Welcome to Gaia! ::

Dryxel woke up blood pumping and heart racing. On his feet ready for acktion, Dryxel searched his surroundings for whatever hunted his dream. The more awake he never the hard it was for him to remember what it was that woke him in the first place. Taking a big and full deep breath in and back out both cleared his dreamy mind and slowed his heart.

It was still night, the moon had just reached the middle of the night sky. The air was cool but the the morning due hadn't started to form so Dryxel knew he hadn't been asleep long. Shaking his mane his circled his den bed a couple of times and laid back down again.

It was not long though before a whisper wind called to him. "Drrrryxellll....Drrrryxellll....come to the Grrrrandfatherrrr Trrrree." Dryxel's heart began to race again and his blood was filled with adrenalin. "The Grandfather Tree is calling. It is time for your quest."

Dryxel set off at a dead run. He did not want to waste any time. He had been waiting for this moment since he was a foal and today was the day.

The sun was up by the time Dryxel reached the Grandfather Trees roots. It was bigger and more magnificent then he had ever dreamed. Not sure what to exprct, but not wanting to show disresect, Dryxel approached the Grandfather Tree slowly bowing as he walked. Once the root where in his veiw he stopped still and waited for whatever was to come.

[Wc:254]

Dryxel closed his eye and relaxed into the vision that was set upon him. When he opened his eyes an elderly doe noul sits at the center of a circle surrounded by young nouls like himself. "Tell me a story of your greatest accomplishment in order to earn one of my stones." she says to Dryxel. He looks around the circle at each nouls faces. He did recognize any of them and found comfort in their faces, just eyes starring at him in wait.

"My greatest accomplishment..." he starts and then stops to think on how to word it all. "... was the time I saved a family of helpless Jack hops in a flood that had struck the Homewood one stormy night." He was a noul of few word so that was all he said. To him that was enough said really.

"Yes Dryxel this is well known in the Homewood but can you recant the tail for us all."The elderly noul pressed him to elaborate. This gave Dryxel pause, he was not one to boast about kindness or heroic acts. To him those action did not feel right but the noul wished to hear the tail."Maybe to use to teach others how to save those during a storm." he though to himself which also helped him feel more comfortable with sharing the tale.

"It started out like most nights, I guess. I made my nest and settled in. Sometime in the night big dark clouds rolled in." Dryxel paused to think of the night. "Then the rain came. Slow at first and then much more angryly." "Angryly is that even a word." He thought to himself with a mental eye roll. "With the rain came the thunder and lightning, which struck a tree branch and it fell to the ground." The next part was harder to explain in detail because it was all instincts and adrenalin. The river not to far off had a beaver dam that gave way to the rain water. "You see the branch blocked the Jack Hops den hole and the waters were flooding in. I just acted there was no time to think just do." Dryxel saved all the Jack Hops in the burrow under the tree that night. The next day every Jack hop in Homewood seemed to know the store, though he had told no one of it. When asked how he had done it or why, he simply answered it is what anynoul would have done.

Dryxel's stood and waited for the elder noul does response but none came. She simply smiled and nodded then turned her attention to the next noul. With that the vision faded back into reality. Standing before the Grandfather Tree again, Dryxel awaited the Grandfather Tree.

Wc:460