Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Foundling ❯ Treeshaper...Ouch! ( Chapter 5 )

It was Reed's turn to cubsit that afternoon. The new one, Littleleaf, had been with them for nearly four hands of days now. He wasn't nearly as small as they had all first thought and, in days, the child had been crawling, seeking out the more sun-filled spots about the holt and sitting for hours on end, soaking up the light like a flower held in the darkness too long soaked up the sunlight upon first being set back into it's glow.

Reed wondered about that. With his green skin, needing only water and love of sunlight, he thought that the name Yellowthorn had given him did, indeed, fit. Probably too well.

He lay back in the tall grass and closed his brown eyes, his russet coloured hair falling in lank strands across his forehead and down his shoulders as he dozed off. The wolves were nearby, they would let him know if any of the cubs got into trouble or wandered off. Absently, his hands held a broken stick he had found. In his sleep he used his treeshaper's magic to grow new leaves and odd shapes out of the little twig.

Littleleaf crawled over. He'd long lost the interest of the other children, who at first thought of him as odd and something to be stared at.at times poked with a stick if no elder was watching. After a bit the cubs found other things to do and he was left alone again. Which was thankful. He was still very small, much smaller than any of them, and he did not much care for being poked anyway, even if the marks they made were soon to heal over and disapear.

He knew this one, this big one was one of the nice ones. He always seemed to feel.stronger somewhat in his presence, he did not understand why. All he knew what that he liked this one. Littleleaf curled up next to the plantshaper and watched the twig grow and twist and turn within the sleeping elf's hands. Without thinking, for indeed, what very young child has any ability to logic? Littleleaf reached out and took ahold of that nearly glowing bit of stick.

And cried out in pain. Reed's eyes flew open and he gasped at what he saw. Littleleaf sat there, his fingers were in his mouth and he was sucking them loudly. A look of pain and surprise written across his small, pudgy green face. Reed carefully coaxed the little hand out of the mouth and with a quick intake of breath, saw the unthinkable. There, just below the nail of his forefinger.a small leaf had been starting to unfurl. The cub chewed it off his finger, spat it out and continued to cry.

Reed looked at the stick he held, and knew his magic had been shaping it, as he often did while he slept, it helped to relax him. But, this.this using his magic on people.on non-plants.this was something new.something new and not altogether pleasant.

Wait! He stopped himself. Non-plants? Why didn't he think it before? Of all the fuddleheaded.A slow grin spread across his face as realization struck home at last. He picked up Littleleaf and, making certain the others were still playing safe around the protective wolves, hurried off to share his findings with Yellowthorn.

"What do you mean he's a plant?!" Yellowthorn cried, her brows coming down suddenly over darkened eyes, "He's a baby! Anyone can see that, you fluff- headed."

"No, no, Yellowthorn!" Reed was so excited that he got the child wailing once more, this time out of fear rather than pain, "Listen to me, you don't understand."

After he had explained what happened, Yellowthorn shook her head. This time, not with anger, but with bewhilderment. She looked at the child and said; "Will you never stop making my poor head spin, little one?"

"I guess now we know why he only takes to water and sunlight, huh?" Reed asked, smiling at the child, "And why he always seemed to like me."

"Hmph." Yellowthorn snickered, "I wouldn't be warming a spot beside me for awhile after that little insident, Reed. I don't think Littleleaf here wants to be 'shaped' again anytime soon!"

"But, it was only.I didn't really mean to.I mean." Reed sputtered, trying to apologize, "He shouldn't have touched the stick I was working on."

"You shouldn't have been asleep, lazy-bones." Yellowthorn countered, "Weren't you soppose to be watching the cubs?"

"Yes and I'm still." He stopped, gaped open mouthed for half-a-moment, "I have to go, Yellowthorn!"

Yellowthorn laughed as he scrambled out of the den and ran back to the children he had left, unattended save for the wolves and no doubt went about the job of counting heads to be certain they were all still there. Save for the one she now held, of course. Plant-cub or not.