Zotoh Lae reached down and picked up an upelie fruit from the ground. Her literally blue face grimaced. It was rotten. Her tan robes swayed with motion as she turned and threw the upelie back to the base of the tree where it would stay. The Delvian teenager swung around and turned back towards her mentor and adopted mother, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan, was waiting for her to return from her walk in the forest.
Lae, too, was a Pa'u, also called priestess. She was not as powerful in her mental and metaphysical abilities as Zhaan was, but she had some intriguing telepathic abilities no human could compare to.
Lae was a human once. She still was, in a way. But only a little. It was much better being a Delvian, even if that meant you were a plant. She was still having a little trouble with that concept.
Here's what happened: After Zhaan had died - well, she didn't really die. Her spirit lived on. But, in the death of her body, her spirit was flung across the galaxy, right near Earth. She wandered through to Earth and when she arrived she realized that she would need a host. She ended up harboring herself in Lae, whose name had been Joan, while she regained enough strength. Joan had not even realized that another person had been living inside her until Zhaan had enough power to control her body for short periods of time. Joan was forced to accept the fact that Zhaan was staying a while and Zhaan became a vibrant friend in Joan's life.
Zhaan soon had enough strength to re-create a body for herself, a replica of her old one, and when she had made such a thing she left Joan's body for her new one. However, in the process Joan's body had gone into a case of extreme shock at the lost of Zhaan's spirit. At the brink of dying, Zhaan offered her family a choice: leave her to die or let the Pa'u put a little bit of her soul back into the girl before the soul meshed to the new body. The penalty was that Joan had to come live with Zhaan for 50 years to learn to control the powers she would gain from such a process.
Her parents could not let Joan die so they agreed to Zhaan's terms. No one expected the part of Zhaan's soul to take over her entire body. It converted her species. She was supposed to end up a lot human, and only a little Delvian. It ended up the other way around. Because of this, she took on the traits of a Delvian. Her skin eventually turned a deep sea blue and her eyes blue as well. Her mind became very advanced (she gained telepathic abilities) and she lost her hair, seeing as Delvians are bald, and if not bald, had white hair of which there was never very much.
Zotoh Lae smiled as she recalled the day Zhaan revealed that Delvians were plants. Lae had spent the whole entire day trying to talk to flowers. Amusing, Zhaan called it. Lae snorted. Amusing, it was not.
It turns out Delvians are bald so they can photosynthesis the air. It was a nice advantage that she could eat normal food, but knowing that you were no longer a mammal, but a plant, took some getting used to.
Her thoughts faded away as she approached the giant tree she and Zhaan used as a home. It was beautiful, full with spiraled staircases and rooms filled with amazingly detailed carvings that she and Zhaan had carved out over the three years they had been stuck on this tree-filled planet.
Lae sighed. She earnestly hoped that this day would not be a long one.
Note: Yay! First Chapter, done! Please review.
