Nassia dashed around the tree and scamper up the bark, panting as she went. The faun reached the
base of the trunk and grabbed the air, expecting Nassia the nymph to be there, waiting to be caught so they
could celebrate. He tripping over his own two hooves as he realized that there was no nymph in his arms,
the faun quickly regained his balance and spotted another nymph and began yet another chase.
Nassia exhaled, not even realizing that she had been holding her breath. The feelings came back,
feelings that there is something more to life than just running, kicking feet, and celebrating, not that those
weren't fun, quite the opposite in fact, but still, something was missing, if she could just remember what.
Nassia had always had these feelings, as far back as she could remember (which isn't very much,
considering she lived in the Faun and Nymph retreat); she had always been different from the other
nymphs, as far as she could tell none of them were even dissatisfied, none even began panting while been
chased, and NONE of them ever hid from an eager faun. Perplexed, Nassia climbed down the tree and
headed towards the bed where Snortimer lived, hoping that he would be good for some conversation
(another thing no nymph ever did, had an intelligent conversation).


Humfrey sat in his office, more of a closet really, and poured grumpily over his tome; he wasn't in
a bad mood, but he never poured over the Book of Answer any other way but grumpily. Currently, three
humans were struggling through the Challenges outside and one was on his way inside, led by Wira, his
wonderful daughter in-law.
"Humfrey, Ayla is here, she has a question for you," Wira said, leading a beautiful blonde woman
into the office.
Humfrey grunted, he knew this of course, he had the Book of Answers. Ayla coughed delicately,
reminding Humfrey that he needed to answer her question.
"Yeah, right, well, what is your question" Humfrey said, his eyes leaving the tome for the smallest
of moments.
"Where can I do the greatest good at this exact moment?" Ayla said timidly.
Humfrey pulled his eyes away from his book and looked closely at Ayla.
"What, why do you want to do that, I can give you an answer, but why," Humfrey asked, honestly
confused (he wasn't too up to date on polite manners, not having any himself)
Ayla shrugged.
"I just do, I don't know, I wanted to do something interesting and my talent, helping others, seems
to lend itself best to a Quest of this type," Ayla explained to the old gnome, who grunted in response.
"Fine, your service will be your answer: go to the Faun and Nymph Retreat and bring Nassia the
Dissatisfied Nymph to me, I will conjure you there, but you have to come back on your own."
Suddenly a poof of smoke filled the room and Ayla disappeared, leaving Humfrey there by
himself pouring over his tome, (his life isn't too interesting, reading the Book, getting bothered by
Querents, etc…)


Nassia fell off the bed; Ayla screamed. For two different reasons of course. Nassia fell off the
bed because a woman suddenly appeared sitting next to her; Ayla screamed because Snortimer, the monster
under the bed grabbed her ankle, as was to be expected, of course.
"Hello, I suppose you must be Nassia the Nymph, I'm Ayla and I'm here to take you to the Good
Magician Humfrey," Ayla said as she held out her hand to the frightened nymph. Nassia nodded and shook
Ayla's hand.
"Wh, wh, why are you here," Nassia asked, very confused.
"I have no idea, Humfrey told me this was where I could do the greatest good, so here I am"
"Why should I go with you, you could just be an demon"
"Hmm, your right, well, you are dissatisfied, so I guess you really can't do wrong coming with
me, if you are even more dissatisfied, I will take you back here," Ayla said thoughtfully.
"Okay, when do we leave," Nassia said, hopping off the bed and smacking the hairy hand that
reached out to grab her ankle, being the beautiful ankle that it was.
Ayla stood up, wondering why it had been so easy to convince Nassia to go with her, a complete
stranger. Then she remember that Nassia was a nymph, and even if she was a special nymph somehow, she
was still a nymph, with a shallower mind than humans and much much less common sense, having lived in
the relatively safe Faun and Nymph Retreat. Remembering what she was here to do, she took Nassia's
outstretched hand and headed into the forest.
TO BE CONTINUED……

AN: This will definitely be continued, I'm thinking a quest through the forest and then the 3 challenges
and a meeting with Humfrey, and then probably more, kind of like an epic, this is my first piece so far,
please please please respond, anything, flaming, praise, questions, I want to know what people think of my
writing. NOTE: I own Nassia and Ayla since I thought of them, they are not characters in any Xanth books
and please do not use them in any other stories