She touched the palm of her hand to the tree. She felt it’s wisdom and heartbeat surge through her body like a wave. Startled, she pulled back her hand.
-It’s an old tree, it knows a lot and has seen many things-
She turned to see her teacher, only a few winters older than her.
He smiled.
-I told you it was easy-
"But it felt so weird, like the world had been put into my body. I could hear all these different voices, telling me to so all different things." She said.
-Why do you speak out loud?- Gin asked through her mind.
"I’m too tired."
"But you’ll never improve at it Cerwin" Gin said aloud, "And when you try to talk to the animals and trees, you’ll have forgotten how."
Bored with the conversation, and not in the mood to argue, she turned back to the tree. Putting one palm on her forehead, and one on the tree again, she closed her eyes, and tried to make sense of the jumbled words that were being thrown into her head. Her head was beginning to ache and she was getting nowhere. Then suddenly a great voice came into her head, so loud her toes could hear it.
-Be gone- it yelled.
She fainted.
Cerwin woke up a few minutes later. Gin was sitting a few strides away, chewing grass.
-Overload- he told her telepathically, -They always happen at first-
"You could have told me that before!" She said, irritated. A piece of hair fell from it’s tie and fell in her face. "Damn hair", she muttered and untied the whole lot and redid it up.
She felt Gin smile, although his back was to her.
"Time to get back to camp" He said.
"Good", Cerwin said, "Trees are boring."
"You think?" He grinned, "Then we’ll come here tomorrow and try this again."
"I think you make me do boring things just to annoy me."
"Probably". He rode off on his horse.
Cerwin rode slowly back to camp, in no hurry. She felt the urge to turn into the forest and never return to camp, like it had been before. She had lived for 15 years alone with no family. Then, only two months ago she had ran into a man. He had put his palm to her head and announced his name was Gin, and that she was to go with him to train. Cerwin had had no idea what the training was for, but she followed anyway. Now, she was stuck with Gin, and a servant, traveling around, trying to talk to trees. She had done worse things in her life. She didn’t ride off; she had a suspicion that Gin wouldn’t allow the horse anyway.
As she arrived back at camp, Gin motioned for her to sit and eat.
Their servant, Tucker, and aging man getting into his mid-thirties, was putting stew onto a plate for her. He was a large man, strongly built, with a grey beard, who stood towering over Cerwin. They had hired him from one of The Villages.
He seemed quite the opposite to Gin, who was only just taller than Cerwin herself. Gin didn’t appear to be exceptionally strong, and, unlike Tucker’s red/grey hair, his hair was dark brown, almost black. He had dark blue eyes, and went with no beard. Gin had no sense in clothes: he wore leather pants with a grubby white shirt that could be laced at the top. The only thing that really looked noble was his hands, well, no noble exactly; they were strong and collosed from holding horses reins all day.
Cerwin moved closer to the fire.
"You’ll need a lot more practice" Said Gin.
"I know that." Said Cerwin. " I don’t even know if I want to if I’m going to faint everytime."
"It will go after a while. I did at first, just takes getting used to" Gin said.
Cerwin laughed. "You fainted? I thought that was ‘only for women to do’?" She mocked.
"I can’t remember saying that" Said Gin, being silly.
He lay down in his bag and began to doze off.
-‘Night Gin-
-G’night Win-
Just before dawn Gin woke up to the howling of wolves. He sat, and looked around, then listened to them in awe. They are magnificent creatures if one can get close enough to see them, he thought.
-And vicious too- Said Cerwin telepathically.
-You decided to speak mind to mind for once I see- He mocked.
-Didn’t want to wake Tucker-
-Yeah right- Said Gin, unconvinced. -Anyway, I love wolves, ever seen them up close?-
-No, and I don’t intend to- said Cerwin
-We better go back to sleep, they’ll hear us-
-Hear us?- said Cerwin.-We’re talking mind to mind, no-one can hear us..-
-Surely you know better than that. Wolves are smarter than you think.- Said Gin.
-Yeah yeah- too tired to talk anymore, Cerwin went back to sleep.
Gin lay awake, listening to the sound he loved. After about 30 minutes, the howling suddenly stopped. He lay awake for a bit longer, but there was no more howling and so, he went to sleep.
Cerwin woke when it was just beginning to get lighter.
She looked around to see if anyone else was awake, and saw a glow coming form her pack. Trying not to tread on any of the others, Cerwin made her way to her pack. Putting her hand into the pack. She brought it back out, holding a stone she had picked up yesterday. The stone glowed a soft blue glow.
"Gin, come look at......", Cerwin started, stopped by a noise coming from near their camp, in the forest.
Gin sat up quickly, looked around, not seeming to see Cerwin, or the stone. Suddenly, a pack of wolves broke through the trees from the west.
Cerwin went white, and moved away, towards the edge of the clearing.
Gin sat in his bag, looking at the wolves, not appearing to be worried at all.
Tucker sat up, and looked at the wolves. "Master Gin, what do I do?"
"Don’t do anything, they wont hurt you. They’re not as evil as you think." Saying it more for Cerwin’s sake than Tucker’s.
The largest wolf trotted up to Gin, and put his face into Gin’s. For a few minutes no-one moved. Then, as suddenly as they came, the wolves melted into the forest.
When Cerwin woke, it was early, just a few hours before dawn. Knowing it would be quite some time before the others woke, she went to a near by creek, and sat on a rock. Paddling her feet, she thought about what had happened the night before.
She had gone to sleep after to wolves had gone, but it wasn’t them that had bothered her: it was the stone. She had simply found it lying on the forest floor, and had picked it up, stowing it in her pack, total forgotten. When she had woken up earlier, it had no longer glowed, and was back to it’s normal grey self.
Cerwin threw a rock into the water, and watched the ripples float along with the slow current.
"But why did I wake up at all?" She asked out loud. A fish jumped out of the water, and back in.
Cerwin stood up, and waded into the water, shivering at the coldness of it. She walked upstream, letting the small pebbles flow past her feet with the current.
Looking up from her feet, she saw a small cliff, over which a river was falling, making a series of small waterfalls along the cliff face. It opened up into a small lake, from which a few small creeks ran, such as the one she was in now. All around the lake’s edge was rainforest, green, but not particularly thick. It seemed this place was a world of it’s own: the rest of the forest was mainly long trunked trees, only green at the top: an endless plain filled with brown columns and dead leaves. Yet in this place, everything seemed alive; birds sang, fish swam, and the water leaped off the cliff and into the lake.
On one side of the lake, a large rock sat, half in the water, half on land, concealing what was behind it, and unless she wanted to go around a long way into the forest, or climb it, the quickest way to get around would be to swim.
Cerwin stepped out of the creek, and walked around the edge of the lake, on the opposite side to the rock, until she reached the waterfalls. The spray fell on the breeze, and carried it to her. An eagle flew over the lake, it’s reflection rippling on the water. If this wasn’t paradise, Cerwin didn’t know what was .
"Why’d you-"
Cerwin turned around: Gin was behind her, looking at the beauty of the place. After a few minutes, he resumed talking.
"Why’d you go off like that? You could have told one of us." He said.
" I wasn’t gone long, you worry too much. Besides, I didn’t want to wake either of you"
"I wouldn’t call being gone four hours a short time"
"Four hours!" Cried Cerwin, "It hasn’t been that long."
Gin pointed up " Look at the sun, it has. Anyway, what is this place?"