Early Morning Beauty (open)

Of course, of all the times to get sick, it would happen to poor Tahlia in the beginning of the semester when missing classes could determine your place academically in the class for the rest of the semester. Not that she would miss class anyway even if she was puking her guts out, but still. It was not a happy time for the determined university student. Hence the reason she was scouting the forest for mandrake root. Of course, Charms N Thangs was shut down for a few days because of her and Paul’s horrible run in with a very large and angry troll. And because of this, her key was taken away for as long as the shop owner believed was necessary. Which meant, no buying herbs for her own medicinal purposes.

All she needed were two mandrake roots, which you would probably think would be easy to find with a ton of acres of forest. Wrong! The forest was far too big, and she found herself becoming a bit lost in her attempts at finding the damn root. She had started out on the path that ran through the forest, but now she was somewhere completely different. And still, there was no root to be found. She was sick of sucking up the snot that had been dripping from her nose every single time she bent down to search the forest floor. At this moment, she just wanted to go home. If she felt up to par, she could probably pull off a locater spell of sorts, but a witch’s immune system affected their performance greatly and right now, she felt like a lot of shit. Who knew if she would even feel okay enough to perform the spell that would make her feel better. She would probably have to ask Bobby or Maxi to help her out. That was if she could find the root.

Tahlia sighed as she plopped down against a tree pulling her cellphone out to try and get a hold of Maxi. She chuckled as she stared at the screen of her phone that had no service bars. ”This would happen to me wouldn’t it?” She asked herself shaking her head. Just then, she heard a voice from somewhere behind her. She immediately stood up and headed for the voice. ”This is so not beautiful,” she mumbled responding to the male voice’s comment. Normally, she would have agreed with him, but not right now. Not when she had been searching through these woods for probably a little over an hour.

Tahlia found the guy rather quickly and came out from the woods behind him. ”YES!” she yelled a happy grin forming on her face. The guy’s voice had led her back to the path. Maybe the best thing was to just go home and rest. Screw the mandrake root.

”Yay, I’m here. Thank the goddess!” Tahlia said as she sniffled walking around to face the guy that she obviously just startled the crap out of. ”Sorry about that. I’ve been looking for this freakin’ trail for what seems like forever. Got a bit lost in there.” If it was up to her, she would have started looking for the root a bit later in the day. But her class started at 10:00am. A class that she was going to be given a quiz on the reading from Tuesday. If she failed it because she was too sick to function, she would never forgive herself. The beginning of the semester meant the start of really good first impressions. How would bombing a quiz this early on look to a professor like Dr. Steinbeck? Not so good. She needed that mandrake root as soon as possible, so she could get the spell together in time for class. And if that meant waking up at the earliest time imaginable, so be it.

She watched the guy in front of her. He stood drenched in sweat from the run that he had clearly been taking part in. It was kind of awkward. She kind of felt weird seeing him like this. Like it was something personal that she wasn’t at all supposed to witness. She could feel her cheeks getting red. ”Wow, you are all…..um…..sweaty aren’t you?” She cleared her throat and decided to take her eyes off of him and look at the path to make things a bit less uncomfortable. There was only two ways to go really. Right or left. If she could head back up to the harbor which was the way she had come to begin with, she was sure that she’d run into some mandrake root along the way. ”Um, yeah, so can you point me in the direction of the harbor please?” She asked the guy glancing up at him once more.

Tahlia wasn’t sure if he meant that he ran from time to time or took breaks from time to time, so she just nodded politely at his comment. He sounded like he felt just about as awkward as Tahlia did when it came to talking to people. She couldn’t understand how anyone could run as hard as he seemed to have been doing before she interrupted him. She hated running. In fact, if she had to run for her life from some crazed demonic force, she was pretty sure she’d be dead before she could even get a head start. She loved her exercising when it came to a few sit ups, maybe some crunches, even some light Pilates and WALKING on a treadmill, but running was just way too much exhaustion for her to deal with.

Tahlia listened as he attempted to give her directions. When he told her that she just had to go right, she glanced ‘his’ right, but then he changed his directions and told her to go ‘her’ right. Then he changed yet again and pointed in a direction that wasn’t where he had mentioned before. Hmmm, was taking his directions even a good idea? Tahlia was starting to doubt this sweaty man.

Tahlia glanced in all three directions that he had motioned to. She felt like she was just as confused now as she had been before. But even though she was not sure if following his directions was the best thing to do, she had to somehow get out of this forest. Picking a route was probably the only thing she could do right now. When he questioned her walking back on her own, she was extremely thankful for his concern. In all honesty, she really didn’t want to walk all the way back by herself. If she were to get lost, it was always better to be lost with someone else than just by yourself. ”Well, I’m not the best at directions. I’ll probably end up walking off somewhere randomly.” She laughed sheepishly. She didn’t want to be an inconvenience though. He was only taking a break, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to run with him. HA! Like that would happen. She cleared her throat and glanced over at him again shaking her head. ”You know what, its fine. I’m sure I’ll be okay getting out of here.” She smiled as she hesitantly turned towards the last direction he had pointed to.

Tahlia had been hoping that maybe the guy would disregard her decline for help and assist her anyway, but instead he wished her luck and hoped she’d find her way. That was not going to happen. She knew she was going to get lost the minute she started walking down the trail on her own. But she didn’t want to bother him. He seemed so in tune with the beauty of the forest which was understandable. The God of Fertility made her parts of the world so serene….when you weren’t completely lost in them of course.

Tahlia could hear the sound of footsteps running towards her from behind, and was thrilled to see that the stranger had possibly changed his mind. She had gladly turned towards him when he called for her, although the ‘miss’ was a bit strange. Even though he was trying to be polite, and it was so working actually, it made her feel old. She hadn’t even been called miss by the high school students she tutored. Because of this, she couldn’t help but smile. But it took him a few seconds to actually do anything once he had her attention. He finally extended his hand and introduced himself as Roden Parson. Tahlia pushed her long red hair behind her ear and reached for his hand shaking it. ”I’m Tahlia Morrison, but you can call me Lia if you like.” It was nice that he had come back. Clearly he had either felt bad for her, or he genuinely couldn’t leave without introducing himself. Either way, she wasn’t going to hold her tongue this time. She needed to get out of this forest. ”Okay, so the thing is I probably won’t be okay getting out of here. Would you mind….um….maybe walking with me?” She asked shyly, but it sounded more like a desperate plead.

Tahlia smiled at his compliment. ”Thank you,” she said as she glanced off into the woods to hide her own reddening cheeks. Was it really possible for her to get even more awkward with people? Apparently it was. His uneasiness was making her feel extremely uneasy. It wasn’t until she heard a small laugh escape his lips did she glance back at him. Was he laughing at her because she couldn’t find her way out of the forest on her own? It was actually, if he knew the extent of how ridiculous it sounded. A witch….lost in the woods. Tahlia was irritated at herself just thinking about it. ”That would be great,” Tahlia answered as he said that he probably should help her out since she obviously couldn’t do it.

Roden turned to guide her along the path which supposedly led to the harbor where she wanted to go. Tahlia was okay with silence….if it wasn’t awkward. But with two awkward people, the silence was bound to be….well….awkward. Roden spoke up though rather quickly which Tahlia would have been thankful for….if he had asked her something other than if she liked trees. Tahlia scrunched her nose and glanced at him with a smile. ”Are you really asking me if I like trees right now?” Tahlia giggled at how funny this whole situation was. Normally anyone she hung out with would walk all over her in a heartbeat because their personality would constantly overpower hers. But Roden was at her level which meant that neither was overpowering the other. Instead, it was just one big mess of stutters, blushes, goofy comments, awkward questions, and nonsense. Clearly they were both hopeless anti-socials who had no clue how to function around people in society.

When Roden tried to justify his question, Tahlia found that it made sense why he had asked. From his perspective, she obviously had to like something if she was coming out here this early. She nodded with a smile. ”Yes, I love trees. Mother nature is amazing. She showers the forests with beauty really….especially in the morning.” Tahlia was being truthful. Even though the trees were not the reason for her coming out into the woods this early in the morning, she still found them nice to look at. ”So, what about you, mister Parson. Is this a daily thing?” she asked glancing at the sweat that was leaking through his shirt.