Chapter 1, Steps

The first time it happened I was frightened.

I remember the foot steps of the children of various ages, trampling through the edge of the forest, in and out, again and again, never too far, for fear of losing their way. There is a road running through the forest, only a half hour's walk in, if you are walking slowly, but children are never allowed to wander so far. Their feet were heavy, some thudding the earth and crushing the moss, and others stepping heel first and slapping their shoes along the rocks. It was a mixed group of different sizes. they laughed and squealed as they chasedceach other about. Their laughter rang so clear and they smelled so sweet.

For the first time in my life I felt disdain for the stillness of my branches and my steady unmoving trunk. the feeling grew in streghth a deep need to move, to run, to touch things I could not reach, to taste, to see more clearly. I longed to be free of my roots... and as the feeling grew, I found that I was.

It was as if they had completely recoiled and now the parts of me grounded to the earth were simply resting upon them, the moss bellow me instead of growing over, and it was such a strange sensation. I felt intensely small somehow, and my leaves hung so strangely. I began to move and laugh with the others, overcome with the joy of the moment and the unexpected freedom of movement.

The children turned to me in surprise, going so far as to look at me in fear. I looked down and realized the source of my freedom. Legs, dirty, and bare, with plump little toes in front of soft padded fat little feet. knees, with dimples, thighs behind loosely hanging brown linnen, with a jagged edge. I moved my boughs toward them to find that they were plump little arms, and instead of twigs I had little fingers, who's tips I could press to my soft face.

The eldest of the children bent down over me gently, his face pouring with concern and he said something to me, but I knew so few of their words. He pointed in many different directions and nodded at me to confirm, but I did not understand. I frantically searched for the spot on the edge of the grove where my roots had spent the previous years. I wanted nothing more than to be myself again. I had to go back. I began to run past him.

The large boy grabbed me by my newly aquired shoulders and pointed such intense eyes right at mine, which were so unpracticed at taking in so much. "Help." he said.

I couldn't think of what he wanted my help with.

"Help, you. I want to help you."

Tears streamed doen my fresh round cheeks and I felt my wet lips part at the lower portion of my face and my throat vibrated but all I mustered was a sort of "ggguuinnnnng" sound.

"Name?" I heard come from a jumble of words spilling from his mouth.

I could not answer. I have no name. I trembled in fear and ran deeper into the forest. I found a still puddle and looked down at the reflection of this new form. A little girl, with curly bronze hair, rosey cheeks, and green eyes. I was not quite large enough to play in the meadow alone, by human standards, and streaked with dirt and dressed in brown rags that barely covered me. I huddled and hid. I could still hear the trees around me creak in the summer wind and watch their brilliant leaves toussle about, I could smell them, but only faintly, and without my roots I could not speak to them.

It wasn't long before grown people came in large groups, both from the meadow and from the road, with torches and lanterns. They were calling out, searching the forest for a lost little girl.

I found an empty space amoung the trunks, and stood as still as I could, until my roots decended into the soil and rocks and mycillium. My trunk extented skyward and I was a tree once more.

Of course, I shocked the other flora as well. There had been a great commotion between them all as I frantically ran the forest as a girl. It has been atleast a century since this forest had had a nymph, only the eldest of trees could remember.

That was many years ago. I am now adept at shifting my form seemlessly and hiding in plain sight as a girl, or simply becomming my true self and making it seem a trick of the eye. I can not only hide amoung the trees and stealthily maneuver around the humans, watching, and learning... I can even blend in amongst them and have taught myself their tongue, albiet with a slight accent that cannot easily be placed. Once I had even hidden in the boughs of walnut and spied a young merchants son with a book whose older brother pointed at the symbols and explained their sounds. I returned for months, every afternoon with good whether, until I and the young boy understood completely. I make it a habbit to borrow books to continue my learning. Ofcourse they can quickly be found a day or two later, safe and sound, right where the humans thought they had left them.

Some times the young people sneak out to the forest at night, they come off the road and press their lips against each other in gestures known as a kiss. I have learned how the young ones dress, how they carry themselves.

It is easiest to transform bare, to keep the senses of my buff fleshy skin unencumbered, but if I focus, I can manifest nearly apropriate fashions, and take strides amoung them. I suspect I am the only one of them to see what a blessing it is to walk unbound by the earth.

That day I stood tall in the location of my birth, which was now a few rows back as the forest had encroached on the meadow. I was drinking in the sun, when I became aware of the sound of steps behind me in the forest. This startled me, as whoever it was likely had to pass me and I hadn't heard or sensed anyone all day. Unless they had come from the road to the west, I surely would have known if they had come across the meadow. They were close now and I could smell leather, and linen, and fermented fruits with yeast and butter of stale bread on his breath. The steps were quiet and difficult to hear.

There was one from the village who walked softly. I considered him carefully as I stood taking in this man's presence with all the senses at a tree's disposal. It was hard still to control sight as a tree, I did so only whem I had to.

I had encountered him before, a few times through the years. He was a child while I was, but perhaps a touch younger? It is hard to tell how humans grow. He had not always been treated kindly by the other children, and had only come to the forest alone to read or practice with weaponry unseen as an awkward youth, never with a girl, as others his age would do.

I recognized his steps, because they were quick and light. I was sure of his identity. The boys heels had never touched the ground entirely and neither did this young man's, he had a similar smell under all of the food scents, to the boy from my past, he had a slightly larger build, but humans do grow a bit more quickly than trees. He had been gone for atleast three summers.

I silently pondered why he had returned, until I heard his steps travel out of earshot.

When I was sure he was gone, I silently shifted into a woman's form, so that I could watch him walk away into the meadow toward his village with my human eyes, I wanted to see his form and his colors. He moved casually, the late afternoon sun reflected off his brown leather over tunic and boots, the fabric of his blue shirt swayed in the wind along with his shaggy shoulder length hair, which had been carelessly tied back with a small scrap of red knitting. A dagger was tucked into his belt next to a flask and a battered handed down bow and quiver rested on his back.

I watched him curiously, his weight shifting so slightly from side to side as he walked slowly, I was entranced by the tune he was humming to himself and intoxicated my the colors of the feathered arrows contrasting against his dark hair. That's why I didn't hear it.

He stopped in his tracks, and swiftly turned, drawning his bow as he did so. I heard the snapping of twigs behind me as a buck became aware of the young hunters intention. His arrow was loosed and traveling toward its target. The deer jumped out of the way just in time, but only because the arrow had grazed my arm and shifted course. What was worse than the sharp pain in that moment was the fact that he had clearly seen me.

His eyes widdened and he blinked in disbelief before he began to panic. I stood naked in the dappled sun barely covered by the trunk of the tree in front of me, jaw wide with shock, dripping small drops blood on the forest floor, unsure of what to do. He took a step toward me. "Miss!" He cried. "Miss are you alright?!" As he ran into the tree line I took a few steps back and became myself again. He reached me and his finger tips trailed the crossed lines on my bark, and he looked up into my leaves. He did not look farther into the woods to catch the trail of a run away girl. He could not be conviced that his eyes had fooled him. he knew what he had seen. He knew there was a girl and he knew she would not have gotten far without leaving some trail he could follow. He searched the soft wet ground. "No foot prints, no snapped twigs, no blood...." He said as he stood stood where the drips had stopped. He looked into the branches of the trees near me.

"Where are you hiding? I could bandage that wound for you atleast miss. I did not mean to harm you, I saw you only after I took aim at the buck."

I felt his hand leave my trunk as he wandered around the area, scratching his head.

"I am not expected home until the morning." He called stubbornly into the forest as the sun began to lower behind us. "I've got all night." He gestured around him in all directions with his palms up and his hands out to his sides, but I could feel it. He was looking right at me.