Archive of Our Own ^beta

"I know you're here!" The echo carried her voice through the woods, warping it and making it sound both angrier and weepy. She must've scared off every possible animal in the closest radius, but she hardly cared. Her only purpose was to get attention of the girl - the dryad - she met not so long ago. Brigitte looked around, desperate, but she was alone still, the shadows around growing with every minute as the sun was setting.

"I know you're here..." Brigitte's voice was weaker this time, stained with the faintest trace of tears. Her shoulders dropped and so did her head. Coming here was a mistake; she should be sitting by Reinhardt's bed and helping her mother take care of his wounds. She shivered, suddenly overtaken by the cold and weakness, clenching her fists.

"You're crying." A voice, strange yet somehow familiar, murmured somewhere from the left. The sound, though faint, almost made Brigitte jump out of her skin. Her head snapped up, her eyes wide as she tried to find the girl in the falling semidarkness. It wasn't hard; the dryad had some kind of glow about her, as if her skin and hair captured and reflected the last rays of the sun just to make her more etheral. Her dress was as green as before, gently flowing despite the lack of wind.

She made a cautious step torwards Brigitte, worry and curiosity clear on her face. She looked as if she wanted to come closer, but stopped herself; she straightened her frame and made a serious face. "You shouldn't be there," the dryad said, voice stern. 

"I-I know." Brigitte only now dared to raise her hand and touch her own cheek - she felt a trace of wetness. Tears. She didn't even notice. Did she cry all the way out here? Or did she start once she reached the forest? It was hard to tell and she couldn't be bothered to wonder. She blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable dampness off her lashes. "There is something deeply wrong with the trees," she rasped, looking the girl straight in the eye.

"Yeah, I told you that," the dryad scoffed, crossing her arms on her chest. Through the mist of the still-present tears Brigitte noticed that the girl wanted to look tough, just like she did in front of that beast before today, but the demeanor didn't reach her face, not fully. Her eyes  betrayed her completely, but the tiredness was taking a toll on Brigitte and she didn't feel like pointing it out. She took a step back, leaning against one of the trees. 

"I meant the ones we cut. Used to cut. I- Me and my godfather, we went to cut one down today and something attacked us." A cold shiver ran through her body at the memory of a pair of glowing eyes and smoke. She wrapped her arms around herself. "My godfather is sick. This thing bit him and the wound..." A shaky breath. "He might not live. I need to find a cure." She raised her eyes, until now glued to the underbush, to look at the dryad. Foolish hope was raising deep inside her, even though she tried to conceal it. Despite that, several scenarios were already unveiling in her head, all of them involving the dryad agreeing to aid her in this quest. But there was silence between them and the longer it lasted, the more prominent was an internal battle inside the forest dweller's head. Her eyes were stuck to the ground.

"I have no reason to help you." The girl choked up after a prolonged moment. "I owe you nothing."

Brigitte coud feel the whole world shatter around her. The feeling of betrayal clutched her stomach. Deep inside she knew the dryad was right, they had nothing in common besides being affected by the situation and thinking that was enough to bring them together was naive on Brigitte's side. Still, she shook her head slightly with disbelief.

"Don't you want this... this curse to end? Don't you want to save your kind? Are you going to just sit there and do nothing?" With every word, her voice grew louder, her anger and sense of injustice finally finding some kind of a vent. Was it unfair against the dryad? Maybe, but Brigitte found it to be working for her until the other girl's eyes darkened. The dryad stepped closer, her fists balled as if she was ready to turn Brigitte into a mush.

"Don't. You. Dare," she hissed through gritted teeth. "Those things that attacked you? I've been driving them away from here for who knows how long. All by myself. And you," she pointed a finger straight into Brigitte's chest, "don't have the right to tell me what I want to do." The dryad huffed, not letting herself relax from her battle stance, measuring the village girl with her angry stare. Brigitte held it, responding with her own one, determined and, in a sense, pleading. All signs of tiredness flew away, replaced by perseverance and focus on the goal. A long while has passed before she broke the tense silence.

"I'm going to head out anyway. It's up to you if you join me or not." She tried her best not to let her voice crack. It was a cheap move, she knew it. Her nieces and nephews used this technique to bait one another into doing something absurdly stupid and there was no way the dryad would fall for it - she was some kind of a lesser deity after all, not a moody seven-year-old. Not getting any reaction from the girl, Brigitte turned on her heel and attempted to walk away with pride, despite the fact she was crying just minutes ago. Chin high, as if she wasn't wearing ripped clothes covered in blood and dirt. In the back of her mind a thought of her parents formed, both of them standing next to unconscious Reinhardt. She was going to save him, save them, all of them.

"Wait."

Brigitte looked over her shoulder. The girl's hand, reaching torwards her, fell down right after she turned around. The dryad looked defeated, like she lost a battle with herself. "I need to show you something."

She led Brigitte between the trees' trunks, not looking back even once to check if the villager was still following her. The tension, rising up to this point, started to falter.

"I'm sorry," Brigitte said, forcing her way through the undergrowth, which was thicker in this part of the woods. "About what I said earlier." She wasn't sure if the dryad heard her or not until she caught a quiet "me too" after a heartbeat.

Suddenly, the forest deity stopped and if Brigitte wasn't keeping her distance, she would've bumped into her. She couldn't see anything unusual in their surroundings, but before she opened her mouth to ask the girl about anything, the dryad approached one of the nearest trees - an elm tree, as Brigitte noted.

"This is my tree," the girl said quietly, caressing the rough bark of the trunk. Brigitte made a step torwards it, being wary not to commint a faux pas. "I can't go very far away from it." There was something melancholic in her voice, a wistful note just on the edge of her tone. A gentle sigh escaped her mouth. "If I could, I would go with you without thinking twice."

"Can... Can I touch it?"

Brigitte didn't dare to move until the girl gave a small nod. Only then she carefully caressed the trunk. It felt just like any other tree and a sudden realization dawned on her.

"Is every tree inhabited?" Did she even want to know? The thought of killing a sentient being every time the villagers cut down a tree stirred in her mind, causing her to feel sick.

"No," the dryad shook her head slightly, "just some of the ones in this part of the forest. There's not a lot of us left after..." Her voice chocked up a litttle. Brigitte felt a sudden need to hug the girl, or at least pat her back, but the moment seemed too precious for her to ruin it like that. She stepped back, not wanting to overstay her welcome near the tree. Instead, she examined the elm, trying to ignore how still the dryad was.

The tree wasn't particularly tall nor effuse; if Brigitte didn't know how special it was, she would probably walk past it and not bat an eye. Its trunk was split into forks just above the dryad's head, and every offshoot branched further and further, forming a shape resembling a circle more than anything else. Young twigs were sprouting from the thicker branches and while the leaves still sitting on the tree were shriveled and more brown than green, it seemed like the plant was healthy, ready to live for many more years. Brigitte's eyes focused for a while on one of those smaller twigs, just in reach of someone standing on the ground. The cogs in her brain started turning faster, on a higher gear, just as they would do when she tried to make a particuraly stubborn mechanism work.

"That rule about not going away from your tree..." she began, looking at the dryad's back. "I was wondering what counts as 'a tree'."

That caught the girl's attention; so far she was standing still, with one of her palms pressed to the bark, but now she turned her head torwards Brigitte, curiosity in her eyes. "What do you have in mind?" she asked, a little suspicious, yet too interested not to pry.

"If you took a part of your tree with you, could you go wherever you wanted?" Brigitte looked around. "Maybe not a leaf, because they are everywhere now and you're still bound to this place; besides, they're all fragile now, but... maybe a sprig?" The offer was probably breaking half a dozen different propriety rules and violating another ten, but it was worth a shot. Everything was worth it, if it meant they could go together.

The dryad seemed taken aback by the idea, but collected herself quickly. "I-I tried it, but there are... some rules to it or something... The twig needs to be big enough to sprout roots, and it wouldn't work if I was the one holding it. You'd have to be the one carrying it." Yet, without hesitation, she reached over her head and snapped a twig almost as long as her arm, seemingly without much trouble. Brigitte wasn't sure if her eyes weren't playing a trick on her when she saw the girl shiver a little. "This branch now represents my tree," she said in a ceremonial manner. "Do you swear to protect it?" Her eyes met Brigitte's. Her gaze was sharp and determined; even if she wasn't sure if the idea would work, she wasn't showing it.

"I promise I will protect you," Brigitte bowed her head slightly, but the girl wasn't satisfied with that answer, as she gently shook her head. 

"On your forefathers?" The jokes were over. The vow on one's forefathers, though rarely used nowadays, was bearing a great deal of importance. No one dared to swear it without meaning it, even though the punishment's details were lost in the history.

Brigitte took a step back and put her right hand over her heart. "On my forefathers, I, Brigitte Lindholm, vow to protect you and your tree."

The dryad reached to her, taking Brigitte's calloused hand in her own, so small in comparison, and put the sprig in her hand. "Brigitte." Spoken by the girl, the name sounded both like a soft clatter of metal tools agains each other and a whiff of a gentle summer breeze - familiar and warm. "My name is Hana."

"Well then," Brigitte grasped the twig a little tighter, but still carefully, not wanting it to break, "Hana, I will be your shield."

"Did you pack everything?" asked Torbjörn for the fifth time in the last few minutes, getting a groan from Brigitte as the answer. She fasened the last of her backpack's straps with an emphatic buck.

"Yes, papa. I couldn't be more ready." A blatant lie, they both knew it, but none of them wanted to say that out loud. Torbjörn nodded, scratching the back of his head, and stepped back, making way for his wife.

"Be careful out there," Ingrid said, wrapping her daughter in a tight hug. Brigitte hugged her back, trying to shoo away the wetness in her eyes. She nodded into her mother's shoulder.

"I'll try my best," she rasped, suddenly emotional. It was for the best to leave before she burst into tears. She wiggled her way out of Ingrid's embrace. "I'll come back as soon as I can." She put her backpack on and offered her worried parents a warm smile.  Her gaze derailed for a brief moment and she looked at Reinhardt, his skin ashen and his eyes sulken. She had to clench her jaw to stop the tears.

The dryad - Hana - was waiting for her on the edge of the forest. Two of Brigitte's nephews were watching her with awe, though they were clearly too scared to approach her. Brigitte smiled at them and gave them both quick hugs. Two children waved at her, when she disappeared between the trees, accompanied by a strange girl in a flowing, green dress.