Chapter 34: 31: A call to arms

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Aerien’s POV

I took a calm breath in and a slow breath out as Ether guy left the room and that falmarin thing disappeared. From the moment I had laid eyes on that thing it seems to have been finding ways to annoy me. I had remembered what it had told my mother, it seemed the right to simply call it “falmarin,” which I had now all but confirmed was the name of its race and not its actual name, was considered to be some kind of privilege. A privilege she was about to deny to the boys before Ether guy had interrupted her, and by the sounds of it this was on account of them being human.

What’s more, Ether guy’s thoughts on the matter had betrayed him through his speech as well. His reason for denying it seemed to be related more to it being something that might confuse us for being so young rather than any actual consideration toward the treatment of the boys.

Well, there was a saying in the old world among the well educated students of history. When oppression is in the air we breathe, it is as unnoticeable as water is to a fish. The both of them are likely not even aware of the fact that they were doing anything wrong. Even George Washington, the man who was such a paragon of virtue that he rejected the role of King of the United States when it was offered to him, did not understand until very late in his life why it was that his slaves would value their own freedom over what he viewed as the good treatment they received with him as their master.

No, Ether guy and this falmarin were not bad people, they just lived in a bad world. Fortunately, the boys didn’t really seem to have taken notice of the slight they were just given. Well, if they were unaware of it, it was probably best for now to keep things that way. It would only create needless tension to bring their attention to it, it was not like we could do anything to change the situation in the near future.

This did raise the question though. How were Rolwen and Levin’s brothers and sisters back at the nursery doing? What kind of treatment were they receiving? They did not seem to be treated poorly from what I saw when I was living there. In fact, it seemed the place was handled like some kind of daycare and they were rather well taken care of. But, this did not change the fact that they were kidnapped from their home. In fact, no matter how well they were treated here, their position was clearly that of slaves or, at best, pets to the elves.

As I was in the middle of considering these things, I heard a loud sound. It sounded like the cry of some large animal a great distance off. A deep, soft, almost sorrowful sounding cry that reminded me of the sounds that a whale in the ocean may make. The sound itself reverberated through my entire body, and all the heads in the room turned toward the direction we had thought the sound may have come from. There was, however, a wall in the way and no means for us to see past it.

(What was that?) Levin said.

(I hear something!) Gaerien announced, pressing a hand to the side of her head.

(Yeah, we all heard that. What is that! It sounded huge!) Rolwen spoke up.

(No no! Like a voice!) Gaerien forcefully corrected Rolwen’s interpretation. (It’s like… If I was still a goddess, I would say it’s like someone was praying, but…)

Someone praying? The low moan of the gigantic unseen creature’s cry gently rocked the entire house again. Praying… Gaerien had told me before that prayer was the means by which a god absorbed spirit energy. When a person prayed, they directed their thoughts and their will toward the god they worshiped, and the god was able to take in this spirit energy and it would strengthen them. She was not a god anymore though, she was an elf. An elf was a fey… and the fey absorbed spirit energy freely… could it be?

(You’re hearing a voice in your head!?) Rolwen asks. The prejudices against “voices in your head” could be heard dripping from his tone, especially due to his phrasing choice, but given the situation his face quickly reveals that he has thought better of doubting her. Rather, his skepticism is replaced very quickly with curiosity. (W… well, what’s it saying?)

(I don’t know! There’s too much stray spirit energy to make it out clearly! Something about… heaven’s scar, and… enemy.)

Too much spirit energy? Yeah, we were right next to Rolwen and Levin after all, but I was probably the biggest culprit in the matter. My spirit energy was not even my own! The spirit energy I was pulling in and releasing from elsewhere was probably pretty darn chaotic. The situation would probably improve a great deal if I were to cut the flow. And also, there’s a good chance I might be able to hear this “voice” Gaerien was talking about as well.

After a few times of voluntarily shutting off my meditation, I had reached a point now where I could do it without having to put some thought in my head such as my desire to, say, hear this voice. Well, putting the distracting thought in my mind did still help a little, but as soon as I became aware I needed to shut it off it stopped very quickly.

(There!) Gaerien cheered in time, but her voice was drowned out by another reverberating low cry of the unseen creature. This time however, I was also able to hear the “voice.”

‘The enemy, the tainted ones. This enemy is in the forest. The vile beasts twisted by the dark energies have come for the Scar of Heaven. They shall not have it! Destroy the enemy and drive them back into the dark. The Scar of Heaven is in our forest, it shall be ours. Gather in the south. Defend the Scar of Heaven.’

The enemy!? Scar of Heaven!? Neither of those things sounded good at all. And what was this voice!? It was trying to talk to us as though it had the authority to give orders to all the creatures in the forest. No… all the fey in the forest. It had delivered the message in such a way that only the fey could hear or understand what was being said!

No! I immediately began my meditation again, calling down the energy of heaven just to shut out this voice and its terrifying message. It was talking about war! A war over a piece of land. A resource war, by the sounds of it. I did not know or care about any of this stuff, but by the sounds of it, things beyond my control that don’t even matter to me were about to intrude into my life and may even attempt to take my loved ones away from me. It was by no choice of my own, but I could not even do anything to escape from it!

The situation was so unfair. In a situation like this, I was in a position where I really wished I actually was just a normal baby. That way, at the very least, I wouldn’t have to live with the burden of knowing what was about to come. If I was just a baby, this would have just been a scary voice that I would be upset about for a moment but then forget about a few hours later. However, as things were…

Once again, my fears and concerns became too much for my infant body to handle, and in a second I was wailing out my cries of fear. It was probably the same thing I would be doing even without my previous life knowledge, but the motivation behind the fear I was feeling now was very different from what a baby simply disturbed by those loud cries and the message behind them would be scared of.

-

Túeth’s POV

After the master had left up the stairs, Túeth was at something of a loss for what she should be doing at this point. The master had said she could remain here and pursue her cultivation. He also seemed to welcome her to follow him up to see the girls. In fact, he had made it quite clear that was an open and even encouraged opportunity she could pursue at any time. She had been terrified of the idea yesterday, and she was still a little uncertain. However, now that she was here and she had the chance to think about it, the idea was always looming in the back of her head. However, she would always find some way to brush it away.

‘I don’t have a right to be their mother anymore.’ She criticizes herself. ‘It is the master who took them in, they are his children now. I shouldn’t have anything to do with them.’ Somehow, as she said these words, something about them felt hollow. She felt as though her throat had caught even as she was thinking this. It was a painful thought, but... it was true. She had spent so long effectively wishing for the death of those girls, she no longer had the right. It was all true, so why did the thought feel so shallow and fake to her?

The answer presented itself to Túeth as soon as she asked herself this question. It was because, to the master, he still viewed them as her children. That was why he was trying to create situations where she should see them and interact with them. He had also not said at any time he had adopted them. From his perspective, he was just a healer providing care for them, but she was still their mother.

As long as that was the case, her resolve on the issue would always remain in this hollow state. The pain at the idea of still having a connection with them that she should not have, it would never go away. Maybe if she could just get him to... If she could...

Túeth sat in a state of silent defeat, the thought still refusing to finish itself in her own mind. She could no longer focus on the idea of cultivating. If that was the case, maybe she should just leave for the day.

Just as she opened the door to leave, that was when the great cry rocked the entire village and she heard the voice... that message in her head. These words in her head... they were incredibly similar to the way that she had received the thoughts from the girls’ humans. They simply entered her head and she understood them.

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She could hear murmurs from the entire village. Suddenly, there was a shout from one of the trees. “The great tree! It’s in the sky! You’ve got to see this!” The people walking about the village looked to one another in confusion for a little while, and then several people decided to start going into the nearest lakira tree. Túeth knew what their objective was in this, they would no doubt be ascending the tree from the inside. There were others though who were too impatient for this and simply lept to a branch and began climbing from the outside of the tree.

Seeing this, Túeth immediately dashed back inside and the door automatically closed behind her. She ran up the stairs to the second floor, only remembering the girls when she heard them crying as she arrived up there. No doubt they had become scared when that loud creature’s cry was heard, but that message also had quite a few urgent emotions attached to it. That could most certainly scare them as well.

She looked to them for a moment, confirming that the humans seemed to be with them. The humans even had each of the girls in their laps. They looked a little frightened as well, but they would probably be able to care for the girls. Much better than she could anyway.

Satisfied with this conclusion, Túeth placed her hand on the outcropping of wood that was clearly meant as a route to the 3rd floor and asked the spirit of the master’s house to open it. Upon receiving the open path of the stairs in front of her, Túeth continued her way up and found her way into the master’s laboratory. She saw him in the middle of the room, staring up at the ceiling.

“Master!” She called out to him, not daring to progress any further into her master’s private space until he had acknowledged her.

“Túeth!” He called back, taking several steps toward her. With her master’s acknowledgement, she finished ascending the stairs and waited for him at the top.

“Master! Someone said something about... the great tree floating in the sky!” The master’s face hardened in surprise at these words, and he immediately opened another path higher in the house and ran up the stairs. Normally, Túeth would likely think twice about following further after her master in his own house. However, given how extraordinary this situation was, she could not help but follow him.

They arrived in an open space surrounded by high branches and vines. Over-head, this area was fully open to the sun, but all directions except for straight up were thinly walled by a lattice work of thick ivy vines woven around large regularly spaced branches. This space, it could be best described as being inside a gigantic basket.

Inside the basket, there was an arrangement of counters along the sides, and on top of each surface there was a fairly large number of plants. This must be the master’s garden. Each plant was in a pot of some sort, which meant all of them could be easily moved.

As soon as the master arrived on this level, two sections of the counter simply moved across the floor toward the center of the large wide open space in the middle. The master only paid this enough attention to confirm none of the plants sitting atop these platforms had toppled over, and then he approaches the vacant area they left behind. Immediately upon his approach, the vines begin to unwind and make a space for him. At the same time, she can see outside the “basket” created by the vines and notices the branches of his home are also bending and shifting. As the vines clear, she can see a few large branches have completely bent over in order to create a terrace for him to walk out onto.

Túeth follows behind and looks over the vast expanse in front of her. The master’s home is easily the second tallest lakira tree in the village, second only to the nursery tree that has been feeding off the energy of the human children brought there for centuries. As such, they have a very clear view of the expanse of trees in front of them. This is the first time in over 30 years that Túeth had taken in this view from above the canopy that can see all the way off to the distant horizon.

This was no time to enjoy the view though. Neither one of them were even interested in it. Both of their attentions were caught immediately by the sight of a gigantic section of earth that seemed as though it had simply been scooped up from the ground, and was now floating in the air. Upon this truly massive clump of soil was an equally huge tree. The distant objects were so truly huge that it was difficult at first to get a real sense of scale. That is, until one looked at what was on the surface of the chunk of earth clinging onto the massive tree’s roots.

Trees. More trees. Under this truly monstrous arbor, there sat an entire forrest of additional trees in its shadow. To say they looked like small bushes by comparison didn’t do it justice at all. The massive “great tree” dwarfed them to such an extent that they were like mere sprouts beneath its great branches. Túeth realized as she was seeing this, the entirety of the village could probably fit upon only one section of that large lump of soil and still have plenty of room to spare between the trunk of that great tree and the edge of the earthen platform. In fact, they could probably fit two entire villages lined up between the trunk and the edge and they would still fit without anyone feeling in danger of their home falling from the side in the village closer to the edge.

Túeth was truly stunned by this sight. It almost distracted her from the other peculiarity about this whole situation. Another low cry of the great beast they had been hearing shook her body as she heard the message about the enemy in the forest and defending the scar of heaven repeated in her head yet again. She noticed something flying in the sky, circling the huge tree in slow lazy rings. The mere fact she could so easily make out the appearance of this creature circling this colossal tree spoke to the fact that this creature too must be very large in size. It was quite distant from her right now, making it look small, and it seemed to be made to look even smaller against the sight of the great tree, but she imagined that if she was in front of this creature in person that its head alone would be several times the size of her entire body.

From what she could tell looking at it, it seemed to have a very long blue colored serpentine body, and near to its head it had a pair of great shining wings. The wings seemed to shine like silver as she saw the sun glinting off them as the large creature passed into sight from behind the great tree. It raised its angular head and let out another anguished sounding cry, causing the call to arms to resonate in Túeth’s head yet again.

“The Queen!” her master said, staring at the sight with a look of true awe written on his face. “She’s moving the entire capital! It’s moving toward the Scar of Heaven. She plans to transplant the great tree to the center of the scar left on the land by that catastrophe!”

“That! That’s the royal capital!?” Túeth responds in awe herself. However, there is something else that has been eating at her mind ever since she first started hearing this call to arms in hear head. Up until this moment, the excitement and the talk about the great tree had been allowing her to distract her mind from this thought. However, it was something that simply could not be avoided. She had to talk about it.

Túeth turned to her master. She needed to ask him. “Master...” she says. “The tainted ones, she’s talking about... THEM isn’t she?” She can see the master’s gaze shift slightly downward and the awed expression break from his face for a moment. After this, he gives a sharp nod.

“Yes, and they will likely be coming here as well.” He says. “After your village, this one is one of the closest to the Scar of Heaven. If that is their objective, they are definitely going to find this place along the way.”He looks back up, this time toward the south. It is not visible beneath the trees here except in the form of a large unnatural hole in the tree cover over the ground, but Túeth had heard the people who rescued her talking about the deep vertical hole that had been carved directly into the ground. The Scar of Heaven. The deep wound upon the land created by the Heaven’s Fall.

The master’s brows crease as he watches the giant tree that guards the royal capital floating slowly on its grim march toward what is to become the center of this conflict.“This village,” he said,  “it’s going to become a battle ground.”

 

1st Arc: Infancy

Act 2: Spirit

End

Author's note

So, that's act 2 at an end now. I know this was a lot shorter than act 1, but right now I am considering the idea that maybe around 10 chapters is about the right length for an act. The part where Eirlathion takes the kids from the nursery to his home would be about right for a break in the acts in order to bring it more in line with this model.

I will not edit this to change in that direction just yet. I still want to see how act 3 turns out. Decisions in that direction can be made later once I have the whole picture in view. Really, it all depends on whether I want to aim for 3 acts or 5 acts in an arc. (because it's not going to be 4 acts.) So, really, whether there are 3 or 5 and whether or not I put a split in the middle of what is now act 1 depends entirely on whether or not the big moment I have planned for the end of this arc comes up in act 3.

At any rate, with the end of act 2, as promised I will now be going on a 1 week hiatus from this series. This matches up perfectly actually, my 2nd midterms will be next Tuesday. So, I've gotta study for that and this break is perfectly placed. I will be releasing a lore chapter on Friday the 17th or Saturday the 18th. After that, I will be re-structuring the schedule to no longer have weekends as part of the regular release schedule. Including the weekends for a 2 day in a row release gave the view count a good bump, but the extra stress involved is just not worth it. So, once the break is over the schedule will be just Monday, Wednsday, Friday.

Also, for anyone interested, the Subscribe Star pre-releases are also fully updated and already have the lore chapter and chapter 32 up. So, anyone who wants to support me over there can see the beginning of the next act in advance if you support at the 2nd tier for $2.99. If you are not interested, then the lore chapter is still available at the basic tier for $1.50

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