Moon Glade

Learning

I woke up to a loud banging on my door. "Wake up! We're late!" Shouted Nala from the other side of the of the door. 

Pulling myself out of bed I walked over to the door and opened it slowly. "Late for what?" I mumbled, squinting my eyes as the sunlight poured through the windows. 

"Training of course!" She said excitedly. "It's been especially requested by Camille that I train you up, so that you'll be ready to adventure again in no time." 

Realising I was stood at the door in my pyjamas, I questioned "What should I wear?" Nala laughed. "Whatever you've got."

Nala lead me through a path at the back of the house. I had previously thought that the guild estate ended with the veteran house, but Nala informed me that the guild owned a good chunk of the surrounding forest.

The path was full of forest life, various plants and flowers stretched onto the path and seemed to cling to me as I walked along, the further we walked, the more I became entranced by my surroundings.

Massive trees dominated the landscape, they were grander than average trees, taller, girthier and more vibrant in every way. Their leaves provided shelter from the hot sun above and formed a cloud-like ceiling over the forest. Outside of the safety of the path, the forest floor was covered in a blanket of branches, large roots, ferns, thickets, bushes, fallen leaves and ivy that grew up the trees and pointed towards the sky. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, the smell of earth, pine and wildflowers was a welcome change from firewood and wine after the night before. Around me, I could hear water flowing slowly, but closer than that I could hear the branches snapping below mine and Nala's feet, the sound of birds chirping above me and insects humming. 

"We're here." Said Nala as the sound of her footsteps stopped and my eyes snapped open.

In front of us was a clearing in the trees, the underbrush had been cleared away and a small wooden cabin had been built. Next to the cabin was a wide lake with calm, clear blue water. In all of my life I hadn't seen anything as beautiful as the lake in front of me. The child inside of me wanted me to run in and splash around, but the adult part reminded me that I couldn't swim.

Out of excitement, I grabbed Nala's arm and turned to face her. "This is incredible!" I exclaimed with a large grin on my face. She matched my grin and pointed towards the cabin. 

At that moment, the door swung open and Richard walked out of the cabin, the contrast between his white hair and brown feathers was highlighted by the sun through the leaves. 

"It's about time!" He laughed. "I thought I told you to bring her at the crack of dawn."

"You know how I am after a drink." She sighed, winking at Richard. 

"Well Clara, welcome to the veteran's training grounds. Of course most veterans don't need training, so it's not as well equipped as the new members training grounds but it's certainly prettier!" He chuckled. 

"I'm going to teach you how to master your healing, so that you're ready to go on adventures again. Even though we're a magically focused guild, healing mages have become rarer and rarer to find, so much so that sometimes other guilds will ask to borrow our healers for jobs were potions or botany won't do the trick."

"How many people are there in the guild?" I asked Nala and Richard, knowing I had only met a small fraction of people.

"Well..." Started Nala. "Around five hundred members overall. But not all live within the estate, most veteran adventurers live with their families and only come when they're needed. Advance members tend to to travel a lot, sometimes for months on end and new adventurers could be members that have been in the guild for ten years or ten days, it just depends on their skill." Said Nala as Richard nodded along, confirming the information.