The Dryad 49 Night Life

"For- I mean Laurel. Why don't you let me take part of the night watch so that you can rest for a few hours in your tent?" he said pleadingly.

"There is no need. I can function just fine without sleep," I said slightly exasperated.

"But I have seen you rest many times now. Surely you do need some sleep."

"My resting is much different that your sleeping. I am more than capable of keeping watch while I rest."

"But wouldn't be better if you did not have to stay alert?" he asked insistently.

It looked like this was not going to go anywhere unless I spelled things out for him. I tried not to sigh too audibly. "When I am resting I let my consciousness go into the surrounding plants. The plants are aware of anything that disturbs them. So unless you are concerned about bats, there is no way for anything to get within a ten minute walk without me noticing. Do I need to tell you how many racc.o.o.ns walk near our camp during the night to prove it?"

Istan seemed fl.u.s.tered at my refusal."Then please," he protested, "let me give you one of my blankets so that you will stay warm." He clearly was desperate to help me.

At this point I just gave up and accepted his blanket. I was not going to use it. I did not even use the ones that were brought as my camping supplies. I reluctantly grabbed the blanket that he was trying to hand to me and said, "If you get cold, please let me know. I have more than enough blankets for myself. I do not experience cold like you do."

By accepting the blanket I finally managed to get Istan into his tent. I was a bit perplexed at his look of deep grat.i.tude as he retreated to his tent. Why was he so excited about being cold as he slept? It was a relief to finally be alone. I was having lots of exciting experiences on the journey, but I still liked my solitude. I needed the night time to be by myself. There was no way that I was going to share my blessing of solitude with Istan just so he can gratify his pride. It also would hinder our progress. This was an even more important point to me. We needed Istan in good health. The trip was hard enough on all of us. If he started losing sleep, it would be even harder on his body. I could give him some medicine of course, but it did not feel right to do something that I knew would make him sick just because I could give him medicine to make him better.

Tonight I only let my consciousness go halfway. I was trying to recharge my energy through the forest while at the same time enjoying the quiet of the night. The racc.o.o.ns and skunks were very interested in our campsite. Even a few stoats came to visit. All they could find were the bones of the rabbit that were discarded well outside our campsite. I did keep track of the number, just in case Istan asked. Counting the racc.o.o.ns to spite Istan was probably more satisfying than it should be.

The night was starting to turn colder and I could feel through the plants that Istan was shaking. This is what he gets for giving me his blanket. I was tempted to let him stay that way. But I was trying to convince people I was a benevolent spirit since they all seemed scared of me at our first meeting. Just think about how frightened Emily was when I showed up at her door.

I had to pull my consciousness back into my body to be able to move without disturbing others. It was hard to have your mind wandering all over the place, 'looking' at yourself from all sorts of angles, and to manage walking without tripping on anything. Once I was inside the tent I would be all but blind. I would only have the plants under Istan's blanket to tell my way around. I have tried things like that before. It is unimaginably difficult to control your body while your 'eye' is a step away at the level of your feet. It was even harder with a blanket over your 'eyes'.

I have worked on this skill a few times out of boredom, especially over the last 500 years that I was stuck at the pound. But even that was not enough to make me proficient at it. And after the conversations with Leafia and Emily earlier, I did not want anyone to catch me sneaking into a man's tent. There was no way I would be interested in Istan, but I did not want to even let anyone think that there was anything between us.

Once I was back in myself, I picked up the blanket that was lying on the ground next to me and quietly stole my way into Istan's tent. I looked at him for a minute and came to a conclusion, once again, that it was much easier to deal with him when he kept his mouth shut. He was curled up into a little ball with both his hands in front of his face. He almost looked like an adorable baby. At least as much as a middle aged man could. I placed the blanket over him and watched for a moment as he clutched at it with one hand, rolling it under his face like a precious toy. Then I quietly left.

The night time is a good time to let my mind wander. But since I pulled my consciousness back in, I did not feel like releasing it again. Because I had used very little energy today, my reserve would be full by morning, leaving a little extra energy to spare. So I decided to have some fun. This grove would only take ten to fifteen minutes to walk from side to side, but it had a good vitality. I wanted to try some things to see how much I could strengthen it. Unfortunately, I would not likely be able to come back anytime soon to see how the changes I wrought have affected the forest.

I wanted to try something that I had never done before, to see if I could modify how the plants feel and utilize spiritual energy. I wanted to see if I could enable them to use the energy themselves without a dryad as a medium. If this was possible, the forest could strengthen itself. I was trying to see if I could imitate a little of what I saw when Mist was forming. The part of her formation that was most complex was establis.h.i.+ng the stable flow and circulation of the spiritual essence. It had to be done in such a way that it would be self sustaining; otherwise a sprite would only live for a few hours at most. I wanted to see if I could imitate some of that in a plant. Plants already had spiritual pathways, so I would not need to make them. But much like how most plants used water, once the energy made it to the leaves it was just released into the atmosphere.

I wanted to make a way for the plant to more efficiently draw in the spiritual energy and, rather than just cast it off, instead, find a way to internalize it and store it for later. I decided to start with the ivy. This variety could not tolerate bright sunlight. This trait would tie the altered ivy to these woods, since they were surrounded by open prairie. I also decided to make a small change to the seeds so that they could not grow away from their parent plant. I was copying something that orchids did. Many orchids would not be able to grow without a special fungus in the soil to feed the seeds. I made it so the Ivy's seeds would not be able to grow without an enzyme that the parent plants would release. This would keep birds from spreading the seeds. I also decided to reduce the number of seeds the ivy made. I really didn't want to deal with the cottonwood fiasco again.

After I put all my safeguards in place on the few ivy plants in front of me, I started making the modification that I planned. It took a few tries, but I managed to find a way to make the plants circulate and store some spiritual essence. The new ivy looked almost the same as all the other ivy, but it had slightly thicker stems to hold the extra pathways. The new variety also had nodules on the main vine that it would use to store sap rich in spiritual essence. My final change was to make the plants push a little spiritual essence into the soil where the other plants would be more receptive to it.

I did not know if these mutations would hold and how much it would help the surrounding plants. I would like to come back in a few hundred years and see how it changed, but I do not know if I would remember at that point.

After I had played with the ivy it was only a few hours before sunrise. Through the plants of the forest, I started to notice some stirring from Emily, but it seemed that she was hesitant to get out of bed this morning. I will just let her be. It seemed like a good time to enjoy an early morning walk. Some of the birds had already started to sing and more would be joining in soon.

After about a half hour I could feel that Emily had decided to finally get out of bed. I guess I should head back so I can give her some morning instructions.

As I walked back into the camp I said, "Good morning," to her.

She started to blush again and mumbled good morning back to me.