“Trevor!” Shelini called out to her staff-tree, who had shaken the bulk of his small, bright blue leaves from his branches overnight. “Ooh, Dear, what’s the trouble?”

The tree rattled its nearl bare branches in response.

“Tch-tch, hold on, I’m coming up,” The elf-woman said, giving his trunk a reassuring pat.

She shucked her woven grass sandals and leapt with the grace and strength of a body centuries younger to catch hold of a branch a little wider than her thin, walnut-brown arm. “Hm, do you have a burl or two? You’re getting too tall for this,” she teased.

Two burls the precise width and length of half a well-kept elf’s foot, spaced two Shelini shin-lengths apart, swelled from Trevor’s trunk. Despite the obsidian sheen of the sensible fringe framing her round, smooth face, Shelini was no longer a young elf. There was no shame in asking a bit of help climbing Trevor. If anything, he needed reminding not to help her too much.

“No, no, don’t bend, now, you’ll only hurt yourself,” she cooed, swinging a trousered leg over a higher, thicker branch. Trevor’s rough bark had worn smooth there from decades of supporting Shelini’s body. He was, as far as he or Shelini were aware, the most intelligent tree in the world. Rooted into the soil, entwined with the whole world, Trevor felt the vibrations of all things living, dying, and in between. In his youth, he’d been an incorrigible gossip, but had matured into an excellent, if very quiet, conversationalist.

Shelini leaned into the Shelini-shaped furrow, folding her legs, resting her ankles on their opposite knees.

“Now, now. What’s so troubling you need me all the way up here, hmm?” She asked, tilting her head back. Shelini closed her wide, dark eyes, sitting as straight as Trevor himself. She listened, willing her heart and lungs to slow, not wishing to interrupt.

“Oh, but you can’t possibly be surprised by such things,” she said. “It’s the very reason you are what you are. Cruelty is profitable, but it isn’t sustainable. That’s never why you’re upset, is it?”

Trevor was silent.

“Come now,” Shelini smiled, patting his trunk. “Don’t be silly. You needn’t shield me from the world. We’re all of us a bit remote here, but we’re still connected, yes?”

She slowed her breathing again, relaxing against Trevor.

And he told her.

Shelini’s eyes snapped open. Gasping, her feet tangled together, she fell sideways into a waiting bough which, a moment earlier, had not been there.

“Oh, dear. Thank you, yes, Thank you. We have a bit of a head start, yes? If it only happened last night, I should think, we ought to catch her. Do you know where those ravens moved, when you shooed them off? I’m certain they’ll be more polite, if fairly compensated.”

Shelini felt the gentle pulse of Trevor calling out to his less obviously intelligent peers. Within a few moments, a large raven, as dark and shiny as Shelini’s hair, alighted on her knee.

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“Thank you, both of you,” she nodded to the bird and up at Trevor. Fishing in the deep pockets of her overalls, she produced a charcoal stub, a short length of string and silver coin with a hole through it. “If you don’t mind, Trevor, might I borrow just a small strip of bark? I’ll send one of the kids up with some sphagnum to patch you right away.”

A square of bark, as wide and long as a playing card, split from a branch near Shelini’s arm.

“Ooh, just perfect, thank you,” she trilled, scrawling a note into the bark with the charcoal stub. Keeping an eye on the raven, she threaded the string through the coin to make a loop, tied it closed with five tight, sure knots. “Yes, yes, she’d never be agreeable enough for a straight-forward wayfinder charm,” Shelini agreed with Trevor, fluffing her dark, wavy hair. Ravens tended to bow to other, puffed-up ravens’ commands, and Shelini reasoned she had the hair for it. “Which is why this coin is not for you,” she said to the raven in a stern voice, leaning to glare into one of the bird’s ink-black eyes.“Not yet, at least. You know the way to the capital, yes? Wonderful. Now, can you behave yourself, if Trevor shows you the woman you must find?”

The raven barked at Shelini, who combed her fingers through her hair again. Unmoved, the raven hunched, as if preparing to take flight.

“Well, I suppose it was rather rude of me in the first place,” she admitted. Reaching into her pocket, Shelini produced a small handful of wrinkled currants. “I apologize. And I ask a favor.” She lay a currant flat in her palm. With an air of triumph, the raven snapped it up and tilted its head toward the rest of the fruit.

“Ah! After you listen to him. Politely. I’ve more of these, you know. But you must listen and accept the errand, first.”

With an annoyed, throaty rattle, the raven hopped from Shelini’s knee to Trevor. Shifting foot to foot, the raven shook his head, puffed out its feathers, and bobbed. He was a young raven, of a generation after Trevor evicted the flock. Zapped by the strange electricity of the sentient tree, the young raven finally understood his flock’s elaborate, unflattering gossip about their former home. Shaking himself off, he fluttered back to Shelini’s knee.

“There’s a friend,” Shelini smiled, offering the rest of the currants. “She should not be difficult to find, if you make it to the city in time. Give her these.” The raven took the strip of bark in its beak and lifted a foot for Shelini to wind the coin bracelet around. “The coin is all yours, but only after she refuses, ok?”

The raven croaked, wobbling on Shelini’s knee.

“Ah, yes. Of course you deserve compensation for your work! There’ll be fish in it for you when you come back, and Trevor knows your flock. I’ll see they have fish while you’re gone, too.”

Muffled by the note it carried, the raven squawked, shrill and indignant.

“‘Flock’ because all of the other names for a group of ravens I can pronounce are very silly. Were you treacherous, unkind, or conspiratorial, you’d hardly choose to live so peacefully in groups, now would you?”

The raven bumped its head against Shelini’s hand.

“Oh,my, but you must get flying,” she cooed, scratching the top of the bird’s head. “Whatever it is that ravens believe in watch over, you friend.”

The raven took to the air, spiraling out of sight in seconds.

Shelini sighed, exhausted already. She needed to clean out the guest house. She needed to have the villagers gather enough fish and vegetables for a proper welcome. Most of all, she needed to warn a good many villagers about the coming guests.

“Hm?” She hummed. “Oh, no, I trust Ionia completely. I trust her to be herself, deeply and purely. No, no, you misunderstand. She can just be rather myopic, and very confident--some, who love her less, might say stubborn.”

“Yes, yes, I am,” she answered a soft rumble. “Which is why it would be best if we traveled together, yes?”

Trevor fell as dumb as a tree grown from a common seed, rather a repentant young sorceress’ staff.

“Oh, well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”