[quote]"Don't kill me!" he screeched in a panic, scrabbling to press himself as close against the wall -- and as far away from Naia -- as possible. "I didn't know you're one of those people! I'll call off the trees, I'll grant you an alliance with the tribe, just don't kill me!" He dropped to the floor and crossed his arms over his head, defending against a blow he thought would surely come.[/quote]

Naia blinked, looking at the child as he pressed himself against the wall. She heard Palla say something as well, but ignored her in favor of the child. Holding the lantern tightly, she walked forward until she was a few feet in front of the child, kneeling down with one knee to the ground. Her kind nature wouldn’t let her leave the child so scared, even if he had attacked them.

“Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you,” she began, smiling warmly to show that she didn’t want any trouble, “But do you promise you’ll call off the trees?” She didn’t know what tribe he was talking about, so she didn’t see any benefits of it at the moment. Also, she thought it would be best to focus on the current problem of the trees and not reveal quite yet that she was new to this world and didn’t know much about it.

She wasn’t even fully sure how she had created the structure. The only thing she knew was that it involved the lantern, and didn’t follow the normal physics of her world. Naia could tell then and there that if she was to understand quite a few things in this world, she would have to let go of a few conceptions of how she viewed the world. No matter, she was an open-minded person. It was like being the main character in one of the novels she read.