Chapter 45: 41: Túeth’s call to action

Túeth’s POV

Túeth did not know what to think when Nymph came down and told her someone was coming up to break into the second floor and take the girls. Her mind had simply frozen at that moment. It was likely more accurate to say that she stopped thinking. A second later, Nymph told her the man just broke through the window and was already in the room. This finally got her moving.

Túeth’s body seemed to move on its own at this point. For the past couple weeks in this house, she had only gone up to that room to bring the boys their food and to bring out and wash their chamber pot. She was afraid of even this interaction though. Lately, every time she tried to go up there, one of the girls would try to approach her. She was not so good at telling them apart yet, but she had reason to suspect it was always the same one. From what she had heard about them, it was most likely Aerien.

Aerien had started calling her “mother.” When she had come down the stairs, looking worried about her after she was in a particularly vulnerable moment, she had called her “mother.” That child... Eirlathion was exactly right about her. Túeth had not even been in her life at all until very recently, and yet she had called her mother all the same.

Túeth had hoped she could push the girls away. She could just be the master’s apprentice who took care of them sometimes, not their mother. The master could be their father, she could be nothing at all to them, and one day they would just remember her as something of an older sister and never know. This did not happen. Somehow, a mere little girl of not even a year old had recognized her mother immediately. Not only that, she tried to do everything she could to be close to her every single time she was in the room.

This was the reason why... she simply could not go into that room. The master had offered her a bed on the other side of his lab if she didn’t want to sleep in the room with the girls, but even that would require her to enter the second floor two additional times during the day. This is why she had her bed down here. She could stay down here and only have to go up there the absolute minimum number of times. So long as she left the humans’ food near the stairs and didn’t go toward them, and drew a wide angle around them as she went to collect the chamber pot, she could take advantage of the fact that Aerien still did not move that quickly as she tried to crawl in her direction.

When Aerien had noticed this is what she was doing, she stopped trying to approach her. Instead, she started just calling out to her. She would ask her why she didn’t want to be with her. Why she always ran away. Why did she hate her daughters. She would say... she knew she didn’t hate them... so why does she keep running away. Invariably, it would always end with Aerien crying loudly as she was walking down the stairs. It had gotten to a point where Túeth absolutely dreaded going up to that room. Every time she did, she would have to face that child again.

Why... why couldn’t that child see that.. she couldn’t be their mother? That child... it was exactly like the master had said. She was so intelligent that it was terrifying. How was it that such a small child always seemed to know exactly the right words to get to her in just the few moments she spent in that room? How did she know... the best ways to make this so incredibly difficult? She was shaken every time she had gone up there. Half the time, as soon as the stairs were closed, she simply broke down and cried herself as Aerien’s crying that she seemed to be intentionally trying to make as loud as possible could be heard still coming from above.

That child should stop. That child should hate me! I am the mother who wanted them dead! I have no right to be around them! How could she possibly yearn for such a disgusting mother that much!?

As Túeth climbed the dreaded stairs yet again, she began to feel like she was no longer in control of her own body. She felt like an observer, watching from the back of her mind as someone else controlled her actions. She felt... completely numb even as her heart rate began to build and there was a prickling feeling in the back of her mind.

“-et e go!”Túeth heard the powerful and determined voice of an infant. Before she even laid eyes on the situation, she knew that could only be Aerien! A second later, she saw an adult man struggling to keep a small infant in his arms as she seemed to be punching him in the chest repeatedly with one arm while actually clinging to his chest with the other for leverage. A baby’s punches shouldn’t have an effect on an adult, but somehow, it looked like he had a look of genuine pain on his face.

“What’s going on!?” Túeth demanded as soon as she entered the room. He started talking at this point, but Túeth could not hear the words he said. Her mind at this point was completely on that child, Aerien, who he was holding. And then, she heard THAT word. Grey elves. The very second she heard that word, the last shred of caution was gone from her as that word shook her to her very core. “Let her go!” The words erupted from Túeth’s body.

Somehow, she had crossed the distance between them. She didn’t even remember taking the three or so steps that had previously separated them. However, he had easily intercepted her and had a hand on her shoulder. He managed to shove her to the ground without even budging an inch despite her mad charge. The cultivation he had gained as a hunter showed as he had that kind of power to freely receive a full charge that Túeth had literally put her entire being into.

No, he had not fully received it. As Túeth fell to the ground, he also went stumbling backward off his feet until he hit a wall and slumped to the floor. Maybe his power was not as great as she had thought? He seemed genuinely surprised as well to have been forced back. As Túeth tried to scramble back to her feet though, she saw Aerien get up and throw a punch straight up that seemed to miss his head, going past his left ear. To Túeth’s surprise though, he actually screamed in shock and pain as Aerien’s hand went past him.

She managed to escape from him after that. He struggled with Aerien a little more and then she rolled away from him. Good! It looks like she has escaped somehow. As soon as Aerien was clear, Túeth pounced on the man viciously. “Leave my daughter alone!” She yelled with all the venom she cold muster. She didn’t even realize she was saying it, but somehow the words also felt so right and they made her feel powerful. She shook the hunter by the shoulders and hit his head against the wall as he raised his bloody left hand to join the right one on his neck.

Wait... blood!? Túeth had only just now realized it for the first time. The man seemed to be covered in bloody wounds. Were those there before when she first saw him? She didn’t have the time to really think to hard about all of this, because a second later she heard the sound of Aerien behind her, screaming louder than she had ever heard her scream.

Túeth’s panicked brain managed to jump gears as she heard this. She turned around and rushed to her side. The child was thrashing about on the ground next to a bloody knife. The girl was covered in blood herself. It was all over her hands, there was some of it on her face, but most frightening of all it seemed to completely soak the entire left side of her dress. Realization dawned on her. That man... he must have stabbed her! He came here planning to kill the girls right here and now! Aerien was still alive, but she had to get her help!

Túeth scooped her up, holding the thrashing child tightly to her chest as she ran back down the stairs. She arrived at the front entry way and began channeling mana to tell Nymph to open, but... for some reason, nothing happened. Why wasn’t Nymph responding? Why now!? Túeth could hear the entire tree groaning around her, but the door wouldn’t open.

“Nymph! Open right now!!! Aerien’s going to die!” Túeth began beating on the wall with her free hand. She could not see clearly with the hot tears that were filling her eyes. She continued to clutch the screaming and thrashing child tight to her chest as she thrashed and began to howl even louder. In her blind pain, Aerien had begun to kick Túeth in the stomach, but she didn’t even care. She looked desperately for a way out. A way to get Aerien to the master. Maybe he would have a way to do something about this.

That’s right! The window! Túeth turned her head to look over in the direction of the window, only to have her hopes dashed. The window was still there, a circular panel of glass sections held together by bits of wood that had extended in to fill the cracks. However, on the other side of the window now was dark solid wood, exactly like that of any other wall. Túeth had never felt so betrayed. Had Nymph used her mana to cover up the window instead of opening the door? That should be impossible! The Nymph always conformed to the will buried in the mana.

Túeth had learned about it from the master during these weeks. It wasn’t just mana that was used in the green word. A small amount of an elf’s excess spirit energy is also used to carry their will. It is that will that tells the nymph what you want it to do. Normally, a nymph is powerless to disobey the elf’s will. However, the spirit of the master’s home is exceptionally intelligent for a nymph. They had absorbed a great deal of the master’s will over the years to the point that now they could even refuse the orders of anyone other than the master. Could it be possible that they even have the power to use the mana for a purpose other than the one it was supposed to be used for?

As Túeth was standing there in despair, Aerien suddenly yelled the loudest she had yelled this entire time. It was a scream as though her very soul was being shattered. And then, after this final scream, the child dropped limp in Túeth’s arms.

“A... Aerien!?” Túeth said in disbelief. She closed her eyes and held the limp body to her chest as the tears flowed from her eyes. For the first time in her life, she did the one thing she had refused to ever allow herself to do. She gave her daughter a hug. But now... it was too late.

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Túeth heard the wood groaning again. She opened her eyes with pure hatred in them as she looked toward the door, but what she saw was shocking enough that it made her forget about the animosity she was feeling toward Nymph in this moment. Instead of the outside, what she saw was a deep tunnel of wood. It went on for quite a while, at least twice the distance from one side of this room to the other.

Túeth unsteadily got to her feet, still clutching the limp body of her infant daughter to her chest. She began to walk through in a daze as to how this could have happened. Was this all... the master’s house now? It had grown! This much! And... this suddenly too. This has to have all happened since the time she came downstairs. That was not long at all. She had simply gone immediately to the other side of the room, banged on the wall a little, and then looked over to the window. In total, it must have been around a minute tops. Maybe two minutes if it began while she was upstairs. Nymph... was THIS what they were doing!? Was this why they wouldn’t open up before... while Aerien was still... 

NO! Aerien HAD to still be alive. You don’t just die after you are in the middle of a scream like that! There’s probably still time! She just passed out is all! Túeth’s pace quickened as the fire of hope began to burn in her again. She ran out and saw the changed space in front of her, especially the sides of the master’s tree. She saw, for some reason, a large white feathery object laying on the ground, covered in blood. However, her attention was quickly brought away from that when she saw her master running straight toward her with urgency on his face.

Her heart felt immediately relieved to see the master, especially to see that his face said he already knew everything that needed to be said. She did not say a word, she just held Aeiren out toward him. He reached out his hands, and together they lowered her to the ground as he had Túeth support her body on her lap. He quickly pulled her dress from her limp body, leaving her in only the diaper they had never seen reason to remove from her even after she no longer had the need for physical food.

As they freed Aerien of her clothing, expecting to see a horrible wound on her side, they were both baffled to instead see nothing. Túeth did not even know what to feel about this. Did she somehow heal from her injury? No, on closer examination, there was no cut on her dress either. None of this blood was hers. Túeth remembered she had seen blood from the man who had come in, and what looked like a very fresh injury on his hand. Could all of this blood have come from him? Túeth was so relieved she was almost ready to collapse.

She could feel a faint smile beginning to float on her lips, but she let that fade immediately when she looked into the master’s face and saw that he still had a very dark and serious look to him as he looked over Aerien’s body. No, she knew that look. He was examining her mana! There was still something wrong. Going by the master’s face, there was something VERY wrong. “I’ve got to bring her to my lab.”He said, snatching Aerien from her and springing to his feet. “Túeth! Bring one of the boys!” He was running full speed at this point, not even stopping to look back at her.

She knew it! There was still something very very wrong. Túeth got to her feet quickly and ran after her master. She ran down the tunnel through the wood. After a short distance, she realized something had changed. Instead of the straight level path she was expecting, she was staring up a flight of stairs that was only a short distance from the entrance. She saw her master was already running up the stairs.

As she began to follow him, she saw the way further up close as soon as the master had passed a certain point about half way up the stairs. At the same time, the stairs that remained had a landing open up at the top of them. Túeth was beginning to understand what was going on now. Nymph was reforming themself in order to bring them each to the correct rooms. She didn’t understand all of it, but she understood enough that she began to run forward with confidence.

She ran down the hall that opened up at the top of the landing. The hall opened up straight into the girls’ room, right next to where their bed was. The humans had both turned to look in confusion at the way opening up in a direction they hadn’t seen before, and then Túeth coming out from it at full speed. One of the humans was next to the stairs, the other was with Gaerien. She decided to leave the one that was with Gaerien, maybe it would keep her calm. The one that was staring down the stairs was probably Aerien’s human. Well then, that was perfect. She went over and grabbed that one, getting a quick yell of protest. Meanwhile, the stairs up to the master’s room were already opening up.

She ran up the stairs, bringing Aerien’s human with her as she carried it with her left arm looped under their armpits. She quickly found her master placing Aerien atop a work table to begin examining her.

She went over after him. “Aerien!?” Aerien’s human cried out when it saw her, and as soon as she set it on the table next to where the master was examining her it immediately moved a short distance from where the master's arm and looked on with concern. The human never tried to touch her, which would likely disrupt the master, it just watched from a respectful distance away.

The master had a serious expression on his face as he hovered his hand over Aerien’s bare chest. With her clothing removed, Túeth could clearly see her daughter’s chest rising and falling. It was as though she was simply asleep. However, even with all this noise and chaos around, she would not open her eyes. She simply remained comatose.

“Dryad!” The master said in a strong commanding voice. Túeth jumped at the word. Dryad? Was he talking about the highest level of the nature spirits? What did a dryad have to do with any of this? But, before Túeth could wonder for long, a green light seemed to coalesce on the master’s other side, and a light whitish-green glowing person standing just as tall as Túeth appeared, their long soft green hair flowing down their back. Túeth jumped in surprise. Standing in front of her, that was undoubtedly a dryad. Túeth had never seen one before, she had only heard the stories, but there was no doubt in her mind that this simply had to be a dryad.

Túeth’s body shook as she was fighting with herself. Despite this situation, she felt the urge to prostrate herself before this great being of the forest. However, the dryad’s words snapped her out of all of that. “Master, what do you need?” The soft glowing person said, the obvious concern in their voice as they too looked on toward Aerien’s comatose form. That dryad just called him master? That would mean... no, it should have been obvious from the start! It all added up with the tree suddenly being so much bigger. But... how? She had just talked to Nymph not even 30 minutes ago, and now they were a dryad?

“Aerien had something to do with how you suddenly evolved like that, didn’t she?” The master states. “I need to hear everything I can about it.”

“What!?” Túeth nearly shouts. “H... how!?” The master looks to her with a sad look in his eyes, and then back to Aerien. His arms are stiff and straight as he holds himself up directly over her body on the counter below him, looking completely defeated.

“Aerien... there has always been something so strange about her. I never realized just how strange until I got her living here under the same roof. I always kept my distance and didn’t try to do anything too intrusive in order to find out more. She was angry at me for having just taken her here, and I always figured I would have the time to figure things out after things had calmed down. Then, when the queen made her announcement, I had noticed her spirit energy was beginning to weaken. I knew there was something big that had changed about her, the need to figure out what was going on with her only increased, but I could never spare the time.”

The master lets out a sigh, and then one of his hands moves over to gently cover one of the tiny arms laying limply at Aerien’s side. “And then,” he says, “this happens. Nymph suddenly evolves into a Dryad. Not only that, but their tree grew explosively to a level similar to the highest tier of magic. And, at the exact same time that this is happening, Aerien collapses. Given all of this, it would be more strange if the two were not connected, and I feel that our strongest hint as to what might have happened may all be in what Dryad can tell us about their transformation.”

Túeth stood in shock at everything the master had just said. She knew Aerien was strange because of what she had been told, but to think there was something going on that could have directly lead to this happening to her? She felt a pain in her chest, as though something had wrapped itself around her heart and was constricting down on it. Once again, she was a horrible mother. She had been so afraid of her own daughter that she couldn’t even see any of this. She turned to Dryad, eager to listen to their story. Túeth simply HAD to know if there was something that perhaps she could have done if she wasn’t always hiding from her own daughter.

Author's note

So, yes, the first half was a repeat of events. Things are moving forward now though.

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