The Dryad 11 The Past And The Future

"Allow me to introduce myself," I said with a smile while lowering the hood showing my currently brown hair. I stood up only partially to be more formal. "I am called Laurel. I am the Dryad that resides in these woods." As I said that I took off my cloak the rest of the way. As a dryad I have some control over how my skin looks. However, I can never look fully human. All the patterns I could make on my skin would be shades of green or brown and would have a plant-like look to it. From the time that I had spent with Humans and Elves I had gotten in the habit of making my skin look more like clothing. I discovered quickly that walking around looking mostly like a naked green-skinned lady attracted way more attention than I wanted. Since the time of my first visit to the human village, I have always maintained my skin in the appearance of clothing. Right now I chose to appear in one of my favorite forms, as if I was wrapped in the bark of a paper birch. But looking at where the clothes 'started' around the chest and arms, it was clear that this was part of me and not something that I put on. The amount of energy needed to maintain this form was so small for me that I often forgot that I was doing it at all. But, if I were to run out of energy I would revert to a naked woman's appearance. Strangely, even though the birch-bark "clothes" were clearly part of me, I did not get as many strange looks while in this form as when I was in my more 'original' form of a naked lady.

Gray was staring at me blinking. I think this would count as a shock. "a Dryad," he stammered. "How could you be Laurel? It has been hundreds of years since she was last seen. And you don't look like what the stories say." At that last part I could tell that he was eying certain parts of me a little and that he became ever so slightly red.

I felt somehow gratified at that. "It is good to see that people still remember me, and in a flattering way, at that. It has been over a thousand years since I last left the woods and half that since I even met a human." Then giving him a provocative smile, "And about my appearance? I think someone here might have an objection if I was standing before you dressed like a tree in winter."

Gray turned bright red and started coughing. I could tell that Emily was somewhere between being offended at at Gray and afraid to upset me. I could not help but laughing at the whole situation. I think that helped to calm everyone down some.

Once Gray got ahold of himself he asked, "But you said that she was your Aunt. How could that be?"

"My mother was not human. She was a dryad. You could call her the younger sister of Laurel, the first Dryad. I have heard stories about Laurel from my Mother. Mother ruled over a forest outside of Dristan. As the city grew they started to take more and more from the forest and her strength started to weaken. I remember watching the humans take whatever they want from the forest and clearing away land for their own needs with no consideration for the life in the forest," Emily said while shuddering. "When I was 8 years old she sent me to live in the human village with my father's family. I have only seen my mother a few times since then, and only in those first fifteen years I lived in the village."

"Dristan! You mean the capital of Estiban! That city was ruined more than 50 years ago when the country fell. How could you have been there when the city was still growing?"

"I am in many ways like my mother. You see that Laurel looks as young as she did in the legend from a thousand years ago."

"Then … How... old are you?" Gray asked hesitatingly.

"I have lost count. I have lived in each village for about 15 years since then…." Emily started to mumble as she counted with her fingers, then replied, "I should be 300 to about 350 years old. It is not that I do not age. But after I reached about 17 it slowed down a lot. After some time people would start to notice so I would have to move to a new village and say I was a young herbalist just leaving home. Have you noticed me change at all in the three years you have known me?"

I could hear Leafia whispering "350 years old" behind me.

"If you have been moving all the time, does that mean you have had other…" Gray could not bring himself to say more.

Emily shook her head furiously as tears formed in her eyes. "You are the first and only person that I have loved. You have to believe me."

"But you have already lied to me. How am I supposed to believe you? How can I believe any of this? Emily, why did you not tell me sooner?! You only told me now because your lies caught up with you!" Gray's voice trembled with emotion. He was obviously deeply hurt. As the words rang around the room, Emily fell to the floor in tears.

I walked over to Gray's side and whispered in his ear. "That was something you should not have said. It is better to trust each other, especially when it is family." I did not have a family myself, but you can't live for thousands and thousands of years without learning a few things.

After a tense moment, Gray heaved a great breath. Slowly, he walked up to Emily and put his arms around her. "I should not have said that. I'm sorry." She sobbed in his embrace and slowly began to calm. "So," he continued in a gentle voice, "you have been all alone for 300 years after you left your family? That must have been hard."

"It was lonely," Emily said, her voice doing nothing to hide that she was crying. "It was hard to find reasons to stay by myself, those looks that people gave me hurt so much." Another tear ran down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away. "But what could I do? There was only so long I could stay in one place. What was I supposed to do? They would not accept me. How could they? I would only age a few month to a year's worth from the time they were born to the time they were about to lie down in their grave. I could use my my knowledge of plants to make myself look a little older, but there was no way I could make myself look like an old lady. How could I make friends or have.. a lover..." At that point Emily broke down into sobbing again.

Gray started to laugh, which felt a little out of place with his wife sobbing in his arms, "I guess that I really lucked out! I no longer have to worry about how my wife is going to look in 20 years, I already know." Then he said with a sadder tone "But would she still want me when I am old and wrinkled and she still looks like a young lady?" Gray's mood continued to darken as he he thought about it. He started to mumble to himself, "Why would she want to stick around? In ten years I will already look old enough to be her father. She already said she has moved every 15 years. She might... just leave me..." He then started to sob too.

I had to give Emily a nudge this time. If I was not in a hurry I might have just watched how this played out but I figured I would help move this thing along. It appeared that Emily was too absorbed in her own wallowing to notice Gray's breakdown. When she saw him crying, she immediately turned to him. "Gray, I am sorry I lied to you. Please forgive me. I was afraid that you would not accept me and... I was afraid you would leave me and I would be alone again."

"I would never leave you. I love you. But you are going to leave me and I will be left all alone to die by myself!"

"Gray, why on earth do you say that?" Emily asked confused.

"Aren't you going to leave me in ten years?" Gray looked just as confused as to why she did not understand. "You have been moving around every fifteen years. That means in ten more years you will leave me. At that point I would look more like your father than your husband. Why would you want to stay with me anymore?"

Emily started to laugh upon hearing that. "This is what you were worried about? I thought you were upset that I did not tell you. I am not going to leave you. I love you. So what if you get older? That will not change how much I love you."

"But what are we going to do when I get old? Everyone is bound to notice me aging and you… staying you. And I will leave you alone one day, there is nothing I can do to stop that."

"I would rather spend as much time as I can with you than regret for thousands of years not being with you." Emily said with some melancholy in her smile. "We will figure out where to live when the time comes. I have traveled much of the world. The location is not important."

"Um, I have an idea about that." Istan interjected. Remembering that they had company Emily and Gray did the best impression of a beet I had ever seen from humans. Well I guess Emily was not technically a human, but she looked like one. "I feel that with Emily's skills she would be more than welcome to come to the Elf village. Things might be a bit different there, but you would not need to hide who you are." He continued under his breath, "She is the niece of our G.o.ddess. We should probably build her a small shrine of her own." Then realizing that he might have overstepped his bounds he looked to me. "Would it be acceptable to you if this Niece of yours lived in your woods?" I could tell Istan was trying hard, playing that family card I had already used to encourage me to accept the idea. I was never planning on rejecting in the first place. In fact, I would have suggested it myself if Istan had not spoken up, so I just smiled and nodded. Was I really that scary that everyone would need to fear me? Like those ogres from the legends that the humans liked so much. I don't know if they still like the terrifying legends of invading monsters and heroes, but they did last time I was with them.

I still have to wonder sometimes where these legends came from. There are bears and the like, but no monsters as far as animals go. As for spirits, most of us are kind. I could see why humans would be scared of fire spirits, but I only knew of the ones from the fire mountains Where else would burn long enough for the flames to form an awareness? It was not unheard of for infant fire sprites to show up from time to time. But sadly most were short lived. Fire spirits were not mean or evil. It was more an issue of compatibility, like a wolf to a deer. The wolf is not evil for killing the deer, but if the wolf wants to live the deer's life is at risk. As a spirit of the forest, the fire spirits and I were anathema. But that didn't mean I feared them. Just that in many ways I was the deer to their wolf. I would not sacrifice myself willingly for them to live.

While I was following my random chain of thoughts, Emily and Gray both continued crying, but now they were hugging each other with smiles on their faces, every now and then saying how much they loved each other. It does not seem like I missed too much this time. I know I have said this to myself a lot, but it is hard to get used to having things to do.

I could see that things would not get back on track without some intervention, so I had no choice but to break the mood. "I am happy that we saved your marriage and all, but I do have a task that may be time sensitive."

"Sorry Miss Laurel. How may I be of help?" Gray said while his face turned bright red, once again performing his imitation of a beet. If you're going to be that embarra.s.sed about it, maybe you should remember that others are here, hm? Emily was no less embarra.s.sed than Gray, but curled up into a ball with her hands over her face to hide it. I did not tell her that her ears were also exposed since her hair was pulled back.

"Just Laurel is fine. We are family after all." I said with a smile. Then I finally got myself back to business. "I am searching for the magician you led around the woods. If I am not mistaken he has harmed my woods and might be responsible for the disappearance of my oldest friend. Tell me everything you know about that man. No matter how small."