Part 8 of "For Havenkeep", my Patreon interactive story. Poles are posted to my patreon for patrons to decide on outcomes. The story is updated shortly after poles end. The story is free to the public - but is posted first and foremost to my patreon. If you like what you see and want to see as its made, please join or follow my Patreon. My Patreon can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/springfallendeer

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The choice is made: Let her walk


Ultimately, you decide that it would be better for Alisra to walk. She’s a growing girl - and a somewhat stubborn one at that. So it would be better to just put her down now as opposed to waiting for her to get antsy. So you bend over to let your younger sister slide off of your hip. She offers no protests as her feet reach the ground. As soon as she’s standing on her own, Alisra proceeds to reach up and instinctively grip your hand. Her other hand continues to tightly hold her favorite stuffed rabbit close to her chest. From there, the two of you begin your journey down to the riverbank. The walk itself would be short - ten minutes at your current pace. Chances were it would wind up being longer because you would inevitably stop to forage a little.

The path was well established. No grass grew upon the densely packed soil beneath your feet, though it flourished on either side of the path. The trees provide plenty of shade. Their leaves rustle gently in the breeze while songbirds go about their business. Soon the birds that had hatched in the late spring would be getting ready to take their first summer flights. Practically every tree you pass has at least one visible nest in it. Your homeland is a place of fertile soils and bountiful harvests. So the local wildlife had more than enough to eat. Halfway along your journey you and your sister began to encounter the wild fruits. The first that you encounter are apple trees. Ripe, red apples hang idle in the branches of their respective trees as you walk underneath.

You check the ground. There aren’t any fallen apples just yet. So if you really wanted to have an apple for breakfast, you would have to scale a tree to retrieve it. Alisra shows no signs of being hungry yet. Like you, she only has a look at the fruit in the trees before deciding to continue walking. Neither of you are hungry just yet. After the apples came the peaches. A few fallen fruits litter the ground beneath their parent trees, with wasps and bees swarming the soft flesh to satiate their thirst for nectar. If you wanted to chance a few stings, then you could try to snatch one of the fallen peaches on your way back. Or you could try to pick a fruit directly from the tree with minimal effort, as these peach trees grew much shorter than the apples.

Granted, you would have to make sure Alisra kept a safe distance. She was more likely to get herself stung by these little buzzing bugs than you were. After the peaches came the blackberries. You and your sister have to step more towards the middle of the path as you pass the berry bushes by, as their thorny branches have once again begun to spread. These would be the easiest of the fruits to collect given how low to the ground they grew. You and Alisra would simply have to be mindful of the thorns. Even a single prick would prove painful enough to hold your attention until the injury healed. That was just an unfortunate fact of any injury dealt to the fingers.

Your sister takes a more obvious interest in the berries as you pass them by. So something tells you that she’ll be asking to stop and pick a few of them before you head back home to start your chores. Only after you’ve left the blackberries well behind you, do you happen upon the river. You can hear the running water before you see it. The clean smell of the air is a stark contrast to the earthy scent of the land closer to home. Very different, but still appealing. You make sure to keep your sister far away from the mud of the bank as you begin looking around for the trees. Ultimately finding them takes little time. Not because you had a general idea of where they were, but because they were the only trees to be seen which still had flowers.

You are admittedly quite surprised to spot these trees in peak bloom so far out of season. These were peach trees, just like those that you had passed by earlier. Yet their branches sported no fruit, only clusters of pretty blooms. The flowers steadily released their sweet fragrance into the surrounding air, adding to the appeal of the already pleasant air by the river. Alisra appears to be just as surprised to see the flowering trees as you are. Equally as surprising is what’s waiting for you between the two trees. Laid between them is a wooden staff. By the looks of it, the staff is just as long as you are tall. The wood looks smooth, and is decorated with dozens of colored rings.

The rings prove peculiar; they glow in a wide array of colors, and as you shift your head around to examine the staff, the colors seem to change based upon how you look at them. You feel your sister tug lightly at your hand. As you look at her, you see that she’s pointing at the peculiar wooden staff.

“Mei, what’s that?” Alisra inquires, continuing to haphazardly thrust her hand in the general direction of the staff as she speaks. Her stuffed rabbit shakes dramatically as she does this. Thankfully she manages to hold a tight enough grip to keep from throwing it or dropping it in the dirt. You look back to the staff as you try to wrap your head around everything.

“A staff... Of some sort.” You utter in turn. Ultimately it feels as though you’ve just stated the obvious, but you earnestly have no idea as to what words you could use to better describe what lies before you. Could it be a magic staff, perhaps? You want to believe that it is, but who in their right mind would just leave such a valuable object just laying around by the river? Also - how did you know that it was here? The dream was one thing. Surely if you had happened upon this thing in the past, you would have remembered it.

Should you pick up the staff? Or would it be better to leave it. You don’t know who it belongs to.