Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Helping Mother

Despite wanting to be careful around her mother. Naru still found herself helping her mother gather plants today.

Naru was helping her mother collect plants for the purpose of the crystal festival. As the date of the festival drew closer there seemed to be a growing excitement among the deer. Many of them were talking about what they wanted to do and many of them were going to compete in. It seemed like all the deer had some sort of event that they were a part of of.

The soft rustling of the verdant forest was relaxing to walk in. Naru took a deep breath and the scent of dirt and wood filled her nose. It had recently rained and petrichor still hung in the air.

Naru’s deer nose was stronger than the average human and thus it was easier to find the plants her mother was looking for.

Currently, they were looking for plants to use in makeup. The reason was simple, one of the contest’s the deer had was a beauty contest and Naru’s mother was participating.

Since there was no such thing as a cosmetic shop in the forest all the deer had to make their own makeup. Interestingly enough, the deer could participate in either their deer form or their human form. The criteria for “beauty” among the deer was something Naru didn’t quite understand but basically if you were competing as a deer you were judged by how well you could decorate yourself with pretty flowers and natural dyes. And if you competed as a human you were judged like a human would be judged based on how pretty the makeup you put on your face was.

In a way, it seemed more like an art contest than an actual beauty contest but Naru quite liked it. It didn’t focus on the inherent beauty of the individual but rather how they used make-up to accentuate what they already had.

While Naru’s mother could grow plants by herself, she was always on the lookout for new types of plants to use in her dyes.

They were exploring a patch of forest her mother hadn’t been around before.

“So what are we looking for?” Naru asked Casual

“Well,” her mother started to say before going into a long explanation of the many types of plants in the forest.

It was a dizzying amount of information and Naru was surprised that her mother knew so much about the plants of the forest.

The sound of leaves crunching was all that could be heard while Naru plodded along with her mother. Periodically, her mother would walk towards a colorful plant and rub it between her fingers to see how well it would turn into a dye.

Her mother had a very serious expression on her face which was something Naru rarely saw on her mother’s face. Typical, Naru’s mother put on quite a lax attitude, but she was being surprisingly diligent while looking for plants.

[If it’s colorful plants can’t I make some from my world? What did it look like again]

Naru moved away from her mother and tried to make an indigo plant. She remembered going to a traditional Japanese blue dye factory in her youth and was trying to remember what the plant looked like.

She felt mana welling inside her and she started to channel it. So several green buds appeared on the ground, which soon grew into a waist-sized stalk and then flowered with small purple-blue blossoms.

“Fern! I found something” Naru called out

Her mother hurried over to find the flowers that Naru had “found”.

“Oh my, these are beautiful? How did I miss them?” Fern’s mother said.

She put one of the petals between her hand and a small blueish stain appeared on her fingertips when she rubbed her hands together.

Her eyes narrowed as she assessed the quality of the color of the dye, and its ability to hold its color.

“This is very nice… How did I miss them before?” Her mother muttered to herself

“Maybe they are a mutation?” Naru said trying to be helpful.

“Mutation?” Her mother responded confused

[Oh right, the concept of DNA is probably something the deer don’t understand]

“I mean as the plant changed itself to be like this,” Naru quickly said.

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“I see,” Her mother said. She was obviously not paying attention to Naru and was fascinated by the plant.

[Isn’t indigo dye also made by fermenting it?] Naru thought.

“Mother can I take a few of these to experiment?” She asked pretending like the flower was not made by her

“Oh, sure I can make them now with my own life magic.” Her mother said

Naru grabbed some of the flowers and stuffed them in the small wicker basket that was on her hip.

[I should be able to make this? Right?]

Naru remembers reading about indigo fermentation as a child and thus had an inkling about the process but would likely have to experiment.

She had started to make some clay jars from the clay that was near the pond.

Just as Naru was about to move she spotted a figure from the corner of her eyes.

It looked like it was watching them. It gave her an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

They were outside the protection of the barrier right now, but they were still quite close to it.

“Hunters!” Naru called out. This was a common procedure among the magic deer. They would bolt at the slightest sign of danger while outside the barrier.

Naru instantly transformed into her fast deer body and bolted for the barrier which was close enough to be seen from a distance.

While prancing along she looked back towards where the figure was initially and found it missing.

She safely made it into the barrier and saw her mother following closely behind.

“What did you see?” Her mother asked panting slightly.

“I saw something in the trees”

“You said you saw hunters, were you sure it was human?” Her mother asked

“Well,” Naru said shuffling her feet.

To be honest she wasn’t sure why she felt like the figure was so bad. She wasn’t even sure if it was human, but she was sure it wasn’t something to be trifled with.

Her mother frowned at the reactions.

“So you don’t know?”

Naru could only shake her head. Something had felt like the figure was bad news but she couldn’t pinpoint why. It was odd. She didn’t usually feel like this. Just in this particular instance, it felt like running was the best choice.

Naru looked back towards the grove where they had run from again

[Just what was that?]