Author Games: Brave New World

Task Four Entries: Parthenos

Natalia Amber

The plant life of this forest was truly astounding. Olive's hand could hardly move fast enough to write all the notes she wished to record. This notebook had been empty when she'd set out to record the flora and fauna. Now it was already half full, and she'd scarcely made notes on a fraction of the plants around her.

She had been right to come with Dr. Moriz. Under the leadership of the doctor, she could be free to spend hours each day recording everything she could about the observable plant life. The silly, mundane things, such as building pipes and walls, could wait until they had an idea of what kind of world they'd landed in.

Rustling leaves drew her attention up. Animals weren't Olive's specialty, though she had a fascination for the occasional instinct, but she knew it was odd that she'd seen so few of them up to this point. With the lack of wind on this day, mobile life should be the most likely cause for any disturbance in the foliage.

But there was no mobile life in sight. Olive slowly lowered her pencil to rest in her lap and her gaze narrowed. On Earth she'd known of chameleons that could blend in with their surroundings. Perhaps a species on Danu had a similar evolutionary adaptation.

If this was the case, the animal in question must be extraordinarily capable. All Olive could see was a long skinny tree, about the same height as Olive. She should write about this tree next. Its leaves were arranged in an odd fashion, and it had two trunks.

The tree with the odd leaves and two trunks opened its eyes. Olive jumped. A shrill shriek escaped her. She stumbled to her feet.

The tree put two branches up. It lifted one of its trunks and stomped the ground. A vibration shuddered through the ground. Olive could feel it through her shoes.

An image appeared in her mind. It was of the two of them, Olive and the tree, and she got the distinct sensation that in this vision, they were both content. The image faded away.

Olive looked at the tree uncertainly. "Is that how you communicate? Do you mean that you want to be friends?"

The tree stomped its foot on the ground once more, and Olive felt the vibration again. This time the image that came to her mind was one of her speaking again, but the feeling was confused. She understood clearly this time. The tree had difficulty understanding her language.

Olive pointed at herself. "Olive," she said.

The next vision the tree person sent was one of Olive saying her name, and a sense of recognition. The tree's culture must have some form of names, because she gave Olive the feeling that she understood that Olive was Olive's name.

Olive pointed at the tree. "You?" She asked.

A vibration came again, but without a vision. The vibration this time made a noise. The closest Olive could liken it to in Earthern syllables was Aminee.

Olive pointed at the tree again. "You are Aminee."

The tree's next vibration came with no image, only a firm certainty. This tree girl- Olive decided to refer to the creature in her head as a girl, even though tree people genders were certainly far different and potentially more sophisticated than human genders- was called Aminee, or the tree person vibration equivalent of it.

"It is a pleasant experience to meet you, Aminee," Olive said.

Perhaps if she continued speaking English, Aminee would come to understand it. Or Olive could teach her French. It would be nice to have someone in the group to speak French to, but it had already been ordinated that English was to be the official language of all humans on Danu. It would be useless for Aminee to learn French if all the humans beside Olive spoke English.