Astrid was trying to calm herself down, even as Calden was winding up more and more. "Calden...Calden, calm down. I need to think! I need to...figure out what we're going to do..." She sat down where she was, crossing her legs and putting her head in her hands, her eyes shut as she tried to quell the horrible thoughts running through her head. "Calden...we can't go back to the cave. Whatever that...THING was...it's long gone. That's why we're here. I was following it...him...you...your body I mean. It ran away, into the forest, and I tried to chase it. I tried, Calden...I tried...", she trailed off as tears of defeat came to her eyes again. She took some calming breaths, she didn't need to get worked up again. "I think you're right though...If we can get your body back, maybe there's something that can be done to...you know...put you back in it, or something."<br/><br/><strong>"Magic...  I can see magic."</strong><br/><br/>Astrid lifted her head slowly, looking down toward her shoulder. "You can see...what? What do you mean? You can see magic? How? What does it look like? How do you know? Where?" She was talking very fast, trying to understand what he meant. "Why do you feel sick, Calde-" She broke off instantly as the forest around her seemed to pulse, and a faraway scream echoed in her ears. The sound seemed to pierce her heart, hurting her to the core with it's agony. She straightened up quickly and looked in the direction the wave of force and the cry had come from. She sat frozen for a moment, uncertain about what to do. She turned to ask Calden, then remembered he wasn't actually there to look at and looked back in the direction of the sound. "C..Calden...did you hear that...? It sounded like something....bad...like something was hurt..." She waited a moment to see if she could hear anything else and to give him a chance to answer. "We should go see if it's okay...it might need our help. If it's hurt, it might not be able to survive. Something might hurt it more. We need to help it."<br/><br/>Without waiting for him to tell her not to be so stupid, she was up on her feet and tramping through the damp forest in the direction of the cry. It was much harder going than she had remembered the night before. Maybe because she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going then. Now, she was listening to hear any further sounds, but she also wasn't focused on chasing something in front of her. She was beginning to breathe harder after about an hour of walking through soft, foamy earth, puddles of cold rainwater, climbing over fallen logs and pushing through thick hanging vines. If she hadn't been so upset about Calden, and worried about the creature that had been hurt, she would normally have been bathing in the beauty of the scenery. She always loved being out of doors, feeling the connection with the earth and the life around her.<br/><br/>After about three hours of walking she broke through the thick darkness of the trees to a breathtakingly beautiful little glade. The trees seemed to be leaning toward the little circle of moss and flowers. There was a ring of moss covered, broken tree trunks, surrounded by more lush green moss patched here and there with tiny, delicate pink, purple and white flowers scattered along a little babbling brook, tripping over a miniature waterfall. It seemed to almost emanate magic, as if they had walked through a veil and were now in a puddle of it. Astrid was certain that this was where the cry had come from.