Professor Valmaris

Taenya was dismayed at the state of the gardens as they walked up to them. Barnaby was old to be sure, but this way no way to treat plants. She turned to Barnaby and looked at him disapprovingly, shaking her heads.

"You don't listen to the plants do you?" She asked.

"Listen to them? Ma'am they're just plants. They don't talk."

"All living things speak, if you have the ears to listen." Taenya said, kneeling next to a seedling. Listening intently, she reached into her pocket and placed a few seeds into the ground. With a satisfied look on her face, the plants grew in mere seconds, ivy almost exploding out of the ground, entangling every plant in the garden as it spread.

"What are you doing?" Barnaby shouted, looking around.

"The plants aren't happy. I need to move them, and moving them by hand takes precious time. Ammangoan Ivy does the job for me, though." Taenya said, standing back up to face Barnaby. "No human gardener could ever care for a place this big."

Taenya stood and watched as the ivy uprooted entire trees and moved hundred of plants around to their whims. Students caught unaware yelped and dodged the trees as they lumbered around the grounds, given locomotion by the ivy. The ground quaked as a several hundred year old oak hauled itself out of the ground, and seemed to look around.

"Oh my. He's heard of the rest of The University, wants to visit it." Taenya said, chuckling slightly.

"He's what?" Barnaby asked, dumbfounded as he watched the old oak slowly walk away down the path towards the fire magic department's buildings.

"The plants understand when you speak. Thousands of students have sat under his boughs over the centuries, and he's listened to them all." Taenya said, beginning to follow the old oak as it lumbered down the path, the other trees bending to give way.

"Far be it from me to ask a silly question, but does the old oak have a name?" Barnaby asked, struggling to keep up with Taenya.

"A good question. A moment." Taenya said, who started to run to catch up to the oak tree. With a graceful leap, she landed in its boughs, and sat for nearly a minute, speaking quietly to the tree.