[Flashback] Magic in the Forest (Lunia)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

91st Day of Autumn, 508 AV Shortly before midnight... Minerva made her way through the Silverwood Forest at night, her eyes scanning the trees. It hadn't happened yet... she was starting to get impatient. Supposedly, the entire forest would change color at the sounding of the midnight bell, when the first day of winter started. For now, the trees were yellow and brown, and didn't look like anything special. They certainly didn't look magical. But, if what she heard was true, then as soon as the bell sounded, the ENTIRE forest would shift to whites and icy blues. After living in bland old Sunberth her whole life, there was no WAY she would miss seeing something like this! She looked around, wondering if she would end up missing it in he darkness. No chance she would let that happen. She needed to get a closer look... a front row seat. She headed over to one of the trees, and grabbed the lowest hanging branches. She started slowly pulling herself up, not caring one bit about the sap that quickly stained her hands and clothes, or the twigs and needles that got tangled in her hair. She wondered if the pieces that snapped off the trees would still change color. She scraped her hands and got tiny rips in her clothes sue to her inexperience in climbing, but she didn't care. Soon, a bit winded from the climb, she settled into a perch a fair distance up the tree. Luckily in the darkness she couldn't see how far away the ground was. She took out a small hand held saw from her tool belt, and trimmed off a short branch. Then she held it up in the moonlight next to another branch that was still attached to the tree. She watched the two branches closely, waiting for midnight to come so she could see the change and study the effects.

[Lunia]

Lunia and her big sister Meli were on the edge of the forest surrounding Mura. It was late, almost midnight on the day before winter and they came to watch the leaves change. It was something they did every year. They were each others best friends and vowed from a young age that this would be their thing. They walked up the the forest, hand in hand, and Lunia stepped up to a small tree and sat on one of its low hanging branches. She helped her older sister up with a pull of the hand.Together they sat on the tree and looked up to the sky waiting for the time to strike twelve and watch as everything changed once more.

Her sister shivered. "Are you cold Meli?" Lunia asked while simultaneously transferring some of her heat to her sister, Lunia shivered unconsciously in response.

"I'm fine Lun, worry about yourself for once." Her sister teased while using her favorite nickname for her little sister.

Lunia rolled her eyes and looked back up to the sky. It would be midnight soon and then the leaves would change symbolizing a new start. Lunia always liked the winter and thought of it as the beginning not the end like most people. The world started anew in the spring when everything came back to life, but it had to die first, had to die in the winter to live in the spring.

Meli and Lunia were the closest two people could be. She never kept anything from Meli, although she knew Meli kept things from her. She knew that because she would sometimes walk in on her with her other sisters or mother or grandmother and they would instantly freeze. When Lunia would ask Meli later she would shrug it off, dismissing it completely. Sometimes she felt her whole family kept one big secret from her, she tried not to let it get to her.

She sighed quietly and saw her sister peek a sidelong glance in her direction. Lunia stayed her glance at the sky when she saw something peculiar. It looked like an unrecognizable shape was swaying at the top of a very tall tree. Almost like a person or a large animal. She pointed it out to her sister who just shrugged and said "They want to get a good look at the change too, I guess."

Lunia would glance back at the strange figure every few seconds but tried to concentrate back on the trees.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Minerva watched as the leaves slowly began to change. It turned out it wasn't quite instantaneous, bam, changed, done. The leaves slowly started to fade. She wouldn't even have noticed it if not for the fact that the dead branch in her other hand was still the same. Her eyes widened as she began to pick out the difference, the branches around her fading to a lighter color while the dead branch remained dull yellow and brown. "Wow..." she whispered, grinning wide. This was awesome. As time passed and the change became more apparent, she dropped the dead branch away. Now that she saw it wasn't going to change with the rest, she had no further interest in it. She let the branch fall, having no idea that there were two girls right below her... one of whom might end up getting pegged in the head with the branch, if she didn't move away in time. Instead her attention was focused on the rest of the tree around her. She leaned close to the branches, watching carefully as the leaves changed, wanting to memorize every moment of it. She studied the different colored leaves to see if they faded the same, watching as some yellow, some brown ones faded to either a light white or a shimmering silver. She leaned ever closer, becoming so intent on the color change that she forgot how high up she was. Then she slipped. "Gah!" she cried out, grabbing for a branch and clinging for her dear life. Her legs dangled helplessly below her as she struggled, trying to pull herself back up. She screamed, closing her eyes and trying to pull her weak arms upwards. Leaves fell around her, a shimmering mixture of browns and whites floating down to the ground, shaken free by her struggles to litter around the girls below.

[Lunia]

Soon the leafs began to change color and Lunia and her sister watched in frozen amazement, like they did every year, at the trees and their hidden beauty come to life. Almost 13 years of this and the magic still struck them to stillness. A few chimes later a small broken branch fell from above them, landing right in front of Meli. They both looked up and saw the dark figure which looked more like a person in the light of the trees. That was defiantly a person enjoying the trees in a more close view. That was smart, but Lunia didn't have the skills to climb all the way up there. Plus she thinks she wold be a bit scared up that high.

Meli nudged her sister and whispered, "Hey, what if they fell." she smiled a joking smile but Lunia frowned.

"Thats not funny Mel, they could get really hurt." Lunia scolded and cast a worried look back up the the figure.

Meli just rolled her eyes and glanced back at the trees and sky, unaware of what was happening back up the tree. "Oh, my God." Lunia whispered a few minutes later and Meli looked over at her sister, a questioned look on her face. "Holy Rak'keli!" Lunia shouted and jumped up from her perch on the branch and started running helplessly around.

her sister jumped up as well and looked up to see the figure from the top of the tree, falling down, just like Meli had joked earlier. She jumped off the tree as well and decided that she needed to try to catch the girl. Meli was older and more muscular than Lunia due to all her activites, and at least if they got hurt Lunia could heal them. Right now Lunia was running around, hopelessly so Meli charged in and insert herself under the falling woman. As they could hear the girly sounded scream coming from the falling.

"You better heal me Lun," Meli smiled over at her sister as soon as the girl plummeted into her arms and they both fell.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock flailed and screamed, feeling her fingers slipping on the branch. She should never have climbed so high! She wasn't a skilled climber, and hadn't stopped to think about the fact that getting safely back DOWN could actually be harder than getting UP in the first place. Bark scraped against her fingers as she lost her grip, and she screamed as she plummeted towards the ground. She fell roughly into a stranger's arms, grunting in pain as her momentum brought them both to the ground, a scattering of brown and white leaves raining down around them. It probably would have been quite a beautiful sight, if Tock wasn't in so much pain. She rolled off the girl, whimpering against the ground, and decided to just lay there for a few minutes as the ache slowly faded. "Oy," she muttered as she slowly and achingly pushed herself up. "'Ey should warn tourists 'bout 'at dang thing... Bloody color changin' forest's bleedin' dangerous, she is. Aye?" She looked up at the two girls, forcing a weak smile. "Ain't what done a safe place, is she now?"

[Lunia]

Lunia paled at all the scrapes and bruises the girl had. Plus who knew what Meli has sustained! She quickly ran over to her sister, making sure she was alright was more important that the girl at the moment. Meli grunted and sat up, rubbing her upper arm. "Oh Goddess, are you okay Mel?" she quickly placed her hands on her sister healing her with the power Rak'keli blessed her with and warming her bare skin from the cold ground.

"I'm good, thanks Lun." Meli said and smiled up at her younger sister. She had successfully healed her sister, now onto the girl.

Lunia smiled back at her sister and turned and ran over to the stranger. "Hi, I'm Lunia and I can heal those injuries if you'll let me?" She placed her hand on the girls shoulder, not healing her until giving permission, but warming up her body temperature because this poor woman must be freezing! Lunia completely ignored the girl when she spoke, her questions were rhetorical and irrelevant. Instead she looked back up at the tree where the girl had fallen. Apparently the girl didn't have as much climbing skill as they both had assumed. Most people would laugh and say, served you right, but Lunia was too focused on the girls well being than whether or not she deserved it.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Aye," Tock nodded to the girl's offer, though she didn't really think about it until after it happened. She'd never been magic healed before. It sent a shock through her and made her gasp. She felt warm, and good, and... "Woah..." she muttered, shuddering at the unexpected sensation that spread goosebumps across her skin. It was... certainly different. After the moment passed, she sat back on her heels, staring wide eyed at the ground. She held up her hands to study them, rubbing her fingers together, shocked to see the skin whole. Then she grinned wide and looked up at the girl. "Oy, thanks, Conch!" she said. "Wowzer, 'at's a bloody fine thing ya done gotcha 'ere, innit? 'Ow's she work, aye? Ya gotta 'as one o' 'ose, whatchacaller, 'pprenticeships what fer ta learn 'ow ta do 'at? Bloody brilliant, 'at is!" She laughed and stood up, brushing herself off. Then she started gathering up a selection of the fallen leaves. It was curious, seeing the mixture of the autumn colors with the white and silver ones. The leaves that had fallen before the change started were substantially different, and the ones that had fallen during the change seemed locked in the intermediate color shift, halfway from brown to white. "Ain't 'at somethin'..." she said, letting out a low whistle. Between the magic leaves and the little magic girl, this was turning out to be quite a night.

[Lunia]

When the girl complied Lunia smiled and sent her healing waves through her body, watching as she healed the scrapes and as the forming bruises went into rewind. It was quite and experience for someone who didn't get healed like that regularly. And it made her laugh when the girl asked if she could learn healing.

"It would be a good world if everyone could just learn to heal," She wondered. "But my power is not learned. I was gifted this power from healing Goddess Rak'keli." she muttered a small prayer of thanks to said Goddess in her head. "You could always become a doctor." Lunia suggested.

But Lunia still worried about the girls well being and after the girl examined herself and the colored leafs she instructed her to stand up and walk around. "Any soreness? Pain, aching? I can take care of it." She informed while wiggling her fingers.

"You sure took quite a fall. Why were you all the way up there? You can see the tree fine from down here." Lunia asked, chuckling.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock snorted, "Doctor? Ba ha ha ha ha!" she doubled over laughing at the very idea. "I ain't no doctor, Conch! I's gonna make people, not 'eal people, aye? Pfft... doctor..." She shook her head at the very idea. As if anyone who'd ever known Tock could picture her healing people. "Well, tell yer Goddess thanks, I guess," Tock said with a shrug, tucking some of the colored leaves in her backpack. She kept collecting them until she had a pretty good sample size. There might be more to learn about the long-term changes if she held onto them for awhile. Maybe the white ones would fade back to brown after enough time. She held a few of the leaves up to the moonlight to take a better look at them and said, "Down 'ere? Nah. All the good stuff's up top, aye? Ya can't done learn 'bout a tree what by only lookin' at 'er trunk aye?" She turned to look at the girl and met her eyes. "Jus' like ya gotta look a lass in 'er eyes ta know 'er, aye? Can't tell what nothin' 'bout someone what by lookin' at 'er legs, 'cept maybe whether she works out. Ya wanna really know someone, ya done looks 'ere," she waved a finger between her own eyes and Lunia's. "Same wit' trees," she said, looking back up at the branches. "Gotta get a look up top, if'n yer gonna really know 'em..." Tucking away the rest of her sample leaves, she walked back over to the tree and reached up for the branches, ready to pull herself back up and start climbing once more.

[Lunia]

Ah, so the girl preferred to mother than to heal. She thought it was rather odd, because didn't mothers take care of there children as well as doctors took care of patients? Maybe she just preferred her children and didn't want the burden of taking on others. Well a mother is always a good thing. Lunia would love to be a mother when she got many decades older of course. But the thought of daughters was a happy thought that she would pounce on eagerly in the coming century. Meli wanted children too, but she preferred to wait longer than Lunia did, she wanted more childhood before she passed hers onto her children.

"So your a mother then? How many children do you have? I love kids..." Lunia said longingly. "You know, if you have children to care for you should take better care for yourself, those kids wouldn't want to lose their mother." She slightly scolded the young mother. Of course Lunia had no idea Tock was talking about animation. If fact she had never heard of it, so she automatically assumed, 'making people' was giving birth. "You have a husband as well? Is he here too?" She asked, hoping maybe she could gain a few friends out of this encounter.

When Tock asked Lunia to thank Rak'keli Lunia did not hesitate. She took the request seriously and prayed a silent prayer of thanks towards the Goddess for giving her the power to make sure everyone was okay. Who knew what those poor children would have faced without a caring mother in their life. She couldn't eve imagine it. Lunia was so thankful for her gift she could have died for Rak'keli if the need came. She loved to help the sick and injured, she couldn't bear to not help when the need arose. Even sick fish or other animals she came across when walking in the woods or swimming in the sea, she would quickly set at ease. She hoped that soon she would get a second mark so she could help even more with broken bones and such. But she knew she had to do something so great to gain more trust from her Goddess.

The girl was right though, about the getting to know someone by looking into their eyes, the same with getting a better perspective by climbing the tree but she creased her delicate eyebrows when Tock tried to start climbing again. She wanted to order the girl to get back down, she could fall again. But Lunia was a true believer of doing what you want as long as it didn't anger the Gods or the City at all. "Um, shouldn't you not do that? You could fall again..." She muttered, barley audible. Her sister, more outgoing and fierce almost dragged the girl back down from the tree saying, "You cannot go back up there! I am NOT catching you again. It hurt enough last time! You got to be really stupid to do that again."

Lunia shot a worried look at Meli, wondering if she had gone to far, maybe she had offended the girl. But she completely agreed with what Meli said, even if it disrupted the girls choice.