There wasn’t a single smile in the room when Darien came back out of his laboratory a few days later. He was grim, hadn’t slept for two days, and there was a stubble of a beard and his eyes were bloodshot.
He still managed to feel even worse with the data that he’d been working on non-stop.
“I need to go home and see my family. I want to break this news to them first.” His dwarven friend at the Arcanist Research Institute of Carolina stands there with all his stoicism and folds his arms, looking at his best friend of several years.
“Darien you, you’ve barely come out of that lab for two days. You’ve barely said a word. You’re one stiff breeze from falling over, and Missy called. She’s worried about you. Your dad, too.” Jake softened his gaze beneath the crinkle of leather-tough skin and soft brown eyes, and he stroked his short beard thoughtfully. “When you came back from the forest during that stunt, Missy said you looked like a ghost. What happened out there?”
“We killed it.”
“Killed what exactly?” Jake asked. “Darry, you’re more steadfast than a dwarf when it comes to your studies. But this…this isn’t healthy. It’s not you.”
“Jake…we’re killing the forest. We’re killing ourselves. This knowledge does not leave this room.” his assistant Brigette gasps lightly, tanned skin turning pale in a near instant. The luster left her eyes just as quickly. “Brigette, the numbers you gave me for the nitrogen levels, acidity, the soil composition…Is it accurate?”
“I ran it three times. Three different samples. It’s accurate.” Darien slumped in posture a little and rubbed at his dark brown hair before stroking one elongated ear–a habit Missy called him out on every now and then. “Darien, what does it mean?”
“It means that this is the end of life as we know it. The trees are dying. We killed them with our technological revolution and poisoned the planet. That’s what it means.”
“C’mon, you took one bad soil sample, one dead tree that happened to be your grandfather’s seedling tree. It could be a coincidence Darry, you’re not thinking straight.” Jake tried to get him to sit down, and he eventually couched onto one of the cheap rolling chairs that squeaked with an unoiled wheel. “Go hope. Sleep on it, okay? You’re still grieving over your grandfather, and that’s a fact.”
“Fine. Walk with me, Jake.” Darien grabbed his bag and he felt like a bag of sand and utterly exhausted. “I don’t think I’m wrong. This sample of data supports the observations, and the conclusion is sound.
“Just…don’t talk all academics for a little while,” Jake says with a nudge from muscular arm, and guides him out of the lab, down a short flight of stairs, then into the main hallway of the institute’s north wing. “C’mon. If you take any longer, I’ll have to carry you. And the myth that elves are lighter than air is bullshit, you’ll still be a dead weight even for me,” he laughed before giving Darien a smack on the back. He nearly toppled from the maneuver.
“I wish I had your level of humor. I just learned my people could die–”
“Darry. C’mon. Wait to get home. Get some rest. You need more eyes on this to be sure, if you are indeed onto something. Right?” his friend peers up at him, his face pinched in concern and possible worry. “That said, mind if I crash at your place?”
“Yeah, the couch is free. I’m sure my parents won’t mind.”
The walk back home is brief. He gives a few weak waves to waiting family members, and even Marielle looks at him with anxiousness in their eyes. They’re all worried about him. He slept for the better part of the evening and night before waking up early and he still felt exhausted. Like there wasn’t enough sleep in the world for him.
Is my seedling dying? I visited it two months ago. I’ve been doing routine work on it–no, it couldn’t be. Trees didn’t die that fast, and his seedling was still young and healthy. He’d never cut corners unlike some of the other wildlings who hired others to tend to their seedling trees.
Breaking tradition, if he’s right, might have become lethal in their case. He just hopes he’s wrong. He has to be, to be so worried. He got up and tried–tried–to go about a regular morning routine and get back to work.
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The routine was a thing of the past now.
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“Alright, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Every wildling is dead in about thirty years.”
That had been the line he’d dropped on his father, mother, and siblings. He didn’t want this to go out just yet to the world, but he knew the stakes of being right. They had all lost a family member, and his dad and mom held each others’ hands tightly, and Marielle almost sobbed. His other siblings just looked at him in shock, and Jake stood stoically like he always did–nothing seemed to shake that dwarven man, no matter what the world threw at him.
“Are you…sure of it?” Elaine whispered.
“Grandpa Verner died of acute mana shock. Whatever happened to his seedling, also impacted him. When a wildling bonds with a seedling at the planting ceremony, there is a certain…connection between the two that forms. It’s the theory that the bond creates the immortality of our species. The trees endure, and so don’t we.”
Darien sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “It's been a tradition for thousands of years, and we never really questioned it or what it does. We just kept doing it without understanding all the intricacy, the Wiccan words of the Aldermans of years past. They just said that we’d grow as one. Well, apparently we now die as one.”
“You’re certain–”
“The trees were dying. Heavy metals were present in the soil. No idea how they got there, but some of it could have precipitated out of pollution clouds. Or washed up from various rain events. Either way, it’s there. And it’s contaminating the soil. The pollution alone is doing in the trees, making them susceptible to parasites that would have otherwise not even been a nuisance.”
“But…what about our long lives–”
“Gareth, that time is over. And immortality was a joke long before it just went in smoke,” Darien growled. “You know I get the humans now, totally. They worry about the clock and making something of themselves. Meanwhile, we’ve stagnated for a thousand or more years, and where has that gotten us?”
“Darry, please. Don’t be bitter,” Marielle sniffed. “It’s not the end of the world. Just the end of long life–”
“No. if all the trees die, then we die too, most likely. Not every tree has a bond partner, but eventually, there won’t be any room to hide. And I think the Aldarmen know this or have an inkling that something bad is happening and they don’t want to start a panic.”
“That tracks,” his father said bitterly. “So…what do we do?”
“Darrien sighed. “Nothing. The damage is done.”
“No, what do we do to fix it?”
“Tell everyone to stop smoking. And polluting. And maybe use those bins with the three arrows that they put cans and plastic bottles in,” he replied dryly. “That might be a start.”
“So you’re just going to sit there and snark?” Gareth snaps. “What a waste of a degree Darien, you listened to the trees and they said they had a tummyache! Big deal! You could be wrong!”
“I could be. There’s a non-zero chance that the numbers are an extreme aberration of random distribution,” he conceded before narrowing his eyes. “But I don’t think I am. Not this time.
“We can still fix it. Right? Marielle looks bright-eyed at him, still filled with hope that age hasn’t taken away yet.
He smiled softly.
“Well, we can’t make a fix overnight. I planted a new seedling from Grandpa's tree. I want to see what happens to it. It will be my responsibility. And Marielles. We decided to split the bond, and see what happens.”
“You didn’t even invoke customs!” his mother gasped.
“Didn’t have time, I needed results and I needed answers. Meantime, we keep this in the family. We tell no one. Jake, you’re family here, are you okay with that?” Darien asked his stoic friend.
“You know it is, Darry. I can keep a secret. I got skin in the game too, keeping your scrawny arse alive,” he says with a roll of his slight accent. “Maybe the dwarves can find the source of the toxins. Maybe it isn’t coming from above, but down below. You never know what you might find under the trees.”
“Aye.” Darien looks at all of them, with a bit of determination. “The trees are dying, but they’re not dead yet. There’s still hope. This may be the twilight of the wildlings, but we haven’t said goodnight just yet. And you can be rest assured, I’ll find answers. For all of us.”
For the first time in his life, he now has true purpose, and he stands a little straighter. “They say the trees whisper to us. Now it’s time for us to listen to them and start talking back. Mum, and Dad, I know it’s been a hard few days. I know it must be unimaginable. We’re going to need the whole family on this one. We need to find the causes and find a way to undo the damage. Begin healing this planet…and maybe each other. I don’t care much for living for however long it takes before some bad accident, predator, or viral disease does me in. But I do want to live in good company with family and friends until I’m ready to face my end on my terms.
“Until that time…Let’s go heal our world.”