Nowa: Zero Points

                                                           Nowa: Zero Points

        From birth, all Elves were trained to preserve and defend their isolated forest home, learning the arts of war and forest husbandry to pursue the singular goal of keeping their home safe and healthy for all their millennia-long life spans. Caring for the plant and animal life and defending it against intruders was paramount, but to be able to do that, the Elves had to be able to defend themselves against that life. Nature was non-biased and unforgiving, not discriminating between those sentient life forms that were there to help it and there to do it harm, and the Elves first had to know how to survive in their home before they could adequately defend it.
        Nowa the half-elf was treated no differently, except perhaps that expectations were all the higher for her. It was an example of the strange old paradox, where an outsider in a group is expected to fail, but those low expectations mean that the outsider must overachieve if she is ever to gain the acceptance of her peers. Nowa had to overachieve, had to prove that she should not be exiled from the forest by the Elven Council.
        At least, that was what Alleyne believed. Her young ward was fast charging into adolescence, and the Council's patience was wearing thin. She had to make Nowa into a superior Forest Guardian, and she had to do it quickly. The immortal Elven Combat Instructor did not want the young half-elf to be thrown out of the forest. She had retrieved Nowa when the latter had been a little baby, abandoned under the eaves of the forest, and had watched her grow into a pretty, energetic young woman. Alleyne would help her, though it would not be easy.
        Nowa mastered the basics quickly enough, the young girl was agile and svelte. Throughout Winter, they trained indoors, with Nowa learning the core martial arts, she proved to have a great aptitude for gymnastics and acrobatics, and to that end Alleyne suggested that she utilize the bo staff as her weapon of choice,  a weapon which would give the girl more leverage with which to jump around. Nowa was eager to get outside and vault through the forest, eager for the coming of Spring.
        With the arrival of Spring, her training proceeded naturally. Nowa proved to have a knack for associating with animals, and she was agile enough to avoid or thwart some of the more aggressive predators that lived there. She had even managed to befriend a strange, pink monkey that she called Ruu. Alleyne was mostly impressed, except for one problem. Despite all of Nowa's progress and skill at dealing with the animals, the wide-eyed girl had a tendency to get easily distracted when out and about in the forest. This would prove burdensome very quickly for Alleyne: she could not effectively train a girl who was not alert and attentive while in the field.
        "I have another test for you, Nowa," Alleyne said, the short blonde Elf clad in her usual leaf-green outfit with red beret as she stood outside her charge's tree house. "Come out here, please."
        "Coming!" came the young genki girl's voice, followed soon after by the girl herself. Nowa was thin, youthful, with brown hair arranged in two long pigtails and her ears, while pointed, were not as pronounced as her mentor's. She wore a revealing white bikini top with an orange hood about her neck, disconnected orange sleeves over her forearms, a small orange skirt, and orange boots. She bore a long bo staff, longer than she was tall, and had a strange pink monkey on her shoulder. As soon as she stepped out of the house, Ruu the monkey leapt off her shoulder and darted to the railing on the edge of the platform that fronted her home. Nowa immediately darted towards Ruu, trying to catch the mischievous ape.
        "Nowa, please," Alleyne said. "Pay attention." The half-elf instead followed Ruu as the monkey leapt to hide behind Alleyne. "Nowa!" Alleyne shouted, finally losing her patience and withdrawing her great spear, slamming it on the surface of the platform. Nowa finally stopped in a sitting position, looking up at the elf-woman. "Pay attention when your teacher is talking! Nowa: zero points!" Nowa frowned, now looking thoroughly chastised.
        "You need to pay better attention to your surroundings," Alleyne continued. "If you're going to become a Forest Guardian, you have to be alert. And so, I'm giving you a test today."
        "What kind of test?" Nowa asked.
        "Northeast of the village, deep in the forest, some very rare blue-and-red mushrooms grow. These mushrooms only grow in that one spot, and you have to bring two of them back to me here by sunset tomorrow. You…"
        "Why two?" Nowa interrupted.
        "Two of them to make sure you're paying attention, and that you keep paying attention. Get two, not one, not three, two. This is a very important and difficult test," Alleyne warned, "even if you knew exactly where you were going, it would take you until sunset today to get there."
        "Which direction was that again?" Nowa asked as she scratched Ruu's head.
        Alleyne sighed in frustration, "northeast. Now get going! Forage for essentials on the way, two blue-and-red mushrooms, sunset tomorrow. Go!"
        "Right!" Nowa said cheerily, taking her teacher's sternness in stride. "Let's go, Ruu!" Ruu cheeped in reply, getting a solid grip on Nowa's shoulders, and Nowa vaulted to the next tree over.
        "Nowa!" she heard Alleyne's call and stopped, turning to look at her teacher. "Good luck," Alleyne said with a smile. Nowa smiled back and departed.
        Nowa had started sometime before noon on that day, making her way through the forest quickly in a northeasterly direction. Some hours into the afternoon, Nowa was still certain she was on the right path, according to the position of the sun as it descended westward, but true to what Alleyne had told her, she was nowhere close to her destination. She had queried some friendly animals along the way, and none of them knew of the variety of mushroom she was looking for, meaning she was still a good ways off.
        Nowa paused momentarily on a bluff above a forest creek when a sudden gust of wind blew from another direction. Ruu cheeped strangely after it blew, straightening up from his position on her shoulder. "What's wrong, Ruu?" Nowa asked. Another breath of wind sighed past, and Ruu leapt off her shoulder. "What is it?" she insisted.
        Ruu cheeped frantically, nonsensically. Nowa could usually get the gist of what animals knew or felt, but in this case she was baffled, though the monkey was clearly distressed by something. "Come on, Ruu," she said. "There's nothing to be afraid of." The monkey ignored that statement, or disagreed with it. "We have to get going!" she insisted. The wind gusted again, and this time Ruu lost his head completely and leapt off into the forest, jumping back the way they had come. "Ruu, wait!" Nowa cried, grasping vainly in the direction the monkey had gone.
        "Ohh," she agonized. Should she go help Ruu with whatever was troubling him, or continue with her mission? After a little consideration, she knew what Alleyne-sensei would say: she had to remain focused on the mission, even at the expense of her comrades, though if Nowa thought Ruu were in any serious danger, she couldn't possibly leave him. In this case, however, Ruu had just been spooked a little, and he was quite capable of surviving in the forest on his own for a couple days, just as he had been before she found him. She could find him after she had finished Alleyne-sensei's mission, with her only nagging doubt being: what had spooked Ruu like that?
        Nowa continued dashing through the forest, occasionally vaulting between trees, occasionally running along the ground, taking in the beauty of the forest in Spring on this sunny afternoon. Some of the trees and shrubs were just beginning to flower, and the air was thick with pollen and the aromatic scents of the flowers. So beautiful were these scents that Nowa stopped once again, breathing deep to enjoy them. As she breathed, she caught it, an exotic smell, something the girl had never smelled before, a variety of flower she was not familiar with. Curious, Nowa began searching the vicinity, trying to find the source of the smell. As she searched, she continued to breathe deep, taking in more of the scent. It was a pleasant smell, very inviting, very soothing. Initially she sniffed frantically towards the aroma, the half-elf applying her keen senses to try to find it, but as she breathed more of it, her sniffs both deepened and slowed, finding peace in the new smell.
        Finally she found the source of it, her pace long since slowed to a languorous stroll as she breathed in the intoxicating aroma that grew steadily stronger as she approached it. So intoxicated was Nowa that she did not notice the source of the smell until she walked straight into it, falling down to a sitting position. "Ow!" she exclaimed, standing up gingerly and rubbing her face where it had made contact. She stood, and was amazed at what she saw.
        It was a tree, large, but not too large, about as big as the tree that bore her house. The tree bore beautiful flowers, fitting for its remarkable scent, but they were huge! The flowers were longer than she was tall, from base of the flower to the tip of the pistil, with petals of a lovely pale yellow. The huge size of the flowers was explained by the fruit, large, smooth, round fruits, deep pink in color. Nowa was too enchanted with the smell to wonder why there were both flowers and fruit on this tree, especially since it was not the season for fruit. She stared upwards, awestruck by this serene scene of natural, vernal beauty: the colors, the quiet of the forest, and most of all, the scent.
        As she stared up at the tree, a strange but exciting thought entered her head: she should go and get inside one of those flowers. She did not know where the thought came from, but she liked the idea. If she were inside one of those flowers, she could immerse herself in that beauty and that lovely smell. Nowa found no reason to resist that thought, and leapt on up the tree swiftly. She stopped at a branch that had a number of the pretty flowers growing out of it. The flowers grew upward out of the branch, as if inviting her to enter them, differently than the huge fruits which hung downward.
        Nowa approached one of the flowers, reaching out to touch its petals and gaze at the blossom from the right angle. It was all the more captivating when viewed from the proper angle, at this vicinity, when touched. The petals were feather-soft, but firm, and pleasing to the touch. The flower's stamen were emitting a sparkly golden pollen, and the coloring of the blossom changed from pale yellow to frail pink deep inside. The smell had reached the peak of intensity, strong, sweet, but also cloying. Like incense, but without the acrid sting that sometimes made incense off-putting, but with all incense's strength. At the peak of her intoxication with the scent, Nowa's eyes felt heavy, and she had trouble keeping her eyes open, though she did not realize it, but her growing entrancement caused her to forget her original compulsion to get inside the flower.
        That compulsion returned with another unsolicited thought penetrating her head, a much stronger urging: get inside the flower.  The intensity with which that thought entered her head finally gave Nowa pause. The flower was beautiful to sight, sound, and smell, certainly, but why was she so fascinated with getting inside it? Alleyne-sensei would be disappointed in her, getting distracted by this strange tree. She retreated from the flower, shaking her head soundly, trying to restore herself to her senses. She had to get going!
        In response, the compulsion came back into her head all the stronger, this time in a visual form: she saw an image of herself stepping into the flower and settling down comfortably. Suddenly Nowa understood, or thought she did: the tree was talking to her, at least as best as it could. She turned towards the trunk of the tree, looking upward. "Is that you?" she asked verbally. Maybe she was just crazy.
        She wasn't. Replying to her question, she saw an image in her head of herself, nodding vigorously. "Why do you want me to get in the flower?" the half-elf asked.
        This response was more intense, a surge of sheer ecstasy flooding into Nowa's senses. Too intense for the young girl, she moaned audibly and collapsed to her knees on the branch. "It'll… make me feel good?" she asked slowly, still recovering from that exposure. Again she received the image of herself nodding.
        "But what will happen to me?" Nowa replied. This time she was shown an image of another, a young elven girl similar in age to herself, stepping gingerly into a flower. Looking both sedated and euphoric, the girl got comfortable within the flower, whose petals started to close around her, until the girl was enclosed entirely in a wrapping of pale yellow petals, her outline vaguely visible through them.
        "You're trying to eat me?" Nowa said, recoiling in shock and horror. The tree's response was to show her more of what had happened to that previous elf-girl. In a fast-motion vision, she saw the flower that had ensnared the girl sag and hang under the branch rather than over it, then as the weeks passed, the flower began to slowly solidify, changing into the deep pink of the tree's fruit. Slowly the solid fruit expanded until it became a pure round, and continued to hang there.
        "I'll become a fruit…" Nowa said, not quite believing what she was being shown. "What happens to the fruit?" The tree gave her an image of the current scene, her sitting on her knees as she stared up questioningly at the tree, but the images of the fruit were transparent, and the girls were still within. All girls, mostly elven, a few human, all around Nowa's age, all slumbering peacefully within the fruits.
        "You're keeping them prisoner?" Nowa asked, still unsure about the tree's intentions. Another sensory overload entered her consciousness, but this time a feeling of total oneness, calm, quiet, warm, and dark, with gentle sounds of vascular fluids pumping about her body. It was a sensation of pure comfort and safety, total dependence on her sheltering presence of the fruit and tree. Nowa imagined it was similar to being back in the womb, but being conscious of it. The fruit-girls were not helpless, either, but truly one with the mighty tree. They wanted more friends, she realized, more sisters to join their family.
        It was tempting, very tempting: an eternity of sloth and comfort, free from all burdens of thought or action, a life of nothingness, yet at the same time of meaning. It had an added appeal for Nowa as well. The girl was energetic and happy in her life, but under her veneer of happiness, she knew she was alone in the world as a half-breed, here she could find community and belonging, away from all others, even Alleyne-sensei.
        Alleyne-sensei… Thinking of her mentor's stern face brought Nowa back to reality again. As much as she might want this, she had a job to do and someone to return to, she had a duty to defend this forest. "I'm sorry," Nowa said. "I'm on a mission." Again she received the image of her stepping into the flower, this time with the flower closing over her. "No," she said. "I have to go."
        She stood and turned to leave when the tree repeated another tactic, sending her that quiet bliss of life in the fruit. Feeling that sensation again stopped her in her tracks, and she vacillated, torn between her obligations and the simple offer of joining with the tree. "I…" she began, but then the tree struck out at her, feeding her the sensations felt by not just one of the girls, but all of the girls at once. Nowa identified it as the sensory overload she had felt previously, the overwhelming feeling of pure ecstasy that again brought her to her knees.
        Nowa sat there for a time, her eyes unfocused, her posture slack, she was drooling slightly, long since swayed by the intoxicating scent of the flowers and overwhelmed by the shared sensations of joy, then the tree finally withdrew from the assault, though Nowa did not react. The tree implanted one image into her now-pliant mind: Nowa, getting into the flower and being enclosed in it. At long last, Nowa relented, the half-elf girl standing and moving gingerly towards the flower, delicately stepping into its confines.
        Immediately she felt happier, ensconced in the source of the smell that had initially lured her in. She stood limply in the flower, not quite steady on her feet, when the flower did it for her. The stamens and pistil suddenly became sessile, twining around her legs and body. Nowa was dimly aware of tiny rootlets creeping out of the new tentacles, trying to enter her, but it invoked a positive sensation as well as she became one with the flower. Once she was secure within the flower, it began to fold up around her, the pedals retracting. Now enclosed in darkness, Nowa could not help but feel elated anticipation, this was the beginning of a long, eternal darkness, her first step into that womb-like existence of sheer oneness and joy. She could already feel the flower beginning to fall so it would hang below the tree and her eternal shelter would start to grow.
        She was faintly aware of a zipping sound, then the tiniest snip when suddenly the whole flower was plummeting to earth with her in it. She landed with a reasonably jarring impact, though the flower protected her enough that she was unhurt, and the impact brought her back to her senses. "The tree ate me!" she said aloud, then began struggling to get free of the flower. She was aided by a thin knife from someone outside, cutting away the flower to reveal…
        "Alleyne-sensei!" Nowa said, relieved. "What are you doing here?"
        "I was tailing you to make sure you were safe," Alleyne said. "But I would've been too far back to save you if your monkey hadn't figured out that there was a dangerous smell in the air," Alleyne indicated Ruu, who was now parked on her shoulder. "You should listen to this thing," she said coldly, "it has more common sense than you do."
        Nowa was not hurt by that statement, as she was used to her instructor's occasionally-derogatory remarks, but she was quiet, pensive. "I… would've been in there forever…" she said, pondering the enormity of what had just happened to her.
        "I'm glad you're safe," Alleyne said, some warmth coming back into her voice and face as she looped her arm around Nowa comfortingly and drew her in for a loose embrace.
        "Thanks, sensei," Nowa replied. "And you too, Ruu!" she said gratefully to the monkey, who cheeped joyously in reply and leapt back onto her shoulder. "But what about the test?" she added.
        "You'll get another chance at the test," Alleyne said. "But for now, Nowa: Zero Points!"

End.