A Nymph of the Ossian Forest

Crossing The Aire River

Sitting on my mother's lap, I looked at the wonderfully illuminated manuscript.

"This is the Fungus dwarf," she circled the tiny creature on the bottom of the page with her finger. "He is known for his bad temper but if you are nice to him, he will make sure your basket is always full of mushrooms and berries."

That was one of the rare times I went to the forest with my mother. I was six, and mushroom hunting couldn't have been more exciting. To make it even more remembered, she brought a small, but a fat book from father's library, which we opened on a break among the trees. On our way back home that day I would be extra careful not to step on a little dwarf accidentally. I didn't want to infuriate him not to deprive us of mushrooms for good.

But right now there were more peculiar creatures to read about.

"This one is Nyk," mother turned the page over. "He has big yellow eyes, like lanterns and likes to observe people from the pond where he lives. You must stay away from him if you don't know how to swim: he will try to keep you to himself underwater if he likes you."

"Is there a Nyk in our lake?" I was petrified by the idea of a creature wanting to drag me down to the bottom of Ossian lake.

She shrugged with a laugh. "There might be. But our Nyk is nice," she added when she saw my horror. "He might even teach you how to swim, I guess."

"And what about this one, mom?" I was pointing at the most beautiful picture in the entire book.

"This... is a forest nymph," she said, examining the drawing of a girl, looking at us from behind an oak. "A dryad, to be exact. The nymph of the trees."

I carefully looked at the picture, wondering what did the girl do to end up in one book with Dwarfs and Nyks. She looked nice and quite... normal.

"Does every tree have its nymph?"

Mother smiled. "Not exactly. Dryads take care of them. If you cut down a tree for no good reason, they might even get angry."

"What will they do?" I liked the idea of someone protecting my forest from the bad.

"Well, no one knows! You might lose your path in the forest or get stuck in the thicket. They won't hurt you, but will find a way to show you that you're not welcome here."

"I think I like them most of all, mother."

She laughed with a sound of a ringing bell.

"I'm glad to hear it. We, who love the forest, must do everything to protect it."

"One day I will become a dry-eed when I grow up."

"A dryad," she tossed my hair. "Even if you don't, you will do much better job being yourself. Trust your heart when it comes to making important decisions, Arian. Don't be afraid to stand for what you love. One day you will do something that might save the forest and its people."

"I will, mom."

She hugged me, mumbling a familiar tune.

"Wherever you are, I will always be with you."

***

Following Borgar's footsteps, I couldn't take out of my head the distant talk I had with my mother as a child, looking at a picture book after our mushroom hunt. It had been on my mind since I tossed and turned in the small tent, waiting for the much-desired sleep to come.