Chapter 16: The Forest's Pain (Trevan)

Trevan looked up at the light of Eldrasil. She was as warm and beautiful as always, and it made him happy to feel her love. But he missed the sunlight. He got dressed and headed outside.

The sound of sandals touched down behind him. He didn’t have to turn around to know it had to be Keela.

“Where are you going today?”

Trevan sighed in exasperation. “Just for a walk in the village. Is that allowed?”

“It is permitted. Her emotions were as measured as always. Dressed in casual robes instead of her hunting outfit, she looked like a different woman. She left her short brown hair loose, and without her mask he could actually see her stern face for once. Those cold green eyes were the same as always, though.

Trevan walked through the village with Keela at his side. It might look like two childhood friends taking a stroll, but in his eyes it was more akin to a guard watching her prisoner.

“Trevan! Keela!”

He brightened at the sight of the little kids. There were eight of them, all the children of the village. In the wake of the war, the population of Eldrasil Village was scarce. Just these children who had been born here, their mothers, and those who had been too old to fight. They’d all fled to safety beneath Eldrasil’s cradle. Trevan himself was one of the few able-bodied men, which made him quite a prominent figure as their protector.

“Are you going up to the surface today?” One of the boys, a seven year old named Ki, stared excitedly up at him. Like the others, he had never stepped outside.

“Not today, little one,” Trevan laughed, shaking his head.

“But mom’s running low on meat, when are you guys going hunting next?” Sweet Meila asked.

“Things are a little dangerous out there right now. Once it’s little safer, we’ll go out again.”

“K-Keela? I made it for you…” Another boy, Raly, broke from the crowd and waddled over to Keela, holding up something in his pudgy little hands. It was a small flower folded with traditional Estvalian leaf sculpting, even if it was a rough example of it. Keela accepted it graciously nonetheless, her usual stoic expression changing to a beaming smile of joy.

“Why, it’s gorgeous, thank you.” She placed it in a pouch hanging on her belt. “Now, you kids run along, if you’re out this early you should be playing, now shouldn’t you?”

“Yes, miss! Bye!” The kids ran off towards the fields near the gate, waving goodbye.

“Aww, how sweet, your little boyfriend got you a present!”

Keela swatted him on the chest.

“They’ll continue asking.” Checking to make sure they were out of earshot, Trevan turned to a more serious topic. “We can’t stay here forever. We’re running out of meat.”

“The farm can make enough food to sustain us. Hunting isn’t a priority right now. Not if you’re still… volatile.”

“Keela, it’s been weeks! I want to feel the sun on my face, I want to practice my Awakening Magic! I need to consult the Sisters of the Seasons! I’m this village’s guardian and I can’t even walk around without a guard dog!”

“I didn’t realize my company was such a burden on you,” she sniffed, walking away. “You can’t leave the village. This isn’t just about you almost getting caught. Patrols are getting more frequent. It’s that time of year. The Order of Nightshade taught me concealment techniques, but it’s too dangerous for anyone else.”

Trevan suppressed the growl welling up in his chest and stormed after her. As the end of the year drew near and winter came, Saekorian tourists would come to visit Estval in droves to enjoy the warmer climate. The “Eldrasil Ruins” were a popular attraction.

“There will be more guards to protect the tourists,” Keela continued in her patronizing tone, like he was a child. “So we’ll keep our heads down, as we always do.”

“Every year we stay here and tend our farms through winter. How long are we going to have to put up with this!? The kids are growing older, and they’re asking more questions. How long before they realize the truth? Before they start asking to go to the surface for themselves?!”

“That,” Keela said, her voice turning to ice as she glared at Trevan, “will not happen. Children do not leave the village. That is the law.”

Trevan looked at the kids playing off in the distance. They were so curious, just as he’d been as child. How long before they started asking to learn how to hunt? Before one of them snuck out to take a peek outside, and got caught?

“I still think we should tell them,” Trevan muttered in resignation, walking towards the farms. “Like Jorn says, let them know what the world beyond Eldrasil is really like! They should know what their people are going through in the districts. Keeping them isolated here won’t help them, Keela! I know Elder Wormwood is just trying to keep them safe, but how long do you think we’ll last this way?!”

Keela looked away. She had to know he was right.

“Just… just a little longer…” Trevan could barely hear her trembling voice. “I just want them… to keep smiling like that for a little longer…”

The times when Keela showed emotion stung. He understood why she felt so strongly about this, even if it was the wish of a fool. Growing up during the Third Estvalian War of Independence had taken away their own childhoods.

“I went to the Order, and you stayed here, learning your magic. Are you so desperate to deny them their innocence? Like us?”

They had reached the outskirts of the village. Several villagers approached to tend the fields.

“Let’s not do this here,” he grumbled.

She nodded. Their conversation didn’t resume until they reached Keela’s own plot, set aside for her home and garden. One of the few places in the village to find color of a shade other than green or brown, the field of flowers was a rainbow on the ground.

As Keela went to her flowers, Trevan vented out his frustrations.

“Don’t you understand how crazy you sound?” He cried. “You’re the one always saying that we need to be patient and wait for our time to strike! That we can’t start a revolution now, with the meager resources we have! And you’re right, okay?! You’re right! A few teenagers and a bunch of old men and widows won’t do a damn thing against those cloudies! And even if by some miracle we were able to liberate our countrymen from the districts, we would still lose! I know you think I’m so impatient that I’m not looking at the big picture, but I get it! And that’s why I’m telling you that I have to train! The sooner I can master Awakening Magic, the sooner we can take back our forest and drive out those Saekorian Demons!” He took a breath to calm down, having gotten more heated than he’d meant to.

Keela said nothing, only giving him a stony look that he couldn’t read.

“If you think this could take a long time, yeah, I’m not arguing with you.” Trevan was calmer now. “But you can’t say that, while continuing to pretend like everything is going fine! Protecting the village is our duty, and part of that duty is going to involve letting the kids know what they’ll see see when they climb those walls someday! What they’re going to have to fight, who they’re going to have to hide from! We had to learn that all on our own, do you really want to make them go through that? How long do we wait? Five years? Ten? Ki’s only seven, right, so in eight years he’ll be OUR age and then-“

“I DON’T KNOW, OKAY?!”

The mask Keela had perfected when training with the Order had slipped away, revealing a scared little girl. It only lasted for a second before she recomposed herself, returning to the cold expression and tone she wore so well. “Pardon my outburst.”

“No, no, it… it’s fine,” Trevan muttered, his heartbeat returning to a normal speed. “I might have… said too much.”

“No… you’re right,” she admitted, lowering her head and turning back to her flowers. “I don’t know what to do. I want to protect those children, but I know it’s impossible. If I could, I would let you go out every day, so you could practice your magic until you awakened and then kill every Saekorian in our forest. But it isn’t up to what I want.”

Wet eyes gazed back at him. But her voice was strong and sure.

“We need to do what’s best for Estval. And that means we have to wait until we hear from the Witch. With her help, we’ll be able to get funds, allies, everything we need to defeat the Saekorians. But she told us we need to be patient!”

The Witch. Trevan clenched his jaw. He hated relying on an outsider, especially one he’d never even met.

“And you haven’t heard anything from her since last time?”

Keela shook her head.

“And what will we do if she never comes back!?” Trevan demanded. “Just stay trapped in here without letting anyone past the gates? Give up on our country, grow old, and watch our children hide like we have to?”

“I want a better future for everyone. Tell me what to do to make that happen and I’ll do that.”

Her eyes were pleading for him to tell her the answer. Trevan had none to give.

…

When Keela finished with her gardening, Trevan went to go meditate. There was only one place suitable to practice Awakening Magic in the village, and that was the Spring of Life. With a name like that, one would have thought it was a particularly holy place, somewhere thick with mana from Eldrasil, but it wasn’t.

It was just the basin where water gathered from above, before traveling through the village in a small river. But a whitewood tree sprouted at the lip of the stream, marking the ground as sacred.

Trevan stared at the dim glow of the water, lit green by the orica . He concentrated, attuning his mana with Eldrasil. Her branches rose up to greet him as he walked to the small piece of land peaking up from the center of the lake, barely large enough for a person to stand upon. At its center was the true Eldrasil. It was a branch, and yet it wasn’t. A sword, and yet it wasn’t. A blade carved of gorgeous whitewood and smooth as the Sacred Tree; the heart of the forest herself.

Trevan lifted the ancient sword, so smooth it couldn’t hurt a child. He knelt and closed his eyes, lifting the sword with his wrists and channeling his mana through it. Soon, Eldrasil was all he could feel. Just her. No Keela, no villagers, just the forest, Estval itself.

He connected with the entire island, the massive world floating in the sky. Their beautiful home, filled with the pollution of the Saekorians. He could feel it all, and it enraged him. There were so many people, people who didn’t belong. They walked around Eldrasil’s roots, climbing on them, touching things that weren’t meant to be touched! Eldrasil felt the pain of every tree connected to her leylines and he felt them too. When one of the Saekorians snapped a branch, or carved their name into the bark, he heard every scream in the forest at once and it was overwhelming! He couldn’t hold his rage back any longer!

The trees had no eyes, and yet they could see. He could picture it perfectly, better than if he witnessed it himself. A Saekorian woman running her hand across the smooth white bark of one of Eldrasil’s roots, pointing it out to one of her friends. He called out. The plants responded, and stretched towards her. He guided a vine down from one of the other trees, reaching for her throat…

“Trevalyn!” A loud voice called his name, breaking his concentration. The vine fell back into place and Trevan returned to his body. He couldn’t feel the touch of the green anymore, just himself.

“Elder Wormwood,” Trevan said with more than a hint of irritation, rising to his feet and setting down the sword. He crossed the water to speak with the old man on the other side.

“How is your meditation going, Trevalyn?” The elder stroked his graying beard, squinting up at Trevan with pale green eyes. Hunched over, clutching his walking stick, old and wrinkled as he was, he looked like he was part tree himself. “Have you Awakened yet?”

“No, sir, not this time either.” He tried not to let his anger show. While he didn’t agree with the elder’s decisions, the man had still raised him from boyhood, and should be shown proper respect. “I can’t explain why not. I’ve followed the instruction of the Sisters of the Seasons, but I haven’t been able to make any progress since the last time, when I was above the surface.”

“My, well, that’s out of the question,” Elder Wormwood mused, staring past Trevan. “What about the sword? Has she accepted you yet?”

He shook his head again. He stung with disappointment. “Eldrasil… she speaks to me, but her blade won’t show herself.”

“…Most curious, most curious…” The elder mumbled a little more, words that Trevan couldn’t hear.

“I’m sorry sir, did you say something?”

“I was merely wondering… perhaps it’s a sign, that’s all… Perhaps these ambitions of yours… are not the right path forward for our people.”

Trevan glanced at Keela. She was as unsurprised as he was.

“Keelara, I would like to speak with Trevalyn alone, if you would be so kind?” She nodded her head and returned to the village.

Elder Wormwood sighed and walked to the edge of the spring. He gazed solemnly at the glowing water cascading down the side of the cliff.

“Do you remember the village you were born in?”

Trevan winced. He tried not to. Those days were so painful.

“You were just a boy back then, more of a boy, anyway. Such energy for a five year old. When we brought you and the others here, we did it hoping that Eldrasil would keep you safe, allow you to grow up without the pain of the war that took away your families…” He turned his sad eyes towards Trevan. “It pains my heart to see you children walk the path towards war yourselves.”

Trevan lowered his head respectfully.

“I know you oppose our goals, elder. It pains me to go against your wishes. But this is for our future, don’t you understand? As long as the Saekorians occupy our land, we will never be free. We can’t even leave these walls without being hunted down by those cloud heads!”

The elder sighed, raising a trembling hand to rub his forehead.

“Trevan… your friend Keela, are the flowers she grows less than the flowers that grow above us?”

Trevan didn’t understand what he meant. “What do you mean?”

“Whether grown in the wild or grown in captivity, a flower is still vibrant, full of life, and beautiful. Living here, in this village, it isn’t the life you deserve, I understand that. But… it’s still a life, don’t you see? A life of restriction and captivity, but still a life. Are you willing to throw that all aside and risk death for yourself and those children? For Keela? For Jayon and Jorn? For all of us? Because that’s what this desire for war will bring, I promise you.”

“You would have us live as prisoners? These are our lands!” Trevan was trying very hard not to get angry with the old man. He couldn’t deny what the old man said, but he didn’t want that future! Not for himself, not for any of his people.

“I know that better than you!” Wormwood snapped. “They were my lands! Back when you were just a seedling!”

He quickly calmed down. “I just… I have to think about the village. And what this village needs is a guardian. Not someone who fights wars, but someone who protects us. That’s what Eldrasil wants, I’m certain of it.”

What in the hells did he know about what Eldrasil wanted?! Trevan glared at the old man, talking like he knew any damn thing at all. He didn’t have the connection to Eldrasil that Trevan did!

Elder Wormwood stared at Trevan and sighed, shaking his head. He turned and began the long walk back to the village.

“Trevan… I want you to be happy, I wish the same for everyone in this village. Let go of your hatred for Saekoria, please. Try to find some way to make this life of ours work for you. Start a family with Keela, have children, find… find something else other than hate to guide you. If not, then I fear you’ll lose what little you have left to protect.”

The words he left behind were sad, yet strong.

Trevan watched the elder depart, shockingly broad-shouldered such an old and decrepit man.