We gorged ourselves on the juicy, flavorful meat of the mysterious unnamed fruit, and in a flash the pile of carefully collected delicacies seemingly vanished before our waiting hands. We were all too fast, and a little too heavy with our consumption to make any attempt to share it evenly, or ration, and the sloppy fluid disappeared as soon as it could physically travel the distance between bag, hand, and mouth.

Before long, I was burping and sighing on the ground along with my other three friends with a satisfied look on my face, feeling completely stuffed, but remarkably nubile all the same. Even with all the fruit in my system, I didn't feel bloated, or tired. It really was like a miracle recovery food.

I felt a delighted buzz in the pit of my stomach where the particles of suspended sunshine I had tasted before sank into my skin, and invigorated every inch of my being. I felt stronger, and faster, and more energized than when I had started.

I scanned the immediate surroundings attentively, drinking in the state of all the gutterflies collapsed along the ground, and the remaining vilpo pods that remained in the shirt, untouched as of yet. 'She really did a number on them,' I realized, nudging one close to me, with the edge of my food.

My right ear was ringing a little bit; as if her memory continued to echo distantly in the collective unconsciousness of my mind's hearing.

"Wow..." I mumbled, wrenching my eyes shut, and digging my right pinky deep into my ear canal in hopes that the motion would dislodge some earwax or something to alleviate that sense of muted utility. "I didn't know that a whistle could get that loud."

"Zoel, you're such a big dummy, I'm surprised you know much of anything at all. What were you thinking, bringing their favorite food back to camp?" Rilah responded.

"Ugh," I sighed. "I don't understand why I bothered working so hard to find you! I must have forgotten how truly miserable you make me in your company."

Janny and Fimbs gave each other a knowing look, and backed away because I was clearly asking for whatever was next, and they wanted no part of it.

She sauntered over, on all fours, and pounced at my chest without so much as a word. I screamed in feigned terror and tried to dodge, but it seemed like she was capable of flight or something, because she twisted in the air, and latched onto my torso anyway; swinging around to curl her arms and legs around my neck and waist respectively in a sort of piggy-back hold that was just tight enough to give my heart rate a spike, without aggravating my wounds.

Then again, it appeared as though my wounds didn't seem to hurt nearly as much after taking a break to eat and catch my breath. They had supposedly reopened along the way down from the canopy, but I didn't feel much pain at all.

Rilah throttled me too hard to tell, in all sincerity. My head bobbled wildly as she shook me with all her strength. "I'll show you miserable, you little yellow-bellied raptor feeder. You haven't seen misery yet!"

Ignoring her childish expressions, I wondered aloud, "Hey, hold on. What were those things we all ate, after all? You do actually know what they're called, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" she beamed, from over my shoulder. "Don't you remember Vassur talking about the soliby seed, and how it can pack any medication with the healing power of refined sunlight?"

"S-soliby seeds?!" Janius shouted, in disbelief. "You're telling me that we call just ate a whole bunch of soliby seeds, accidentally; and nobody spoke up about how rare they were? I thought they grew really deep into the Nightwhere!"

"Yeah," I volunteered, "and I thought the fruit they're supposed to be in had a hard outer shell. These were soft like a waterskin full of tallow."

Fimbs said, "I didn't even see any seeds. I practically drank the meat. I always pictured soliby to be a lot denser and less liquid."

Rilah nodded, holding up a corrective finger. "When they're mature, they have a hard outer shell. What you all had the pleasure of experiencing was a juvenile fruit. The benefits of the seeds hadn't fully materialized, because the seeds hadn't developed yet, but all the same goods were in the juice—to a lesser degree."

I looked at my hands, and gaped at what I saw. Underneath the flakes of dried blood, I scraped off a channel on my palms to reveal new flesh, untarnished by the several awful landings I had suffered on my way down the tree.

"By the great blue, guys...! Look!" I raked my fingers across my left hand, exposing four wide swaths of fresh, unscarred, healthy skin where there should still be deep gouges of bleeding canyons waiting to be wrapped up in filthy gauze. "I think she's right! All my wounds are closing up super fast!"

"No way!" Janny shouted, scrambling closer to take a closer look. He took my palm, and held it up to the light of the torch. "I knew the stories, and of course I believed everything Vassur said, but it's so much more fantastic seeing it happen in real life in front of you."

Fimbs sauntered over, eyes wide and full of awe, and scraped dried blood off my temples to reveal the same patterns of elegant stitch work on my face. "D-does that mean that the legends are true? all of them?"

Rilah scoffed, and I smiled. "If they weren't true, then how do we even know that The Hadal Forest exists?"

"Well, yeah, that's one thing." Fimbs began, trepidatiously, "All the dangerous things have to come from somewhere, but the stories of a man who lived in the forest without needing sunlight, or walking on the surface of the Nightwhere without a pontoon or skipper? Ripping trees from their foundations with one hand, and soaring through the air like it was a small step? You don't find that a little bit unrealistic?"

"Nope!" Rilah smiled back, completely unfazed by this logical reasoning. "Did you guys think I would be preparing for a journey that I thought was impossible, or something?"

Fimbs couldn't meet her gaze. She looked to Janius next, but he could only shrug. "Really?"

"I dunno," he replied, "I just kind of hoped you'd come to your senses before it got too late."

I raised my hand. "Well, I never doubted you, if that matters."

She sighed. "Wow, so you're telling me that everyone thinks that I'm completely crazy?"

I cleared my throat, and repeated, "Uh, hello...? Am I just talking to myself?!"

"Yes, we know what you think of me."

A deadpan look of noncommittal disregard swept over my face, and I dropped her onto the floor beneath. "Wha—Ouch! Hey!"

Janny just snickered, and Fimbs wandered off; kneeling over the slumbering form of one of the canopy dwellers. Its chest rose and fell in shallow little hummingbird breaths. "Circling back to these little guys, Do you think they're going to be okay?"

"Oh, don't worry about them. I just used one of my grandatha's tricks to freak them out, a little bit. They'll wake up soon enough." Rilah said, comfortingly; climbing up to her feet, and dusting off the seat of her pants. "Speaking of which, we should probably be going on our way. Odds are somebody's gonna want to taste one of them sooner or later."

My eyes widened, and I turned toward her. She crossed her arms, and gave me a smirk, as if she knew what I was going to say. "No, Zoel. We're not going to kill the helpless little fruit flies because you're curious."

"I didn't say that I was going to eat them!" I said, defensively, throwing up my hands and turning to face the direction that I figured might have been home.

"Oh, really? Then, tell me what you were going to say. What great wisdom were you going to share that had nothing to do with gobbling up everything in the stalks to sate your curiosity?"

"I don't have to explain anything," I snapped, but not without a knowing grin. I had a plan to get out of this. "Now be quiet. I need to focus on where we're going next."

She laughed, "Of course, how convenient for you!" but to her credit, she did back off, and allow me a beat to clear my mind.

It took me a few seconds of concentration, to reorient myself, but the instant I figured out the course, I flung my eyes open, and pointed in a direction that was halfway to the left of us. "There."

Janny and Fimbs both filed in behind us. He passed the torch to me, as I was now in charge of navigation. I looked around, and was delighted. "Let's go home."

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