The Forever Crystal

Bratus

"Who is this is Bratus you speak of? I know of no tree named that." Bratus says in a different voice.

"Really? because I remember that Bratus has a dent in his core just like this one." Garih points to a dent on Bratus' bottom lip.

"I just so happened to get this dent when that girl over bumped into me." Bratus looks at me.

"Who Jada? she couldn't have made this big of a-"

"Hey! Bratus! That you pal?!?" Christian yells cutting Garih off.

Bratus looks at Christian, "Hey Christian, been a while."

"Yeah, I haven't seen you since Lora left."

"Yeah, darn shame too. She was so kind, she told the best stories ever."

"That's right, I remember the story about her meeting a fairy that tried to kill her for being pretty. That was so funny!" Christian says, starting to laugh.

"Bratus, today I will not collect my wager but you still owe big time." Garth intrudes.

"Really?!? Thanks pal!" Bratus says.

"Lucky for you we have somewhere we need to be." Garih says.

"At this time of day? The sun is going down and the next town isn't a few miles from here. Here, why don't you guys camp the night here."

Garih looks at me and Christian, then sighs, "I guess that will have to do. But you still owe me."

When it's already dark outside. We have settled down on the ground, and I'm freezing my butt off because we can't use any fire wood for, you know Fire! Also because there's a big talking tree in front of us. I start to shiver and cover myself with blankets.

Then, I hear rattling noises and turn around, there I see Christian getting up moving towards Bratus.

"Hey keep it down he might hear us." Bratus said.

"No worries, he's fast asleep." Christian answers.

"Who is?" I ask popping my head up. They both look at me shocked.

"Mm. I don't know," He says sarcastically,"if you're awake, Bratus is awake and I'm awake, who do you think I'm talking about." Christian says rudely.

"Well no need for rudeness." I say, getting up and walking toward them. But it was really hard, since the only light I could see was from the moon.

"Yeah, don't be mean just because she's curious." Bratus says in my defense.

"Thank you Bratus." I say and he gives me a smile.

"Whatever. Look you need to go back to sleep Jada." Christian orders.

"No I want to hang out with you guys. What are you guys doing anyway." I ask.

"Well, we were going to talk about-" I cut Christian off to say, "Great! I have a few questions for you Bratus."

"Ok, ask away."

"What do you owe Garih?"

"Well I owe him a huge favor because I sold a pearl that belonged to his mother along time ago, before she died."

"Wow, that's cooled."

"I didn't know until he told me after I sold it!" Bratus wines.

"Sure." I roll my eyes and move on to the next question.

"How old are you exactly?"

"Um. Let's see" Bratus looks up and counts silently, "I'm about 3000 years old." My jaw drops, that's like 200 times my age!

"What! But you don't sound old!" I honestly have no idea what I actually meant to say.

"Yeah we trees live for a long time."

"How do you trees... Produce?" I ask, totally regretting asking after the words go out my mouth.

"Well we're a-sexual, meaning we don't need to have do IT to make offsprings." He answers.

"Ok, next question, how are you here but no other talking tree is."

"You see, trees part of the Ligna clan, get to live in three places for their entire life. The first place is where you are born at, which I was born on the east forest. The second, is when you turn about 500 years old, and my parents made me chose a place to spread our clan and I chose here."

"Wait, how do you move from one tree to another?" I ask.

"It's more like our spirits that move, and you leave your old tree form."

"Ok, when's the third."

"The third and final move, is when you have already made your offsprings, and you are allowed to move on, to relax and enjoy the rest of your life."

"When is the end of your life approximately."

"Well our clan doesn't exactly know how long we can live but we haven't died yet so." Bratus says with a smile.

"That's a lovely story." We hear a soft voice behind us and turn around to see Garih glaring at us with his yellow eyes. "Now can you guys please go to sleep! We have more traveling to do tomorrow." He says angrily.

We all sigh and me and Christian go back to our beds.
*******************

"Hey Bratus." I whisper.

"Yeah?" He whispers back.

"Thanks for answering my questions." I say sweetly.

"Your welcome, now go to bed before Garih wakes up again."

"Good night Bratus." I say.

"Good night, Jada."

I go to sleep and prepare myself for tomorrow, another day of non stop walking, Perfect!