Can You Call It Reincarnation?

Chapter Twelve

Coneflowers resemble strength and healing.

~
"Here we are." Lucas announced. "Er- close to our destination anyways."

"This is close?" Athanasia gasped in shock. The tree must be ginormous!

"Yep. Unfortunately, due to magic and science stuff, if I tried to get any closer I would be thrown back to the castle like a bouncy ball."

Athanasia blinked. "That sounds horrifying."

"Feels horrible too."

Lucas casually started walking over to the tree, Athanasia following behind. "We still have around a mile to walk until we actually reach the tree. Or float, in your case."

"Ah, okay."

...

"Wait, what do you mean by 'feels horrible'?"

"I'd rather not talk about that."

...

"Why do you think people can't hear me?"

"Maybe because you're boring?"

"But you still stick around me?"

"...shut up."

"Wha- rude!"

...

"I JUST REALIZED I DON'T KNOW YOUR FAVORITE COLOR."

"..why is this important?"

"We're friends! At the very least I should know your favorite color! Colors are so important, they make up the beauty we see! Uhh- is it green? Red? How about-"

"It's blue. Now please stop ranting about colors."

...

"I swear I'm gonna die early because of you."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"Don't get me wrong, I love mischief, but Ghosty, you just cooed at a bear and called it a 'good boy'."

"...but he was a good boy..."

"I would be less bothered if the bear didn't immediately respond by trying to nuzzle you."

...

"Why are we here again?"

"We needed to get man-a to heal Jennette, remember?"

"Oh yeah. And it's pronounced, mana."

...

After around 22 minutes of walking (Athanasia kept getting distracted by every animal she sees), they made it. They were standing at the base of the world tree. If Athanasia thought it was ginormous before, she was wrong. This tree was the size of the castle! Yet, her first response was, "That's.. a big tree."

Snorting, Lucas slapped his hand to his mouth.

"What? I'm not lying. It's a huge tree."

Lucas was cackling at this point, desperately trying to breath between each wheeze. Athanasia huffed, angrily glaring at Lucas.

"Can we please just get this man-a that we need?"

Done laughing, Lucas sighed. Wiping a tear from his eye, Lucas looked up with a fond grin. "It's pronounced mana, and sure. I do have to warn you though, the process of receiving the mana is a bit odd."

Wait, odd?

"What do you mean by that?"

Flicking his wrist, Lucas summoned a fireball. "I'm gonna fight a tree."

Tossing the fireball towards the tree, Athanasia watched in a mix of shock and fascination as the tree lit up like a Christmas tree. The fire burned for a bit, before extinguishing.

And then the tree fought back.
Athanasia watched as Lucas jumped to the side easily, as if a tree didn't just try to murder him, and proceeded to attack again.

And again.

And.. again.

Basically just repeating the whole process of attacking until eventually, Lucas stood triumphantly in front of Athanasia holding two branches.

"This is the mana of the world tree." Lucas said proudly. "And I don't have one, but two..!"

THUNK!

Athanasia and Lucas turned towards the sound of the noise, and saw another branch on the ground. Picking it up, Lucas examined it before breaking out into a huge grin.

"THREE!" He yelled happily. "THREE WORLD TREE BRANCHES! WOO!"

Letting out a small chuckle, Athanasia also pumped up her fist triumphantly. "Woo!"

"I honestly didn't think I would get this many, haha. I expected to get at least one, but three? I won't need to recharge my mana for years!"

"One is gonna be used on Jennette, right?"

Lucas tilted his head slightly. "Well, yeah, of course. I'm referring to the other two branches."

"Right, of course. Of course." Athanasia agreed. Enthusiastically waving her hands in the air, Athanasia grinned. "That was amazing, Lucas! You were all like, fwoom! And bwoosh!"

"I was, wasn't I?!" Lucas agreed, equally excited. "It's the first time I've used magic in a while. Offensive magic, I mean."

"Wow, really? And it only took.. took.." Athanasia paused. "Oh my goodness! It's been an hour!''

"Wait, what? It really took that long?"

"APPARENTLY!" Athanasia started wringing her hands. "We should probably head back.."

"We should." Lucas paused. "Do you wanna walk, or teleport?"

"Teleport. We need to get back to the palace."

"You got it. We'll need to walk a bit away."

"That's fine! Just- we need to go back fast."

"Riighhht."

And, after a few minutes of walking away from the World Tree, Lucas snapped his fingers.
And liked that, they were teleported back to the palace.

~
Author's Note : Heyo! I tried to make this chapter a bit longer. I think I failed tho haha.

Lucas's favorite color is blue because it's the color of Athy's eyes.

Athanasia has a tendency to coo at every animal she sees.

And Lucas totally thought he was gonna get one branch from the world tree.

Lucas didn't take the time to travel to the world tree and instead teleported for plot convenience and because Athy would get bored halfway through the trip.

Cut Dialogue That I Thought About Adding but didn't:

Athy : "Lucas, why is your hair so pointy?"
Lucas : "Imma be honest, I have no idea."

Athy : ~humming Caramelladansen~
Lucas: "???"

Lucas : "So the king killed you?"
Athy : "From what Jennette has told me, yeah."
Lucas : "That's rough, buddy."