To Complicated to Title

Chapter Seven

She tensed her muscles ready to flee at the possibility of a nymph attack. She pinched a leaf tightly between two claws and squeezed her eyes shut as she gave a quick, hard yank. The leaf came off perfectly into her paw and... nothing. No explosion, no nymph suddenly appearing, not even a small army of woodland creatures sent to attack her. Nothing. “Is that it?” Rowan asked, confused.

“Nope” Emily said

“Well, on to the next tree.” Alex added.

“What?” Rowan simply did not understand.

“”What don’t you get?” Alex asked. “This obviously isn’t a wood nymph’s tree. We will have to keep going until we reach a tree that reacts.” Alex stated.

“But we really should mark this tree somehow so we don’t come back to it and start testing trees twice. That would really be a waste of time. I think a thin ring of burn marks around the trunk won’t harm it. Alex, could you get it started?” Emily asked. Alex responded by breathing out a small layer of toxic fumes around the base of the tree. A quick spark from Emily and the gasses were aflame. The fire burned itself out quickly and left a neat little ring of black scorch marks easily seen from a distance. Ella and Rowan had been watching mutely through this whole conversation. “So, now we go pluck a leaf from the next tree and if that one doesn’t react then the next tree and possibly the next tree and the next tree and the next tree and the next tree?” It took the others a while to realize that Ella was asking a question.

“Er yes, I believe so.” Rowan said, looking up to the dragons for clarification.

“Yes of course. Wasn’t that perfectly clear?” Emily asked. “Honestly. Sometimes I think them all a bit slow. Their poor little brains just must not be able to keep up with ours. See how they’re staring at us now? They must just not comprehend.” Rowan and Ella had actually been looking at them with annoyance at the dragons constant insults, but Alex and Emily had interpreted it as misunderstanding. “So it sounds like we’ve got a lot of trees to test. Let’s get going.” Rowan said. And they did. Their group traveled from one tree to next, plucking and burning, but with no nymph’s appearing so far. Rowan was starting to develope a nervous twitch from the constant stress of expecting a violent nymph to show up feet away from her. But that never happened. Rowan plucked and Alex and Emily burned and Ella chatted until the sun was starting to set and at least a hundred trees had been marked. But not a single one of those trees was home to a nymph. And so Alex and Emily flew off to hunt and Rowan and Ella started the long walk back to their camp.