The Ascension

Aila's cheek twitched as she stared at the small pile of dust, and the small pile of wood at her feet. Out of the entire tree, she had some misshapen slabs of wood that were wavy and wobbly, as though she traced and cut it with a saw while she was drunk.

"One piece left, and out of the ten bits, only one looks like firewood?" she said and rolled her eyes. "This is so hard!" She groaned a bit, but used a slightly flat piece to scrape the ashes out of the firebox, and noticed something right away.

"How odd. The ashes are not devoid of those sparkles. It's not green, or red, but it's kind of brownish." She reached out her hand and sucked all the brown out of the ashes, and tilted her head.

"Now there is grey, like my pot?" She sucked that in as well, and saw the ashes turn into dust that blew away. She looked at the pot. "How strange. Are ashes made of something other than wood remains?" Aila didn't know that ashes contained minerals, as when the wood burned, it released the energy contained within the wood by burning away the organic material.

She didn't have enough experience, or enough varied sources of information from her old world to know about minerals. Those minerals were some of the things the tree drew from the soil while it grew. Such as potassium, calcium, and several others. Minerals were not metals, nor were they stone or dirt, which was the reason why the ashes had a brownish grey color. It was a mix of both.

"I have the wood, so how do I start a fire?" At the moment that she pointed to the wood in the firebox, and pictured a fire, a gout of flame shot from her fingertip and engulfed the wood.

"Eeee!" She fell backward in shock. She lost the image of a fire at that second, which extinguished the burst of flames from her fingertip, but the wood inside was singed, while the chips began to smoulder and smoke.

"How....what....did....REALLY?!"

* * *

Aila shook her head tiredly. The fire had gone out almost as soon as it was started, but the chips were thin and dry. They smoldered, and smoked for a bit, so Aila blew on them, as that is what she had seen in movies.

"Whew. I can't believe it took that much to start a fire! Like, what the hell!" She groaned. "And what the hell was that? Flame from my fingers? Is that magic, or is it like that green energy? It doesn't make any sense!" She said angrily and glared at the wood in the stove.

After she glared for a few minutes, Aila took a slow deep breath and took her ax outside. It was still late in the evening, but she could see easily, and thought nothing about it.

The tree was a lot easier to fell this time as she didn't use the ax. She practiced by using the ax as the tool to absorb the green energy. Any bit of wood that touched the point of the blade, and the sharpened edge, she sucked it up.

The ax glided right through the trunk, but once again, she didn't pay any attention to the lean. Instead of aiming for her, it went right at her wall.

"No! Not my wall!" She rushed forward and pushed the tree trunk away. It slid through the woods, skid across the forest floor, and bounced off of two other trees before it came to a stop.

"Eh? Did-Did I just push an entire tree away?" She blinked, her eye twitched, and her cheek drew upward with that twitch. The look on her face was a bit comical as she looked entirely and completely blank emotionally.

After several moments, she took another deep breath, and quickly bent over.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!!" She let out a blood curdling stress filled scream that sent shockwaves across the forest in all directions.

Her scream had enough strength in it that it drew attention to her presence in the area.

* * *

"That was frustrating." Aila said as she put a split log on the fire in the firebox. She looked at the wolf, the knife, and the fire.

"This is probably not going to be something I enjoy, but organ meat has always been a more expensive meat, according to mom and those books." She sighed. Books were her lifeblood while sick, or she would have wished for death every day of her life. "Liver, kidneys, and even the heart is edible. I probably should burn the intestines though. I have no clue about how to clean them properly." Aile rolled her eyes, and gripped the knife fiercely. She stuck the knife in just below the breast bone, and slit the belly open.

"Hm? Is the blood green? No, it's red, but filled with green energy. How odd." She took a deep breath and reached in. A little at a time, she pulled out the organs.

"Ew." She said and grimaced. She felt the intestines, pulled them out, and the stomach followed. She threw them on the fire, and smelled a bit of a stink when they were burned.

"Damn, what did you eat? Ugh." She took out the heart, liver, and kidneys. The remainder of the guts were the lungs, and a collection of veins and arteries. She had never heard of eating the lungs or veins and arteries, so she put them on the fire once it dried and burned the intestines and stomach away.

"I think I need an outside fire to dispose of things like this. An outside pit so I don't have to have that smell in my house again. Ew ew ew!" She shivered.

"Alright, calm. Calm. Calm. Whew, this is heavy stuff. I know mom didn't have to do this kind of stuff since butcher shops did most of the work." She frowned slightly. "A butcher shop. Is there something like that here? Can I find a town with a butcher?" She looked down at the wolf.

"Maybe I can sell you and get some money to buy better food." She nodded her head. "Better wash you things off and start frying." She picked up the heart and dribbled water over the surface.

"What is this?" She picked what looked like a stone off the top of heart. Her eyes began to fog, and she even looked a bit dazed.

"Oh, a berry."