All elves woke up at dawn. This was is something which Vrasus had learned fairly quickly in his study of his new neighbours, and generally there were very few exceptions to this rule, such as those who were on guard duty the night before, or the sick and injured who couldn’t get up even if they wanted to. Today, Sera was one of those rare exceptions to the rule.

It was dark out, very dark, such that it would be difficult to see using normal senses, apart from a slight glow which could be seen on the horizon east, showing that although it wasn’t here yet, soon the sun would rise and make its journey across the sky. In the dense forest that made up Vrasus’ domain this was normally a rare time of silence; the denizens of the night having just returned to rest but those who preferred the light of the sun had yet to be roused from their slumber. Yet today at this time, in a small village overlooked by a mountainous tree, this silence was broken by the excited voice of a young girl.

“Shaeva! Vrasus!”

At the moment Sera could be seen next to a bed, rowdily shaking an elven woman awake. The woman was precisely Shaeva, the elf who could often be found alongside Neltu and who was trying to take Sera away from the hill the night before, and she did not look at all pleased with the young girls efforts, burying her head into her leafy pillow in an effort to escape. Presumably the poor woman had been the one who was given the responsibility of looking after Sera, much to the chagrin of her sleeping schedule.

After a couple of minutes of Sera’s efforts, Shaeva was finally up and awake, displeasure evident on her face. This earned her a slight reprieve of the child’s harassment, during which time she washed and dressed herself, placing no small amounts of trinkets on her body, some looking like jewellery, others not so much. After several minutes, just as she was almost done, Sera grew impatient, and continued her earlier antics, pulling Shaeva’s sleeve and nagging to visit the nearby hill. An exasperated expression overcame Shaeva’s face before she replied.

“Later Sera, later. First us does breakfast, then us leave.”

At least that’s what Vrasus thought she said, he wasn’t quite fluent yet. Indeed, he was currently keeping a bit of an eye on Shaeva and Sera, eager for them to arrive so that he could finally try to figure out Neltu’s mental communication method.

Really hope this goes better than last night’s attempts.

Indeed, Vrasus spent the better part of last night attempting to find a way to communicate with the elves, but irritatingly for him his efforts were mostly for nought. Although he made a few discoveries, in terms of his actual objective he counted it as a failure, with both his most promising ideas complete dead ends in terms of communication.

His first idea was a brute force one, to copy exactly how the elves speak. That is, shape a section of his bark into the shape of a mouth, with all the additional internal systems, and then use that to speak. He didn’t have much hope for this; not only did he think it would be look creepy to the elves but also he doubted it would work at all, really he was only doing this to test his body’s ability to change form. Still, this idea turned out even worse than he imagined.

The voice produced when Vrasus attempted to speak with the wooden mouth was coarse, rough and almost sounded unnatural. Not only this but after some practise Vrasus found fine control of the sounds to be impossible, a tortured howl was all that he was able to do, and words seemed to be impossible. In the end he simply wasn’t able to shape his body precisely enough to copy well how the elves speak, and Vrasus suspected there were delicate, tiny apparatus used in the elves body which were too small for him to even perceive, let alone replicate.

One thing which Vrasus did discover when trying this method, and perhaps the only thing he gained from the experience, was when he was examining a sleeping elf to figure out how they spoke. His senses were not just some ethereal eyesight which he could direct around, Vrasus had true omnipresence so long as what he was observing was in his domain, although observing multiple things at once was more taxing on his mind, he believed he could observe near anything so long as he focused. Today this belief was corrected.

When Vrasus drove his mind into the sleeping elf, he encountered the presence of a strange force in the elves body. This force seemed similar to the mental force he knew so well form both himself and Neltu, and Vrasus found that this force repulsed his own mental force, and so his senses, the deeper he reached into the elves body. What was surprising about this was of course the fact that the elf was sleeping, and Vrasus now discovered that although he was able to spread his mind over a wide area, there were some things he couldn’t penetrate, such as a living beings body.

Luckily I was able to overcome this force for the flesh near the surface so could still examine the elves throat, but deeper into the body, like the head and torso, were impossible to grasp.

Apart from this brute force method, another idea Vrasus had was trying to use the aura in his branches to manipulate the air around him, trying to make the winds produced sounds like words, which he could then use. He had often seen elves expelling aura from their body to shape plants, which they used to grow buildings, tools, food and many other things. Their verdant, healthy aura seemed suited for this, and so Vrasus thought perhaps he could also manipulate his surroundings with his own aura, albeit in a different way. He went about trying this at once.

Expelling his aura outwards, trying to imagine it fusing with the wind, and then pushing said wind between his branches, like the wind was a river and his branches the bank, this had more success than trying to create a mouth. As for the sounds produced, at first there was a low whoosh, the rustling of his leaves overshadowing his attempts. After trying to solidify his leaves to silence them and also better control the wind, the gusts became stronger, the sound more pronounced, then after some practise they even started to sound sinister. Although this wasn’t what he wanted, Vrasus found the result promising as at least it showed he had some control. After several hours he even managed to produce beautiful natural chimes, giving the hill a wonderful, almost sacred feeling, but even after practising the entire night, he could get little further than this. Feeling like he was reaching the limits of his fine control, Vrasus was forced to give up on this method also.

Perhaps the only idea of the night which he could call a success would be trying to write; although Vrasus didn’t know the symbols, he found he had easily enough dexterity in his roots to draw small runes on the ground, and so if he really needed to could simply learn their alphabet, but really hoped that he wouldn’t be forced to do this. Being forced to communicate with the elves by passing notes wasn’t a good image.

This mental talking thing better work.

With that thought and a silent sigh, Vrasus extracted his mind from the room with the two elves and once more spread his consciousness over the village. Although at this point not all the elves were up, some could be seen on the streets most would soon follow. He might as well get more work on the language done.

In the end it was almost two hours before Sera and Shaeva finally left to head to the hill, surprisingly without Neltu. Sera was walking ahead with quite the excited expression, whilst Shaeva was not quite as enthusiastic, trailing behind slightly but still within reach of the smaller elf. Although Shaeva didn’t seem to be quite dreading meeting Vrasus, her face was definitely giving off nervous vibes, vibes which only became stronger the closer she got. Sera also slowed down somewhat as they got closer, and although she also seemed nervous it wasn’t enough to curb her enthusiasm. Soon the two elves were atop the hill.

Sera appeared similar to how she normally did, her large green eyes standing out against her pale skin and almost snow-like hair. Shaeva stood beside the girl, and although she was far taller she was still fairly short for an elf, with a very youthful appearance. She could be called an adult, but only just, at least as far as Vrasus could tell. Her hair was a deep green, evoking imagery of the forest, which matched with her green eyes, seemingly universal to her people. Both elves wore the typical red and leather-like leaf clothing found amongst their people, although it was noted that there was a strange vine-like object wrapped around Shaeva’s right arm, and several other oddities could be seen on her body. The lime coloured vine was actually hidden under her clothing, but to Vrasus it stood out as if it were blazing.

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The thing which shocked Vrasus was that these objects all had some small amounts of the elves typical green aura on them. It was after this realisation that Vrasus also noticed Shaeva’s own aura was different to the norm, brighter. This wasn’t as drastic as Neltu’s own shining aura, but still it had slightly more… radiance… than other elves. Not enough for it to be picked from a crowd, but still.

Is she perhaps like him a druid? A weaker version maybe, or a student?

Shaeva stopped once they reached the top of the hill, but Sera held no reservations and continued forward towards Vrasus, much to the displeasure of the older elf who was forced to follow her. This time, perhaps due to the company, or because she wasn’t feeling tired, instead of entering the small hollow Sera instead simply lay her back on the bark next to the opening and relaxed, a relieved smile on her face. Considering everything, her attitude surprised Vrasus, and also seemed to shock Shaeva, but he didn’t mind.

As for his attempt at mental communication, Vrasus gave them some time to calm down before he made his move; he wouldn’t want to startle them or give them the wrong message. There was also something else which he now considered; which of the two elves to make his attempt on? Originally it would have been Sera, but if Shaeva was similar in some way to Neltu, then perhaps it would work better if he tried on her? He decided this would be worth a try.

And so, after about five minutes time Vrasus decided to act. At this point Sera was laying on the tree, weaving some roots in a patterned shape, seemingly making something akin to the offering which was still above the hollow. Meanwhile Shaeva was sitting cross legged several metres away, eyes closed. She had been nervous at first, but was now meditating calmly.

Vrasus firstly tried concentrating mentally onto Shaeva. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but firstly felt like he should try making contact with Shaeva’s own mind, based on what he understood from his encounters with Neltu. He tried piercing his mind into her body, searching for something, anything which could give him a clue.

However, when his mind entered below her body, Shaeva abruptly trembled, opening her eyes and giving a wary look around, her gaze landing on the immense tree in front of her. The repulsing force on Vrasus’ mind, trying to keep him out of her body, suddenly intensified. It wasn’t able to force him completely out, but even before he couldn’t go very deep, and now he could barely reach past the skin. Shock filled Vrasus upon this revelation.

That was… unexpected.

This confirmed his suspicions that Shaeva was certainly no ordinary elf, even if she wasn’t up to Neltu’s standard. He was also surprised that not only had she immediately senses something, but had reacted quickly on keeping him out, unless this was a subconscious reaction? Based on Shaeva’s confused expression, Vrasus was fairly certain she wasn’t sure what he tried, but still he would have to be careful in the future.

As for his attempts at communication, Vrasus did find something in the moments before he was forced out. Whilst scanning Shaeva’s body, he got the feeling that he might know were the mental force originally came from.

Before, he had assumed that it may have been around the centre of the torso. This was because that was where the elves green aura was strongest, and likely the energies source, so assumed the mind may also be there. This was because in his own wooden body, where the aura was strong, his mental force was also strong. But now he felt that the mental force was coming from elsewhere in Shaeva’s body, it was almost like it was flowing from her head, or perhaps this could be better described as a wave like motion? The feeling was weird, but Vrasus felt the head was important in this regard.

Because of this, he tried focusing more on that area, but sadly the repulsing force here was by far the strongest, to the extent that he couldn’t even get through the skin. What’s more, his continued efforts seemed to be getting to Shaeva, her wary expression becoming even stronger, and so he quickly ceased.

With that failure, Vrasus was left with only one thing to try. Whenever Neltu spoke to Vrasus, he would always use physical contact along with the strange system of aura threads to spread his consciousness, and so now the great tree decided to try this out.

Slowly, to avoid startling the two elves, Vrasus had one of his roots climb out of the ground, in front of and in plain view of Shaeva. The root wasn’t quite threadlike, but was still thin nonetheless, about the width of an adult elf’s finger, and as soon as it appeared Shaeva was alerted, with Sera soon after.

The elf woman immediately got to her feet and assumed a stable stance, with her right hand up in front of her towards the root, ready to strike. Sera meanwhile was looking at the root somewhat in wonder, and it looked like she was about to approach it before she was called out to by Shaeva.

“Sera. Don’t move.”

Very slowly, Vrasus moved the root towards Shaeva, and although he tried to make it as unthreatening as possible it still seemed a little menacing.

“Get back!”

Yelling out at her surroundings, Shaeva made a small movement towards the root, like a feint attack, but remained in her position. In reaction Vrasus quickly stopped the root, allowing it to lay there in the air, trying to get across his intension to do no harm.

Dammit, I should’ve tried manipulating the wind like last night to calm her down. Too late now though, it would probably just spook her.

Allowing the small regret to pass through his mind, Vrasus had his root maintain its position for some time until Shaeva seemed to relax slightly. She still had the serious expression, but the violent tensing of her muscles calmed, at which point Vrasus continued forward.

Instantly Shaeva frowned again, and this time gave a flick of her wrist, causing a reaction which caused Vrasus to completely freeze with shock.

When Shaeva flicked her wrist, large amounts of the aura throughout her body abruptly surged towards her right arm, before pouring into the vine wrapped around said arm. Suddenly being imbued by the mass of energy, the vine emanated no small amount of power and unfurled, animated much like Vrasus’ own roots.

The vine took up a position around the elf woman, coiling around her once like a snake before pointing its end towards Vrasus own root, seemingly poised to lash out. Countless small spines could be seen along the vine which Vrasus was sure weren’t there a moment ago.

Not only this, but quickly after some of the remaining aura flowed to her left hand, more specifically a bracelet, seemingly made of some rope threaded through many long, canine teeth. Her aura flowed into the teeth, like they were some conduit, then flowed back into her body, but this returning aura was different somehow, more turbulent, almost savage. Vrasus swore he could feel her body being empowered by the aura as it returned, her muscles becoming leaner, more predatory, her fingernails lengthening slightly, gaining a sharp point almost like claws, and the most noticeable transformation were her eyes, which turned from the usual elf green to a bright angry yellow, fierce and filled with a promise of violence.

Crap.