Túeth’s POV

“Nymph! Open right now!!! Aerien’s going to die!” Túeth began beating on the wall with her free hand. She could not see clearly with the hot tears that were filling her eyes. She continued to clutch the screaming and thrashing child tight to her chest as she thrashed and began to howl even louder. In her blind pain, Aerien had begun to kick Túeth in the stomach, but she didn’t even care. She looked desperately for a way out. A way to get Aerien to the master. Maybe he would have a way to do something about this.

That’s right! The window! Túeth turned her head to look over in the direction of the window, only to have her hopes dashed. The window was still there, a circular panel of glass sections held together by bits of wood that had extended in to fill the cracks. However, on the other side of the window now was dark solid wood, exactly like that of any other wall. Túeth had never felt so betrayed. Had Nymph used her mana to cover up the window instead of opening the door? That should be impossible! The Nymph always conformed to the will buried in the mana.

Túeth had learned about it from the master during these weeks. It wasn’t just mana that was used in the green word. A small amount of an elf’s excess spirit energy is also used to carry their will. It is that will that tells the nymph what you want it to do. Normally, a nymph is powerless to disobey the elf’s will. However, the spirit of the master’s home is exceptionally intelligent for a nymph. They had absorbed a great deal of the master’s will over the years to the point that now they could even refuse the orders of anyone other than the master. Could it be possible that they even have the power to use the mana for a purpose other than the one it was supposed to be used for?

As Túeth was standing there in despair, Aerien suddenly yelled the loudest she had yelled this entire time. It was a scream as though her very soul was being shattered. And then, after this final scream, the child dropped limp in Túeth’s arms.

“A... Aerien!?” Túeth said in disbelief. She closed her eyes and held the limp body to her chest as the tears flowed from her eyes. For the first time in her life, she did the one thing she had refused to ever allow herself to do. She gave her daughter a hug. But now... it was too late.

Túeth heard the wood groaning again. She opened her eyes with pure hatred in them as she looked toward the door, but what she saw was shocking enough that it made her forget about the animosity she was feeling toward Nymph in this moment. Instead of the outside, what she saw was a deep tunnel of wood. It went on for quite a while, at least twice the distance from one side of this room to the other.

Túeth unsteadily got to her feet, still clutching the limp body of her infant daughter to her chest. She began to walk through in a daze as to how this could have happened. Was this all... the master’s house now? It had grown! This much! And... this suddenly too. This has to have all happened since the time she came downstairs. That was not long at all. She had simply gone immediately to the other side of the room, banged on the wall a little, and then looked over to the window. In total, it must have been around a minute tops. Maybe two minutes if it began while she was upstairs. Nymph... was THIS what they were doing!? Was this why they wouldn’t open up before... while Aerien was still...

NO! Aerien HAD to still be alive. You don’t just die after you are in the middle of a scream like that! There’s probably still time! She just passed out is all! Túeth’s pace quickened as the fire of hope began to burn in her again. She ran out and saw the changed space in front of her, especially the sides of the master’s tree. She saw, for some reason, a large white feathery object laying on the ground, covered in blood. However, her attention was quickly brought away from that when she saw her master running straight toward her with urgency on his face.

Her heart felt immediately relieved to see the master, especially to see that his face said he already knew everything that needed to be said. She did not say a word, she just held Aeiren out toward him. He reached out his hands, and together they lowered her to the ground as he had Túeth support her body on her lap. He quickly pulled her dress from her limp body, leaving her in only the diaper they had never seen reason to remove from her even after she no longer had the need for physical food.

As they freed Aerien of her clothing, expecting to see a horrible wound on her side, they were both baffled to instead see nothing. Túeth did not even know what to feel about this. Did she somehow heal from her injury? No, on closer examination, there was no cut on her dress either. None of this blood was hers. Túeth remembered she had seen blood from the man who had come in, and what looked like a very fresh injury on his hand. Could all of this blood have come from him? Túeth was so relieved she was almost ready to collapse.

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She could feel a faint smile beginning to float on her lips, but she let that fade immediately when she looked into the master’s face and saw that he still had a very dark and serious look to him as he looked over Aerien’s body. No, she knew that look. He was examining her mana! There was still something wrong. Going by the master’s face, there was something VERY wrong. “I’ve got to bring her to my lab.”He said, snatching Aerien from her and springing to his feet. “Túeth! Bring one of the boys!” He was running full speed at this point, not even stopping to look back at her.

She knew it! There was still something very very wrong. Túeth got to her feet quickly and ran after her master. She ran down the tunnel through the wood. After a short distance, she realized something had changed. Instead of the straight level path she was expecting, she was staring up a flight of stairs that was only a short distance from the entrance. She saw her master was already running up the stairs.

As she began to follow him, she saw the way further up close as soon as the master had passed a certain point about half way up the stairs. At the same time, the stairs that remained had a landing open up at the top of them. Túeth was beginning to understand what was going on now. Nymph was reforming themself in order to bring them each to the correct rooms. She didn’t understand all of it, but she understood enough that she began to run forward with confidence.

She ran down the hall that opened up at the top of the landing. The hall opened up straight into the girls’ room, right next to where their bed was. The humans had both turned to look in confusion at the way opening up in a direction they hadn’t seen before, and then Túeth coming out from it at full speed. One of the humans was next to the stairs, the other was with Gaerien. She decided to leave the one that was with Gaerien, maybe it would keep her calm. The one that was staring down the stairs was probably Aerien’s human. Well then, that was perfect. She went over and grabbed that one, getting a quick yell of protest. Meanwhile, the stairs up to the master’s room were already opening up.

She ran up the stairs, bringing Aerien’s human with her as she carried it with her left arm looped under their armpits. She quickly found her master placing Aerien atop a work table to begin examining her.

She went over after him. “Aerien!?” Aerien’s human cried out when it saw her, and as soon as she set it on the table next to where the master was working it immediately moved a short distance from where the master was working and looked on with concern.

The master had a serious expression on his face as he hovered his hand over Aerien’s bare chest. With her clothing removed, Túeth could clearly see her daughter’s chest rising and falling. It was as though she was simply asleep. However, even with all this noise and chaos around, she would not open her eyes. She simply remained comatose.

“Dryad!” The master said in a strong commanding voice. Túeth jumped at the word. Dryad? Was he talking about the highest level of the nature spirits? What did a dryad have to do with any of this? But, before Túeth could wonder for long, a green light seemed to coalesce on the master’s other side, and a light whitish-green glowing person standing just as tall as Túeth appeared, their long soft green hair flowing down their back. Túeth jumped in surprise. Standing in front of her, that was undoubtedly a dryad. Túeth had never seen one before, she had only heard the stories, but there was no doubt in her mind that this simply had to be a dryad.

Túeth’s body shook as she was fighting with herself. Despite this situation, she felt the urge to prostrate herself before this great being of the forest. However, the dryad’s words snapped her out of all of that. “Master, what do you need?” The soft glowing person said, the obvious concern in their voice as they too looked on toward Aerien’s comatose form. That dryad just called him master? That would mean... no, it should have been obvious from the start! It all added up with the tree suddenly being so much bigger. But... how? She had just talked to Nymph not even 30 minutes ago, and now they were a dryad?

“Aerien had something to do with how you suddenly evolved like that, didn’t she?” The master states. “I need to hear everything I can about it.”

“What!?” Túeth nearly shouts. “H... how!?” The master looks to her with a sad look in his eyes, and then back to Aerien. His arms are stiff and straight as he holds himself up directly over her body on the counter below him, looking completely defeated.

“Aerien... there has always been something so strange about her. I never realized just how strange until I got her living here under the same roof. I always kept my distance and didn’t try to do anything too intrusive in order to find out more. She was angry at me for having just taken her here, and I always figured I would have the time to figure things out after things had calmed down. Then, when the queen made her announcement, I had noticed her spirit energy was beginning to weaken. I knew there was something big that had changed about her, the need to figure out what was going on with her only increased, but I could never spare the time.”

The master lets out a sigh, and then one of his hands moves over to gently cover one of the tiny arms laying limply at Aerien’s side. “And then,” he says, “this happens. Nymph suddenly evolves into a Dryad. Not only that, but their tree grew explosively to a level similar to the highest tier of magic. And, at the exact same time that this is happening, Aerien collapses. Given all of this, it would be more strange if the two were not connected, and I feel that our strongest hint as to what might have happened may all be in what Dryad can tell us about their transformation.”

Túeth stood in shock at everything the master had just said. She knew Aerien was strange because of what she had been told, but to think there was something going on that could have directly lead to this happening to her? She felt a pain in her chest, as though something had wrapped itself around her heart and was constricting down on it. Once again, she was a horrible mother. She had been so afraid of her own daughter that she couldn’t even see any of this. She turned to Dryad, eager to listen to their story. Túeth simply HAD to know if there was something that perhaps she could have done if she wasn’t always hiding from her own daughter.