The Dryad - Chapter 106

The thought of water freezing caused me to turn my mind back to Mist. “Are you going to be alright tonight? The water will start freezing soon.” It would take a few more days of this for Mist’s pond to fully freeze over, but winter was here and the pond freezing was very likely.

“I am feeling fine. I should be back to full strength in a few days,” she said with a yawn. “I just feel ‘hungry’. Is that the right word? I don’t think anything is wrong with me, I just want more. I have never felt so hungry for energy.”

I was worried at her statement that she was not storing energy properly. Was it somehow leaking out of her? I pulled in my focus and directed it at Mist to try watching her energy paths. I felt Mist shiver under my gaze but she did not move to avoid it. The paths were thin and moving slowly due to the small volume of energy flowing through them. That was as expected. My first fear was quickly dispelled. The energy moving in and out of her was as I would expect. But still something did not seem quite right. She had drained her internal power before to practice but she seemed different. I started to look closer at her and realized that she had an additional reserve compared to what she had before. This reserve was different, partitioned ever so slightly from the rest of her. It was as if it was separated by the film of a bubble.

“I think you are going to feel hungry for some time. Your spiritual paths are still nearly empty. You are going to have to deal with the tiredness. You drained all your energy and now you have even more reserves than you are used to, but this reserve seems to be isolated from your energy flow paths. I have not seen one like this before, but it looks like if you learn to fill and use it, it can be an emergency reserve for when you need it,” I said to her explaining what I found. “Not that you are ever allowed to push yourself that far again,” I went on sternly.

“If it is separate, how would she even use it?” Ivy asked before Mist had a chance to.

“It is barely separated,” I explained. “If Mist carefully pushes energy at it she should be able to fill it.”

“Let me give it a try!” Mist said her exhaustion quickly replaced as she was now full of excitement. After a moment of hard concentration, Mist floundered. “Um. How do I find it?”

I let out a laugh. Mist was back to herself. “Look for a spot inside you that seems empty and try to push a little energy into it. Even if you miss, you have enough to give it a few tries.”

I watched Mist as she fumbled around trying to push her energy. I had to stifle a few laughs watching her as the bubble kept moving away from the energy she was pushing at it. It took several minutes for her to figure it out, but finally a small sliver of energy slipped into the bubble. Mist let out a sigh as she relaxed. I continued to watch the energy as she relaxed, and it stayed in the bubble just as I expected.

“Good job. Once you get a little more in there you should try and pull some out,” I said. “But you need to wait until you have your strength back.”

To which Mist bobbed on the surface of the water in agreement and said, “Thanks for helping me. Does this mean I can leave my pond more?”

“Not until you are at full strength. And no problem, it was interesting to watch,” I smiled back. “I think I might be able to figure some way to apply that technique and improve my capacity even further.”

“That is not the only thing I meant,” Mist said, sounding strangely serious, especially for her. “Thanks for helping me when I started to collapse. You were there when I needed you.”

“You are my friend. I will do whatever I can for you,” I replied.

“That is why I think you need to go.” She ‘looked’ at me seriously.

What was she talking about? “I need to make sure you are safe.”

“I am fine now. You need to go take care of your woods. If you lose power because of the fire spirit rampaging, I will also suffer. So if you really want to, you can say that you are doing this for me.”

“I will stay here with her and make sure she is safe,” Ivy interjected into the conversation, “Go protect your home.”

“But–”

“”–Go”” they both said, “We will be fine here.”

This outcry form both of them seemed to finally be enough to wake Rine up. Sitting upright on Ivy’s shoulder looking around in shock. “Laurel when did you get here?”

A sudden burst of laughter came over me. This was so uncharacteristic of Rine to let down his guard. Even when sleeping he was usually so aware of his surroundings. I did not see how the two of them could have grown this close in such a short time. “I have been here for about half a day now.” I managed to say after calming down my laughter.

But that did not last long as Rine gave me a puzzled look and then looked up at the sun. His monosyllabic reply, “Oh,” was enough to cause another fit of laughter.

“So what did I miss?” he said, trying to redirect the conversation.

“Ivy and I are trying to convince Laurel that we will be fine and she should take care of the fire spirit,” Mist explained, sending ripples across the pond.

“You said it yourself. Mist is doing better,” Ivy added.

“I will be here too. They will be fine,” Rine added siding with the younger crowd.

“Sadly you won’t be here. I need you to send a message to the elves and the humans letting them know that I will not be able to attend any more of those banquets for some time.” Or ever, I thought to myself. Rine looked a little crestfallen at this assignment but did not offer a rebuttal.

“Mist and I will be fine,” Ivy pleaded. “And she was right. If you do not take care of your woods, Mist’s recovery will be even slower.”
for visiting.

They were right. I had to act. Reluctantly I stood up from the edge of the pond. I knew they were right. Mist was safe now. She no longer had a risk of collapsing and I still had a fire spirit walking around my home. “Just be safe?”

“Yes Mother,” Ivy said, sounding sassy.

“Mother?”I asked, giving her what I was sure was a weird look.

“You sounded just like the mom of a family that was visiting my woods. So I responded like the kids.” She smiled at me.

“Is that how you learned that duck song?” I asked remembering her earlier singing.

“Oh, that is one of my favorites! That family sang the most amazing songs. You should hear the rest of them!”

Rolling my eyes, I just waved to Rine, Ivy and Mist with a smile and started out to find the fire spirit.