Twisting a tentacle through the water, the creature snagged Saul by his leg. Barely able to gasp a breath of air on surfacing, the boy was drawn deeper into the water. As the air flowed out of him, panicked, he even dropped his sword, though the unwieldy nature of the weapon would have afforded him little help against the squid. More tentacles stretched forth, groping him, strangling him, immobilizing him beneath the murky waters. Saul was only half aware of what creature gripped him, seeing brown, slick skin with patchy green spots and lines, shifting ever so slightly as the beast coasted along the bottom of the marsh. He happened to glance to the side, noticing the treasure he had waded in for: A bent old fishing hook. The way the thin, frayed fishing line fluttered in the current brought up by the squid suggested a fish that had been too big for the line that held it. As he slipped into unconsciousness, it seemed very unfair that he had been caught for so ordinary a find.
A pair of eyes watching from the shore held the power that tipped the balance of Saul's fate that day. Lithe steps brought her to the water and then deeper into the muck. She had stepped out of the tree, pushing out of it as if it were the same brown mud that squished under the water, and leaving the bark exactly as it had been. Swirling in her wake, the water itself seemed to push her body onward towards the one-sided struggle that was almost at an end. Reaching out, he put one hand upon the squid's body, pushing it away with a forceful, yet graceful motion. Around the boy's waist she wrapped her other arm, pulling him free of the tentacles, each dropping off lazily as the squid seemed to drift off in a daze. Retracing her steps she dragged Saul back to the shore before letting him slump back on his back. He had swallowed water, and she had to pause and think, head cocked to the side. Kneeling with a hand on his chest, she made a pulling motion up towards his mouth and a stream of water splashed out his nose and half-open mouth. Again she paused, but as his coughing started she smiled and stood. By the time he had a chance to look up, her light, white and grey mottled skin was disappearing back into the tree, and soon followed by the bright green hair that reached halfway down her back.
There weren't supposed to be dryads out this far was all he could think as he recovered from his ordeal. Those were only memories or from stories of those adventurous enough to go all the way to the deep marshes. "Um, well, I don't quite know how I should go about thankin' a tree, err, dryad, but, uh, thanks." He took a breath, waiting for something, but nothing responded but his rumbling stomach. Blushing, he glanced back up at the sun, sinking lower towards the horizon. With a bow toward the tree, he ran off back towards the town, sticking to the shallowest water he could. His mother made him wash off for an hour, so his dinner was cold by the time he got to eat it.
Saul's friends didn't believe him, of course. Tall tales like that are almost always the overactive imagination of little boys, a bit of knowledge that even kids learn early on. He was wise enough to know his parents would think he was lying to cover up for the mess he made when he got back that day, so he didn't talk about it. He only asked his teacher, Ms. Calthern what you'd do to thank a dryad, like in the stories that parents tell of brave warriors and grand quests. She thought for a moment, then said that most things weren't fit for a little boy's ears, but there was a tradition in the capitol of taking a seed from the dryad's tree and planting it in an honorary place. Saul thought about this for a few days before he finally asked his parents for a garden, and it was a weeks worth of badgering before they would let him start one. It would be in the back, resting against the wall of the house and facing north with a good area of sun for it to sit in.
By the time he got time and friends enough to venture back out into the marsh it was nearly the end of the Holy month. They made their way out to the tree, his friends laughing and joking and making the occasional jab at his story. The tree wasn't quite in season to bloom, but Saul wanted to tell the dryad about the garden he was going to start, and ask for a seed once it came around to be fall. As trees do, Saul was met with silence. Silence until the friends he had brought with him started giggling behind him. It was a nice day. "I'll come back in the fall." his smile twitching upwards as his eyebrows did the same in the center. His friends were already heading back out, talking of the festival that would happen at the end of the summer. A noise from the other side of the tree, a branch hitting the ground he thought. Racing around the tree, he found the wooden sword that he had forgotten, and stuck in a crack in the wood was a seed.
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