Bravest

Sleeping Sunroses

Spinney, the eldest leshy in Devon's Clearing, woke up for morning drills. He fancied himself a warrior ever since the day he protected the clearing from 'The Giant Spider'. That kill is where he ultimately got his name. Before that day, he was grown by the ifrit druidess Devon to be a helper in her garden. Born from a spell taught to the druidess by the lady of the Daycalm Forest, the dryad, Alyea. He was helpful and even taught more leshies after he gave up his gardening duties. But since he was a warrior, he felt it imperative that the other leshies also know how to defend the clearing. Should the spiders return...

Now, leshies were small creatures made of material from nature; cute, curious, anthropomorphic little plant people. The primary type of leshy that populated the clearing were 'leaf' leshies because they were easiest to grow. Spinney was one of that kind, as was his 'sister' and second eldest, Lark. His youngest 'brother' Pepo, however, was a gourd leshie--like Spinney but with a jack o' lantern for a head. And Pepo, like all the other leshies that were made after him idolized Spinney the Spider Slayer. Spinney found that getting the other leshies to admire him was much easier than getting them into fighting shape. Today, like every other day before it, he was going to try anyway.

Up with the sun, donning his cute armor and spear, he went to the garden where all the other leshies were playing. Pepo was up as early as him, a cute sword much too big for the gourd strapped to his back. He begged to help and Spinney graciously allowed it. Spinney stood on the tallest object in the garden, which turned out to be a watering can, and commanded the attention of every leshy on 'the field'. Much in the same way a general would to his troops! He had their attention, however fickle that was, and got straight to demonstrations before he lost that attention to something more interesting. A bird or bug, perhaps?

Using Pepo as a partner in his demonstration, Spinney tried to show the other leshies how to 'dodge big attacks'. Unfortunately Pepo wasn't very graceful and went all out. The demonstration turned quickly into Spinney backpedaling real swings from an overenthusiastic Pepo. A commanding, "I think it's time to stop!" from Spinney is what mercifully ended their 'demonstration'. Spinney turned to the assembled leshies waiting with wide eyed cuteness for the next lesson and told them, "Uh, okay. Practice that!" And they did... It was as chaotic as one could imagine. Such was the rigmarole that Spinney heard Lark giggling over it from wherever she was perched. Likely out of any range to participate in violence. That just wasn't her thing.

Spinney turned to Pepo and gave him a heaping bunch of orders the dim gourd nodded to but didn't really understand. Giving Pepo too much to do was the best way to assure that nothing got done at all. Spinney sighed, simplifying his order, "Watch over the trainees, okay?" The gourd nodded and Spinney left the 'training grounds' to wake up Devon.

The little leshy precariously rode the breeze as high as he could then climbed the rest of the way into Devon's tree house. The ifrit druidess always overslept and waking her was the only job Spinney kept from his helper days. As he scampered over toward her sleeping form, he noticed one of her storage boxes was ajar. So he peeked inside. What he found was a dead rose. So dead looking, in fact, that all the color had run from her pretty petals. When he tried to retrieve it, he gasped at how cold to the touch it felt and jerked away. He couldn't describe the touch, only that it felt cold and unnatural. But with great fortitude, he fought off the urge to drop it again and brought it out of the box. The rose was barely alive. Good thing he was fluent in plant-speak. She asked for the sun and he brought her immediately to the sunny balcony. Once in the sun, Spinney questioned where the rose came from and who brought her here. She could barely answer, only slowly die.

Seeing the commotion from her vantage point, Lark floated over to join him. He had Lark use her singing to put the rose at ease and went back in to wake Devon. He knew she had the power to bring dying plants back to life. It was the first thing he begged her to do the second she groggily awoke. A fellow enthusiastic lover of nature, Devon assessed the rose's situation and had Spinney bring the poor thing to her garden where she could anchor new roots.