58.0 No Wrong Answer

General Summary

Day 1121

With Liliales and Qishali happily married, the Grove has relaxed out of its heightened excitement. People are sleepy, still recovering. For me and the other night-aligned beings, it feels like a normal day. I rise at noon and gather up some of the other eerily tireless Treeborn. I am ready to return to Mec Ales.   Kaide comes to see us off and offer her apologies to the trees, if I think it appropriate. She knows about those trees and their hostility and has to admit that the magic she used to bind elves necessarily severed whatever bond they had with their trees. An apology might be something those trees want, but it is not one I am ready to offer.   Either these trees will respond to what I am saying, or they won’t. No additional apology will change that. And she offers to come with me, but I think that is too much as well. It will be a small group that makes this journey together: Magdalena, Uncle Red, Evismora, Jaeril, Mistress — the first winged elf.   It’s just a few hours to reach the valley, as my wings beat. There are two fae waiting for us atop a picnic blanket outside the ruins: Artemisia and a stuffy-looking fellow with veined, leafy wings. Phaseoleae. But only Artemisia is really in a position to be enjoying the picnic she has laid out; Phaseoleae is tied up, glaring at his sister. She looks up brightly as I touch down.  

Little sister! I’ve brought you a gift! In case he can be useful…

  I don’t think he wants to be useful, and I don’t particularly want him anyway. Phaseoleae is shrinking back, wriggling away from Uncle Red in particular. But Artemisia’s ridiculous scheming surely has some incomprehensible purpose so I allow it…though no without a stern warning to all the Treeborn present.  

There will be no fights amongst people here, understood? Also no snacking.

  Evismora licks her lips sadly.   Artemisia says she has brought him here because he might help with the trees. She says they are like her — mercurial, finicky. The tied-up Treeborn insists that they’ve gone mad, just like Artemisia. But if anyone can draw out the aberrant nature of the trees, it’s him.   I address him directly — what does he want to do here?   Artemisia has told him that there are trees of his descent that have become aberrant. He says he had washed his hands of ‘this’ long ago — these trees are Magdalena’s recreations of his trees, not his own trees. But the least he can do now is be responsible for their pruning.  

Some of us were not meant to be parents. I’ll prune these trees, and then I will go back to what I was doing before — staying away. I’ll return to my gardens that bear normal fruit that doesn’t talk back or try to remember things, sing to people.

  Magdalena points out that ‘prune’ means something very different here, and Phaseoleae agrees that he intends to just get rid of the trees entirely. So Uncle Red decides he will keep Artemisia and Phaseoleae company while the rest of us attend to the trees. Before I lead us inside, I shift into my leaf and vine form and flit away without looking back. I can feel his astonishment even without looking.   The clay guardian who greets us this time is an archer. Short, more delicate than any elf I’ve seen — she seems very nearly fae herself.  

You’ve returned. And you’ve changed. You remind me of my grandmother.

  The guardian asks if the Reaper has come to claim their trees, and Magdalena sighs — she doesn’t like that name. And she has come to aid her student, not to do anything of her own. I ignore the question entirely; I no longer feel that I need to prove myself to the guardians of Mec Ales; if there is any place that is mine to heal, it is this.   The guardian says she doesn’t sense anything menacing or dangerous from me. So she guides us inside, deeper towards the trees. She tells us that they have been changing lately, calming down and listening to distant songs. Something happened a few months ago that shook everything — leaves blew as though the wind was coming from the North, and whatever it was inspired growth in these trees.   I do still sense the aberration I felt before. But I feel something strange and new as well. I feel Harmony here, slowly reaching up towards the roots of these trees. On its own, it might take generations. With my help, it will be faster.   Last I was here, I brought forth heartsong accompanists of my own leaf-and-vine growth: Spritz, Shae’deneir’lanael, Heiassa. I tried singing with Kindred, the stunted elves of Urna’low, and the Imperial elves who were saved by shadow. I tried telling them the story of their people but they were too filled with grief and rage to hear the end of it.   This time, I cam ready to present a firm offer to these trees: their cycle is finished and if they want my help bringing forth leaf and cycle again, they must accept Imperial elves as fruit of the same vine. But feeling their sadness, their yearning, their confusion…the time is right for change.   This time, I arrange the two sets of accompanists around me again. First is my own cycle of leaf and vine: Spritz, the seed; Shae’deneir’lanael, the sprout; Morning, in her full growth. I stand amongst them: Heiassa Duum’nael, the flower.   The next set of accompanists fill in the gaps — an unbound elf like the ones Dal told me about, an Imperial elf, one of the Kindred, and Mistress herself with her dark wings.   I sing a song much like I did before — the same seedling race, the same sprout and growth and final flower. But then I sing of the flower falling away, leaving behind a fruiting body that fell to the hard ground and kept going. I tell the trees about the fruits picked up by the dragons, and the new seeds that grew in the mountains. I tell them about the fruits that were swallowed whole by the Empire and still reached the soft petrichor earth to sprout again. And I tell them about the fruits that kept themselves apart from the rest of the growing world and withered away until there was almost nothing left.   I draw each singer’s history into a tiny glowing seed — seven seeds that tell the story of the fae of leaf and vine and what became of them: seed, sprout, growth, flower, fruit of the Kindred, fruit of the Empire, fruit of the orchard. And I plant them in the ground, bringing my song to a close.  

Will you be cousins with the fruited fae of leaf and vine?

  I feel the sad, yearning response of one of the trees that bows towards the seeds — ‘help’ with no direction in particular. These trees are starved of song and connection. They don’t communicate as clearly as the other grove trees.   I pass the melody to Mistress and ask for her story. Her song begins with meeting Uncle Red and learning to touch ancestors’ songs without any trees at all. She explains elven ancestral magic as reaching towards the Empress as our tree, holding our songs. She tells the trees about the forest of connections made by the branching tree of her own family. She tells the trees that elves have always found ways to preserve their songs and memories for the future: song stones, song seeds, song sung in gardens and at funerals, at weddings and births.   And then she invites the tree to be part of our forest and offer shelter.   I wish I’d brought more people with us to offer songs…but I didn’t know if it would be safe yet. Instead, Magdalena offers up some songs from the War of Fire, heroic, brave songs from people lost in the war.   As she sings, more and more trees bow towards the seeds, their willowy leaves dropping as they send energy towards those little planted seeds. Evismora flits through the trees, sipping off their sadness and pain. The trees themselves groan, creak, and fall towards my planted seeds, their trunks splitting open and both songs and magic flooding out of them. The energy is vast, aching, and clean. Evismora has released these trees from their prison of loss and fury.   Seven saplings burst out of the ground and twine with the fallen trunks, all of them twisting together as they shoot upwards as though they can feel the sun on the other side of the cavern’s ceiling. I feel their roots propelling themselves into the earth in search of Harmony. They are going in the right direction — I don’t need to guide them.   All of us follow the tree upwards, including dozens of clay guardians with still more emerging into the sunlight as the tree continues to grow. And as soon as the canopy is fully extended beneath the sun, fruit bursts forth from its branches. Oranges, apples, pomegranates, cherries, pears, plums…every fruit I know of, and even some that I don’t. I see fruits that I’ve only ever heard of from dragons, and fruits that Doraal has told me are extinct. I see fruits glistening with water like they were pulled from the depths of the ocean itself.   When its growth finally slows, it is 200 metres tall…a full-grown successor to that first mighty orange tree I planted in the desert thousands of years ago.   From behind me, I hear the clay shattering as though it was just painted on overtop of the guardian’s body. All around us, clay bursts apart and these ancient, truly ancient cut flowers step forward in life again. The guardian asks if it’s safe to pick a fruit.  

How do I choose?

 

There’s no wrong answer.

  Artemisia laughs, yanking Phaseoleae behind her. Apparently she only brought him to watch, and now she will bring him back to his little garden.  

Be at peace. This has nothing to do with you; you owe it nothing. But without you, at the very beginning, it wouldn’t have happened. So it’s not all bad!

  It is a Tree with no Treeborn. It is an Origin Tree that came after its people. It is the first tree to touch Harmony directly, though the other Grove trees will surely find their way there soon enough.   It is the best bridge I’ve built.