She spins around to see her mother standing at the edge of the ring of trees, Laira crouched beside her, muscles tense and her eyes wide in fear. What is scaring Laira so much?

"How'd you know where I was?"

Her mother smiles softly. "I have the gift of spirit. It showed me that you were leaving the palace, but it also showed me that leaving would be beneficial for you. I only followed you because you don't know the dangers of our forests. However, now I see that you already have someone to protect you from them." She nods at Laira, who refuses to leave the trees and come to Jīvitaya by the well when she beckons.

"Why won't Laira come closer?"

"She can sense the wrongness of this place. You can too, but you went towards it instead of away from it. Why?"

"I was looking for something to heal."

Her mother looks at her, confused. "Heal?"

Jīvitaya explains. "On Gaia, they taught me how to use the power of nature, so to speak, to heal the balance in the world. I've corrected the flow of rivers, returned nutrients to where they belong, and more. It calms me to heal."

"That's not how the power of nature is used here." When Jīvitaya shrinks away from her mother at that statement, her mother's face grows concerned. "Don't worry, you using it differently isn't a bad thing, it's fascinating. That power has never been used that way before. In fact, none of them have, not really." Jīvitaya relaxes, and her mother continues on speaking. "What frightened you so about what I said?" Jīvitaya doesn't speak, and her mother approaches her cautiously, her hands uptilted in a beseeching gesture. "Please tell me."

Jīvitaya shakes her head and whispers numbly. "No, I can't talk about it yet. But I can show you."

Her mother leads her away from the well and back towards the tree line before sitting down in the air a couple of inches off the ground. Jīvitaya sits on the forest floor in front of her, and her mother places her hands on each side of Jīvitaya's head. Jīvitaya thinks of the encounter with Grania and the scene flickers to life behind her where her mother can see it. Laira hisses at the image and as the scene plays out, Jīvitaya's mother gasps. When the memory ends and Jīvitaya opens her eyes to look up at her mother, she is surprised to see her crying. After a moment, her mother embraces her.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you."

"You couldn't have done anything about it."

"It doesn't mean I can't feel bad about it. So that's how you met Laira? She saved you?"

"Yes." Jīvitaya changes the subject. "What exactly happened here?"

Jīvitaya's mother sighs, and Jīvitaya sees a flicker of dark light around the edges of her body. "There was a girl that was accused of committing a crime, and when our guards went to arrest her, she ran. She came here and fell into the well, and died. We later learned that she was innocent."

"That's so sad. How long ago was it?"

"One-hundred and thirteen Earth years."

Jīvitaya senses that her mother doesn't want to keep talking about the girl and the well, so she changes the subject again.

"Why was I on Earth?"

"We don't know. We thought your egg had failed."

"What?"

Her mother senses her confusion. "You don't know what that means, do you?" Jīvitaya shakes her head. "Our people are hatched from eggs. Once each egg is matured, the parents can choose to hatch it. If the hatching succeeds, it will hatch and they will have a new baby. If it fails, the egg will break and the child is lost."

"So my egg broke? That doesn't explain why I was on Earth."

Her mother shakes her head. "No. When we tried to hatch your egg, it, and you, disappeared into thin air. Because of that, and because we couldn't find you, we thought the hatching must have failed. But apparently we were wrong. You egg must have somehow teleported to Earth and hatched with you there."

"But why Earth?"

"I don't know. Will you tell me what life was like for you there?"

"Yes, but I don't remember most of it."

"Why not? You've been alive for over a hundred years now."

"Technically, that's true, but I was in cryostasis for about one hundred of those years, aging five years in that time. Thus, my body and mind are both only sixteen years old."

Her mother rocks back in her sitting position, startled. "Was that in one of your memories that you shared?"

"Entering cryostasis? Yes."

"Why were you in cryostasis for so long?"

"Kys' people invaded Earth, and my adoptive parents put me under to protect me."

Her mother tilts her head up to look into the sky and whispers something inaudible.

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What do you think Jīvitaya's mother said? What do you think of the well story?

~Goddess of Fate, signing out!