The Dryad 21 Teaching

"How did you do that? Sending your emotions through your spirit." She looked at me with pleading eyes. "I thought I was strong. I have never faced anything greater than myself. You were suppressing you powers so I could not judge your ability. I thought you were just another weakling thinking that they were strong. I am sorry that I didn't treat you well, but please. I want to learn. It has been many years since I have felt myself grow or learn anything new. I have been so frustrated here being all by myself."

"Don`t worry. I have taught many young dryads over the years and this is not the first time someone mistakenly thought they were stronger than me. I am not upset. I would be happy to instruct you as long as I am near your woods. But remember I am on a journey to find my friend and can't wait." I let out a sigh. I wish I had time to instruct her for many years. I made a mental promise to myself to come back and stay with Ivy longer after things calmed down.

"I understand," she said with a mixture of happiness and sadness on her face. "Please teach me what you can while you are here."

As she asked, I started to explain how to transmit emotions through your aura. It was not a hard skill to learn.In fact, once she learned it she might have a hard time not broadcasting her emotions since it felt so natural to do. All you had to do was to make a connection between your emotions and your spiritual power. I discovered how to do this by accident when I was angry at a fire that had damaged much of my woods.

Natural fires aren't worth getting angry. But in this case, there was a very young, and barely sentient, fire sprite running wild spreading the flames much further than would have happened on their own. It seems that harder emotions bridge the gap between emotions and spiritual power more easily. That first time I did it I was not even aware of what I was doing, but the fire sprite felt my anger and started to cower in fear.

Even though I was angry, I had no real intention of hurting the sprite. I brought it to a flaming gas vent that was in the desert south of my territory. I believe it was a distant arm of the volcanoes further south but I never looked into it. However, it seemed no fire spirits lived there, so it was a good place to put this newborn sprite to grow up. I wonder how that fire sprite is doing. It was so afraid of me after it felt my anger through my power. It made me a little sad thinking back on it, because the sprite really didn't know any better. Also it only took a few decades of work to get the forest back to where it was. It really was not that bad.

After I had explained the concept of emotional projection to Ivy, she only took a few hours to grasp the concept. It might take her five to ten years to perfect it. But such a short time really shows you how easy the concept was. After I had satisfied her request for knowledge, I wanted to see how developed her powers were. Especially her control.

It turned out that her control was much better than where Emily started. That said, it still needed some polishing. We spent the remainder of the night working on improving her control over plants, getting them to move and grow as she desired. There was a small ivy plant near us, and I was using that to help her practice. While I watched, she made the ivy grow into different shapes. I do not know if she had any special affinity to ivy plants, but since it was her name sake, it felt fitting to have her practice with that plant. Laurel trees were common in my woods, so maybe there was something to it.

The sky was starting to lighten up by the time she was able to control how the ivy grew to my satisfaction. It was odd that Istan and Leafia were still sleeping so soundly. They would usually start stirring and get ready to wake up at this point. However they were still sleeping like logs.

It was then that I remembered the night flowers. They had started blooming right before Ivy came out of the woods. The pollen in the air must be keeping them asleep.

Well, now I knew what my next task for Ivy would be. "Ivy, you've made great progress in control tonight. Now I need you to stop the blooming of those flowers that are making the elves sleep. It is time for them to wake up."

"I don't want to be done learning from you yet. Can't we let them sleep a little longer?"

"It is not good for elves and humans to sleep for too long. There is no reason that we can not continue after they wake up."

"But most of the times I have let a human see me they have tried attacking me. How do I know that these elves won't attack me? Elves--humans-- they look the same to me!" Ivy said with a face full of concern.

I let out a small chuckle. "Elves and humans do look very similar, but their att.i.tudes toward spirits are very different. Especially this particular elf." I nudged Istan with a tendril of ivy. "He is much more likely to bow down and worship you than try to attack you."

Ivy knelt to study the sleeping elves' faces. After thinking for a moment she seemed to have made up her mind. She stood and asked me, "How do I stop the flowers from blooming?"

"You have two options. The first is very easy and just entails you making the flowers fruit so they stop blooming. However, the method I want you to use is more difficult. You will need to use your powers to revert the plant to the state it was before it bloomed. This will feel like you are pulling the energy out of the plant, but it is not that simple. If you just pull the energy out of the plant, it will lose its protection from you and will soon wither to be like any unprotected plant. You need to instead pull your energy back through the plant, effectively bringing it back through time. This will cause the plant to regress through its life cycle."

Ivy's face was a mixture of concentration and frustration as she tried to pull back the growth of the plant without pulling out her power altogether. I wanted to give her enough time to figure it out on her own, but the pollen level in the air was a little high and the elves would have a hard time waking up and staying awake as it was. Come to think of it…. This was probably why they did not stir all night even with my extensive search and ma.s.sive upswing in power.

After about half an hour I decided to demonstrate how to cause regression in the plant. "Ivy, pay close attention to how I focus my energy. When I am done, I want you to see if you can duplicate it." I then used my powers to turn the flowers back into buds. With that the pollen in the air should start to decrease, and soon the elves should wake up.

Ivy continued practicing pulling the power out of the plants as we waited for Istan and Leafia to wake up. She was making much better progress now that she had seen what to do. I really liked teaching young dryads. I used to do it often before humans spread all over the fields between our homes. It was much easier to travel back then. Now that there were villages and farm fields everywhere, it was more challenging to travel. Humans create spiritual energy deserts when they change the land. They had much more power to affect the spiritual landscape than they realized. I remembered the story of Emily's mother and her increasing weakness because of human encroachment. It must have hurt when she had to stop caring for Emily and send her to live with her father. It really made me wonder how those other dryads I taught were doing.