her window made her heart leap before sinking again.
Until, finally, one breeze sounded... different.
Not stronger.
Sharper.
Purposeful.
The curtains stirred, though the air had gone still only moments before. A cool current slipped into the room, circling once around the bed like an unseen bird before brushing gently against her cheek.
Juniper sat bolt upright.
She knew that feeling.
Someone had sent a message.
Goodbye, guys, i dont think I'm making it back this time. I'm sorry
Just like that, the worst outcome was directly confirmed to her with a message from the man who was practically family to her along with a flash of phantom pressure in her head.
If anyone had been in the room with her, they would have witnessed a heartbreaking sight. Her entire body trembled uncontrollably, each shudder rippling through her slight frame as though she were trying to hold herself together by sheer force of will. Her breathing came in uneven, ragged gasps that caught painfully in her throat, threatening to become sobs she could no longer suppress.
Rivulets of tears streamed endlessly down her face, carving burning paths across her flushed skin. They clung to her trembling jaw before dripping silently onto her lap, soaking into the fabric unnoticed. She made no effort to wipe them away. There were simply too many, each one spilling forth as quickly as the last, carrying with it another fragment of the fear and helplessness crushing her chest.
Her hands shook so violently that even curling them into fists did little to stop the trembling. Every muscle in her body felt tight enough to snap, yet she lacked the strength to move. She sat frozen, trapped in the prison of her own spiraling thoughts, her silent cries swallowed by the empty room. The only sounds that accompanied her grief were the occasional hitch of her breath and the soft patter of tears striking the floor beneath her, each drop marking another passing second sense the message.
Even her magic responded to the news. The giant tree that grew from the corner of her room, normally still except for the occasional lazy sway of its leaves, trembled as though caught in a breeze that didn't exist. Its branches rustled softly, scattering a few emerald leaves across the wooden floor. The movement wasn't random. It was anxious. Restless.
Juniper watched through blurred vision as one of the lower branches slowly stretched toward her bed.
Another followed.
The vines curled with careful hesitation around her trembling wrists, never squeezing, only resting there as if asking permission. When she didn't pull away, they wound a little farther, looping over her fingers and around the backs of her hands. The bark was smooth beneath her skin, cool and steady, while tiny leaves brushed against her knuckles with feather-light touches.
It felt almost like a hug.
A clumsy, makeshift one, crafted by a tree that had no idea how to comfort a grieving girl beyond doing the only thing it knew: reaching for her.
Juniper's breath hitched.
The branches tightened just enough to ground her, swaying gently with each uneven breath she took, as though trying to remind her to keep breathing. More vines crept down from the trunk, curling around the edge of the bed and resting against her legs, surrounding her in a quiet cocoon of living wood and leaves.
Her magic had always reflected her emotions. When she was happy, flowers bloomed to heal those in there present. When she was angry, the plants around her shared their thorns to her cause.
Now they shared her grief.
The tree's leaves quivered with every spike of Heartbreak that raced through her chest, their soft rustling filling the otherwise silent room. It couldn't tell her that everything would be okay. It couldn't promise to bring Legundo back, or that tomorrow would bring good news.
But it could refuse to let her weather the storm alone.
So the mighty tree held her with gentle branches, while Juniper cried her rings sitting in her lap. Unknowingly to her, the magic was reaching out for more than a companion in her space.