Just one more go, please

Long weeks were common at Hogwarts, and this week was not much of an exception, but there was something slightly different about this particular week. This week had started with Professor Welks stopping him on his way to his first class and handing him a note. She had instructed him not to open it until he was back in the dormitories. Of course he hadn’t bothered to wait, as soon as he was out of sight, Kyle had broken the seal on the parchment roll and read quickly. It was a notice of permission to make his way to the Council on the next Hogsmeade weekend. Smiling, Kyle realized that this weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend. He was going to meet with the harbinger in a few short days.

As Saturday morning dawned, Kyle rose early and began his preparations. He had sent off an owl as soon as he had gotten his permission from the headmistress and on Thursday had gotten a response from the harbinger the next day. She had told him to bring a few runes and a spare set of robes. Kyle knew with a decent amount of certainty what it was they would be discussing. Runes meant spells and robes meant morphing. His last attempt with the harbinger had been disastrous, but he had gotten much better since.  Checking his bag for the essentials, Kyle threw his dagger in the bag and a few extra rune stones just in case he ran out during their training session. He felt honored to be getting a one on one session with the harbinger and wanted to be sure to leave a good impression. When he was quite sure he had what he needed, Kyle made his way out the portrait at the dormitories and headed up towards Professor Welks’ office where he would use the floo to travel to Inverness.

Arriving at the office, Kyle thanked his professor once more before grabbing a handful of powder and throwing it into the already lit fire. Inverness he said confidently. Stepping into the emerald flames, Kyle began spinning faster and faster. Closing his eyes to avoid becoming sick, the boy began to imagine all the things he could be doing other than morphing at the shrine. Maybe the harbinger had some tasks at the shrine that needed doing, maybe he was going to be tending the plants, who knew. As he continued his mindless thoughts, he felt himself beginning to slow. Opening his eyes, Kyle saw his grate and stepped out lightly. Waving at the local barman whose tavern the elementals used as their hub into Inverness, he made his way up to the Council.

Arriving at the council, Kyle made his way down the familiar pathway leading to the Madin Shrine. Moving into the shrine, Kyle took notice of the well-kept grass, the beautiful trees and the ornate shrubbery. He took careful mental inventory of the area. The last time he had ventured into the shrine he had unknowingly been in the presence of the harbinger already. This time though, Kyle was quite certain that no one was with him. Looking around once more, Kyle ensured that he was alone and before stepping behind a tree in the middle of the shrine. Stepping out of his robes, Kyle began the process of morphing. He concentrated on the earth around him, the feeling inside of himself, the connection he shared with his element and began the transition.

First his feet and legs melded together to form a trunk and root system. Following his trunk, the transformation moved up his body to his stomach and chest. His body was becoming the trunk and base of a tree. Branches were sprouting off of his body as it elongated. Reaching towards the sun above, Kyle felt his consciousness beginning to slip. He was into the final phase of his morph. He was losing the mental sharpness as he did each time he morphed. He attempted to hold onto his sight and the sounds, but all he got was flashes of sight and sound. Clearing his mind, he focused on spending time in his morph rather than worrying about the fact that he did not have full control of his live oak form. After a few minutes in the form, he felt the presence of another elemental, unsure whether it was one of the acolytes or the harbinger arriving for their meeting, Kyle reached out with his mind, unable to do so, the boy began to retreat from his morph, back to his human form. After a few minutes of change, the boy stood behind the tree, grabbing up his robes and smiling as the other elemental stood in the center of the shrine.

The demands on Demeter's time since she had risen to the grey council of harbingers were taking their toll.  There was so much diplomacy with the other harbingers, both formally in their council meetings and on a more one to one basis. Then there was the administrative matter within her own element.  She had tried to delegate much of this to the acolytes - many of them was much older and wiser than herself and she had the utmost faith in each and every one of them.  It was a shame that they apparently did not share this faith.  Even when they had taken it upon themselves to actually make a decision, they still came to Demeter for her blessing.  And when she actually had to put her name to a dictat, her conscientiousness demanded that she actually familiarise herself with and understand the background.  More often than not the acolytes would issue the same ruling as she would have done herself, but she was not comfortable with just signing things off blindly because of those few occasions when that did not hold. Over time, she supposed, they would come to be able to anticipate how she herself would have ruled. But that meant having to spend these first few years (decades?) making, ammending or approving every decision, no matter the size of it,  until they had a good feel for her judgement. 

It was all so tiring. And so after sitting in her office for a number of hours, reading and rubber stamping things her acolytes could have dealt with on their own, when Manuel told her that was it for the day she took the opportunity to take a little catnap in her office.  She pried open a draw in her desk. The drawer stuck a little, because the desk was trained and pruned into shape from tree that still lived and she was sure it was still grieving for Gavin and resented Demeter taking up his seat. Eventually though it yielded and revealed its contents - a collection of trays and pots for bonsai trees. She selected one appropriate for the form she was going to take today, and then, placing it on her desk and placing her hand in it, pulled her human body towards her hand as it became the soil and roots to support a miniature bourgainvillea.

Over her life, Demeter had come to be able to monitor her surroundings as a plant.  She had become accustomed to using their own senses in place of her own.  She could feel the sunlight and shadows, she could sense changes in the air currents in the room, she could hear, smell and taste of a sort. It had been very alien at first, but over the thousands of hours she had racked up in plant form she had come to be used to it. One thing she had never quite got the hang of though was vegetation's sense of time, and so she didn't know whether it had been just a few minutes or a few hours before her aide came to remind her of her next appointment.

Returning to human form, Demeter took a few minutes to gather her thoughts and get her bearings as a human again with the aid of a cup of tea.  Manuel had told her that the student awaited her in a morphed form himself.  Hopefully a fifteen year old was no better at judging the passage of time than herself. When ready, she went to join him in the courtyard of the shrine, and assessed his morphed form.  Kyle was certainly getting better at morphing, but the robe on the ground beside him seemed to suggest he still hadn't quite mastered taking clothes with him.  To protect his dignity, once she saw he was starting to return to a human shape, Demeter turned her back and allowed the boy to dress himself before turning back round again.

"Kyle," she said warmly, still facing the other way. "Are you decent?" Once the boy had indicated he wasn't naked, she turned around with a grin on her face.  "That was a very impressive form just them.  I'm glad to see your studies are progressing well." She closed the distance between them. "Tell me, how are you finding spending time as a tree?  What does it feel like to you when you are in a plant form?"

Kyle shook his head as he stepped back into his robes. The time he spent in his morphed form restored his body and mind, but the change back from a morphed form always left the boy somewhat stunned immediately following his transformation. It normally took him just a few minutes back in the sun to get his wits about him again, and by that time he heard the voice of the other elemental who he had sensed in his morph. "Kyle, Are you decent?" Kyle replied, "Yes mam I am" The harbinger had been right to check. His last adventure in morphing had not gone quite so well as this time and he had gone through several sets of robes in the process and almost ended up having to be pulled from the morph by Stephen his elemental teacher. Kyle had improved much since then but he still occasionally had morphing incidents. Stepping from behind the tree in the center of the grove, Kyle bowed and gave the traditional elemental greeting to the harbinger.

After the formalities had passed, the young elemental smiled as the harbinger complimented his morph. Fishing for just the right words in the awkward second language, Kyle nodded and responded to the harbinger. "I thank you for your kindness. My forms are still somewhat rough but I am working on smoothing them. I find myself spending as much time in this state as I am able. It is obviously difficult to find time whilest at school, but I find my way to the forest as often as possible. I find that it relaxes me quite fully." Taking a slight pause, Kyle addressed the second part of her question. "I am not able to see or hear anything but I have been able to sense the presence of others and I can feel. Oh yes mam I can feel, it is like nothing else." Kyle couldn't help himself from smiling as he talked about his feelings in his morphed state.

"Mam, your note did not address what we would be covering today in our lesson. I brought the things you requested. And I do not mean to be out of line but normally, Stephen would handle my training. Is it normal for one so powerful as you to take time to train with someone young like me?" Kyle had been wondering for days now why he had been chosen for this training session, but no one had been able to help him divine the answer. His mind had obviously gone straight to what he deemed the worst case scenario. Perhaps someone had found out about his relationship with Linnet? Or maybe something related to his exposure at school only a few months before. No matter the reason though, he was here now, alone in the shrine with the most powerful elemental in his order. Kyle did his best to hide any of the uncertainty in his mind from the harbinger. He was sure she would already have picked up on his concerns but there was no need to dwell on it any more than necessary.