Plant Restoration 101 #amwriting

'Relax, let your mind be open to the world around you. Find the root, breath it in, feel the pulse'. Instructor Lain was gently encouraging the class, helping them to find the Channel that belonged to the sad looking Winterberry tree on the low clay table in the middle of the room. 

      Olwyn had seen the droop of it as she had trailed through the mounds of pillows and low padded benches used to help students achieve the meditative state required to communicate with plants. She had found her usual spot towards the back of the room, and quickly settled into a comfortable position, long limbs stretched and fingertips softly skimming the floor.

      Having started a year late, and arrived three months into the current term, she still felt like she was playing catch up, but her entry test had shown her natural talent in Plant Whispering to be strong enough that she could go straight in to the age-appropriate year group. Olwyn fervently wished that she had been allowed to sit the first year.  She worried constantly that her fellow class mates either thought she was a know-it-all for missing the foundation level theory work that they had all been required to plough through - or that she was a dimwit for not knowing half of the basics of Whispering and couldn't remember the Names needed to address each plant when seeking an audience with them.

      Shaking the thought clear, Olwyn's long dark ponytail sent out creepers across the cushion below her as she concentrated, relaxing into position, letting the tension drain out of her muscles and into the plush fabric. She let her breathing slow, her eyes drooping, peering out through her dark lashes to see the world in between the light and dark. She could see them now, just on the edge of her vision, like tendrils reaching across the room to find a new place to root. These were the Spirit Channels of the plants in the room. Here was the Aemane, with its velvety black branches and lurid purple tips, its spirit was winding high and proud, tickling the tops of the other students' heads, ready to cure any headaches or nausea. 

      Pale-leaved and putrid, the deadly Sliyebore was there too, treacling low across the ground, slug-like, creeping over feet. Olwyn noticed distractedly that it seemed to be pooling around one of her class mates, bubbling, molten, spitting and made a mental note to gently remind the girl that Sliyebore was a well-known abortive.

      Once again, trying to focus on the task at hand, Olwyn found the dimmed Spirit of the Winterberry. It looked wheezy, rasping, stretched too thin. She was supposed to make a grand announcement of herself, bestowing honours and platitudes on the plant for receiving her. She couldn't remember the words. She couldn't understand why the Instructors insisted on such formality. She had never bothered with any of it at home, and her Whispers had usually been heard. 

      'Um, hi, my name is Olwyn. You look really poorly. I'd like to help you, if you will allow my presence?' Her voice, a thought carried as a Whisper along the Channel, found its mark. The exhausted plant confirmed it was dying. There was a parasite borrowed deep into one of its roots, starving it of water and nutrients. Olwyn promised to help her Instructor to find the parasite if the Winterberry could permit her entry and show her where the bug was lodged. 

      Acceptance. Permission. 

      Olwyn inhaled slowly and deeply, filling her body with the Spirit of the plant, allowing it to rest in her blood stream, to find shelter in her lungs and take strength and courage from her. Once the Spirit was calm within her, Olwyn breathed out, sending her own essence back along the path, touching the leaves, the flowers, the stem, gently embracing the plant until she was part of it. 

      She fought back the urge to panic as she once again felt the suffocating restriction she had experienced when she first entered the room. Drawing on strength from her dormant body, Olwyn reached out, sending energy and life throughout the plant, nourishing the leaves, working down past nodes, Whispering encouragement as she passed, down through the stem and into the primary root. 

      There. She could see the intruder, grown fat on the Winterberry's reserves. An ugly pulsating mess of translucent tubes and a gaping hole of a mouth, gulping down the rich nutrients as quickly as the Winterberry's lateral roots could draw them in. She felt a wave of nausea at the stench of rot surrounding the little beast.

      Gathering all of her focus now, Olwyn began working with the plant, Whispering, pulling together the fibres and sinews of the roots, bunching them, building a solid base. 
      Breath in; collect. Breath out; consolidate. Repeat. 
      A dozen breaths later and Olwyn had helped the plant to create a solid, coiled fist, and now, on the final out breath, they were ready. 'OK?' Olwyn checked. 
      Confirmation.

      As Olwyn and the plant released, the knot which they had been building was unleashed. An explosion of force expelled the parasite back out through the wall of the root, sealing the wound behind it and Olwyn was caught in a flood. Lifted violently in the rush, back up along the stem, past nodes and flowers, Olywn burst out of the terminal bud and was thrown across the room, slamming back into her own consciousness so hard her gums bled. 

      She felt as though someone had driven a hot poker through her temple. Rolling off the cushions to find the cold red tiles of the floor, she pressed her face against them, letting out a gurgled, exhausted groan. She was just aware of a 'thank you' in the air and a swarm of anxious faces hovering over her before she let the dark comfort of unconsciousness take her.