Azura paced furiously back and forth in his room. His friends all watched from their various sitting positions. No one said a word, and he was grateful for that. He needed the space to think after seeing an yggdrasil seed. Or well the tree that sprouts from one anyway. It was an old legend, old enough that even the ancients that had been around for thousands of years, the few that had extended their lives, and never been killed didn’t even know the origins of the legend, but it persisted nonetheless.
Yggdrasil, the world tree. The tree was beyond all scope of reason, being the thing universes hung from. The universes were like fruit, and just like with fruit each one supposedly contained a seed. The seed could be said to be a neutral party in the war between creation and destruction. Each world than had 3 seeds. The origin seed: the book of origin, the seed of ragnarok: the acolyte of destruction, and the seed of yggdrasil: apparently literally a seed. He had only learned that the seeds were literal objects after becoming a student, but something was nagging him about the book of origin in particular. Like he had heard it before. He’d worry about that one later, he had bigger things to worry about.
Like why it was planted. Just off the legend, planting the seed would be fine. It’s a neutral party given that it doesn’t have any form of consciousness, and unlike the other 2 who would each choose a guardian to become their wielder the tree had no care for what happened to it. That did not mean it wasn’t dangerous. Quite the opposite, the tree was an enormous source of magic, to the point it was a miracle no one had found it yet. Elismera had been smart to plant it here, as this was the only place in the human kingdoms where there was enough magic emanating all the time that the tree wouldn’t immediately be discovered.
To think he had been sitting in the same room as the seed, and not even noticed. No wonder Elismera was so annoyed at Roran and him for being up there. Still that didn’t tell him anything. He needed to know why she planted it, and he really wanted to know how she got it in the first place. Yggdrasil’s magic alone was enough to make it dangerous, but it could also be used to open portals almost anywhere so long as certain conditions were met. Normally it would be impossible to open a portal to somewhere like the school, but that was overridden by the fact the tree was already here.
The question became: was it planted here so she could teleport the elves here to start an invasion? He didn’t think so honestly. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was among the most powerful of the elves, even at her relatively young age. Or at least young for elves. She was not even among the top 1000 for humans though, heck even Kaiser wasn’t in the top 10 of the school if you counted teachers and staff. It would be a slaughter if the elves were dumb enough to invade, that wouldn’t stop a lot of humans from panicking about it and starting a war though.
Which is why he placed enchantments to seal the magic in that room so no one would notice the tree for now. He needed to figure out why she had put it there before making any other big moves. It could be something like a peace offering. Ygdrassil was after all part of the school’s emblem. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say a gift like that would do a lot to strengthen the bonds between humans and elves, and it would more than pay for as many elves as wanted to give joining a shot. Why hide it then? A surprise gift that was already grown was hardly worth the risk.
Was he overthinking it? Perhaps she just wanted to be able to teleport home, and have a powerful source of mana so she could recover quickly and hadn’t thought the consequences through. No that was ridiculous, if that was the case she wouldn’t have been so upset by his presence near the seed. He grounded as he rubbed his hair in frustration. Could he just ask? She couldn’t afford to pick a fight with him in the middle of the school, so she wouldn’t attack him here at least, and if she attacked him anywhere else all he had to do was escape and she was screwed. The tree being more than enough evidence for any claims he made.
Even making the enchantments was a risk, if she went down there and saw them he’d be instantly pegged as having been there. He had done his best to hide them, but with the incredible magical power filling that room he hadn’t found a way to stop them from glowing. At least he hadn’t done anything bad, so hopefully she wouldn’t attack him when she found out. Still he didn’t like being on the back foot, and until he made a decision on how to act about this he was going to be stuck one step behind.
“I still don’t get why it’s such a big deal. Admittedly old legends aren’t really a field I'm interested in, but at the end of the day it’s just a tree with powerful magic and life energy right?” Roran was the first to gather the nerve to say something to him. Not entirely surprising, and perhaps it would be good to bounce his thoughts off his fellow scholar.
“That depends entirely on what she intends to do with it. Yggdrasil might as well be a deity, and though this is just a seed, one with merely a fraction of the power it still has more power than everyone else in the school put together. If she starts a war using the tree as her base of operations, it would be difficult to beat the elves without casualties, and the school would without a doubt be one of those casualties.” The humans would win an all out war, everyone knew that. It just wasn’t worth the losses for the forested land of the elves, that didn’t really have any resources humans particularly needed. The tree however, that humans would easily go to war over. Perhaps that was why she took it here simply so humans wouldn’t find it with them and attack them.
“I don’t think that’s it though. Elismera doesn’t strike me as dumb enough to think she can win that war. Ultimately the tree isn’t any different than your special subspace you store mana in. it’s a near limitless supply of mana, but it doesn’t actually increase your capability any, and you can still only cast spells of a caliber that you can control. Perhaps it would also aid in healing, but regular magic can do that too, so ultimately it wouldn’t be much of a game changer.” He shook his head, Roran was thinking too small, he wasn’t thinking about the bigger picture at all.
“Keep in mind it can also be used in order to make portals, which as you know is a very complicated branch of magic. Any elves we fail to kill will immediately be teleported back to the tree to heal and then sent back out to fight. There would be no prisoners in that war. We would win, but it would cost, and sometimes when people are angry enough dying just to spite someone is a fair trade.” He didn’t think the elves were that discontent, but on the flip side he had no reason to think they weren’t either.
“Sure, but are they in such a situation?” It didn’t matter whether they were or not. Just the possibility was enough to get a pre-emptive strike if anyone saw the tree. He needed to find a way to get this resolved. In the off chance that this was an attack he did not want to be held as an accomplice, which he technically was since he actively helped hide the tree. Even if Elismera didn’t know he had done that yet.
“Only one way to find out. You guys stay here in case she gets violent. If she responds aggressively you need to get the headmistress, and I’m going to stress this part just in case. When I say the headmistress, I mean the headmistress. Not any of the teachers, not the guards. The only person you guys tell anything is the headmistress.” He didn’t trust any of the faculty really, not even the headmistress, but he could at least trust that she’d handle it with discretion.
“You’re seriously going to walk up to her alone, right after she just kicked your ass.” He rolled his eyes. Only Lily would mock him in a situation as serious as this, but he knew despite her mocking tone she was really just asking if he was going to be ok, so he took it in stride.
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“I’ve still got a few tricks left up my sleeve.” He smirked and swiftly left the room. The second he closed the door his expression changed to one of focus. He needed to hurry, it was pretty late in the afternoon by this point, and the later it got the more confident Elismera might be in attacking him. Part of him considered putting it off until tomorrow, but he wasn’t that irresponsible. Not with something like this.
Unfortunately, he didn’t actually know where Elismera’s room was, and there was no one to ask, so he was currently heading back to the arena. As long as she went straight back to her room from there his time viewing spell should do the trick. He really hoped he didn’t end up walking anywhere he shouldn’t be. He had never been to where upper years sleep, so he didn’t even know if it was off limits to lower years or not. He really wished he hadn’t seen the damn tree.
***
It turned out she had gone a few places before her room, but thankfully nowhere too far, and it didn’t look like she had done anything suspicious. Just met some friends, and got some food from the cafeteria. He ended the spell as the image of her in the past made the motion of opening the door and then stepped in. He took a deep breath, and reluctantly knocked on the door.
It only took a few seconds before the door was Opened and Elismera greeted him with a confused expression. Apparently she didn’t often receive visitors, because the confusion shifted to suspicion once she actually registered who he was. “What do you want? A rematch will only end the same way you know.” She tapped her chin in thought, her expression shifting with interest. “Though if you're hoping to learn from me, I could probably teach you a bit in exchange for helping me out with some things.”
That was actually surprisingly nice. Powerful mages didn’t offer to help teach people very often, and when they did it was the same as saying they saw a lot of potential. “I’d say I’ve already helped you out quite a bit, and I would like to know what I’ve just become an accomplice for.” Her expression shifted yet again, this time to a wary look.
“I’m not sure I understand your meaning. I apologize if I left something unfinished that you had to take care of, but I didn’t ask you to do anything.” He got the feeling she genuinely didn’t know what he was referring to, that was good. That meant she would be the one on the backfoot for this talk, and while he may be inferior to her on the battlefield he didn’t think the same could be said about this kind of battle.
“Oh no need to apologize, I’m just interested in that item you had. The one that was there when we first met. I’ve done you a favor regarding that, and just would like to know what exactly you intend to use it for.” Her eyes widened, and he could practically hear her grinding her teeth. Elven nobility may be as arrogant as human nobility, but they were far fewer, and interacted with each other far less. She wasn’t anywhere near as practiced hiding her feelings as he was, and it showed.
“You best come inside then. This will be a long talk.” She seemed resigned. That was good, it meant he probably wasn’t going to have to escape. Not that knowing that stopped him from planning a route of escape in case the worst happened. She stepped aside as if to let him in. He didn’t dare turn his back to her. She rolled her eyes, but walked back into her room allowing him to walk in and close the door while keeping an eye on her. “What do you know?”
He raised an eyebrow. She must think him a novice if she thought he was going to be the one answering questions. “More than you’d like me to, but less than you need me to. For your sake I hope you have plenty to tell me.” Her expression almost made him wish he had used a copy for this, but it was too risky. If she didn’t kill it, he may be in the dark for just long enough for something really bad to happen.
“Opening talks with threats? How tasteless, are you sure you’re a noble?” He almost laughed. As if nobles cared about things like things being tasteless. All the politeness, and feigned interest would disappear the second they were in the power position. In this case he was already there. In this one singular instance he was more dangerous to her than she could ever be to him.
“This isn’t a negotiation, you’re the one who could be executed, now start talking, or ‘talks’ are ending right now.” He had been playing this game his whole life, and his father had never bothered in a game without stakes. He had gotten real good at it real fast, if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t be here today.
She flinched visibly. He wanted to roll his eyes. As if she needed to give him more evidence he had her pegged. “Fine, you win.” She looked like she had swallowed a lemon even having to say those words. “But there is a lot of context I’m going to need to give you. I give my word I’m not stalling, but without the context nothing I say will mean anything to you.” She didn’t seem to be a great liar, so he nodded, and gestured for her to continue.
“My people have a prophecy. Stemming back long before I was born. Our current grand elder was merely a child when this prophecy was first heard several thousand years ago. The prophecy said a day would come where a stranger would come to our land. Searching for the seed we have protected since time immemorial. The stranger would speak with honeyed words, and kind actions. If the seed fell into his hands the world as we know it would fall to ruin.” He was thankful that she was going through the effort of paraphrasing it. Most likely because it would no doubt have been an elvish prophecy, and their language had even more room for flowery and vague prophecies than the human tongue. That was why many nobles actually learned elvish, making half truths even easier.
“Well that part of the prophecy proved to be true. About 6 years ago the stranger did come. I’m ashamed to admit that even knowing the prophecy I almost fell for his act.” She grimaced. Ah self loathing now that was an emotion he could empathize with. He was better now than he had been in a long time though. “It was only thanks to my mother forcing me to fulfill the rest of the prophecy that I wasn’t there when he revealed his true colors.”
He should probably feel guilty about forcing her to relive what were obviously awful memories, but he’d wait until the end before he judged one way or the other. “A child of the throne will carry the seed, she will flee the forests that have ever been our sanctuary, and take root with humans. There she shall become steel, shaped and molded into a weapon capable of stopping the evil stranger, and freeing her people. The seed shall take root, becoming the bridge between us and an outside we have long hid away from.” So the ‘stranger’ was currently ruling over the elves then. That actually did a lot to explain the recent state of affairs. Elves had always rarely left the forest, but it was a little unusual for them to be so absent as to be basically a legend.
“When I saw the emblem of this school, I knew it was where I was meant to be. It was here I’d be forged into what I needed to be, and here yggdrasil would take root.” She said nothing more, merely examining him for his reaction, of which there was none. He believed her story, and that was good, but unfortunately even if most nobles believed her, they would pretend they didn’t. They would probably try and exterminate the elves as an excuse for why they should be the one to kill the tree.
He stood up from the seat she had offered him. “I’ll continue to hide the tree, but my enchantments won’t be able to keep it hidden forever. For it to be a bridge instead of a threat I suggest you talk to the headmistress. She’s your best bet of preventing the tree from being an act of war.” He understood her hesitance. Honestly he would be the same in the opposite position. That’s a big thing to trust somebody with. It was literally one of the 3 most powerful forces in the world, and she had essentially just given it to the reason her people had limited themselves to their forests for millenia.
“I understand, and was intending to tell her anyway, but I wanted the tree to reach full maturity first so I could make sure it wasn’t raised improperly. I thank you for your discretion.” It was funny he hadn’t even realized how tense she was every time they had interacted, because that was his only baseline. She looked so relieved now he could hardly match her as the same person. “If I may ask why hide the tree at all? I’ve been nothing but cruel to you, and that would have been more than enough evidence to destroy me. I didn’t hesitate when given the same chance with you. Even if you avoided it somehow.”
“Because if I hadn’t you wouldn’t be the only one suffering the consequences.” That more than anything else he couldn’t allow.