That Moment
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The Spirit
Rosemary was a spirit.
Yes, she was a manifestation of mana, and yes, she took the form of the grove that had summoned her. If the grove was oak, she was oak. If it was tall, so was she. And if the grove had a thousand little branches at the top and none at the bottom… my, would she have a case of rat’s hair in the mornings.
And she did.
But no one really knew how groves and their tenders worked. It… just was. Like how things fell to the ground when you dropped them, or how the sky was blue at day and black at night. It was a statement with a full stop. There were no question marks, not even for the spirits themselves, for contemplating your own existence was a trait shared by all that were intelligent, not just spirits.
Rosemary didn’t like to think of it much, either. It hurt her brain, then her heart if she kept going.
So she thought of other things. She thought of how loud Andura snored whenever there was a big day coming up, or how messy Lepius’ room got when he came home late, or even the butterflies, and how they danced against the walls of her grove. There was always something to think about.
But later that morning, all she could think about was one thing.
How she wished she had more time.
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four hours before his awakening
Lepius
On his way back from gathering, he made a detour to the storage grove.
Now beyond the aegis of the trees, he managed to catch out a stranger within the usual mana about his village, but it was likely nothing but the routine foreigner. It hid itself under the spices and mashed berries as he passed through the agora, returning greetings and poking little saplings as they ran circles around him. Ahead him loomed the storage grove, casting a wide shadow over the market.
“Nurma will be back soon. We gathered snowberries and sharpberries and red thyme.”
The dryad in charge scratched on a piece of paper. “Yes, that'll do. We may need another errand soon. We don’t have much sunflower oil left after an adventurer passed by and bought most of it.”
Lepius perked up and tried to hide a smirk, “Those crazy foreigners that apparently fight dragons? What species is he?”
His eyes flickered to the medical supplies gathered on a shelf.
“He called himself a knight. That usually means a friendly, armoured human. Not a bad outsider, all things considered. Quite big, with scary black armour. You might be seeing him around.”
Funny folk, he thought to himself, to be seeking out danger.
The agora was busier than ever. He watched a cawing raven fly up and up, beyond sight, and as he followed it his eyes caught the temple of his people atop the tallest hill, the Sanctum. Maybe if I were at the highest balcony, I might see what the raven was chasing.
He hummed, entertaining a second thought.
Maybe it was running from something.
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And there she was, the princess of the morning.
When an exhausted but beaming Andura greeted him at the door, he knew the day could not get better. After all, this was a wonderful avenue of teasing she opened the door to, and he had an arsenal of jokes to turn her cheeks every colour.
“Say, was it a redwood dryad Yurth brought back home, or my sister?”
He got slapped, but it was a gentle one.
“I take it went well, Andura? Did he do anything untoward, anything funny?”
“Oh, it was a dream. He did do funny things, but the good kind of funny.”
He fell onto a hollowed rock stuffed with leaves. Already the headache was slipping away, and he smiled a brother’s smile as he watched Andura gush and blush. It was a good look on her, he decided. The matter of Nurma and the foraging had long since melted away with the headache.
She stopped to breathe in between sentences, eyes bright and wide, and chancing an interruption, Lepius said, “Rosemary! Come look at our blushing maiden!”
The tender materialized in the living room. Then she smirked, and piled another jest on top of Lepius’: “My, my, sapling. Must I draw you a cold bath?”
“Rosie!”
Then Rosemary turned to him, “So, who won the bet?”
“I think we all did.”
Andura bowled them over, “Oh, Rosemary! You are so bad! I was so caught up in- never mind, sit, sit. You must listen to this.”
“I shall.” Rosemary sat next to Lepius, “Spill.”
Lepius was about to remark on something he thought was clever when reality shuddered.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
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?!?!??
Below the village, the roots lay dormant.
Sleeping, dreaming. Dreaming of things greater than mountains, greater than the stars. When last they woke, the sky and earth were every colour. When last they woke, those that ruled it stood, and oh… when they stood, they soared beyond the clouds and the night sky.
But that was long ago, and they had been slumbering. And as they slumbered, they grew outwards, feeding on the soil and sunlight. The tip of one root had passed through the village boundary some time ago.
Gathered around it were mages. There were whispers, whispers to coax and wake, and each whisper was a name.
“?KX!?DF?”
“?KX!?DF?”
“?KX!?DF?”
Whispers are only whispers. But sometimes, that was just enough for something dreaming for far too long.
The root trembled.
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Lepius
The earth rumbled.
Andura screamed and rushed to cling to him as he held onto the rock. Rosemary vanished with a pop.
Below his feet the ground undulated like a snaking worm, this way and that, rocking carvings off their stands and commanding tableware to the floor. The leaves above rattled, and sunlight fell onto them. He could do nothing but stutter to a shock, his mind racing but going nowhere, so he held onto the rock and nothing else.
What was going on?
The ground shoved roots upwards, and then it stopped. As suddenly as it came.
Andura’s eyes darted around as she anchored onto Lepius. There was a cold silence for a while, or maybe just a few seconds, the silence of disbelief at a paradise disrupted.
Then they heard the screaming.
Through the carved opening in the grove, they could see parts of the village ablaze. Fire… both their bodies trembled at the sight of it, so untamed and malicious. He had only returned from the storage grove no more than an hour, and there it was, the outer walls now kindling and the insides blackened. The adjacent grove was already reduced to cinders. Others were belching smoke, and bodies weaved between the flames, carrying pails and dragging away the wounded.
Andura opened her mouth and closed it.
And then above came the voice of their father, “Andura! Lepius!”
“Downstairs, Father! What is going on? Was there an explosion?”
His father clattered down the stairs, holding the staff. It was the family heirloom. Lepius had never seen the artifact away from its mount atop the master bed, never thought of it as anything but decoration.
It was not so quick to pass his mind now.
The staff seemed bigger than when he had last seen it. Brown roots smothered a branch his father boasted was picked from the remains of a past Eldertree. Crowned at the tip was a blue crystal, and how it glowed and hummed with unnatural light like never before.
It was alive with mana.
“No. It was also no accident,” his father’s voice was low, “Go, quick. To the Sanctum. All the capable mages are gathering to repel the invaders.”
Andura’s was high, “Invaders? But… what – you’re-”
His father had her out of the door, legs trembling, without a response. When Lepius held her steady by the shoulders, they too were shaking, and her mana impressed pinpricks of her mind onto his.
She was a little ball of panic. He could hear quick breathing and the uneven cries of her heart: help, help, help.
It was the second time in a day, but there was no other option, so he pulled the writhing animal into his arms and let his mind soar. Around him, the grass lost its lustre. In his imagination, he pictured a warm cup of spiced tea, with a gentle breeze to waft the smell here and there, and what a scent it was – soothing, warm, red and green thyme.
From inside and out, mana poured into his sister, and within seconds, her shivers were already weaker. Her heart slowed. And only after it returned to a steady beat did he let go of her, and fall back in a sprawl on the grass. His eyes were unfocused. The only thing he could do was listen to the shouting from inside the grove.
Ah, mother and father… hah, even in an invasion, they found something to bicker over.
He lay prone, feeling like a straw sucked through. Another headache, huh?
And then something cast a shadow over him.
That something filled up the straw, and then the headache ebbed away to a hand on his forehead. Mana flowed back into him. He forced a lungful of air to wash away the stars in his eyes as the something cleared away to reveal Rosemary. She hauled him and a still shaken Andura outside, where waiting for them was springwater bottled in wood, bread and pounded berries, all neatly gathered in satchels.
Lepius counted only four.
“Rosemary? What about her?”
His mother emerged from inside with a thatched bag of her own. She tried to push them towards the Sanctum with a smile, “Hush, my saplings. Go, go, quick.”
“No, what about Rose-”
Father slammed the door, “Didn’t your mother give you an order?”
“What, to abandon Rosemary?”
“That is not what I said, sapling.”
And at the unspoken conclusion, Andura finally reclaimed her legs and stood firm beside him. She was shaky, but there was iron in her voice.
“We are not leaving without her. We grew up with her.”
A voice came from behind him, and there were no jokes anymore, “I cannot leave my grove. You can. Please leave.”
“That’s- no, you can, you’re-”
His father hefted the staff. “We don’t have time, Lepius. Move.”
“No, we’re not leaving without her-”
And his father brought low the staff.
Lepius fell like a bird with its wings cut. Through his hazy eyes, the world started swimming away from him, and he did not know what stunned him more, the staff, or what his father just did.
Far away, he could hear shouting and a sobbing Andura gathering the satchels. Then, there was the vague sensation of being lifted onto a shoulder, and further than that, the world converged to a face that was slowly drifting away, the face he grew up to, the face that smiled for him every time he came home.
Rosemary, he thought, are you crying?
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She was.
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The Spirit (Again)
She wished she had more time.
More time to spend needling Lepius, or making fun of Andura. How quickly time passed. It was only so long ago when she saw them waving their little arms, their bark so plump on their cheeks. She was young then, young as he was. Pellen and Manon had only built their own grove after Lepius was born, and so she was born with them, too.
And now she would die here.
Here she was, and there they were, so far away. Had the grove ever been this empty before, without any of the four she loved so much? She couldn’t remember a time that it was, except for those important days like Eldertree Evensong, when the whole village gathered in the Sanctum to pray. It was a holy day, for all children and elders.
Today was not Eldertree Evensong, but the village would be gathered there anyways.
And here came the reason. The invasion. A pair of hooded mages approached her grove, and to announce them was the smoke from the groves adjacent to hers. Burning, crumbling. She could see the other tenders as ash on the floor.
No. No crying, not now.
She stood up, oaken spires gathering to life around her. If she were to die, let her die fighting. Maybe she could take one of them down, and even if the number one was only a smidge in the grand calculations, it could still change the final number. Just by four. Her four. That would be enough for her, and all the time she had gave and been given.
She breathed into the air, just for them, hoping the wind would take the words for her.
“How I’ve loved you all… forever and for ever… so long…”
Why was time so stupid short? Time must hate itself. So dismissive it was to those who wait for it, and so loving it was with those who wished for it to pass on by.
“I’ll love you on… till the stars go dark. And the moment they do, I’ll search for you, with all the limbs I don’t have. We’ll find each other. Always, because we’ve all of eternity to search, because even in the dark I’ll know your smile, know your laughter. Then, for the rest of eternity, we’ll smile. We’ll laugh over rainbows and flowers and butterflies that fly into each other. And after eternity passes by we’ll be the next stars, and how I’ll shine for you. What a constellation I’ll be for you. And how people will point out and wonder why the stars are all shining in the shape of a heart… for I won’t have my limbs, but I’ll always be searching, and I’ll always have me and you….”
The mages pointed at her grove, and gathered their mana. She hummed the tune that got Lepius and Andura to sleep when they were young.
“Night falls… and the little saplings go to sleep…”
The first mage threw their fireball.
“… but worry not, little dreamers… for the tender watches…”
Over you.