The Storyteller

Chapter Two: The Pipe and the Flower

Elohs had been hiking for three days before he realized that some way or another he was off the path. How did he know this?
This was a place he had never heard of... The elders hadn't even spoken of such a place... The trees were a pure white that was rival the the whiteness of the elders themselves... And the hardness like that of stone, he had learned by tapping his knife against the trunk of one of the mysterious trees. It was the perfect material... But he had to find the perfect piece to make his pipe... With new determination he set out into the forest of stone trees, looking for the piece of wood that would become his story telling tool.
He found many pieces of the wood lying around, but they weren't the right ones... He didn't know how he knew they weren't it, but he followed his instinct and traveled deeper into the woods until nightfall. By the time he stopped, it was too late to make camp or even attempt to start a fire... Would the stone trees even burn? He wrapped his arms around his knees and huddled up agains one of the trunks, trying desperately to keep some shred of body heat in the cold mountain air...
He spent a good few hours zoning in and out of consciousness when he noticed light from deeper in the woods. He slowly stood up and stretched his aching joints before stumbling in the darkness towards the light ahead...
He saw the source of the light as he reached a clearing. In the center of the clearing, growing on the remains of a stump from a fallen tree, was a sacred flower. The moonlight seemed to refract and grow brighter when it touched the petals, bathing the clearing in pale, purple light.
Elohs stared at it in awe, barely realizing when he walked up to the stump it was growing on...
He had only ever seen the powder that the flowers were made into... The children were never allowed to get her the flowers until after the festival if they became storytellers...
He reached down and tried to pluck the flower, but it held fast to the stump. Elohs felt determined to get it, and so he grabbed it with both hands and pulled with all of his might, straining every muscle in his body to remove the flower from its white pedestal.
It slowly started budging... Inch by inch.. Elohs moved the flower in circular motions as he pulled until finally, and very suddenly, the flower came out all at once. A piece of the stone tree attached to the base of it...
Elohs looked at the hard, white piece of wood... It was perfect for the pipe... It had the basic shape of a pipe already, and so not much work needed to be done to perfect it.
Elohs sat against the stump and pulled out his tools. He began chipping away at the base of the flower until it finally was removed from his soon to be pipe, and set it down on the stump, letting it reflect the moonlight so that he could see his handiwork, and he began to grind and shape the wood in his hands, slowly but surely turning it into the tool of a storyteller...

It was about mid day when he finished. The pipe was simple, but elegant in its own right.
It was plain save for a small flower design etched into the bottom of the bowl, the center of which the remaining part of the stem, which was still buried in the wood, making it appear as if a green gem were inlaid in the etching.
The stem was straight, like a traditional pipe. He preferred it to the curved stem design, which was difficult to do with the material he was using anyways.
He was so absorbed in his work that he scarcely noticed that it was about time to set up camp for the night, and he still had yet to find a meal... He looked at the crystal flower and had an idea. Using a large piece of the stone wood, he broke off a few petals and crushed them into small pieces. Not quite a powder, but close enough. He grabbed the fire starting device that the elders had created for the use of lighting their pipes quickly, and for use in the festival so the children could set up campfires, and after packing the tiny crystals in the pipe, he lit them and began puffing to get a good coal burning.
After it was sufficiently lit, he took in a deep breath of the smoke...
It was oddly cool, and smooth. The sweetness was unlike anything that he had tasted before. Once he had filled his lungs he expelled a large purple cloud, and he began telling a story his father had always told him... He began weaving a tale about a fire spirit, who had fallen from the sun.
"The little spirit had been playing with its brothers and sisters, when it lost its footing and fell from the sun all the way down to our world..."
Elohs saw the smoke take shape and condense into a vague shape of a humanoid creature that was about the size of a small child. Elohs frowned for a moment, then realization dawned on him. He began describing the fire spirit in great detail, leaving nothing to the imagination.
He closed his eyes as he pictured the spirit in his mind... And then he felt something... Warmth?
Elohs opened his eyes and felt a surge of adrenaline hit his body from a mixture of fear and excitement.
In front of him was the fire spirit. Exactly as he had imagined it.
The spirit looked at him with eyes that were darker than coal, so dark it was as if no light could escape the pull of the voids that were its eyes.
It's body was the size of a toddler, but it was proportioned like an adult.
It's feet were just little stubs, and it's hands consisted of a thumb-like digit, and three fingers of about equal length.
It's body was made purely of fire, which was warm, but it didn't seem like it would burn if touched.
It nodded at him and Elohs felt a warm feeling within his chest. Not uncomfortable, in fact it was a comforting feeling. One of safety. As if he was at home with his parents, warming up by the fire while his father told him stories about his childhood...
Then a voice entered his mind, sounding like the flickering of flames in the wind... But he could understand the message it held...
"Young one... I seek help from you... I have fallen from my home... I seek a way to my family..." The voice seemed to say.
Elohs felt a pang of sorrow for the spirit. As far as he knew, there was no way to where he wanted to be..
"Little spirit..." He began. He searched for the right words to say before he told it why it couldn't go home... And then he had an idea...
"Little spirit. As of this moment, there are no ways back to the sun which you call home," he replied to it. "However, I have an idea that could help the both of us."
He held his pipe up to the eyes of the fire spirit. "I plan on traveling the world, using this to tell stories... If you were to be able to become small enough to live in here, and light the crystal powder that I fill the bowl with... Then while I travel I can find out if there is a way to get you back home."
He waited while the fire spirit contemplated the offer, hoping it would accept the offer.
The fire spirit finally looked up at him and nodded. The voice spoke again in his head, "I shall dwell with you." It said as the spirit shrank until it was the size of an ember and flew into the pipe.
Elohs felt the feeling of comfort again, followed by a pang of hunger. How long had it been since he had eaten?
Well, we never that was, he didn't care. He set off to find his way back to the normal path so that he could find food and make camp. And then, he'd return to the village. He had passed the test and become an adult, and more importantly, a storyteller. He thought about how he had brought the fire spirit into the world, and realized something. He was more than just a storyteller... But what was he then?