Shearing the Trees

[critter 2812]

(The following is a narrative account of the labor in Ephesius, which as it begins its many repairs and reconstructions, has begun with its once-wild walls.)

 

 

Morning found the Ephesius walls crawling, not with the creeping fogs of the once-Pale or thick vines of its wood, but the very denizens they sought to protect. The trees which had long since stretched over the low wooden walls had been cut back and were cut back further still, some left near-stripped; others felled entirely, though more still awaited the cruel, and yet necessary, work. One couldn't forget the sight of dwarves in trees at the Slaughter; not easily, anyway, and not from where the windows of the tavern showed that sprawling green.

 

 

It was a small group, that day, though anyone kind was, and continued to be, invited to join the labors. There was a cousin here, a familiar soldier there, her one-armed uncle laboring hard at the gate as Wynanya herself planted her feet on another rampart, a borrowed ax in hand. All throughout the little city echoed the mismatched thunder of a dozen axes. The punctuating cries of "watch below!," hollered by some cautious kin and almost always followed by the now-familiar crack and crash of another branch tumbling to earth. The rolling chains, hauling the newer, thicker gate open to allow another log's corpse to make its final procession from within town. Elsewhere, the clatter of wagon and stones, piled high so like the cairns she herself had once stacked, here, before the war had truly begun. Before the Archchancellor's capture. Before -.

 

Before a lot of things. 

 

She was still young, this elf: not yet thirty, even, not even of-age amongst Elves or even Orenians.  Her youth's eyes had seen much of the land she still habitually called Nyrheim; her soft face, still a testament to how little she could yet understand of it all. But today, the hatchet's handle splintering her healer's hands, twigs and leaves and shards of wood embedded in her braids; her usually-smiling lips pressed into a hard, grim line; the curls of wood embedded in the soil far below, well.

 

Today, Wynanya felt much older.

 

She wondered, planting a foot on a thick branch gouged already with her effort, what the druids would say of this. Should she visit them again, anyway: not like the roads were safe, not like the woods were safe, either. Gone were the days of those untamed rides through Urguan and the cusp of the Hallow, back in that great, distant Before. Trees could grow back, at least. Not like ears, not like mali limbs. The wood they gathered would go to the sparring course she'd set to, when the clinic was too quiet, the tavern too loud, and her body felt too weak for better work. And, really. Better -

 

she thought darkly, lifting her hatchet once more for another brutal swing forward, teeth grit as it struck deep into the old oak's bark, 

 

to be alive for the lecture

 

she heaved the axblade back out; hoisted it far over her shoulder; winced, at the tug on her ever-aching left arm; and then swung again, the rare, unfettered sun glinting off the scraped blade, 

 

than dead beneath the canopy. 

 

[Minuvas 3193]

Minuvas would cradle his arms behind his back, overlooking each plank fortified, each tree hacked away. 

 

He watched as every elf, many now with a cut ear, toiled in the sun and night - practicing with blades and hoisting the wall. The Valah came too, marching in their uniforms - some to fight, some to build. Ephesius had always been a place of cooperation.

 

"The Dwed cannot break us. We have spent 4 centuries of oppression and servitude. Let their little men and their mercernaries meet fortress and steel and let them leave wanting - they have died by the dozen here befor and they shall do so again!"

 

Minuvas would say as he looked to another high elf "Hoist that gate there...."

 

And watching as his brother @bufffsantaHieran taught Ker from the clans on how to strike a target. 

[beetle 3315]

r <3