Chapter 2: The Season of Waters Rise
For most, the years passed, felt, noticed, and aging. For me, it was still just yesterday I laid my namesake to rest. I placed her ring of mind shielding on my finger and her favorite amethyst on a chain around my neck. Her hunting crossbow, now mine, still hung by the wall with the bolts. The double-bladed scimitars rested in their sheaths by the bed. I stepped over them with a smile remembering our training.
Making my way outside, I fetched the bucket and headed for the river, bowing in respect as I passed the stone marker. I made a note to myself that the water was high, and wondered if it had stormed somewhere up beyond to cause it. Carrying the water back to the cottage I doused the garden in its nourishment. Listening to the sounds of the woods around me, letting it be my calm as another day passed.
***
Rain on the tin roof woke me. It was gentle, casting grey shades through the curtains. I sat back and just listened. There it was, the sound that I had anticipated, nourishing the ground and my soul. Pausing, taking it in, and letting it pass. ***
The roots of the old oak tree nestled on the river bank were completely saturated in water. The river completely ignored its banks now, the edge creeping closer to the grave of Evangeline. I sat next to her stone waiting to see the water recede, speaking to her as if she were still there. The breeze blowing my hair around my face, calling to summer, beckoning it to release into fall. But summer was not ready to relinquish her hold on the world. Nor was the banks of the river ready to recede.
***
I went to the shoreline, now encroaching ever closer to the gravestone of my namesake. It lapped at the back of the stone as it continued to flow downstream. I felt anger at this strange event. 75 years and the rivers had never risen. It felt like a personal attack from the spirits of the water as it pulled away the earth of my home, threatening to take Evangeline from her place of rest. I would just have to take action to beat back the threat to my home.
Felling one tree after another with my axe, I dragged them to where the edge of the water had once been. Building up with mud a makeshift dam hoping to deter the water from coming any closer to my home. As the flow changed to take it away from the stone, I nodded my thanks to the earth spirits for their sacrifice.
***
In the matter of a few short human days, I witnessed the water overtake the earth, the grave, and most of the yard to the garden. It was no longer a flowing river. It was forming into a lake, taking my home, my memories, and sweeping away my namesake in its wake. It was no longer just a random attack. It was personal, and it was war. I vowed to beat it back, sitting on the edge of the garden, staring at the space where the stone once stood. I would sit, meditating for days, looking for a sign on how to defeat the threat to my home.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone