carrying my box of paints and the canvas under my arm ,I walked up through the forrest serching for the right place to paint. I was listening to the rustling sounds of the wind blowing through the woods and thinking about the water lotus festival that I was going to go to latter that night ,and I stoped and lend up against the side of a tree and as I did, I felt something poking me in my shoulder and turning to see what it was ,I realized that there was something odd sticking out of the trunk of the tree... first I thought that it must have been some kind of lichen or burel ,but as I looked at it ,I found something strangely symmetrical about it,in the way that the curving lines were the same on every side and almost looked manmade.I picked up a sharp stone and used it to scrape off some of the moss and ferns that clung to the object,and to my surprise I revealed a patch of some rusty metallic surface ...I started to wiggle the thing from side to side ,trying to free it from the tree trunk. At one point I thought that it was going to break off...but than it finally pulled loose .It looked like a dragon claw... I flipped it over ...
no definatly manmade,there was some kind of strange foriegn writing on it but I could not decipher it .A sudden cold gust of wind blew harshly through the treetops whipping them violently from side to side,making me shiver. Was it a sign ? I wonderd .I thought about putting the object back into the tree in case there may have been a curse on it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.I felt greedily attached to it and the longer I held it the more I became reluctant to part with it and so I disided just to go ahead and keep it and so putting it in the pocket of my robes I went on my way...
The lanterns were lit through out the city...and as I stared up at the yellow lights on the hill top against the darling sky ,and I heard the drums sounding,I knew that the festival was about to begin...I headed up through the forrest ,carrying a unfinished painting of the trees and undergrowth...