Wooo, I updated quicker than I thought I would. Yay the imagination is flowing. I have to be quick here because theres a storm outside. eep. Review.

Pips looked down through the hole of the tree and his heart sank at the empty space. She had left without him…again.

A week had passed since the humans arrived and every day Pips was becoming more distressed. Crysta's attention span was rapidly decreasing and it was becoming hard to get her to listen to anyone about the current crisis. Even Pips wasn't able to deter her thoughts from a certain blonde haired human.

In any spare time that Crysta managed to grab hold of, she was off to the edge of the forest where her human was waiting. Pips just thanked any type of higher power there was that she hadn't shrunk him yet.

A few days ago, he made his usual routine of playing his pipes to waken her and after an hour of playing, he felt something wasn't right. When he arrived at her tree, he found it completely empty and her bed leaves was cold, telling him that she hasn't been here for quite some time. He searched around for her in the fairy populated areas but she was nowhere to be seen.

He eventually found her, but in the most undesirable place he wanted to find her. She was with the human and she was in his hair. The human had his hair down which just passed the edge of his shoulder and Pips saw Crysta peering out of the long strands beside his neck. She was right next his ear so she didn't have to talk too loudly for him to hear her and whenever another human came into sight she would back up into his hair so she wouldn't be seen.

Pips ground his teeth at the memory and took off into the forest.

Nothing had changed since the humans arrived. The young trees were still dying and he hadn't seen a single one of them actually do anything to help them. Crysta had told him, in one of those rare moments when she spent time with him, that the humans were taking 'soil samples' and were testing for anomalies…

Whatever that meant.

Pips arrived at the gathering place, where frequent meetings were being held. Pips was meant to have brought Crysta with him but he will have to trust that she will show up sooner or later during the meeting. She was the leader, not him.

As he landed alone, he noticed a few fairies rolled their eyes or turned away to hide their disappointment. Crysta's habitual absences were becoming infuriating.

Crysta's father approached him, disappointment evident in his dull green eyes and his white beard and hair shook with the negative motion of his head. He took Pips hand and led him to the side to talk privately with him.

'Thank you for coming Pips, it's a shame I can't say the same for my daughter,' he said quietly.

'Well, you know her. Her curiosity always steals her away.'

'Yes, and about that,' he said awkwardly, 'a lot of the Fairy folk are becoming worried about the lack of leadership and most of them are thinking about nominating a new leader.'

'They can't do that!' Pips said angrily, 'Crysta is the only one with the power equal to Magi Lune! She knows about our magic better than we do and she's not afraid to sacrifice herself for the welfare of the forest! She already has once!'

And I don't want that to happen again, Pips added silently.

'I know that,' the old man said defensively, 'but I don't have the respect to convince the Fairies otherwise. I've managed to assure them so far but I can't forever. Crysta needs to learn where her priorities are and only you can tell her.'

'But you're her father, isn't that your job?'

'If I was 100 years younger I may have been able to, but I'm too old, I can't keep up with her.'

Pips knew what he meant. Crysta never stayed in one place for too long so it was an almost impossibility to find her and she doesn't always return to her tree for the night. The next time he sees her he was going to have a serious talk.

'What can we do in the mean time?'

'Well…,'

Pips noticed the old man's uncomfortable posture and thought that this either wasn't going to be good or he wasn't going to like it.

'The Elders have listened to what the Fairies have to say and have agreed on the demand of nominating a new leader.'

Pips was right, he didn't like it.

'Who did they have in mind?' Pips asked.

The old man looked him directly in the eye.

'You.'

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Crysta stared at the screen that consisted of numbers, words and images that she didn't understand. Zack had told her that it was called 'data' and the images were called 'graphs.'

Zack was typing at the buttons before him and waited as a little bar slowly moved across the screen, showing the progress of the download.

Zack had smiled at how well the forest had recovered; a lot of the scientists who came with him were flabbergasted at the forests recovery rate and didn't quite know how it was possible. Zack knew, of course, but he wasn't going to tell them, it was best if the Fairies remained a secret. Besides, who would believe him anyway?

The page finally loaded up and the results for the soil samples came on screen.

'What did you find?' Crysta asked eagerly.

Zack looked over the data one last time and concluded his analysis in his head. He sat back on his chair and looked at Crysta.

'Well, we now know what the problem is,' he said slowly, teasingly.

'What?'

'I shouldn't really be sharing information to those not within the company…'

'ZACK!'

'…but I think I can make an exception,' he grinned.

Zack pointed to the screen.

'You see these graphs here? They show the level of Nitrates, Phosphates and Potassium in these particular areas…'

Zack stopped when he saw the blank look on Crysta's face. He forgot that she didn't know these things.

'Minerals?' he said to her experimentally.

Again, no reaction.

'Stuff that is in the soil to help plants grow.'

A look of understanding crossed her features. Now he was talking her language.

'Now if I put this map up,' Zack pressed a button and a 2D map of the area that was divided into sections was shown. They were marked centre, inner ring and outer ring and some sections were coloured differently. Green meant healthy whereas red meant really bad. Zack pointed to the inner circle where most of the sections were red.

'These areas here were the areas you said a lot of young trees were dying, right?'

Crysta looked at the map thoughtfully, trying to picture where in reality the map was showing. She nodded her head confidently and Zack clicked on a red sector. Graphs flashed up again and Zack began to explain.

'The mineral level here is extremely low so it's no wonder the trees are dying.'

'But how is that happening? Why is the mineral level so low?'

'I have a theory ...'

Crysta looked at him expectantly and he told her what he thought.

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