ROLEPLAY

Le Sang appelle le Sang - Chapter I: Departure

Day was just breaking over the damp hills of Sylan, and already the avians of the early hours were awakening between the branches.
The family home was silent. Too quiet.
Lothie walked slowly down the steps, bag slung over her back, straps adjusted. She wore the outfit she'd been preparing for weeks: light, solid, silent. At her belt, a handwritten map, carefully folded in a protective leather envelope; in her tunic, the Sarak Etüm medallion. She crossed the threshold without turning around.

But as we passed through the gate into the small garden, a hoarse voice split the morning.
- Wait, Lothie...
It was O'Larch, her father. Out of breath, he hugged her awkwardly.
- Don't stop at the first fear. They all lie. Even the one you think you hear inside you. Can you hear me? Watch the northern slopes, they hide the springs. Roots sing for a reason, listen to them. And if you come across a cold fire... walk around it. Always go around.
He paused, his eyes shining.
Lothie nodded, serious.

Her mother remained upright in the doorway, her fingers clutching her shawl.
Red-eyed, but tearless. When their eyes met, she inclined her head slightly.
That was enough.

Lothie set off alone, following the path to the entrance of the Oflovak road.
A little way back from the ranger station, she stopped.
There they were. O'Tall. Eolinius. Ranphilter. Excalibur.
No big gestures, no laughter.
Just restrained tension, glances that said enough.

- Lothie? Is it sul? Sul has changed a lot, says Eolinius.
- Lordoy... Lothie? Ranphilter added in surprise.
She hesitated, then kissed him.

- Isn't Kyki here? Lothie asked, worried.
- Er, no... She must be with Ostium, cruising on the lake... said Eolinius, a little annoyed.
- Will you be arriving on foot? Lothie asked sadly.
- Oy, through the tunnel, Ran replied proudly.
Eolinius smiled and rubbed his head.
- The tunnel's a bit low...
- Not the best season for it... but here you are. Grytt.
- Two or three extra digs wouldn't cost any more... Ranphilter muttered.

O'Tall inspected his sister's outfit.
- ... Is it Lor? Did you upgrade the sleeves?
- Oy.
- That's a... nice outfit, where's it from? Ranphilter asked.

The trikette turned to Eo.
- Did you forget the gingerbread, Eo?
- Of course not! He took out a well-wrapped package.

Then answering Ran:
- It's designed to be discreet...
you didn't see the poncho with the hood.
With it, I look like a bush,
Ran admires:- With this, your enemies have nothing to fear!
- As long as they stay away, they can behave as they please...
- I imagine that where you're going, you're going to need it?
- I hope not... but I'm ready.
- What do you expect to find on the other side? Ran asked, worried.


- Well, I'm not going to make a speech... I'm gonna miss you guys. Even you, Ran! Eluda la trykette.

Eolinius held out a packet.
- Lothie, I've got your gingerbread.
It's a special exploration preparation.
More honey, Sparans confis... for energy.

Lothie burst out laughing and hugged him tightly.
- Grytt ny-Tala.

She stowed the package in her waterproof bag.

O'Tall handed him a small knife.
- Sul brings it to me. It's my favorite.
- Oy, O'Tall. I promise.

- Take care of yourself, Tali, added Eolinius.

She shoved the knife into a pocket.

- Don't go chasing twenty times your size. Ten is enough! Ran joked.

- Oy, Eo, I promise. And don't worry, Ran... I've learned to eat things that are easy and not dangerous...
But frankly disgusting at times...

O'Tall looked for their mother.
- Meany's not here?
- Nope. She didn't want to cry in front of me...

She paused.
- O'Larch triple-checked my bag...
I left the Zigs at home. You'll make sure P'a doesn't eat them, won't you, bro?
- Oy... I promise.
- Give my toubs a run for their money. They're at the Avendale barn.

- I don't know what you're looking for, but I hope you find it, says Ranphilter.
- Oy... sighed Lothie.

Eolinius laid a hand on his shoulder.
- Good luck, Lothie.
- Come on. Come with me to the beginning of the road...

- We're right behind you! replied the young Drakani cheerfully.

As the camp ranger passed, a few greetings and gestures. O'Tall wiped his eyes.
- She'll be back, Ranphilter gasped.
- She'd better... O'Tall growled.

- She's not coming, is she? Lothie whispered to Eo.
He nodded.
- Are you talking about Kyky?
Lothie nodded in agreement.
- Tell her I love her... Pacty.
- Oy. I'll tell him.

She stopped at the edge of the path.
- This is where novice rangers leave to complete their training...
She kissed Be'Arlly, the ranger on duty, and replied.
- Oy... I'm gonna go.
Well, I guess there's no point in prolonging it...

- Seelagan, Lothie. Take good care of yourself, says Ranphilter.
Lothie, bright-eyed, to Ran:
- You'll never know what you missed, you toub!
Seelagan, Ran. Protect Sul... and the Drakani.
Come on, don't cry. I'll be back.

Ranphilter showed his rondache.
- Don't worry. I'll protect them.

O'Tall gripped her tightly as if to hold her back.
- ...Sul sais t'es an obli...
Lothie placed a finger on her brother's lips.
- Shhh...
We've already said everything that needs to be said. So... just wish me luck Lor.

She turned around.
- Hold me tight, Eo. And push me down.

- Seelagan, Tali. Come back to us in one piece.
He hugged her, then accompanied her to the edge of the path.

- Keep an eye on O'Tall. He only does touberies when I'm not there...
Eolinius smiled, and nudged her. Just enough.

She turned one last time, then folded over her coat sewn from a multitude of fragments of torn fabric.
Her silhouette melted into the woods and she silently disappeared.

2. Crossing the Green Continent

The Labyrinth

Terres Anciennes - A few days after the last milestone was passed
How many days had it been already?
She had stopped counting them.
Here, the light no longer marked time - it glided between the branches, diffuse, confused, foreign.
Lothie paced forward, muscles tense, heart calm.

She no longer spoke aloud to herself... It would have been too noisy.
And most of all... it was getting too weird.

His footsteps made no noise.
It was one of the first things O'Larch had taught him.
"If you can hear your footstep, someone else can.
So she walked like a shadow, her feet in the soggy moss, skirting the roots, stopping at the slightest rustle.
The silence here was different.
It was full.
One morning, the ground changed. It became spongy, almost too easy. She slowed down.
One breath, then another.
Not his own. Deep. Regular. Animal.
She looked up. There, two meters away, hidden in the leaves, a Jugula slept.
His breathing gently shook the ferns.
His claws reflexively scraped the damp ground.
Lothie felt her throat knot, but her muscles remained relaxed. She remembered.
"If you see a Jugula, he's not alone."
She stepped back. One step. Then another. slowly.
No creaking.
No wind.
The silence faded.
She resumed her journey.
Sometimes she thought she saw traces of Azazor or Eeri.
A mark on the bark, a torn fabric, an abandoned object.
But she didn't touch them.
They had followed this path unprepared. She had been trained.

And yet...

she could feel their fatigue in the air.
Like a breath left behind.

Another time, as she climbed an embankment, the moss shifted beneath her feet.
She immediately planted the shaft of her pike, just as O'Larch had shown her.
Beneath the green layer, spikes gleamed: stingers, planted in the ground.
A nest of spitting toubans. Silent. Waiting.
She froze, her breath caught in her throat.
Then she crawled back on all fours, soaked and covered in mud.
Alive.

In the evening, she didn't build a fire.
She ate cold. Silent.
Her net of larvae tucked neatly under her, her weapons behind her back, her hands on the warm moss.
She slept in the fetal position, one eye still half-open.

Sometimes she dreamed of Avendale.
Kyriann's laughter.
From O'Tall's eyes.
O'Larch's silence.
And then she'd wake up.

Alone.
The beating heart.
Still alive.

One night, when she had taken refuge in the hollow of a tree trunk to avoid a hunting pack, she stayed there for hours.
Dark sap stuck to his skin. Insects were crawling up her legs.
But she didn't move.
She stopped moving.
She had become the bark.
And when the growls died away, she stayed for another hour.
Just to be sure.
Just to survive.

She had not yet crossed the threshold into what was known as the Land of the Pack.
But she could already smell the perfume.
Fear.
Ancient solitude.
Lothie knew she was still just an apprentice in this world.
But she was no longer the woman who had left Avendale.
She was on the move.
And the Labyrinth was watching her.

Fort-le-Phare

A few weeks after entering the Labyrinth
- Terres Anciennes, on the edge of the Mer de Bois

Perched on a sheer cliff, Fort-le-Phare appeared like a plant mirage, between the suffocating density of the Labyrinthe and the hazy whiteness of the Mer de Bois. Built inside an immense collapsed root, the fort seemed to grow from the bark itself - a place forged more by resilience than by hand.

Lothie arrived on foot, soberly dressed, her boots crotched, her arms crossed against her chest, as if she were wearing her solitude like a cape.
She introduced herself without comment, received a nod in return, then crossed the threshold without another word.
A few heads turned, but no one asked a question.
Here, souls came to rest, to be silent... or to be lost.

The following days
She set up her hammock in a side recess of the east corridor, near the cold galleries where the sentries returning from their rounds slept.

She soon took part in the chores:
she carted faggots to the brazier, scrubbed the workshop floor and emptied buckets of litter.
Lothie's silence was seen not as a barrier, but as a mark of respect.
She wasn't the first to come here in search of something more ancient than a simple passage.

Le Fort, its figures, its voices
- Barylus Abythanthe Fyros in charge of the guard, came across Lothie during a wood chore.
He observed the way she carried her loads, the balance of her stride.

- "You don't seem to have come here to hide.
But you've got the eyes of those who haven't finished their journey."

He says nothing more.
But he made sure she had a bowl of hot broth every night.

- Mac'Opin Kickana cheerfully sarcastic Tryker, called out to her one morning as she was copying map fragments in the common room.

- "You draw lines.
You think they're enough not to get lost?"

She answered without looking up:

- No. But they show those who have gone before."

He laughed and offered her an old compass.

- Mirka the seamstress mumbled to himself as he picked up a sleeve:
- "If you keep pretending you don't need help, I'll end up cutting you a vest out of a najab skin, just to keep you talking."

Lothie smiled.
...Just a little.

A lull in tension
For three weeks, she fit right in.
Without ever getting attached.
She listened to the tales of the old Rangers around the bar reddened by the embers of the hearth.
She learned that some returned from the Mer de Bois with wild eyes, others... not at all.
She noted in her notebook the winds, the marks on the trees, the partial routes to the east.
She copied an old diagram describing a ruin embedded in the misty cliffs, potentially linked to the old road.

At night, she sometimes dreamed of Fairhaven.
But each time, the water turned to bark.
And Kyriann's laughter died away under a veil of mist.

One morning, she climbed the upper gallery and gazed out over the Sea of Wood.
The brazier at the top of the tower lit up the mist like a nightlight lost in infinity.

"I'm not lost. I'm still on my way."

The start
She left her hands on the damp planks of the bar one last time and carved a discreet rune on the wall.

- an ancient symbol, learned from his father.

Then, without fanfare, she took the rope route.

To the east.
To lands without names.

Behind her, the brazier still glowed.
Like a farewell. Or a reminder.