"There is no way this can be traversed," Blanc said, "Perhaps someplace else, the gap is shorter, or perhaps there is some sort of bridge, natural or manmade, that would allow us to pass safely, but not like this."
"What do we do, then?" Celine asked.
"It's only the third day," Blanc shrugged his shoulders lightly, "We have a week left in this garden. We prioritize getting stronger and finding the turtles. Let's go back."
"Thank the Vita," Miyanna replied to Blanc's words, taking a step back from the edge of the gap, before turning on her heels.
Though it was not what Blanc hoped, at least it was an answer.
Though it looked impossible now, Blanc knew that they would find some way.
And if the writings were false, and they had no other choice, they would just leave the Silver Gardens and look for the other entrances.
"Brother," said Blanc as they began their walk back.
Blanc turned his head slightly. "What is it, Little Kael?"
"You said before that the Gardens are ever-changing. What did you mean by that?" Kael asked.
"The Gardens are a natural phenomenon. They appear naturally," Blanc began, "In the Senvia Empire, there is only one such place, but there are several over the continent, and from what I've read, there are some on other continents as well."
"And how does the Silver Gardens being a natural phenomenon answer my question?" Kael wondered.
"Because, in a way, they are a living being. A living construct is what the Archivum Civitas calls them," Blanc continued. "And while this living construct never moves, it evolves, it grows, just like any other living being. For how long nobody knows, but the construct is feeding itself by absorbing corpses, fallen trees, fruits, and every dead organic material that remains in that same place for too long. It offers the beasts and trees living in it the means of survival so that it can consume them later on."
"What are those means of survival you speak of?" Lune asked.
But Celine decided to answer that for her, "The biomes themselves. The warmth you feel here, or the cold of the Moose Path, the water we drink, the river we caught the caimans in, the earth beneath our feet. This living construct, in a way, imitates the outside world as a trap for them to feed on the living beings of that place."
"But that's weird, no?" Miyanna voiced her confusion about Blanc and Celine's explanation.
"What is?" Blanc asked, curious.
"If they feed on the living beings of these biomes, how did the living beings get here in the first place?" Miyanna wondered. "I doubt that monkeys just came here."
"Well, that is still unknown," Blanc began, "The most accepted theory is that the Vita spawns them in herself, or an evolutionary trait after a long time."
"The Vita herself?" Miyanna sighed, "Couldn't they have just been brought here by someone?"
"That sounds difficult," Celine replied after thinking for a while. "Who would go through all that trouble? But the explanations we have on hand have their own gaps in logic. If the Vita spawned everything in, as per the biomes they normally live in, that would mean that there should be plenty of turtles going around. Yet Blanc saw only a baby."
"Now that you mention it like that, it really makes you wonder," Blanc sighed, "Is what is known wrong or incomplete?"
"Also," Miyanna added, "Do humans live in such biomes?"
"Usually, yes," Blanc nodded to her weird question.
"If the Vita spawned everything that lives here, would humans not be between those things?"
Miyanna's question left Blanc and the rest speechless.
Such a simple question, yet none, not even scholars, has asked it before.
It took Blanc a whole minute to think about it, but the only answer he came back with was a simple, "Let's hope not."
And that was the only correct answer.
It felt somehow wrong thinking about it like that. It made all of them uncomfortable.
Especially for Blanc.
Not because they have uncovered something, but because it felt wrong.
If that were the case, a group of people would have found the exits already and entered the normal world.
But how different would they be from the rest?
And if that were the case, since the Silver Gardens have been here for a long time, someone must have discovered them already, or they would have made the Gardens their own over generations and generations.
No. There were and are no people in the Gardens.
It does not make sense… Or does it, actually?
It's weird.
Three hours passed in mostly silence as they walked, with only short conversations here and there before and after a hunt.
During these hours, they killed two lone gorillas that were killed by Kael and Lune with arrows, receiving the same Mark once more.
As well as Blanc killing a large King Cobra with two arrows straight in its eyes, for which he received a White Mark of the King Cobra, the outline of a snake's face on his sternum.
Only after he came out of the harvest and began walking once more, did Celine ask a question that crossed all their minds at least once since Miyanna asked her question.
"My love," Celine said to her husband, "Could the Metamorphs not be from the Silver Gardens?"
"What makes you think that?" Miyanna asked her.
"Well, their unknown origin, no records mentioning them, it would make sense," Celine explained.
"I've been thinking about that actually, but it doesn't really hold," Blanc replied, "I mean, think about it, Heru could transform into an eagle, Allegra could transform into a spirit bear, and the other woman into a cheetah. Blood Certa would have killed them to extinction or enslaved them before they could become a threat, and if the Silver Gardens were really their home, we would've seen them by now, especially since they made themselves known in Certa's Domain."
"Or they could have conquered and ruled over the Gardens as their own," added Celine, picking up on Blanc's idea.
"Exactly," he nodded, "But their origin is still unknown, even if they are not from here."
"I don't care about them," Miyanna said, "Especially that Allegra."
"Me neither," added Blanc the next moment, a drop of sweat running down his forehead. Kael sighed, hoping this would close the heavy topic, "Even better if they are not from here, or they would take us as enemies once more."
"True," Blanc nodded, "But I think, if they were from here, they would have mentioned it the last time we met."
"Why?" Miyanna asked, curious.
"They would have warned us not to enter their home since we went our way after not that good of a first impression," Blanc explained.
"It will only stress us thinking about it. Let's leave it at that," Celine said.
Blanc could not help but agree happily, "Especially since you should not stress yourself too much."
So they left it aside, and the rainforest made way for their passing, not placing any other beast in front of them, making the last two hours they had to walk back towards the campsite a nice walk through the wilderness.
Once they were back, seeing that everything was in its place, Blanc prepared a quick dinner while the twins were bathing.
When they came back, they ate the last of the caiman meat they had, as well as some porridge, before the twins went to sleep and the married couple went to bathe and relax.
Unfortunately, they did not get to relax as much as they should have.
Because they chose to proceed with the heavy negotiations from last night, under the waterfall as if it were their own.
After concluding the talks outside, they took them inside for another round of negotiations, until the two ladies decided it was enough and went to sleep.
So it was that Blanc found himself the only one left awake, placing more logs on the fire.
He was not tired, especially after such a day, but was exhausted mentally.
So, to find something to do to pass the time, he went to the pool with a torch and knife in hand and brought the remaining five jaguar corpses near the water to remove their pelts.
And it went wonderfully as a distraction because, by the time he was done, there were no more than two hours until the sun rose again.
After he buried the jaguars, he placed the pelts on one of his shoulders and went back to the campsite to feed the fire some more wood and start preparing breakfast.
He placed the pelts to dry a bit on a branch near the fire and was about to go inside his tent when something caught his ear.
Step.
A heavy one. Way too heavy for a normal beast.
Step. Step.
It came towards the campsite.
It was still too far away for him to see what it was.
But it was close enough that it was impossible for him to grab his sword from the tent or wake the others up and have them prepare themselves properly for combat.
Whatever it was, he would have to kill it with his knife, as stealthily and as swiftly as possible.
He got up into a tree, ten feet above the ground, where he managed to hide behind large trees while also being able to see what was approaching.
The steps were way too heavy, and from the sound of it, it walked on all fours.
As it got closer, the steps turned into quiet stomps.
They did not carry a lot of sound, but they could not hide the weight behind them.
From the way it tried to silently approach, it felt as if the beast had a high degree of intelligence.
And what Blanc saw was a bear, a gray-white bear, hidden by the dark as it almost crawled near the campsite.
Why was such a beast, a bear at that, sneaking in?
Blanc gave up that thought as he walked slowly, placing himself above where the bear would be, and waited.
He waited for a minute as the beast, step by step, crawled its way close to where the fire stood.
This was his chance.
He jumped, knife in hand, straight onto the bear's back.
And stabbed as deep as he could behind one of its shoulders, making it crash to the ground and sending Blanc flying.
As he fell to the ground, he rolled, and before the next moment, he jumped back into action.
And as he ran towards the bear, he noticed that it was actually a spirit bear, and the bear's hair began moving backward at a fast speed until all that was left on the ground made Blanc sigh.
Fuck… Miyanna will hate this, he thought as he watched Allegra already knocked down on the ground, with blood oozing out of the wound he gave her.