The Dryad - Chapter 97

I knew that the elves were going to reach the pond in the next hour. It seems that last night they decided to stop a little early. I guess their over attentiveness can serve them at times since they did not seem to think that it was appropriate to come into my home late at night.

One hour did not really leave me with much time, so I decided to do some finer maintenance around the pond. This included finding a good home for that cold loving cactus that I ‘stole’ a seed of from Lillian and her daughter. I kept myself busy with this and other small tasks until I felt the presence of the elves approaching.

Since I was their ‘Goddess’ it felt wrong for me to receive them. Nor as a dryad did I feel any need to greet some overly pompous animals I went and sat at the edge of the pond just waiting for them to make it the last few minute’s walk to the pond.

Sadly my plan did not work as the Elders and their followers stopped at the edge of the circle that they had placed around my home for the last five hundred years. I highly doubted the elves really understood my abilities. I could pretend that I just did not know they were there and make them stew for a while but that would just be delaying the inevitable. I did not feel like getting up and moving to them and Mist could not stay out of her pond for long so I tried a trick of Ivy’s.

“You can come to the pond.” The forest shook with the sound of thunder rolling across it. I could hear birds calling out in alarm all around us. I winced at the volume and then focused my control only on the leaves of a few plants. “We have many things we need to talk about.” The volume was much more reasonable but the sound was still ghostly and came from all around.

“What on earth was that?” Mist asked incredulously.

“I was trying to do a trick that Ivy taught me.” I said with a shrug, “I think I used too much power.”

Ivy for some reason snorted at that. “I have only ever talked through myself when I have turned into a tree. Did you just possess all the trees of the forest and talk with them?”

“Not All~ the trees.” I said feeling myself blush a little, “Just all those within a few hundred steps of here.”

As we were talking the Elven elders came just inside the clearing of the pond and bowed down to me. “Oh great goddess of the forest, what can we do for you?”

“First you can stand up. I am not your goddess. It is much easier to talk face to face,” I said, feeling the elves were only getting worse in their devotion.

“Good luck convincing them of that. You just shook the whole forest with your words. If that is not goddess material I do not know what is,” Mist unhelpfully provided popping up out of the water, I assume to get a better look at what was happening.

With a flick of a finger I sent an acorn flying off a nearby oak tree. It shot right through Mist’s body leaving ripples on her surface and crashing into the water behind her. “You know, I am looking forward to when you have a corporeal body,” I said having a flashback of the fight that Mist and Ivy were just having yesterday with the apples. Since I was not in contact with the acorn, loading it with spiritual energy to make it explode would not have been very practical.

“I will still be able to let your acorns pass through me when I am a spirit,” she said, somehow managing to make a raspberry noise without lips or tongue. “It’s not like you play fair either, turning into a tree just the right shape to miss all the apples.” Having no better response to give I just stuck out my tongue in return.

I then turned to face the elves. Several still had their faces down, but the few that raised their heads like I asked had looks ranging between shock, disbelief and horror. I can get the shock and disbelief but the horror was beyond me. Was I not allowed to have fun with a friend?

“Please rise and come here?” I said again. Only one of the elders tried to stand but was pulled down by his neighbor.

“We dare not–”

“–I said rise and come here.” The forest shook with my words but my lips did not move at all. The crying of all the birds could again be heard as they leapt into the air.

A few of the elders did stand up and started making their cautious way towards me, but the others for some reason were still kneeling and a few had sunk even lower. Well, if they wanted me to play the part of their goddess, I could. I caused shoots to come up out of the ground and grasp onto their arms. The plants took control of the elders and stood them up. They were still a little far from me so I caused a series of more shoots to come up and drag them closer to me.

“Thank you, it is no fun to talk when you have to shout,” I said with a deathly calm voice. But the mood was broken by Ivy’s shock while she asked Rine how to do whatever it was that impressed her and Mists laughter. That laughter seemed contagious because Rine and Ivy started to laugh in just a few seconds.

“These humans really seem as bad as you say. I am glad that I managed to make it to your pond without them noticing,” Ivy said, looking at them.

“Excuse me, girl, but we are elves and not humans. And what do you mean by ‘bad’?” one of the elves who was tied up spat.
for visiting.

“I will have you know that this ‘girl’ is several times older than any of you. Let me introduce you to Ivy, the dryad of the woods on the eastern side of the Franklynn Duckdim. She is here because her woods were attacked just like mine and she came here for safety.” I then gave them a stern look, “If you are not willing to give her proper respect, you may leave my woods.”

“But she dared to call us human!” he said, still fuming.

“Well, it looks like you will be living with them now,” I said calmly, releasing him from the vines that had been holding him up. He nearly fell to the ground before he was able to catch himself.

“You can’t kick me out of the village. My family has been there for generations,” he said indignantly.

I was grateful that he was not treating me as a goddess, but this was my home and he had to follow my rules. “I remember before your ancestors separated from the humans to live in trees and learned how to put a point on a stick. There is no claim on these woods higher than mine.” The man did not seem to want to listen so I would have to use a little persuasion.

“Rine, can you come here?” He flew out of his new favorite perch, behind Ivy’s hair onto my shoulder. “Please make sure that this man leaves my woods.” Rine then looked at me a little skeptically. I could not blame him. Normally a fairy was nothing compared to an elf. But being a lesser spirit aligned with plants there was something I could do for him. “Until you have completed this task, I grant you the assistance of my power.” As I said these words a link formed between us, giving Rine access to a much greater reserve of power. There were many limitations to this ability but it would be more than enough to chase an old man out of my home.

“Yes my lady,” Rine said much more formally than normal, but I guess it was fitting given the circumstances. He then pulled a raspberry seed out of his pocket (leftovers from his meal I could only guess) and threw it to the ground. A thorny vine sprung up in front of the offending elf causing him to stumble backward.

“Rine, don’t waste too much of my power, I might need to use that later,” I said. He nodded to my words but there was still a smirk on his face. “Oh, one more thing. In that same village I was at last time, there will be a large group of humans that will be coming into my woods later today or tomorrow. Please bring them to a good place to meet. They have some things that they will need to talk with the elves about.” As far as I noticed it seemed like the elves were too caught up with me escaping from their oblations yesterday to remember that I asked them to meet with the humans.

This caused Rine to hesitate and with a little deja vu he said, “What if they don’t listen to me?”

“Tell the prince that you come in my name. But if he does not listen then we know that they were not sincere in their desire to help. Also, you can show him this,” I added and handed the button thing to Rine.

“You know this is a little heavy to carry while I am flying.” Rine said dropping a little as he picked it up.

“Don’t give me that. Use the power I just gave you,” I said shooing him off. He flew off in pursuit of the elven elder, that smirk back in full force as he gave chase to the man.