A Takara Tale.

I remember a time when the moon and sun were as fresh and new as I was.  I remember a time when the lands were lush and green no matter how far you ran.  I remember a time when the race of man was new.  When whatever created us had grown bored with the first generations of their children and decided on a newer, weaker yet stronger generation.  These new children were ever so much fun to play with.  Sweet and innocent in the ways of our world.

I do not remember parents.  Nymphs are not born in the same way as man.  They are not really born at all.  They just, wake up one day and exist.  I guess one of the reasons those who made us got tired was we had little turmoil in our lives.  The biggest thing to fear is fire or an early frost, but even those are not horrible.  Fire allows for new life and an early frost just means we get an earlier vacation time.  Not that Nymphs need vacations.  We are rather lazy creatures.

I remember my last frost.  I had thought I escaped the hunters hours prior and my body was too cold to keep moving through the trees.  Mother Nature was calling me back into her warm embrace.  I found an empty tree whose leaves were naked and who could use warmth as much as I did.  So we shared the warmth.

When I woke up, I realized my mistake.  I was the first to wake in the new body, but I did not move.  I let them believe the body still slumbered.  It hurt to be on the surface, and based on how numb the body felt the pain must be terrible for us to feel anything at all.  So I headed deeper inside, like I did my last tree.  They must have felled the tree, taking my life with it.

Deep inside I found the spot I was looking for.  Three other souls lay curled in a pile; a human, an elf, and a fey.  All babes compared to my years.  Considering fey were not born till after man existed, and elves came only slightly before that.  Also fey and elves did have parents.  She looked closer to the group, if she had to venture their ages all were all young to mid teen years, depending on race standards.  She frowned seeing the chains that went around and through their soul bodies.  She had them too, she could feel the weight.  It was what brought her here.

Well none of that.  She would not let her babes know just how much they had been damaged.  She hid the chains.  They would never see, even if they could always feel them.

The fey was up next, Illiana, that is the only thing I got from her before she began crying because of their fate.  I kept the little one from the surface she was not strong enough to handle the body or what might come next.  Next the elf, Valeriou, again I did not let her get past this little space where our souls and minds met.  She was young and volatile.  So angry.

The last, the human girl, she woke and was gone before I could stop her.  She was strong, no wonder she had been chosen.  She didn't even notice my force trying to ease her back, but I could feel her panic and pain as she woke the body up.  The others could too.  It was a phantom pain magnified by the fact that we all felt it.  The poor human was in a panic and grief stricken for some time.

Construct.  I knew the word, I watched man enough from my trees to know of their magics.  When the human girl fell I brought her back to us, she was too broken to fight me.  I rocked her gently in my arms.  My little Luned, who in truth was the same size as me, but she was now going to be my babe with the rest of them.

I explained to her as much as I could that first day.  I protected her from what I could the days after.

Luned controlled our body most times, but the magic she should have been born with looked as though it died with her.  As it had for the elf and the fey.  Through our time with the man who made him call him Master, Luned was given little rest.  And I sheltered her from the worse of Master's anger.  Since our body did not feel pain, without a mirror she did not learn of the new bruises his beatings would give out body.  She just figured she was more sore and tired from everything.

I would rock Luned when I could and sing to her in my language.  I was the one to convince Master that his desires to make a construct that could control life were a failure.  I also convinced him that we should be freed.  Man was easy to manipulate if you knew the right tactics and when to use them.  Master never caught on that Luned and I would switch.  The other two never bothered, they rather us just die so their souls could be freed.

They never understood the gift of having a chance at life was.  Once we were thrown out Luned walked and walked.  She eventually passed out, our body did not get tired anymore but our souls did.  She curled up in that space we shared and slept.  I took control and led us to the home I knew she remembered.  The child was too fuzzy of mind and too broken of spirit to notice where I led or where I nudged her to go.  What I did know was the memory I saw from Luned.  A Rider.  Of all of man, they were the strongest and most honorable.  Except maybe this child I shared a body with now.

The Rider did as I expected him too.  He took us in.  And though the other's slept I would wake and watch this scarred and feeble man.  I never saw his dragon, which confused me.  His home wasn't even big enough to accommodate his dragon.  Rider and dragon seldom parted unless it was time to mate for the dragon.  Which meant the poor Rider...rode someone else.

He knew when I would be awake.  He was old and wise, for a human and I adored him.  Jorrik, we would speak often in those early days where Luned's soul was too tired to function.  I would eat when he brought food, even though sustenance was new and foreign to me.  So long as a tree had sun and the soil had water, I never hungered.

It was one of these talks in the early days, while Luned dreamed.  The child still had her powers but they were unneutered and probably would never able to grow past this point.  She was a dreamwalker.  Visions would come to her while she slept but she would believe them dreams.  I spoke of Jorrik as much and he smiled to me.  He knew of the specialness that was Luned and myself.  He knew I still had my powers over earth and trees but told me it might fade in time.

That scared me.

He also spoke of a boy, a blacksmith's apprentice that Luned loved.  I knew his face from her memories.  Oddly she had not dreamed of him.  He also told me that this boy would always love the girl Luned was, and the woman she would have been.  The boy would always be lost in the past and never move on with his future and therefor Luned would never move on until he died.  He asked me, once all of this was over if I would ensure that we walk away from this boy.  I agreed, I would not let my babe be hurt, even if she did not know she was my babe.  And even if I did not know what Jorrik was speaking of at this time.

Luned grew stronger, needing me less and less as she came into our new body.  It was easier once her childhood friend's accepted her.  I could see so very early on what Jorrik had warned me about with the blacksmith boy.  It broke my heart the keep nudging her away, but Luned kept her distance.  When the boy kissed her one night, it was me he was kissing.  I told him the truth, I did not feel his lips on mine.  He did not know I had taken over the body, a sure sign that he did not belong with my girl.

The other two hated the strength Luned gained.  They hated how she listened less and less to their ideas of suicide.  Though I had to be ever vigilant when Luned felt sad.

The worst time of all was when Jorrik died.  Luned had already lost her parents when the village was slain.  Jorrik took a punch from her in her anger and tears because he pulled her away from saving them.  Dragging her from the village.

The night before his death, Jorrik called me to the surface.  Luned slept peacefully.  I could keep my secrets from the girl.  Always could, it's how I protected her mind from the worse of it.  I had hoped someday she would grow strong enough to know my secrets.  I do not know when to expect that day.

"I'll be murdered tomorrow Takara."

"No want hear," Was my response.  Speaking in common was hard for me, I knew the language through Luned not through my own time with humans.  They had so many versions of their tongue, and so many accents.  Besides, I had always gotten what I wanted by being naked and giving them a flirtatious smile or a quick kiss.

"You have to hear it.  You're the one who helps Luned through the hard.  Art may be their leader but Luned is the heart."

"So what?"

"You have to keep her going Takara, I count on you my old friend."

"No want die."

"It is my time my dear.  I have lived longer than most humans, and certainly longer than the Riders of my generation.  I am old enough were people do not know what Riders look like but a Nymph did and that was from a fuzzy memory.  My time here is done."

I sighed, "Promise.  Cross hearts."

"I know I ask a lot of you my dear friend, but these are my last request," He took our cheeks in his hands and kissed our forehead, "Please pass that to the one who will see Luned for who she is.  Tell him "Thank you" from me."

I was confused but I nodded my agreement.  Jorrik always knew what he was talking about.