Spirit of the Forest

“Hey! Cyri!”

Cyri woke up with a jolt and hit his head on the branch above him. With a small, painful yelp, he sat back down as he rubbed his head. He looked up when he heard a girls giggling.

Romelia stood a few feet away, her hand to her mouth as she tried to stop her giggling. It didn’t help much though and small sounds of laughter still got out. She couldn’t help her giggling when she saw Cyri asleep at the base of the tree and when he yelped.

Romelia had helped Cyri down from her tree house to let him get some fresh air. She also wanted to work in her garden, to see if there was anything worth picking. If there was, she would more than likely use the food in some kind of stew. Luckily, there were some radishes that were ripe enough to cook up.

“What?” he asked, looking away.

“Does some radish soup sound good tonight?” She held up the radishes she had picked earlier.

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” He flinched a bit as the hard tree bark scraped against his back painfully. Romelia immediately noticed when he flinched.

She tipped her head to the side as she asked with a worried tone, “Does your back still hurt?”

“No,” Cyri shook his head, “It hasn’t for awhile now.”

Romelia nodded. It had almost been two weeks since Cyri had first woke up in Romelia’s home and his nightmare. He had been recovering well thanks to the girl’s help. He could almost walk, but he still needed help and only for a small amount of time. Romelia was often with the teen boy, making sure he wasn’t thirsty or too cold or too tired. Occasionally, she would disappear for a time. During that time, Tanisha would often take over her job. It wasn’t that bad, she was as good as Romelia, but he just preferred Romelia doing it because he wasn’t as comfortable around nymphs. Especially water nymphs.

“That’s good,” she said, “But we need to get your stamina up. You haven’t been able to stand upright for more than a minute.”

He looked down at the ground in thought. “Well that’s true…” Cyri looked up at her again. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

Romelia grinned wide. She had already come up with an idea before she said anything about it during the night. “We’ll play Hide and Tag!”

“What?”

“It’s a game where you hide, while trying to get to base. If you don’t get to the base before the other person, you’re ‘tagged’. Okay?”

Cyri nodded. “Okay. Where’s the base?”

“How about the old stump not far from here,” she pointed at where it would be. “Sound good? I’ll even give you a head start!”

Cyri was silent for a bit as he thought about it. After a few moments, he grinned as wide as Romelia. “Then I’d better get going.”