Elementalist

Chapter 2

                    Breaking twigs and upsetting rocks along the pathless underbrush, Tanith trudged her way through the barely lit trees. Despite being guided by only the full moon's light, by using her previous knowledge of the area she was able to guide her way through without too much trouble The wildlife voiced their protests as this stranger wandered in and out of their territory, then resumed their previous activities with a more triumphant air, knowing they had successfully scared the intruder away.
                    Even with the ruckus of the night life opposing her, she only concentrated on what she was looking for and nothing else. She needed to quickly find some extra for the guys so that she could turn her attention to stocking up on any supplies she was missing.
                    "I'm glad Nathan was around to remind me." She said out loud, patting the belt that was now wrapped twice around her right thigh. Sewn on to the belt were several small pouches, each sealed off at the top by a small string that held fast when it needed to, yet was still relatively easy to undo by hand.
                    "Well, let's take a look..." She opened each bag in turn and examined the contents inside. "Milsur seems fine, haven't had a need for that lately. Rastathorn's good too. Sanbic and Cirna need a refill, though. Damn Damean always getting himself into trouble, constantly wasting my hard earned herbs cause of his silly games."
                    He always did manage to get into trouble whenever he could. Heck, he probably went looking for it now that she thought about it. No one could attract as much trouble as that boy, no one.
                    "Well, can't complain now. Though when I signed up for this whole healer gig I thought it would have been a little less demanding, and a little more rewarding too.
                    "Man, I really gotta stop jumping in before thinking about this kinda stuff."
                    She had originally planned to continue talking to herself in this fashion, but her words were cut short and replaced with a variety of colourful curses as she stubbed her toe on a hidden root. After skipping and hopping around for a good little while, she settled down and let out a sigh of resignation.
                    'Serves me right. Constantly complaining out loud about other people getting injured all the time and here I am, blindly walking around in the pitch black forest, giving myself some of the lamest wounds ever. I'm just asking for it, aren't I?'
                    Sitting down on the very root that she had stubbed herself on, she looked at the star strewed sky. Although the moon itself wasn't visible from where she sat, she could still see it's glow settling upon the leaves high above. Unfortunately, without much more light to go off of she was pretty useless and had nothing else to do. Even though she knew what she needed to find, and had ideas as to where to find them, she wasn't sure if she would really be able to recognize them when she did find them. Most of the plants she was looking for often blended in with the other species native to their area, or were only found in places much more treacherous to reach. Neither of which she would be able to complete without a decent amount of light.
                    "So that just leaves the berries. Or acorns. Or heck I may even have to bring back leaves at this point just to say I didn't completely fail. But there's still the problem about the light."
                    After giving it a thought for just a moment longer, she decided with a grin on her face as she looked down at her armlet. "I guess I should listen to Damean every once in a while. Just to say I tried, though."
                    Suddenly feeling guilty, she changed her tone and addressed her armlet once more. "I honestly did want to bring you out sooner, I wasn't too happy that I had to keep you hidden away. There wasn't anything else I could do, though. You know how uptight those know-it-alls can be. If even one of them were to sense you're energy, they would have kicked us out and branded us heathens before we could even get a peep out.
                    "But to make it up to you I'll give you a special treat, alright? It's been a while but I was finally able to trade in your last crystal for a better one! Isn't that exciting?"
                    The twisted stone patterns atop the metal armband shook in response, creating a soft hum that she knew meant he was excited as well.
                    "Alright, well, here it is." She stuck her right hand into one of the bags hanging on her main belt. The belt itself was a wide band of thick brown leather with a dull metal clasp. This was the belt she never took off, even when sleeping. It held all her most important possessions, mainly her most often used weapon, which was strapped on horizontally to the back of the belt, and the medium sized bag on her left hip that held even the most useless of trinkets. Yet the most important item attached was yet another small pouch tied off with a thin string. It was from this pouch that she pulled out a small clear rock.
                    "See, look how much bigger it is! It's almost as big as my thumb!" She held up the crystal to the fading moon light, trying to catch some of its rays with in it. "The shopkeeper told me it's of a much higher quality than your last one. He said that one probably became more clouded over time, tainted bit by bit with each use.
                    "Though I guess that means I still haven't properly mastered how to use my pure energy yet. There still seems to be a little bit of elemental residue in it whenever I use it. I wonder what it is that I'm missing. Teach never really did have an opportunity to finish off my lessons. And it's not like anyone in Nigaila knew anything about it either.
                    "But oh well, all that will change soon enough, right Fang? It'll only be another few days before we set off, and if we take the boats again we should arrive within the week!"
                    Another excited shiver came from the stone armlet. This time it was more intense, more like an urgent plea to be let free and celebrate their small success free from it's frozen form.
                    Smiling in return, she finished off there little conversion with a "Yah, yah, coming right up!"
                    Gripping the crystal firmly in her right hand, her fingers wrapped tightly around to completely cover it from outside view; she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. She closed off all her other senses; sight, hearing, touch, smell, even the dry taste in her mouth disappeared. At last, all she could feel was the energy around her, as well as the energy that dwelled inside her.
                    She always enjoyed this moment, when she could see, not through her eyes, but her energy. Things looked the same, but were still different. She could sense the earth below, the rocks, dirt, plants and trees. Their colours were much more alive now that she was not straining her eyes to see through the dark. That was the thing about seeing energies as opposed to one's physical appearance, how you saw someone's energy did not change with the presence of light, mirrors, haze, or other such inhibitions. You saw something for what it was, what it is. Nothing is the same either. While both a rock and a clump of dirt are both classified as earth elements, the difference between them is actually a mere addition of air or water energy, which then creates the slightly more freely moving dirt.
                    To those who weren't elementally inclined, it was quite a bit harder to understand, but for an elementalist who had experienced this 'sight through energy', an explanation was no longer required. One with the power of sight could see the very elements and witness how they were combined, how they created the things in nature that she saw today. They could sit upon the side of a mountain and watch how the air's energy bashed against the rocks. If one were to use their eyes to look, they would think that the almighty mountain stood unfazed and they would probably laugh at how outrageous it was for something as weak as the wind to challenge something as great as the mountains themselves. But for one with ability to sense, and not see, could tell that its efforts did not go unrewarded. It may take time, but the wind would eventually inject some of its air energy into the mountain, disrupting its earth energy base. Since the main property of air is freedom of movement, after a time the rocks would slowly start to pull away from the mountain and erode until it became no more.
                    She too had not believed it when her teacher had explained it. In her youth she had doubted anything she could not prove herself, and therefore dismissed most of which her aged teacher had tried to pass down to her.
                    It wasn't until she had sat down and sensed it herself that she had understood. Usually she would just continue to argue with her teacher, convinced that nothing he would have to say would change her mind. Eventually she grew annoyed of the old man's ranting, so she finally agreed to meditate and sense the world as she was told, with only the intention of proving him wrong. Surely someone so old and wrinkled could not possibly be right about these kinds of things. People his age were always forgetting their own names and barely had the energy to lift themselves out of their chairs by themselves. How could that man have enough energy to sense things that not even a young, bright girl like her could see? It was simply unheard of. Yet none the less, he was right, and was she ever happy that she was wrong.
                    Bringing herself back out of her memories, and her concentration, she opened her eyes. Slowly releasing her grip, she opened up her fingers and looked at the now glowing crystal.
                    Letting out a slow whistle, she gave a quick look to her now constantly humming armlet. "Look's like I got my money's worth, didn't I?"
                    Shifting the brightly glowing crystal in between her thumb and two main fingers, she took a better look at the vessel of energy.
                    "Seems like it can hold much more energy than the last crystal could, and not just cause of the size difference either. Must be of purer quality."
                    Without delaying much further, she finally pressed the crystal up against a small node in the armlet that rested just above the wrist. The second it came in contact, the armlet let out a quick shake as the energy once stored in the crystal spread rapidly throughout the stone as it twisted and turned atop its metal base. With each miniature wave of energy the stone came more alive. Its colour faded from grey to a dark, forest green, later revealing harsh black stripes along its back and a white belly underneath. The once rough stone softened to reveal smooth, slimy scales. As the head of the creature began to reveal itself, its eyelids popped open, revealing its green slitted pupil up against the inky black eye.
                    Not only were the textures and colours changing, but also the size. The more alive the creature became, the more it grew. Once it began too heavy for her to hold up, the creature began to slither and slide its way back up her arm, around her shoulders, twirling around her torso and waist before looping back around to settle around her feet. The entire time it still began to grow. Once the entire length of its body had reached the ground, it finally stopped. It raised its head up from its neatly coiled body to her head level as she still sat upon the root.
                    "You... You're.... You're HUGE!"
                    Jaw dropped and mouth agape, that was the only comment she could manage to stutter as she stared open eyed at the now six foot long 'miniature' demon anaconda.
                    "You're only supposed to be this big!" she exclaimed, holding her hands roughly a foot or so apart, as if merely stating this fact would make the snake retract to it's original size. "Since when did you get to be so huge?!"
                    Looking back at her serpentine friend, she noticed that he wasn't actually paying attention to her at all. Not in the very least. He didn't even seem remotely interested in his new growth either. Instead he was twisting his head back and forth, as if searching for something.
                    'Maybe the crystal wasn't so good after all. Could that be what's wrong? Is the energy hurting him somehow?' She just couldn't understand what was going on. Fang had never been this oblivious to her before.
                    Confused by his uncharacteristic behaviour, she reached out her hand to stroke his scales, to try and calm him so that she could figure out what was wrong. Yet she barely even got close when a piercing hiss erupted from the snakes open mouth and past his fully bared fangs. She flinched back from the unexpectedly harsh reaction. He hadn't been facing her, and therefore his aggression not aimed towards her either, but it surprised her none the less.
                    Before the hiss had fully left his gaping mouth, he darted off deeper into the woods at an uncanny speed.
                    Left dumbstruck sitting on the nearly hidden root, Tanith just watched as her friend darted off into the darkness. Pulling herself together, she leapt off her makeshift seat and ran to catch up, tripping and stumbling her way through the trees.