“No farther than the scarred root,” their guide said. 🫧
THE BOOK OF TAD
PAGE 69
WHERE COURAGE ENDED 🪵
The gatherer led them along the safe side of the damaged growth, one flipper wrapped around a waterweed bundle. A companion travelled several lengths behind, facing inhabited water whenever the group slowed.
Finley kept his chart rolled. Vael read the few living shoots. Zale stayed close enough to the guide that curiosity could not tug the whole group forward.
The route narrowed between a pale stone and a curtain of fine roots. The gatherer slipped through, then waited while TurboTAD helped Finley ease the rolled chart clear.
Beyond it stood a thick root split by an old scar.
The gatherer stopped so suddenly that Zale nearly touched the bundle.
“In quiet seasons, I collect beyond here,” the swimmer said. The bundle drew tighter against the body. “Not now.”
TurboTAD saw the next request before he spoke it: one more root, one clearer sign, one frightened yes. Home was far behind, and light was already thinning.
He swallowed the question.
“Then this is where you leave us.”
The gatherer studied him. “I cannot tell you where danger begins. Only where my courage ends.”
Glint nodded. “That is an answer we can trust.”
Both gatherers departed together.
They made their resting pocket on the near side of the scarred root, close enough to see the damage without entering it.
Beyond them, damaged growth swayed over water no traveller had agreed to name safe.