The Dryad - Chapter 82

For a few more days I followed the same routine of practicing the exercises that Laurel gave me and trying to cook some food. But since my efforts at porridge were only slightly improving, I was getting frustrated. The recipe was still in the branch but I had not yet worked myself up to attempting regression. I could not stand sitting here just practicing anymore. I needed to get up and move around. I did not feel it would be good to completely slack off, so I decided to do something that Laurel suggested. I was now heading to a spot of my forest away from any humans to start growing my woods. The southwest corner seemed like a good place to me. I had never felt anyone cut down a tree from there. I think that was a good sign that no one would care what I did with that part.

I knew it would take me longer to get there than it would Laurel but I still managed it in a few hours. I was already doing better at using that walking technique, but I was not satisfied yet.
for visiting.

I found several promising seeds along the walk that I would use to grow my woods. I put them in a little pocket that I made on myself along with the seed I had stored there from Laurel’s tree. I was planning to spread seedlings of her tree around my wood. A single tree was so fragile and I could see a wind storm knocking it to the ground. It would be a tragedy to lose Laurel’s tree. I was going to spread a few of them out as far as I could over my woods.

I was several hundred steps away from the edge of my woods when I found a place to plant the seed from Laurel’s tree. I really wanted to call this tree after Laurel. But the problem with that was this was a maple tree, or at least partially a maple tree and was not in anyway a laurel. I played with the idea of calling it Laurel’s Maple but that just felt really off. So as of yet I have not given it a name. I figure a few more years and I should be able to figure something out. This would be so much easier if she was named Violet or Maple!

I reached into my pocket to grab the seed from Laurel’s tree. It was smaller than most of the other seeds I had collected along my way. But that did not keep me from panicking when I could not find it. I emptied out all the seeds I had found into a small pile on the ground, but it was not there. I had lost the seed. What wasI going to do?? I thought back about where I could have lost it. Then it dawned on me, I had placed the seed with the papers so I would not lose it before it was time to go plant it. “I guess it is finally time for me to practice making the tree regress.” I sighed. I had been putting this off but it was time to try now.

By the time I made it back to my storage tree it was already well past dark and I did not feel like putting that effort in when I was already low energy. The night was a little quieter than normal. After a little while I realized that the raccoon that had been nesting in the tree nearby had moved. I felt a little lonely without him to watch, but it gave me more time to think without being distracted. While pondering, I realized that I could have grown another seed for the tree easily enough. But I really did need to practice getting the papers out, so I might as well try.

The next morning I went to get the seed but was shocked to find that a woodpecker had been drilling holes in my branch. I guess they do look for hollow branches. This made me wonder if it was all that pecking noise that had driven that raccoon away. Not much I could do about that without an animal sprite. Looking at the tree, I figured that would change my plans for the day… again.

It took some effort but eventually I managed to open the bark lid wide enough to get the papers out. After spending an hour pondering while resting from my efforts, I finally came up with a good idea. Not too far away there was a locust tree with a tumor covered in sharp thorns. This would keep the animals from getting to it.

I quickly got to work making a hole I could put my things in. The tumor was really really hard to control to make the hole I wanted. I guess that would be logical since it was an out of control growth. I had to keep trying and even with my best effort, the hole I finally got was a little misshapen. Once that exhausting work was finally done, I carefully put my papers and Laurel’s seed in the hole and started to close it.

The bark was closing much more nicely than the hole creation went. The papers and the seed would be “Wait The seed!” I shouted as I watched the opening close further. I was here to get the seed in the first place! I quickly cut off my power and reached in to grab the seed.

Sadly, I was not careful enough when I went to grab the seed. My arm was gouged by one of the thorns. The pain caused me to jump, earning some more scratches on my arm and causing my hand to break the thin bark opening I was making. I cried from the pain. As tears washed down my face, I managed to get myself to take some deep breaths and hesitantly looked at my arm.

The cut was not the deepest I had ever had but it was still bleeding sap fairly quickly. The ivy in my woods makes a good poultice so I quickly grabbed a couple leaves and chewed them up before applying them to my wound.

I understand Laurel only had a limited time, but it would have been nice if she taught me some things about medicine. I need to know how to take care of myself. I was just learning as I go and I really felt that there must be a better way. Since she said nothing about it at all, it almost felt like she never got hurt. How could you live for untold thousands of years and never get hurt?

The poultice quickly got to work and stopped the ‘bleeding.’ In a few days the wound would be closed. I had learned that it was not very wise to transform until the scrape healed. Not only was it painful, but for some reason the tissues that grew back while I was a plant never seemed to act like my flesh. I could not transform it as freely. The one time I did that, after a few months I had to painfully scrape off the scab. I had never cried so much in my life.

But now with Laurel’s walking technique I would not have to hide from those hunters anymore, I could just run away. I was so scared of being chased down by that hunter after his arrow missed.

Once I was sure that I was okay and was calm enough to not get gouged again, I carefully reached into the hole to get the seed out. I had to feel around for a little while. The seed was small and I could only fit two fingers in the hole. The effort landed me with a few more scrapes but none of these were bleeding. After an heroic struggle I got the seed out and started closing the bark again, this time with the seed securely in my pocket. I thought about waiting for tomorrow before heading to where I wanted to plant the trees, since it would already be late by the time I got there. But I had lost more than a day already and I wanted to get this done.