Welcome to Gaia! ::

As soon as Selma received Tali's letter, she gathered up her few belongings and made her way out of the tree she had called home for the past couple months. Since she had made the discovery about her condition, she had spent several days trying to figure out what to do. The letter from Tali had been the catalyst she needed to make a decison, and now she was going down the path she had chosen with determination.

She had wandered out a ways from the community, looking for any trees she recognized, and finally encountered an old oak tree she'd met the week before, named Noah. After talking to him for a couple minutes, she convinced him to take her Nanedin. She climbed into his branches and settled into a comfortable position to wait out the long journey.

A small wave beached the boat just outside of the waystation. A very young man wavered out of the boat and onto the shore, where he promptly collapsed. For long moments Tali simply lay facedown on the grassy land, heaving in gulps of air. He was exhausted. All day long he had driven the boat here. Even when the current was running fast, 001 pushed it faster, and faster.

Rolling over on his back, he stared up at the sky. Terror had it's icy hand on him and the only way to make it back off...was to find his old roommate. Finally the Elemental stood up, wavering on his feet. He pushed himself to head towards the waystation, scanning around for someone.

Green eyes lit up as the found a greycovered figure. "Parmida!" he croaked out, voice not carrying very far. Shuffling forward when she didn't hear the first time, he tried again. This time he voice was loud enough to be heard across the distance.

((Note, Tali now has several odd tatoo's on his body. His teacher believes that these help channel the mystic energies that they use to control water. Tali thinks it's a load of bs but they do seem to glow whenever he's using his element. What this means is that his teacher is imprinting on Tali how it should work. Since Tali's mind is believing this (not necessarily him yet) his powers are shaping themselves to fit his expectations. If that makes sense.))

Selma hadn't realized how much energy it took to keep a tree moving as a means of transportation, and she half wondered if it would have been less exhausting to walk. Of course she had practiced giving the tree energy in her lessons with her teacher, mainly just so she would know how to do it, but she'd never gone this long before.

Even with Noah's long "strides," the journey took most of the day, partly because of Selma needing to stop and rest for a little while. She had no idea if she was strong, weak, or average in her powers in terms of how long she could go without resting and how much she needed to use in order to get the tree to move. This was mainly because she had no one to really compare them against. There was her teacher, but that didn't really count, there were no other students, and the "community" of Earth Elementals seemed to keep largely to themselves, prefering the company of the trees and plants to their human neighbors.

Finally, they reached the edge of the forest, where Selma had been picked up and carried away only a few months before. She had Noah stop just inside, so that no one would see her means of arrival, as her teacher had been descreet about it before. Selma didn't know if perhaps there was a specific reason for this or not and she didn't want to betray a secret that was possibly being kept.

Exhausted, Selma stepped to the edge of the treeline and stood in the shadows, letting her gaze fall on the building of the waystation that was relatively nearby. It was at this moment she heard someone call "Parmida!" followed quickly by another voice that echoed the girl's name. Tali! Selma smiled at the sound of his voice. He was here! Unconciously, she placed a hand on her stomach, feeling the slight bump that was noticable only to her at this point, before taking her first steps toward the group.

Taliesin smiled wearily at the rest of the group before trying to answer Parmida's question. "Vincent.. He dissapeared. We've got to find him," the young man explained. He wavered a bit on his feet.

"Who..who's going to come with me?" He gestured in the direction of the Air territory.

Selma reached to take Tali's hand, with a small smile, in a way of giving him an answer to his question. Of course she would go with him! Just then, Manelin spoke up, appearing seemingly from nowhere, volunteering to join in on the trip. At seeing him, Selma's face paled a bit, and she gripped Tali's hand tighter, not quite sure how to react to Manelin's presence, as she hadn't seen him since the "incident."

Niki was soon herded up with her old agemates, sighing. She glanced over at Tali (since when had he gotten all those tattoos??). "You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. We need to rest, first..."

Turning as she heard someone volunteer (about to chew them out as well), she spotted a somewhat familiar face. "Manelin? You've grown..."

Sighing, Niki then added. "I circled around over some areas on my way here, but there's so many places he could be hiding. We need to go by foot, but that's going to take quite some time and energy...."

Selma saw Tali wavering, and despite her own exhausted state, she reached to support him. "Tali, we'll be no good to Vincent if we're tired to the point of falling over, ourselves. He needs well rested people to look for him, to give him the best shot," she said softly.

Niki nodded in agreement with Selma, then looked at Parmida and Manelin. It was true that those two were the only ones rested, but there was no point in the group splitting up. Otherwise, they'd just be searching some areas twice. Which would be a waste of energy.

"Tali, we'll rest and get started in the morning, okay? We all need a good night's sleep first. Perhaps, while we three rest, Parmida and Manelin here can get us some supplies and things packed so we'll be ready to go at dawn..?" The last statement was turned into a sort of question as the girl looked at the two for a confirmation.