“Those who live in constant adversity often know the value of solidarity and cooperation the best.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“We don’t have that much, so please do excuse us for being poor hosts,” said Iqualea as she led Aideen and her charges through the gate of her village. The former had invited the latter to visit her village, and since they planned to look around the area anyway and wouldn’t be leaving for a while, Aideen agreed to the invitation.

Hrinsfjord – Everfrost to the local humans – was built atop the trees, as was common for elven villages situated in forests. The treehouses favored by the elves afforded them safety when they rested and also provided a strategic vantage point from which they could observe their surroundings. As a bonus, such treehouses rarely took much if any damage even from passing beast tides if they were empty.

Not many beasts were willing to expend their energy to raid empty dwellings after all, whereas if they elves stayed and fought during the larger beast tides, they might be overwhelmed by the number of the beasts. On the other hand during smaller beast tides they simply stayed in their homes and just fought off what few beasts climbed or flew to their homes.

“Oh, Iqua, you brought guests?” asked a voice from above them before Aideen could reply. The group halted and looked towards the source of the voice only to find a rather old, fur-clad elf lounging on the edge of one of the platforms that held a treehouse above them while smoking a pike. “Did they get the knife I ordered last time? Not sure if it was supposed to be done already.”

“We got it with us, Kars,” replied Iqualea cheerfully as she rummaged through her storage artifact to find the object in question. It only took her a few moments to come up with the sheathed, curved blade with a handle made out of ivory. “Here, catch!” she said as she hurled the sheathed knife towards the elf above them.

Her throw was clearly carefully measured, since the blade soared to just above the height where the male elf sat before it started to drop, and the elf in question just reached out and grasped the blade with his free hand as it did so. “Nice,” he said as he unsheathed and inspected the blade with a careful eye. “Just like what I asked for.”

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“You got any Lake Chodes, Kars? I got guests and I want to feed them something good!” asked Iqualea from below.

“I caught several earlier. I’ll send you a couple of fat ones in a bit, sure,” replied Kars from above with a smile. “Consider it as thanks for fetching my blade!”

“Got you, thanks!” yelled Iqualea back as she led Aideen’s group further into the grove towards what Aideen presumed was the elven woman’s own abode.

“That was Kars, one of our older hunters. He’s starting to decline in strength and stamina, but still the damn best fisherman in the village despite all that,” explained Iqualea as she led the group towards a large tree where they could see a rather large treehouse nestled amongst the branches. “This here is my place. I hope none of you have trouble with climbing? We don’t exactly use ladders here.”

“Shouldn’t be an issue,” replied Aideen with a shake of her head.

Iqualea led the way as she grasped onto the various boles and protrusions on the back of the large tree and started to climb up gracefully. Aideen followed right behind her. As an elf, Iqualea was taller and had longer limbs, which meant that some of the holds she used was too far away for Aideen to reach, but Aideen compensated by using other handholds and footholds she could reach, at times hanging and supporting her entire bodyweight only by the tips of her fingers.

Behind her, the three siblings followed pretty much the same route Iqualea took. The three were mostly elven by blood and had the stature and physique to match, so they had no issues with the route taken by their host. Kino was the only one who lacked both Aideen’s finely honed and reinforced physique or the long limbs of those with elven blood, but she had something that allowed her to climb even easier than any of them did.

Kino had claws on the tips of her fingers and toes, after all, so after she removed her shoes, she simply climbed up the tree almost as if she was just crawling on flat ground.

They all reached the large treehouse amongst the branches of the massive spruce tree and entered Iqualea’s abode, which had a floor that seemed as if the branches of the tree had fused amongst themselves. It was clearly the work of a skilled druid, which made sense as the nature affinity was one of the more common ones amongst elves of all sorts.

While elves from different regions usually had different affinities that were more commonly seen amongst them, like how southern elves from the Forest of Shadows often had Death affinity and those from the east regularly could be seen with Ice affinity, Nature affinity was a common thing to all elves. As a result, their habit of making their homes on the trees usually had a skilled druid around to help make it easier.

The treehouse itself was far from large. In fact, it was somewhat cramped with the six of them in the place. At the same time, it was a relatively cozy and comfortable dwelling, the walls handily keeping the cold weather outside the house while the inside remained warmer – it was probably pleasant enough for the locals, but still cold to most outsiders – with the help of some mana stones that emanated heat. The use of the manastone made sense as a fire inside a wooden treehouse was a hazard.

Just as they settled down, a knock could be heard from the door of the treehouse.