The sun sat arrogantly at the very peak of the sky, shining down illuminating rays upon earth and the leaves. The inhabitants of the land were up and about, hunting and foraging, oblivious to Vrasus’ utterly confused state of mind.

Wait, it’s noon!?

Indeed, the great tree seemed to have lost a not insignificant amount of time. Only a few moments ago it was the dead of night and he was casually glancing over the land, before he was drawn into the flows of the world. Now suddenly, after what felt like only a few moments, the sun was high in the sky and the night had long since disappeared. Had the trance-like state actually occupied his attention so strongly to the extent of him losing track of time like this?

How long was I in that state?

It was now the middle of the day. So much time in which Vrasus could have been learning, training, advancing. It was all wasted. He could only hope it was only half a day he lost and not one and a half, or perhaps even longer.

I’ll have to be more careful when observing the flows in the future.

Although frustrated, it’s not like his anger would bring the time back and so Vrasus got back down to work; he may have wasted a considerable amount of time but there were still plenty of hours in the day left to learn. Luckily, the effect from mentally bathing within the flows was incredibly therapeutic for Vrasus. He didn’t notice it at first, but soon realised that he was feeling more refreshed than he had in all his thinking life, as admittedly short as that was. So although he lost a lot of time he worked better than usual afterwards.

Would have preferred the half a day though.

After a few hours Vrasus had improved steadily and felt that perhaps by the end of the day he would have a very basic grasp on conversations, enough to make out the meaning of the elves words, albeit with some small trouble. If his guess was correct then following this it should only take by the end of tomorrow before he was fluent, after which communication would be far easier. That is if it weren’t for a small problem Vrasus just now thought of.

How do I speak?

As a tree Vrasus obviously didn’t have the necessary parts to vocalise his thoughts, but rather embarrassingly he didn’t actually realise this problem until now. When he had communicated with Neltu he wasn’t even sure what had happened, only that somehow their minds had directly spoke to one another. Vrasus didn’t know how to initiate whatever that state was, nor if such a thing is even possible with anyone other than Neltu.

Luckily, he wasn’t completely out of ideas. There were several things he thought of which he could try out, to see how it goes, but they would have to wait until later.

At least it gives me something to do tonight.

Besides this, even if his ideas for communication were all dead ends, it’s not like Vrasus had wasted his time; just to find out what the elves were talking about meant this was already a beneficial venture. He did after all have the power to listen in on any of their conversations so long as they took place within his domain so keeping secrets from him would be hard.

As for the moral implications of this Vrasus was aware of them. He knew that the elves likely wouldn’t take kindly to the fact that he could be listening in on anything they say, but in the end this wasn’t the time to be considering such matters. There was more on the line than hurt feelings.

Besides, what they don’t know won’t hurt either of us.

At this point, there was still almost two hours before sunset, and Vrasus intended to make the most of them. However, just as he was about to get back to business, he noticed he had a visitor on the way, and a familiar one at that.

Sera was making her way towards the hill. She was not quite running to the hill but approached at a fair pace considering her small legs, obviously in a bit of a hurry. Within her hands was clutched a large leafy object, about the size of the torso it was held against and seemingly very soft. Her face showed an eager expression, but nervousness could also be found in her eyes, as she made frequent glances back at the village while keeping to the treeline. It almost seemed like she was trying to avoid being caught.

What is she up to?

One other thing of note which Vrasus noticed was that her eyes looked heavier than usual. It wasn’t even dark yet but she seemed very tired, and this thought reminded Vrasus of Sera’s recent restless nights. He felt an unpleasant sensation as he recalled those events.

Poor thing.

After a couple of minutes she reached the top of the hill, at which point she stopped moving forwards and looked towards Vrasus. She paused there, hesitant to continue and simply staring forward, unknown thoughts going through her small head, before she finally spoke almost a full minute later.

Exactly what she said Vrasus didn’t know, but he was able to pick up four words in sequence. ‘Thank’, ‘Vrasus’, ‘safety’ and what he suspected meant ‘bad’ or ‘pain’. He was pretty sure she was thanking him again, and soon after she spoke once again. This time the words were faster and regretfully Vrasus understood almost nothing out of the sentence other than ‘I’ and ‘bed’, made more difficult to understand by the no small amount of stuttering in this sentence (although said speech impediment did fill Vrasus with some warmth).

Sera paused for a few breaths after, and although he wasn’t certain Vrasus felt like she was waiting for a reply. Of course he didn’t even know what she asked, and even if he did he doubted he could make a reasonable reply without Neltu here to mediate, so was fairly lost at the situation.

Luckily though, after a few seconds she did start moving forward cautiously again. Perhaps she realised his plight or was just waiting to see if there was a negative reaction before? Vrasus didn’t know the answer.

Sera slowly walked up towards Vrasus’ body, or more specifically, towards the small hollow which once shielded her from danger. She once again hesitated after reaching the entrance and spoke a few words. To Vrasus it sounded like she was asking a question, no, more likely it seemed she was making a request of some kind. But once again, exactly what this request was eluded him.

As before Sera waited for a time, during which Vrasus gave no answer. Once again after a few seconds the small girl moved forward, straight into the hollow where she sat down, in the same spot as where she did several days ago when hiding for her life, before laying the leafy object in her hands beside her. After several moments of patting the object she then proceeded to lie down, placing her head atop the object, resulting in what looked like a very comfortable position.

Ah. It’s a pillow.

Before now Vrasus was unable to identify the object. He had of course noticed the elves pillows before, they were made up of a leafy fabric similar to what made up the elves clothes, albeit softer, and stuffed with smaller pieces of the same material. When Vrasus saw these objects before it was as a part of the elves beds, but as he hadn’t seen a pillow on its own, away from the rest of the bed, he didn’t recognise the object. It was also at this point Vrasus was able to guess at Sera’s intensions.

Does she want to sleep here?

He was surprised at first, but after some thinking over he understood her thought process better. Sera seemed to have been plagued by nightmares since the incident, and although they stopped on the day after she thanked Vrasus with the offering, they continued again soon after. It was possible she had come to view Vrasus, or more specifically the hollow, as a place of safety, and so sought it out as a place to sleep instead of the village. He found it an odd to have her identify the hollow as a place of safety as opposed to a place of danger, especially considering this was where she was so close to being caught, but after all minds were incredibly complicated things and rarely logical; Vrasus was sure stranger things had happened.

As for her decision to stay here, Vrasus himself didn’t really mind. It’s not like she would be disrupting him in any way. However, he doubted the elves would be too happy with the arrangement, even if he had saved her before. But from the looks of things no one knew she was here and there didn’t seem to be any commotion going on in the village so as of now they probably didn’t realise she was here.

It’s not like I can tell them she’s here anyway.

At that thought Vrasus sent another glance towards Sera. It hadn’t even been a minute since she lay down but it appeared she was already asleep, or very close to it. She did look very tired earlier but he was still surprised she was able to sleep in such a location so soundly and so quickly, especially when he recalled her restlessness from the night before. Was it really so terrifying for her to sleep elsewhere?

He considered trying to improvise something, a blanket of some kind to cover her with, but decided against it. He didn’t want to spook her and it was fairly warm anyway, perhaps later at night if she was here that long he would act, but until then it wasn’t necessary. Instead, in the meantime he simply closed off the entrance to the hollow with a thin wall of roots. A draft might still give her a cold after all.

The old tree chuckled to himself as he glanced at her sleeping form one last time, before pushing himself to get back to work. There were still yet a couple of hours before dusk and Vrasus didn’t intend on wasting them.