Old Friends

Nyana flinched, the words from the new elf somehow hurt her even though it was nothing more than a simple greeting, and between old acquaintances, nonetheless. It was an unusual reaction.

Nyana took a moment to recompose herself and then responded to the elf, "It's been longer than that."

"Really? It has been that long?" The unknown elf smiled. It was an eerie smile. The elf went up to Nyana and the two stared at each other quietly.

Kies wasn't sure what the two's relationship was, but it didn't look to be a friendly one.

Nyana kept a straight face while the unknown elf continued to smile in an intimidating manner at her.

"Okay, enough playing around. Why don't you introduce me to your friend here," the elf turned away from Nyana and set her eyes on Kies.

"Hmph. Why don't you ask him yourself? It's rude to ask someone else to do it."

"Fair enough." The elf turned to Kies. Her smile changed from a menacing one to a friendly one which Kies didn't know would even be possible to do.

"Hello there, I'm Idril. I can feel it from the magic leaking out of you, you're the one that gave the young buds a fright, right?"

"Young buds? I never knew plants could feel fear. I never knew they can feel emotions at all."

The elf chuckled at Kies' response. "That's not what I mean. But to answer your question, plants can feel emotions, believe it or not," she said as a matter of fact.

Kies, finding this to be some sort of a joke turned to Nyana who nodded her head in confirmation of the other elf's statement. "Plants are living things. As absurd as it sounds, they are also capable of much more. Some are even capable of conversing with us."

"That's hard to believe…" But if that was true, there was something that Kies did not understand. "Then couldn't you talk to one of the plants here and ask about the poisoning?" he pointed out.

The two elves glanced at each other as if prompting the other one to answer the question. It didn't take long for both of them to realize that neither of them had actually done that.

"Huh, decades in the force and I forgot something so simple…" Nyana muttered, sounding quite disappointed with herself.

"Have you been relying on your fists to do the talking that you forgot you could speak with your mouth?" Idril scoffed in a light-hearted manner.

Nyana rolled her eyes. "You're one to talk." The thought hadn't crossed either of their minds and it took an outsider to remind them that it was something they could do. "It hasn't even been that long since I have done it..." she mumbled to herself.

"What are we waiting around for then? Let's go find some plants to talk to." Idril nodded her head, motioning for them to go.

"You show the way." Nyana rolled her wrist. "I don't know the ages of the trees and foliage here. I don't know which are sentient."

Idril smiled. Without saying anything, she took the lead and the other two followed along not too far behind her. The elf took them to the large tree in the center of the village where the elders lived. It was pretty obvious even with Idril's guidance that this was the oldest thing in this part of the forest.

Idril stopped in front of the tree and spun around. She waved her hand, gesturing for Nyana to do her thing. "I did my part. Time for you to do yours."

"What? Did you forget how to converse with nature entirely?"

"Would you be surprised if I said yes?"

"Not at all." Nyana proceeded with the task and walked up to the tree. She pressed her hand against the rotting bark and closed her eyes.

From Kies' point of view, it looked as if the tree was shaking. A transparent yet vibrant glow appeared around the tree. For a short moment, everything was quiet.

The glow died down and Nyana's hand slumped to her side. The look on her face wasn't good. In an emotionless voice, Idril said, "If you have bad news, don't keep it all to yourself."

"It's more than one piece of bad news. Firstly, this tree is dying. Secondly, the culprit was an elf," she grimly informed the two.

"Well, I would have guessed the first part without you telling me, but an elf?" Idril sounded betrayed. "I suppose that's to be expected too. If any demons passed by, I would feel traces of their magic. So, do you have the identity of this elf?"

"No. The poisoning was done late in the night when it was raining. That's all the tree has for us."

"I know all of the elves in this village and none of them are the type to do something like this," Idril stated.

"All I can say is that you don't know them well enough then."

"Apparently so."

"Anyway, do you want to inform the elders about this news or shall we keep it to ourselves for now?" Nyana asked for Idril's thoughts on the matter. While slim, there was a chance that one of the elders was the one behind the poisoning.

Idril considered it and ultimately decided on the latter. "Let's not have word leak of this for now. I can imagine the witch hunt that is going to happen if we do. The only people that I know for sure are innocent are me, you, and the rest of your group that arrived today."

"That doesn't narrow it down by much," Kies pointed out the obvious.

Idril pressed her finger against her chin. "I do have a few more people in mind that I know can't be the culprit. There's my disciple and her budling friend. There's also Elder Gildor... I think that's all." It was not many people but it at least scratched names off the list of suspects.

However, Nyana was still not satisfied with this. "That's almost no one. We still have the whole village to check."

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