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Chapter Text

Age of Division, the Swamp of Sog…

The tendrils of the apeknot tree whipped around her as she fought, creaking and cracking like sail rigging in a high wind as they dragged her back to become one with the growing trunk.

There had been so much to take in that last terrible night:

The acrid fumes of the smouldering Great Smerth burning at her nose, the flickering light of its silhouette as the flames fanned up around its dark form.

Cursed Naia, the object of her hatred, cause of it all, holding back like some damned saint, not close enough for skekSa to grab, not close enough for her to hurt! Coward, wretch, TRAITOR!!!

Gurjin struggling weakly in her grasp, a sharp blade pressed up against his gut, the useless stump of her other hand held close to her chest.

Fierce Maudra Laesid, and the gashing stinging pain of her spear being driven into her flesh.

The poison prickling and numbing her shoulder, water filled her boots as she stumbled in the mud, nearly blinded by her hatred and fury.

But none of it had mattered, skekSa knew at that point she was going to die that night, and this just made her all the angrier. The LEAST she could do now was cause as much pain and suffering as possible to just some of those that had brought her to this point!

But even that hadn’t gone according to plan. It was all Naia’s fault, of course! If only she had killed Naia when she had had the chance, let her bleed out on the floor as the Ritual Master had wanted before he in turn betrayed her, just like everyone else, even the trees now!

Still screaming and bellowing in rage, skekSa was at last overwhelmed.

Age of Power, the southern edge of the Darkwood, Briarborne village…

The branch had broken with a sharp crack, sending Yiyi flying from the tree-swing with a startled yelp.

On seeing this, the gleeful childlings in the glade had broken into peals of laughter. Giggling and shouting mirthfully amongst themselves, they ran over to the dense wiry shrub from which a pair of skinny legs were now sticking out of like a strange pair of antlers.

And Yiyi - upside down, with twigs in her hair and thorns in her behind - wondered now if perhaps if that hadn’t been good idea after all, or if she could just blame it on bad luck. She felt very determined to blame the latter.

Struggling to free herself, her pinwheeling legs raised another wave of mirthful laughter from the on-looking childings of Briarborne.

“Yiyi, you look so silly!” one of the youngsters giggled shrilly.

Okay, so perhaps she couldn’t chalk it down entirely to bad luck. Perhaps it hadn’t been a great idea to try to use the childling tree-swing after she had only just finished setting it up for them, but in the grand scheme of things, as in the wellbeing of her clanmates, Briarborne, gelfling-kind and maybe even Thra as a whole, it was inconsequential, right?

So… at least this was not a monumental mistake? Just a rather silly one. Or was it one at all? She had been tasked with setting up a tree-swing for the childlings, so was it a bad thing that she had been the first to try it? She wasn’t a childling sure, it was just she sometimes forgot, that was all.

“Hahaha, well that was unexpected!” Yiyi laughed back, trying to salvage some of her dignity. “Now one of you brats help get me out of here, my coat’s all caught up in the shrub.”

As if drawn by some mystical magnet of bad timing, her mother had chosen that exact time to come shepherd the village childlings back in for the evening meal. The evidence had all been there for her to see, the broken tree-swing swinging overhead like a pendulum and the childlings trying to tug Yiyi out from the shrub she had fallen into. A no-nonsense kind of woman, Alina had huffed and scowled at her (or at least - still stuck in the bush - Yiyi could see her scowling in her mind’s eye), then clapped her hands at the childlings, rounding them up and sending them back to the village.

“The job was meant to be a simple one, Yietra,” she could hear her mom chastising her through the foliage. “Do you have an excuse this time?” Yiyi gave up on trying to free herself, deciding she would rather remain in the bush than face her mother.

“I was just testing its safety,” Yiyi giggled nervously, trying to draw her legs into the bush. “What if a whole group of childings tried to climb on it at once?”

“You should have picked a thicker branch, tying the swing so high up was a bad idea, and just how were the childlings even meant to reach it- Yietra, are you trying to hide? I’m talking to you!”

“No,” Yiyi denied, immediately giving up on trying to pull her legs into the bush. “I don’t see the problem anyway, I can just hang it up again. Won’t take me long.”

“Yiyi,” her mother sounded tired, older than usual and it made Yiyi feel a rush of guilt. “That is not the point. You have got to overcome these childish impulses of yours, you could have seriously hurt yourself or even one of the childlings! At your age I was already a renowned jeweller. Will you ever take responsibility for your village? Or at the very least for yourself? Don’t you see what a fool you’re making of yourself?”

Day-dreamer, lazy, irresponsible fool, these were names she was all too familiar with, and it wasn’t like she could entirely deny them. Recently, she had been honoured the informal title of “the worst lookout the village had ever had”, after she had accidentally missed a herd of rogue mounders encroaching on the village’s crops… and perhaps more than once, or a few times… Needless to say, she was no longer a lookout.

Okay, so perhaps yes, it hadn’t been a good idea, a not-so-good-plan …and maybe one of many. Could bad ideas have quantitative value? Could enough bad ideas add up to monumental mistake?

“You know that tomorrow you are to go before the council of elders, again, and you are to humbly ask them to organise an apprenticeship for you,” Alina had continued as she helped pull Yiyi out from the shrub, and to her feet. “Whether here, or in another village, you’ve got to start taking things more seriously. Your younger brother left Briarborne trine ago and is happily settled in Cera-Na, yet you remain here unchanged.”

Yiyi had no idea what to say to that. Saying that she would try her best would only make things worse when it inevitably didn't go to plan. So she just smiled and shrugged, then mumbled: "I'll find someting."

After her grey-haired mother had left, Yiyi looked up towards the canopy.

Pulling twigs from her tangled messy brown hair, Yiyi had leapt up onto one of the trees there, and quickly scaled its trunk, climbing up towards where one end of the tree-swing still remained tied high above the forest floor. Locking her knees and elbows around the thick branch, she got to work quickly untying the rope. The swing fell, and hit the forest floor with a heavy thud, Yiyi’s ears twitched as she realised the danger that would have posed if someone had been in the glade below.

Rather than follow down after it, Yiyi huffed and looked up again, and began to climb yet higher up into the canopy. Up and up until the branches bent and swayed with her every move and she could go no higher.

Securing herself amongst the branches here, she sat back and put her face in her hands, shaking her head.

It was not the severity of the words that had been said that got to her, it was the fact that she knew they were true, and she had known they were for a long time. She was lazy, she was prone to getting distracted, she did prefer to talk about tales of faraway places even though she had never really been to any, and she knew she didn’t really have an excuse other than selfish boredom.

Her village, her mother included, regarded her as a burden. It was something Yiyi was aware of, and something she felt more and more every day.

Like all gelfling, her first duty was to her people. And a day-dreaming, easily distracted and irresponsible gelfling was not what her people needed.

She sat there for a while in the swaying tree-tops, wallowing in her own self-pity. Eventually, she began to try to think of a solution.

Theoretically, if many small bad decisions could stack up to form a monumental mistake, then perhaps a big monumentally good decision could equally cancel them out? Perhaps she could still prove herself.

She looked out over the woods, and at the distant lands beyond, some of which hadn’t been inhabited in many centuries now. Distant, far away and mysterious.

An idea began to form in her head, it wasn’t necessarily a good one but right in that moment she was willing to accept any alternative to make herself feel better. If the council could not find a suitable job for her, then perhaps she could pick one of her own.

Lookout hadn't been a post that worked for her, but perhaps a scout might do better? Yietra, self-appointed scout for gelfling-kind, she thought smugly to herself. It sounded simple enough in theory, just needed to walk around and look at things, right? She could do that.

So early the next morning, before even the first sun had risen, without fanfare, tears or farewells, Yiyi quietly packed a cloth backpack with provisions, leaving a short note before she set determinedly out from the woods, convinced that when she returned she would have more tales than any of the rest of the village had combined.

…

Her smugness had not lasted long.

Two full days of determined walking had seen Yiyi arrive at the edge of the Swamp of Sog. Her feet were blistered and her face was sunburnt, her clothes were stiff and stale, and she was homesick already, but she remained determined to remain determined. Focusing just on getting to her destination.

This was not as fun as she had imagined it would be. Not like in some tale of a bard, playing merry music and singing merry songs, while travelling with a merry band of friends. No, this was nothing like that, she was achy and tired and alone.

Alright, she thought to herself, so perhaps this of hers had also been a mistake, or at the very least, a decision that had been made hastily and without much thought behind it, or perhaps there had been and she just didn’t want to think of that – that she might have been running away from her responsibilities yet AGAIN, and being silly and selfish and stupid!

Each of these accusations was punctuated by her leaping between the roots of the swamp trees, trying to avoid falling into the black water below, while the damn things twisted and groaned beneath her feet, a deep ominous chorus that fuelled her anxiety but kept her moving.

Long ago, when gelfling-kind had been nearly wiped off the face of Thra, every old township and clan had fallen. Permanent residences became no more, the gelflings became a nomadic race. Even since the Crystal was healed, as gelflings had begun to spread out across the land from where boats of survivors had landed once more, some of these old townships remained abandoned, empty forgotten monuments to what once had been.

There had at one time been 7 distinct gelflings clans, many of these old towns had by now been reclaimed, but some remained untouched. The entrance to the Caves of Grot, and the elusive hometown of the Dousan in the Crystal Sea, had long since been forgotten, lost mysterious places of wonder that had yet to be re-found, let alone re-claimed.

But there remained one place that no one had bothered to return to, even though they knew where it was, the Swamp of Sog.

No one, except Yiyi.

And it was quickly becoming apparent to her why this was.

The marshes stretched out all around her, the ground here was treacherous, soft and slippery - a land half drowned in black water and bound in twisting braids of twitching roots. She couldn’t see how it would be possible to grow any common crops here, even navigating across the swamp was a struggle all of its own. Why would any sane gelfling have ever wanted to live here, she kept asking herself.

Sunlight was slowly fading, only two of the Three Brothers remained in the sky now, but she kept on, knowing that she had to be getting close to the heart of the swamp now. The Great Smerth had to be nearby, one of the seven Sanctuary Trees, home to the Drenchen clan many, many, many trine ago, before the last Great Conjunction, during the Age of Division.

For a heart stopping moment, Yiyi lost her footing, and she nearly fell into one of the black pools, only managing to stop herself by grabbing onto a branch.

“Keep on going,” she scolded herself aloud. “You owe this to everyone, not to mention yourself. You got this! …even if that black water might be full of biting eels, eyeless fish and all over kinds of nasty creepy-crawlies that you can’t even fathom or imagine! And even if you fall into one of those ponds you might never get out!” Saying this aloud, strangely, did not bring her comfort.

She thought of tales of old, of the ancient times when gelflings had lived in fear of detection. When the skeksis had ruled, giant terrifying lizard-like creatures, with glowing golden eyes, talons, fangs and hard scaly skin. Drooling, vicious, cruel and craving nothing more than to drain gelflings and devour them… or so she had been told. It wasn’t like she had ever seen one, or even a proper illustration. Her younger brother had tried to draw one for her when they were childlings, but they had both been disappointingly informed by their father that wings and the ability to breathe fire was not amongst the known traits of skeksis.

Eventually, a glade opened up ahead of her, overgrown with tall swamp reeds and creeper vine. Small apeknots were slowly encroaching in on the glade, getting gradually larger the further away they were. Perhaps one day the entire glade would be swallowed hole.

“YES! Finally!” she leapt for joy on catching sight of the crown of a giant silky-leaved tree despite her fatigue, and grinned ecstatically. It was huge, much larger than any tree she had ever seen before, so big that it could contain an entire village in its trunk and boughs – as it once had, she reminded herself. Breaking into a deranged cackle she began to run towards it, so happy to finally see herself reaching her first of many destinations.

But as she got closer, Yiyi realised she could see no traces of structures in its boughs, nor openings in its trunk. It looked just like a giant tree, there was no sign a village had ever been here at all. She also noticed there was no trace of the Glenfoot pavilion she had heard tale of, but this wasn’t too surprising at least, given that history said it had been built of wood and mudrock, unmaintained these would have quickly weathered away in the centuries since the Drenchen left. Still, Yiyi had hoped at least some trace of it would have remained.

Coming to a stop at the foot of the tree, she huffed tiredly, shoulders sagging as she looked around a second time to be sure. Right now she didn’t feel as if she was in a forgotten ancestral hometown but a random swamp in the middle of nowhere.

Her plan been to take shelter within the Great Smerth that night, but several more minutes of careful searching revealed no tunnels. Perhaps, left uninhabited, the tree had simply enclosed itself once more. Yiyi imagined that centuries ago, when the Drenchen lived there the whole place would have been lit up with warm glow-lanterns. Though the swamp was muddy and sticky, it must have also been a warm and homely place at one point, but now… now it was just dark, and cold, and soggy.

Perhaps she was somehow in the wrong place? Perhaps there were multiple glades with big trees within the swamp? It wasn’t like anyone had been here in a long time after all, and what records of the Swamp of Sog remained were sparse at best, retained in undoubtedly embellished bard’s tales, all she really knew about it was that even during the rule of the skeksis the Drenchen had been a reclusive rarely visited clan.

Taking in the sounds of the swamp life now emerging in the dusk as she continued to look around for some sign of what to do next. Insect chirrs, chirrups in the reeds and in the trees, the dull groans of a herd of nebrie could be heard echoing not too far away. Glowing moss in the trees were growing brighter.

This wasn’t what she had expected, but she tiredly congratulated herself for having made it there. She climbed up its huge roots and settled atop of them, glad at last to get some rest from the long journey. Her legs and feet were stiff, her nose and cheeks pink with sunburn, she hastily unrolled her thin bedroll, and flopped back against the Great Smerth’s gently thrumming trunk with a huff.

Then she felt something unexpected.

A gentle thrumming energy running from her fingertips up her arms, a warm and pleasant current, the feeling of a close life-force, it rippled against her own. Tired, and believing she might just be feeling the pulse within her own hands, Yiyi raised them both away from the trunk. The connection was immediately broken, and she was alone in the swamp once more. Yiyi’s eyes widened in surprise.

Was that the Great Smerth’s life force she was feeling?!

Suddenly wide-awake, she recalled tales told to her long ago, of legends of gelflings communicating with Sanctuary Trees, but she had thought they were just myth, to add some magic and wonder to dark tales of old. In fact she was sure one such gelfling hero in song, of which there were many, who had been said to be able to do this had been Drenchen.

Hesitantly, she put her hands back down. Immediately the connection sprung back to life, much stronger now. No conscious thought like a fellow gelfling in dreamfast, but the Great Smerth thrummed with life nonetheless.

She turned over on her bedroll and placed both hands back upon the tree, reaching out to it with as if to dreamfast. There WAS a life force within the Tree, she could feel it reaching out to her. Like in stories of old, she reached back, calling to the life within the tree, willing it to speak to her, share its secrets and its answers.

“I am right here, oh Great Smerth,” she tried to project her thoughts through the connection. “Humble before you, I plead that you spare just a few words to me so that I might hear your ancient wisdom.”

There was something calling back to her, but just as she was trying to understand just exactly what, the Great Smerth groaned.

It was such a deep dull sound that she felt it rather than heard it, the immense branches of the huge tree shifting ever so slightly, the trunk rumbled beneath her hands. At first the movement was subtle, but then when tendrils and roots began to move, bark crackling, all the apeknot trees as far as she could see seemed to come to life, suddenly moving noticeably more than they had done, sogbirds took flight with harsh cries, the ground itself shook, as if the Great Smerth’s huge roots were stirring beneath the earth.

Yiyi quickly let go and backed away from the tree in a panic, disconnecting whatever form of connection she had had with it, but the Great Smerth continued to rumble and twist.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted to the huge tree, holding up both hands, not knowing what else to do she continued to plead. “Don’t be angry, I was just curious! That was all!”

What had she done?! Yiyi didn’t even know herself. Was it true that Sanctuary Trees truly did have a sentience to them? Had she angered it somehow? Upset it? Woken it up?

This could well turn into a monumental mistake all of its own, if it wasn’t one already, but she could still fix this! The Great Smerth had no ears to hear her, but perhaps she could reach out to it another way. Despite her fear, Yiyi darted forwards, placing her hands upon the trunk once more, and repeating her apologies, hoping that the feeble connection she could feel was reaching whatever equivalent to a mind the tree had.

“I’m sorry, Great Smerth, I did not mean to disturb your slumber,” she told it hastily. “I just wanted to greet you. I realise now that was rather rude of me! I’m sorry, please rest once more!”

The thick network of roots and tendrils forming the trunk of the tree beneath her hands was swelling, the trunk was beginning to bulge outward, pushing her backwards, tendrils shifting and coiling like serpents. Suddenly terrified she would be crushed, Yiyi gave up on apologising to the tree and leapt down from the roots, grabbing her bag and dragging her bedroll behind her, she hurried away from the tree but she didn’t get far. All around the glade. the trees were going wild, whipped up into a frenzy they twisted and shook as if caught in high winds stopping Yiyi in her tracks for fear they would strike her.

She looked back over to her shoulder towards the Great Smerth, and gasped. The entire mountainous form of the tree seemed to be bending away from her, tendrils and roots around its trunk closest to her were moving to adjust to this, but many simply snapped under the strain, the sound like a repeated whip-crack. The Great Smerth convulsed, some final tendrils snapping until finally a large dark bundle of glistening roots fell out from its self-inflicted wound.

And at last, the tree seemed to calm, wood groaning as it slowly eased back to its original form, and the apeknots in the swamps in turn began to slow in their movements.

The sweet sickly scent of tree-sap was thick in the air.

Yiyi felt as if her feet were glued to the ground, so uncertain she was what to make of it all, but it might have also been partially because her shoes had sunken into the mud. The trees were all near silent once more, the Great Smerth was motionless but for the occasional vine sluggishly readjusting itself. But there was a dark oozing wound in the side of its immense trunk, tiny compared to its massive bulk but Yiyi couldn’t help but feel pity, snapped tendrils still twitched like beating veins, bleeding sap sluggishly, and out from amongst them a dark tangled mass of roots hung like an eviscerated organ.

She didn’t understand. Had the Great Smerth been in pain? Was it sick? Did she somehow help it? Or make it worse? Or was this an unlucky coincidence?

She dropped her bag and bedroll, and ran back, tripping only once as her shoes skidded in the mud.

“I won’t try to dreamfast with you again, I promise,” she apologised to the Great Smerth again, but whether it heard her or not she could only guess. “But please let me help if I can.”

As she approached she could see that the dark mass entangled in tendrils was big, much bigger than her, and… was that a hand hanging out from amongst it?!

Yiyi squeaked in horror, stumbling back a step. Images running rampant in her mind of the huge tree being carnivorous and consuming any who attempted to dwell within its trunk.

“Don’t be silly, don’t be silly,” she chided herself. “The Drenchen would have never made this their home if it did THAT!”

Unless perhaps it only ate those who weren’t Drenchen? She knew of some carnivorous plants in the woods that would tolerate some prey animals for their mutual benefit. She quickly silenced these treacherous thoughts.

Steeling herself against running, she moved closer to inspect. It wasn’t a gelfling hand, now that she could see it more clearly, it was much too large, the skin a dull grey-blue, but it was mostly definitely not the paw of an animal either. Was… was it dead?

Yiyi could see bits of cloth through the tangle of tendrils and roots now, dark magenta, embroidered with gold and green thread. There was a boot clad foot twice the side of her own at one end, sap-soaked dark blue-black hair hung from the other where the being’s head remained obscured.

She drew back when the fingers of the hand suddenly twitched.

The poor creature was still alive!

“Hold on, I got you,” she gasped, eyes widening in panic as she looked at the mass of tendrils in front of her, she began to tug at them, suddenly terrified the creature was going to suffocate. The tendrils slipped away with surprising ease, falling and folding lifelessly upon the ground as she tossed them aside. With weakened attachment to the tree, Yiyi realised too late that the figure was now slipping.

Abruptly they slid free of the tree and over its roots, crashing down onto the swampy ground below.

“I’m sorry!” Yiyi sat and slid down the roots after them, ignoring the sap now coating her sleeves and light coat, she hurried over to them. The giant figure was lying on their front, much of them hidden beneath a long twisted soggy black cape, but she could see their face now.

It definitely was not a gelfling, nothing like one in fact. Their face was animalistic, full of pearly pointed teeth and covered in fur, but in places a dark grey-blue skin was visible, with a darker mane ran down its neck. It was unlike anything she had ever seen.

Yiyi knew of only two sentient races in Skarith – her kind, and podlings. Then there was Aughra, a strange being of infinite wisdom of neither race, born from the rocks and earth, when Thra had sought a voice for itself. She had seen her once, Yiyi had been brought along as part of a group who had gone to pay tribute to the Castle when she was little. But Yiyi was gelfling, as podlings were podlings, and Aughra was Aughra.

So what was this creature?

Aughra was born from the rocks and earth…

Yiyi looked back over her shoulder to the gaping wound in the tree, then back to the fallen being in front of her, the last of the tendrils still trailing from it. Her eyes widened.

Birthed from the tree itself, was this creature some sort of incarnation of the Great Smerth itself?

Had she just bared witness to the birth of another Voice of Thra?! A new voice? Had her attempting to speak to the Great Smerth somehow triggered this? She had requested to hear some of its ancient wisdom after all, but she hadn’t exactly expected to have been answered like this! Feeling excitement rise in her chest, it was all she could do not to squeal with delight.

The being had begun to stir, moving to brace its arms upon the ground but it kept falling back, breath rattling as it hacked and spat sap upon the ground.

Realising she had gotten distracted, Yiyi dashed over, falling to her knees to push herself beneath one of its arms, hooking it over her shoulders.

“It’s alright, I got you, Tree-Spirit,” she told it, straining to get to her feet, it quickly proved impossible. Yiyi was lanky as a sapling and by comparison the Tree-Spirit was the Great Smerth, she had no hope of bearing its weight and it really didn’t help that her shoes kept slipping in the mud and tree sap.

The Tree-Spirit opened its eyes, revealing them to be a startling ruby red, but they held character within them, intelligence, though their gaze drifted about, confused and unfocused until they finally fixed on her.

“You’re going to need to work with me, Tree-Spirit,” she told them, giving up on trying to get them to stand and now just pushing back in hope she could at least get them to sit. “I’m kind of lacking when it comes to muscles-”

The breath was knocked out of her as a huge clawed hand suddenly grabbed the front of her shirt and rammed her into the ground.

“Don’t you dare!” the creature roared at her in a low voice that shook her very bones, there was burning anger in their eyes, the animalistic head snapped about as they looked around at the swamp quickly, their drenched mane tossing upon their shoulders: “Is this a trick?! Decided to finally finish the job?! Come out! I know you’re there!”

“I was just trying to help,” Yiyi bleated fearfully, clutching at their wrist, she doubted they heard her. “Please, let me go! I’m sorry!”

The weight of the being’s hand on her chest crushing her into the ground, their nails were tough and pointed, like talons of a predatory animal, they dug into her through her thin shirt. Their strength was like iron, she was powerless. She realised in that moment that if this creature wanted to hurt her, to kill her, it could do so in an instant, and she had foolishly walked right up to it.

The creature ignored her, still looking around furiously as if expecting them to be leapt on at any minute. Yiyi fell silent, just breathing anxiously as she waited for whatever came next. Eventually the creature seemed to calm down, the stiffness in their posture easing, they snorted irritably.

They looked down at her again, and their eyes widened. Seemingly taken aback, they quickly released her. As soon as Yiyi was free, she rolled up into a ball, covering her head with her arms.

For a while there was silence, Yiyi hiccupping as she tried to get her breathing under control. A hand touched her shoulder, deceptively gentle after what had just happened, she tensed up. The hand was taken away. The creature was crouched beside her, its presence a huge shadow beside her.

“My dear, please do not be afraid. I did not know who you were,” the voice was rich and deep, but there was a tired haggard edge to it. “It was a mistake, I thought you held a blade.” Yiyi looked out from between her arms and could see they were offering her their hand, cruel claws now harmlessly turned away.

Yiyi looked up at them again then, the burning anger in their eyes was gone now, replace with what she wasn’t sure, something like exhaustion and perhaps worry? Despite how much she was still shaking, she cautiously reached out and took their – her? – hand.

The creature’s hand was big and warm, moments ago a source of fear now so gentle, it completely engulfed hers, lifting her without effort. It was then she couldn’t help but notice the being’s other hand, or rather where it should have been, was just an empty sleeve.

“Sweet little thing, I hope you’re not hurt?” the Tree-spirit crooned to her, seemingly noticing Yiyi’s gaze, quickly stuffed the stump of her missing hand into one plush but very muddy pocket. “Please forgive my manners, I was not myself.”

Yiyi looked up at her uncertainly, still a bit shaky from her fear. Had it been just a misunderstanding? Were they a friend? She very much wanted them to be a friend. Then, without thinking much of it, or thinking about it so much that it clouded her judgement, she leant forward and wrapped her arms around the Tree-Spirit’s midriff in a tight hug.

The being exclaimed, freezing up for a moment in shock, then they began to laugh heartily, her whole body shaking with the sound.

“I will take that as a yes,” she said. “But oh look at you, you’ve got mud all over your clothes now.”

Yiyi let go, suddenly feeling rather awkward, but much more reassured now.

“It’s okay, they were already dirty,” she mumbled quietly, then regaining a bit of her prior confidence she spoke up. “My name is Yietra, but please call me Yiyi, mighty Tree-spirit”

“Tree-spirit?” the creature raised her brow, then smiled broadly showing every one of her shiny white teeth. “I would say that I am more of sea spirit, if I do say so myself, my dear.” She purred, reaching towards her head as if to grasp the rim of a hat that wasn’t there, seemingly realising this, a flicker of irritation crossing the being’s face, she lowered her arm again.

“A Sea-spirit?” Yiyi said, a smile returning to her face. “I’ve never met a Sea-spirit before, but I heard tales of Mother Aughra’s birth, from amongst the rocks and very ground of Thra, like you emerging from the Great Smerth. …I don’t even know what else to say. It’s a huge honour to meet you!”

She quickly bowed deeply, the spark of glee reigniting in her heart, not noticing the confused incredulous look the “Sea-spirit” was now giving her. All that she could think of right in that moment was that she had just met a VOICE of THRA! What would her village say to that? Even those within the Castle of the Crystal would be in awe, just what would they say if she brought the Sea-spirit to the Castle?

Chapter Text

“Do you not know who I am?”

It was only now that Yiyi realised the Sea-spirit were smiling at her. She was taken aback, quickly trying to figure out whether this was a trick question of some sort.

“Are- are you a personification of the Great Smerth?” she tilted her head at the Sea-spirit; though she still had some questions as to why a “sea”-spirit would be linked to a tree?

The Sea-spirit’s eyes widened for a moment, then she abruptly burst into deep booming laughter.

“My dear, please, you jest,” she protested, still laughing she leant down so they were eye-level; Yiyi got the distinct impression that she was being scrutinised. “I suppose I rarely come so far inland. I am Captain skekSa, though I find Sea-spirit to be a rather nice title as well.”

“Skecsarr?” Yiyi tested the name on her tongue like a sour fruit, it sounded awkwardly similar to skeksis, but she thought it might be rather rude to point this out. “That’s a nice name,” she said instead as the Sea-spirit stood up again, still frowning at her.

The Sea-spirit was so tall, the fading light glinting off the ornamental rings adorning her face and hair were almost like a fourth moon in the sky. And to think of all the wisdom they held, she couldn’t even imagine it. Yiyi found herself feeling rather overwhelmed even being in their presence, exhilarated even, and though there was still some discomfort in her chest she found she didn’t care. She reckoned this was what one was supposed to feel when around a Voice of Thra, filled with awe and wonder… though admittedly she had no memory of feeling this way when her village had had the honour of meeting Mother Aughra. And skekSa was so different that Aughra, so tall, powerful, strong, confident…

She then realised the Sea-spirit was talking and she hadn’t taken a word in.

The Sea-spirit’s smile faltered for a moment. “I am skekSa the Mariner,” she repeated. “Guardian of the Sifa?”

Sifa wasn’t a word that came up much outside of old stories, but Yiyi knew it well, as did all gelflings. It was through the use of Sifan ships that their ancestors had managed to ride out the worse of the storm that were the last centuries of the skeksis rule. Almost all gelflings who had stayed behind had perished. But she had never heard tale of the Sifa having any guardian but their own hand.

“A lord of the Crystal,” the Sea-spirit continued, seeing her blank expression. “Surely skeksis have visited your village before? That big booming oaf of a Census-Taker and wittering little Scroll-Keeper no doubt?”

“Skeksis?” Yiyi slowly shook her head, thinking she surely must have heard the Sea-spirit wrong, the idea was absolutely absurd. Then she smiled wide in realisation. “Oh wait, this is a test, isn’t it?”

SkekSa quirked a brow at her.

“Well, besides all of the obvious,” Yiyi said matter-of-factly, she was fairly confident she knew quite a bit more than most about skeksis from all the old tales she had heard. “You’re not nearly ugly enough to be one.”

"Hmmph," skekSa still didn’t say anything, though her frown did seem to have become deeper, standing up straighter she placed her hands upon her hips, or rather the stump of one was still hidden in her pocket. Not sure whether this 'hmmph" indicated agreement or disagreement, Yiyi took this as permission to carry on, and she began to list off defining features she had heard about skeksis through tales on her fingers.

“Can you drain my essence by making eye contact with me?” Yiyi counted one finger. 

“Well of course not,” skekSa began to say.

“Can you swing a sword with the force of 10 Gelfling?” she counted a second.

“Hmmph, perhaps,” skekSa considered. “Though it would depend on the gelflings in questions of course.”

“Can you cast magic that will bring inanimate objects to life?”

“No.”

"Can you control the minds of others?"

"Everyone can, but doubtedly in the way you are thinking."

“Can you control thunder and lightning?”

“My dear, this is getting rather ridiculous…”

“What about-” Yiyi had now moved onto her other hand.

“Let me stop you right there,” skekSa held up both her hands, including the stump. Yiyi did not miss how the Sea-spirit then inconspicuously turn her body so that the maimed arm was out of sight. “My dear, please do tell me, have you ever actually seen a skeksis before?”

“Of course not, Mariner Sea-spirit skekSa,” Yiyi smiled at her. “But I do listen to stories when they are told, so I know a fair bit. The skeksis all vanished a long, long time ago.”

The Sea-spirit suddenly lost her footing, one boot sliding on the muddy ground. Yiyi darted forward, hands pressing up against damp silky brocade and long dress-shirt to steady her, fortunately she did not fall as Yiyi doubted she would have had the strength to do anything about it.

“Are you okay, Captain Sea-spirit skekSa?”

“Oh, curse this dratted swamp,” skekSa replied, quickly righting herself and taking hold of Yiyi’s shoulder. “Where is your camp? You aren’t alone, are you?”

“Well you see...” Yiyi made some quick unsure gestures about the swamp as she tried to articulate what she had been doing. Suddenly all her plans and ideas seemed so childish. Silly, silly, silly, she scolded herself internally for making a fool of herself in front of the Sea-spirit. Quickly she put on an act of confidence, hands on her hips and smiling wide “I’m a scout on a quest! Travelling alone means I travel lighter and faster!”

“My, it seems I am in luck,” the Sea-spirit purred: “You must have travelled much of Thra, and it seems I’m in need of a guide.”

Yiyi’s ears twitched, embarrassed. She felt like skekSa could see right through her. Perhaps she could? Perhaps higher beings like her could read minds?!

“Not exactly, sort of, well, yet, but in time, I will. …hopefully,” Yiyi mumbled quickly, now worried she would be asked something she couldn’t possibly answer. “Anyway, I had planned originally to just camp by the Great Smerth… or in it. If the tunnels had remained. But, perhaps with your great wisdom we might be able to find another way in?”

“The Great Smerth?” the Sea-spirit snorted and looked back at the huge tree. For a moment Yiyi could have sworn she saw skekSa flinch, but then it was gone, dismissed with a flick of her wrist as she turned to lumber away. “That isn’t the Great Smerth, it’s an offshoot sapling, grown fat on the rotting soil.”

“Oh?” Yiyi exclaimed, looking back at the huge now motionless tree, then seeing skekSa quickly moving off in the darkening swamp, ran after her. “But I saw no other! Where could it be?”

The Sea-spirit paused to allow her to catch up, looking around at the swamp, she ruffled up the short fur beneath her chin considerately.

“Gone, must have fallen,” she said presently. “Age? The darkening? One or the other. Wood rots quickly in places like these. Come, let us find somewhere more suitable to rest.”

…

The swamp was empty. The Great Smerth was gone. The Drenchen were gone. The skeksis were gone. Were the Sifa gone too?

They sat about a small fire now, having set up camp on firmer ground, her drying black cloak slowly undulating in the wind from where it had been hung from a low branch, forming a wind-guard. The strange little gelfling seemed eager to please, having run off find wood and kindling the moment skekSa had begun to suggest it.

The gelfling, while perhaps not particularly good at stringing together a coherent narrative, was a very enthusiastic story-teller, had quickly began to fill her in on everything she knew. The story was a bit... unreliable to say the least, at least for the earlier parts of history where skekSa had been there in some form or other, but her brethren were likely partially to blame for muddying history in their own way. The tale had begun somewhere before the arrival of the urskeks and the knowledge they had parted with the gelflings, then the arrival of the skeksis, the war and finally how the skeksis eventually all been reunited into urskeks and travelled back to where they had came from. SkekSa had many questions, many tumultuous thoughts, but said and gave away nothing. The tale hadn't stopped there. Yiyi had then moved onto the development of the Thra since then, of the surviving gelflings, most of them at sea on Sifan ships – skekSa had felt a flicker of fury at hearing this, but quickly squashed it before it could materialise. Then of villages slowly arising as the population began to grow once more. Of the politics in the Castle of the Crystal with the current gelfling monarchy and council, one of which was a debate as to whether Ha’Rar should be reclaimed as the capital or the Castle should remain as such, with a more extreme argument suggesting that the Castle be abandoned altogether as it was sacred ground. Yiyi had then briefly mumbled about her own mission, to rediscover what was lost.

At this point the gelfling had fallen silent, seemingly having run out of things to say she just smiled awkwardly before looking away.

SkekSa could feel exhaustion beginning to creep up on her. She wondered if this was nightmare, at how she could still be alive after so long. Her wounds, the poison, were gone, long ago healed by the entombing properties of that dratted tree, but the useless stump of one hand still remained. It had not regrown. In a dream of a dream, stuck within her entombed prison, she had dreamt of revenge. After having everything taken away from her, everything which she had worked for centuries to attain, her home, her treasures, her Sifa. Gone. Gone forever.

When she next looked up she realised that she had failed to completely mask how she feeling, the gelfling was holding out her small bedroll to her in offering, looking rather concerned. SkekSahad declined. It was too small, and she wanted to keep the gelfling sweet while she decided what she was going to do next. It wasn’t the first time she had had to make do, even if she did very much miss the luxury of her upholstered bed aboard Vassa.

“You were sleeping?” Yiyi had asked when skekSa had told her that her emergence from the tree had not been the first time she had set foot on Thra. The gelfling’s ears drooped in embarrassment. “I’m very sorry for waking you.”

“Don’t be, I had overslept,” skekSa had winked at her, hiding unease behind a confident smile. “Though I would not exactly call it sleeping.” It had been more like simply existing, but without a sense of sight, or sound, touch, smell or taste, and without a conscious passing of time; but perhaps this had been a mercy, though it had felt like an eternity, it had also all passed in an instant. Who knew how much longer she would have remained there if this gelfling hadn’t shown up.

“Ohhh, like a form of meditation? A communion with Thra? Or the stars themselves?” the gelfling leant towards her, eyes practically sparkling with curiosity. Though being admired and viewed as something of a deity was not something alien to skekSa, she realised she had very much began to miss this attention from her Sifa. More pressing of a matter though was that the gelfling thought she was some sort of equivalent to Aughra, not a skeksis, even though she had told her. It was worrying… just what had happened in the time that she had been gone? Had everyone survived? Had Naia… SkekSa cut off her train of thought. She refused to think about how Naia might have gotten away unpunished.

“Something like that,” skekSa agreed. Perhaps for now the best thing to do was simply play along, skekSa was no liar, and she prided herself as such, it was the gelfling that had chosen not to listen.

“How long?” the gelfling babbled, then rocking unsurely added: “Captain Mariner skekSa?”

“I’m uncertain, my dear,” skekSa chose not to correct her. “M’thinks you might be able to help me with that. Remind me again, the All-maudra now resides in the Castle of the Crystal now rather than Ha’rar?”

“Oh, we haven’t had an All-maudra for centuries,” the gelfling frowned. “We have a council of elders at the Castle of the Crystal, with a king and queen as figureheads, symbols of hope and unity. Ha’rar is a mounder farming village now, the grassy mountains are ideal.”

SkekSa was distrustful of this strange gelfling, behind the outward appearance of charm and eagerness to listen, she scrutinised them, watching for any sign of deceit. They seemed naïve, far more like the gelflings she had been used to dealing with before the rebellion had begun to gather steam. If not even more passive. But then again her young maudra Ethri had been like that in the beginning and she had still betrayed her in the end.

Gelflings rarely travelled alone voluntarily, especially when as inexperienced as this one was. SkekSa could tell with a single look that Yiyi was no traveller, not with her sparse belongings, her clothes made of a soft fabric designed more for comfort than endurance, her sunburnt face only added further to the suggestion that this gelfling was not an accomplished traveller. This quest of hers was about proving herself, and in that moment skekSa could read this Yiyi’s motives like a book. It was perfect really. A gelfling who admired her and greatly desired recognition and acceptance? She could easily work with that.

“What clan are you from?” skekSa asked her, digging for more background to complete the picture. If she knew where they were from she might have a better understanding of how they thought, what they valued. All the clans were different. "I had thought you might be Sifa when I first saw you, but now I am unsure. Your garb is not traditional."

“I’m from Briarborne,” Yiyi smiled broadly, and skekSa had to ask her to repeat herself. “It’s in the Dark Wood, just a day or so’s walk from the Castle of the Crystal.”

“Bri-ar-bor-ne? What of Stone-in-the-Wood?” skekSa felt as if her throat was closing in on itself asking this, she had already guessed the answer.

“The ruins?” Yiyi crossed her arms. “Yes, they’re fairly close by. I’ve been to see them many times.”

“Ruins?” she sighed. She found she almost wished she was back in the tree, numb to everything else. This felt like a nightmare, this couldn’t be reality. It was a fever dream. She was dying from the combined effects of poison and blood loss in the swamp, and this world was something conjured up to trick her final thoughts. “Of course they are.”

The gelfling gave her a concerned look, then began rummaging in her backpack. A few moments later, they held out a skin of water to her. SkekSa had asked her if she might have anything a bit stronger. The gelfling had offered her dry-cured sweet gourd to eat. Not exactly what she had had in mind. They had then tentatively asked her for her own story.

“My greatest love was always the sea,” she uneager to share this story, and decided to keep it short. “When I was first …borne into this land, there were no Sifa, no seafaring gelfling. They were afraid of it. I always sought to be by the sea, and to bring those on land out to it to truly appreciate its beauty and bounty. Long, long ago. There is not much more to say. I was happy for a long time. Then, my gelflings turned on me, for things that I had never done. Perhaps taking a rest in a tree was a good thing, hm? It seems I missed out on the war entirely.”

Yiyi watched her with rapt attention, pulling her knees closer to her chin. The gelfling’s eyes darted to her missing hand, and skekSa once again fought the urge not to hide the stump, angry and bitter to be reminded of its absence.

“I think I understand why you were so worried when you first saw me,” Yiyi said, and skekSa noticed tears welling up in the gelfling's eyes. A very dramatic little creature she was. No one had ever reacted that way to her tales, but then again skekSa had never had been as hatefully vulnerable before, not since the Great Division. She had always been in control. “I could have been one of them. Where will you go now? Perhaps I could lead you to the Castle?”

The Castle was literally the last place skekSa could have wanted to head right now. Just because this gelfling had convinced themselves that she was not a skeksis it did not mean the others would as well, and with the knowledge now of the war, skekSa knew they would not look upon her kindly. Until she had a better understanding of the lay of the land and its people, she was going to wait. Right now she had nothing, but her wits and a naïve gelfling who was convinced she was the second birth of Aughra.

“That is very thoughtful of you, my dear, but what of Cera-Na? Does it still exist? And what of the Sifa?”

The gelfling offered her a small smile and nodded. “Cera-Na very much does still exist, it was one of the first places gelflings landed and where the first town arose after the Crystal was healed. The Sifa, hmm, the clans don’t quite exist as they once did, but we all probably share some ancestry with them.”

“The Sifa were never defined by their bloodlines, but by their love and understanding of the sea,” skekSa informed her, breathing a sigh of relief at knowing at least that part of her world wasn’t gone. “They were not as puritan about that as most of the clans had been.”

“Does that make you Sifa?” Yiyi asked, and skekSa was taken aback by the question.

“I’ve never been called Sifan, but I suppose it does,” skekSa smiled. She was their founder, their creator, their guide, their guardian, their master, until it had all been taken away from her! SkekSa knew right then that she would reclaim it all. “Cera-Na, then is where I would like to go.”

“Could I perhaps go with you?” Yiyi suggested, brow furrowed as she avoided eye contact.

“Of course, if it would not be going too far out of your way,” skekSa watched as the gelfling looked up at her hopefully. This would work. “You’ve got a map, I take it?”

The gelfling nodded, suddenly all smiles and sparkling eyes. “I do, Sea-spirit skekSa! And, I have family there too, in Cera-Na I mean. I’ve never been to the sea. This is all so exciting!”

For all her talk of a mission, the gelfling didn’t seem that fixated on following it, and this suited skekSa just fine.