fountains of hope [volya]

It had been a dry summer in Inverness. There had been little rain, and that which had fallen had been quickly dried out by the Sun. What moisture was left in the topsoil was for the grass, the daisies and the other smaller plants. Her roots had gone deeper into the soil, all the way down until she was touching the bedrock. It felt like a mysterious friend, welcoming and yet strange and confusing. They had communed for some time. Now the season was distinctly cooler, the days becoming shorter and the air tasting fresher. Winds kissed her bark and ruffled her leaves, but still they held no promise of rain.

And yet today she sensed water. Cool, refreshing water had arrived, so compelling she wanted to grow towards it. Strangely compelling. Not rain, not a lake, not groundwater. It felt like...her? Her knowing, her instinct, told her it was so; there was no reasoning. She reached her closest branches towards it, and it seemed as if the water molecules were responding, reaching back to her.

It felt like...something from a very long time ago, when that sort of reaching had a name. A name that felt like when she absorbed water and then it transpired from her leaves of a hot day, completing the cycle of life. The reaching was pleasant and at the same time alien. It felt as if she could only reach the water, something wonderful would happen, something that transcended her dry roots diffusing the water into her trunk, her branches, her leaves. Something...

And then she realised that her roots were withdrawing from the earth. She wasn't touching the bedrock any more, and that lack of contact, the instability, was frightening. What was happening? Her leaves seemed to shimmer and absorb into the twigs upon which they hung, then the twigs became shorter. Her roots felt shallow, unable to support her. Soon she would no longer be able to stand. No! Not water-at-any-price... it was too late. It was getting harder and harder to photosynthesise, the oxygen wasn't reaching her cells, she could feel herself crumpling; there was only time for one brief mental cry -

Is this how it ends?

Changing. Becoming. Something else, something she'd all but forgotten. Becoming a thing not of bark but flesh, without wood but instead unsupportive bone. No leaves or tiny, filamentous rootlets but hair and... things she couldn't remember the name of. From a perfect, fully functional tree she had changed to something that grasped the earth with twigs...no, fingers, that was what the fleshy tubes were called, she remembered now...a crawling, hacking, imperfect creature that made a harsh, gasping sound as it dragged lifegiving oxygen into its core.

Naked, gasping, Linnet Willowsong returned reluctantly to her human form in a twisted heap on the fertile earth of the Madin shrine.

Soft light flittered down in the little glade-like area that was within the Madin shrine. Trees bowed over the main path to the central area of the shrine, which held a great tree, and under that great tree was a place where elementals meditated and focused their energy. Volya was sitting under that tree, cross-legged in his human-like elemental form, eyes closed as he focused on the earth and of the living things around him. Volya, as a Zealot of the Council of Inverness, felt it was prudent to meditate at least once a week at the other shrines, and it was his day at the Madin shrine.

The Hor Elemental felt a kinship toward the earth elementals, as his element was so complimentary towards theirs. He felt the pull to help nurture the shrine and the young initiates within. He believed firmly that every element needs one another to keep the delicate balance of the world intact, despite any differences they may have.

He concentrated on a point in his mind, flexing his mind outward from his body, allowing himself to fully zen out in the tranquil space. As he did this for a while, he felt the earth responding to his watery nature, pulling up towards him, as if looking for a long drink. He felt a pull towards a point about 60 feet in front of him, beyond the great tree's path. He, in his meditative state, ebbed and flowed towards it, allowing the earth to drink him in.

When he arrived, the connection was stronger, and it felt familiar, but at the same time so alien. He felt the familiar, intimate sensation of another entity's warmth within his subconscious, but also a pang of hunger that he himself had never felt. It felt like vines, or roots were coalescing towards him, threatening to drink the essence right out from him. Then, slowing the connection started ebbing away, feeling of hunger that resided in his gut, also seemed to be satiated by the connection, but also panic as the connection faded away. After what seemed like hours, the connection broke, and Volya exhaustedly shimmered, now involuntarily out of his elemental form.

 His first sight upon opening his eyes though, was a young woman, no more than twenty years of age, lying down on the ground, nothing protecting her bare skin from the ground she was sprawled on. Instinctively, though a little warily, he doffed his overcoat and put it over the woman's body, wanting to preserve her dignity and protecting her a little from the wind that sometimes whipped through the shrine. He kneeled next to the woman's slowing breathing form, and gingerly tapped her with a wavering finger. "Are-are you alright?" His voice was tired sounding, and stuttering from the panic he felt in the moment.

"I'm V-volya, one of the Z-Z-zealots of the H-h-or Element." He introduced himself though exhausted, and stuttering, "I-I--" His voice trailed off as he looked into the face of the young woman. A spark of recognition and relief, in combination with the worry and guilty feeling he had about this particular Madin student resonated through his body. "Willowsong! You're... alive.. I'm... relieved." A tired hand checked her forehead, feeling for a fever. He noticed the woman breathing raggedly as if she'd run a marathon. "Healers!" He'd shouted hoarsely throughout the normally quiet shrine. He'd hoped someone heard him and retrieved a healer. "I can't believe--" His voice trailed off a moment, stunned into silence at what had just transpired.

@Carys Let me know if its adequate!

No air. There was no oxygen flowing through her cells, she felt herself withering from the tips of her leaves, dying by degrees, and then the strange, long-forgotten dragging sensation as the life-giving air rushed down her..? she couldn't remember the name, the part of her that took in the oxygen when she wasn't a tree, that allowed it to circulate. She needed to remember to...breathe? Breathe. Yes, that was right. She had lungs and she needed to breathe, had to do it regularly, continuously, something that seemed to take great physical effort compared to the gentle, easy symbiosis she had enjoyed.

There were sounds, there was something that covered her, something that wasn't earth and felt strange and alien, rough against her bark...skin. Skin, now. She stretched her...hand, feeling her fingers dig into dislodged soil and with it came a sense of belonging once again. But she was cold, so cold...as if she had been skinned alive and now her muscles and sinews were exposed to the harshest of the elements. Her body was doing something she couldn't control, shivering in time with the gasping breaths, something touched her again, there were more sounds...

“Hor?” that was what had touched her, had called her back. Exhausted, hazy connections began to fuse in her brain as Tree-that-was began to makes sense of what had happened. She had stood, she had searched for water, water had searched for her and now... There was a feeling, unfamiliar and without a name. The feeling was like holly leaves and stinging nettles, prickly and sharp and unpleasant yet still important, like all of life. She didn't want this, she wanted to stand and drowse in the autumnal sunshine. She didn't want to have to breathe and think and...talk.  Understand. She didn't want to be human again.

The hand in the earth moved when the Other made the sounds again, the talk, much louder than before. Feebly she reached up and grasped something (another hand?) that had been touching her...head? “No...” she managed, the sound coming out as a long sigh of outpoured breath. The talk or the touch, one of those seemed to get a reaction, so she renewed her efforts. Somehow the muscles in her hand worked, she gripped harder; tried to remember how the talk worked... “You...Hor. Here?” she sounded confused.

Then suddenly, there was light. Bright and seeming to pierce her mind, and she made a wounded-creature noise, screwing up her face in the aftermath of recalling how and attempting to open her eyes. Her other hand reached up to block the brightness, though she writhed on the ground and turned her face into the earth at the same time. Mistake. Roots and hands and feet can retreat into the earth, not the part that breathes...she lurched back into a hunched, crouching heap, choking on the soil she had just inhaled. After so long without human emotions she was oblivious to her nakedness as the cloak slipped from the upper part of her body. Something obscured her newly rediscovered vision and she tried to pull it away; ended up staring in fascination at the handful of long, grey-streaked blonde hair.

Something shifted in her mind. The colour...new. Grey was the colour of age. Something began to race in her chest, thumping hard and unpleasantly in a way that felt like roots in imminent danger of being eaten by giant weevils... “How...long?” she managed to ask, raising her face for the first time to look at her companion. Male. Older than her (Was he? How long had it been?) and looking as stunned and tired as she felt. She frowned in confusion, trying to remember the right words to...what? What did humans do when they met for the first time?

[OOC: Let me know if this works for you. She's quite strange right now...]