Instincts?
Sighing, he couldn't resist asking.
"So, what about me? What does your 'almighty instincts' say?"
Theo stopped by a gnarled tree, his brow furrowed in thought. Then, with a shrug, he replied, "I don't know."
"…"
"What do you mean you don't know? What happened to your 'almighty instincts'?"
"Well, honestly,"
Theo admitted, his gaze a bit distant.
"When I first saw you, I was surprised I didn't feel anything from you. So much so that I briefly suspected you were some kind of puppet. But over time, I realized it wasn't that you had nothing within you; it was more of that I was looking for the wrong thing."
He then turned to face me directly. "You see, when I meet someone for the first time, I instinctively try to gauge any form of dark or malicious intent emanating from them. That is precisely what I did in your case, which is why I found… nothing. It was later that I decided to try something new, for the first time, since not gonna lie… you were starting to freak me out."
"..."
"Well, long story short, I tried looking for anything apart from..... well something wrong, and I actually found something." He trailed off into silence.
"Well, don't leave me hanging," Kael pressed, his curiosity piqued. "What did you find?"
"You don't want to know," Theo stated flatly.
"What do you mean I don't want to know? Of course I want to know what your 'almighty instincts' said about me!"
"Fine," Theo conceded, rolling his eyes with exaggerated reluctance. "I saw… an idiot."
Kael, who had been waiting with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, froze.
On the list of everything he expecting to hear, this definitely wasn't one of them.
"What… What do you mean, an idiot?"
"Well, not exactly an idiot," Theo clarified, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "I just interpreted it from the emotions and feelings I got from you… Ignorant, trusting, uneducated, surely…...inexperienced…" As the list continued, Kael's lips twitched uncontrollably.
"Okay, okay, I get it! Stop already," he interjected.
Theo offered a rare, faint smile. "You asked for it."
"Well, thanks for your insightful analysis."
Kael retorted, a touch of sarcasm lacing his voice. "But I already know all those things. That's why I'm here.....to learn."
"Well then, first lesson," Theo stated, his gaze suddenly serious. "No one is what they appear to be."
"Yeah, I got that already," Kael replied, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to just ignore the others like you are." Then, a sudden realization dawned on him, his eyes widening a little. "Wait a minute… doesn't that mean you also have a dark side and a hidden agenda?"
Theo's lips curved into a genuine, albeit small, smile. "Wow. Look at that. A fast learner. Maybe you're not as doomed as I initially thought."
************************
"So what exactly are we looking for?" Kael asked, his voice tinged with frustration. It felt like they had been wandering aimlessly through the dense jungle for an eternity.
"Fire lilies," Theo replied, his tone flat, as if stating the most obvious fact in the world.
"Of course I know that, but what exactly do they look like?"
"Lilies."
Okay, I give up.
They continued walking in silence, Kael internally lamenting his luck that his first real 'friend' in the academy was turning out to be a complete crackhead.
After what felt like an impossibly long trek, Theo finally spoke again, his voice low. "Wait."
"what?" Kael paused, following Theo's gaze.
"Over there." Theo pointed.
At a distance, high on a raised, moss-covered slope, was a cluster of vibrant flowers. They glowed with soft, shifting colors—crimson, gold, sapphire—undoubtedly the lilies Theo sought.
But that wasn't what made Kael's breath catch in his throat. It was what the flowers were growing on.
"The hell is that?" Kael breathed, a cold dread coiling in his stomach.
"Oh, did I forget to mention the lilies only grow on elemental snakes?" Theo asked, with a nonchalant shrug that infuriated Kael.
Kael whipped his head around to face him, his eyes wide. "Yes! Yes, you did! I'm not getting anywhere near that thing!" He spun back to look at the colossal, white reptile coiled in a sleep so deep it looked almost like a part of the landscape, adorned with a grotesque garden of glowing flowers and tangled grass.
"Oh, you scared of snakes?" Theo's voice was laced with an almost imperceptible hint of amusement.
Kael sputtered. "Wh—at, no! Of course not! I'm just feeling… under the weather." His voice, even to his own ears, sounded far from convincing.
Theo, to his credit, didn't press it. "Relax. They don't attack people. They're too weak for that. That's Just a Feral."
A profound wave of relief washed over Kael. His childhood trauma, the deep-seated fear of those things, had clearly not left him.
But it seemed his celebration was premature, because after a thoughtful pause, Theo continued, his voice still eerily calm
"All they do is release a poisonous mist that paralyzes anyone instantly below the Adept rank. And then they swallow you alive and slowly digest and absorb your nutrients."
"...."
Kael could only stare at the serpent as all blood drained from his face.