A Nymph In The Shaws

A Little Background

    This story came to light as a challenge from an author friend. I’d put something on his plate and he mine. 

    Being engrossed in a series about nature as well as being a person who appreciates the blues of oceans, the clear waters of mountain streams, and the kaleidoscope of fire-colors of a sunset, I missed the mark by not having the idea of tree nymphs. My author friend did not miss the mark. After expletives were exchanged, he challenged me to run with the idea of a nymph. 

    So, I created one. Which led to a unique kind of nymph, which led to her wandering into my world, having left my author friend’s world. With each movement I took as the nymph, the world opened up to me. A world from a long time ago when two key characters in my original storyline were just children. And from there I uncovered and created origin stories that will allow for a deeper appreciation and connection with those two characters. Also, I created a single spawn point to split off and write a dozen stories. 

A Nymph In The Shaws

    The moment she stepped in the creek, the water smoothed out in the gentle waves you’d see when a royal tailor rolls out a fine fabric. The rippling noise of the water rolling over and around the rocks muted into a lullaby so sweet and serene that no mother could duplicate.

    She took another step. The smooth water followed her. She felt it trying to reach out as far upstream as possible. It yearned for more like lovers forcibly separated. The rippling lullaby continued carrying just a few feet above the water. It also yearned for attention, but more for an audience than for intimacy.

    The flutter of wings drew her attention ahead. She followed the creek until it curved into the dense cluster of trees. Each youthful branch stretched out and up, away from one another, with the intensity and determination that only youth possesses. Yet within the trees, those trunks thicker than the creek was wide, were memories of a tree that knew better. The strength lived within working together then diving down and out. The roots of each tree had overlapped to become an interwoven shield that stretched out for distances no one but her could see. And their memories were just as long.

    The nymph smiled and stepped out of the water to find comfort atop it. Touching the water or being in it produced the same form. Had the walkers of this land looked upon this creek, they would see the gathering of morning mist. They’d dismiss the movements in the misty fog as wind or the morning sleep they’d yet to rub away from their eyes. That was the humor of nature: it made things that many would choose not to believe possible.

    Not that she would hide from anyone if they did see her move as they did. She could walk. She could jump. She could even fly if the moment called for it. But she’d learned the hard way that few appreciated the spectacle from afar. Most had to snare it to show it off to others. When you’d crossed as many borders as her, moving between as many forms as her, it was just safer to resemble wonder.

    Thankfully, she’d entered this land during the season of shedding. Leaves covered the ground in many areas more than the grass as well as the broken lives of branches and bushes caused by recent storms. Sure, she could have made the tree shed those leaves still attached, but it was not the way of the nymphs to cause sudden pain without sudden necessity.

    She stepped out of the creek and onto the nearest leaf. With something quicker than a breath but slower than a thought, the magic pulled other leaves up and around her form. She had legs, arms, a body and a head. Mostly. Mist was easier to veil to the walkers as she could spread herself to nearly unseen. With nature, the leaves would always bring a form that drew attention. Which is why she didn’t keep the leaves for too long. Instead, every few steps, she would command the leaves to fall away and she’d leap a few feet in either direction. Then she’d land upon another leaf that would bring its fellows to cover her again. From afar, it would look like the random twists of wind the walkers were used to.

    She could have just as easily jumped into the closest tree and traveled that way. It would have been quicker and would have helped her work on connecting with this land. However, she was here to explore. Unlike the pursuit of a bright and hopeful light in a deep, dark cave, her purpose here was not that focused. She’d been tasked to explore, nothing more. 

    “Little do they know,” she said. Her voice came out like a subtle breeze across a few leaves because that was exactly how her words came out and exactly what the words found upon exiting. Something akin to a chill touched the middle of her leaf-strewn back. As she was unfamiliar with this land and her response to it, she took the chill as a warning. It didn’t stop her from heading alongside the creek toward the dense cluster of trees, but it did stop her from speaking again. At least out loud.

    Even though they were rare, nymphs weren’t always secretive. It was unnatural for them to hide just as it was for a rain cloud to hide in the sky when the time came to pour. They had trained themselves to be secretive. They had to be once walkers entered their lands – those with little to no magical gift or sense of something more important than themselves or their kind.

    I am of water and I am of land, she thought. I am the rarest among the rare.

    Being rare among the rare never made her feel alone. Instead it made her feel untouchable. She wasn’t overconfident or reckless by any means. She just walked the world without a care as she could cross into the different regions of land and water unlike other nymphs.

    Something akin to a burn touched the middle of her back. Was this a warning, too, she thought. She was in tune to the touch of nature. Water was wet when she stood in it or on it. Land was dry when she stood in it or on it. The temperature, however, was something she wasn’t familiar with. Nymphs did not have to worry about temperature in nature the way walkers did because they were nature.

    She stopped walking and commanded the leaves to scatter. Being unseen was tricky for her as she was not practiced in it. She’d known land nymphs who could be the wind at its purest, but she could not. She always wanted something to give her shape. Something in her always wanted to be seen – a trait she had shared with the queen in the north. The same queen that sent her here with nothing more than that vague directive to explore.

    The sound of fluttering wings hastened. She recognized the flurry and the fear as they were ready to take flight. As she took another few steps closer to the trees, a flurry of shadows painted the tree trunks and blotted the rippling creek. Whatever had them scared had been so terrifying that the birds erupted from the tops of the trees a few moments later. Even with her vision, these trees were so tall that the birds looked like a cloud.

    There’s your answer, she thought. No burn came, no chill came. But she didn’t take the risk as she couldn’t sense what was ahead. So, she stepped back onto the water, but moved along the water like an animal with six legs instead of as the walkers do with two. It allowed her to move quicker and kept her misty form to only rise a foot or so above the water line.

    The sun was bright on the water as she had seen the weapons of the walkers shine. Blades they had called them. The creek rippled with her humor as she thought about how the only blades she knew were that of grass. And grass could be a weapon that would put those made of metal to shame.

    As she progressed farther upstream, the sunlight moved from the consistent shine to the glinting of crystals as the shadows of the massive trees and their long limbs twisted and extended above her. It didn’t take long and the trees had wrapped the area in a twilight. And twilight was exactly what she wanted.

    Light nor creature nor bush move shadows. The nymphs do that. Their magic responds to the shadows with the nymph’s desire to move. The greater the desire, the greater the movement. As this creek ran through the trees and bushes, she could move quicker than anything else in nature.

    So she magically leapt to any shadows nature had out for her. Those from tree trunks were easy and she didn’t like easy. Instead she caught the darkness cast from a falling leaf and infused her desire until the shadow stretched out longer than the solid branch yet slithered like a snake. Releasing herself from one shadow sprung her forward to each successive one with increasing haste. She had no chase to give nor any restraint on time to return to the queen. She merely enjoyed the pace.

    And even with the speed, she missed nothing. If asked, she could count each tree or each bug being eaten by leaping fish, and even all the leaves in every tree. This place was not hers nor was it the queen’s yet it still allowed her to connect with it, to be a part of it. 

    Maybe this place had been home to nymphs once? she thought. 

    She hadn’t felt any nor seen traces of them. It made her wonder if the real reason the queen sent her was with more focus than to simply explore. She had caught something the queen said, and likely the queen didn’t know she’d said it. When you come from two worlds, you can see layers in others they cannot. Just as some see the water’s surface and do not know there is a current underneath.

    The queen had mentioned her kin in passing. There was almost too much focus on sounding like her kin had died, but she had sensed the current underneath the words. It felt more like the falling leaf that transitions from beautifully green and firm to burnt yellow and curling at the edges. Like her kin had fallen to darkness. 

    She pondered, Clever, queen, did you send me where you can’t go, but your sister did?

    She wanted to reach out more to find the markings of nymphs. They were not like those of the walkers that made their presence as obvious as mud in the middle of an ice field – and that’s when they were trying to be clever. Nymphs, instead, added to the beauty of nature. Even those that may have fallen to darkness could not help but augment what they touched. Just as she reached out, a burst of green light like that she’d never seen blew through the canopy of trees, briefly wiping away all shadows, then disappeared.

    If she had been a walker, she would have tumbled the moment the shadows disappeared. And at that speed, likely would have died instantly. Instead, she immersed herself into the water below and cautiously moved ahead as a fish. She’d never seen such magic, not even among the legends of her people. She started rising above the water, collecting the mist around her body, when another burst of bright green pulsed toward her. This time, the magic carried something she’d seen but never felt: pain.

    A terrifying screech chased the green light, but did not fade when the light did. Instead it bounced around the trees as if they were walls of a cave. 

    She had not been around the walkers much – and had not seen any in these lands either – but she knew the young from the old. Youth always tapped into the endless current of purity. This screech came from the young and its pain was deeper than that which carried on the green light.

    She waited for the painful echoes to fade before proceeding forward. The desire to find out what was causing this powerful magic outweighed any concern for herself. She did not know the origin of the light nor the shout, but she didn’t need to. Instead she could see where shadows had yet to return and use that as the trail to the source.

    Willing the mist to wrap tighter around her, she stepped to her usual height out of the water to float just above it. The shadows in this cluster of trees were slowly returning, but it was no longer twilight. She could see the edge of the cluster ending only twenty feet ahead. Beyond that was a field of tall grass with patches of orange-stemmed flowers with yellow-white petals. Just beyond the field was another cluster of trees, but not nearly as densely packed as this one. The creek grew into a stream that wound half way through the field before forking off to feed another part of the land.

    She felt the build up of pain before the next wave came. Since she didn’t know if the shadows had protected her or not, she needed to cross the field and get to the clump of trees immediately. She stepped out of the mist and hopped into the closest, growing shadow. Then she leapt forward until the bright sun and tall grass greeted her. Instantly, she leapt back toward the creek, the water rising up with mist to greet her. She landed atop the water in full form and raced across the field. From the outside, she looked like smoke erupting from a geyser then carried away on a storm’s wind.

    The green wave struck just as she stepped in the shadow of a tree on the other side of the field. The pain was greater which meant she was closer. The magic went through her misty form without dissolving it. She expected to hear the screech of the young one to follow, but was surprised to hear the snapping of branches instead.

    No, that’s not right. Those aren’t branches, she thought as she leapt to another shadow. The mist followed her like a smoky tail. She didn’t feel the land reaching out for repair. When the next round of snapping came, she figured out what it was. Those are bones. Bones of walkers.

    Intrigue caught her, but not as much as caution did. The fear of being hurt did not worry her no more than death did. She could become too many things too quickly for such concerns to plague her. No, she didn’t want to add to the pain. There was no reason to burn the branches that were just split from a lightning storm. They were already suffering.

    Cautiously, she leapt from shadow to shadow, pausing every so often to listen, to feel. Each time she checked in, the trees did not yearn for recovery, but something did. She couldn’t place it. One moment it felt like it was the land then it was something like her then it was something like a walker. 

    The screech came again, but sounded much lower this time. She guessed the young one had strained to this point like the unlucky branch that grows over a cliff’s edge, allowing the winds of the sea to continually whip it around and weaken it.

    Another wave followed the sound. The magic seemed to feed off the energy of the voice. More cracking of bones came with the wave and confirmed what she thought: the wave was the weapon not the protection.

    A chill hit the middle of her back, clumping the mist together like a shard of ice. This time she knew it was a warning as nature had warned her: pain was coming. Sure enough, broken ice, as small as rain drops and as large as the orange-stems of the flower in the field behind her, flew through the air. She immediately collapsed into the water as the sounds of the shards went over her. They shredded leaves, sheared smaller branches and broke larger ones. Only the tree trunks remained unscathed as they were ancient and their bark harder than stone against nature’s beatings.

    The sounds of the ice flurry tearing through the trees behind her gave way to unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting the land. The collision caused a wave like she’d only seen from a fallen tree. It blew back and bent all except the strongest around her. Then nature took a breath and fell back into the silence of rippling water and the occasional whispering of wind through the treetops.

    A voice, soft yet immovable, broke nature’s silence. “It is done.”

    She heard the youth in the female’s voice, but knew it was not the one that had screamed in pain that carried the magic to bend nature back. But she couldn’t see beyond the row of trees that lined the edge of this cluster. Lighter and quieter than the wind above, she let the last of the stream’s mist carry her into the shadows of the row of trees. The leaves yearned to rise up around her, but she rejected them for the moment so she could focus on what lay ahead.

    There was a pulse of that mixed energy, land and nymph and walker. As she peered through the gap in the trees, she didn’t find that answer. Instead she found the answer to what the waves were breaking. Broken bones and torn flesh of the walkers were strewn in and around the puddles of blood gathering on the dirt clearing.

    “I hear something,” another young one said.

    This voice was male, but slightly higher than the other one. The nymph mused how he must be going through the changes. She looked around and saw no one. She closed her eyes and let the nature of this place be her ears. The only sounds that were out of place were the branches of the bushes and trees painfully bending back to their normal way. There was no way a young one could hear such a thing.

    “Let them come,” the young female said. The conviction dripping with profound determination made the nymph smile.

    “It won’t bring them back,” the young male said.

    A chill touched the middle of the nymph’s back, but this time she knew it wasn’t a warning. In fact, it was mourning. The chill spread down and out just as ice does from the shores of the lake to its center. The nymph could feel the tears of the young male being greeted by the ground.

    How is this possible? She thought. They are not nymphs. Why would this place care?

    She used the land’s nurturing of the younglings to hone in on their location. Moving left along the row of trees holding the edge of this clearing, she never took her eyes off the bloody mess of walkers. It didn’t repulse her; it impressed her. The power it took to cause such carnage was worthy of her attention. And since water and land surrounded her, she could easily shift to either form – or somewhere in between – if that power focused on her.

    “It’s moving closer,” the young male whispered.

    “How do you know?” the young female asked.

    Abruptly, he snapped, “I just can. Now shut up and focus. There may be more.”

    “Fine,” the young female said.

    The nymph heard what must have been a stomping of feet. She smiled, imagining the behavior she’d seen in young nymphs that could not get their way, but had to follow orders. Hearing the exchange gave her comfort and with the comfort came the willingness to risk exposure. They already knew she was there, she might as well give them something to look at.

    As she stepped out of the shadows of the final tree and onto the dirt clearing, leftovers of the land rose to give her form. Dark to the point of almost black, broken twigs gathered, connected and overlapped to give her sinewy yet shapely legs, a slender torso, and graceful arms. The orange stems from the flower fields raced to wrap around her torso until it was nearly all orange, leaving only the occasional streaks of dark brown of her core form. Then she infused magic in the stems so they gently intertwined down her legs to gather and form each foot as they did down her arms to form each hand. Not to be outdone, a flurry of yellow-white petals tumbled on the wind until they formed the nymphs head. Finally, leaves of all colors of this shedding time of year twisted to create her flowing curvy hair.

    Quite pleased, she said, Yes, this will do.

    She looked beyond the massacre to the other side of the clearing. Another nest of trees clung together more like a stone wall made by walkers than something nature would create. It made her wonder if they’d been intentionally grown that way. Deciding to not soil her form, she proceeded along the border of the clearing. However, she only made it a few steps before the young female called out.

    “I see you. If you want to live, turn around.”

    The young male whispered, “There is no breath. I don’t know if it’s even alive.”

    “I am alive, child. As alive as the tree root that you’re petting for comfort,” the nymph spoke.

    “I guess there isn’t a point in hiding,” the female declared.

    “Don’t!” The young male shouted.

    The nymph felt her mere moments before seeing the light that had cascaded through the fields and forest earlier. She realized the color was a unique green. It looked more like one of the gems hewn by walkers in deep caves. She thought back on the whispers she heard while passing over the waves by gathering places of the ships of walkers. Emeralds, that’s what they called them, she thought. 

    The being that brought the aura stepped out from behind the tree. Nymphs were aware that power did not always have anything to do with the size of the wielder. Drops of rain can erode a mountain after all. Yet, the nymph could not deny an element of awe with a little surprise upon seeing the female.

    She was slightly taller than the flowers in the field. Unlike those flowers, she commanded nature to give her all attention. Even the nymph found herself compelled to look upon her.

    This one is special, she thought. So special that I must get a closer look.

    The nymph leapt forward, the nature that made her shimmered behind her like morning mist caught in a wind, and landed a few feet in front of the female. She looked into the deep emerald eyes for a wonder that usually filled those who watched nymphs gather form. 

    This one did not react favorably in anyway. She balled her hands. Tiny white shards started filling the darkening aura, flickering in and out like the snapping teeth of predators. It was only a curled lock of hair hanging just above her forehead that was not threatening.

    The nymph felt it coming from within the young one, but not quick enough before her form was obliterated.

—

    Magic does not die as beings do. The nymph knew this. And as one who could walk between boundaries others could not, she knew being obliterated was merely a chance to use the parts for the next form.

    She heard the shouts of the young male and the frustrated retorts of the young female. The words were distant as other sounds had caught her attention. Those sounds were the reason she hadn’t taken a singular form. Instead she rode the gentle breeze meandering through the branches of the tree above the two younglings. She rode the breeze as the shredded leaves, the broken twigs, and the dirt flung up from the outburst.

    The young male drew her attention first. He held the hand of someone the nymph knew to be gone. She could hear those living creatures too small for any walker eye to see moving to consume the lifeless form. The hand he held was the only part of color she guessed to be natural. Like the boy, the skin held the color similar to most trees in the area. Unlike the boy, the hand was larger. 

    When the nymph first entered the land of the walkers, she thought those who were larger were a different people as her kind came into existence in the same form to which they left existence. They did not move from sapling to towering, thin in the roots to sprawling underneath and across the meadows. Yet those who used legs to move on land and arms to move through water had younger forms that would grow into larger ones as suns and moons cycled. 

    The nymph settled above the boy, curious as to the scene below and what form would be acceptable to the girl tapping power too similar to her own. Never letting go with one hand, the boy occasionally moved strands of hair matted flat against the head out of the way. It was a gentle touch as she’d done countless times when helping a flower find strength to rise straight and firm after a windstorm. It was a touch of love. The hair matched the boy’s as did the hair on the one opposite of him. Both were also matched by the same splattered blood across the torn garb and mangled bodies. 

    Brilliant sparks like seeds of a lightning storm flew into view followed by the emerald glow. The girl, hands still balled, moved with purpose.

    “They are gone, Cassius.” Her words jerked the boy’s body, but he did not reply. “They are gone. We need to go.”

    The boy shook his head. “We’re staying. You’ve killed them. There are no more to avenge.”

    Sparks stretched into streaks before popping audibly and disappearing into the emerald aura. “There are more. I will find all of them.”

    The nymph fell to the ground between two bushes a mere five feet away from the boy and the girl. The boy noticed as his blue eyes pierced through the air like a spear, a power he likely didn’t realize he had. Just like the depth of girl’s unknown well. Delicately and perfectly quiet, the nymph gathered up into a form made entirely of fallen branches and twigs. The piercing blue eyes flickered briefly upon seeing it then turned to the girl.

    “Sit with your mom. Sit with your dad. Be with them before we give them to the ground,” he said, voice scratching. “Caryanne, please.” 

    The nymph watched the sparks in the girl’s emerald aura fall away. Then with each step towards the other two slain bodies the color in the girl’s aura diffused as if she was walking through the mist of a waterfall. She knelt then she wept as quickly and powerfully as she had exacted her power on those, the nymph now knew, had slain the four here.

    For the first time since being among the walkers, the nymph felt for this girl. She wanted to grieve and that was not her way. She’d been through too many suns and moons, and the long sleep when she waited for the battle between dragons and the white-haired walkers in the land of the queen to end to feel this way. Yet she felt what this girl felt. She also felt the trees sag their branches in the same sorrowful way the girl sagged her shoulders.

    She did not have the power to bring the lifeless back. At least not so they would live in the same way before their death. The seed that grew from a tree did not grow to be exactly like the tree it fell from. What she could do was honor them as clearly these two were connected to nature in a way she previously thought only nymphs could be.

    Stepping out between the bushes, the nymph was intentionally noisy this time. As the girl abruptly turned, her aura started darkening and gathering around the two alive and the four dead. The boy also reacted, standing up and moving away from the slain. The nymph reached down and willed the roots to move the dirt and raise the dead upon mounds near ten feet high. Next she willed the surrounding, vibrantly green grass to spread and cover the entire mound save those upon the top. Then she beseeched the trees for help.

    The ground didn’t quake, but it sounded like one. The nymph turned as the surrounding trees responded. Successful explosions of dirt sounded as each tree shot a root out of the ground. Each one raced atop the dirt like snakes fleeing from fire. Dozens upon dozens reached the four mounds and wrapped around the bodies, four separate internments encased in the strongest of roots that keep the strongest of trees alive.

    The nymph’s last gesture was the most remarkable of them all. She extended one hand, splayed it, and infused just enough magic for flower petals to grow from each finger. They were the golds and yellows of the sun, the green of the leaves in spring, the orange and red of leaves in fall, the shades of blues that come with clear waters, stormy seas, and twilight skies. With a touch more magic, the pedals hastened to the end of their life, leaving only seeds and the feather-like wisps ready to continue the legacy. Gently, the nymph whispered to her hand to move the seeds and direct them.

    In lazy loops, the boy and girl followed in wonder as the seeds moved to cover each body. Once each seed landed, a flower sprouted up. As quickly as their lives ended, they were covered in a bed of flowers, protected by and connected to the strongest trees, all while atop the lushest grass mound.

—

    “Who are you?” the boy asked.

    The nymph stepped toward the boy, circling away from the girl who had not relaxed her body nor the intensity of her aura. “My name is,” she paused, having remembered the struggle of telling a walker before. “It cannot be understood by walkers.”

    The girl stepped toward the nymph, her aura pushing against the nymph’s magic. She sneered, assuming insult, and asked, “What are ‘walkers’?” 

    The boy shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Caryanne, we walk. Clearly this creature does not have to walk as you destroyed her and she is here again.”

    The emerald aura flickered just as color rose to the girl’s cheeks. “Oh. Right.”

    “I am Cassius. This child is Caryanne.” He gestured to the girl whose cheeks reddened even more.

    “You’re a child, too!” She followed the yell by stomping her foot.

    Cassius raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for proving my point.”

    “Hey—”

    He didn’t let her continue. “We are not usual walkers. We are Tree Makers.”

    The nymph hadn’t heard that name, but it did offer a hint at the power and connection to nature she’d witnessed so far. “I will try,” she said. She decided to say it as she would to the queen and see how the leaves would fall. “Andamaearala.”

    To her surprise, both were able to say it right back to her exactly as she said it.

    Cassius looked to the mounds, the flowers rising and spreading across the top as if they’d been growing since the first sunrise brought light and life to their land.

    The nymph watched the rapid rise and fall of the boy’s chest. It wasn’t long before sunlight reflected off the tears falling down his cheeks. When he looked back at her, the blue eyes no longer pierced her. They softened her, making her feel like those multi-colored petals on the mounds were swirling in and out and around each twig and branch of this form. And when the boy looked to Annie, the emerald aura fell away like old bark sliding off a tree under winter’s first bite.

    “Andamaearala, thank you.” Branches and leaves flapped with his words in a subtle applause echoing for as far as she could feel and hear.

    The girl shuffled closer to the nymph, coming close enough to touch her with an outstretched arm. But the girl did not touch the nymph. Instead she looked through the lock of hair swaying against her forehead, the deep emerald eyes entrancing the nymph. Try as she might, the nymph could not look away.

    “I am in your debt,” Caryanne said. “Whenever and whatever you need, speak to these trees and they will find me.”

    “What shall I say?” the nymph asked.

    Caryanne looked to the mounds and the tree branches around her sagged further in matching sorrow. Without looking back to the nymph, she said, “Emma.”

    “What does it mean?”

    ​The girl finally broke, sobbing and falling to the ground. The boy stepped to her, knelt down and let her bury her head in his embrace. The blue eyes looked to the nymph and answered. “They are the first letters of the names of our parents.”