Gale Parks

The long southern road out of Tinborough curved off west and cut between the seven Gale Parks and the Gale River. None of the parks was less than two hundred acres, and they were the remnants of the Gale Forest that once stretched from the southern tip of Chestnut Green to the western foothills of Nox Mountain and the rest of the Twotwine Range beyond Mount Addor. According to the elves, the woodlands had receded almost on their own, but were unhelped by the encroachment of the many species of the world. At the height of the Gale Forest, there had been nothing much like it in the world.

Even now, the air in the North Gale tasted a slight of cinnamon, and smelled of three other warm spices. We followed the Chestnut Creek that cut down from the border of Chestnut Green and the North Gale toward the Gale River along the south road. Chestnut Creek itself being a tributary of a tributary, trickling lightly down from a quiet, rocky clearing in the upper foothills. Even flying in the direction of its banks, we kept our distance from the water itself, watching the vibrant red-and-blue dragonflies dart by every once in a while. We were cautious of them, as a human might be of a wolf.

We landed on the branch of a lion’s oak, walking down one of its twigs like a balance beam together until we could grab one of its shining, golden leaves. Its bark was a faint reddish, and some also called it a royal oak or a gilded oak. It grew in the North Gale, the Middle Gale, the King’s Gale, and the East Gale, but nowhere else in the world. Even the South Gale, West Gale, and Queen’s Gale only had its less enchanting cousins.

This was one of three in the North Gale, and less than a hundred in the world. Even posed the danger of birds, fairies knew where all the lion’s oaks were, just as everyone who lived in Tinborough knew them. These golden leaves were most beloved by fairies, and were sometimes taken to make very bright and expensive clothing from. I had a lionleaf dress I’d already packed for the capital. My mother had made it by hand, every step to keep the leaf from rotting or corroding, and adding flower petals to the hem and sleeves for texture.

My mother sat on the twig, it barely bending under our weight, and letting her legs dangle down off the side, “We should have gone to the Liongrove instead.” It was a place where the King’s Stream was surrounded by only lion’s oaks, and they were the only trees around, all red and gold. It was named the King’s Gale because an old elven prince had proposed to a beautiful princess there, and later became king.

“It’s another five miles to the King’s Gale from here. We wouldn’t get back by dark.” I ran my fingers along the ridges of the golden leaf. It was soft and cool, feeling almost like real gold.

“I know…”

“We’ll go there sometime. I won’t be in the capital forever.”

“Your father took me to that same place when we were both young. I was twenty-four and he was twenty-six, and when I saw he was taking us to the King’s Gale, I already knew he was going to ask me to marry him.” It was probably the place where most such proposals happened within a hundred miles. Dwarves from deep in Mount Addor dragged their loves out into the Liongrove to ask them to wed, and young nobles from all the way in Nox Mountain found their way there.

I yawned, “I like the chestnut trees and birch trees and ash trees just as much.” The lion’s oak leaves were gold all year round and never fell. They grew back slowly, I’d heard over a decade, if they were picked. And, while other trees grew year by year, it was said that a lion’s oak would take centuries to even grow past a sapling. They had to be tended by many generations, and it was no wonder there were so few left in the world. Earth was dictated by evolution, which wouldn’t allow such a magical thing to exist in the first place.

The Liongrove was said to be six thousand years old, but had only been written about in the last five hundred. Supposedly, more ancient than Earth’s pyramids. If those elves who planted it were still alive, they’d since migrated far away, and may not even remember the kinds of things they tended in the Gale Forest.

We meandered an hour around the tree, moving to some other branches. When a doe and her two fawns came through the thorny underbrush, we moved our perch to be just over them and watch them. There was a small trail between thick brambles and tree trunks, slipping deeper south past the creek and toward the Middle Gale that they followed down later. It must have been just after four when we thought to start leaving, only stopping when we heard a humming below us.

Three catfolk marched alongside the stream, singing between themselves. There were two men and a younger woman, no older than thirteen.

O’ brothers brothers

Brothers bare and free

Brothers shave o’ fur

And brothers short and slim

O’ brothers brothers

Brothers never had

Brothers o’ no tails

And brothers like no feasts

It went on repeating the same two verses again and again as the younger girl stopped beside the creek, bending over and swinging her claw down sharply, pulling out a wriggling trout. Her companions cheered.

“We came here for mouseies, Fen!” Whistled the eldest.

“Bonus!” Fen lifted it and took a bite out of the still wriggling trout. She slurred through her still-full mouth, “Want shome?”

“Fish is meant to be cooked, little lady,” said the other male. He wore a green epaulet, marking him as the group’s captain, “it draws out the flavor if you sear it proper. That, and it digests better.”

“What sort of uncivilized Sevenday dream were you given?” Fen took another bite, tearing as much flesh as she could directly from the fish’s bone. It didn’t wriggle much more, “Cooking animals is cruel, y’know!”

“Catgirls…” Groaned the eldest.

“I’m a catfolk as much as you are, just as my mother and her mother were.” Fen hissed. There were plenty of female catfolk, and many male catgirls. There was hardly any dimorphism among catgirls at all, leading to a misnomer.

I bent over the end of the treebranch watching them, “Pardon me, but why don’t you catch another and compare them, together?”

Fen yelped as she heard me. Her tail extended sharp and straight behind her, widening by half as the fur across it stood straight on end. Her ears spun around backward, and her shoulders arched forward. She dug the claws on her feet into the clay beside the creek. She slowly looked up to our branch, “F-fairies!” She squeaked.
The captain nudged her, snickering to himself, “Fen, how’ll you ever live on your own if you get surprised by a couple fairies. They’ve been watching us for three minutes now.”

I slowly fluttered down toward them, “Well, I didn’t mean to scare you at all. You’re a very good singer, you know, but I didn’t quite get what the song was about.”

“She got scared one time by a mouse!” The eldest bent forward, clutching his belly in his claws and laughing, “Imagine being scared by a mouse! She’s s’posed to eat mice!”

“It came out of nowhere!” Fen covered her face, turning back toward the creek, “I wasn’t expecting it, so I just got a bit nervous, that’s all! A-and my uncle caught it anyway, so everything turned out okay, and everyone was okay, and nobody got rabies or a broken bone or died or…” She went on sinking lower and lower as she re-imagined all of these hysterically awful possibilities that must have first run through her head when she saw the mouse, “what if it had fleas with the plague? Or, what if it had really long hidden claws? What if it ate me?”

“I don’t think it could have done that,” I said, “mice are a lot smaller than you.”

“Well what if it did it very slowly!”

The elder flicked Fen on the forehead, “And, what would you have done, sat there and done nothing about it? I tell you, this one has a liver instead of a brain!” He turned to me, “You’re Ken’s daughter, aren’t you? Hana, was it?”

“That’s right. My father is home now, but my mother is up there,” I pointed back at the tree. She slowly flew down after me.

“Oh, Ken!” Blathered the captain, “That fairy could outdrink me if he was having vodka and I was having ale!”

My mother held her hand out, “Caleb, that would kill him. We can’t drink all that much alcohol.”

“No, m’lady. It’d kill me!” He cheered, “And, I’d die a valiant death! You two seen any mice about while you were here?”

The elder grabbed Caleb by the shoulder, “What’s the fun in asking? Aren’t you forgetting the point of going and hunting, sir?”

“W-well, I think it’s best if we expect it!” Fen protested, “Right… H-hana, Hana was it? Right? If we know it’s coming, that’ll be way better!”

I nodded, “I’d much rather not have a mouse sneak up on me. Mice can be dangerous.”

“You’ve got good sense!” Fen put her paw around me, “Very good sense… little… cute… fairy!” She said slowly, then quickly pushed me out of her paw, “W-well, I’ll be seeing you!” She darted backward and tripped into the creek.

“Ah! Are you okay?!” My mother yelped and flew toward Fen helplessly.

The captain held her back. “Let her learn from her mistakes… Would you like to meet us for supper later?”

“That sounds wonderful!” My mother nodded quickly, “Thank you so much for the invitation!”

“I’ve got to see Moxi, too.” I reminded her.

“We’ll go back to town now, then,” my mother nodded, “and we’ll meet them once you’ve spoken with Moxi.”

“That sounds lovely!” I agreed.