Sons (Book 2) by Scott V. Duff Page B

around us clearly.  And I had a very hard time believing these trees and that stream were only a few days old.  That tree in front of me had to be seventy feet tall.  And that stream had a slimy bottom, an algae coating that doesn’t grow in a day’s time.
    Of course I’m also confronted with other sights, like the constant flow of ambient energy between the trees.  It seemed to hover like a fog between the bushes about twenty feet deeper in, but everywhere else there was a light blue magic wafting like a breeze.  Everything about this pale blue said “It’s a new day!” and it said  “I am two days old” and I said “Mine!”
    Shaking myself out of eerily possessive feeling over the forest I was having, I asked, “Shrank, what are those over there?”
    “The Esteleum field, sir?” he asked, flying over my shoulder and following my arm out.  Turning lazily over the shrubs, he looked for anything out of the ordinary that I could have been asking about.
    “Is that what the bushes are?” I called in question, walking closer with Ethan in tow.  Shrank wasn’t affecting the fog around the shrubs at all, I noticed, so it didn’t appear to be in the air.  As Ethan and I pushed into the bushes, it was more obvious what the bushes were as the fruit was hanging from the branches in various states of ripeness.
    “They’re already bearing fruit!  So soon?” I exclaimed.
    “Yes, Lord,” Shrank piped, shooting down below the fog.  “This one is ripe, even.  All of the fruit-bearing trees and shrubs have some yield right now with more coming on the vine.  The Fae are waiting for the Great Claiming to begin winter preparations.”
    “’Great Claiming’?” Ethan asked suspiciously.
    “Yes, Master Ethan,” Shrank squealed, flying back up to eye level.  “The Survivors have taken to a few traditions already.  Firstly, they are the Survivors and their offspring are the First Born.  The second geas will be known as the Great Claiming and has a greater significance to them, even though the first was their Salvation.”
    “Why a greater significance, Shrank?” I asked as the fog did react to me as I pushed in between the bushes to where Shrank hovered.  The energy repelled from me as I reached through it, clearing away from my hand and arm as I reached.  Plucking the fruit free from the vine, I dredged my free hand through the top of the fog to a different effect.  This time, the energy followed my fingertips as if it was smoke in the air.
    “The Fae feel that with the second geas, you are confirming to them and to the universe that you actually want them instead of simply saving them out of some odd sense of human obligation,” Shrank explained.
    “That’s just… sweet,” Ethan said, smiling, but the shadowy back half of his aura was metaphorically rolling on the ground laughing, its feet in the air racked with outbursts of kicking.
    “Yes, it is,” I said archly, glaring at him.  Shaking my head, I went back to the fruit in my hand and the energy clouds around my thighs.  Shrank called this an Esteleum fruit, but it differed from the previous ones I’d seen.  It was a little larger, by about a quarter, and a golden greenish color, not purple at all.  “Shrank, why is it a different color than the ones from the Arena?”
    “There are several fruit, as well as trees and other plants, that are of different varieties here than the previous realms I am familiar with, Lord,” Shrank said.  “I had assumed that the slight difference in color of the Esteleum was due to that.”
    “I wouldn’t call this a slight difference in color,” I muttered.
    “Oh, Esteleum is naturally a darker green on the vine in the Summer lands,” piped Shrank, searching the bushes for more fruit.  “So were his.  Yours is the first variant I’ve heard of and it tastes much better, too!”
    I looked at the fuzzy golden fruit, searching down through the skin and into the meat and pulp.  Shrank was right,