chapter 2, An Honest Meeting

I waited until the light began to dim. I thought that if I waited him out, he would struggle to see, perhaps he would get bored and stumble home. His body kept turning toward me I could feel his eyes on me, I could hear his hair brush along his back as he craned his neck to inspect my crown. He spotted a branch that was gouged along the bottom edge and slowly dripping sap just above him. He curiously lift his arm over his head and touched the wound. As he did, his finger tips broke off a bit of the surrounding bark, and his finger grazed the grained wood inside.

I am not sure precisely what happened next, except that I shrieked with pain and anger. The sound of my shriek and the sudden absence of boughs above his head made him fall back in shock. He sat with the palms of his hand and his buttocks in the mud, mouth gaping wide

"What are you doing?! You monster!" I shouted, holding my upper arm in protection, I looked at him and waited for a reply. I received only stuttering.

he looked at me head to toe. "But you were..."

"I was what?" I spat as stepped forward in anger and bent over him so that he would struggle to get up, let alone run from me. He looked again at the simple tunic and leggings I had fashioned myself.

"You weren't... dressed?" he blushed and looked away.

"I wasn't human either! You worry about my coverings? How strange. Why do humans fuss so much over their foliage?" the question spilled from my lips. I did not truly want and answer.

"You wanted to see me and here I am." I raised my hands in false surrender. I had seen this done when boys sparred in the meadow.

"What are you doing in the woods alone at night m'lady?" he asked.

"I am no lady, I am not even common born. My mother cast me to the wind and so here I am." I explained. "I am not in the woods alone, either. It is impossible to be alone when one is in the woods!" I scoffed.

"You're... an orphan?" The young man asked, one eyebrow raising as he speculated.

"I have a hundred parents, atleast, if I am counting. We are not like you. We feel no need to count."

His brows furroughed in confusion. He once again looked to the sky that my leafy crown had once blocked from veiw. "You're... you were... A tree?"

"What word do you have for me? I haven't seen myself in your books, but I know there have been others, long ago."

"A nymph. In the old myths, beings like you were called nymphs... but they are no longer considered truth, Lady." he bowed his head to me.

"Am I dressed as a lady?" I asked him.

Blood was now seeping out between my finger tips. I had never been wounded in my human form, aside from small knicks and cuts about my feet and legs when I was careless near brambles. I was not sure how much fluid loss this body could withstand. However, I realized that convalescing as a tree leaves me quite vulnurable to pests. I looked at the wound with great concern.

He stood abruptly, wiping his hands as clean as possible, and lifted his tunic to reach thek hem of his shirt. He tore off a long strip from the hem and moved toward me cautiously.

"Please allow me to help you." he requested in earnest. "You may not realize, but too much movement and excitement causes blood to flow more quickly."

I let out a small sigh while nodding slowly, and held out my arm. I also tried to calm myself as he suggested. Now that I took a moment to center myself, I could feel that my heart was working harder than neccesary.

He turned my arm to have a look so that the softer underside where the arrow had cut me was facing him. The wound was clean, and quite strait, except for a jagged little tear on the bottom edge. His doing. I scowled at him.

"Maybe someday I should come to your home and cut you, then stick my fingers inside of you." I antagonised. He grimaced dramatically in shame at what he had done

"I am truly sorry. I had no way to know that you could feel me." He offered such an uninformed apology. I rolled my eyes. He was gentle with the bandaging and managed to hold the bleeding at bay. I absorbed the feeling of his touch. I had never touched a human or allowed one to touch me in this form. The way the flesh of one body gave way to the flesh of another intrigued me. I had expected that the warmth of my own blood rushing under the skin would mean that another human's touch would not feel warm at all, but I had been wrong.

"My name is Bradley." he introduced him self as he worked on to tuck the loose end of the fabric neatly, " and I give you my oath that I will never loose my arrow so carelessly in your wood again.

"Good." I retorted stubbornly, but I could feel my face soften as I spoke.

"What is your name?" his voice was steady and smooth, he had not yet released my arm from his careful grasp. Somehow there was a sense of pleading, begging me to stay and speak with him. This was not the conversation starter he was hoping for.

"I have no name."

"Ah, then I could name you." He smiled.

He confidently presented his first suggestion. "Ash."

I felt my eyes narrow in disgust.

"Have I offended you?" Bradly questioned sadly.

"Ash cannot be my name! Ash is my species! Human!" I cajoled as I turned from him and began to stride away.

"Now that I know you are here, I can find you, again and again." he smiled smugly.

"I do not have to respond!" I shouted.

"You'd respond to a wood cutter."

With that I turned to face him. "What do you want from me?"

"The pleasure of your conversation." Bradley shrugged with a half smile. "Naturally, I have questions."

The light was gone now, excluding the silvery half moon. The crickets sang loudly in the meadow, and the cicadas buzzed on from the trees.

"Being a nymph, are you hundreds of years old?" Bradley asked, as I seated myself on the fallen trunk of an elm that was lost to us 6 winters ago. They now fed the insects, who fed the soil and the birds, but I still felt a hint of sadness resting upon them.

"I am not an oak." I felt my nose scrunch.

Bradley chuckled heartily. "Is there something wrong with oaks?"

"Ofcourse not, They are very wise, and do live hundreds of years, being slow growers they face much adversity. They are likely the strongest of us, they are respected and consulted in all decisions. However, it is insulting to be confused with one another." I explained.

He sat and considered what I had said for a moment, trying to choose his next words more wisely.

"Forgive me," He began, "But in all my studies we barely touched on trees at all. I never expected to have a conversation with one. I certainly could not have guessed that there was a society with customs to be learned. I guess I must have presumed that you were the only one of your..." he paused and rubbed the scruff just under his lower lip looking for suitable words. "Intelligence." he finished, looking pleased with himself.

"Believing that only those of us who can take your form are sentient is quite an arogant and dangerous mistake." I warned with a half smile.

"Oh, and what could a tree do to harm me?" he joked.

I moved more swiftly than the humans, so it was no challenge at all to pin his back against the broad trunk of a walnut with his own dagger at his throat.

"Wouldn't you like to know." I winked.

He gulped quietly, before smiling boldly. "I meant a tree that cannot change form." He ammended as he reached to move the blade from his throat.

I took a step forward and pushed it just a bit harder. I had to guess from my experiences with thorns and jagged rocks, just how much pressure it took to puncture this flesh. I found this game rather exciting. Bradley dropped his arms and yeilded to me. "That would depend on the tree." I answered.

Standing so closed to him, I was a bit taken aback by the heat radiating between our bodies, and the strange burning in my cheeks. I felt a desire to touch him, that I could not explain to myself. 'No matter,' I thought to myself, 'he is pinned and I may do what I please.'

His expression revealed his suprise and confusion as I ran my fingers over the short rough hairs along his chin and cheek. They traveled to his lips. As my fingers so gingerly caressed the soft flesh I found there, his lips parted slightly and he looked at me with intense eyes and heaved a sigh. In that instant I was very aware of my own lips, which tingled. I could not stop myself from thinking of the young lovers who steal away into the wood. I could not move my mind from the thought of "Kiss." I wondered what that felt like. I must confess the sensation was not confined to my lips. My whole body suddenly compelled me foreward, and a rush of warmth and fluttery feeling filled my chest.

Bradley choked a bit. I became aware of myself suddenly, the pressure of the dagger on his neck had increased in my stupor, I had not wounded him terribly, but I had not meant to wound him at all.

I felt my cheeks turn firey, I handed him his dagger and turned away in shame, tucking my head to hide my face in my long hair.

"Please don't worry." I heard him say. I felt his hand grasp my hair and tuck it behind my ear, his thumb stroking my cheek slightly as he did. "It should be expected that there is so much we don't know about each other. It's only a scratch." He paused for a long while before continuing.

"The thing is, miss, I only thought you must be ancient because in the old myths, the nymphs were more than human, the nymphs could speak with the old gods." He removed his hand from me and tucked his chin respectfully. "So it has been a pleasure to speak with you as if we were equals."

My posture stiffened awkwardly, his suggestion was absurb, I had never communed with gods, nor did I have any interest in doing so.

"I still don't have a name." I mused, making eye contact with him for the first time since I released him from the tree. "I want one. You will give me one." I challenged.

He took a very long look at me. He looked back to where I had been standing tall when he pressed his fingers into my bark, then back to me.

"You should not have an ordinary girl's name, It wouldn't suit you." He shook his head, then stroked his chin and paced, before turning to me with a bright smile.

"How about Veridian?"

I let the word roll around in my head for a while, I liked the sound of it.

"What does it mean in your tongue?"

"It is a color. The color of your eyes in the moon light." The corners of his mouth turned up into a slight smile.