Submission (#543) Approved

Mahou accompanies a friend to see a very strange and wondrous tree on the outskirts of town.

Word count: 1255
Regional Affinity: Faerindell
Featured Elnin: 1338 - Mahou

Light filtered through the thick canopies of trees bent by the weight of their own flower-laden branches to reach Mahou’s open window, casting inward a sparkling rainbow of colors refracting off of the late spring blooms of Faerindell. The kittom woke slowly, in parts. Toes twitching, warmed by the sunlight. Body stretching instinctively as the scent of the blooming flowers reached their nose. Eyelids fluttering, suddenly blinded by the awareness of waking as by the late morning sunshine. They stretched again, mouth cracking open in a yawn. They rolled to peer outside, squinting, listening to the sounds of birds, elnin off on business down on the streets below, leaves rustling with a warm and pleasant breeze. Good weather in which to enjoy a rare bit of adventure. Or so a note carefully folded over hinted at.

“Meet me at the edge of the woods at noon. I have something to show you.”

Mahou could almost roll their eyes at it. The deliberate sense of mystery. A vague promise of things to come. It was too obvious, but then again, their friend was never known for subtlety. Too brusque; too plain to truly instill the sense of wonder he undoubtedly felt the note demanded.

They padded eagerly down the cobbled stone walkways that marched across the inner roads of their small town. They turned sharply left, following a line of two-story stone houses, thick vines creeping up their sides and around their windows in pretty wreaths of budding white flowers, angular pointed ivy leaves, and piebald pink and green ferns. Each house constructed and arranged in such a way as to straddle the line between quaintness and conformity, at times appearing so similar that one could walk quite a ways without a change in backdrop save for the subtly varying patterns of creeping vines that wound around walls, fences, and windows. As they passed by, they could see the usual cloud of eager butterflies swooping down for their fill of the nectar.

It was a short walk to the edge of the town, where a stone wall, crooked and run-down in places by years of wear and tear, warped further by opportunistic little plants and grasses that burst forth in clusters from every available crevice. Whatever its original purpose, it lingered into the present day as little more a symbol – an antiquated barrier marking where the miasma failed to spread from a time when such a thing might have been necessary.

And just beyond the wall – where the land started sloping into gentle hills amid a thick sea of grass, insects darting to and from as if on a mission – stood Rune. He bounced from paw to paw eagerly, beaming as Mahou came into view.

As they approached, they could hear him shout an eager greeting, startling nearby birds into sudden panicked flight.

“Mahou!” he crowed in greeting. “You’re late.”

Mahou smiled. A milder greeting was offered, which Rune took with a broad smile. Few words were needed then, only a smattering of gestures. The now earthen road towards the looming woods was punctuated by huffs, exchanges glances, and a puttering eagerness for whatever must be shared. The grass grew shorter as the trees approached, shadowed by their cousins as they were from the sunlight, the plants grew smaller, more stunted. Still too tall – at points clearly towering over the kittoms, but overall shorter, smaller, frailer. Simple plants giving way to thick wooden trunks, skyward reaching branches, and eager sun-drinking leaves. Here too, the signs of spring were obvious, while temperatures in Faerindell oftentimes facilitated multiple flowerings and fruiting, spring, at least true spring, held with it the promise of the region’s full splendor. Every trees were laden with flowers and faerie shrouds of riotous color – white and blue, purple and pink, red and orange. They formed a rainbow of petals and leaves that hung heavy upon their branches, weighed down by pollen, bees, birds, and their predators. A twisting stretch of trees that obscured the sunlight and led in sixteen different directions. As beautiful as the woods were, it was easy to become disoriented and lost within its depths. Hence the sense of daring, of boldly adventuring despite the woods growing barely half a mile from the town.

Rune at least had a clear path to follow. He led Mahou in precise directions – left at the moss covered rock, right at the two trees tangled together, straight at the cluster of faerie shrouds so thick upon the ground they could’ve sheltered a much larger creature within its depths. For one, it eased Mahou’s concern of becoming lost; of this being something recklessly done instead of carefully thought out. Rune continued forward at a constant pace, only pausing upon the edge of a clearing. He turned to look over his shoulder then – grinning at his friend.

“Go on, take a look,” encouraging, maybe even goading.

Mahou’s curiosity prevented them from throwing out the obvious jab. For poking fun at the badly set atmosphere. For even still making some attempt at keeping this air of mystery. After an exchange of a few words, they stepped forward, turning their head to capture everything that lay before them.

It was a house – that was the first thing that struck them. An old house, moss and vine covered, colored faded, crumbling, or collapsed in places. Why or how a house stood in the middle of the forest was odd, but the reason for its hurried collapse was apparent. A huge tree – a trunk so thick it encompassed almost the entirety of the house burst right through its center. It was unclear whether it had been a sudden explosive process or the slow reclaiming of nature, but there had to be something there. An event that led the tree and its branches to tear through the walls, burst through the windows, and rip through the roof of the house so that stones lay scattered throughout most of the clearing, and knocked the left wall clear of the rest of the house, a piece of rubble by its side.

The tree itself was unusual. Beyond its impressive size were its knotted, spiraling branches, weighed down by bright pink leaves the size of the kittoms’ heads. The leaves themselves had a spiral of bright veins – cyan and seafoam and vibrant green that seemed to cast and turn the light, as if it were flowing through them. Some of them even ended in flowers – a clustering of bright blooms of a dozen different colors like the region's many faerie shrouds. So large was the tree, and so broad its canopy that it provided shading to most of the clearing. Light filtering down in patches to illuminate green grass and flowers where it did manage to reach the forest floor.

Mahou blinked. “What is it?” there was wonder tinging their voice.

Rune only offered a careless shrug. The smile that followed, however, betrayed the delight he felt. “I don’t know. I found it the other day while exploring.” There was an implication there, an implication Mahou chose to ignore.

They stepped forward, trying to get a better look at the unusual tree, at its intricate fretwork of shimmering veins, at its boughs of tiny colorful flowers. Wondering why it was here – a lone tree with none of its kind in sight, bursting through the very center of an abandoned house overgrown with plant life and thriving with what surely must be something magical.