Chapter Text
It was a dark and ashy night. The moons of Mahwil were blocked by cinders and ash, rising from the forest. In the middle of this pile of cinders and ash that once was a forest there was a dryad. Her skin was birch, and her hair was similarly pale; it grew like vines down to her torso, where a fire thrummed like a heart in her chest. She was half awake and half dead, and could barely remember where she was a minute ago. All she could hear was the deafening silence of the wind, and a faint song, somewhere over the horizon. She gazed about disorientedly, trying to force herself to remember who she was and why she was here.
“Wrenn.” she spoke through tired lips, her voice slow and raspy, “My name is Wrenn.” Having gotten hold of one solid piece of lore, one part of her she knows to be true, she began to piece back together everything else.
She remembered the fire, bright and furious; unlike anything she had seen before. The Dryads had done controlled burns before, of course, the forest needed new birth and the trees they burned were old, and ready to pass on to the Everbloom. But this one. This fire didn’t burn with love or with knowledge. It wasn’t a steady hand to the Everbloom, it was anger. It was a rage, tearing through love and through trees and through Dryads… through Dryads. Wrenn repeated that to herself several times. She had only seen one Dryad pass to the Everbloom, when she was young. It had been peaceful. Every Dryad she had ever seen and more were there to mourn.
But the Fire didn’t mourn. The Fire didn’t open the way to the Everbloom to allow the Dryads it engulfed to take their last journey. What if they didn’t- She stopped again. She couldn’t think about that. The Everbloom is where it all goes, the Fire couldn’t stop that. Could it? She tried to think through the lore of Mahwil she had learned in the Glades, of their Gods Lewil and Mahgren building a world atop their mother’s body. “The Everbloom,” she remembered her teacher, Srenor, saying “is the heart of the Mother, Passage scatters one across the lands and air and sea. This scattering causes one to be absorbed into the heart of the Mother, eternally protected and free to grow, as our world did.”
Then it wasn’t possible. The Dryads and trees had to have been in the Everbloom, they have Passed, and thus there they are. She knew this, but she sobbed. Never before over Passage had Wrenn cried. She knew it was a happy and freeing time, even when her favorite tree, Elthil, burned she did not cry. She just was happy Elthil would grow in the Everbloom. But now, she cried. Ash clung to her body, her tears leaving stains of soot on her face. What would she do? She saw Velthan and Hengror burn, everyone she trusted and relied on. Even Vraril, the strongest and eldest of the Dryads, was swallowed whole by the Flame.
She heard it again, then. That song, far over the horizon and deep into the ashen once-woods. It reminded her of Treesong she had heard before. She thought back to the first tree that had sung to her: Slath was a tall and thick Red Yore. She remembered playing in ver branches on hot days in Fullsun; she spent countless hours under ver leaves, cooling herself and talking to Slath. Slath was without a doubt one of the funniest beings Wrenn had ever talked to; ve had a quip ready whenever Wrenn wanted one, or even when she didn’t. She remembered, upon being told by her mother, Fadrif, about the ability to Bond with a tree she rushed to see Slath. Ve was far older than Wrenn, and knew far more about Bonding than her too.
“We can’t Bond,” ve had said. “You’re not nearly old enough, and I’m not nearly spry enough for someone like you.” Wrenn knew ve was lying about that second part. Her mom had told her that if a tree sang to you it would be a perfect fit.
“But my mom said that if I heard a Treesong that tree would be perfect to Bond with!” Wrenn had said, stamping her foot in protest. She didn’t understand what Bonding really was yet. She thought it like a perpetual day in Fullsun, ever with her friend.
Wrenn missed Slath, she hadn’t seen ver in years, and when they last spoke there had been a nasty argument. She doesn’t even remember what it was about. She turned from the Treesong she now heard, to return to the glade where Slath had grown. Ve hadn’t sung to her in years, but maybe, maybe. If ve still grew, and was able to Bond, perhaps ve would Bond with Wrenn, and they could figure out what had happened together.
The ash clung to her feet as she ran, finding her way through the alien forest. The trees were burnt and blackened, their leaves not more than dust on the wind. Occasionally she found a Dryad and their Bonded Treefolk.
She tried not to think too hard about that.
She tried not to think too hard about the Everbloom. She tried not to think too hard about the fact that, when she saw Halret Pass into the Everbloom she saw ver body turn to golden petals, and scatter across the Forest. There were no golden petals here.
As she ran, in and out of sobs, she felt a fire burn inside of her. She fell to the ground, clutching her chest as she saw flames dancing and flickering inside of her. Visions flashed in front of her eyes, cities she had never seen, magic wielded and twisted in a way unimaginable to her. She saw sprawling crops and towering citadels. She felt she had seen more in that instant than she had in her entire life.
When she found herself in her body again, the fire was still burning. It felt like her very essence was ablaze, her soul, veins, and roots all were an inferno locked inside of her. She screamed, and it echoed through the dead bones of the forest.
The Treesong screamed back. Its melody was interrupted by a yell of fury and of pain, just like Wrenn’s. As she burned she thought about Slath. Ve was old when she was young. Ve would be upwards of 1200 now. Perhaps ve was too old to carry her, or was unwilling to. Ve hadn’t sung to her in so long, she didn’t even know why she was going to ver, perhaps it was out of instinct. But she was being promised something new, someone new. A new Treefolk singing out to her. Wrenn grabbed a fistful of ash, and began to pull herself towards the new song. If Slath needed her, ve would find her.
As she crawled, she thought back to the second tree that had sung to her. A very tall and very thin Silver Flur. Xem name was Rovilt, and Wrenn had met xem after a rather nasty tumble to the base of a small hill. At the base Rovilt stood, staring down at her and offering a branch. Xe were far younger than Slath, and almost the same age as Wrenn. Xim branches were thin but many, and were able to pick Wrenn up without much issue. “You sing to me.” Said Wrenn, mostly in shock. It’d been many years since she last heard Treesong.
“Do I?” said Rovilt, and xe later explained that xe had never sung before, and thus wasn’t quite sure what was happening.
Rovilt had taught Wrenn much about magic. Her clade had never been much for magic, and had preferred to do things by hand. Very few mages walked amongst them, and those who did tended to avoid casting spells where others could see it. But Wrenn never told any of this to Rovilt, as she had quite a bit of fun with casting spells. On a rainy day in firstmud while Wrenn was sitting under xim branches, they had just been working a simple weather spell, trying -and failing- to get a great gust of wind to push the storm northward when Wrenn said something she had been wanting to for quite a while.
“What if we Bonded?” She blurted out, hardly thinking about the words she was saying. The forest went deathly silent, interrupted only by the pitter-patter of the rain. Wrenn had done two full classes on Bonding, and far better understood what it was. But Wrenn could feel Rovilt shifting uncomfortably.
“I uh…” xe trailed, trying to find words “I don’t like you like that, like, I’m flattered don’t-”
“What in the Glades do you mean?” Wrenn was confused. What in the starstorming poppies did ‘I don’t like you like that’ mean?
“I like you as a friend! Not in… that way” Rovilt had stammered, trying xim best to led Wrenn down lightly. Then Wrenn got it. This was the Lover Grove, where Bonding was a very different thing entirely than over in the grove where she had grown up.
“Oh Mahgren, I’m so sorry. Dlat dlat dlat!” Wrenn cursed in anger at herself, barely holding back the urge to strike herself in the face. “I’m so sorry Rovilt, I’m from the Verlil Grove, over there Bonding doesn’t mean-” Her face turned green with embarrassment.
“OH!” The color drained from xim leaves. Both sat in embarrassment, starting to say something but stopping halfway through.
Wrenn smiled at the memory, embarrassment and joy filling her for a short moment as she pulled herself slowly through the ash. Her legs were feeling stronger, and her arms were feeling weaker, so she stood up and continued on her way. As she walked, the fire had subsided, but she still felt weak. She kept her eyes down, looking out over the ash was tiring. The Treesong still sung, slightly louder than what she had heard before, pulling her onward over the horizon.
Wrenn hadn’t noticed where she was walking. As she found herself making her way down a hill, silently following the Treesong, she realized where she was. It had been 20 years since she visited Rovilt, but the space was burned into her mind. The meandering creek that she had spent so much time drinking from was clogged with ash. The small boulders she had sat on were buried. She didn’t look where Rovilt had stood. She heard no voice, she knew what was there, but she couldn’t bring herself to look. “If I don’t look, there’s still a chance. When I fix all of this, xe will be back. If I look at this gravesite now, I’ll never be able to look at xem the same.” She said to herself, trying her best not to sob. She had already cried today, she couldn’t cry again, she wouldn’t cry again. She added “Rovilt” to her internal list of things to not think about.
As she sat there, her feet stained by ash, and her hair tangled around it she felt another throb from inside of her. She saw beyond what she had seen before. She saw great warriors and spellcasters battling monsters twice the size of them, she saw worlds that were just one city, and at the end she saw into Eternity. The whitest black poured into her eyes, like distilled stars. Things warped and curled in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Some straddled the line between dimension and beast, sentient and mad. The tallest and eldest stared upon her, and she felt herself die. She pulled back, reeling from all that she had seen. She was in the ash. She never left. It took her a moment to get used to the night darkness. She had heard tale, from her mother’s mother’s mother of a Dryad like her. His name was Galthin, and he saw other worlds. One day he had fallen into them, and never came back. She filed that next to “Rovilt” on her list of things to not think about. She stood up and walked up the hill.
The Treesong was even louder now, and Wrenn could tell it was just another hundred Vines away or so, when she heard something. The sound was unlike the wind, it was short and rapid. Like a lzi-dara crawling over rocks, or an er-til hopping across the water. Wrenn turned, her hands already working a spell. Before her she saw a Va-rashan, its many eyes all focused upon her, its 10 legs sitting upon the ash. It was a tense, still silence for only a moment, before the Va-rashan screamed long and loud. It leaped at her, and its jaws glistened with venom in the red fire-light. Her hands were fast, releasing a vine spell to hold it in place. But as she finished crafting it, and released the spell, fire burst forth from her hands instead. The beast scuttled under the ash, and Wrenn tried to recuperate. Her hands burned, but the fire that danced across them hadn’t hurt her. The ash was blown off her, and there was no scarring or burn marks anywhere on her hands.
She stood up, and looked out over the hill that she found herself on, and saw a single tree standing tall. Her branches were bent, her leaves were charred on the edge, but she was untouched. No trees or ash stood around her, rocks seem to have fallen from the hilltop long ago, creating a space where nothing but she grew.
Wrenn dashed down the hill, laughing in joy as the song got louder and louder. She saw now the tree was a beautiful Rose Flur, her wood was thick and her sole surviving flower was transfixing. Wrenn could feel the loneliness and impatience in the tree's song, neither were waiting for an introduction. Wrenn launched herself into the tree, arms wide and heart open, and she prepared for the first Bonding of her life.