Chapter 7: Forward Scouting Thread

Gresha turns to look at Swan, head tilted slightly. "The question is at least as much do I want help? You're right... I don't think I need help, but..." She sighs quietly, "I haven't spoken to people... my own people in so long. I hadn't realized how much I missed it. It's like a hole that's been covered up by time."

An involuntary shiver passes through her, and she smiles. "I don't remember humans being quite so willing to help. Maybe it's the trees' distrust speaking, but it doesn't seem usual that such a band of altruistic heroes would be traipsing through the forest at random. What's your story?"

Swan turns away, his shoulders slumped. He rubs his chin as if measuring whether, or how desperately, he needs a shave. So much heartache, so much terror. But that's not what she needs from me, some accounting of the measureless scope of disaster.

Turning back to her, he says, "I'm from Rhamia. My family were merchants, traders of goods imported from other nations, and exporters those items unique to my homeland..."

Over the next hour, in a voice careful not to wake the others, he tells her of his childhood, of times before he traveled and before war and disaster separated him from his home. Perhaps forever. With a bard's gift for exaggeration, for rhyme, tone and pace, he weaves a tale of a childhood filled with misadventure and curiosity, rife with comicly-near misses and wondrous discoveries. The tale of the first steps on the road to the man he became, despite every effort to avoid growing up.

When his watch is over, he kisses her hand and bids her goodnight, and wakes the next person. Lying on his back, he watches the stars, wondering at their passing as they wheel overhead.

Gresha listens to the tale with the awestruck delight of a child, one who hasn't been told a story in a long, long time and drinks it in like cool water to someone lost in the desert. She is silent at the close, unable to speak or perhaps simply not willing to break the spell it's cast upon her. She watches the bard depart, but does not yet go back to her own bed of leaves. Her expression grows distant, speaking in her head to those that need no words, only the sound of the wind and the slow creaking of branches.

The grove and the clearing grow hushed for a long while, the breeze calming to nothing, then slowly... so slowly it takes a while before it can even be called a breeze, it returns, curling gently around the young woman's face, lifting her hair to brush it against her cheeks.

As the moon peeks from behind a brief passing cloud, the moonlight glints off the tears that trail slowly down her cheeks.

---

The next morning dawns with the remainder of the watch passing uneventfully. Gresha is up with the dawn, letting Zhaar know that she's going to gather a few things and return to the camp in a little while. She disappears into the forest almost as completely as if she had turned invisible, leaving the travelers alone for the time being.

As she neatly rolls up her bedroll, she stops for a moment, looking around the grove and taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air.

"I actually slept well last night. I can't remember how long it's been since I had a decent night's sleep."

She stands and carries the bedroll to her horse, securing it. "Does anyone know if Gresha wants to accompany us to Viamard?"

"It's unclear. I suppose it depends on how great my stories were last night." He rolls his bed up and ties it together. "Think we can get breakfast in town? It's not far."

Verrian shakes her head. "We have about another half-day of riding to make it to Viamard." She looks in the direction that Gresha had disappeared into the trees. "I wonder where she's gone to. Hope we don't have any more surprises."

Then she cocks her head and looks at Swan. "What kind of stories did you tell her last night?"

Swan rubs his head and scratches a tooth with a finger nail, making a face. "I think a bug slept in my mouth last night. I'm not cut out for camping. I suppose we should make breakfast here then." He begins prepping the fire for hot tea and warming up bread.

"Stories? She said that she missed people talking, and wanted to hear my story. I want sure that telling her about the recent tragic turn in our lives would cheer her up, so I told her some funny stories about being a kid in Rhamia."

It seems much more peacful today. I think we are safe here for the morning.

Wil feeds the animals before settling in for breakfast.

Zhaar bestows ancient wisdom upon the party.

"That’s much friendlier than my stories, which is why I don’t tell stories."

He then trots off to try and hunt some game.

Zhaar returns shortly with some small game to prepare and cook for breakfast. After about an hour or so, as the party is finishing up their preparations to leave, Gresha returns to the clearing. She carries some things in a pack that appears to be made of wicker or something like it, and wears a deerskin jacket and heavier hide shoes on her previously bare feet. She's dressed for traveling.

Most noticeably, the wooden texture is gone from her skin completely. She looks like a perfectly normal human girl of about 16, though one that's been without a decent comb for quite some time.

"If you'll still have me, I'd like to go with you to the town. I..." she says, her voice catching for a moment with emotion. "I feel it's my time to move on. Maybe talk to the people in the town about respecting the trees, see if any of them are family."

She turns to Swan and says, "Hearing your stories... made me realize that I've forgotten what it was like to be truly human. I've been something in between a tree and a person for so long, I didn't stop to think that in being both, I wasn't really either one. It's time to make a choice."

Swan smiles at her, his eyelids shuddering slightly. Squeezing his lips together he looks up and to the right. With sparkling wet eyes, he says, "Come, dear, they'll be lucky to have you."

The shocking loss of time she's experienced, the realization she has come too, it's almost too much to fathom. Another ballad to quill for late nights lost in the melancholy of wine.

Verrian smiles at Gresha, saying, "You're perfectly welcome to join us. We'd welcome the extra company."

Digging through her backpack, she pulls a couple of things from it and comes to stand near the girl. "When I was your age, my hair got tangled from the tiniest exposure to a gentle breeze. My mother developed a simple creme that allowed her to get a brush through it and made it easier to manage. I still use it." She holds up a small vial and a hairbrush. "If you'd like, I'd love to do for you what my mother did for me."

There is always room for one more.

Gresha turns to look at Verrian, tears welling in her eyes. She swallows visibly and says in a tiny voice. "I would like that. Thank you."

She swings her pack off her shoulders and opens the top. "The trees... they wanted to give you something. I don't know how they did it, but..."

Gresha draws a thin branch about the length of her forearm out of the pack and holds it out. "What they said to me is that it will allow you to speak to the trees, but it will only work a few times. And they asked that when it stopped working, you find a place to plant it," she says, looking at it thoughtfully. "Though I might have that wrong... I think maybe... maybe I'm forgetting how to understand them."

Verrian accepts the branch graciously and looks it over before fitting it into her backpack. "Yes, I think that your time of being one with this grove has come to an end, Gresha. But now you can rejoin your own kind and start a new life.

"Here, have a seat," she says, guiding to girl to a log and applying some of the creme to her hair. "Let's get this hair of yours all smooth and shining."

Gresha nods, trying to hold her chin high, but clearly nervous about the implications of what Verrian is saying. She dutifully has a seat, back straight, but the thought of the doors that have been thrown wide open in front of her have her fidgety as a toddler.

Seeing the girl's anxiety, Verrian pushes her, just a little, to soothe her mind and make it easier to blush her matted hair without hurting her unduly.

In the gentlest, quietest sharing she can manage, she starts a steady current of reassurances.

@Gresha: It's all right. All things come to an end. New beginnings bring hope and possibility. You are strong and resilient and ready for what comes. You are finally going home.

"If'n you don't wanna dress all civilised kid, don't feel like you have to, there are still those of us who prefer living simpler too."

Swan watches all of this as he clears camp, using some water to make sure the fire is truly out. "When we get to town, Verrian can show you how to have a proper bath. Nothing will make you feel more like you belong in town than that, trust me."

I am sorry, but I have to disagree. A good meal is what makes you feel at home.