Trip's Adventure

The swimming lesson

"Now," J swallowed the last of his worm before continuing," If you're anything like the other Bredes I know you should take to water like a pickeo fish, just jump in and we will see how much instruction you need." Trip still wasn't sure about this, but she didn't want to argue so jumped in. For the first couple of seconds the water seemed to be holding her up and she was a little calm, but then the water level rose above her head. That was impossible! The water only looked two froyes deep, how could this possibly be! "If I just stand up I'll be fine," she thought to herself, she tried to get her feet on the bottom. No luck the stream had no bottom. "Grab the side and take a breath!" she barely heard J shout at her from under the streams gentle waves that had turned more to an oceans since she jumped in. Trip panicked. What was she supposed to do? She swung her arms frantically trying to get to the surface."Trip! Grab the side," his voice was even more muffled now than before. She squirmed harder trying to wrench herself from the waters clutches. She was sure every person within a hundred milos could hear the racket she was making. Even if she got out of this water alive they would come, find her, and take her back to her master's house where she would be beaten and Kess would be killed."Trip!" she heard J, louder now and he sounded worried. Trip heard the noise of something falling into the water. Almost immediately after the sound was heard her hand came into contact with what felt like a large stick or log. She gripped it and quickly pulled herself to the surface. She immediately became aware of the sound of laughter. How dare he! She had just had the fright of her life and had indeed almost died and he was laughing about it! "This is not funny!"She cried pulling herself closer to the bank and shutting her eyes.
"I know that, Trip."Trip jerked her head up and looked in astonishment at him. The laughing had continued even when he was talking. Who else was here? She gazed at the forest for a sign of the intruder. J smiled at her."There is no point to doing that, it's Rayz."                                                                                                                         
“Rayz? What are Rayz?" J chuckled slightly," You haven't heard of Rayz?" Trip shrugged, "Should I have?" "It is a favorite tale to tell to young children, about tiny beings no more than six teys tall with wings twice the size that they are." "I think I may have heard that one. They change color."                   
“Yes."
"Someone told me they were just a myth," Trip said doubtfully as she pulled herself onto the bank.
"Well, someone told you wrong. They are very rare outside the Enchanted Lands but they do exist."
"Why were they laughing at me?" she asked as the tears returned to her eyes.
"Rayz have a cruel sense of humor and don't much care about other people's feelings, "J told her as he came and sat on her leg. Trip looked at the log that had been thrown into the water for her rescue. "J, how did you get that branch in the water?" she asked while mentally comparing its size to that of her gecko friend. J cast a smile toward the forest before addressing her.
"I have friends who do these things."Trip wasn't sure what his meaning was. Could it be that he was talking about the Rayz, or was there someone else around there."Ok, it seems to me that you have no skill for swimming whatsoever, but you can splash with the best of them," J said whipping some of the moisture from his back with his tail," this time gently lower yourself into the water and don't let go of the side." The thought of going back into the water scared her. What if she went under again and J couldn't get to her fast enough."Trip, I'm right here you'll be fine." Trip swallowed hard and crawled toward the water’s edge. She put her arm in up to the shoulder but still couldn't feel the bottom."I'm not teaching you how to dive."
"J, I'm scared," Trip confessed as a couple of tears fell from her eyes though they were indistinguishable from the rest of the water drops on her face.
"Considering what you just went through that's understandable," J reassured coming to sit by her shoulder," I know I'm asking a lot from you, but you don't get over falling until you get up again."Trip knew he was right and sat up.
"I'm not sure I can do this."
J smiled and put his hand on her knee," I'm sure you can." Trip took a breath and lowered her feet into the water. "Swing your body around and continue gripping the sides," J continued to instruct her for almost two hours. Trip was starting to get tired but after many failed attempts and enduring a great deal of heckling from the Rayz, she had learned to swim. Actually ever since she had achieved success in her aquatic acrobatics, the Rayz seemed to have left."Oh rest assured they're still there, and I'm sure we haven't seen, or rather heard, the last of them," J's smile broadened," they have a tendency to follow subjects of interest for great distances."
"You sound like the voice of experience," Trip observed as she clamored out of the water with the grace of a beached whale.
"Rayz are one of the few things that will pay any attention to a gecko, most people don't care," J replied with a sigh. Trip was exhausted. She crawled on hands and knees up the bank and collapsed in a heap twelve froyes from the stream. J pranced over and climbed onto her forehead, "Rest, Trip," He soothed," I will keep a look out and wake you when the sun turns the sky magenta and purple." Trip had no other need of encouragement; she shut her eyes and went straight to dreaming of her journey. She didn't know much about the topography of Malthra, but somehow dreams have a way of knowing things you don't. Trip was flown along the Altles River, past the Plains and Karcaya to Lausa Fields and back again. Her dream took her into the Benya River toward the Lost Mountains. She was about to enter a desert when J awakened her. "Trip, we must be going," he prodded as he waddled down to the stream. Trip sat up and moved to follow him. The flowers were closing their petals from the eyes of the early evening moon and the animals of the day were being replaced by night creatures. The gentle cooing of bicks and doves surrendered to the night’s melody of crickets and owls. The evening dew and the stream reflected the gentle lavender and cinnamon colors of the sky as would a looking glass. Trip lowered herself into the clear crisp waters. J sprung lightly from the bank onto her head and pointed downstream meaning that was the way she should go.
Trip soon discovered that with the aid of the light current she could actually travel farther and faster than she was otherwise capable of. The sun sank beneath the horizon and soon all light was gone and only the reflection of the moon and stars could tell Trip which way the stream was turning. She was sure J had fallen asleep in her hair so she was careful to be as gentle as she could. This was made very difficult by the fish congregating around her.
Cito-swan fish tickled her feet as they swam along behind her. She occasionally caught a bit of their conversation when her ears were underwater, conversation mostly about her, or caught glimpses of them when they swam in front of her. Their slender, two froye long bodies were gently propelled through the water with fins almost as long as they were. They had long, flowing barbs on their backs and undersides, etched in silver; they would poison any assailant foolish enough to try to attack it. Trip shook her head slightly. Another example of the beautiful trickery that J had talked about. Every so often she would stop and rest on the bank or a rock and take in the sweet night air. She went on like this all night, swimming and resting at regular intervals till she noticed that the sky was starting to change color. She wanted to wake J so he could see this collection of magentas and blues, but decided against it reasoning that he must have seen hundreds like it before.
The first rays of the sun warmed her lightly tanned skin and the sounds of the bicks waking songs filled her ears. Trip felt something moving on her head. Had she not remembered that J was up there she might have thrown him off."Good-morning Trip," he said sleepily followed by a yawn.
"You can say that, you aren't the one who was swimming all night," Trip replied with a slight chuckle. J grinned at her then looked toward the sky. The vibrant colors of the sun rise had already melted from the clouds.
"Pity I missed the sun rise," he remarked with a sigh. "Do you want me to wake you next time?"
"Yes Trip, if you don't mind," J looked around at the small fields that were visible just beyond the trees," We should try to find a thicker group of trees for you to spend the day in."
Trip easily saw the wisdom in this statement and started to look accordingly. Within minutes they found an ideal site. The small clearing was amply surrounded by a thick layer of croden trees and still offered multiple places to hide should the need arise. It was here that she clamored out of the water."Have you anything else to eat?" J asked as Trip lowered him to the ground and he took off toward a potential worm hole.
"No, I don't have anything else, I guess I didn't expect to get this far," Trip said in despair as she watched J slurp down the worm he had found.
"I think you are undervaluing yourself, understandable for what you were, but a recipe for disaster in my books. Thinking you can't do anything is as bad as thinking you’re the best at everything. Both pride and self-contempt come before a fall, and I don't want you to fall into that trap. Your lack of food is no good either," He said through his half eaten worm," If you have no energy you won't be able to go far, and our journey will take a few months."
"She didn't tell me it would take that long," Trip moaned as she propped her drenched body against a tree.
"Who didn't?" J asked as he pounced on a beetle.
"Kess, she didn't tell me how long it would take to get to Mt. Trocep," an alarmed look came over Trips face as she straightened and looked at J," What if she gets caught while I'm gone?"
"Kess knows the risks and she'll be fine," J's reassurance seemed empty to her. What if Kess got caught? Trip would never have agreed to do this if she had known how dangerous it would be for both of them." I think I saw a small grove of tecnut trees west of here when we were looking for this place."Trip looked sharply at him. How could he be thinking of food at a time like this!
"Harvest season was over almost three months ago," She said at length in a tone seasoned with some annoyance as she sat down in the damp grass at her feet.
"You never had tecnuts on your master's farm, did you? They take longer to ripen than most crops and are probably now in season," J stated simply as he waddles over to stand by her knee," You'll like them. They are a sweet nut, tasting almost like an almond covered in rich sugar butter and cream. Even I eat them," he added with a smile. Trip had to confess that she was hungry and let J direct her to the grove in question. It was a relatively short trek, not even a quarter milo away, across a small gravel road and through the forest."It's too light to gather a lot now, too much risk of us being seen, just take a couple of the pods and we'll come back tonight after the farmer and his family are asleep."The pods that J was talking about weighed about half a quic each and were about the size of Trip's fist. Each pod contained twelve nuts that were situated inside the pod just like orange slices. Cushioning these nut slices was a thick, syrupy, milk-colored paste that had a similar taste to the nuts themselves. Trip crept to the edge of the farm's orchard of tecnut trees. She looked around to make sure no one was watching. She saw only a cat. He sat on an old stump vigorously cleaning his malt colored fur. Though he was clearly unconcerned with her, she darted to the nearest tree. Tecnut 'trees' are really only a shrub, about eight froyes tall and their branches grow all the way to the ground with pods growing on all levels of the bush. Trip quickly grabbed one in each hand and hastily ran to retrieve J and return to her forest haven. In order to get back, she would have to cross the road again. Upon reaching it she saw an old travel bag, on closer examination she discovered a small rip on its bottom along the seam. Trip picked it up and continued to go along on her way, she was sure she could make use of it. By the time she reached their make shift camp beside the stream, Trip was very hungry and started to try to break it open while J went to find someplace to take a nap. After several failed attempts, she finally asked J for help.
"Place the pod on a log and hit it with a rock," He instructed casually from under a large rotting branch. Trip tried this and soon succeeded in breaking the stiff outer covering. After eating her fill she set to work on her new travel bag. Plucking three of the shoulder blade long hairs from her golden head, she started the tedious task of braiding them to make a thread. This took some time and when finished looked like real gold. Trip then turned her attention to finding a make shift needle. Upon finding a stick that would serve the intended purpose, she proceeded to sew the leather back together. This took some time as the needle kept breaking and that forced her to look for another one. When the bag was finally repaired Trip estimated that it would hold about twenty tecnuts and a few other things. Having her hunger satisfied and being as she was very tired, she curled up beside J's log and went to sleep.