Ariadne is a Hamadryad who has been asleep for a thousand years within her oak tree on the island Bouyan, and now emerging, she is wandering through the trees that look mightily unfamiliar until she comes upon water and... Is that a human boy in the water? She coughs to try and get her very unused vocal cords working.

"He-hello?"

The unfamiliar voice startles Michael, who shoots to his feet and glances in the direction of the voice.

"I am Ariadne, of the Great Oak tree, who- who are you?"

She takes tentative steps towards the boy, not even a hint of shyness in her lack of dress as there is only a light covering of leaves. But when the water comes near her she shies away, she has never seen it before and it terrifies her. Her voice shakes with every syllable.

"What is this that comes towards me?"

Michael blinks his large, black eyes. "Uh, what? And where's 'Great Oak'?" 

Like the girl, he seems to lack any shame over his nakedness, or surprise at hers.

"In the midst of the Jungle of Buoyan sits my Mother Balanos, the Great Oak, where I have slept for many a time. It is in a..." She tries to figure out in what direction her home is in, she's not great with direction, she just feels the pull of Her Tree, so she points that way. "I suppose a that a way direction."

She looks at the boy in the blueness, mildly uncomfortable at how comfortable he seems to be in it.

"Are you from The Blue? What is your name?"

"You mean the water? Yeah, I was born in it. I'm Michael. Or Seal."

"Wa-Wa-Water?" She mangles the word. "Water! Is it safe? Is it fun? Do you prefer Michael or Seal? Do you have a Mother? Or siblings? Oh, I've never met anyone else before! Are you a human? If you aren't, have you ever met one? Are they scary? Are they fun?"

She's talking a mile a minute, now that she has met someone, she wants to know everything, the world, the island, has changed so much since she was last awake, everything is different.

"Whichever one sounds better on your tongue! And the water is the funnest fun! And I have a mother! And loads of brothers and sisters! And I'm half human! But my mother is a mermaid. It's great!"

She giggles with pure, uncontrollable joy.

"Mermaids! Now those, I know. I shall stick with Seal, I have not spoken for a long time, let's be kind to my poor tongue. Well, the funnest you say? Let's see if I can handle fun."

She takes tentative steps in to the water, a little afraid but mostly happy, and once she's up to her shins in blue, she wiggles her toes and giggles, her eyes flashing green in elation.

Seal giggles, his laugh musical. "Feels nice, don't it?"

Ariadne smiles at the boy, the water flowing between her legs. "Very. This is the most fun I've had in a very long time."

Seal disappears in a burst of sparkles, reappearing a few feet above the water. "Cannonball!"

She shrieks with surprise and happiness, impressed by his trick, but she has a few of her own up her sleeve. A jungle vine comes out of the nearby plant life, grabbing her by the hand and lifting her in to the air. When she tells it to let go, she tries to copy Seal's body position when he did the 'cannonball', b ut it doesn't go so well and she somehow ends up hitting the water straight on to her stomach with a distinct smack.

More laughter. "You're funny," he says, before tilting his head. "What's with the leaves?"

She bursts from the water with a giggle.

"Thank you. Well, I am a Hamadryad, a sub species of dryad. Which is to say I am a..." She struggles to find a word to explain herself, but eventually finds "tree nymph. I am basically a plant with a human face, and I have the power to call on all of nature as my friend. I can also speak to all kinds of things if I try hard enough. Like 'Liquid Fire Man' on the other side of the island, but I don't do well with the heat."

She raises her face to the sky, basking in sunlight and breathing in fresh air.

"Huh. So not a Miracle then?"

"Miracle? Is that a human thing? If so, then no, I've never been human. I merely approximate something pleasing to their eyes so I can protect the plants and be their spokesperson. Many of my kind cover more ground, but I can't stray too far from Great Tree, our eternities are carefully intertwined."

Ariadne interlaces her fingers together, and while she is mostly mentally there, she is enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face as she has not for so very long. She's very stuck on this, especially because it tastes stronger than it used to.

"Humans with powers."

"Ah. Not a Miracle then. Just a very weird plant girl."

She dives under the water briefly, coming back up to shake her hair a little drier. 

"So, are you actually little?"

She doesn't quite understand what he means by little, but she takes a general stab at it.

"Well, I am as old as Great Oak, we are both one, and yet separate. And Great Oak is a few thousand years old, it grew after it's predecessor, Balanos Oak burnt down and from it's ashes did I spring. But I have not spent more than a collective..." She counts for a minute. "I have been on earth and out of Great Oak for a total of 11 years, 10 days, and 13 hours."

"I mean, are you a kid?"

"Oh, as in a small human!" She takes a moment to self evaluate. "I am physically at about the growth stage of a human 10 year old."

"Oh. I think I'm ten."

"That is fun. We can be friends. Can you go on land? Because then I may not be able to show you Great Oak."

Seal does a little dance. "What do you think the legs are for?"

"Oh! Of course. Sorry, it has been a very long time since mine have not been a tree trunk. Still getting used to it. Now, if you follow me, I can take you straight to Great Oak, the tops of my leaves have a great view."

She skips out of the water, hoping her new friend follows.

Once ashore, Michael take a moment to gleefully tackle Ariadne. 

She goes with the flow of the roll, landing both of them back on their feet, another vine coming out of the jungle to wrap around them securely.

"Hold on tight, we're about to go very fast."

The vine pulls them so very fast through the jungle, weaving through the brush expertly before they make it to a very large oak tree.

"You fight weird!"

"Fight?" She seems to contemplate something, before she comes to the conclusion that it is like aggressive playing. She gets a mischievous glint in her eye before a surprise vine grabs Seal by one leg and holds him upside down.

He gets sparkly again, his leg slipping out of the vine. Suddenly he's behind the nymph, his arms wrapped around her.

She laughs, this 'fighting' is very fun. She poofs in to a pile of leaves at his feet, reforming only a foot away using the same leaves she had become.

Suddenly in their midst is a naked, painfully blond girl glowing like a goddess. "And who might this be, Michael?"

"Hi little girl. I'm Ariadne!"

She waves at the newcomer excitedly, hoping its a new friend.

"And you got here... how?"

"I've always been here, I was just napping in Great Oak. Do you have a name? Seal has a name, he's very fun!"

Well, the girl has some sense. "I'm Moira."

"Nice to meet you Moira. I was just about to show Seal the view from the top of Great Oak." She gestures to the oak tree behind her. "Do you wanna join?"

"Kay," she starts hovering. "Need a lift?"

A tree branch manipulates itself like a bench and picks her and Seal up.

"Got my own."

The tree branch reaches up to the top of Great Oak very fast, though not imperceptibly so, just fast for a tree branch. It drops them lightly on to some solid leaves to look at the awesome view.

"Nice Miracle."

"Seal and I figured out, I'm not a Miracle, I'm basically a plant that looks like a girl. I eat sunlight and only need oxygen to metabolise it. I'm a Hamadryad, and Great Oak and I are one. I am the protector of the plants. But yes, I think its cool." She takes a second to concentrate and grow an apple. "Snack?"

A horrible thought strikes her. "Aren't apples, like, plant ovaries?"

"..." She hands the apple over, making another and promptly taking a bite. "Doesn't feel like someone's biting my ovaries. So no. And besides, Great Oak's don't come from seeds, only normal trees. My Tree is birthed from the ash of my mother, its a Dryad thing I think."

"Yay!" Chomp.

"Very." She shakes off the mildly horrifying thought thoroughly, and turns to Seal. "Any particular fruit you'd like, I could probably make anything. Except lemons, they aren't actually naturally occurring, a whole thing to do with citrons and hybrids."

"...Strawberries?"

A whole bushel appear over his shoulder.

"Can do!"

He messily starts eating them. "Wish we noticed you sooner," he says with his mouth full.

"I suppose, but if I came out of the tree now, it's for a reason. I don't really wake up unless I desperately need to protect things. So, thinking about it, it's kind of like fate that I woke up and found you now." 

Ariadne can be a bit of a spacey hippie, believing in fate and destiny, and sometimes talking to trees, bugs, animals and the like. She suddenly snaps back to attention.

"So, do many more people like you live on the island?"

"My mother, my brothers, and my sister."

"Are they all Miracle's, like you?" She takes another crunch of her apple. "Will they be worried about you? I am technically a stranger I suppose."

"Yeah, they're Miracles. Well, Hannah's a robot, it's complicated. And I don't think so. Weird people just turn up sometimes."

"Complicated is cool. Just don't want to scare anyone, I'm here to make friends."

She leans back and the leaves grow upwards to meet her as a very comfortable backrest.

"You bring someone home, Moira?" says the boy hovering over them. He looks like he could be one of Moira's brothers, and he's about as dressed as the others. Aside from the high collared cape.

"Hi there! I'm Ariadne! Great Oak is actually my home, and I presume you are one of Moira's brothers?"

She's unphased by the lack of clothes, or the cape. She's not really hip on human stuff so she assumes its normal.

"Yep, Stanislav Sokolov, future ruler of Earth!"

"Very cool. Pleased to meet you Stanislaw Sokolov. I am Ariadne Banphrionsa, Hamadryad of the Great Oak, protector of the plant life on our fair island."

"...Our?"

"I assume you are a human Miracle like these two? So I'm a plant with a face is the easy way to explain it, and my assumption is, you all live here, making it yours, but also part of me. Without the island, I would cease to exist. Trees can drown, oddly enough. Especially the oak kind."

"Wait, you've lived here forever?"

"Yup. But I've been asleep within the Great Oak for a very long time."

"So, you haven't been watching us every single day. In the bathroom?"

She laughs at the boy.

"You are very egocentric to think a tree would spend its days watching him go to the bathroom. But no, I've been fast asleep for a very long time, I didn't even know anyone inhabited the island until I stumbled upon Seal in the... Water." She's still stumbling over the new word but getting better.

"Well, that's better."

"Yes, very, otherwise I'm sure there's images I would be wishing to scrub from my brain. Just plant thoughts, like 'it's particularly sunny out, tastes nice' and the like."

A bird lands on a nearby branch, plucks the apple core from her hands and flies off to spread the seeds and do it's own business.

"Mrs. Witherfeathers looks shiny today."

"She is very pretty, the air around here is very good and clean. Probably very good for Us."

"I am empress of all birds."

This excites Ariadne quite a bit. 

"Really? Is that your thing? Birds? I really really like birds!"

"They obey their empress!"

"Of course they do! Who would dare to disobey the great Empress Moira!"

"No one, that's who!"

"I would--"

Annnd he's been punted into the sky.

She looks up at the boy in the sky, not at all worried.

"He can fly I assume."

"Yep."

“Fair enough then.” She waits a minute, some blueberries growing to drop in to her palm. “Judging by the fact that he hasn’t returned yet, is he unlikely to do so?”

"Moira!"

“Evidently not.”

Very fast scuffling ensues.

Ariadne watches with mild interest and pops blueberries in her mouth like popcorn.

Moira wins. Of course she does.

Ariadne claps in amusement at the victory.

"So, what do you do around here for fun?"

"Me? Mostly that."

She giggles a bit, smiling. It drops suddenly, she can hear something, the trees are whispering frantically, so much and so quietly that she can't decipher what they're saying. She sits frowning for sometime until she makes out two words.

"Somethings coming."

"Something fun?"

Her pupils contract as the real world comes back in to focus.

“Who knows, could be. But it doesn’t feel like soon. So that is something for future me to know.” 

She sinks in to the tree, sliding back out in another part of it with a green apple.

"Neat!"

“The neatest.”

She smiles brightly.

"You ever tried meat?" Michael asks.

She immediately looks utterly perplexed.

“I don’t think so... What’s meat?”

"Flesh! Dead animals!"

And now she’s a little horrified.

“Definitely not. Why would you- No. I technically eat sunshine and air. And the occasional fruit or berry for the fun of it. No meat.”

"But protein!"

She makes a face of significant discomfort.

"I guess it's kinda different when you can understand what they're saying, and develop friendships with them through extended conversations." 

"But fish are dumb."

"What are... fish?"

"Imagine birds, but shinier and underwater."

She stares downwards in thought. 

"Huh. Interesting. Never met one of those, so I have no opinion on their intelligence."

"I could introduce ya."

"An adventure to meet fish! Sounds fun! I'm down!"

"Cool!" 

He leaps down from the tree, landing on his feet.

She follows, although it's a tree branch that lowers her gracefully down to ground level.

"Lead the way."

He takes this to mean racing!

Surprised, she watches confused for a moment, studying the way he moves, and attempts it for the first time. She immediately trips and falls on her face, her feet not moving fast enough.

Laughter.

"Right... I'll try that again then?" She laughs good humouredly before taking off, now clearly having gotten the hang of this 'running' thing.