“Hey,” Karrie said when Peter scared her witless in the woods beside their home, “ Don’t scare me like that.”

“Not my fault,” he shrugged, “that you weren’t paying attention, kid.”

“I am not a kid,” she declared and promptly punched him in the gut. She stomped off deeper in the woods, not watching where she was going.

“Hey,” he ran after her, “sorry, it’s just hard for me to believe that you,  10 year
kid is learning tracking right alongside me, furthermore, I’m 17.”

“Not my fault,’ she pointed at him, “ your Dad talked to mine and decided to make me learn a ‘man’s’ skill.” She looked around saying, “ maybe we should stop bickering and actually look for what your Dad asked us to get.”

"I am not going to have a 10 year old tell me what-“ A noise coming from their left and their right is what made him stop and turn to the wolf prowling at the side with his yellow eyes and shaggy fur. Then he heard a tiny whimper beside him. He knew that the same was staring at her.  Peter and Karrie were going to be lunch unless something was done about these wolves.

“Calmly, quietly, slowly put your back to mine and get that stick you use to walk out. Don’t be afraid, just remember that I’m here.” The wolves started to advance. Peter had his sword out and ready to use. She had her staff.

The wolf on her side reached her first, and he could hear a ‘Ka-thunk’ as he used her staff to underbelly and toss the wolf like a doll, stunning him just enough for her to defend his attack just to get it’s skull cracked again, by this time Peter was in the fray with the wolf on his side, as the wolf came at him he managed to cut a paw and jump back to escape the other paw coming at him and come back for a cut to it’s face.

Karrie kept using her staff to keep herself way from it, also using it to hit left than right, remember she is small, and that she has had training in the use of staves since she could walk. She finally gets enough leeway to get the staff under it again and using its own momentum to propel him into the neighboring tree where you hear a dull crack as he hits and falls to the ground in a heap of fur, blood, and bones.  

She then looked to see how her friend was faring; the wolf he was dealing with had managed to cut him. The wolf in question hadn’t noticed her, she was able to sneak under its guard and just at the correct time, propel him into the sword by a whack from her staff in the butt as Peter went forward to thrust his sword and she had seriously limited the wolf’s action in stepping back in order to defend his attack, the wolf was impaled to the hilt.

“Thanks,” Peter whispered as he withdrew his sword from the fallen animal and started cleaning it. “Are you hurt?” he resentfully asked.

“No, I don’t think so, but I think I cracked open the head on the one I was fighting and it got on me.”

“Okay,” he looked her in the eye, “ let’s not get side tracked by our bickering again.”

“Fine,” she shrugged, “so what was it your father wanted us to find?”

“He wants us to find a certain flower, that’s blue and red with brown thorns.”

“Chiekin,” she looks to the deepest, darkest part of the wood, “it only grows in the deepest part, where the sun only reaches in shadow and it only grows once every ten years,” she quietly states.

“Have you been there?”

“No,” she looked back at him, “ I heard about the last person that tried before the ten year mark, because he wanted to save his wife’s life and he came back completely insane. I saw the medicine that my mom helped give him to make him sleep and never was he to wake up ever again. I know he was buried the next morning, beside his wife who had died while he was away trying to save her.”

“Was it from the flower?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. I think it was the fear that griped him in the forest, being afraid to lose something so precious that you single mindedly pursue one course and then you don’t know what to do when that one reason is gone.”

They heard a howl, and looked at each other, “Let’s move before they get here in greater numbers.” Peter stated.

They started into the part of the wood that no one had used in almost ten years; they knew they had to watch each other’s back. They were both very alert. He knew something she did not and that as an innocent, she is the only one who can get the plant, just because she is still pure at heart, in body and soul.
*       *       *

By the time they reach the part of the wood they needed to be it was very late and extremely dark. They both pulled out their bedrolls and after she laid down on hers, he put his on her and said, “Go to sleep.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’ll be right here.” He points to the tree at the edge of the clearing, a few feet away, “I’m staying awake to keep watch.”

As honored as she felt that he wanted to protect her, she still protested, “but…I don’t want to sleep alone,” she was looking at him now in the dim light of the stars overhead, “I-I’m scared. She looked down in shame, because she thought that she shouldn’t be scared.

He looked at her and instead of saying anything he walked over to her and picked her up, blankets and all, and went back to his post with her in his arms. She said nothing as he set her down beside him and he leaned her head on his chest, she could hear the soft rumble as he told her to go to sleep.

She was asleep in minutes listening to his breathing and his heart beat steady and soft. He looked around watching shadows and listening to the even breathing of sleep coming from the little sprite on his right, as she murmurs her way through the dreams of children and into restful sleep not a care in the world.

He, for some reason even with all his training, was unable to stay awake all through the night. He fell asleep wondering how he could fell so protective of a girl that was only 10 years old, and she wasn’t even out of pigtails.
*        *       *

Karrie woke up first; in the pre-dawn light she could see the trees and the light from the sky getting brighter. She breathes, “Wow,” She then looks to the ground in the clearing and sees this single flower, which has blue and red petals, and brown thorns. She went to it as if mesmerized and drawn by an unseen force.

Peter wakes up after feeling the loss of warmth when she got up from the covers and realizes that he had drifted into sleep the night before. He looks around for her and what he sees stops his heart.

He sees her being drawn to the flower and the roots of the flower swirling around her as they test her honesty, he knows that only she can pick-up the flower while it is still connected to the vine, because she is untouched, untainted by the world, pure. He also knows that if he interferes both of them could die.

His heart in his throat he watches and says nothing. If the plant knew or even suspected his presence it would devour her even as her prepared to run. This is when he knew the taste of fear. She made it to the flower; he held his breath as she picked it up, still attached to the vine. She, completely unafraid, states, “how pretty.”

She then asked the flower, “can I take you home for your beauty?” that’s when her hands went to pick it. And as if alive it reached for her hand only to use its thorns to draw blood from her. It made her jerk back and suck on a finger only to have her reach once more, more carefully this time, now it wasn’t necessary, the thorns are gone. She had the flower lying in her hands and still it overflowed. She turned to peter and walked back to him as if the spell that held her was broken, he wasn’t fooled.

“Look isn’t it beautiful?” She asked when she made it to him.

“Yes, very,” he stated without looking at the flower. Peter led her back home without touching her, protecting her and the flower that she was holding with her bare hands. They didn’t have any more encounters on their way back.

When they reached the end of the wood and came out of the forest, it was dusk of that evening. She looked at him and leaned on her tiptoes he leaned down thinking she wanted a hug now that it was safe, and she just kissed him full on the mouth, saying “thank you”. His mouth dropped as he straighten in shock, for two reasons, one that she was so bold and two because she kissed him.

They walked on in silence they made it home, where she relinquished the flower to a bag for herbs and remedies.

Peter then walked her to her house just a little way down the lane. When they were almost there she gave him a hug. He then asked, “Why did you kiss me?”

“I didn’t kiss you.”

“Yes,” he stated pointing back the way they had come, “you did, at the edge of the forest.”

“If I did I don’t remember.” She shrugged and started walking on.

After about a minute of thinking he started after her, letting the subject drop. It is just something she would either, never admit to doing or she honestly didn’t remember. Yet it was something he would never forget.
*      *      *

As the years pass and they grew up.

She learned to love learning to be a tracker and is as good at it as Peter. Peter saw her go from a pigtailed rebellious little girl to a sought after young lady, from one very feminine young woman into a lady that wouldn’t let a man touch her. She always had her hair in a braid. Her mom hadn’t seen it down since her was 12.

At the age of 18, instead of enjoying her birthday with friends and family, she left for her yearly trek taking only what she needed to survive.

Now, she had done this since she was 13 and had gotten tired of boys following her. So just to get away from them she left. She was always careful to guard her trail, it was to start with a learning experience for her to get into the wood and see if her could make it on her own.

This place that she went to is the waterfall near Funri, which leads into the Wall of Nacha-Gu. This little fall is only big enough to bathe in moreover where she lets herself be the woman she is. Where she let her hair down and took care of her skin and just made herself livable again.

“She’s gone, what do you mean gone?” Peter demanded when he spoke to her parents.

“Just that, she left this morning taking her usual.” Karrie’s father shrugged as if to say there was nothing he could have done to stop her. “I don’t know why she left today usually she leaves the day after her birthday, just to give us, her family time to plan something for her.”

“I’m going to bring that girl back here.” He stalks off muttering about ‘women who doesn’t know what’s good for them.’

Karrie’s father just watches him go, as her mother walks up to stand in the doorway beside him. “Do you think he’ll find her? And bring her back?” she asked looking up at him.

“Find her? Yes,” he answered, still watching Peter’s retreat, “bring her home, I wouldn’t count on it.” They turn as one back into the house as they lost sight of Peter disappearing into the forest.

Peter stops muttering as he enters this domain, he knows she could be just about anywhere; he spent half the day going in circles because of the false trails she had set.

He finally stopped to think of all the false ones that he had helped teach her and looked for the telltale sign that she went in the direction of the stream. He found it against the tree, it was her jacket, it was the same color as the forest around it; it blended in.  This was her campsite. He went to the basin that he had seen glimpses of that last time he had been in this forest, but had never gone to. What he saw when he got there, made him feel weak in the knees.

She was under the waterfall in Funri Basin and she was nude as the day she was born, with her long hair down and pulled to the side revealing the slender form of the sprite she and a heart shaped firm rear end. Her back showed clear white ivory skin and he could see that she was washing her hair and as her arms moved to wash the soap from her hair you could see glimpses of her breasts. His body reacted without out thought and as he gasped, the sprite that had plagued his dreams for most of his life disappeared from his eyes, he blinked and he ran like the coward he was for home. He did drop the gift he was going to give her for her birthday; it fell in the soft dirt among the pine needles.

She got to the spot where he had been, still nude and picked up the box, opening it to find a ring engraved with her initials next to his, and a necklace to go with it. She put it on. For the rest of her trip she wore it knowing that he saw her and she didn’t mind.

On the day of her return she was told that Peter had signed up for the military and was supposed to leave in a fortnight to get to his training camp in a sennight. She was devastated. Her best friend was leaving and she had yet to tell him how she felt. She ignored and avoided him until he left. He didn’t say goodbye.


The night after he left she found him in his tent and woke him up.

“What are you doing here?” he asked started that she would even think to follow him.

She leaned over and put her finger to his lips to stop him from speaking again and used the other hand t reach into her blouse and pull out the necklace with the ring that she had found.

He looked at it and instantly looked back at her face, “Where…when…how?” He asked unable to finish even a single thought.

“At my spot near Funri Basin, you dropped it when you left.”

“You never said a…”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“I’m sorry, I was going to tell you about the military, but when you got back I didn’t get a chance before everyone else did.”

She looked at the ring and looked back at him, “Why did you leave it?”

“It fell out of my pocket,” he admitted.

“Was it intended for me?”

“Yes, my birthday gift to you.”

"It’s your ring.”

“No, I made it for you.”

She looked at his eyes finally realizing what it symbolized and kissed him full on the mouth. He tried to put her from him; however she had somehow weaseled under the covers next to him. He continued to try and push her away from him, only to get more tangled in the blankets and as he wasn’t wearing much when she touched him, it sent fire racing through his veins. Finally when they came up for air after kissing for so long he asked, “Are you sure?’

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she stated on a giggle as she leaned down and bit his shoulder. At this point he just gave in, knowing full well that if anything were to come of it he would be in big trouble. He then started kissing her and taking the upper hand, by putting his tongue in her mouth and caress her skin. He then found out that she doesn’t like being submissive; it didn’t take long for them to heat up the tent and for all their clothes to be off. In that tent that night they ‘made’ their friendship so much more.

The next morning when Peter woke up and reached for her only to find empty space, she was gone clothes and all. All he could tell from her being there was from the memories still alive in his mind and the slight scent of her on the blanket and lone pillow. As he packed up his stuff, he thought of the woman he loved and what it would be like if she came with him on his journey north by northeast.

She watched him in the shadows of the trees as picked up his stuff with a smile on his face. She then turns for home with the treasure he admitted to giving her and the knowledge that the man she loves will one day come home for her, even if that one day would never come.
* * *
This is what she thought as she made her way home, “he’ll be back, give him a year in the military and he’ll be back.  He wouldn’t leave me for longer than a year.  He loves me, I know it.”

*              *              *
Here’s what he thought as he continued on.  “She’ll come to me; she’s just going home to tell her parents she’s leaving.  She loves me, she wouldn’t leave me to myself for long, I know it.”

Here’s what happened…