Jia Li Adlar felt restless. She couldn’t sleep, and she didn’t know why. There was nothing profound about her restlessness. She didn’t have sixth sense or any of that sort of thing. She had probably just had too much caffeine before bed. She wasn’t a coffee person, but tea had plenty of caffeine, and she’d had several cups of it while she was finishing her homework from her class on Friday.
It was now Sunday, and she wouldn’t have any classes on Monday, so it wasn’t extremely terrible that she couldn’t sleep. She simply would have preferred to have been able to sleep. Jia reached with her being to her tree. It didn’t sleep like she did. It’s only time of real rest was during the winter when it hibernated to keep the cold from destroying it. It was always awake this time of year, and it was waiting for the rain.
Her tree wasn’t anywhere near the campus. She could just feel it no matter where she was. The distance simply guided how strongly she could feel it. Of course, no matter where she was, if her tree was damaged, she would be just as damaged.
Her long fingers moved over the burn scar along her leg. The skin was bumpy with the hills and plains of the twisted, ugly flesh. No matter how much cocoa butter she massaged into it, it would never go away. It was stuck with her for life, and she wasn’t happy with it. It made her feel less attractive, and for someone who loved beautiful things, it was depressing.
Hiding it was so tedious. Only a select few people had ever seen it because she had become so good at it, but it made her feel a little sad. She wasn’t trusting like she was in the past. She hid a lot of things about herself from a lot of people. Jia always had the fear that if she revealed all of herself to someone else, they would betray her. The scar on her leg was proof enough to her that people couldn’t be trusted.
Jia groaned. Thinking about things like these wasn’t going to help her sleep. She felt as if she wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours. She threw back her blanket and looked at the clock. It was an hour before midnight. She may as well do something productive.
Throwing on a long sleeved, button-up shirt and a wispy peasant skirt and flats, she quietly opened the door to her room. The door didn’t squeak, and the carpeted floor kept her graceful steps silent. Her eyes peered toward Alissa’s door, and she listened carefully. There wasn’t a sound to be heard. That either meant the elf was sleeping soundly or that she wasn’t in the dorm at all. Either way, it didn’t matter. The dryad was quiet as she crept from her bedroom, through the living room, and out the door into the hallway.
Once in the hallway, she didn’t have to worry about being quiet. She just hadn’t wanted to awaken Alissa or to have the elf-femme asking questions about her whereabouts. It wasn’t that she required secrecy; Jia was simply a dryad on a mission, and she didn’t want anything slowing her.
She leapt from tree to tree until she found a place that offered her solitude. Trees surrounded her in this park, and because it was so late, there wasn’t anyone near to disturb her.
The stars weren’t visible through the cloud coverage. It was going to rain again. The question simply was, when would it start? The rain wouldn’t stop her. In fact, it would be welcome. She just wanted to purge her body of the pent-up energy and to keep her mind from working through unpleasant thoughts as it was wont to do.