Of Copper Leaves

[Wand 1220]

 

White sand stirs, and breaks. The anomaly had torn the firmament and sundered the land. In the echoes of their wakes, the bay’s soil shifts, rises, the sea breeze tainted with ozone and brimstone. 

 

Years would pass. The Korvassa dunes and its dwellers would be beset, occupied with the Inferi. Pearl colored sands clotted with ichor and debris. A place west in the bay rose into a mound. It endured despite the many tides, propped up by the wreckage of a sunken vessel. Here, stone and soil gained purchase.

 

-

 

The Mali’laurir came upon the mound above the waves. In his grasp, an inch-deep seed, its sheen metallic.

 

’The soil must be rich,’ he thought.

 

His eyes avert from the small strip of land to the distant storm. Beyond the archipelago, rolling clouds rumbled days off, heralded by earlier bouts of sparse rain.

 

From the sloop, the sea-faring man began to shift his cargo. Wrapped in spare sail-cloth and canvas, the innards of a slain whale, dried flesh from a basilisk would be exposed, then burnt and buried within the earthen mound.

 

He had seen this once before. The corpse of a beast was broken apart. Within days, its remains became the seedbed for a twisted tree, cultivated by druidic hands into root-form. It would shatter the foundation of the ancient tower. Its branches unfolded and stretched, yet were absent of leaves. And still the tree lasted for years without decay.

 

The seed was planted near the apex of the mound.

 

The elf departed at full mast. A day had passed, and the sky above was dark. The seven stars of the Mariner shone above.

 

-

 

The storm arrived days later. Within the bay, branches of silver lightning cut jagged fissures through the dark sky. The peaceable Isles were shaken by the thunder, yet not frightened. The torrent of rain from the east fell thick against the Elvish homes and the walls of the citadel.

 

In a breath, the charged air above the mound heralded the bolt.

 

It struck down into the copper-tainted soil. Swiftly, this natural act was mirrored in one less natural – the mound shifted and was broken. The rock of the mound was shattered, giving way to deep roots, the gnarled wood coiling and building. The curled trunk knotted and split. The many branches blossomed from the wood, mimicking the shape of the bolt in frightening exactness. From the branches and twigs bloomed the stems, petioles. Further did the leaves unfold, the blades peeling back from the gnarled veins.

 

The moment passed. The storm passed hours later, and the Isles were none wiser.

 

-

 

The Mali’laurir returned after the skies cleared, and he beheld the tree of copper leaves.