Can't be Too Careful (Chapter 4)

I looked forward. I looked up. I looked forward again. This forest...was a lot bigger than I had thought it would be. The trees towered high above me; at least 9 times as tall as me, if not 10. And I was pretty tall.
Xion seemed oblivious as he practically skipped into the trees.
“Xion, wait!” I shouted, quickly lifting him up.
“What is it now?!” he grumbled, wiggling in the air.
“First off, stop moving, it’s hard for me to hold you up in the first place.”
“Fine. Now explain why you are holding me up here!” I began to walk towards him.
“This forest is dangerous, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. There are poisonous lizards who will kill you if you step on them.”
“Then...why not just kill them when you step on them?”
“Because the others will be alerted and all swarm to kill you.”
“Oh.”
“And by the way, you nearly stepped on one there.” I turned him so that he could see the miniscule lizard that was partially hidden by a leaf. Then, I gently put him down where there wasn’t a lizard.
“Well, let’s get going then!” My hand went to my forehead. He obviously hadn’t heard a word I said. Either that, or whatever I said just went through one ear and out the other. I sighed and put a shield around him so that if he did step on a lizard, he would be protected to an extent. For myself, I levitated just above the ground. High enough so that I wouldn’t distrub any hiding lizards, but low enough so that it didn’t cost me too much energy.
Xion ran through the trees as I glided beside him. He was pretty oblivious in my opinion. But then again, he could have a gift that could protect him. Or he could just be completely in love. I knew some people got into this in-their-own-little-world symptom when they were in love. He might have been one.
We made pretty good progress on the first day. I don’t really know exactly how much we travelled, all I know is that it was a pretty good amount. The second day, however, was a different story.
When I awoke, I stretched and sat up from the tree limb I was on. I didn’t trust the ground for sleeping on. For all I know, I could toss and turn in my sleep. Risking my health in my sleep didn’t seem favorable to me. I would rather be uncomfortable than be poisoned any night. I looked across to the other tree, the one that Xion had slept on. He was still sleeping.
I floated over and sat on the branch beside his sleeping form. Then I nudged him gently, trying to wake him up.
“Hey. It’s time to wake up.” I said.
“I’m tired. Go away.”
“It’s morning and we need to travel when there’s at least a little bit of light.” I looked up and scowled at the tiny beams of sunlight that had just barely managed to make it through all the branches and leaves.
“I ran all day yesterday. I’m sore and tired. Leave me alone. We can travel again tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?!” I nearly screamed. Now I was really regretting on deciding to travel with him. I knew it was a bad choice, I knew it. I really wanted to ditch the kid right around now. But I knew I’d feel guilty about it later, and I didn’t feel he would be safe if I left him. From what I’d seen, he would probably die within a couple hours. I really didn’t know what else to do, so I went back to the tree I had been sleeping on and stared at the sleeping boy for a while.
I was annoyed that he was acting in this manner, but I guessed that in the future, the pattern of the days would be the same. And it was. We would travel quickly one day and then rest for a whole day. I suppose that was good for me because by the end of a traveling day, I was exhausted from keeping up a force field and levatating myself.
In Xion’s haste to enter the forest, I hadn’t had time to get any supplies, so now I depended completely on hunting for the animals in the forest. Our diet was very bland, because I didn’t trust many plants and animals to be edible. I was glad that there were occasional zinka trees, the smooth, orange-skinned fruit. Other than that, there wasn’t any plant that I trusted. There was the common green snake (I didn’t know what it was called, all I knew was that it was edible) and there were a few speicies of owls. That was all that we ate for weeks on end.
I had hoped that he would be grateful for what little food we did have but no. Ungrateful little bugger he was, he constantly complained that he was getting tired of what food I managed to get. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t stop complaining. There wasn’t enough food, there wasn’t enough variety, the water was too low, it was too hot, it was too humid, it was too dark. Finally, I just gave up on trying to stop his complaining and ignored his complaints.
After a month or so, I was able to travel without becoming tired by the end of the day. When I found myself relaxing while travelling and not having to work hard for it, I added more to my list of things to do. I began to also levatate Xion forward while he ran so as to make us move faster. We covered more ground that month.
By around the end of the third month, I guessed we were around two-thirds of the way through the forest. It only took another two weeks before we were out of the forest and facing the giant mountains.

AN: This part raced by kinda fast, and I'm sorry, but I get bored writing about traveling through places for too long. I had the same problem in Melody Maker too...