Private Finished An Interesting Thought

Olwen's face lit up as a thrilled grin bloomed over her face. "Almost! Sorry, that might have been my bad, I wasn't too clear. Let's try again!" she urged giddily.

She sat back comfortably against the bench. She took a little longer to focus on the clarity of the words, even closing her own eyes as well.

"What's your favourite class?" she asked again. The words were spoken more slowly this time, and she put a lot of effort in sending the words out. It was almost a little dizzying how hard she tried.

The dryad squealed and clapped her hands happily. "Yayy! It works!" she exclaimed. "Oh, how fun!"

A vague sense of joy would flutter to the boy's mind. Now knowing he could hear, the dryad somewhat unintentionally let out a feeling rather than a thought. Whether or not he'd catch it, she didn't even think of.

"Alright, alright. Now. Do you think we should try exchanging? It's not too too tricky, I don't think. Maybe just... picture the words in your mind. Hear them yourself, then picture them leaving your head and going where you want them to. That's...sort of what I do," she attempted to explain. She wasn't very confident in her instruction, but was smiling nonetheless.

"It's easy," she added telepathically, thinking that might help.

Olwen watched him with the same encouraging smile. But she continued to sit quietly as the boy tried and tried, until her brows slowly tilted into a sympathetic expression. She shook her head.

"Maybe... I'm not as good a teacher as I hoped..." she said finally. She pat the bench beside her and picked up her fork again. "Let's take a break for now, perhaps. I feel like I'm going to give you a headache at this rate," she jested gently.

The dryad shrugged lightly. "Perhaps. I think I'll take some time to look into it, though. Perhaps there's something I missed in explaining," she pointed out, countering his negative comment with a positive one.

"I have been doing this since I was little, so it's something that's tricky for me to think critically about.

"We did still discover something fun, though!" she added brightly. Once more, a faint, flutterly feeling of joy emanated from the Dryad.

"I do regret embarrassing you earlier... But I'm a little glad that I tested this on you." She winked cheekily.

Olwen lifted a hand to her mouth to stop herself from snickering.

"Alright, alright..." she agreed, feigning an exaggerated reluctance. "I'll let you study in peace next time. But only if we can practice again soon!"

Despite meeting just barely an hour ago, the two seemed to get along nicely. The dryad certainly seemed comfortable as she smiled at him. But just as she adjusted her lunch box on her lap once again, the school bell resounded over the courtyard, as if triggered by her stabbing the hunk of potato she had halfway lifted to her mouth. She glanced to Carmin, looking disappointed as their time came to an end.

"Boo... I guess I'll have to– Wait, no, that's silly. Here!"

She flipped open one of her notebooks and carefully tugged free a page from the back. She scribbled something down towards the center before holding it out to the plant boy.

"You can call whenever you'd like if you decide you want to practice some more. Have a nice period, Carmin!" she bid him as she stood.

On the slip of paper was her phone number and the name to which it belonged. It was punctuated with a small doodle of a flower.

The dryad waved, and began off in the direction of the sports field, hoping she'd see him again soon.